Fic: Of Kings and Slaves Part 4 (Formerly titled Wank :)
Title: Of kings and slaves AU (formerly known as Wank)
Rating: NC-17 over all (this part is lacking the NC-17 because the fic is too long:P)
Paring: OB EW
Warnings: Dubious consent in earlier chapters
Disclaimer: All for fun and so untrue
HUGE, HUGE thanks to talesinbloom for the beta work on this. I owe you big time! *offers nekkid Orli* :D
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
I changed the title of this fic to try to remedy the sucktacularness of the original :P I fail as titles as much as I fail at updating my WIPs on a better schedule
Annnnd because of LJ size limits I had to cut off the fic and now it's late and well, there will be smut, but it'll be tomorrow *g* I'm sorry!
Elijah's ripped from sleep by a terrifying sound and heavy weight crushing his chest.
He opens his eyes to get his bearings and tries to put his arms out to stop his attacker, but he's sightless in the dark. The arms around him hold him so close that he can't move. He opens his mouth to cry out, but a desperate grab for air takes priority as the suffocating arms cinch tighter.
Lips move against the sensitive skin beneath his ear and he feels hot breath against his neck as Orlando keens. It's a sound that raises the hair on his nape, and the only consolation is that he knows where he is now and what's going on; Orlando's dreaming again.
But there's no time for relief, not when Orlando's squeezing him hard enough to crack a rib and not being able to breathe is terrifying. He tries to pull Orlando's arms away, but that only causes Orlando to make that noise again and clamp down harder . Elijah's afraid that tonight might be the night he loses his life to Orlando's nightmares.
There's another twisted moan from Orlando, but Elijah forces himself to ignore it. Self preservation is priority, and his arms might be useless, but his legs are free. He draws back and kicks Orlando in the shins as hard as he can.
Orlando grunts and rolls over. Elijah squirms to freedom at the edge of the bed, but it's not until his feet hit the cold stone floor that he feels safe. He runs a hand along his aching chest and tries to focus on breathing. Just breathe.
His legs shake as he waits for a sign that Orlando will come after him. He passes a hand over his sweaty face. It's so much worse when it happens in the middle of the night. He stands there until he's shivering from the cold, and finally the dark and Orlando's stillness lure him back beneath the covers.
Whatever it is that terrorizes Orlando's dreams has a long reach and he wonders if there will come a time when a kick to the shins won't work. This had been the worst, but he doubts it's the last. Orlando never mentions it in the morning, never seems to notice the bruises or fresh scratches, and Elijah just doesn't know what to say.
He listens to the steady ebb and flow of Orlando's breath and seeks sleep, but his mind is restless now. He finds himself thinking of his family. They're locked away in the chambers at the end of the hall. So close, and yet he hasn't seen them since the night he was brought to this room for Orlando.
His thoughts turn to happier times, times when he was a boy and thought of little other than finding the best hiding spots in the garden or listening at his father's knee. Life had been so much easier then.
He sighs heavily and curls his hand under his chin; finally he drifts toward sleep.
*
Elijah knows he's not supposed to be here. If Evangeline catches him in her room she'll scream for Piper and get him in trouble, but he's drawn inexorably toward a gilded cage on a table before the window, and more so to the little yellow bird it contains.
The songbird was a gift to his sister on her tenth birthday. The merchant who gave it to her claimed it warbled the sweetest tune, but it had remained silent all through dinner, through the pudding and games, and it looked as though it would remain so. Evangeline had tried everything to make sing - she fed it seeds from the palm of her hand, she whistled to it, and even sang to it in her own sweet voice - but it would not reward her efforts. "Once the excitement's over," his mother had consoled her, when Evangeline finally declared it broken, but it seemed that his mother did not, in fact, know everything, for even after the party had ended and the cage had been moved to her room the bird still would not sing.
As Elijah creeps forward, both ears on alert for his sister's footsteps, he thinks that Evangeline was right, though his suspicions as to why are not as innocent as hers. He'd watched as it beat its delicate wings against the cage, time after time straining toward the sky it could see, but not reach, and he'd noticed as the weeks passed it finally stopped trying. In the end, he knew it wouldn't sing because its spirit was broken.
He couldn't imagine being trapped like that. It wouldn't even matter if it was the finest prison and he was treated to the finest things, a golden prison was still a prison. He'd asked her - begged her even - if she wouldn't set it free, but Evangeline, spoiled and headstrong, denied him. "It belongs to me!"
"Even if it's broken?" He had goaded her, wanting nothing more than to set the bird free.
"It's not broken," she told him sharply. "It sang for me this morning."
He didn't believe her - didn't want to believe her - but, as if on cue, the bird trilled sweetly.
"You see?" she'd gloated as she skipped to the cage. "Isn't it beautiful? He sings for me because he loves me."
He hadn't replied. It was beautiful, but it made him sad instead of happy because he knew it had forgotten what it was like to be free. He hadn't gone into her room again after that, and for all he knew the bird was still in its gilded prison. He knows that he would have set it free and gotten in trouble for it.
But in his dream, he sneaks forward cautiously. He senses that she's near, that she could catch him at any moment, but today is the day he's going to set the little prisoner free and he's more afraid of failure than getting caught.
The heavy table scrapes against the stone as he lifts himself onto it - he has to in order to reach the door to the cage - and the songbird flits nervously from perch to perch. Just a moment longer and he'll be able to set it free . It feels like a huge victory is at hand and his heart thumps heavily with anticipation. He reaches around the cage and happily flips open the little door. He waits for it to realize that it's free, honestly expecting that the second he opened the door it would rush through it and disappear, but the little bird only starts to warble.
"You're free," he tells it, but it continues to sing. He hears footsteps in the hall and feels a momentary anguish. He sticks his hand into the cage and tries to retrieve the imprisoned creature, but the bird simply hops to a perch that is impossible to reach.
"What are you doing?" Evangeline's cry pierces the air.
"I'm setting him free!" he grits out as he contorts himself trying to reach it, desperate to give it its freedom.
"You can't! He's mine!"
"He shouldn't be in a cage." Elijah yanks his hand out and tries to shake it free. His heart catches as it alights on the wire at the door, but it doesn't fly away.
"See?" she says, her hands firmly planted on her hips. "He doesn't want to be free."
Elijah gently lifts the protesting little bird and holds it in his open hand. There's a moment when it flutters its wings and he feels such a sense of relief and hope, but the little creature hops back into the cage.
"It's used to its prison now."
"What?" he asks numbly.
"It likes it," she says in a tone that indicates he's clearly the stupidest person in world. "Close the door and it will sing again."
"No," he denies with a horrified shake of his head. It can't sing if it's not happy and it can't be happy in a prison, can it?
"It likes its cage, Elijah," she says as she skips forward happily and easily pulls herself up onto the table despite her unwieldy dress . She reaches around and slips the door closed. "See?"
He shakes his head. He won't see. It can't be happy. But the little bird proves him wrong and sings sweetly.
Evangeline fixes him with wise and knowing blue-gray eyes and leans forward with a smug smirk upon her lips. "It likes its prison, Elijah, just like you."
*
Elijah's eyes snap open. His heart is hammering in his chest again, just as it had when Orlando's dream had terrorized him in the middle of the night. At least there's light in the room now. It's the milky, otherworldly light of predawn, but he can make out the standing closets, the chairs and tables before the fireplace - the familiar features of his prison.
I am no caged bird. I have not forgotten what it's like to be free.
His dreams usually fade like fog on summer mornings burned away by the sun, but not this one. This one remains vivid. He can't escape his sister's accusation, and he can't get the ache that he felt when he held the tiny bird and offered it freedom and it turned its back, out of his mind.
It likes its prison, Elijah, just like you. Evangeline's voice has become his own.
That's not true. I hate it.
You should hate it more.
Elijah draws his knees to his chest, tucking in against the cold, both inside and out, and burrows his nose into the blankets. They smell of Orlando and sex. His insides flicker and tighten - not with fear, but want. He's not a bird, and yet he sings.
Even now, half awake and angry with himself, the smell and thought of Orlando elicits a response from his body. If only it had remained something purely physical. If only that spark of heat had been contained in his belly and never reached his heart, he would be able to direct his frustration at his captor and his cage instead of being content.
He doesn't know how it happened, he doesn't know when it happened. There's no single moment where he can lay blame. The truth is that it was so gradual he didn't even notice. Orlando had ... settled as the weeks passed, his tone steadily becoming softer and less demanding, but it was more than just that. It was the way Orlando had looked so happy when he realized he'd won his first game of Strategy and Elijah had not let him. There was something stunning about that smile, something that erased the hard edges of Orlando's face and made Elijah's heart catch on a beat.
And there was the way Orlando listened and took his advice regarding the kingdom. Complain as he might at the time, the fact is that Elijah's suggestions never fell on deaf ears. Then there was the way Orlando thanked him later in the dark. Was it wrong that he should like the way Orlando looks at him? Is it wrong that he should like it now?
What tune will you sing for him?
*
Elijah feels Orlando stir, turning in the bed, but he keeps his face to the wall. He jumps when he feels Orlando's fingertips dust his skin.
"You're awake?" Orlando asks softly, but there's no reply. He leaves Elijah to his edge of the bed and reluctantly climbs out, drawing on his clothes as quickly as possible.
"Orlando?"
His heart lurches at the sound of Elijah's voice, flickering with a tiny flame of hope that his next word might be stay. He longs to hear it, longs to be wanted, but when he turns his gaze upon the bed he finds it empty.
"What is it?" Orlando asks as he yanks up his pants and fumbles for the ties, patently ignoring the boy moving around the foot of the bed.
Waiting for Elijah to answer tests his nerves. He hopes for one thing, one word, one request, but he knows he hopes in vain. "Why are you up? Is something wrong?" He keeps any real concern from his tone, but he's curious as to why Elijah's broken his routine - getting up, instead of snuggling in his favored spot in the middle of the bed - and it's never lost on Orlando that this occurs only after he's climbed out into the chill morning air. He resists the urge to peel his trousers back off and pull Elijah back under the still-warm bed covers.
"I wonder if you'd take me with you today?” Elijah asks. “I can't stand being caged in here." He doesn’t want to love his prison, even though he already feels it might be too late.
Orlando's stunned by the boldness of Elijah's question. It's easy for him to forget the boy was once a prince and used to being forward. Forgets, that is, until a question like this reminds him. He continues to dress and considers the request. He can see the hope and desire in Elijah's blue eyes and stifles the bitter pang he feels at the fact that look is never directed at him.
"Please." Elijah's never had to beg for anything so simple, so commonplace, as stepping out of doors, but he's desperate to prove that he still wants to escape his gilded cage, even if it’s only for a few hours.
Orlando resists looking at Elijah because he already knows that he's not going to grant the request. If he were to bring Elijah, protocol demands that he put his slave to work and while working in the muck and the mire is fine for himself, he's just too selfish to see Elijah dirtied or hurt. Any attempt at trying to spare him the work would come across as a form of weakness, of emasculation. His soldiers would say that his slave has him by the balls and that would be unacceptable.
"No."
Elijah cocks his head, as if he can't believe he's been told no, and perhaps the once-Prince still isn't used to hearing it. Orlando's sure there are many things the boy's not used to.
"I could help," Elijah counters. "I could- "
"I said no." Orlando says firmly. He watches Elijah's face; those eyes give away so much. There's a moment where something dark threads through them - anger - and then they light on the game board.
"I'll play you a game of Strategy," Elijah challenges lifting his chin. "If I win, I get to go with you. If I lose, I stay as always."
Orlando grins at this as he moves on to tie the laces of his leather vest. Elijah's tenacity and resourcefulness knows no bounds, and while he knows these are qualities his father would beat out of his slaves, Orlando's fascinated by it. He likes the unpredictability and the fact that it's so dangerous, yet Elijah's still brave enough to risk it. He likes the fire it puts in Elijah's cool blue eyes.
He hides his smile as he looks at the board and then Elijah. "I will play you, but if you beat me- "
"I get to go out," Elijah pressures.
" - and I don't think you will," Orlando continues, completely ignoring the interruption, "I'll let you spend time with your family. In the gardens outside, if you like," he adds as some manner of concession. "And if you lose, you stay here and keep yourself ready for me. Will you play for those stakes?"
Elijah nods and moves to set up the board. Honestly, he hadn't expected to get this far with Orlando, and the prospect of seeing his family is more than he dared ask for.
The game is close, but Orlando leaves a man vulnerable and that is the beginning of his end. Elijah easily captures all his men and Orlando watches as he scrambles from his chair to pull on a shirt and vest. He's sorry that he lost - he hates to lose - but, gods help him, he's not sorry that Elijah won.
"I can still go, can't I?" Elijah asks as he stands fully dressed before Orlando. He can see some misgiving in those dark eyes. "I beat you fairly," he reminds.
Elijah watches Orlando sweep the wooden discs aside as if to erase the evidence of his loss. For a moment, he thinks Orlando will take it back - deny him - and he won't stand for it. It's only when Orlando nods that he dares to breathe again.
"You'll wait here until I send guards to escort you," Orlando instructs as he picks up his gloves. "I don't need to warn you against doing anything foolish, do I?" Like trying to escape.
It's the unspoken issue between them. Elijah shakes his head, but Orlando doesn't appear to be satisfied until he hears a very clearly uttered, "No."
He'd be a fool to think Elijah wasn't constantly plotting for it - and he's no fool, no matter what his father may think - but Orlando can't imagine being trapped in here day after day, and he's not without compassion. He'll just make sure there are enough guards posted to ease his mind.
Elijah watches Orlando leave silently. He doesn't hear the sound of the bar being dropped into place and like a moth to a flame he's lured to the door. He tests it, and it gives beneath his touch. Through the gap, from the other end of the hall, he hears a chorus of excited cries and he smiles. He wants to see them so badly.
He closes the door quietly and sits in the chair to wait.
*
"Oh, let me look at you!" His mother cries as she lunges forward and draws him into her arms. He wonders how she can even see him with the way she keeps yanking him close and smothering his face with kisses. Every time he thinks she's through, she's draws him forward again, until finally she hugs him tight and whispers, "I've missed you," in his ear. At last she stands him at arms length, and he feels like he's on display as she and the rest of the family looks him over.
"You're all right? He's treating you all right?" she asks. Her soft hands are on his cheeks, then his neck, trailing across his shoulders and down his arms to where she lifts his hands. He can tell it's all a thinly disguised inspection of his person.
"I'm fine." He smiles and she returns it uncertainly.
"Truly?" she asks, and he notes not one, but six expectant faces waiting for his answer.
He nods. "I'm fine. Truly." He can see the doubt in her eyes, but he's not about to tell her about the mark in ink Orlando's placed upon his body, or the last time he was in this garden. Both thoughts cause him to blush hotly, but he's not been hurt physically and not how he thinks he could be.
His sisters and brother, who have been patiently waiting, break the uneasy silence by attacking him with hugs, kisses, and laughter.
"You'll play Seek with us, won't you?" Edward asks, tugging on Elijah's trousers.
"Of course." He'd do anything for them, anything to make them happy, especially like they are now.
"In a minute, children," Medias says softly, shooing them off with a flap of his hand. Without question, they obediently turn to play on the grass.
Medias stands uncomfortably and Elijah can see the heavy weight of remorse in his father's eyes. He offers what little comfort he can with a hug and words he hopes will help. "This isn't your fault."
Medias hugs Elijah close and ignores the ugly looks from Orlando's guards. More's the pity for them, if they never knew or wanted a hug from their father. "I shouldn't have let it come to this. I should've- "
"You did what you could to save this kingdom and your family. Your people stood behind you, and still stand, as do I."
"But what I've brought you to- "
Elijah doesn't think about that, or the wetness pooling in his father's eyes, instead he looks up at the azure sky and feels the sun on his cheeks. He's grateful to still be alive to feel it and when he lowers his eyes he sees his family, his brother and sisters still able to run, laugh, and play. "We are all still alive and still together, that's all that matters."
"How did you get to be so wise?" Medias wonders aloud and marvels at the man his son has become.
"You raised me." Elijah's smile falters when his father's does. "I didn't mean to upset you."
Medias throws his arm around his son's shoulders and drags him further into the garden and the copse of trees that hides them from the prying eyes of Orlando's soldiers. "You don't upset me, Elijah, you make me very proud." The entire situation makes him feel weak and unable to protect his family. He's angry that Elijah has been made to pay for what little claim they have left upon this world, but there would be no explaining that to his son.
*
"It's no wonder they fell, eh, my lord?"
Orlando ignores the prattling guard and watches surreptitiously as Medias hugs his son.
"They're soft these lot, always kissin' and hugging on each other like that. Though I bet he makes a right fine fuh- "
The guard's lips mash together on the last word and muddy hazel eyes find something very fascinating on the ground. The young guard would have said it wasn't so much something interesting, as it was the only place he could think to look that was away from the anger in the eyes of his king, and over what? A comment about a slave? Thomas does believe his King is sweet on his slave.
And later, as he stands around the fire with his comrades, he will voice that very belief. Because it's juicy gossip, and the eyes of the others will focus on him as he tells them that he saw ire in his king's eyes over a harmless comment about a slave, a whore.
He'll say what he stopped short of saying now - that he imagines Elijah's a right fine fuck because of how liberal he is with his hugs and kisses - and that the look Orlando gave him was sharp enough to cut the tongue from his mouth. They'll ask him to recount the tale over and over again, and finally they’ll nod, their suspicions over the weaknesses of Tristan’s son at last confirmed.
He savors the thought of their attention. There's no telling what this tidbit of information could do for him.
Orlando leaves him without a word, and Thomas finally un-slumps his shoulders and looks around. Perhaps he should take this information to John, first. The Master of Arms had asked for anything odd regarding the behavior of their newly appointed King, and he thinks this might just qualify.
*
"You are truly well?" His mother asks again, once it's just the three of them.
"I am," Elijah reassures a second time.
"You wouldn't tell your old mother if you weren't now, would you?"
Elijah smiles. "You'd know it just by looking at me."
She peers around the garden and once she's satisfied, leans in to hug him once more. This time he feels the press of something hard against his hand.
"We've something for you," she whispers.
Elijah opens his hand and takes the object wrapped in cloth; it's a long knife. He stares at it mutely for a minute or two. "What am I to do with this?"
"If he hurts you- "
"I don't need this."
"How can you be sure? Elijah!" she cries as he tries to hand it back to her. "Keep it!"
"And if I'm caught with it?"
She huffs out a breath. "Don't get caught. Hide it, but keep it."
"You're brave, my boy," Medias says seriously, "but don't think he won't- "
"I've heard the same gossip as you." Just because Elijah's door is locked doesn't mean that Piper is barred from entering, and with the servant comes news of his new master, not to mention the warnings that have come from Orlando's own lips.
"There's always some truth in rumors, you know this," his father says, dourly.
"And I don't doubt it either," Elijah says as he closes his hand around the weapon. "But this only makes it riskier."
His parents are quiet and finally he looks at them and their open, worried faces.
"You feel sorry for him." His mother's face is white with shock.
Elijah's sure it seems strange to them, but they don't know. "He cries out in his sleep."
"What?" They ask in unison.
Elijah thinks of the strangled sounds Orlando makes and the hands that grip him to wakefulness in the dead of night. That first night he would've used the knife out of fear that Orlando was trying to kill him, but Orlando had been dreaming. "He cries out for someone." And when he does he sounds like a wounded animal.
"He is a beast," Necia sputters heatedly.
Elijah can understand why she thinks this, but he doesn't feel the same. Not after hearing those cries and the vulnerability they reveal. He thinks that if Orlando knew, he'd be sorely embarrassed.
"Can Elijah come play now?" Edward's gasping as he comes to a tumbling stop near their private tête-à-tê.
"Go," Necia tells Elijah softly, knowing the battle with her son is over for now.
Elijah hands the weapon back to her and turns to jog after his brother.
"Stubborn boy." She sighs with a shake of her head.
"You always said he had your finer attributes," Medias notes with a devious smile quirking the corner of his mouth.
"Oh you!" Elijah hears his mother cry, with mock indignation and a playful swat of his father's shoulder. "He gets that from you!"
He's smiling as he chases after a laughing Edward.
*
Orlando enters the garden in the late afternoon and starts when he sees Necia and Medias sitting alone under one large, blossoming tree. His thoughts immediately turn to the whereabouts of Elijah and his siblings. Guards are posted at every point of exit, so he doesn't panic unduly, but he makes a promise - if they've helped their children escape, he'll run them through where they stand.
"Where is he?" He asks his question of Medias, but it's Necia who responds.
"He's with his brothers and sisters," she says defensively, and nods her head toward the heart of the garden. "Can't you leave him a little longer?"
Orlando ignores the plea and walks away. Longer? Hasn't he been deprived of Elijah long enough? It's late and he's tired from a long day spent erecting the timbers for the framework that will soon provide permanent shelter for the market, one of Elijah's ideas. What began as mere desire for the boy's face and body, has quickly become a need for Elijah's entire nature - that calm rationale and patience - even if his sagacity is in direct conflict with whatever Orlando wants from him at the time.
The hedges that surround the oasis in the middle of the garden are lush and green from plenty of spring rain and early summer sun. They block his view, which causes Orlando to hurry over the well-tended path. He has what's certainly an irrational fear, that it might just be a ruse, and when he reaches the hidden circle he'll find only empty grass. Finally, he hears Elijah's voice and he exhales his agitation in favor of relief.
"What did he do then, Lijah? Tell us. He didn't let her go, did he?" This is the voice of one of the little ones, the girl. He doesn't remember her name.
"Well, Absalom had a choice to make, didn't he?" Elijah says judiciously, like a teacher trying to teach a lesson. Orlando trails his fingers through the foliage and pauses to listen. "He could stay in his kingdom, with its gold and all its riches, or he could have love."
"Why couldn't he have both?" That question comes from the boy and he catches himself smiling at the sound of Elijah's laughter.
"He couldn't have both."
"Why not?"
"Because Vera didn't want to be second to riches or power."
"But without gold, he wouldn't have been able to buy her pretty dresses." The youngest girl again.
"She didn't care just for dresses," Elijah answers patiently.
"How could she not care about dresses?" she asks earnestly, and once more Orlando hears Elijah laugh.
"You're too young to understand such things, Erica, but love is about more than what another person can give you, so far as possessions go. Vera knew this. She didn't want dresses or jewels or a castle to live in, she wanted his love."
"What did he choose?" This is a thoroughly exasperated and impatient question from the boy.
"Love!" is cried in a loud chorus from the girls, and Orlando catches himself grinning at their innocent verve. You'd have believed such tripe, too. His father's sneering and offensive voice rises unbidden and wipes the smile from his lips.
"Yes," Elijah agrees, and Orlando can hear the smile in his voice. "That's what Absalom chose. He gave up his castle and his riches. He fell to his knees before her and said, 'I have nothing, I am nothing. My kingdom, my wealth, I give up for you. My only empire is the dirt on which I stand, and I'd give up even that, if you'd but just love me'."
"Did she?" Erupts a choir of children's voices.
"Yes."
"And they lived happily ever after?" Erica asks as she lifts her cheek from Elijah's shoulder and looks up.
'I'd like to think so," Elijah says, with a smile.
"Me too! Though I don't know how she'd be happy without dresses, or jewels or- "
Her chatters stops suddenly and Elijah watches as she shrinks toward Evangeline with her arms open. He doesn't have to guess at what's caused this, and he doesn't need to turn to see that Orlando's standing there. Who else would they have to fear?
"Don't want you to go, Lijah," Edward cries as Elijah gets to his feet. He's rendered immobile by two arms wrapped around his knees.
"Edward." He tries to gently extricate himself from his brother's grasp.
Orlando fights to keep his head up; he won't be cowed by the teary faces of a few children. He tries to smile at them, but it feels stiff on his lips and does little to calm the children, as evidenced by Erica's wail.
"You don't have to go, do you?" Orlando watches as Edward turns his sodden face to Elijah's legs. If he would have ever put on such a display as a boy … He shudders to think what his tears would have earned him.
"I'm sure," Elijah says in a coddling voice, "that if you don't give me any trouble now, I'll be allowed to visit you again soon."
This causes five pair of eyes, all in various shades of blue, to turn on Orlando. Edward's still swim with unshed tears, and he feels like a complete and utter shit. The longer he stands there, the worse the creeping shame fills him, so he agrees with a nod just to get it over with. He knows there's no harm in these visits, provided there are enough guards to keep watch.
Like a brief summer deluge, there are only the large tears on Edward's lashes to indicate there'd ever been a storm. Edward's smile bursts forth like the sun and he releases his brother's legs. But even with that promise, the walk back to the back to the shady tree where Medias and Necia are sitting is like a funeral procession, and Elijah still has to coax the boy into letting go of his hand.
Orlando walks away as Elijah kisses his mother and sisters in turn, and he watches with what he hopes passes for disinterest, the exchange between Elijah and his father. Again they embrace, and he realizes that it fascinates him because he's never felt the same from his own father. He has the vaguest memories of his mother holding him like that, it had been comforting, but it's so distant that it almost seems more of a dream.
"Take the knife," Elijah's father whispers in his ear. "Take it and hide it."
Elijah shakes his head and gives his father's whiskered cheek a kiss. "I'm not afraid of him," he soothes before he turns to follow Orlando into the keep.
"Who were you speaking about?" Orlando asks, as soon as they're alone in the hall. "What manner of king would give up their wealth and title for love?"
Elijah chews on his bottom lip and tries to eat the smile threatening the corners of his mouth. He's amused by the thought of Orlando pausing to listen to the fairy tale and think it real, but nothing tempts his laughter quite as much as the way Orlando sneers the word love, as if it's a blight. "You were listening."
"Only for a moment."
"It's just a story."
"A silly one." Orlando's derisive words echo in the tight stairwell.
"What's so silly about it?"
"The very idea of it," Orlando scoffs. "That would never happen."
"Why not? A castle and crown, those are only things. Absalom wanted what title and riches couldn't give him."
"Power, and the riches that come with it, will get you what ever you want," Orlando sneers.
"Not everything. Not love."
Elijah hears Orlando's exasperated exhale at his contrariness.
"You can have something physically and never truly be in possession of it," Elijah points out as they arrive on the landing.
Orlando's eyes narrow as he looks at the boy. This line of reasoning is foreign to him and makes little sense. "When you own something, it's yours."
"That may work with objects, but not with people. Simply lording your position over someone doesn't mean a thing. So, you see them with your physical eyes - they walk and talk and do what you ask - but all the while, they hate you. You never have their essence, and anything that is caged or oppressed will try to escape the first chance it gets."
Orlando turns so abruptly Elijah walks into his chest. "Do you talk about yourself or your people?"
"Does it matter?"
Orlando's upper lip curls and he reaches out and places a hand on Elijah's shoulder. "I have you." There's skin over bone, he can feel it beneath his fingers, and blood warming the skin beneath it. He possesses this boy and no words or silly talk of love will change that.
"Do you?"
Orlando's annoyed with this conversation and Elijah's nonsensical reasoning. "Yes. I own you; you're mine."
Elijah lifts his chin defiantly. It doesn't surprise him that Orlando hasn't listened to a word he's said. "You don't have me."
"You're right here." Orlando touches his cheek to prove his point. He can touch Elijah - could kiss him, or fuck him - right here in the hall, if that's what he wanted.
Beneath his hands, Elijah shrugs. "You have a body, that's all. You don't have what really matters."
The thought that Elijah's able to keep something from him makes him insane. "What's the difference?"
"You don't think there would be, were I willing? How little you know, my lord."
Orlando blinks and tries to hide his reaction. He tries to bury it under a safer emotion - anger - as he shoves Elijah into the bedroom. "We are done with this discussion. I should tell you now that I care nothing for love, so if you expect to use that against me you'll find you're wasting your efforts."
There's no chance for an argument as the door is shut and bolted behind him. Elijah thinks he'd be more inclined to believe what Orlando had said, had he not run away. He doesn't believe Orlando came to collect him just to lock him away. Indeed, he believes that his words have cut a little too close to home.
Orlando pelts down the stairs almost blindly, so wrapped in his thoughts that he doesn't realize he's run until he's at the bottom of the stair. He was born to take, that is what his father told him, and he remembers the swift clouts when he didn't make a decision fast enough. Hesitancy will get you killed. Pause and you risk looking weak, and I did not have a weakling for a son. Those words had been a threat more than advice.
Orlando had struggled to ensure his father that he had not had a weak son. He took what he wanted, and he did what he wanted, and he suffered the angst over the offences later, when he was alone. It had simply become easier as time passed.
His mother had told him it would be all right, if he didn't grow up to be like his father. He'd thought then it was the fever making her say such things. She'd looked so ill and had raved the better part of the morning, but her eyes had been clear then, and those words to him had been her last.
His father had also been a great taker of things, and now that Orlando is older and wiser he can see that she'd been taken, too. Her eyes had always been on the door - a captive, always seeking to escape. Had she stayed for him? Or simply because she knew that if she left, Tristan would hunt her down and force her back, or worse?
Elijah's words wouldn't have brought him to this state if Orlando hadn't known the truth of them, if there hadn't been that one time in his life when something had been given willingly, and not taken. It had been precious and different, and he'd held it dearly above all other things. He'd never considered that what made it special was the difference between giving and taking.
He rubs at his temple and wishes the conversation with Elijah had not stirred up the memory. More than that, he wishes it hadn't encouraged him to wonder if it could be like that with Elijah.
*
"You've a missive from your father."
Orlando cocks one eye. John is looming over him, thrusting out a folded piece of paper sealed by his father's ring and now tattered along the edges from the road. Orlando stares at the dark red wax; he can see that the seal isn't broken, but he has no doubt that John is privy to its contents.
"What does it say?" Orlando asks as he leans toward the game board. He'd been taken with watching the concentration on Elijah's face - the furrow that develops as the boy studies the board - and during those moments waiting with anticipation for Elijah to lift those blue eyes and indicate Orlando's turn. But now that John is here, he judiciously gives the game his attention instead.
It's a warm, late spring afternoon and he's chosen to spend it lazing in the shrinking scrap of sun admitted by one of the keep's high windows. He'd spent the morning hauling up huge posts to form the first of the framework for the new enclosed market, but they'd had to run for cover when the quickly gathering clouds let loose a deluge, and it had been too late in the day for returning to work when the sun had finally returned.
And that is the truth, he tells himself, not the fact that he couldn't find it in him to move from the chair, once he'd sat in it, or the fact that Elijah's pleas for a game or two were easily read as Elijah wanting his attention, and how could he deny that? But his 'laziness' earns him a withering look from John.
"I wouldn't know, Orlando," John returns, sourly.
Orlando chuckles softly, but there's no mirth in it. "I find that hard to believe."
John's hand is outstretched, still holding out the letter, but Orlando continues to ignore it. Elijah's blue eyes have lifted and he's caught by them - fixed, trapped, wrapped up in them - and they are so much better a waste of his time than his father's neatly scripted criticisms.
"He wants to see you," John snaps at last. "He needs to speak with you about your kingdom, and your conduct."
"I thought you didn't read the letter," Orlando returns dryly, but he's not surprised, not in the least. "But then I suppose it was you who expressed concerns regarding my conduct."
John neither confirms nor denies this accusation and they both know there'd be no point in it. His advisor has long been a spy for his father, anxious to run to Tristan with anything that paints Orlando in a negative light. Eagerly waiting for him to fall, or fail, anything that proves that John will never forgive him.
"Why doesn't he come here?" Orlando asks darkly as he takes the worn scrap of paper. He doesn't bother to open it, preferring instead to keep his father's vitriol under wraps. "He should come see my kingdom for himself, and not rely on insufficient descriptions." He knows very well the trouble his cutting remark will get him.
"There's nothing lacking in my descriptions, Orlando, I assure you. Even when that would be in your best interest," John contends in an amicable tone. He refuses to let Orlando think he's ruffled any feathers. But feathers can certainly be ruffled in the other direction. "Certainly you haven't forgotten that the queen is due to give birth any day? And you know he wouldn't want to miss the birth of what could, quite possibly, be a new heir."
"No doubt he can't wait to sire a son who won't be such a disappointment."
Elijah can hear the bitterness in Orlando's voice, and there's a moment, before Orlando blinks and it vanishes, where he can see the hurt.
"No doubt," John returns, with a smile that could rival the frostiest winter morning. "I'm sure it's much more likely now."
Elijah blinks in disbelief at the cold agreement that's fallen from John's lips. It's something he can't imagine. Perhaps he didn't hear correctly or perhaps John meant to say more? But if he did, why didn't he say it?
Orlando could ignore the jibe if it were directed only at him, he's learned to swallow such bitter words over the years, but this dig is aimed at his mother. "What do you mean by that?"
John merely shrugs and paces away with his hands behind his back and Orlando crumples the innocent parchment in his fist.
"What word shall I send to your father, my lord?"
Orlando turns his eyes back to the game board and tries to control his tongue and his sword. The message he'd dearly love to send would include nothing more than John's body slung over the back of a horse. How weak would his father think him then? "Send word that we're coming."
"We?"
Orlando's still staring at Elijah. He had said we and it hadn't been missed. "You're coming too, I'd imagine." He tries to cover his slip.
"Very good, my lord."
"Don't call me that," Orlando orders, the way John says it is anything, but respectful.
"As you wish."
Orlando smiles bitterly. "If that is so, then I wish you to leave."
"But, Orlando," his name still spoken in that same patronizing tone, "we need to discuss what's going to happen in your absence. Who should be left in charge and-"
"I want Valpreiso to oversee the men, and I want work to continue on the reconstruction as it has been," Orlando interrupts, with a look that will brook no argument. "Now, get out." He's anxious to be rid of the man who treats him with such derision and contempt, and the one he feels like killing for insulting his mother to his face.
He doesn't really give shit if his father thinks he's been far too consumed with buggering his slave to rule a kingdom, and he has no problem with the fact that his father's surely unaware of the long days spent amongst his people, as he seeks to rebuild what his armies tore down. He can handle any slight against his character or person, but he will not stand by and have his mother's image despoiled.
The precious few memories he has of her are the only ones that contain any tenderness. Just the thought of her causes tears to prick behind his eyes and he's surprised every time, that he still has tears to shed over her. He thought at some point the ache would go away, but it never does, and the words John speaks against her he will not bear.
"You have your orders." He knows if John doesn't leave soon he won't be responsible for the painful way his father's friend meets his end.
John's cold eyes travel to Elijah and the room is silent except for the faint pop and snap from wood on the fire. Orlando waits breathlessly to see what snide comment will be spoken to his face, and thinks it's a good thing for John that his sword is laying across the bench before the fire and not within reach of his hand.
John makes no comment, just shakes his head in disgust. So what if, when Orlando returns in the dusk, he seeks Elijah's company instead of spending hours discussing what should be done? He is getting it done, and he prefers not to waste time discussing what has been done, or what needs to be done. He's a man of action.
"When would you be leaving, my lord?"
"In the morning, I think. I'd like to get it over with."
John's lips mash together, surely biting back some retort. "I'll pull together guards and supplies for you."
"I'll do it," Orlando says, waving John off. He doesn't trust his father's advisor.
"And just in case you don't read it," John says as he sets down the scroll, "your father wants to see what's captivated your attention."
Orlando's eyes narrow as he turns to look up a John. "Am I to pack a kingdom in my pocket?"
John's face hardens and any amusement seeps from their hazel depths. Orlando sees it again, the naked hatred that really never goes away.
"Don't fuck with me or your father," John growls, but Orlando doesn't shrink from the venom. His days of being afraid are long gone. "You'll bring him or I'll bring him for you, but in a manner that would better please Tristan."
“Get out.”
Elijah watches as John ambles out of the room. He doesn’t make it a priority to obey, but it doesn’t surprise Elijah. There’s only been the barest modicum of respect between them and it would seem now that there will no longer be the pretense of even that, but what he hasn’t been able to figure out is why.
*
"Will you let me say goodbye to my family?" Elijah asks as he watches Orlando reach for the last of their personal effects.
Orlando continues to shove clothes into the leather saddlebag and ignores the boy's question. He's been in a black mood for days and this question grates on him for reasons he'd rather not explore.
"Please?"
"You had time with them, do not press me."
Elijah eyes the game board.
"Don't even suggest such foolishness to me. There's no time."
Elijah tries again. "Please?" He wants to know how hard he has to press before he gets what he wants.
"I said, no." Orlando grinds out, irritated with the way Elijah can't accept the order. This could all go so badly and that's exactly what his father and John are hoping. "Don't ask me again."
Elijah's mouth opens to protest, but the hard warning in Orlando's eyes stops him. There are certain times to press, but this is not one of them.
He can hear the sound of his sister's laughing as he passes the door, but Orlando's just behind him, spurring him down the stairs and the only thing he can hope for is that they’ll be safe and Orlando will bring him back.
It's cool outside in the misty morning air. He can see the breath of the horses as they're made ready and loaded with supplies. It’s a long trip, five days hard ride from here to Orlando’s uncle’s, and three days beyond that to reach Tristan’s kingdom. Orlando had told him that they could be gone as long as a month.
They're traveling in a small group of ten, no need to spare more as the road west belongs to them, and Orlando realizes with some irritation that they are waiting for John. "Is he coming or not?" he snaps, to the servant that finally comes with John's things.
"He is just finishing breakfast, my lord."
Orlando mounts his horse with fluid grace and extends a hand to Elijah.
"I have to ride with you?"
"Would you rather ride with John?" Orlando asks, tonelessly.
Elijah thinks about John's threat to take him back in a fashion that would be more acceptable, and knows that could be anything from dead, to losing his tongue. He extends his hand and feels Orlando's grip tighten as he's lifted easily to sit astride the horse.
"Tell Lord Segrist that he can catch up to us on the road. I won't wait on him."
"My lord?" The servant's voice is as much question as statement and Elijah can see the shock on the man’s face. He also sees the stunned look on the faces of the small contingent of guards. It’s obvious to him that none there can believe Orlando’s audacity, but secretly Elijah’s proud of him.
He clutches Orlando's waist as the horse moves impatiently. He looks over his shoulder toward the keep and the only home he's ever known; he can see a face in the narrow window. Eliza, he thinks as he squints, and then her long golden hair falls free and he knows it her.
He hopes they don't worry, even as he's worrying himself. He doesn't like the thought of leaving them behind and in the hands of soldiers who don't seem to be under the authority of their king. What if they take matters into their own hands?
Elijah lifts his hand in farewell to his sister and then he hears Orlando's command and the horse lurches forward so fast that he digs his fingers into the leather vest Orlando’s wearing. . He's ridden before, but he was always the one in charge, and sitting behind Orlando feels like he's in a precarious position. Truthfully, he's frightened - he's never been beyond the borders of his land and he's afraid of what awaits him.
Their exodus takes them through the village in the shadow of the keep. Everything here had been razed, he'd seen it all burn. He'd choked on the thick smoke and heard the cries of the dying and those who loved them. He didn't think he'd ever see the day when his people would raise their heads, or hands, in greeting to a new lord, but they do, and the ones who don't are busy bowing in the old way, as they once prostrated before his father.
"I'm glad to see you reap the fruits of my advice," he says, dryly.
Orlando doesn't react because even gratitude can't burn through the haze of indignation he's feeling toward John and his father right now. He urges his horse from a trot to a gallop. He won't go long like this, not wanting to tire his horse, but for now he leans into the rush of wind and enjoys the way Elijah has to lean into him.
There are moments of time when he closes his eyes and pretends that they are flying.
*
TBC Ch 4.2
Rating: NC-17 over all (this part is lacking the NC-17 because the fic is too long:P)
Paring: OB EW
Warnings: Dubious consent in earlier chapters
Disclaimer: All for fun and so untrue
HUGE, HUGE thanks to talesinbloom for the beta work on this. I owe you big time! *offers nekkid Orli* :D
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
I changed the title of this fic to try to remedy the sucktacularness of the original :P I fail as titles as much as I fail at updating my WIPs on a better schedule
Annnnd because of LJ size limits I had to cut off the fic and now it's late and well, there will be smut, but it'll be tomorrow *g* I'm sorry!
Elijah's ripped from sleep by a terrifying sound and heavy weight crushing his chest.
He opens his eyes to get his bearings and tries to put his arms out to stop his attacker, but he's sightless in the dark. The arms around him hold him so close that he can't move. He opens his mouth to cry out, but a desperate grab for air takes priority as the suffocating arms cinch tighter.
Lips move against the sensitive skin beneath his ear and he feels hot breath against his neck as Orlando keens. It's a sound that raises the hair on his nape, and the only consolation is that he knows where he is now and what's going on; Orlando's dreaming again.
But there's no time for relief, not when Orlando's squeezing him hard enough to crack a rib and not being able to breathe is terrifying. He tries to pull Orlando's arms away, but that only causes Orlando to make that noise again and clamp down harder . Elijah's afraid that tonight might be the night he loses his life to Orlando's nightmares.
There's another twisted moan from Orlando, but Elijah forces himself to ignore it. Self preservation is priority, and his arms might be useless, but his legs are free. He draws back and kicks Orlando in the shins as hard as he can.
Orlando grunts and rolls over. Elijah squirms to freedom at the edge of the bed, but it's not until his feet hit the cold stone floor that he feels safe. He runs a hand along his aching chest and tries to focus on breathing. Just breathe.
His legs shake as he waits for a sign that Orlando will come after him. He passes a hand over his sweaty face. It's so much worse when it happens in the middle of the night. He stands there until he's shivering from the cold, and finally the dark and Orlando's stillness lure him back beneath the covers.
Whatever it is that terrorizes Orlando's dreams has a long reach and he wonders if there will come a time when a kick to the shins won't work. This had been the worst, but he doubts it's the last. Orlando never mentions it in the morning, never seems to notice the bruises or fresh scratches, and Elijah just doesn't know what to say.
He listens to the steady ebb and flow of Orlando's breath and seeks sleep, but his mind is restless now. He finds himself thinking of his family. They're locked away in the chambers at the end of the hall. So close, and yet he hasn't seen them since the night he was brought to this room for Orlando.
His thoughts turn to happier times, times when he was a boy and thought of little other than finding the best hiding spots in the garden or listening at his father's knee. Life had been so much easier then.
He sighs heavily and curls his hand under his chin; finally he drifts toward sleep.
*
Elijah knows he's not supposed to be here. If Evangeline catches him in her room she'll scream for Piper and get him in trouble, but he's drawn inexorably toward a gilded cage on a table before the window, and more so to the little yellow bird it contains.
The songbird was a gift to his sister on her tenth birthday. The merchant who gave it to her claimed it warbled the sweetest tune, but it had remained silent all through dinner, through the pudding and games, and it looked as though it would remain so. Evangeline had tried everything to make sing - she fed it seeds from the palm of her hand, she whistled to it, and even sang to it in her own sweet voice - but it would not reward her efforts. "Once the excitement's over," his mother had consoled her, when Evangeline finally declared it broken, but it seemed that his mother did not, in fact, know everything, for even after the party had ended and the cage had been moved to her room the bird still would not sing.
As Elijah creeps forward, both ears on alert for his sister's footsteps, he thinks that Evangeline was right, though his suspicions as to why are not as innocent as hers. He'd watched as it beat its delicate wings against the cage, time after time straining toward the sky it could see, but not reach, and he'd noticed as the weeks passed it finally stopped trying. In the end, he knew it wouldn't sing because its spirit was broken.
He couldn't imagine being trapped like that. It wouldn't even matter if it was the finest prison and he was treated to the finest things, a golden prison was still a prison. He'd asked her - begged her even - if she wouldn't set it free, but Evangeline, spoiled and headstrong, denied him. "It belongs to me!"
"Even if it's broken?" He had goaded her, wanting nothing more than to set the bird free.
"It's not broken," she told him sharply. "It sang for me this morning."
He didn't believe her - didn't want to believe her - but, as if on cue, the bird trilled sweetly.
"You see?" she'd gloated as she skipped to the cage. "Isn't it beautiful? He sings for me because he loves me."
He hadn't replied. It was beautiful, but it made him sad instead of happy because he knew it had forgotten what it was like to be free. He hadn't gone into her room again after that, and for all he knew the bird was still in its gilded prison. He knows that he would have set it free and gotten in trouble for it.
But in his dream, he sneaks forward cautiously. He senses that she's near, that she could catch him at any moment, but today is the day he's going to set the little prisoner free and he's more afraid of failure than getting caught.
The heavy table scrapes against the stone as he lifts himself onto it - he has to in order to reach the door to the cage - and the songbird flits nervously from perch to perch. Just a moment longer and he'll be able to set it free . It feels like a huge victory is at hand and his heart thumps heavily with anticipation. He reaches around the cage and happily flips open the little door. He waits for it to realize that it's free, honestly expecting that the second he opened the door it would rush through it and disappear, but the little bird only starts to warble.
"You're free," he tells it, but it continues to sing. He hears footsteps in the hall and feels a momentary anguish. He sticks his hand into the cage and tries to retrieve the imprisoned creature, but the bird simply hops to a perch that is impossible to reach.
"What are you doing?" Evangeline's cry pierces the air.
"I'm setting him free!" he grits out as he contorts himself trying to reach it, desperate to give it its freedom.
"You can't! He's mine!"
"He shouldn't be in a cage." Elijah yanks his hand out and tries to shake it free. His heart catches as it alights on the wire at the door, but it doesn't fly away.
"See?" she says, her hands firmly planted on her hips. "He doesn't want to be free."
Elijah gently lifts the protesting little bird and holds it in his open hand. There's a moment when it flutters its wings and he feels such a sense of relief and hope, but the little creature hops back into the cage.
"It's used to its prison now."
"What?" he asks numbly.
"It likes it," she says in a tone that indicates he's clearly the stupidest person in world. "Close the door and it will sing again."
"No," he denies with a horrified shake of his head. It can't sing if it's not happy and it can't be happy in a prison, can it?
"It likes its cage, Elijah," she says as she skips forward happily and easily pulls herself up onto the table despite her unwieldy dress . She reaches around and slips the door closed. "See?"
He shakes his head. He won't see. It can't be happy. But the little bird proves him wrong and sings sweetly.
Evangeline fixes him with wise and knowing blue-gray eyes and leans forward with a smug smirk upon her lips. "It likes its prison, Elijah, just like you."
*
Elijah's eyes snap open. His heart is hammering in his chest again, just as it had when Orlando's dream had terrorized him in the middle of the night. At least there's light in the room now. It's the milky, otherworldly light of predawn, but he can make out the standing closets, the chairs and tables before the fireplace - the familiar features of his prison.
I am no caged bird. I have not forgotten what it's like to be free.
His dreams usually fade like fog on summer mornings burned away by the sun, but not this one. This one remains vivid. He can't escape his sister's accusation, and he can't get the ache that he felt when he held the tiny bird and offered it freedom and it turned its back, out of his mind.
It likes its prison, Elijah, just like you. Evangeline's voice has become his own.
That's not true. I hate it.
You should hate it more.
Elijah draws his knees to his chest, tucking in against the cold, both inside and out, and burrows his nose into the blankets. They smell of Orlando and sex. His insides flicker and tighten - not with fear, but want. He's not a bird, and yet he sings.
Even now, half awake and angry with himself, the smell and thought of Orlando elicits a response from his body. If only it had remained something purely physical. If only that spark of heat had been contained in his belly and never reached his heart, he would be able to direct his frustration at his captor and his cage instead of being content.
He doesn't know how it happened, he doesn't know when it happened. There's no single moment where he can lay blame. The truth is that it was so gradual he didn't even notice. Orlando had ... settled as the weeks passed, his tone steadily becoming softer and less demanding, but it was more than just that. It was the way Orlando had looked so happy when he realized he'd won his first game of Strategy and Elijah had not let him. There was something stunning about that smile, something that erased the hard edges of Orlando's face and made Elijah's heart catch on a beat.
And there was the way Orlando listened and took his advice regarding the kingdom. Complain as he might at the time, the fact is that Elijah's suggestions never fell on deaf ears. Then there was the way Orlando thanked him later in the dark. Was it wrong that he should like the way Orlando looks at him? Is it wrong that he should like it now?
What tune will you sing for him?
*
Elijah feels Orlando stir, turning in the bed, but he keeps his face to the wall. He jumps when he feels Orlando's fingertips dust his skin.
"You're awake?" Orlando asks softly, but there's no reply. He leaves Elijah to his edge of the bed and reluctantly climbs out, drawing on his clothes as quickly as possible.
"Orlando?"
His heart lurches at the sound of Elijah's voice, flickering with a tiny flame of hope that his next word might be stay. He longs to hear it, longs to be wanted, but when he turns his gaze upon the bed he finds it empty.
"What is it?" Orlando asks as he yanks up his pants and fumbles for the ties, patently ignoring the boy moving around the foot of the bed.
Waiting for Elijah to answer tests his nerves. He hopes for one thing, one word, one request, but he knows he hopes in vain. "Why are you up? Is something wrong?" He keeps any real concern from his tone, but he's curious as to why Elijah's broken his routine - getting up, instead of snuggling in his favored spot in the middle of the bed - and it's never lost on Orlando that this occurs only after he's climbed out into the chill morning air. He resists the urge to peel his trousers back off and pull Elijah back under the still-warm bed covers.
"I wonder if you'd take me with you today?” Elijah asks. “I can't stand being caged in here." He doesn’t want to love his prison, even though he already feels it might be too late.
Orlando's stunned by the boldness of Elijah's question. It's easy for him to forget the boy was once a prince and used to being forward. Forgets, that is, until a question like this reminds him. He continues to dress and considers the request. He can see the hope and desire in Elijah's blue eyes and stifles the bitter pang he feels at the fact that look is never directed at him.
"Please." Elijah's never had to beg for anything so simple, so commonplace, as stepping out of doors, but he's desperate to prove that he still wants to escape his gilded cage, even if it’s only for a few hours.
Orlando resists looking at Elijah because he already knows that he's not going to grant the request. If he were to bring Elijah, protocol demands that he put his slave to work and while working in the muck and the mire is fine for himself, he's just too selfish to see Elijah dirtied or hurt. Any attempt at trying to spare him the work would come across as a form of weakness, of emasculation. His soldiers would say that his slave has him by the balls and that would be unacceptable.
"No."
Elijah cocks his head, as if he can't believe he's been told no, and perhaps the once-Prince still isn't used to hearing it. Orlando's sure there are many things the boy's not used to.
"I could help," Elijah counters. "I could- "
"I said no." Orlando says firmly. He watches Elijah's face; those eyes give away so much. There's a moment where something dark threads through them - anger - and then they light on the game board.
"I'll play you a game of Strategy," Elijah challenges lifting his chin. "If I win, I get to go with you. If I lose, I stay as always."
Orlando grins at this as he moves on to tie the laces of his leather vest. Elijah's tenacity and resourcefulness knows no bounds, and while he knows these are qualities his father would beat out of his slaves, Orlando's fascinated by it. He likes the unpredictability and the fact that it's so dangerous, yet Elijah's still brave enough to risk it. He likes the fire it puts in Elijah's cool blue eyes.
He hides his smile as he looks at the board and then Elijah. "I will play you, but if you beat me- "
"I get to go out," Elijah pressures.
" - and I don't think you will," Orlando continues, completely ignoring the interruption, "I'll let you spend time with your family. In the gardens outside, if you like," he adds as some manner of concession. "And if you lose, you stay here and keep yourself ready for me. Will you play for those stakes?"
Elijah nods and moves to set up the board. Honestly, he hadn't expected to get this far with Orlando, and the prospect of seeing his family is more than he dared ask for.
The game is close, but Orlando leaves a man vulnerable and that is the beginning of his end. Elijah easily captures all his men and Orlando watches as he scrambles from his chair to pull on a shirt and vest. He's sorry that he lost - he hates to lose - but, gods help him, he's not sorry that Elijah won.
"I can still go, can't I?" Elijah asks as he stands fully dressed before Orlando. He can see some misgiving in those dark eyes. "I beat you fairly," he reminds.
Elijah watches Orlando sweep the wooden discs aside as if to erase the evidence of his loss. For a moment, he thinks Orlando will take it back - deny him - and he won't stand for it. It's only when Orlando nods that he dares to breathe again.
"You'll wait here until I send guards to escort you," Orlando instructs as he picks up his gloves. "I don't need to warn you against doing anything foolish, do I?" Like trying to escape.
It's the unspoken issue between them. Elijah shakes his head, but Orlando doesn't appear to be satisfied until he hears a very clearly uttered, "No."
He'd be a fool to think Elijah wasn't constantly plotting for it - and he's no fool, no matter what his father may think - but Orlando can't imagine being trapped in here day after day, and he's not without compassion. He'll just make sure there are enough guards posted to ease his mind.
Elijah watches Orlando leave silently. He doesn't hear the sound of the bar being dropped into place and like a moth to a flame he's lured to the door. He tests it, and it gives beneath his touch. Through the gap, from the other end of the hall, he hears a chorus of excited cries and he smiles. He wants to see them so badly.
He closes the door quietly and sits in the chair to wait.
*
"Oh, let me look at you!" His mother cries as she lunges forward and draws him into her arms. He wonders how she can even see him with the way she keeps yanking him close and smothering his face with kisses. Every time he thinks she's through, she's draws him forward again, until finally she hugs him tight and whispers, "I've missed you," in his ear. At last she stands him at arms length, and he feels like he's on display as she and the rest of the family looks him over.
"You're all right? He's treating you all right?" she asks. Her soft hands are on his cheeks, then his neck, trailing across his shoulders and down his arms to where she lifts his hands. He can tell it's all a thinly disguised inspection of his person.
"I'm fine." He smiles and she returns it uncertainly.
"Truly?" she asks, and he notes not one, but six expectant faces waiting for his answer.
He nods. "I'm fine. Truly." He can see the doubt in her eyes, but he's not about to tell her about the mark in ink Orlando's placed upon his body, or the last time he was in this garden. Both thoughts cause him to blush hotly, but he's not been hurt physically and not how he thinks he could be.
His sisters and brother, who have been patiently waiting, break the uneasy silence by attacking him with hugs, kisses, and laughter.
"You'll play Seek with us, won't you?" Edward asks, tugging on Elijah's trousers.
"Of course." He'd do anything for them, anything to make them happy, especially like they are now.
"In a minute, children," Medias says softly, shooing them off with a flap of his hand. Without question, they obediently turn to play on the grass.
Medias stands uncomfortably and Elijah can see the heavy weight of remorse in his father's eyes. He offers what little comfort he can with a hug and words he hopes will help. "This isn't your fault."
Medias hugs Elijah close and ignores the ugly looks from Orlando's guards. More's the pity for them, if they never knew or wanted a hug from their father. "I shouldn't have let it come to this. I should've- "
"You did what you could to save this kingdom and your family. Your people stood behind you, and still stand, as do I."
"But what I've brought you to- "
Elijah doesn't think about that, or the wetness pooling in his father's eyes, instead he looks up at the azure sky and feels the sun on his cheeks. He's grateful to still be alive to feel it and when he lowers his eyes he sees his family, his brother and sisters still able to run, laugh, and play. "We are all still alive and still together, that's all that matters."
"How did you get to be so wise?" Medias wonders aloud and marvels at the man his son has become.
"You raised me." Elijah's smile falters when his father's does. "I didn't mean to upset you."
Medias throws his arm around his son's shoulders and drags him further into the garden and the copse of trees that hides them from the prying eyes of Orlando's soldiers. "You don't upset me, Elijah, you make me very proud." The entire situation makes him feel weak and unable to protect his family. He's angry that Elijah has been made to pay for what little claim they have left upon this world, but there would be no explaining that to his son.
*
"It's no wonder they fell, eh, my lord?"
Orlando ignores the prattling guard and watches surreptitiously as Medias hugs his son.
"They're soft these lot, always kissin' and hugging on each other like that. Though I bet he makes a right fine fuh- "
The guard's lips mash together on the last word and muddy hazel eyes find something very fascinating on the ground. The young guard would have said it wasn't so much something interesting, as it was the only place he could think to look that was away from the anger in the eyes of his king, and over what? A comment about a slave? Thomas does believe his King is sweet on his slave.
And later, as he stands around the fire with his comrades, he will voice that very belief. Because it's juicy gossip, and the eyes of the others will focus on him as he tells them that he saw ire in his king's eyes over a harmless comment about a slave, a whore.
He'll say what he stopped short of saying now - that he imagines Elijah's a right fine fuck because of how liberal he is with his hugs and kisses - and that the look Orlando gave him was sharp enough to cut the tongue from his mouth. They'll ask him to recount the tale over and over again, and finally they’ll nod, their suspicions over the weaknesses of Tristan’s son at last confirmed.
He savors the thought of their attention. There's no telling what this tidbit of information could do for him.
Orlando leaves him without a word, and Thomas finally un-slumps his shoulders and looks around. Perhaps he should take this information to John, first. The Master of Arms had asked for anything odd regarding the behavior of their newly appointed King, and he thinks this might just qualify.
*
"You are truly well?" His mother asks again, once it's just the three of them.
"I am," Elijah reassures a second time.
"You wouldn't tell your old mother if you weren't now, would you?"
Elijah smiles. "You'd know it just by looking at me."
She peers around the garden and once she's satisfied, leans in to hug him once more. This time he feels the press of something hard against his hand.
"We've something for you," she whispers.
Elijah opens his hand and takes the object wrapped in cloth; it's a long knife. He stares at it mutely for a minute or two. "What am I to do with this?"
"If he hurts you- "
"I don't need this."
"How can you be sure? Elijah!" she cries as he tries to hand it back to her. "Keep it!"
"And if I'm caught with it?"
She huffs out a breath. "Don't get caught. Hide it, but keep it."
"You're brave, my boy," Medias says seriously, "but don't think he won't- "
"I've heard the same gossip as you." Just because Elijah's door is locked doesn't mean that Piper is barred from entering, and with the servant comes news of his new master, not to mention the warnings that have come from Orlando's own lips.
"There's always some truth in rumors, you know this," his father says, dourly.
"And I don't doubt it either," Elijah says as he closes his hand around the weapon. "But this only makes it riskier."
His parents are quiet and finally he looks at them and their open, worried faces.
"You feel sorry for him." His mother's face is white with shock.
Elijah's sure it seems strange to them, but they don't know. "He cries out in his sleep."
"What?" They ask in unison.
Elijah thinks of the strangled sounds Orlando makes and the hands that grip him to wakefulness in the dead of night. That first night he would've used the knife out of fear that Orlando was trying to kill him, but Orlando had been dreaming. "He cries out for someone." And when he does he sounds like a wounded animal.
"He is a beast," Necia sputters heatedly.
Elijah can understand why she thinks this, but he doesn't feel the same. Not after hearing those cries and the vulnerability they reveal. He thinks that if Orlando knew, he'd be sorely embarrassed.
"Can Elijah come play now?" Edward's gasping as he comes to a tumbling stop near their private tête-à-tê.
"Go," Necia tells Elijah softly, knowing the battle with her son is over for now.
Elijah hands the weapon back to her and turns to jog after his brother.
"Stubborn boy." She sighs with a shake of her head.
"You always said he had your finer attributes," Medias notes with a devious smile quirking the corner of his mouth.
"Oh you!" Elijah hears his mother cry, with mock indignation and a playful swat of his father's shoulder. "He gets that from you!"
He's smiling as he chases after a laughing Edward.
*
Orlando enters the garden in the late afternoon and starts when he sees Necia and Medias sitting alone under one large, blossoming tree. His thoughts immediately turn to the whereabouts of Elijah and his siblings. Guards are posted at every point of exit, so he doesn't panic unduly, but he makes a promise - if they've helped their children escape, he'll run them through where they stand.
"Where is he?" He asks his question of Medias, but it's Necia who responds.
"He's with his brothers and sisters," she says defensively, and nods her head toward the heart of the garden. "Can't you leave him a little longer?"
Orlando ignores the plea and walks away. Longer? Hasn't he been deprived of Elijah long enough? It's late and he's tired from a long day spent erecting the timbers for the framework that will soon provide permanent shelter for the market, one of Elijah's ideas. What began as mere desire for the boy's face and body, has quickly become a need for Elijah's entire nature - that calm rationale and patience - even if his sagacity is in direct conflict with whatever Orlando wants from him at the time.
The hedges that surround the oasis in the middle of the garden are lush and green from plenty of spring rain and early summer sun. They block his view, which causes Orlando to hurry over the well-tended path. He has what's certainly an irrational fear, that it might just be a ruse, and when he reaches the hidden circle he'll find only empty grass. Finally, he hears Elijah's voice and he exhales his agitation in favor of relief.
"What did he do then, Lijah? Tell us. He didn't let her go, did he?" This is the voice of one of the little ones, the girl. He doesn't remember her name.
"Well, Absalom had a choice to make, didn't he?" Elijah says judiciously, like a teacher trying to teach a lesson. Orlando trails his fingers through the foliage and pauses to listen. "He could stay in his kingdom, with its gold and all its riches, or he could have love."
"Why couldn't he have both?" That question comes from the boy and he catches himself smiling at the sound of Elijah's laughter.
"He couldn't have both."
"Why not?"
"Because Vera didn't want to be second to riches or power."
"But without gold, he wouldn't have been able to buy her pretty dresses." The youngest girl again.
"She didn't care just for dresses," Elijah answers patiently.
"How could she not care about dresses?" she asks earnestly, and once more Orlando hears Elijah laugh.
"You're too young to understand such things, Erica, but love is about more than what another person can give you, so far as possessions go. Vera knew this. She didn't want dresses or jewels or a castle to live in, she wanted his love."
"What did he choose?" This is a thoroughly exasperated and impatient question from the boy.
"Love!" is cried in a loud chorus from the girls, and Orlando catches himself grinning at their innocent verve. You'd have believed such tripe, too. His father's sneering and offensive voice rises unbidden and wipes the smile from his lips.
"Yes," Elijah agrees, and Orlando can hear the smile in his voice. "That's what Absalom chose. He gave up his castle and his riches. He fell to his knees before her and said, 'I have nothing, I am nothing. My kingdom, my wealth, I give up for you. My only empire is the dirt on which I stand, and I'd give up even that, if you'd but just love me'."
"Did she?" Erupts a choir of children's voices.
"Yes."
"And they lived happily ever after?" Erica asks as she lifts her cheek from Elijah's shoulder and looks up.
'I'd like to think so," Elijah says, with a smile.
"Me too! Though I don't know how she'd be happy without dresses, or jewels or- "
Her chatters stops suddenly and Elijah watches as she shrinks toward Evangeline with her arms open. He doesn't have to guess at what's caused this, and he doesn't need to turn to see that Orlando's standing there. Who else would they have to fear?
"Don't want you to go, Lijah," Edward cries as Elijah gets to his feet. He's rendered immobile by two arms wrapped around his knees.
"Edward." He tries to gently extricate himself from his brother's grasp.
Orlando fights to keep his head up; he won't be cowed by the teary faces of a few children. He tries to smile at them, but it feels stiff on his lips and does little to calm the children, as evidenced by Erica's wail.
"You don't have to go, do you?" Orlando watches as Edward turns his sodden face to Elijah's legs. If he would have ever put on such a display as a boy … He shudders to think what his tears would have earned him.
"I'm sure," Elijah says in a coddling voice, "that if you don't give me any trouble now, I'll be allowed to visit you again soon."
This causes five pair of eyes, all in various shades of blue, to turn on Orlando. Edward's still swim with unshed tears, and he feels like a complete and utter shit. The longer he stands there, the worse the creeping shame fills him, so he agrees with a nod just to get it over with. He knows there's no harm in these visits, provided there are enough guards to keep watch.
Like a brief summer deluge, there are only the large tears on Edward's lashes to indicate there'd ever been a storm. Edward's smile bursts forth like the sun and he releases his brother's legs. But even with that promise, the walk back to the back to the shady tree where Medias and Necia are sitting is like a funeral procession, and Elijah still has to coax the boy into letting go of his hand.
Orlando walks away as Elijah kisses his mother and sisters in turn, and he watches with what he hopes passes for disinterest, the exchange between Elijah and his father. Again they embrace, and he realizes that it fascinates him because he's never felt the same from his own father. He has the vaguest memories of his mother holding him like that, it had been comforting, but it's so distant that it almost seems more of a dream.
"Take the knife," Elijah's father whispers in his ear. "Take it and hide it."
Elijah shakes his head and gives his father's whiskered cheek a kiss. "I'm not afraid of him," he soothes before he turns to follow Orlando into the keep.
"Who were you speaking about?" Orlando asks, as soon as they're alone in the hall. "What manner of king would give up their wealth and title for love?"
Elijah chews on his bottom lip and tries to eat the smile threatening the corners of his mouth. He's amused by the thought of Orlando pausing to listen to the fairy tale and think it real, but nothing tempts his laughter quite as much as the way Orlando sneers the word love, as if it's a blight. "You were listening."
"Only for a moment."
"It's just a story."
"A silly one." Orlando's derisive words echo in the tight stairwell.
"What's so silly about it?"
"The very idea of it," Orlando scoffs. "That would never happen."
"Why not? A castle and crown, those are only things. Absalom wanted what title and riches couldn't give him."
"Power, and the riches that come with it, will get you what ever you want," Orlando sneers.
"Not everything. Not love."
Elijah hears Orlando's exasperated exhale at his contrariness.
"You can have something physically and never truly be in possession of it," Elijah points out as they arrive on the landing.
Orlando's eyes narrow as he looks at the boy. This line of reasoning is foreign to him and makes little sense. "When you own something, it's yours."
"That may work with objects, but not with people. Simply lording your position over someone doesn't mean a thing. So, you see them with your physical eyes - they walk and talk and do what you ask - but all the while, they hate you. You never have their essence, and anything that is caged or oppressed will try to escape the first chance it gets."
Orlando turns so abruptly Elijah walks into his chest. "Do you talk about yourself or your people?"
"Does it matter?"
Orlando's upper lip curls and he reaches out and places a hand on Elijah's shoulder. "I have you." There's skin over bone, he can feel it beneath his fingers, and blood warming the skin beneath it. He possesses this boy and no words or silly talk of love will change that.
"Do you?"
Orlando's annoyed with this conversation and Elijah's nonsensical reasoning. "Yes. I own you; you're mine."
Elijah lifts his chin defiantly. It doesn't surprise him that Orlando hasn't listened to a word he's said. "You don't have me."
"You're right here." Orlando touches his cheek to prove his point. He can touch Elijah - could kiss him, or fuck him - right here in the hall, if that's what he wanted.
Beneath his hands, Elijah shrugs. "You have a body, that's all. You don't have what really matters."
The thought that Elijah's able to keep something from him makes him insane. "What's the difference?"
"You don't think there would be, were I willing? How little you know, my lord."
Orlando blinks and tries to hide his reaction. He tries to bury it under a safer emotion - anger - as he shoves Elijah into the bedroom. "We are done with this discussion. I should tell you now that I care nothing for love, so if you expect to use that against me you'll find you're wasting your efforts."
There's no chance for an argument as the door is shut and bolted behind him. Elijah thinks he'd be more inclined to believe what Orlando had said, had he not run away. He doesn't believe Orlando came to collect him just to lock him away. Indeed, he believes that his words have cut a little too close to home.
Orlando pelts down the stairs almost blindly, so wrapped in his thoughts that he doesn't realize he's run until he's at the bottom of the stair. He was born to take, that is what his father told him, and he remembers the swift clouts when he didn't make a decision fast enough. Hesitancy will get you killed. Pause and you risk looking weak, and I did not have a weakling for a son. Those words had been a threat more than advice.
Orlando had struggled to ensure his father that he had not had a weak son. He took what he wanted, and he did what he wanted, and he suffered the angst over the offences later, when he was alone. It had simply become easier as time passed.
His mother had told him it would be all right, if he didn't grow up to be like his father. He'd thought then it was the fever making her say such things. She'd looked so ill and had raved the better part of the morning, but her eyes had been clear then, and those words to him had been her last.
His father had also been a great taker of things, and now that Orlando is older and wiser he can see that she'd been taken, too. Her eyes had always been on the door - a captive, always seeking to escape. Had she stayed for him? Or simply because she knew that if she left, Tristan would hunt her down and force her back, or worse?
Elijah's words wouldn't have brought him to this state if Orlando hadn't known the truth of them, if there hadn't been that one time in his life when something had been given willingly, and not taken. It had been precious and different, and he'd held it dearly above all other things. He'd never considered that what made it special was the difference between giving and taking.
He rubs at his temple and wishes the conversation with Elijah had not stirred up the memory. More than that, he wishes it hadn't encouraged him to wonder if it could be like that with Elijah.
*
"You've a missive from your father."
Orlando cocks one eye. John is looming over him, thrusting out a folded piece of paper sealed by his father's ring and now tattered along the edges from the road. Orlando stares at the dark red wax; he can see that the seal isn't broken, but he has no doubt that John is privy to its contents.
"What does it say?" Orlando asks as he leans toward the game board. He'd been taken with watching the concentration on Elijah's face - the furrow that develops as the boy studies the board - and during those moments waiting with anticipation for Elijah to lift those blue eyes and indicate Orlando's turn. But now that John is here, he judiciously gives the game his attention instead.
It's a warm, late spring afternoon and he's chosen to spend it lazing in the shrinking scrap of sun admitted by one of the keep's high windows. He'd spent the morning hauling up huge posts to form the first of the framework for the new enclosed market, but they'd had to run for cover when the quickly gathering clouds let loose a deluge, and it had been too late in the day for returning to work when the sun had finally returned.
And that is the truth, he tells himself, not the fact that he couldn't find it in him to move from the chair, once he'd sat in it, or the fact that Elijah's pleas for a game or two were easily read as Elijah wanting his attention, and how could he deny that? But his 'laziness' earns him a withering look from John.
"I wouldn't know, Orlando," John returns, sourly.
Orlando chuckles softly, but there's no mirth in it. "I find that hard to believe."
John's hand is outstretched, still holding out the letter, but Orlando continues to ignore it. Elijah's blue eyes have lifted and he's caught by them - fixed, trapped, wrapped up in them - and they are so much better a waste of his time than his father's neatly scripted criticisms.
"He wants to see you," John snaps at last. "He needs to speak with you about your kingdom, and your conduct."
"I thought you didn't read the letter," Orlando returns dryly, but he's not surprised, not in the least. "But then I suppose it was you who expressed concerns regarding my conduct."
John neither confirms nor denies this accusation and they both know there'd be no point in it. His advisor has long been a spy for his father, anxious to run to Tristan with anything that paints Orlando in a negative light. Eagerly waiting for him to fall, or fail, anything that proves that John will never forgive him.
"Why doesn't he come here?" Orlando asks darkly as he takes the worn scrap of paper. He doesn't bother to open it, preferring instead to keep his father's vitriol under wraps. "He should come see my kingdom for himself, and not rely on insufficient descriptions." He knows very well the trouble his cutting remark will get him.
"There's nothing lacking in my descriptions, Orlando, I assure you. Even when that would be in your best interest," John contends in an amicable tone. He refuses to let Orlando think he's ruffled any feathers. But feathers can certainly be ruffled in the other direction. "Certainly you haven't forgotten that the queen is due to give birth any day? And you know he wouldn't want to miss the birth of what could, quite possibly, be a new heir."
"No doubt he can't wait to sire a son who won't be such a disappointment."
Elijah can hear the bitterness in Orlando's voice, and there's a moment, before Orlando blinks and it vanishes, where he can see the hurt.
"No doubt," John returns, with a smile that could rival the frostiest winter morning. "I'm sure it's much more likely now."
Elijah blinks in disbelief at the cold agreement that's fallen from John's lips. It's something he can't imagine. Perhaps he didn't hear correctly or perhaps John meant to say more? But if he did, why didn't he say it?
Orlando could ignore the jibe if it were directed only at him, he's learned to swallow such bitter words over the years, but this dig is aimed at his mother. "What do you mean by that?"
John merely shrugs and paces away with his hands behind his back and Orlando crumples the innocent parchment in his fist.
"What word shall I send to your father, my lord?"
Orlando turns his eyes back to the game board and tries to control his tongue and his sword. The message he'd dearly love to send would include nothing more than John's body slung over the back of a horse. How weak would his father think him then? "Send word that we're coming."
"We?"
Orlando's still staring at Elijah. He had said we and it hadn't been missed. "You're coming too, I'd imagine." He tries to cover his slip.
"Very good, my lord."
"Don't call me that," Orlando orders, the way John says it is anything, but respectful.
"As you wish."
Orlando smiles bitterly. "If that is so, then I wish you to leave."
"But, Orlando," his name still spoken in that same patronizing tone, "we need to discuss what's going to happen in your absence. Who should be left in charge and-"
"I want Valpreiso to oversee the men, and I want work to continue on the reconstruction as it has been," Orlando interrupts, with a look that will brook no argument. "Now, get out." He's anxious to be rid of the man who treats him with such derision and contempt, and the one he feels like killing for insulting his mother to his face.
He doesn't really give shit if his father thinks he's been far too consumed with buggering his slave to rule a kingdom, and he has no problem with the fact that his father's surely unaware of the long days spent amongst his people, as he seeks to rebuild what his armies tore down. He can handle any slight against his character or person, but he will not stand by and have his mother's image despoiled.
The precious few memories he has of her are the only ones that contain any tenderness. Just the thought of her causes tears to prick behind his eyes and he's surprised every time, that he still has tears to shed over her. He thought at some point the ache would go away, but it never does, and the words John speaks against her he will not bear.
"You have your orders." He knows if John doesn't leave soon he won't be responsible for the painful way his father's friend meets his end.
John's cold eyes travel to Elijah and the room is silent except for the faint pop and snap from wood on the fire. Orlando waits breathlessly to see what snide comment will be spoken to his face, and thinks it's a good thing for John that his sword is laying across the bench before the fire and not within reach of his hand.
John makes no comment, just shakes his head in disgust. So what if, when Orlando returns in the dusk, he seeks Elijah's company instead of spending hours discussing what should be done? He is getting it done, and he prefers not to waste time discussing what has been done, or what needs to be done. He's a man of action.
"When would you be leaving, my lord?"
"In the morning, I think. I'd like to get it over with."
John's lips mash together, surely biting back some retort. "I'll pull together guards and supplies for you."
"I'll do it," Orlando says, waving John off. He doesn't trust his father's advisor.
"And just in case you don't read it," John says as he sets down the scroll, "your father wants to see what's captivated your attention."
Orlando's eyes narrow as he turns to look up a John. "Am I to pack a kingdom in my pocket?"
John's face hardens and any amusement seeps from their hazel depths. Orlando sees it again, the naked hatred that really never goes away.
"Don't fuck with me or your father," John growls, but Orlando doesn't shrink from the venom. His days of being afraid are long gone. "You'll bring him or I'll bring him for you, but in a manner that would better please Tristan."
“Get out.”
Elijah watches as John ambles out of the room. He doesn’t make it a priority to obey, but it doesn’t surprise Elijah. There’s only been the barest modicum of respect between them and it would seem now that there will no longer be the pretense of even that, but what he hasn’t been able to figure out is why.
*
"Will you let me say goodbye to my family?" Elijah asks as he watches Orlando reach for the last of their personal effects.
Orlando continues to shove clothes into the leather saddlebag and ignores the boy's question. He's been in a black mood for days and this question grates on him for reasons he'd rather not explore.
"Please?"
"You had time with them, do not press me."
Elijah eyes the game board.
"Don't even suggest such foolishness to me. There's no time."
Elijah tries again. "Please?" He wants to know how hard he has to press before he gets what he wants.
"I said, no." Orlando grinds out, irritated with the way Elijah can't accept the order. This could all go so badly and that's exactly what his father and John are hoping. "Don't ask me again."
Elijah's mouth opens to protest, but the hard warning in Orlando's eyes stops him. There are certain times to press, but this is not one of them.
He can hear the sound of his sister's laughing as he passes the door, but Orlando's just behind him, spurring him down the stairs and the only thing he can hope for is that they’ll be safe and Orlando will bring him back.
It's cool outside in the misty morning air. He can see the breath of the horses as they're made ready and loaded with supplies. It’s a long trip, five days hard ride from here to Orlando’s uncle’s, and three days beyond that to reach Tristan’s kingdom. Orlando had told him that they could be gone as long as a month.
They're traveling in a small group of ten, no need to spare more as the road west belongs to them, and Orlando realizes with some irritation that they are waiting for John. "Is he coming or not?" he snaps, to the servant that finally comes with John's things.
"He is just finishing breakfast, my lord."
Orlando mounts his horse with fluid grace and extends a hand to Elijah.
"I have to ride with you?"
"Would you rather ride with John?" Orlando asks, tonelessly.
Elijah thinks about John's threat to take him back in a fashion that would be more acceptable, and knows that could be anything from dead, to losing his tongue. He extends his hand and feels Orlando's grip tighten as he's lifted easily to sit astride the horse.
"Tell Lord Segrist that he can catch up to us on the road. I won't wait on him."
"My lord?" The servant's voice is as much question as statement and Elijah can see the shock on the man’s face. He also sees the stunned look on the faces of the small contingent of guards. It’s obvious to him that none there can believe Orlando’s audacity, but secretly Elijah’s proud of him.
He clutches Orlando's waist as the horse moves impatiently. He looks over his shoulder toward the keep and the only home he's ever known; he can see a face in the narrow window. Eliza, he thinks as he squints, and then her long golden hair falls free and he knows it her.
He hopes they don't worry, even as he's worrying himself. He doesn't like the thought of leaving them behind and in the hands of soldiers who don't seem to be under the authority of their king. What if they take matters into their own hands?
Elijah lifts his hand in farewell to his sister and then he hears Orlando's command and the horse lurches forward so fast that he digs his fingers into the leather vest Orlando’s wearing. . He's ridden before, but he was always the one in charge, and sitting behind Orlando feels like he's in a precarious position. Truthfully, he's frightened - he's never been beyond the borders of his land and he's afraid of what awaits him.
Their exodus takes them through the village in the shadow of the keep. Everything here had been razed, he'd seen it all burn. He'd choked on the thick smoke and heard the cries of the dying and those who loved them. He didn't think he'd ever see the day when his people would raise their heads, or hands, in greeting to a new lord, but they do, and the ones who don't are busy bowing in the old way, as they once prostrated before his father.
"I'm glad to see you reap the fruits of my advice," he says, dryly.
Orlando doesn't react because even gratitude can't burn through the haze of indignation he's feeling toward John and his father right now. He urges his horse from a trot to a gallop. He won't go long like this, not wanting to tire his horse, but for now he leans into the rush of wind and enjoys the way Elijah has to lean into him.
There are moments of time when he closes his eyes and pretends that they are flying.
*
TBC Ch 4.2