Happy Birthday verangel!!!
Title: Of Kings and Slaves AU - Chapter 12/12
Rating: Mature
Paring: OB/EW - AU
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: All made up :)
Beta: Many, many thanks to itstonedme, I couldn't have gotten to the end without you! *hugs*
Happy Birthday verangel!!! This fic is for you! :D Thank you for being the wonderful you that you are!!! (And patient!) I adore you and I hope you have a very special day, you deserve all the very best!! :D Many birthday hugs and kisses xxooo!! And cake! And smiles! And Elijah ... naked! (maybe with cake! It's late, I'm sorry *g*) <3's
I know this fic has gone on far too long, and I'm sorry! But this is pretty much it :D. This is how I wrote the story originally and how I wanted it to end. There may yet be an epilogue but I'm not too sure how thrilled I am with the way it's coming together. :P I really enjoyed writing this story and I thank you all for sticking with it for so long! :D
Previous parts:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4.1
Part 4.2
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Orlando peeks into the hall; luck is on his side, for it is empty. He draws the door shut behind him and as he walks away from it, he ties his scabbard around his waist. He will hide both it and his knife beneath John’s cloak; he would have rather taken the guard's, but it was soaked with too much blood.
“My lord? My lord, where is Elijah?” Piper stands at the bottom of the stairs; he looks as though he has just run up and down the flight one hundred times.
Orlando keeps walking, determination a fire within him. “I am going to get him.”
“There is word." Piper falters. "There has been word that you are no longer king.”
“If your people have any means, Piper, now is the time, for this kingdom is leaderless.”
“But John - they say John has been named…”
“He is dead.” Orlando tracks Piper's eyes as they drop to the stains upon his clothes. "You are the first to know." Orlando realizes that this is the moment when he sees the measure of trust he has placed in Piper.
A noise in the distance rouses them both. “Put that on,” Piper whispers. “I will go fetch your horse. You must be away before they find out what you've done."
Orlando stands alone in the empty hall, his heart racing with both fear and exhilaration. Angry shouts from outside give him a start and he feels a moment of doubt. What if Piper has betrayed him? He tries to quiet his heart so that he might hear better. The arguing continues; he can hear upraised voices, Anson’s loudest of all. It has nothing to do with John.
He quickly makes his way to the door and pushes it open tentatively. The voices still carry and the courtyard is empty save for Piper leading his horse. He is thankful for the diversion; it may well yet allow for his escape.
He takes the reins from Piper. “It will take at least a week for them to marshal an army from my uncle’s,” he says hastily as he puts his foot in the stirrup and pulls himself up. “Get as many out as you can. Leave in the night.”
“Where do we go?”
Orlando pauses. He has no idea what the Northerners are like or if they would accept an influx of refugees. “There is only one option - go south. But whatever you do, make sure the soldiers know I’ve gone north.”
He is not sure if that will be for any good; he doesn’t even know if he’ll survive to get to Elijah. The enemies -- as John referred to them numerous times -- could kill him before he even gets close, but he hopes to spare the people of Neverwas. This is not their battle.
“I will see to it," Piper assures. "You had best go.”
Orlando tears his eyes from the dark, black smoke billowing around the corner of the castle; he can hear one of the soldiers, probably the captain, still bellowing that there will be blood to pay if they don’t move away and let them do what the king has ordered. 'Burning all their hard work,' Orlando thinks, 'and just for spite.'
He digs his heels in hard and the horse takes off as if the flames themselves follow.
*
Orlando rounds a bend in the road and sharply reins in his horse. A massive tree lays across the path; he can tell by the lack of limbs that it has lain there a long time, but its position is no accident. It has been hewn with an axe at both ends; to his left, it is flush against the natural lip of a hill and to his right there is a gap just wide enough for a cart.
He straightens in his saddle as a man appears in the gap, a man as wild-looking as his surroundings, his dark, bushy beard and long hair obscuring most of his face. The man seems to have just asked a question, but Orlando has never heard this language before.
“I seek passage.” He takes a wild stab and hopes that this man understands him.
“What for?”
Orlando exhales gratefully, thankful that he will be able to communicate and not have to resort to his sword. He has no idea if there aren’t more guardians hiding where he can’t see and he doesn’t wish to press his luck.
“I am the King of Neverwas,” he lies. The contents of a letter will not matter to this man and he still bears the ring; John had not taken that yet. “I want to meet with your King.”
“We have no king here," the man drawls, "Just a wise leader. What do you want with him?”
“I wish to speak with him regarding gifts that were brought forth without my permission.”
The man eyes him for a moment. “If you want passage, you have to pay.”
“Pay?”
“I believe that is the word you use. If you wish to pass, you will render something of value.”
“But I am a King.”
He watches the bushy beard twitch. “So? Your title means nothing to me. If you want passage, you must pay.”
Orlando shifts in the saddle and reaches for his purse. “How much?”
The man eyes the bulging sack. “I think all of it.”
Orlando weighs the bag. It is not full but near to it, and he hesitates. It is not the coin he cares about -- Elijah is more important to him than the considerable amount of gold in his hand -- but he worries whether or not there will be more tolls like this, that he will have nothing left to give.
“Are there more tolls such as yours?”
The wall of a man before him nods.
“And what will I use to pay your kin down the road?”
The man looks him over. “I’m not relieving you of all your possessions. I’m sure you’ll have something to offer the others.”
Time is wasting while he dithers here. If John’s body has been found, it is likely that he is already being hunted. He tosses the purse to the harrier who opens it and peers inside.
“You have what you want; now clear the road.”
The man’s beard twitches as he tucks the satchel full of coins away and he takes his dallies moving out of the way. "Be on your way then."
Once on the other side, Orlando urges his horse into a gallop; he knows that it’s dangerous to ride so wildly on an unknown road, but Elijah is somewhere at the end of it and that is all he can think of.
*
He has plenty of warning before he reaches the next roadblock as it is not a tree and a lone man, but a group of men and at a more permanent station, judging by the hut that stands at the edge of the road and the fence of split logs that’s been erected across the trail. He would have to press into the thick forest on either side to try to get around the barrier, and the small saplings have grown so thick that short of stopping to cut them down, he wouldn’t be able to get his horse through.
One man steps forward. He’s not as scruffy as the first, but definitely just as large and formidable.
“What do you want here?”
“Passage only.”
“For what reason?”
“To see your ki - your leader.”
The man folds his arms across his chest. “And you think he wants to see you?”
“I am the king of Neverwas, and I will have an audience with him. He has something of mine.”
The man sniggers wildly - as do the four men standing behind him.
“You? A king? Where is your entourage? Doesn't your kind travel with them? We have heard stories that you even have slaves to wipe your ass.” The group dissolves into cruel laughter again.
“I haven’t one, as you can well see.” Orlando extends his hand and shows them the heavy gold ring with the blood red stone. “I am the king, this is my mark, and I seek passage.”
The man stares at his hand and says something sharp to one of the men behind him. Orlando looks down and notices that his cape has fallen away, exposing the dried blood on his clothes.
“Where did that come from?”
There is no point in playing the idiot, but he will not answer to this man for his actions. “I left your guardian unharmed, if that is your concern.”
“We would verify that before you pass. Get down.”
“I have no time for this,” Orlando argues.
“Then you wish me to kill you without verifying that there is reason? For I will, King or no."
"This blood is not his blood."
"It looks fresh to me. He,” the guard says nodding in the direction of one of the four others standing behind him, “will ride back to check on our brother.”
Orlando sighs heavily and dismounts, passing the reins to the young man who removes the saddle and casts it aside before mounting.
"This is my horse!" Orlando feels a jerk on his hands as the rider yanks the reins from them.
“Would you rather wait for him to walk?"
Orlando has no doubt they would do just that. He shakes his head.
"Sit.”
Orlando blinks at the guard. If he wanted to sit, he would. He opens his mouth to say just that and feels heavy hands on his shoulders that knock him to the dust.
*
He listens as they speak to each other in their own tongue and waits for the sound of horse’s hooves. The sun continues its decent and Orlando fumes at the delay. When he hears the pounding along the road, he rises.
The young man swings off the horse with ease and nods to the leader. They confer for only a moment before the leader of this group turns to him.
“Where did the blood come from? I am told our friend is well.”
Orlando straightens, shaking the dust off. “That is none of your concern. I wish to be on my way.”
“Then you need only pay for passage.”
“I paid all my coin to your friend down the road.” Orlando tries and fails to keep the impatience from his voice. "I have no coin left."
"You cannot go forth without payment."
Orlando sighs and turns out his hands. “What would you have of me?”
The guard rubs the scruff on his chin in contemplation, and Orlando notices his eyes drift to the ring on his hand.
“That there, for starters.” The guard points to the ring. “But there is more than just me to account for.”
Orlando looks down at the ring. “How will I prove who I am without it?”
“That is not my problem.”
Orlando twists the ring from his finger and tosses it to the man. “What else?”
“You sword, your cloak, and your horse.”
“What?” Orlando asks incredulously.
The man before him straightens and fixes him with a placid, resolute stare. “If you want to get through, that is our price.”
Orlando looks down the steady incline of the road to where it seems to narrow in the distance. “How far is it?” How much farther to Elijah?
“Not so far that you can’t walk it before the sun sets.”
“You’d leave me defenseless?” He is worried that not having a weapon could put him at a disadvantage when it comes to reclaiming Elijah.
“If we wanted you dead, do you think you would be standing here now?” His antagonist arches one brow. “Besides, now you have nothing worth being harassed for.”
“There are no other tolls to be paid?”
The man folds his arms over his chest. “Our price here has been set; it is your choice, but I suggest that if you do not wish to walk these roads in the dark, you make your choice - pay up or go back.”
There is no going back; even if he could, he would not go without Elijah. If there are other tolls he will have to figure out a way to pay them. The young rider is already in possession of the horse and it only takes a moment to untie his cloak and scabbard.
“May I pass now?”
“Why do you all get something while I am deprived?” This question comes from one of the group who is not inspecting a newly gained prize.
The leader seems surprised and turns around as if to count them.
“You always forget about me.”
The leader of the group makes an irritated sound. “What would you have of him then? Speak up.”
“His boots.”
Orlando stares in disbelief. “My what? Surely you…”
“The price must be paid,” the leader says, though he sounds slightly put out.
Silently, Orlando bends and tugs off one boot; the knife, still bearing traces of John’s blood, falls into the soft dirt.
“That is mine. It came out of his boot so that is mine too,” the swindler says as he dashes forward to snap up the knife along with boots.
"Fine," the leader growls. "Be careful you don't stab yourself with it," he adds under his breath.
Orlando doesn't care for their bickering, only that he is now completely defenseless. “Now may I go?”
The leader of the little group makes a sweeping gesture with his hands, and Orlando begins his walk.
*
Orlando curses when he reaches the top of an incline only to find more road stretching out before him. The sun is beginning to set, throwing the road itself into lengthening shadows, and he wonders how far he has yet to go.
He scans the horizon where the road curves and disappears once more into thick trees, and sees a hopeful sign - a curl of smoke rising above the treetops. He forces one foot before the other and although he has stayed to the edge of the road where the dirt is softest, his feet are beginning to hurt.
‘Elijah is there’, he tells himself. ‘Elijah will be there’. He tries to focus on a course of action, but it seems out of reach, buried beneath his worry over what they might have done to Elijah - things he could have once been accused of doing himself.
By the time he rounds the bend in the road and begins up another incline, dusk is descending and the sun remains only in red-gold streaks against the clouds. He can see the silhouettes of small buildings, but they appear to be moving in the breeze. It is only as he draws nearer that he realizes they are tents; hides fastened to the wood frames flutter in the soft breeze.
As he begins to pass those who are tending the fires outside -- cooking fires from the smell -- they watch him pass. Dressed in no more than his white linen shirt and breeches, he obviously poses no threat; they simply watch him, curiosity on their shadowy faces.
He keeps his head high and his gaze forward but watches for signs of trouble from the corner of his eye. He had expected a stone edifice, like the castle he grew up in or the one from which he ruled in Neverwas, but there is none such here. As he presses into the thicket of tents, he spies one that is larger, enormous in fact, and that is where he heads. He watches as a breeze kicks up and the brightly colored flags atop each pole flutter in the breeze; it is strange to him, but beautiful also.
There are two men, sentries he assumes, judging by the polearms they hold, who stand before a flap in the tent; as Orlando approaches, one of them steps forward.
He doesn’t understand the question or statement directed at him, but he assumes that this man, like the others he has met on the road, will understand him if he speaks in his own tongue. “I request an audience with your leader.”
The guard turns to his compatriot and together they laugh.
“Who are you to request anything here?”
Orlando keeps his chin raised and his eyes trained on the sentry. “I am the King of Neverwas.”
“You? You are a king?” The guard regards him from head to toe, his eyes lingering on Orlando’s bare feet. “You expect me to believe that you are a king?”
“I had to pay your harriers for my passage, so if you wish to see my ring or my cloak or my sack full of coins, I suggest you seek them out.”
“The burden of proof is on you.”
Orlando yanks up his shirt and shows the indelible mark upon his skin; he has no idea if it will mean anything to the wall of muscle before him, but it is the last of the physical proof that he has, even if it belongs to another time and place.
The pair shares another laugh and exchange a few words in the tongue he doesn’t understand.
“Your stomach does little to persuade us.”
“This is the sign of my royal house.” His voice breaks - brittle with rage and impatience. “I wish to speak with your king; if it looks as if I pose no threat, then why not let me pass?”
Another look and conversation passes between the two before they seem to come to an agreement.
“If he will receive you, then you will have your audience,” he is told before the guard disappears inside the flap.
Orlando angrily thinks that he will have his audience, whatever the cost, but for now he waits.
Finally, the guard returns and holds the flap aside; golden light from the interior spills into the deepening night and Orlando steps toward it.
“Wait.” The guard’s arm catches him across the chest.
Orlando rocks on the balls of his feet and silently bears the rough patting down he receives though there is nothing to find. Once satisfied, the guard orders him to follow.
The interior of the tent is just as strange and beautiful as its exterior. Veils hang everywhere, thin as wisps, to form halls and create rooms; as they brush against his skin, he feels as if he’s entered a dream.
The guard sweeps aside one of the gauzy curtains and motions for him to enter. He takes in the rich carpet and brightly colored pillows, but it is the figure at the end of the room who commands his attention.
The man wears no crown or jewelry, none of the trappings of a rich man, and yet there is a palpable air of stature and nobility surrounding him; it is in the silver of his hair and the wisdom in his eyes.
Orlando approaches cautiously. He cannot see anyone else, but he can feel eyes on him; he knows that no leader would be left unguarded, not even one as seemingly defenseless as the one before him.
“My guard said that there was a man proclaiming himself a king here to see me; now I know why he doubted you.”
Orlando lifts his head. He doesn’t care for anything other than finding Elijah. “You have something of mine.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. A boy - a young man - and his family.” Please let them be here. Please. His heart begins to beat against his ribcage as he worries that John’s men murdered them. What if this lord says there were no gifts?
“There were slaves brought, yes. I was under the assumption that they were gifts from you?”
Orlando nearly chokes with relief. They are here. Elijah is here.
“I did not send them. It was not my choice but by duplicity on the part of … of someone close to me, someone who thought they had power and right when they did not.”
The old man seems to consider this for some time, studying him all the while.
“Pardon me for saying that you do not look like a king, though you do act as one.”
Orlando blinks at the old man and realizes he has behaved the way his father would. To his blushing shame, he hasn’t introduced himself, nor begged the introduction of the lord in whose room he stands. He bows his head and lifts it with an apology. “I’m sorry. I was … It has been a long day. I beg your pardon. I am …” he thinks about speaking his title, but he is no longer king and it no longer seems to matter. “I am Orlando and I have come for Elijah.”
The old man shifts in his chair, placing a finger to his lips for a moment. “What a curious way to introduce yourself, your kind who seem so obsessed with titles. Even more curious is the state in which you’ve arrived - your kind being even more obsessed with what they own.”
Orlando is acutely aware of his slovenly appearance. “I had to purchase passage - your men demanded it - my rings, my sword, my horse.”
“And you were willing to give all that up for the return of a slave?”
Orlando nods his head. He does not miss the amusement in the ruler's voice.
“So, you have nothing to offer me in return?”
A fair question and one that leaves him struggling like a fish out of water. “I have nothing left.”
“The few things my men took surely would not have been enough to replace such fine gifts. What will you send me in their stead?”
Orlando licks his dry lips and meets the eye of the lord before him. He has nothing to offer in return.
“Why don’t you sit? You look as if you could use it.”
Orlando looks at the pillows strewn on the floor; they beckon him, but truthfully he fears if he sits he might not be able to get up again. “I’d rather stand, my…” He realizes that he doesn’t know how to address this man. “What do I call you?”
The old man stares at him for a moment; a hint of a smile flickers across his face. “Absalom.”
Orlando starts at the name. “That is your title?”
“That is my name. You have heard it before?”
Orlando stares. It was only a story Elijah told and this must just be a coincidence. He shrugs and both nods and shakes his head.
“What kind of answer is that?” Absalom asks bemusedly.
“I heard the name in a story once.”
“Ah, yes," the old man sighs, "about a man who gave up everything for love?”
Orlando nods his head slowly. “Are you … Was it you?”
“All stories have a basis in reality, but that story is not about me.”
“Did Elijah tell you the story?”
Absalom shakes his head. “One of his sisters. When she heard my name, she, like you, thought that the story might have been about me. I told her that I was the namesake of the Absalom of old, that the story was about him."
Orlando finds himself staring again, trying to reason out if it’s true or not. “Your father?”
“It goes back farther than that. My lineage is an old one, but there was an Absalom who inspired such a tale, though he did not give up everything … only his obsession for it.”
Orlando’s eyes flicker to the movement of the curtain; it twitches as if someone has touched it or breathed upon it. “Elijah?”
“That is not him.” Absalom makes a motion with his hand and a young girl slips through the gauze, a cup clutched in her hands. She looks shyly at Orlando as she hands Absalom the cup with a few words he cannot make out.
“This is my granddaughter,” Absalom says as he presses his lips to her temple and sends her scurrying off. “She will not go to sleep without saying goodnight.”
Orlando watches her disappear. “Is he here?” Orlando tries to peer through the curtains, thinking that perhaps they have him bound beyond the veils.
“Not here, but near. You still haven’t told me what you offer in return.”
“Whatever you ask, I will try to get it for you.”
“What do you think he is worth, Orlando?”
It takes no thought at all to answer the question. “Everything.”
“And will you offer me everything?”
Orlando stands there swaying silently as if a breeze moves him, but says nothing.
“You say that he is worth everything and yet you won’t offer it to me?”
“I can’t.”
Absalom frowns and Orlando reads it as disappointment for not having gotten what he wanted. “Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t,” Orlando answers. “Believe me, if I had anything left to offer it would be yours.” Orlando turns his empty palms outward, his mind spinning with empty offers, but he can’t promise what he doesn’t have. “I have no kingdom, and I am no longer king; what little I had, I bartered on my way. I have nothing left.”
“Nothing? You gave up everything just to come here? Why?”
“For Elijah.” Orlando smiles wryly. “Like your ancestor, I have realized that nothing else matters.”
Absalom makes no immediate reply and Orlando feels his hope begin to wane - surely Absalom wouldn’t want the clothes off his back? Orlando sinks to his knees in supplication. “I do not know what you’ve done with him, but I ask that you let me stand in his place. It is all I have to offer.”
Absalom rubs his chin thoughtfully but says nothing.
“And his family’s freedom too, if I might have it,” Orlando adds in a rush. It would do no good to gain Elijah his freedom if his family were not with him.
“An interesting offer. You wish him back and yet you offer yourself in his place. What if his freedom meant that you could not be with him?”
Orlando bows his head and sucks for breath; suddenly he feels very weary. The prospect of life without Elijah is almost too much for him to bear, after all he has given up; but if he must relinquish his freedom so that Elijah and his family might have theirs, then that is the price that he must pay, and he will pay it. He nods his head resolutely. “Anything. I would give anything for his happiness.”
Absalom is silent, but life, like mist, swirls around them and he can hear the voices of those outside the tent, the whisper of the silken curtains, and the beating of his own heart. He lifts his eyes from the floor, searching Absalom’s inscrutable face.
“Then you shall have everything.”
*
“What?” Orlando asks stupidly, certain he has misheard Absalom’s soft statement.
“Stand.”
Orlando puts both hands on the floor and struggles to rise; even the carpet hurts his raw and blistered feet, and he stumbles a bit as he stands. But a strong arm about his waist keeps him upright. He turns to speak his thanks and blue eyes find his.
“Elijah.” His lips form the name, but no sound follows it. His eyes roam over Elijah. The loose clothes he had preferred Elijah to wear are gone; instead, he is dressed in the fashion of Absalom’s people. There is a sword at his side, but most importantly he looks healthy and unharmed. “I thought I’d lost you.” As soon as Orlando speaks the words, he realizes how true they are and how deeply he had feared them.
“I am here,” Elijah assures.
“And your family?”
Elijah smiles and Orlando feels it through every inch of his body, like brilliant sunshine after weeks of rain. “They are here too.”
“Safe?”
“Yes.” Elijah holds Orlando’s shoulders steady. “I tried to tell you - these people were never our enemy.”
“But you acted as if…”
“Any other reaction would have revealed the truth to John that day. Do you think he would have sent my family somewhere safe? I tried to tell you - after.”
Orlando remembers. “I wouldn’t let you. I didn’t listen.”
“You do seem to have a problem with that,” Elijah smiles.
Orlando reaches out and touches the curve of Elijah’s cheek and when he drops his hand, Elijah catches it, staring at the dark stains on his skin.
“I killed him," Orlando explains. "He took his last from me. Your people are still there, Elijah. I - I told them to go south and I would return for them if I could.”
Medias steps out from the shadows and Orlando drops his eyes uncertainly.
He is at their mercy. If they mean to kill him, he won’t go without offering his apology. He draws a steadying breath and meets Medias’ gaze. “I am sorry for what I have done, to you and your family.” They seem too few words for his long list of offenses.
“Certain experiences can make beasts of men,” Medias says thoughtfully. “Some men can be redeemed while others let their souls be twisted by it. Which are you?”
Orlando leans against Elijah’s body. “I will have to work hard for your forgiveness, but that is what I would like -- to be forgiven.”
Medias folds his hands before him. “I am not the one to decide that. Your fate exists in the hands of the one who holds you; that is up to my son.”
Orlando cannot hold Elijah’s gaze. He does not deserve Elijah’s mercy and he knows it. He has wronged Elijah so many times, been cruel beyond reason. He doesn’t know why he thought he could ask for mercy. Elijah lifts his chin and Orlando finds himself unable to look away.
“Things can never again be the way they were before.” Elijah keeps his voice low for this is between them. “You no longer own me or control me.”
“Did I ever?” Orlando asks honestly; an embarrassed smile curves his lips. “Even from the first, it was you who controlled me.” His smile fades as Elijah studies him. “I am willing to take whatever punishment you see fit.”
“No more punishment. There has been enough of that.”
Orlando’s eyes begin to blur as he feels Elijah take his hand and with a gentle word guide him from the tent. He feels the cooler night air on his skin again and the dew-wet grass which he finds soothing against the soles of his feet.
“Here.” Elijah stops before one of the tents and ushers him inside.
“Sit,” Elijah tells him, pressing on his shoulders until he drops onto a bed covered with soft pelts. He pulls his feet up gratefully and drains the cup of water Elijah puts in his hands. Elijah refills it twice more and on the fourth pass fills it with ale. “Better?”
Orlando nods and holds the cup to his chest like a child; he feels like one.
“I’ll be right back,” Elijah tells him softly.
“Where are you going?” Orlando asks a bit desperately. He is afraid to let Elijah out of his sight, as if he might pass through the flap and disappear forever.
“I’m going to get you something to eat.”
“I’m not hungry. Please stay.” His stomach betrays him with a rumble. He can’t remember the last time he ate.
Elijah smiles. “I’m going to get some water too. You’re a mess.”
He looks at the fine layer of grit covering the tops of his feet, the blood on his hands, feels the sweat clinging everywhere else and reluctantly nods.
"I won't be long," Elijah promises before disappearing.
*
It feels like forever has passed before Elijah returns bearing a plate of roasted meat and bread slathered with rich butter. Elijah refills Orlando's cup once more and orders him to eat before he disappearing yet again.
There is a moment where the food sticks in Orlando’s throat, unable to pass around the lump that has formed there, for he truly feels unworthy of Elijah’s attention. What has he done to deserve it? Relinquishing a kingdom he neither earned nor wanted? Walking a stretch of dusty road with bare feet as most peasants do every day? It seems so little for so much in return. Eventually, the hunger wins and he is devouring the contents of his plate when Elijah returns, this time dragging an empty wooden tub behind him.
“Can I help you?” Orlando asks as he sets the plate down and hobbles to his feet.
“You are in no condition to help. Just sit,” he orders as he escapes into the night once more.
*
Elijah knew Orlando would come. He had felt it; even as Elijah had fought John’s men when they had burst into his room that morning, there was not a moment of doubt. But he was afraid of how Orlando would come. If he came threatening Absalom, his father had warned him that the Loach would fight back. Absalom and Medias had already been preparing the army; they had been planning to rescue him.
After his father had spoken to him, Elijah had been afraid, especially when he had found time alone to bathe and think about it. He realized that if Orlando stood up to them, he would be killed; this was a certainty. Elijah is grateful to fate for not allowing it to have come to that. But they still spoke of war, his father and Absalom; his father was ready to reclaim what was his. Elijah had begged him to wait, because he knew, in his heart, that Orlando was coming.
Again, he offers up silent thanks that Orlando showed up alone; anything else could have been misinterpreted and the sentries on the road might have killed Orlando before he'd even come close.
Orlando’s eyes open slowly as Elijah re-enters the tent and empties the buckets into the bath. He asks once more if he can help, but Elijah shakes his head. “You’ll help soon enough, but not tonight.”
“Why not get a servant to do that?”
“There are no servants here,” Elijah answers. “You do for yourself. If you do for others, it is from the goodness of your own heart. You will have to get used to a new way.”
He leaves Orlando to contemplate that as he fetches more water. In all, it takes five trips to sufficiently fill the tub for Orlando to soak in. “Get in while it is hot. I would hate to see my hard work wasted.”
Orlando rises on wobbly legs, removes his filthy clothes and hobbles to the bath. He has to hold Elijah’s shoulders in order to climb in and sighs as he lowers himself into the water; it feels good even though the tub is too small to stretch out in.
“How is it?” Elijah asks as he retrieves Orlando’s bloodstained clothing from the floor; when there is no answer he looks up to find Orlando watching. “What is it?" he asks. "Are you hurt?” He hadn’t noticed any wounds on Orlando’s body, but that does not mean there aren’t any.
There is a lump in Orlando's throat again and he can’t do any more than shake his head.
“Here, I’ll help you.” Elijah takes the cake of soap Orlando clutches between his fingers and lathers up a small woven cloth which he then presses back into Orlando’s hands. “I will wash your hair while you do the rest.”
*
Orlando sputters and blows water from his lips as Elijah dumps a bucketful over his head, rinsing the last of the soap from his hair.
“Better now?”
Orlando nods in answer to Elijah’s question. He is better everywhere except his feet and he grimaces as he stands. He takes the towel Elijah offers and steps onto the fur Elijah’s placed between the bath and the bed.
“I will be right back.”
Before Orlando can protest Elijah has vanished again; this time he’s gone so long that Orlando’s curls are no longer dripping fat droplets against his skin and he is, for the most part, warm and dry with a large fur wrapped around him.
"I was beginning to think you weren't coming back," Orlando confesses when Elijah returns.
"I am sorry. I had to see to some things."
Orlando looks at the bundle Elijah drops at the end of the bed. He recognizes the contents -- his boots, the cloak he was wearing, even his scabbard and sword - Elijah hangs them from the natural hooks that remain on the stripped branch limbs that make the frame for the tent.
“They took them for nothing?” Orlando asks in wonder.
The corner of Elijah's mouth quirks into a little grin. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“Did the Absalom of old get all his possessions back?”
“I don’t know, that part of the story was never told to me.” He holds out his hand, palm up and offers Orlando his ring.
“It’s not right.”
Elijah glances at the ring - he knows it belongs to Orlando. “It’s yours.”
“Yes, I know.” His statement hadn’t been in regards to the ring, but to the fact that he now has everything he desires and deserves none of it.
Realizing that Orlando isn’t going to take the ring, Elijah finds a home for it on one of the hooks.
“Why were you gone so long?” Orlando asks as he looks at the small leather pouch in Elijah’s hands.
“There were plans to be discussed.”
“What plans?”
Elijah sits on the end of the bed, not closer, and Orlando tries to keep the disappointment from his face.
“Give me your feet.” Elijah pats his thighs. “Your feet?” he asks when Orlando continues to stare. “Why?”
“You’ll be no use if your blisters get infected and you can’t walk.”
“No use for what?” He pushes his feet onto Elijah’s lap.
Elijah gives him a sidelong glance. “War.”
Orlando considers this for a moment. “They have been planning since your family was brought here, haven't they?”
Elijah nods his head.
“But … that would have put you at risk.”
“Would you have let anything happen to me?” Elijah asks.
Orlando shakes his head. “No, but it would have been dangerous for them to bring war with you still inside.”
“Better to take that chance, they thought, than do nothing. My father saw John for the kind of man he was; he knew it was just a matter of time before John turned on you, and he knew it would be a risk to wait too long.”
Orlando twitches as Elijah touches a cool salve to his soles of his feet.
“Does that hurt?”
Orlando shakes his head, but Elijah can tell by the flinch across Orlando’s face that it does. “Don’t lie to me. No more secrets between us. Does it hurt?”
“A little,” Orlando confesses.
“Was that so hard?”
Orlando shakes his head. “If there are no more secrets, then tell me what plans are being made.”
“We are planning to get our kingdom back.”
“With John dead there will be chaos. But Elijah, when my father comes … it will be worse than before.”
Elijah carefully smears cream on the blistered skin of Orlando’s other foot. He has no doubt Tristan will come, and fury -- backed by revenge -- is worse than that of greed. But he is not afraid. “We have an advantage.”
Orlando twitches as Elijah’s thumb drags along the sole of his foot and, unbelievably, it tickles. He catches Elijah’s concerned eye and flexes his foot, indicating that he is all right. “What advantage? Soldiers? A weapon?” He tries to imagine something that would benefit them in the face of his father’s well-trained army.
“There are many men who are willing to fight to keep a man like your father from its borders, yes, but the real advantage is you. You know him. You know his mind.”
“I do not know that man’s mind.”
Elijah continues to work the salve into Orlando’s skin with slow rotations of his thumb. “You know what he would do in battle.”
To that Orlando nods. He was, after all, schooled at his father’s knee. He studies the play of firelight over Elijah's skin, the way it highlights his features, making him look both delicate and strong. Such perfection; he longs to kiss those lips.
“Will you help us then?” Elijah asks as he draws the leather string on the bag containing the cream to close it and twists to hang it from a peg above his shoulder.
Orlando blinks. He thought it was understood that he would. “Yes. I told you … I would do anything to make you happy.”
“What about you, Orlando. What would make you happy?” Elijah stares into Orlando’s eyes. “Will you regret it? Will you stand before your father and change your mind?”
“No,” Orlando answers without hesitation. “Fear does not breed allegiance.”
Elijah glances up; Orlando’s eyes are on him, yet not.
“He never loved me.” Orlando’s voice is as distant as his gaze; only the revelation of the hurt is near the surface. “Not even for a moment. I don’t know what I ever did to him.”
That is something Elijah could never imagine. He has always known his father’s love; even through their last disagreement he knew his father’s love for him would never change. “Your father is a fool. He couldn’t see the good son he’d been given.”
“Am I?” Elijah’s words make the room blur again. After everything, after ... “How can you think so highly of me after how I have wronged you?”
Elijah considers the question. “You didn’t know any better. You tried to be what your father wanted, but if you were like him you never would have spared us. You aren’t like him; you never were.”
“You helped me see that there were other ways. I would have kept following in Tristan’s footsteps if it weren’t for you.”
“I didn’t change you. I couldn’t. I only showed you that there were choices and consequences. You always had this heart inside you.”
But Orlando thinks of water in the river, smoothing stones and polishing away the sharp edges that would cut if left untouched. “And you could see it?”
“There were times when it was very hard …” It is the honest truth, but Elijah smiles. "But, yes, I could see it."
“I am sorry.”
“I know.”
Elijah has forgiven him. For all of it. Orlando doesn’t know how or why, but he does know that he will spend the rest of his life, short or long, making up for it.
Elijah lifts Orlando’s feet and settles them back upon the bed before moving to snatch up one of the buckets. “What are you doing?”
“Taking care of this.” Elijah nods toward the tub.
“Elijah?”
He has never heard Orlando’s voice so tentative and it gives his heart a queer flutter.
“Can’t it wait?” Orlando asks.
Elijah looks over his shoulder at Orlando and the flutter becomes impossible to ignore. The tub can wait, the need that the look in Orlando’s dark eyes stirs in him cannot. He leaves it and knees his way onto the bed beside Orlando.
“You have on entirely too many clothes,” Orlando whispers as he reaches beneath Elijah’s shirt. Here is his everything, the only thing that matters.
“They tell me it gets cold here at night.” Elijah presses his lips against Orlando’s, soft and exploratory, as if it is the first time.
“I will keep you warm,” Orlando whispers as he draws the heavy shirt over Elijah’s head.
Orlando’s fingers are in his hair, guiding him; he offers his neck and mouth to Orlando’s hungry kisses, until there is no doubt that he will be warm enough. He feels Orlando’s fingers untie the knot on his breeches and moves away from Orlando only long enough to drop them to the floor.
There is a hesitation, a moment of stillness on Orlando’s part, that gives Elijah pause. Orlando’s passion for him had been frightening at first, but he would be a liar if he said he did not want that eagerness now.
“Are you afraid to touch me now?”
“No,” Orlando assures, a smile curling up the corners of his mouth. “Have you ever wanted something so badly that you don’t know where to begin when you get it?”
Elijah feels the prick of heat and desire, inside and out, as Orlando’s eyes travel his body. “May I make a suggestion? Start here,” Elijah touches his lips, “and work your way down.”
Orlando’s fingertips brush the ink stain on Elijah’s hip. “I think I’ll start here.”
Elijah sucks a shallow breath as Orlando pushes on his leg and insinuates himself between his thighs. There is nothing timid in that touch or in the tongue that traces the word ‘beautiful’, but it is the burning, hungry look in Orlando’s dark eyes that send a red hot spike of heat through his belly.
He cannot hide the effect Orlando has on him; his cock rests thick and hard against his belly from little more than a searing look and the flick of tongue against his skin. If this isn’t right, he doesn’t care - he couldn’t live without it now. He tangles his fingers in slightly-damp locks and subtly -- or perhaps not - tries to turn Orlando’s face.
Orlando grins as he licks the ink. He teasingly runs his tongue over it, around it; he can smell Elijah’s arousal and see the desire in the flush across Elijah’s cheeks. He takes his time; he runs his tongue lazily up the underside of Elijah’s cock and slowly drags it over the velvety tip, tasting what fills his senses.
Elijah’s grip loosens as Orlando’s mouth descends. Pleasure wrought by Orlando’s eagerness buries itself like a knot in his belly until he’s yanking once more on Orlando’s hair and trying to pull those lips away before he comes.
“Why?” Orlando asks, clearly bewildered.
Elijah kisses him fiercely, tasting the bitterness of himself on Orlando’s lips and deeper still as he plunges his tongue inside. He’s breathing hard when he pulls his mouth away, still reeling from the effects of Orlando’s mouth, still on edge, still closer than he’d like to be. “I want … together," Elijah pants. "I want you.”
Orlando feels the cool night air fleetingly as Elijah wrenches the folds of the furs aside and kneels beside him. Warm fingers grip his erection, slipping over taut skin knowingly. His lips part; he can barely breathe, and his eyes screw shut as he arches his hips to meet the wet heat of Elijah’s mouth. For a moment he is lost in it; his entire world is reduced to the slight rasp of tongue and the intense suck of Elijah’s lips.
Elijah squeezes Orlando’s tight balls and feels the uncontrolled jab upward of Orlando’s cock in response; he knows that Orlando will come if he doesn’t stop. He lifts his head and watches Orlando’s head snap up, his dark eyes so full of concern and confusion, but Orlando’s lips can’t manage to form any coherent sounds into words. Elijah turns to kiss them.
Words aren’t what Elijah wants. He slides one thigh alongside Orlando’s hip, straddling the eager body beneath him, sinking onto the cock that he lifts away from Orlando’s belly.
“Wait. Stop. Sl-slowly,” Orlando pleads as Elijah begins to ride him. He claps Elijah’s hips, hoping only for a little mercy and clinging to the hope for a few more minutes of being so connected to Elijah.
“No,” Elijah whispers, his hands slipping around Orlando’s wrists; he pins them to the bedding, leaning down, leaning close.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” Orlando can barely deny the urge to thrust now, it makes his entire body flush and tremble.
“Foolish,” Elijah scolds softly, his lips brushing the alluring corner of Orlando’s mouth as he speaks, “if you were hurting me I would stop.” He flicks his tongue out and traces the seam of Orlando’s lips until they part for him.
Orlando shivers and curls his fingers around Elijah’s, melding as much of them together as he can. He thrusts into Elijah’s impatient body, and only the pain from his feet as they slip against the bedding keeps him from shattering too soon; he has to stop.
Elijah ... doesn’t. He watches Orlando - the flinches and softly uttered gasps, the sight and sound of which send tiny shocks of pleasure racing through his body. Such a beautiful sight spread beneath him -- sable curls frame a face the firelight loves, painting the perfect arch of Orlando’s cheeks and decadently parted lips with red-gold highlights. He touches his tongue to them and tastes the sweat on Orlando’s skin.
Orlando fights Elijah’s grip as the laving tongue works its way to his neck, and lips and teeth and tongue conspire to rip his orgasm from him. He earns his freedom and makes a desperate grab for Elijah’s hips; he feels Elijah’s moan vibrate against his neck, creating sparks that jump down his spine and flutter madly in his belly.
"Elijah … I-"
"Don't stop," Elijah hisses. Orlando can feel Elijah quivering. "Harder."
He pounds into Elijah’s body until the friction becomes too much and the sound Elijah makes as he comes breaks him.
Elijah feels the last few staccato jabs and then Orlando’s hips drop back to the bedding heavily, leaving him, for a moment, feeling very empty. But it is a fleeting feeling, lasting only as long as it takes for Orlando to pull him into the crook of his arm.
“You know exactly how to get what you want, don’t you?” Orlando teases, his heart still tripping in his chest. He scoops Elijah closer so that he can nip the soft lobe of Elijah’s ear.
“Do I?” Only half of Elijah’s sated, pleased smile shows; the rest is buried in the furs where he lays with his eyes closed, content.
“You have made a slave of me.”
This makes Elijah open his eyes and Orlando can tell by the look in them that he has made a mistake. Whatever it is, he wants to take it back.
“You are here unwillingly?”
“No.” Orlando shakes his head vehemently. “I…”
“You said I have made a slave of you, but I put no collar on you, I make no demands. I want nothing other than what you have to give and what you are willing to share.”
“I’m sorry, I did not mean to imply ...” Orlando draws a deep breath. “You’ll have to forgive me, I’m still learning.”
Elijah nods, forgiving all in the simple act of resting his chin against Orlando’s shoulder. “I think you’ll be a quick study, but speak no more of kings and slaves. We are neither one nor the other.”
“We are just ourselves,” Orlando says thoughtfully as he draws the heavy covers over their now rapidly cooling bodies. It is an alien thought to him, one that makes him feel as if the world has tipped on its axis, but it only lasts a second, just long enough for him to think about it, come to terms with it, and then there is only the feeling of Elijah asleep in his arms.
*
Elijah stands above the fire he’s kindled back to life, his breath a misty plume in the flat gray light of dawn. He wraps his jacket tighter and stares, still half asleep, into the flames as he waits for the fire to grow enough that he might put the water on to boil and begin readying breakfast.
The village at the foot of the mountains is just beginning to wake; Eliza tells him that in another hour, more or less, everyone will be up, but since she is an early riser she has taken to lighting the fires in the communal cooking area.
He startles as a hand on his shoulder rouses him. His father. He smiles.
“You looked to be still asleep.”
“Just lost in thought,” Elijah answers as he rises to stand beside his father. “Has there been any news?”
“The sentry in the woods saw a rider leave, pounding westward like the world was on fire.”
“Taking word to Tristan, or possibly Lucien first,” Elijah muses grimly. “I will have to ask him if he thinks his uncle will raise his army.”
“You stayed the night with him.” His father’s voice is quiet, thoughtful.
Elijah tucks his hands under his arms to ward off the chill and nods.
“How is he?”
“I doubt he will be wanting his boots for a day or two, but otherwise he is fine.”
“You don’t owe him anything here. You are free of him.”
Elijah feels the gentle pressure of his father’s hand on his shoulder. “I know this.” He draws a deep breath and turns to face Medias. “Are you disappointed with me?”
His father’s eyes slowly meet his. “No, how could I be? You are my son and I love you.”
“All my life I have wanted to be like you. Well, most of it,” he adds with a tiny smile. There was a hard year or two when he was growing up; times when he did not agree with his father, times he felt stifled and repressed. “I think all young men want to be like their fathers at some time or other, to please them, to make them proud.”
“Most, yes,” Medias agrees.
“Orlando wanted to please his father too, but his father is not like you. Tristan’s hand was never kind, never loving and his motivations purely selfish. Orlando’s actions were in the hopes that his father would show him some favor, even if to one of us it would have seemed a slap more than a caress.” He watches his father’s face, but his father is practiced in the art of keeping his thoughts close and reveals no hint of how he feels.
“Will you accept him?” Elijah wonders. “He is a part of me."
“And you think you love him.”
“I know I do. He has made mistakes -"
Medias sighs but fixes him with a tight-lipped smile. “You have to understand, Elijah, that you know him. We do not. For the time that we were there, he was an immediate threat to you and our family.” His father pauses and Elijah knows what he’s thinking - Orlando could have killed them all had he so desired it. “Perhaps toward the end I saw your influence, but you have to realize that I find this difficult.”
Elijah feels a churning in his belly, the desperation of wanting to please and yet be pleased. “He gave up everything for me.”
“He had nothing left to give, Elijah. His kingdom had been taken from him, he said as much himself. Perhaps he came because he feared for his own life."
“No,” Elijah returns forcefully. “He lost it all because of me. If he wanted it at all, he would have listened to John; he would have ruled the way his father wanted. Don’t you see? He was never the son his father wanted because it went against his nature. He left it behind because he didn’t want it anymore; he didn’t want -“ Elijah stops when he feels his father’s hand squeeze his shoulder reassuringly.
“I trust you.”
Elijah looks into his father’s eyes, needing for it to be true.
“You wouldn’t let just anyone have your heart,” Media’s continues. “Just ... be patient with us.”
Elijah nods; there will be time for his father and the rest of his family to see what he has seen, to know the Orlando that he knows. “As you will be with him, I hope? He still has much to learn.”
His father favors him with a wise and knowing smile and nods. “Of course.”
*
The smell of a cooking fire wakes him and Orlando opens his eyes with no idea where he is or how he came to be here. It is dark inside, like a cavern with the fire dead and only a strip of gray light falling through a flap. A tent flap. He moves one foot and feels the burn of abraded skin; then he remembers the walk. It hadn’t been a dream. But the bed is empty. Did Elijah change his mind in the night and find somewhere else to sleep?
He throws the bedding aside and the cool air chills his skin. He remembers where Elijah hung his clothes and finds them easily enough. Standing to pull up his breeches is another task entirely and met with much cursing under his breath. He pulls on his shirt, but leaves his boots for a moment, hoping to gain the courage and strength to pull them on.
The flap parts and Orlando squints at a dark shape silhouetted by the gray sky beyond.
“Good, you’re dressed.”
“Elijah -“ He wants to ask why Elijah left him, but Elijah has disappeared. He sighs and leans over the edge of the bed to retrieve his boots, but the ring catches his eye and he plucks it from the peg, turning it in his fingers. He has no desire to wear it. He looks up again when the flap is pushed aside once more, this time a much smaller figure enters first. Erica.
“Good morning,” she sings. Actually sings.
Orlando smiles at her and returns her greeting.
“I want to give it to him,” she says, turning to Elijah.
“No, it’s hot. I’ll do it,” Elijah replies, nudging her forward so that he can deliver the bowl of soup.
He notices little Eric standing by his brother’s knee; he shakes his head and pats the space to his left - Erica having already commandeered the place to his right - and looks at Elijah through the curls of steam.
“I thought you might be hungry so I didn’t wait,” Elijah offers in explanation for his absence.
Orlando nods distractedly, glad that Elijah didn’t leave for another reason, as Erica touches the ring he’s left absently on his thumb. “Would you like to see it?” he asks her.
“You didn’t bring the puppet, did you?” Eric says, fidgeting in his seat and trying to see the ring his sister is playing with.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t have time to go back for it. I would have brought it if I could.”
Eric frowns, then perks up. “Maybe we could make one?”
“I don’t know if it would look much like the other.” Orlando’s voice is as apologetic as his smile.
“It wouldn’t have to be exactly the same,” Eric tells him.
He catches Elijah’s eye, sees the mirth and apology in their depths, and something else, something that makes him feel so warm, so ... loved.
“I hope you don’t mind," Elijah grins at him, "they wanted to see you.”
Orlando shakes his head; it doesn’t bother him, though he suspects they might have only come to see about the puppet.
“The others aren’t so sure yet.” The apology in Elijah’s eyes deepens. Orlando knows it is foolish to hope for a warmer reception. He smiles to assure Elijah that he understands.
“This is very pretty,” Erica says of his ring.
“Do you want it?” Orlando watches her blue eyes widen. She nods and clasps her hands over her treasure.
“Are you sure?” Elijah asks as he lifts his sister onto his lap so that he can sit.
Orlando nods. “It stands for something I once was, but am no more.”
“I want to show it to Eliza and Elisabeth!” she crows and dashes toward the flap of the tent and disappears, Eric following behind her.
Orlando’s smile clings to his lips long after they’ve gone. He feels so grateful to be sitting here, to have been given a chance for a new life, one without walls to keep. He watches Elijah reach for the leather pouch on the wall before asking Orlando to put his feet up.
“I can do that myself,” Orlando says, nodding towards the salve.
The corner of Elijah’s mouth lifts. “I’m sure you can, but I want to do this for you.”
Orlando doesn’t do as he’s asked. He leans toward Elijah instead, a question burning on his tongue, one that must be asked and answered. “There is something I’ve wondered, Elijah. I never dared to ask before because I was afraid your answer wouldn’t be the truth but only said to please me.”
“What question?” Elijah asks.
“Do you love me? You have never said.” He feels like a fool for asking. “I feel it, but I wonder if that is me taking too much liberty with the kindness you’ve shown.”
“I do, yes.”
“Will you never say the words?”
“I was waiting.”
“For what?”
Elijah rests his hand against Orlando’s neck and rubs his thumb against the rough stubble. “For you to want them.” Elijah smoothes his thumb over Orlando's bottom lip.
“I do.” Orlando closes his eyes as Elijah leans forward, sliding against him. Their cheeks brush and he folds his arms around the familiar shape of Elijah’s body, pulling them together so that there is nothing between them except heat. He feels Elijah’s lips against his ear, and the words that he needs to hear.
“I love you.”
And they lived happily ever after. <3
Rating: Mature
Paring: OB/EW - AU
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: All made up :)
Beta: Many, many thanks to itstonedme, I couldn't have gotten to the end without you! *hugs*
Happy Birthday verangel!!! This fic is for you! :D Thank you for being the wonderful you that you are!!! (And patient!) I adore you and I hope you have a very special day, you deserve all the very best!! :D Many birthday hugs and kisses xxooo!! And cake! And smiles! And Elijah ... naked! (maybe with cake! It's late, I'm sorry *g*) <3's
I know this fic has gone on far too long, and I'm sorry! But this is pretty much it :D. This is how I wrote the story originally and how I wanted it to end. There may yet be an epilogue but I'm not too sure how thrilled I am with the way it's coming together. :P I really enjoyed writing this story and I thank you all for sticking with it for so long! :D
Previous parts:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4.1
Part 4.2
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Orlando peeks into the hall; luck is on his side, for it is empty. He draws the door shut behind him and as he walks away from it, he ties his scabbard around his waist. He will hide both it and his knife beneath John’s cloak; he would have rather taken the guard's, but it was soaked with too much blood.
“My lord? My lord, where is Elijah?” Piper stands at the bottom of the stairs; he looks as though he has just run up and down the flight one hundred times.
Orlando keeps walking, determination a fire within him. “I am going to get him.”
“There is word." Piper falters. "There has been word that you are no longer king.”
“If your people have any means, Piper, now is the time, for this kingdom is leaderless.”
“But John - they say John has been named…”
“He is dead.” Orlando tracks Piper's eyes as they drop to the stains upon his clothes. "You are the first to know." Orlando realizes that this is the moment when he sees the measure of trust he has placed in Piper.
A noise in the distance rouses them both. “Put that on,” Piper whispers. “I will go fetch your horse. You must be away before they find out what you've done."
Orlando stands alone in the empty hall, his heart racing with both fear and exhilaration. Angry shouts from outside give him a start and he feels a moment of doubt. What if Piper has betrayed him? He tries to quiet his heart so that he might hear better. The arguing continues; he can hear upraised voices, Anson’s loudest of all. It has nothing to do with John.
He quickly makes his way to the door and pushes it open tentatively. The voices still carry and the courtyard is empty save for Piper leading his horse. He is thankful for the diversion; it may well yet allow for his escape.
He takes the reins from Piper. “It will take at least a week for them to marshal an army from my uncle’s,” he says hastily as he puts his foot in the stirrup and pulls himself up. “Get as many out as you can. Leave in the night.”
“Where do we go?”
Orlando pauses. He has no idea what the Northerners are like or if they would accept an influx of refugees. “There is only one option - go south. But whatever you do, make sure the soldiers know I’ve gone north.”
He is not sure if that will be for any good; he doesn’t even know if he’ll survive to get to Elijah. The enemies -- as John referred to them numerous times -- could kill him before he even gets close, but he hopes to spare the people of Neverwas. This is not their battle.
“I will see to it," Piper assures. "You had best go.”
Orlando tears his eyes from the dark, black smoke billowing around the corner of the castle; he can hear one of the soldiers, probably the captain, still bellowing that there will be blood to pay if they don’t move away and let them do what the king has ordered. 'Burning all their hard work,' Orlando thinks, 'and just for spite.'
He digs his heels in hard and the horse takes off as if the flames themselves follow.
*
Orlando rounds a bend in the road and sharply reins in his horse. A massive tree lays across the path; he can tell by the lack of limbs that it has lain there a long time, but its position is no accident. It has been hewn with an axe at both ends; to his left, it is flush against the natural lip of a hill and to his right there is a gap just wide enough for a cart.
He straightens in his saddle as a man appears in the gap, a man as wild-looking as his surroundings, his dark, bushy beard and long hair obscuring most of his face. The man seems to have just asked a question, but Orlando has never heard this language before.
“I seek passage.” He takes a wild stab and hopes that this man understands him.
“What for?”
Orlando exhales gratefully, thankful that he will be able to communicate and not have to resort to his sword. He has no idea if there aren’t more guardians hiding where he can’t see and he doesn’t wish to press his luck.
“I am the King of Neverwas,” he lies. The contents of a letter will not matter to this man and he still bears the ring; John had not taken that yet. “I want to meet with your King.”
“We have no king here," the man drawls, "Just a wise leader. What do you want with him?”
“I wish to speak with him regarding gifts that were brought forth without my permission.”
The man eyes him for a moment. “If you want passage, you have to pay.”
“Pay?”
“I believe that is the word you use. If you wish to pass, you will render something of value.”
“But I am a King.”
He watches the bushy beard twitch. “So? Your title means nothing to me. If you want passage, you must pay.”
Orlando shifts in the saddle and reaches for his purse. “How much?”
The man eyes the bulging sack. “I think all of it.”
Orlando weighs the bag. It is not full but near to it, and he hesitates. It is not the coin he cares about -- Elijah is more important to him than the considerable amount of gold in his hand -- but he worries whether or not there will be more tolls like this, that he will have nothing left to give.
“Are there more tolls such as yours?”
The wall of a man before him nods.
“And what will I use to pay your kin down the road?”
The man looks him over. “I’m not relieving you of all your possessions. I’m sure you’ll have something to offer the others.”
Time is wasting while he dithers here. If John’s body has been found, it is likely that he is already being hunted. He tosses the purse to the harrier who opens it and peers inside.
“You have what you want; now clear the road.”
The man’s beard twitches as he tucks the satchel full of coins away and he takes his dallies moving out of the way. "Be on your way then."
Once on the other side, Orlando urges his horse into a gallop; he knows that it’s dangerous to ride so wildly on an unknown road, but Elijah is somewhere at the end of it and that is all he can think of.
*
He has plenty of warning before he reaches the next roadblock as it is not a tree and a lone man, but a group of men and at a more permanent station, judging by the hut that stands at the edge of the road and the fence of split logs that’s been erected across the trail. He would have to press into the thick forest on either side to try to get around the barrier, and the small saplings have grown so thick that short of stopping to cut them down, he wouldn’t be able to get his horse through.
One man steps forward. He’s not as scruffy as the first, but definitely just as large and formidable.
“What do you want here?”
“Passage only.”
“For what reason?”
“To see your ki - your leader.”
The man folds his arms across his chest. “And you think he wants to see you?”
“I am the king of Neverwas, and I will have an audience with him. He has something of mine.”
The man sniggers wildly - as do the four men standing behind him.
“You? A king? Where is your entourage? Doesn't your kind travel with them? We have heard stories that you even have slaves to wipe your ass.” The group dissolves into cruel laughter again.
“I haven’t one, as you can well see.” Orlando extends his hand and shows them the heavy gold ring with the blood red stone. “I am the king, this is my mark, and I seek passage.”
The man stares at his hand and says something sharp to one of the men behind him. Orlando looks down and notices that his cape has fallen away, exposing the dried blood on his clothes.
“Where did that come from?”
There is no point in playing the idiot, but he will not answer to this man for his actions. “I left your guardian unharmed, if that is your concern.”
“We would verify that before you pass. Get down.”
“I have no time for this,” Orlando argues.
“Then you wish me to kill you without verifying that there is reason? For I will, King or no."
"This blood is not his blood."
"It looks fresh to me. He,” the guard says nodding in the direction of one of the four others standing behind him, “will ride back to check on our brother.”
Orlando sighs heavily and dismounts, passing the reins to the young man who removes the saddle and casts it aside before mounting.
"This is my horse!" Orlando feels a jerk on his hands as the rider yanks the reins from them.
“Would you rather wait for him to walk?"
Orlando has no doubt they would do just that. He shakes his head.
"Sit.”
Orlando blinks at the guard. If he wanted to sit, he would. He opens his mouth to say just that and feels heavy hands on his shoulders that knock him to the dust.
*
He listens as they speak to each other in their own tongue and waits for the sound of horse’s hooves. The sun continues its decent and Orlando fumes at the delay. When he hears the pounding along the road, he rises.
The young man swings off the horse with ease and nods to the leader. They confer for only a moment before the leader of this group turns to him.
“Where did the blood come from? I am told our friend is well.”
Orlando straightens, shaking the dust off. “That is none of your concern. I wish to be on my way.”
“Then you need only pay for passage.”
“I paid all my coin to your friend down the road.” Orlando tries and fails to keep the impatience from his voice. "I have no coin left."
"You cannot go forth without payment."
Orlando sighs and turns out his hands. “What would you have of me?”
The guard rubs the scruff on his chin in contemplation, and Orlando notices his eyes drift to the ring on his hand.
“That there, for starters.” The guard points to the ring. “But there is more than just me to account for.”
Orlando looks down at the ring. “How will I prove who I am without it?”
“That is not my problem.”
Orlando twists the ring from his finger and tosses it to the man. “What else?”
“You sword, your cloak, and your horse.”
“What?” Orlando asks incredulously.
The man before him straightens and fixes him with a placid, resolute stare. “If you want to get through, that is our price.”
Orlando looks down the steady incline of the road to where it seems to narrow in the distance. “How far is it?” How much farther to Elijah?
“Not so far that you can’t walk it before the sun sets.”
“You’d leave me defenseless?” He is worried that not having a weapon could put him at a disadvantage when it comes to reclaiming Elijah.
“If we wanted you dead, do you think you would be standing here now?” His antagonist arches one brow. “Besides, now you have nothing worth being harassed for.”
“There are no other tolls to be paid?”
The man folds his arms over his chest. “Our price here has been set; it is your choice, but I suggest that if you do not wish to walk these roads in the dark, you make your choice - pay up or go back.”
There is no going back; even if he could, he would not go without Elijah. If there are other tolls he will have to figure out a way to pay them. The young rider is already in possession of the horse and it only takes a moment to untie his cloak and scabbard.
“May I pass now?”
“Why do you all get something while I am deprived?” This question comes from one of the group who is not inspecting a newly gained prize.
The leader seems surprised and turns around as if to count them.
“You always forget about me.”
The leader of the group makes an irritated sound. “What would you have of him then? Speak up.”
“His boots.”
Orlando stares in disbelief. “My what? Surely you…”
“The price must be paid,” the leader says, though he sounds slightly put out.
Silently, Orlando bends and tugs off one boot; the knife, still bearing traces of John’s blood, falls into the soft dirt.
“That is mine. It came out of his boot so that is mine too,” the swindler says as he dashes forward to snap up the knife along with boots.
"Fine," the leader growls. "Be careful you don't stab yourself with it," he adds under his breath.
Orlando doesn't care for their bickering, only that he is now completely defenseless. “Now may I go?”
The leader of the little group makes a sweeping gesture with his hands, and Orlando begins his walk.
*
Orlando curses when he reaches the top of an incline only to find more road stretching out before him. The sun is beginning to set, throwing the road itself into lengthening shadows, and he wonders how far he has yet to go.
He scans the horizon where the road curves and disappears once more into thick trees, and sees a hopeful sign - a curl of smoke rising above the treetops. He forces one foot before the other and although he has stayed to the edge of the road where the dirt is softest, his feet are beginning to hurt.
‘Elijah is there’, he tells himself. ‘Elijah will be there’. He tries to focus on a course of action, but it seems out of reach, buried beneath his worry over what they might have done to Elijah - things he could have once been accused of doing himself.
By the time he rounds the bend in the road and begins up another incline, dusk is descending and the sun remains only in red-gold streaks against the clouds. He can see the silhouettes of small buildings, but they appear to be moving in the breeze. It is only as he draws nearer that he realizes they are tents; hides fastened to the wood frames flutter in the soft breeze.
As he begins to pass those who are tending the fires outside -- cooking fires from the smell -- they watch him pass. Dressed in no more than his white linen shirt and breeches, he obviously poses no threat; they simply watch him, curiosity on their shadowy faces.
He keeps his head high and his gaze forward but watches for signs of trouble from the corner of his eye. He had expected a stone edifice, like the castle he grew up in or the one from which he ruled in Neverwas, but there is none such here. As he presses into the thicket of tents, he spies one that is larger, enormous in fact, and that is where he heads. He watches as a breeze kicks up and the brightly colored flags atop each pole flutter in the breeze; it is strange to him, but beautiful also.
There are two men, sentries he assumes, judging by the polearms they hold, who stand before a flap in the tent; as Orlando approaches, one of them steps forward.
He doesn’t understand the question or statement directed at him, but he assumes that this man, like the others he has met on the road, will understand him if he speaks in his own tongue. “I request an audience with your leader.”
The guard turns to his compatriot and together they laugh.
“Who are you to request anything here?”
Orlando keeps his chin raised and his eyes trained on the sentry. “I am the King of Neverwas.”
“You? You are a king?” The guard regards him from head to toe, his eyes lingering on Orlando’s bare feet. “You expect me to believe that you are a king?”
“I had to pay your harriers for my passage, so if you wish to see my ring or my cloak or my sack full of coins, I suggest you seek them out.”
“The burden of proof is on you.”
Orlando yanks up his shirt and shows the indelible mark upon his skin; he has no idea if it will mean anything to the wall of muscle before him, but it is the last of the physical proof that he has, even if it belongs to another time and place.
The pair shares another laugh and exchange a few words in the tongue he doesn’t understand.
“Your stomach does little to persuade us.”
“This is the sign of my royal house.” His voice breaks - brittle with rage and impatience. “I wish to speak with your king; if it looks as if I pose no threat, then why not let me pass?”
Another look and conversation passes between the two before they seem to come to an agreement.
“If he will receive you, then you will have your audience,” he is told before the guard disappears inside the flap.
Orlando angrily thinks that he will have his audience, whatever the cost, but for now he waits.
Finally, the guard returns and holds the flap aside; golden light from the interior spills into the deepening night and Orlando steps toward it.
“Wait.” The guard’s arm catches him across the chest.
Orlando rocks on the balls of his feet and silently bears the rough patting down he receives though there is nothing to find. Once satisfied, the guard orders him to follow.
The interior of the tent is just as strange and beautiful as its exterior. Veils hang everywhere, thin as wisps, to form halls and create rooms; as they brush against his skin, he feels as if he’s entered a dream.
The guard sweeps aside one of the gauzy curtains and motions for him to enter. He takes in the rich carpet and brightly colored pillows, but it is the figure at the end of the room who commands his attention.
The man wears no crown or jewelry, none of the trappings of a rich man, and yet there is a palpable air of stature and nobility surrounding him; it is in the silver of his hair and the wisdom in his eyes.
Orlando approaches cautiously. He cannot see anyone else, but he can feel eyes on him; he knows that no leader would be left unguarded, not even one as seemingly defenseless as the one before him.
“My guard said that there was a man proclaiming himself a king here to see me; now I know why he doubted you.”
Orlando lifts his head. He doesn’t care for anything other than finding Elijah. “You have something of mine.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. A boy - a young man - and his family.” Please let them be here. Please. His heart begins to beat against his ribcage as he worries that John’s men murdered them. What if this lord says there were no gifts?
“There were slaves brought, yes. I was under the assumption that they were gifts from you?”
Orlando nearly chokes with relief. They are here. Elijah is here.
“I did not send them. It was not my choice but by duplicity on the part of … of someone close to me, someone who thought they had power and right when they did not.”
The old man seems to consider this for some time, studying him all the while.
“Pardon me for saying that you do not look like a king, though you do act as one.”
Orlando blinks at the old man and realizes he has behaved the way his father would. To his blushing shame, he hasn’t introduced himself, nor begged the introduction of the lord in whose room he stands. He bows his head and lifts it with an apology. “I’m sorry. I was … It has been a long day. I beg your pardon. I am …” he thinks about speaking his title, but he is no longer king and it no longer seems to matter. “I am Orlando and I have come for Elijah.”
The old man shifts in his chair, placing a finger to his lips for a moment. “What a curious way to introduce yourself, your kind who seem so obsessed with titles. Even more curious is the state in which you’ve arrived - your kind being even more obsessed with what they own.”
Orlando is acutely aware of his slovenly appearance. “I had to purchase passage - your men demanded it - my rings, my sword, my horse.”
“And you were willing to give all that up for the return of a slave?”
Orlando nods his head. He does not miss the amusement in the ruler's voice.
“So, you have nothing to offer me in return?”
A fair question and one that leaves him struggling like a fish out of water. “I have nothing left.”
“The few things my men took surely would not have been enough to replace such fine gifts. What will you send me in their stead?”
Orlando licks his dry lips and meets the eye of the lord before him. He has nothing to offer in return.
“Why don’t you sit? You look as if you could use it.”
Orlando looks at the pillows strewn on the floor; they beckon him, but truthfully he fears if he sits he might not be able to get up again. “I’d rather stand, my…” He realizes that he doesn’t know how to address this man. “What do I call you?”
The old man stares at him for a moment; a hint of a smile flickers across his face. “Absalom.”
Orlando starts at the name. “That is your title?”
“That is my name. You have heard it before?”
Orlando stares. It was only a story Elijah told and this must just be a coincidence. He shrugs and both nods and shakes his head.
“What kind of answer is that?” Absalom asks bemusedly.
“I heard the name in a story once.”
“Ah, yes," the old man sighs, "about a man who gave up everything for love?”
Orlando nods his head slowly. “Are you … Was it you?”
“All stories have a basis in reality, but that story is not about me.”
“Did Elijah tell you the story?”
Absalom shakes his head. “One of his sisters. When she heard my name, she, like you, thought that the story might have been about me. I told her that I was the namesake of the Absalom of old, that the story was about him."
Orlando finds himself staring again, trying to reason out if it’s true or not. “Your father?”
“It goes back farther than that. My lineage is an old one, but there was an Absalom who inspired such a tale, though he did not give up everything … only his obsession for it.”
Orlando’s eyes flicker to the movement of the curtain; it twitches as if someone has touched it or breathed upon it. “Elijah?”
“That is not him.” Absalom makes a motion with his hand and a young girl slips through the gauze, a cup clutched in her hands. She looks shyly at Orlando as she hands Absalom the cup with a few words he cannot make out.
“This is my granddaughter,” Absalom says as he presses his lips to her temple and sends her scurrying off. “She will not go to sleep without saying goodnight.”
Orlando watches her disappear. “Is he here?” Orlando tries to peer through the curtains, thinking that perhaps they have him bound beyond the veils.
“Not here, but near. You still haven’t told me what you offer in return.”
“Whatever you ask, I will try to get it for you.”
“What do you think he is worth, Orlando?”
It takes no thought at all to answer the question. “Everything.”
“And will you offer me everything?”
Orlando stands there swaying silently as if a breeze moves him, but says nothing.
“You say that he is worth everything and yet you won’t offer it to me?”
“I can’t.”
Absalom frowns and Orlando reads it as disappointment for not having gotten what he wanted. “Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t,” Orlando answers. “Believe me, if I had anything left to offer it would be yours.” Orlando turns his empty palms outward, his mind spinning with empty offers, but he can’t promise what he doesn’t have. “I have no kingdom, and I am no longer king; what little I had, I bartered on my way. I have nothing left.”
“Nothing? You gave up everything just to come here? Why?”
“For Elijah.” Orlando smiles wryly. “Like your ancestor, I have realized that nothing else matters.”
Absalom makes no immediate reply and Orlando feels his hope begin to wane - surely Absalom wouldn’t want the clothes off his back? Orlando sinks to his knees in supplication. “I do not know what you’ve done with him, but I ask that you let me stand in his place. It is all I have to offer.”
Absalom rubs his chin thoughtfully but says nothing.
“And his family’s freedom too, if I might have it,” Orlando adds in a rush. It would do no good to gain Elijah his freedom if his family were not with him.
“An interesting offer. You wish him back and yet you offer yourself in his place. What if his freedom meant that you could not be with him?”
Orlando bows his head and sucks for breath; suddenly he feels very weary. The prospect of life without Elijah is almost too much for him to bear, after all he has given up; but if he must relinquish his freedom so that Elijah and his family might have theirs, then that is the price that he must pay, and he will pay it. He nods his head resolutely. “Anything. I would give anything for his happiness.”
Absalom is silent, but life, like mist, swirls around them and he can hear the voices of those outside the tent, the whisper of the silken curtains, and the beating of his own heart. He lifts his eyes from the floor, searching Absalom’s inscrutable face.
“Then you shall have everything.”
*
“What?” Orlando asks stupidly, certain he has misheard Absalom’s soft statement.
“Stand.”
Orlando puts both hands on the floor and struggles to rise; even the carpet hurts his raw and blistered feet, and he stumbles a bit as he stands. But a strong arm about his waist keeps him upright. He turns to speak his thanks and blue eyes find his.
“Elijah.” His lips form the name, but no sound follows it. His eyes roam over Elijah. The loose clothes he had preferred Elijah to wear are gone; instead, he is dressed in the fashion of Absalom’s people. There is a sword at his side, but most importantly he looks healthy and unharmed. “I thought I’d lost you.” As soon as Orlando speaks the words, he realizes how true they are and how deeply he had feared them.
“I am here,” Elijah assures.
“And your family?”
Elijah smiles and Orlando feels it through every inch of his body, like brilliant sunshine after weeks of rain. “They are here too.”
“Safe?”
“Yes.” Elijah holds Orlando’s shoulders steady. “I tried to tell you - these people were never our enemy.”
“But you acted as if…”
“Any other reaction would have revealed the truth to John that day. Do you think he would have sent my family somewhere safe? I tried to tell you - after.”
Orlando remembers. “I wouldn’t let you. I didn’t listen.”
“You do seem to have a problem with that,” Elijah smiles.
Orlando reaches out and touches the curve of Elijah’s cheek and when he drops his hand, Elijah catches it, staring at the dark stains on his skin.
“I killed him," Orlando explains. "He took his last from me. Your people are still there, Elijah. I - I told them to go south and I would return for them if I could.”
Medias steps out from the shadows and Orlando drops his eyes uncertainly.
He is at their mercy. If they mean to kill him, he won’t go without offering his apology. He draws a steadying breath and meets Medias’ gaze. “I am sorry for what I have done, to you and your family.” They seem too few words for his long list of offenses.
“Certain experiences can make beasts of men,” Medias says thoughtfully. “Some men can be redeemed while others let their souls be twisted by it. Which are you?”
Orlando leans against Elijah’s body. “I will have to work hard for your forgiveness, but that is what I would like -- to be forgiven.”
Medias folds his hands before him. “I am not the one to decide that. Your fate exists in the hands of the one who holds you; that is up to my son.”
Orlando cannot hold Elijah’s gaze. He does not deserve Elijah’s mercy and he knows it. He has wronged Elijah so many times, been cruel beyond reason. He doesn’t know why he thought he could ask for mercy. Elijah lifts his chin and Orlando finds himself unable to look away.
“Things can never again be the way they were before.” Elijah keeps his voice low for this is between them. “You no longer own me or control me.”
“Did I ever?” Orlando asks honestly; an embarrassed smile curves his lips. “Even from the first, it was you who controlled me.” His smile fades as Elijah studies him. “I am willing to take whatever punishment you see fit.”
“No more punishment. There has been enough of that.”
Orlando’s eyes begin to blur as he feels Elijah take his hand and with a gentle word guide him from the tent. He feels the cooler night air on his skin again and the dew-wet grass which he finds soothing against the soles of his feet.
“Here.” Elijah stops before one of the tents and ushers him inside.
“Sit,” Elijah tells him, pressing on his shoulders until he drops onto a bed covered with soft pelts. He pulls his feet up gratefully and drains the cup of water Elijah puts in his hands. Elijah refills it twice more and on the fourth pass fills it with ale. “Better?”
Orlando nods and holds the cup to his chest like a child; he feels like one.
“I’ll be right back,” Elijah tells him softly.
“Where are you going?” Orlando asks a bit desperately. He is afraid to let Elijah out of his sight, as if he might pass through the flap and disappear forever.
“I’m going to get you something to eat.”
“I’m not hungry. Please stay.” His stomach betrays him with a rumble. He can’t remember the last time he ate.
Elijah smiles. “I’m going to get some water too. You’re a mess.”
He looks at the fine layer of grit covering the tops of his feet, the blood on his hands, feels the sweat clinging everywhere else and reluctantly nods.
"I won't be long," Elijah promises before disappearing.
*
It feels like forever has passed before Elijah returns bearing a plate of roasted meat and bread slathered with rich butter. Elijah refills Orlando's cup once more and orders him to eat before he disappearing yet again.
There is a moment where the food sticks in Orlando’s throat, unable to pass around the lump that has formed there, for he truly feels unworthy of Elijah’s attention. What has he done to deserve it? Relinquishing a kingdom he neither earned nor wanted? Walking a stretch of dusty road with bare feet as most peasants do every day? It seems so little for so much in return. Eventually, the hunger wins and he is devouring the contents of his plate when Elijah returns, this time dragging an empty wooden tub behind him.
“Can I help you?” Orlando asks as he sets the plate down and hobbles to his feet.
“You are in no condition to help. Just sit,” he orders as he escapes into the night once more.
*
Elijah knew Orlando would come. He had felt it; even as Elijah had fought John’s men when they had burst into his room that morning, there was not a moment of doubt. But he was afraid of how Orlando would come. If he came threatening Absalom, his father had warned him that the Loach would fight back. Absalom and Medias had already been preparing the army; they had been planning to rescue him.
After his father had spoken to him, Elijah had been afraid, especially when he had found time alone to bathe and think about it. He realized that if Orlando stood up to them, he would be killed; this was a certainty. Elijah is grateful to fate for not allowing it to have come to that. But they still spoke of war, his father and Absalom; his father was ready to reclaim what was his. Elijah had begged him to wait, because he knew, in his heart, that Orlando was coming.
Again, he offers up silent thanks that Orlando showed up alone; anything else could have been misinterpreted and the sentries on the road might have killed Orlando before he'd even come close.
Orlando’s eyes open slowly as Elijah re-enters the tent and empties the buckets into the bath. He asks once more if he can help, but Elijah shakes his head. “You’ll help soon enough, but not tonight.”
“Why not get a servant to do that?”
“There are no servants here,” Elijah answers. “You do for yourself. If you do for others, it is from the goodness of your own heart. You will have to get used to a new way.”
He leaves Orlando to contemplate that as he fetches more water. In all, it takes five trips to sufficiently fill the tub for Orlando to soak in. “Get in while it is hot. I would hate to see my hard work wasted.”
Orlando rises on wobbly legs, removes his filthy clothes and hobbles to the bath. He has to hold Elijah’s shoulders in order to climb in and sighs as he lowers himself into the water; it feels good even though the tub is too small to stretch out in.
“How is it?” Elijah asks as he retrieves Orlando’s bloodstained clothing from the floor; when there is no answer he looks up to find Orlando watching. “What is it?" he asks. "Are you hurt?” He hadn’t noticed any wounds on Orlando’s body, but that does not mean there aren’t any.
There is a lump in Orlando's throat again and he can’t do any more than shake his head.
“Here, I’ll help you.” Elijah takes the cake of soap Orlando clutches between his fingers and lathers up a small woven cloth which he then presses back into Orlando’s hands. “I will wash your hair while you do the rest.”
*
Orlando sputters and blows water from his lips as Elijah dumps a bucketful over his head, rinsing the last of the soap from his hair.
“Better now?”
Orlando nods in answer to Elijah’s question. He is better everywhere except his feet and he grimaces as he stands. He takes the towel Elijah offers and steps onto the fur Elijah’s placed between the bath and the bed.
“I will be right back.”
Before Orlando can protest Elijah has vanished again; this time he’s gone so long that Orlando’s curls are no longer dripping fat droplets against his skin and he is, for the most part, warm and dry with a large fur wrapped around him.
"I was beginning to think you weren't coming back," Orlando confesses when Elijah returns.
"I am sorry. I had to see to some things."
Orlando looks at the bundle Elijah drops at the end of the bed. He recognizes the contents -- his boots, the cloak he was wearing, even his scabbard and sword - Elijah hangs them from the natural hooks that remain on the stripped branch limbs that make the frame for the tent.
“They took them for nothing?” Orlando asks in wonder.
The corner of Elijah's mouth quirks into a little grin. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“Did the Absalom of old get all his possessions back?”
“I don’t know, that part of the story was never told to me.” He holds out his hand, palm up and offers Orlando his ring.
“It’s not right.”
Elijah glances at the ring - he knows it belongs to Orlando. “It’s yours.”
“Yes, I know.” His statement hadn’t been in regards to the ring, but to the fact that he now has everything he desires and deserves none of it.
Realizing that Orlando isn’t going to take the ring, Elijah finds a home for it on one of the hooks.
“Why were you gone so long?” Orlando asks as he looks at the small leather pouch in Elijah’s hands.
“There were plans to be discussed.”
“What plans?”
Elijah sits on the end of the bed, not closer, and Orlando tries to keep the disappointment from his face.
“Give me your feet.” Elijah pats his thighs. “Your feet?” he asks when Orlando continues to stare. “Why?”
“You’ll be no use if your blisters get infected and you can’t walk.”
“No use for what?” He pushes his feet onto Elijah’s lap.
Elijah gives him a sidelong glance. “War.”
Orlando considers this for a moment. “They have been planning since your family was brought here, haven't they?”
Elijah nods his head.
“But … that would have put you at risk.”
“Would you have let anything happen to me?” Elijah asks.
Orlando shakes his head. “No, but it would have been dangerous for them to bring war with you still inside.”
“Better to take that chance, they thought, than do nothing. My father saw John for the kind of man he was; he knew it was just a matter of time before John turned on you, and he knew it would be a risk to wait too long.”
Orlando twitches as Elijah touches a cool salve to his soles of his feet.
“Does that hurt?”
Orlando shakes his head, but Elijah can tell by the flinch across Orlando’s face that it does. “Don’t lie to me. No more secrets between us. Does it hurt?”
“A little,” Orlando confesses.
“Was that so hard?”
Orlando shakes his head. “If there are no more secrets, then tell me what plans are being made.”
“We are planning to get our kingdom back.”
“With John dead there will be chaos. But Elijah, when my father comes … it will be worse than before.”
Elijah carefully smears cream on the blistered skin of Orlando’s other foot. He has no doubt Tristan will come, and fury -- backed by revenge -- is worse than that of greed. But he is not afraid. “We have an advantage.”
Orlando twitches as Elijah’s thumb drags along the sole of his foot and, unbelievably, it tickles. He catches Elijah’s concerned eye and flexes his foot, indicating that he is all right. “What advantage? Soldiers? A weapon?” He tries to imagine something that would benefit them in the face of his father’s well-trained army.
“There are many men who are willing to fight to keep a man like your father from its borders, yes, but the real advantage is you. You know him. You know his mind.”
“I do not know that man’s mind.”
Elijah continues to work the salve into Orlando’s skin with slow rotations of his thumb. “You know what he would do in battle.”
To that Orlando nods. He was, after all, schooled at his father’s knee. He studies the play of firelight over Elijah's skin, the way it highlights his features, making him look both delicate and strong. Such perfection; he longs to kiss those lips.
“Will you help us then?” Elijah asks as he draws the leather string on the bag containing the cream to close it and twists to hang it from a peg above his shoulder.
Orlando blinks. He thought it was understood that he would. “Yes. I told you … I would do anything to make you happy.”
“What about you, Orlando. What would make you happy?” Elijah stares into Orlando’s eyes. “Will you regret it? Will you stand before your father and change your mind?”
“No,” Orlando answers without hesitation. “Fear does not breed allegiance.”
Elijah glances up; Orlando’s eyes are on him, yet not.
“He never loved me.” Orlando’s voice is as distant as his gaze; only the revelation of the hurt is near the surface. “Not even for a moment. I don’t know what I ever did to him.”
That is something Elijah could never imagine. He has always known his father’s love; even through their last disagreement he knew his father’s love for him would never change. “Your father is a fool. He couldn’t see the good son he’d been given.”
“Am I?” Elijah’s words make the room blur again. After everything, after ... “How can you think so highly of me after how I have wronged you?”
Elijah considers the question. “You didn’t know any better. You tried to be what your father wanted, but if you were like him you never would have spared us. You aren’t like him; you never were.”
“You helped me see that there were other ways. I would have kept following in Tristan’s footsteps if it weren’t for you.”
“I didn’t change you. I couldn’t. I only showed you that there were choices and consequences. You always had this heart inside you.”
But Orlando thinks of water in the river, smoothing stones and polishing away the sharp edges that would cut if left untouched. “And you could see it?”
“There were times when it was very hard …” It is the honest truth, but Elijah smiles. "But, yes, I could see it."
“I am sorry.”
“I know.”
Elijah has forgiven him. For all of it. Orlando doesn’t know how or why, but he does know that he will spend the rest of his life, short or long, making up for it.
Elijah lifts Orlando’s feet and settles them back upon the bed before moving to snatch up one of the buckets. “What are you doing?”
“Taking care of this.” Elijah nods toward the tub.
“Elijah?”
He has never heard Orlando’s voice so tentative and it gives his heart a queer flutter.
“Can’t it wait?” Orlando asks.
Elijah looks over his shoulder at Orlando and the flutter becomes impossible to ignore. The tub can wait, the need that the look in Orlando’s dark eyes stirs in him cannot. He leaves it and knees his way onto the bed beside Orlando.
“You have on entirely too many clothes,” Orlando whispers as he reaches beneath Elijah’s shirt. Here is his everything, the only thing that matters.
“They tell me it gets cold here at night.” Elijah presses his lips against Orlando’s, soft and exploratory, as if it is the first time.
“I will keep you warm,” Orlando whispers as he draws the heavy shirt over Elijah’s head.
Orlando’s fingers are in his hair, guiding him; he offers his neck and mouth to Orlando’s hungry kisses, until there is no doubt that he will be warm enough. He feels Orlando’s fingers untie the knot on his breeches and moves away from Orlando only long enough to drop them to the floor.
There is a hesitation, a moment of stillness on Orlando’s part, that gives Elijah pause. Orlando’s passion for him had been frightening at first, but he would be a liar if he said he did not want that eagerness now.
“Are you afraid to touch me now?”
“No,” Orlando assures, a smile curling up the corners of his mouth. “Have you ever wanted something so badly that you don’t know where to begin when you get it?”
Elijah feels the prick of heat and desire, inside and out, as Orlando’s eyes travel his body. “May I make a suggestion? Start here,” Elijah touches his lips, “and work your way down.”
Orlando’s fingertips brush the ink stain on Elijah’s hip. “I think I’ll start here.”
Elijah sucks a shallow breath as Orlando pushes on his leg and insinuates himself between his thighs. There is nothing timid in that touch or in the tongue that traces the word ‘beautiful’, but it is the burning, hungry look in Orlando’s dark eyes that send a red hot spike of heat through his belly.
He cannot hide the effect Orlando has on him; his cock rests thick and hard against his belly from little more than a searing look and the flick of tongue against his skin. If this isn’t right, he doesn’t care - he couldn’t live without it now. He tangles his fingers in slightly-damp locks and subtly -- or perhaps not - tries to turn Orlando’s face.
Orlando grins as he licks the ink. He teasingly runs his tongue over it, around it; he can smell Elijah’s arousal and see the desire in the flush across Elijah’s cheeks. He takes his time; he runs his tongue lazily up the underside of Elijah’s cock and slowly drags it over the velvety tip, tasting what fills his senses.
Elijah’s grip loosens as Orlando’s mouth descends. Pleasure wrought by Orlando’s eagerness buries itself like a knot in his belly until he’s yanking once more on Orlando’s hair and trying to pull those lips away before he comes.
“Why?” Orlando asks, clearly bewildered.
Elijah kisses him fiercely, tasting the bitterness of himself on Orlando’s lips and deeper still as he plunges his tongue inside. He’s breathing hard when he pulls his mouth away, still reeling from the effects of Orlando’s mouth, still on edge, still closer than he’d like to be. “I want … together," Elijah pants. "I want you.”
Orlando feels the cool night air fleetingly as Elijah wrenches the folds of the furs aside and kneels beside him. Warm fingers grip his erection, slipping over taut skin knowingly. His lips part; he can barely breathe, and his eyes screw shut as he arches his hips to meet the wet heat of Elijah’s mouth. For a moment he is lost in it; his entire world is reduced to the slight rasp of tongue and the intense suck of Elijah’s lips.
Elijah squeezes Orlando’s tight balls and feels the uncontrolled jab upward of Orlando’s cock in response; he knows that Orlando will come if he doesn’t stop. He lifts his head and watches Orlando’s head snap up, his dark eyes so full of concern and confusion, but Orlando’s lips can’t manage to form any coherent sounds into words. Elijah turns to kiss them.
Words aren’t what Elijah wants. He slides one thigh alongside Orlando’s hip, straddling the eager body beneath him, sinking onto the cock that he lifts away from Orlando’s belly.
“Wait. Stop. Sl-slowly,” Orlando pleads as Elijah begins to ride him. He claps Elijah’s hips, hoping only for a little mercy and clinging to the hope for a few more minutes of being so connected to Elijah.
“No,” Elijah whispers, his hands slipping around Orlando’s wrists; he pins them to the bedding, leaning down, leaning close.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” Orlando can barely deny the urge to thrust now, it makes his entire body flush and tremble.
“Foolish,” Elijah scolds softly, his lips brushing the alluring corner of Orlando’s mouth as he speaks, “if you were hurting me I would stop.” He flicks his tongue out and traces the seam of Orlando’s lips until they part for him.
Orlando shivers and curls his fingers around Elijah’s, melding as much of them together as he can. He thrusts into Elijah’s impatient body, and only the pain from his feet as they slip against the bedding keeps him from shattering too soon; he has to stop.
Elijah ... doesn’t. He watches Orlando - the flinches and softly uttered gasps, the sight and sound of which send tiny shocks of pleasure racing through his body. Such a beautiful sight spread beneath him -- sable curls frame a face the firelight loves, painting the perfect arch of Orlando’s cheeks and decadently parted lips with red-gold highlights. He touches his tongue to them and tastes the sweat on Orlando’s skin.
Orlando fights Elijah’s grip as the laving tongue works its way to his neck, and lips and teeth and tongue conspire to rip his orgasm from him. He earns his freedom and makes a desperate grab for Elijah’s hips; he feels Elijah’s moan vibrate against his neck, creating sparks that jump down his spine and flutter madly in his belly.
"Elijah … I-"
"Don't stop," Elijah hisses. Orlando can feel Elijah quivering. "Harder."
He pounds into Elijah’s body until the friction becomes too much and the sound Elijah makes as he comes breaks him.
Elijah feels the last few staccato jabs and then Orlando’s hips drop back to the bedding heavily, leaving him, for a moment, feeling very empty. But it is a fleeting feeling, lasting only as long as it takes for Orlando to pull him into the crook of his arm.
“You know exactly how to get what you want, don’t you?” Orlando teases, his heart still tripping in his chest. He scoops Elijah closer so that he can nip the soft lobe of Elijah’s ear.
“Do I?” Only half of Elijah’s sated, pleased smile shows; the rest is buried in the furs where he lays with his eyes closed, content.
“You have made a slave of me.”
This makes Elijah open his eyes and Orlando can tell by the look in them that he has made a mistake. Whatever it is, he wants to take it back.
“You are here unwillingly?”
“No.” Orlando shakes his head vehemently. “I…”
“You said I have made a slave of you, but I put no collar on you, I make no demands. I want nothing other than what you have to give and what you are willing to share.”
“I’m sorry, I did not mean to imply ...” Orlando draws a deep breath. “You’ll have to forgive me, I’m still learning.”
Elijah nods, forgiving all in the simple act of resting his chin against Orlando’s shoulder. “I think you’ll be a quick study, but speak no more of kings and slaves. We are neither one nor the other.”
“We are just ourselves,” Orlando says thoughtfully as he draws the heavy covers over their now rapidly cooling bodies. It is an alien thought to him, one that makes him feel as if the world has tipped on its axis, but it only lasts a second, just long enough for him to think about it, come to terms with it, and then there is only the feeling of Elijah asleep in his arms.
*
Elijah stands above the fire he’s kindled back to life, his breath a misty plume in the flat gray light of dawn. He wraps his jacket tighter and stares, still half asleep, into the flames as he waits for the fire to grow enough that he might put the water on to boil and begin readying breakfast.
The village at the foot of the mountains is just beginning to wake; Eliza tells him that in another hour, more or less, everyone will be up, but since she is an early riser she has taken to lighting the fires in the communal cooking area.
He startles as a hand on his shoulder rouses him. His father. He smiles.
“You looked to be still asleep.”
“Just lost in thought,” Elijah answers as he rises to stand beside his father. “Has there been any news?”
“The sentry in the woods saw a rider leave, pounding westward like the world was on fire.”
“Taking word to Tristan, or possibly Lucien first,” Elijah muses grimly. “I will have to ask him if he thinks his uncle will raise his army.”
“You stayed the night with him.” His father’s voice is quiet, thoughtful.
Elijah tucks his hands under his arms to ward off the chill and nods.
“How is he?”
“I doubt he will be wanting his boots for a day or two, but otherwise he is fine.”
“You don’t owe him anything here. You are free of him.”
Elijah feels the gentle pressure of his father’s hand on his shoulder. “I know this.” He draws a deep breath and turns to face Medias. “Are you disappointed with me?”
His father’s eyes slowly meet his. “No, how could I be? You are my son and I love you.”
“All my life I have wanted to be like you. Well, most of it,” he adds with a tiny smile. There was a hard year or two when he was growing up; times when he did not agree with his father, times he felt stifled and repressed. “I think all young men want to be like their fathers at some time or other, to please them, to make them proud.”
“Most, yes,” Medias agrees.
“Orlando wanted to please his father too, but his father is not like you. Tristan’s hand was never kind, never loving and his motivations purely selfish. Orlando’s actions were in the hopes that his father would show him some favor, even if to one of us it would have seemed a slap more than a caress.” He watches his father’s face, but his father is practiced in the art of keeping his thoughts close and reveals no hint of how he feels.
“Will you accept him?” Elijah wonders. “He is a part of me."
“And you think you love him.”
“I know I do. He has made mistakes -"
Medias sighs but fixes him with a tight-lipped smile. “You have to understand, Elijah, that you know him. We do not. For the time that we were there, he was an immediate threat to you and our family.” His father pauses and Elijah knows what he’s thinking - Orlando could have killed them all had he so desired it. “Perhaps toward the end I saw your influence, but you have to realize that I find this difficult.”
Elijah feels a churning in his belly, the desperation of wanting to please and yet be pleased. “He gave up everything for me.”
“He had nothing left to give, Elijah. His kingdom had been taken from him, he said as much himself. Perhaps he came because he feared for his own life."
“No,” Elijah returns forcefully. “He lost it all because of me. If he wanted it at all, he would have listened to John; he would have ruled the way his father wanted. Don’t you see? He was never the son his father wanted because it went against his nature. He left it behind because he didn’t want it anymore; he didn’t want -“ Elijah stops when he feels his father’s hand squeeze his shoulder reassuringly.
“I trust you.”
Elijah looks into his father’s eyes, needing for it to be true.
“You wouldn’t let just anyone have your heart,” Media’s continues. “Just ... be patient with us.”
Elijah nods; there will be time for his father and the rest of his family to see what he has seen, to know the Orlando that he knows. “As you will be with him, I hope? He still has much to learn.”
His father favors him with a wise and knowing smile and nods. “Of course.”
*
The smell of a cooking fire wakes him and Orlando opens his eyes with no idea where he is or how he came to be here. It is dark inside, like a cavern with the fire dead and only a strip of gray light falling through a flap. A tent flap. He moves one foot and feels the burn of abraded skin; then he remembers the walk. It hadn’t been a dream. But the bed is empty. Did Elijah change his mind in the night and find somewhere else to sleep?
He throws the bedding aside and the cool air chills his skin. He remembers where Elijah hung his clothes and finds them easily enough. Standing to pull up his breeches is another task entirely and met with much cursing under his breath. He pulls on his shirt, but leaves his boots for a moment, hoping to gain the courage and strength to pull them on.
The flap parts and Orlando squints at a dark shape silhouetted by the gray sky beyond.
“Good, you’re dressed.”
“Elijah -“ He wants to ask why Elijah left him, but Elijah has disappeared. He sighs and leans over the edge of the bed to retrieve his boots, but the ring catches his eye and he plucks it from the peg, turning it in his fingers. He has no desire to wear it. He looks up again when the flap is pushed aside once more, this time a much smaller figure enters first. Erica.
“Good morning,” she sings. Actually sings.
Orlando smiles at her and returns her greeting.
“I want to give it to him,” she says, turning to Elijah.
“No, it’s hot. I’ll do it,” Elijah replies, nudging her forward so that he can deliver the bowl of soup.
He notices little Eric standing by his brother’s knee; he shakes his head and pats the space to his left - Erica having already commandeered the place to his right - and looks at Elijah through the curls of steam.
“I thought you might be hungry so I didn’t wait,” Elijah offers in explanation for his absence.
Orlando nods distractedly, glad that Elijah didn’t leave for another reason, as Erica touches the ring he’s left absently on his thumb. “Would you like to see it?” he asks her.
“You didn’t bring the puppet, did you?” Eric says, fidgeting in his seat and trying to see the ring his sister is playing with.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t have time to go back for it. I would have brought it if I could.”
Eric frowns, then perks up. “Maybe we could make one?”
“I don’t know if it would look much like the other.” Orlando’s voice is as apologetic as his smile.
“It wouldn’t have to be exactly the same,” Eric tells him.
He catches Elijah’s eye, sees the mirth and apology in their depths, and something else, something that makes him feel so warm, so ... loved.
“I hope you don’t mind," Elijah grins at him, "they wanted to see you.”
Orlando shakes his head; it doesn’t bother him, though he suspects they might have only come to see about the puppet.
“The others aren’t so sure yet.” The apology in Elijah’s eyes deepens. Orlando knows it is foolish to hope for a warmer reception. He smiles to assure Elijah that he understands.
“This is very pretty,” Erica says of his ring.
“Do you want it?” Orlando watches her blue eyes widen. She nods and clasps her hands over her treasure.
“Are you sure?” Elijah asks as he lifts his sister onto his lap so that he can sit.
Orlando nods. “It stands for something I once was, but am no more.”
“I want to show it to Eliza and Elisabeth!” she crows and dashes toward the flap of the tent and disappears, Eric following behind her.
Orlando’s smile clings to his lips long after they’ve gone. He feels so grateful to be sitting here, to have been given a chance for a new life, one without walls to keep. He watches Elijah reach for the leather pouch on the wall before asking Orlando to put his feet up.
“I can do that myself,” Orlando says, nodding towards the salve.
The corner of Elijah’s mouth lifts. “I’m sure you can, but I want to do this for you.”
Orlando doesn’t do as he’s asked. He leans toward Elijah instead, a question burning on his tongue, one that must be asked and answered. “There is something I’ve wondered, Elijah. I never dared to ask before because I was afraid your answer wouldn’t be the truth but only said to please me.”
“What question?” Elijah asks.
“Do you love me? You have never said.” He feels like a fool for asking. “I feel it, but I wonder if that is me taking too much liberty with the kindness you’ve shown.”
“I do, yes.”
“Will you never say the words?”
“I was waiting.”
“For what?”
Elijah rests his hand against Orlando’s neck and rubs his thumb against the rough stubble. “For you to want them.” Elijah smoothes his thumb over Orlando's bottom lip.
“I do.” Orlando closes his eyes as Elijah leans forward, sliding against him. Their cheeks brush and he folds his arms around the familiar shape of Elijah’s body, pulling them together so that there is nothing between them except heat. He feels Elijah’s lips against his ear, and the words that he needs to hear.
“I love you.”
And they lived happily ever after. <3