“Oh, I’d never do that, Master Paole. I know I don’t have your skill. Do you think my heart will give me more trouble?”
“I guarantee that within a week, your heart will be working as well as it did twenty years ago, mistress.” Since it already did, he felt happy to make that promise.
She left with a smile on her face. He had no leisure to find out who’d been talking earlier, for now he had another talkative patient.
“Master Paole, I’m pleased to see you. I wasn’t sure you’d come through again.” The plump matron sat down at his table.
“Of course I would, mistress,” he said, taking her hand and assessing the state of her troublesome uterus. She’d been suffering from difficult periods, but reported the compound he’d prescribed previously had continued to reduce the severity of her flows. He questioned her about her general health and routine, and was satisfied that there was no need to change the remedy offered.
“Continue with it then, and the liver diet.”
“Thank you. You take me so much more seriously than our healer in town,” she confided. “Though I do wonder why you didn’t go home once you were freed, master. You have no reason to remain in this country, after all.”
None but a practice and patients and a life he’d grown used to. He wondered if all ex-slaves faced this, and if the immigrants from Helser, coming to work in the mines, were questioned in this way. The woman, tactless as she was good-hearted, had no idea how insulting she sounded, and he wouldn’t tell her. He sent her on her way. Why had he ever thought he could grow old in this arrogant nation?
He turned to make a note of the amount dispensed and caught the stallholder behind sneering. “Can I help you?”
“I doubt it. Never catch me going to one of your kind with your black magic and your quack potions.”
Paole shook his head and bent to his notes. He’d heard it all before, though he’d thought he’d been coming to this town long enough that the folk here would know who he was. No matter how grateful his patients, how many people he helped, they’d never accept him. They might not be as openly hostile as Sheriff Rolf or this polite creature, but he was fooling himself if he thought attitudes would ever change. Not enough for him. If he stayed, he’d always be the outsider. Always be alone too.
The day’s work had been a success by any measure, and he should have been pleased at the profit and the goods in kind he and Yveni bore away. But all he felt was a kind of draining depression, overlain by the tiredness that still plagued him.
“Fried herbed gaete for your supper, and an early night,” Yveni told him as they returned to camp. “You’ll feel better after that.”
Paole grabbed him around the waist and pulled him close for a long, languorous kiss and deep hug. “
Now
I feel better.”
Yveni made no effort to free himself. “Silly man.”
“No, you’re my medicine and I prescribe you to be taken as often as possible.”
“You’ve lost your wits. Let me go or there’ll be no supper for either of us.” Still, he gave Paole another kiss and laid his head against his chest for a few moments, before going off to find what he needed for cooking.
Paole watched him prepare the meal, long fingers dexterous and precise as he jointed and floured and herbed. The pieces of gaete were laid in the fat to gently sizzle, and soon a delicious smell filled the night air. Paole’s stomach rumbled.
“There is a sack of huele nuts if you can’t wait.” Yveni poked the cooking meat and spoke without turning around.
“I’ll wait. Yveni, I’ve made my decision.”
The lad didn’t turn or stop what he was doing, but the subtle change in the line of his back, the increase in his heart rate, meant he was listening carefully.
“I’m going to Horches. You’re right. I don’t belong here, and I never will.”
Yveni looked over his shoulder and smiled. “You decided for reasons nothing to do with me?”
“Nothing to do with you. I want to be with others of my kind, and not just slaves and ex-slaves. I want to walk free and not have anyone resent it. If it fails, on my head be it. So we should make speed to Dadel.”
“Yes.” Yveni bit his lip and turned around to watch the frying pan.
“You don’t seem pleased.”
“I am. But now I’m worried that it might not be the right decision. You helped so many people today.”
“Aye, and I can help people in Horches or somewhere else. The Karvi have healers. It’s a rich country. The poor aren’t well cared for, but I only see a tiny number of those who need help, and only once a year or so. I’ve done what I can for them. They’ve had my service for free since I was four. That’s enough.”
He hadn’t meant to sound so bitter, since it wasn’t the poor of this country that had enslaved him, but they were of the same race, and none saw anything wrong in using other races and nations to serve them in that way. In the whole time he’d lived in Karvis, he’d never heard a word uttered against slavery by any Karvi, even those who liked him.
“Yes, it is. You might not be able to come back here, or want to, but once I’m on the throne in Sardelsa, you will always have a home there, if you want it.”
“Thanks, but Tuelers like Uemiriens no better than Karvi do.”
Yveni turned to look at him. “This Tueler likes you fine.” He leaned forward and kissed Paole on the lips. “How do you feel?”
“Settled. Decision’s made. Now I have to make it work.”
They were but a week from Dadel if they went directly and without stopping. Since there was much to do in preparation, Paole saw no reason to delay. He pushed Peni a little harder than they had of late, and spent more time driving each day, though Yveni took on much of that duty since Paole still tired more easily than he had before the fever.
They avoided Dadel itself and went straight to the cabin. Peni’s pace picked up as she recognised the road to her home, but Yveni stared at the gloomy woods in dismay. “You live here alone during the winter? It’s so dark. And…”
“Lonely.”
Yveni laid his head on Paole’s shoulder. “Yes.”
“Not any more.”
Yveni only smiled.
The place needed airing and the dust sheets removed. They’d be here two weeks, Paole thought. Provided they left well before the snows, he could take the time to leave the place in good order.
Yveni wanted to poke around in everything—the library, the barn, the little clearing in which the cabin stood. Paole left him to it while he stabled Peni.
“Need to decide what to do with you, eh, sweetness.” He couldn’t see her making the journey to Horches, and to take her so far from familiar surroundings was cruel. He fed her some bran and considered his options.
He wandered over to the single spreading tol tree, under which he’d buried Mathias and placed his stone. He knelt down and cleared away the rampant weeds from the grave and marker, though it was a little pointless if he was leaving for good. Yveni had asked if he’d loved his master. He still didn’t know. But he forgave him for owning him. “You did your best, by your lights. Many did worse by me.”
He believed in no gods, nor in an afterlife. But it was hard not to imagine Mathias resting easily in this peaceful place, near the house that had been his home for more than fifty years.
He smelled smoke. Yveni must have set a fire going, and the other smells meant food. He’d have to buy supplies for their stay and for the trip, but he wasn’t anxious to encounter Sheriff Rolf right now. They had enough food for a few days, and Peni would do well on the grass growing so luxuriantly, without the need for hay.
He found Yveni making spicy battercakes, and a kettle sat on the stove ready to boil water for tea. “Made yourself at home, I see.”
“The two of you lived here for months at a time? It’s so tiny! I had a bathroom back at the castle bigger than this.”
“Well, not everyone was raised like a lord, your gracefulness. It was cosy enough, and we were company for each other.”
“Until he died.”
“Yes.”
Hands covered in flour, Yveni rubbed his cheek against Paole’s shoulder in sympathy. “Where did you sleep? There’s only the one bed.”
“On the floor.”
“What? That’s awful!”
“It’s all I expected. At least he gave me a thick bedroll and plenty of blankets. It was fine. You didn’t think I’d be in his bed, did you?”
Yveni flushed, which amused Paole. “Of course not. Making a servant sleep on the floor is barbaric.”
“I wasn’t a servant. I was property.”
“I thought you said he was a good man.”
“He was. But I was still property.”
Yveni made a face, his opinion of the matter clear enough.
The battercakes were good, as always with Yveni’s cooking, and the luxury of table and chairs was easier on travel-weary bones. Paole wished he’d thought to set the bath stove going. Tomorrow. Being back here overwhelmed him a little, with such a great change in his life looming, a new lover…
Well, almost a new lover. “You won’t make me sleep on the floor, I hope,” he said as Yveni, finished with his meal, thumbed through one of Mathias’s books.
“We’ll sleep together, silly.”
“First time in a real bed together.”
Yveni nodded, then looked up, suddenly red-cheeked again. “You said there was a bath here?”
“Aye, but too much trouble to set it heating. You can wash in a bucket. Washroom’s at the back, and the privy.”
“I’ll heat some water. I smell.”
They both did, but what did it matter…?
Hmmm
. Paole would have given a good deal if he could have swapped his Healing Sight for the gift of mind reading just then.
Yveni had been dreaming of a hot bath, but it would have to wait. At least he had more privacy to clean himself properly, and tonight he wanted to be…special. Paole had been patient and gentle with him, but Yveni couldn’t be patient any more. They had two weeks with the use of a proper bed, and Yveni was determined he would shed his embarrassing virginity before they began the journey to Horches.
Paole, reading in the old chair near the bed, grunted when Yveni told him the washroom was free, and wandered out leisurely a few minutes later. Yveni built up the fire and stripped, laying his clothes neatly on the chair. Shivering in front of the fireplace, he ran his hands down his body. Would it please an experienced man? Paole liked his looks, but had never commented on the rest of him. Paole was so big, so muscled. Yveni’s slight build looked childlike next to him. He
wasn’t
a child, though. He was a man, with a man’s body, and a man’s…desires. Though exactly what that meant, he didn’t know. He put his hand over his cock. Was it big enough to please? He’d have to touch…
His cock filled as he thought of putting his hand on
Paole’s
manhood. A quite substantial manhood, from Yveni’s covert observations. What would it feel like? Would he be able to give pleasure? Would it feel different when Paole touched him?
He knew all about procreation and the necessity for sex, the realities of men and women coupling. Gil and Sofia had been frank about that with both Yveni and Serina, though Serina had been adamant that Konsatin would
not
be putting anything near her intimate parts, whatever position he chose. Yveni knew what he was supposed to do with a woman when he married, though he’d never felt the least curiosity about trying it out with a woman other than his future wife. What he should do with a man, he had not the slightest idea. Now he wished he’d been brave enough to spy on Paole with his pretty paramours. Some of them had cried out and sounded as if they were in pain. Did it hurt? Was it supposed to hurt like it did with a woman the first time?
He chewed his lip. His cock had gone soft as he worried over these things. Would Paole be annoyed by his utter lack of knowledge? Gods, why wasn’t there a book on such matters he could consult!
The outer door banged. Paole was returning. Yveni climbed onto the bed and tried to look enticing. That was what Serina called it, anyway, as she’d been made up for her betrothal. Yveni wondered if makeup and pretty clothes were required. Paole didn’t strike him as much of a one for such things.
Paole came in, wearing a clean shirt and pants. He stopped dead as he spied Yveni, smiling invitingly. “Well now. What’s this?”