Authors: R. Cooper
“Sir Godric of the South, you will return to
me alive and well when this is over.” Bertie slid the flower behind
Godric’s ear as smoothly as he could with his hand trembling and
twined the stem among the thinning strands of silver. His voice was
raised too high, not that anyone would dare comment, but when he
realized that what had issued forth had been a firm and serious
order, he gasped.
It was perhaps his first direct order to
Godric.
Godric merely raised his head and gave
another simple nod. “Yes, my lord,” he agreed, with all the
particular heat and fervor that he had always put into the title.
Bertie swallowed dryly and then was shaking too much to bear it any
longer. He ducked his head to let his mouth rest at Godric’s
throat, against his much-debated stubble. Godric’s hand met him to
pull him closer.
The cat yowled in protest at being crushed
and the soldiers around them resumed their duties. The air stayed
icy as the sun rose but for one moment longer Bertie did not move
as he allowed himself to dream of what could be, what would be.
Neither, he noticed, did Godric.
Epilogue
“I had
not thought you find you in the kitchens, my lord.”
Bertie jumped at the first few warmly spoken
words and hit his head on the edge of a wooden shelf. Not hard, but
enough to make him wince and then sigh and think to himself that
even now he could never stop making a fool of himself around
Godric.
Mathilda, the Keep’s Mistress of the
Kitchens, only directed an unsurprised glance at him before looking
beyond him to where Godric was no doubt standing and watching
Bertie rub his head.
Bertie could have lifted his chin and
demanded to know what was so funny that she could not meet his eye,
but to do that would be to act like the sort of noble that Godric
despised, and in any case, Mathilda was impervious to any attempt
at intimidation unless it came from Aethir himself, who would never
have dared.
No one would. No one made honey cakes for
the Harvest celebrations the way Mathilda did and only a fool would
anger her and Aethir was not a fool.
Bertie was of course, but not for angering
her. He turned and straightened and lifted his chin anyway, in case
Godric was laughing at him.
Godric was standing in one doorway, leaning
to one side and looking perfectly at ease, which was a lie, because
he was not at ease, as his color hinted. But he
was
smiling,
a soft curve of his lips that made Bertie drop his chin and offer
another sigh as he hopped forward.
“Why wouldn’t I be in the kitchens?” He
stopped short of Godric with a move that was nearly a curtsey and
which left his skirts and borrowed apron swishing around his
ankles. Godric’s smile seemed to grow, though perhaps it was
Bertie’s imagination.
He did not mind, whichever was true. He
loved to dream about Godric’s smile and he loved Godric’s real
smile, so much so that he could not seem to get enough of it. He
would wear an apron and cover himself in flour and sticky honey and
fermented grain mash and all manner of spices and then hit his head
everyday if it made Godric smile sweetly at him.
Perhaps not hit his head, Bertie adjusted
his own thought.
Godric inclined his head to greet him and
Mathilda as well before answering Bertie’s demand. “Because there
is much to do in these kitchens with your brother and his retinue
at the Keep, and you would not wish to get in the lady’s way.”
Calling Mathilda a lady was blatant
flattery. Bertie had not thought Godric capable of it and gasped at
him for a moment before sweeping forward again. He remembered the
honey coating his clothing and stopped just in time to spare Godric
a sticky fate.
He put his hands on his hips but he knew he
did not look very fierce.
“I am learning Mathilda’s secret for making
her honey cake, oh treasure of my heart.”
After all these months of having Godric to
himself, months that almost totaled a year now, Godric still paused
in momentary embarrassment at Bertie’s openness in adoring him. He
twitched, as if he wanted to look to gauge Mathilda’s reaction but
her chuckle must have been enough of an indication because Godric
kept his eyes where they belonged—leveled right at Bertie.
“And why is that, my lord?” he asked
seriously in a graveled voice that made Bertie want to swoon.
Instead of swooning, Bertie suddenly and maddeningly lost his
ability to speak. He leaned closer, swallowing once or twice as
Mathilda cackled knowingly at him the way she probably did to every
scullery maid and cooking assistant that came in looking for
secrets to please their men.
Godric, in that way he had of anticipating
nearly everything there was to anticipate, leaned forward at the
same moment, meaning that if Bertie ducked his head he could
whisper into his beloved’s ear. It was not a chance he wanted to
waste. He wet his lips.
“Tomorrow there will be balefires and music
and wine and honey cakes,” Bertie murmured and felt a surge of
frustrated heat when Godric nodded but clearly did not understand
his meaning.
Why should he understand? Bertie whined
silently to the gods. It had been Bertie who had dreamed of sharing
the Harvest revels with Godric for years, not the other way around.
It had not been
Godric
using the images of what might
someday be to comfort himself during the long months of winter and
Godric’s absence and the awful fears of never seeing Godric again.
Enjoying the festival of the Harvest and the new year with Godric
had not been the careful vision for the future that Godric had
allowed himself after Godric had returned to him injured and unwell
and spent months walking on a crutch to spare his broken ribs and
healing flesh.
Just the same, Bertie could not be sure that
Godric had not guessed and was simply teasing him with what the
people of the South called humor.
“I need all to go well this year, Godric.
Perfect wine and the sweetest cake and the best music, for there
will be dancing,” Bertie went on, taking his time to savor the
words and the glancing touch of his lips against the shell of
Godric’s ear.
“Dancing?” Judging from the way Godric
echoed him and flinched he had not guessed at Bertie’s real meaning
at all. He looked alarmed and went a shade paler. He clutched at
his side as he obviously thought about more pain. It was a gesture
he couldn’t help; Bertie had seen it many times since Godric and
Aethir had triumphantly reentered Camlann after months of battle,
but each time he witnessed it, it was a struggle not to grab Godric
close and squeeze him tight. If it would not have hurt Godric more,
he was not sure he would have been able to stop himself.
But Godric was standing before him now.
After having walked from the stables where he had been looking over
horses with Aethir Godric was standing there, not out of breath and
not too pale and with no crutch in sight.
Bertie grinned.
“Dancing,” he repeated slowly. Mathilda
cackled again, but only nervous and shy Southerners would pay her
any attention at a moment like this. “With the dark wines and rich
cakes and lively music, should we not dance?’
He did not know if Godric’s stillness now
was from embarrassment at the idea of taking part in the Keep’s
wild festivities or worry over his ability to dance, but either
way, Bertie had to respond to his distress.
He stepped in, sparing a second’s thought
for the gooey mess of cake ingredients all over his apron that were
now also all over Godric, but then he bent his head to lay it at
Godric’s shoulder, gently, gently, so as not to cause pain.
Not that Godric seemed to care about pain
when they were alone and this close, but Bertie thought it right
that
he
should care.
“Dancing.” He could not keep the
satisfaction from his voice. He did not feel much like moving
although his first batch of cakes should be ready soon and he was
not at all sure of how they might taste or if they would be as hard
as rocks. “In any way that will not hurt you, Godric.” Bertie
inhaled, and instead of horse and stables he detected cloves and
nutmeg coming from the oven. It made the air sweeter but it was not
the oven warming Bertie’s blood; that was the heat of Godric’s
cheeks as he listened to Bertie’s crazy words. “Perhaps we will
dance in this way, my beloved. A new style, pressed close together,
just like this.” A dance like that with two bodies pressed close
enough to share breath was not so different than what would go on
in the fields after the dancing tomorrow. It was not so different
at all.
Godric must have had a similar thought, for
he coughed. “Aye,” he accepted this idea softly, for Bertie’s ears
alone, because he might be embarrassed but he was brave enough to
try.
Bertie pulled back to catch a glimpse of the
redness in Godric’s cheeks at what they were discussing. He grinned
again. “Of course, the dancing will never be as important as what
follows after,” he offered, making his voice like honey and wine
and balefires combined. The music he left to Godric and the
quickening of his breath as their eyes met.
Somewhere behind them, dealing with the
cakes that Bertie had quite forgotten, Mathilda laughed.
The End
About the author:
R.
Cooper is a big ole dork who is pretty much always writing even if
that writing isn’t always fit for printing. She loves shameless
sluts and brave heroes and eye patches and spies and space pirates
and werewolves and writes about many of these things.
To find more snippets about
Bertie and his Godric, or information on any of my other works,
please visit my journal
http://r-cooper.livejournal.com/