Aleksey's Kingdom Read online

  “I know. But she is his wife, nevertheless. Mary or Martha or Margaret or something. I know not. Of course, she was already a widow and mother of that odd child.”

  I didn’t want to ask, but he clearly wanted me to. “Odd?”

  He grinned in wicked excitement. “Yes, did you not observe him?”

  I had seen this boy he spoke of. He had been clinging to the girl’s skirts, which was not so unusual. I had taken him for a younger brother. Other than thinking he had sallow skin and did not resemble his fair-haired sister, I had not given him more notice. Before I could ask more about his apparent quirks, Aleksey said sternly, “You are not to speak with any of the Wrights.”

  “Me? Why not?”

  “They are very religious. He is all hellfire and damnation and sin. It’s quite funny to listen to, but you will not appreciate it as you have no sense of humor about sodomy.”

  “What! What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You get very irate if anyone judges you, whereas I—”

  “Oh, this will be interesting. Whereas you…?”

  “Whereas I understand their point of view and am very tolerant of their opinions.”

  There was some truth to this, so I let it go. “And your soldiers? Who are they?”

  He smirked at me in the dark, a tendril of our earlier argument still with us. “Major Parkinson is a good sort of chap, but I would not choose him to lead anything other than the horses to water, and even then I would want a competent sergeant to accompany him to make sure he found his way back safely. He is very nice, but that is all I can say for him.”

  “I would say he likes his food.”

  “Well, yes, he needs a sturdy horse.”

  “And a large uniform.”

  He gave me a censorious look. He was not as cruel as I and did not like criticizing people, usually finding good in the worst. I have still not forgiven him for not wholly condemning his uncles, who had tried to depose him, had me tortured and then nearly executed, and almost murdered him. Still he occasionally tried to tell me that they had some justification for their actions, given how we were changing things in Hesse-Davia.

  “The other officers are Captain Jonathan Rochester and Lieutenant Owen McIntyre. John is the older one, as he came up through the ranks. The one with the limp is Captain Roderick Fallkirk, the one who is staying here with the horses. The soldiers’ names I do not know, of course.”

  “Of course.” He was funny sometimes in his utter inability to see how vainglorious he sounded. I had to remind myself that he was a king. It was amazing, really, that he took interest in any of these people. I did not. I only asked as I was forced to be their companion for some weeks and needed to understand them a little. “I suppose you would say the same about the two surly looking men who said they were trappers?”

  “I have no idea who they are. I do not know them from the colony, but I will ask Major Parkinson in the morning. If they were trappers, they must trap very small animals, for they did not have any traps with them.”

  I did not reply. It was getting late, and we were due an early start, much to my disgust. I got more comfortable and ran over the journey in my mind, planning what we needed to take.

  “Niko….”

  “No. You brought this upon yourself. Lie there and suffer.”

  “You must be suffering too.”

  “I am, but I have an iron will and no sense of humor, as you have just pointed out.”

  “They will all be asleep and hardly likely to come knocking now, and besides, Faelan would hear anyone approaching and warn us.”

  “In case you have not noticed, he tends to bury his head under a pillow at night and pretend we are not doing what we are doing. I doubt he would hear anyone.”

  “He doesn’t pretend any such thing. He studies us.”

  “Don’t say that! For fuck’s sake, Aleksey! That’s it. I have joined the Reverend Wright’s ministry and given up sodomy for good.” I heard Aleksey snort at my curse, one I had adopted from a sailor on board the ship we had come to the New World upon. He had taken the habit of adding fuck into his speech at random and very amusing intervals, and mimicking him to amuse Aleksey (my condition on board that ship was so pitiful that my poor boy needed some distraction from nursing me) it had sort of stuck. I found it very effective and thought all men should learn such a useful curse.

  Aleksey sobered and reverted to his mission. “That’s a pity, because if you attend closely, I think you will hear me throbbing from all the way over on your pallet. Listen.”

  “Stop it. This is your punishment, so….”

  He slithered off the bed, naked on his belly, and kitten-crawled across the floor for all the world like a soldier approaching an enemy encampment. Suddenly he turned over onto his back and swore loudly. “I have a splinter! Arses, Niko! A huge splinter! Look!”

  “Baby.” I rolled out of my blanket and met him in the dark on the floor. “Where? Show me.” I made to reach up for the lamp, but he caught my hand and placed it upon him.

  “Here. See? You will feel it. It is very hard.”

  I kissed him, shaking him a little for being so wickedly untruthful. He sighed. “I’m sorry for volunteering us now—truthfully. I did not think it through. I do not want to not have you for weeks. What are we to do?”

  “Do you think Major Parkinson meant what he said—that I am to lead this expedition?”

  “Absolutely. I think he was very relieved to find that you were not—”

  “Jaundiced and wrinkled and barely able to stand unaided? Perhaps, then, if I am to be the general, we will require some spying missions….”

  He laughed and rolled me onto my back, then lay upon me on the bare boards. It was very uncomfortable but delightful at the same time. “You have become easier to seduce, Niko; did you know that?”

  “Did I know that, what?”

  “Huh?”

  “I think you should start calling me sir—as I am to be your commanding officer.”

  He only laughed again, lifted my thigh, and took me as we lay upon the floor. It did not take either of us long. Perhaps the sense of being so close to other people but still indulging in such sinful behavior heightened our pleasure. I spilled very quickly, and he followed soon after, filling me deeply, then lying warm and languid upon me. After a while he murmured, “He is wondering why we are on the floor this time and is taking notes about this new occurrence.”

  “Stop it. It is not funny.” When we had lived in a palace, I had banned his damn wolf from the bedchamber for just this reason. Here in this tiny cabin, I was not heartless enough to make Faelan (to whom I owed a great debt—to whom I owed Aleksey’s life) sleep outside or in the barn. But I was always conscious of his presence and was never sure whether I didn’t actually believe Aleksey’s claims to commune with the bloody creature.

  “Niko…?” I roused and realized I had drifted off to sleep still lying beneath Aleksey on the floor.

  “What?”

  “Did you notice their muskets?”

  I had. The trappers had carried flintlocks. It was surprising, as I could not see much use in trappers carrying them—holes in pelts obviously lessened the value. Aleksey’s army had not fought at all with these weapons, as he had seen no purpose in them. It was debatable. I had seen one or two fired to some advantage but far more completely useless in being too slow to load, too heavy to maneuver, and actually very difficult to hit anything with.

  “I prefer my bow.”

  He grunted and put his head back down upon my chest. “I prefer your everything.”

  I knew we should rise. I was thirty-eight, and lying naked upon the cold floor of a cabin all night would leave me in a bad way in the morning. But I did not want to separate from him. Cursing the whole situation, I pushed him off and told him to return to his own bed. We crawled apart, but despite being tired from my sleeplessness the night before and from the general emotional strain of the day, I had grown too used to the warm entanglement
of Aleksey’s limbs at night to fall easily asleep without him.

  I wish now that I had spent that sleepless night thinking more upon the oddness of some of our companions and not upon the delights of Aleksey’s body that I was missing. Things might have been very different for all of us if I had.

  Chapter Four

  I WOKE with Aleksey sitting upon me, a gleeful expression on his face. “Guess what?”

  It was still dark. I grunted and pushed him off, intending to go back to sleep. He climbed back on. “I have just left their camp. Guess what?”

  “They are eating each other? Please tell me they are—”

  “They have tents.”

  I considered this, then sat up, glancing warily at the open door. “Tents?” This was unexpected but possibly very good news.

  “Uh-huh. And, guess what, again—you won’t be able to, so I’ll tell you. There is one for me, and you must, of course, buddy with someone. Oh, I wonder who that could be, as every other tent already has at least two….”

  I could not help a matching grin to his, and I flipped him until he was on his back and me lying over him. We were just about to start some amusing practice for being in our tent alone together when Faelan lumbered to his feet and growled. We were apart on either side of the cabin, and I was pulling on a shirt, when a figure darkened the door. “Hello?”

  Aleksey went over. “Yes, hello, Roderick. You can walk quickly, then. I thought you would take much longer to—anyway, good, I will show you the horses.”

  I caught them up as Aleksey was unlatching the barn. It was not a grand structure; we had built it ourselves, and two men were not enough really to raise a large building, but it was adequate to give shelter to the horses. We had eight horses at this time, as I had recently traded a number of them off to the Mik’mac, who prized Xavier and Boudica’s offspring greatly. We were taking Xavier and Boudica with us, of course, and also I thought their first colt, which we had named Freedom, who had been born soon after our landfall in the New World. Xavier had been busy aboard the ship, apparently. He must have been making up for my abstinence. He had not been tortured near to death, of course.

  So, Freedom was two years old now and a beauty. Born of two exceptional warhorses but not schooled as he should have been, perhaps, he was wild and excitable and—I have just realized who he reminds me of and possibly why I love him so much.

  Freedom was to be our packhorse. I had not told him this yet, as I had only agreed to the expedition the previous evening. I was hardly inured to the idea yet myself, but we needed a third horse, and Freedom was to be it. Captain Fallkirk (yes, I had noted Aleksey’s easy use of the man’s Christian name), therefore, had the care of our remaining stock—one foal born two months previous and her mother; another born the previous year; and two mares I had acquired from the Mik’mac, both also in foal from Xavier and due in the spring. There was not a huge amount of care needed other than to shut them in the barn at night, release them securely into the paddock for the day, watch the weather a little, and bring them in if it was too cold, feed them—I saw the captain’s expression and Aleksey’s behind him, and nodded. “You know horses, sir. I apologize.”

  He smiled. “My father raises horses in Dorset. Never apologize for being a man who loves these noble animals, sir. I never do.” He shifted his weight and grimaced a little. “They are very fine indeed.”

  I sighed but could not watch him suffer so without asking, “How did you hurt yourself?”

  “Ah, some very annoying young man has been teaching us this new game called—”

  “Pulu?” I gave Aleksey a look, which he returned with a cheeky grin.

  “You know it? Then you know the propensity to fall off your horse when playing it. I fell and I have been plagued with my back ever since.”

  “Just as well you did not crack your ribs and almost miss a war. So, please make use of the cabin—for what it is. It is not a grand house in town, I am afraid.”

  “You have not actually seen our barracks, then, sir?” He chuckled, then added, “I nearly forgot. You have been invited to breakfast. It was why I walked over so early. My apologies for rousing you from… bed.” I flicked Aleksey a look at something I heard in this, but he did not return it.

  THEY DID indeed have tents: small off-white canvas things, low to the ground but taking two grown men easily enough. Room to roll around inside a little too, I reckoned. I was immensely cheered by this whole discovery. I was almost smiling when we sat down for breakfast—yes, there was a table and chairs for the officers, the Wright family, and ourselves. Aleksey’s status seemed to brush off onto me. As I had not washed yet that morning, I had more than his status all over me still, but I was distracted now by the breakfast offering: bread—white bread at that. The colony had recently had resupply from England—the ship Mrs. Wright had arrived upon—and flour had been included in the manifest. I was offered a split roll dripping in dark yellow butter with a large piece of crisp bacon in the middle, and apologies were made for the roughness of the fare. I glanced at Aleksey holding his with similar reverence. I had not eaten bread since leaving Europe. I bit into the soft dough, the butter and the bacon and actually felt the world swoon a little with my pleasure. A diet of game and fish was all very well….

  After four rolls I was able to take more notice of my companions. Reverend Wright’s wife I discovered was called Mary, and her child, David, was five years old. She appeared even younger than I had thought last night. I would have put her about fifteen, but this did not seem possible given the age of the child. This morning she appeared almost mute with incomprehension about the turn her life had taken, and she did not catch my eye. I felt sorry for her. I knew that feeling.

  I saw now why Aleksey had termed the child odd. I suppose he was. I do not have a great experience of children, but those I have met always seem taken by me, for some reason. Once over their initial shyness, natural to those so young with someone apparently so old, they latch on to me. I treat them with the same disapprobation and censure I apply to my relationship with Aleksey, so I cannot see why I become so favored. I even recently had a child servant who mistook my attempts to discipline him for fatherly love. But then, he is now a king, so I suppose he can misremember things as much as he likes.

  David, therefore, appeared the exception to the rule that I always end up being plagued by annoying children. He was present during breakfast, but under his mother’s skirts, from which position he observed the adults at the table. I had a chance to study him a little too, now that I was disabused of his brotherly relationship to Mary Wright, and I had to conclude that, son or brother, he did not resemble her at all. What I could see of Mrs. Wright, that which was not concealed modestly under her cap, showed her to be a very well-favored young lady with abundant tresses of light hair. She must enjoy her garden, for her skin was tanned from the sun, despite being so fair.

  The boy, however, was more than just sallow, as I had thought him on the previous evening. His skin was almost leathery. He was small, but his limbs were exceptionally wiry and strong looking, unlike children of that age I was accustomed to. Of course, being a doctor of sorts in my former life, I had mixed almost exclusively with the wealthy, as the poor cannot afford good health, and the children of the wealthy, I knew, were still mostly cosseted babies at the age David was.

  I do not like being put under scrutiny, as Aleksey would confirm if asked. I do not like being made to feel uncomfortable and experience that sensation that something or someone in the darkness of the trees beyond the range of my sight is observing me. I suppose no one does. I felt just such a pricking unease that morning as I sat under the child’s steady gaze.

  He was not beneath his mother’s skirts from shyness, I concluded, but because they gave him cover.

  The thought came to me even then that he was hiding in plain sight.

  How I wish now that I had thought more on this and less on the delights of white bread.

  Major Parkinson, Frederic
k, was not in such a good mood this morning as he had been the previous night. I got the impression he had not slept well on the ground, and I had just eaten all the leftover breakfast. He appeared to be eyeing my six-foot-plus frame with some alarm and calculating just how much food I could eat. He also did not look like a soldier who did much actual soldiering.

  Captain Jonathan Rochester was also watching us closely—Aleksey in particular. For one moment the previous night he had reminded me of Johan; perhaps the name had stirred the resemblance. But on closer inspection across the camp table, there was no resemblance at all other than age and scarring and watching Aleksey too closely. I decided he was an unpleasant fellow and determined to keep a very close eye on him. I wanted to kick Aleksey under the table, for I knew he knew what I was thinking and found it exceedingly entertaining.

  Lieutenant Owen McIntyre reminded me of a pup I had once owned before the terror had come to the colony. I do not remember what had happened to the puppy. Anyway, Owen was all floppy ears and rolling tongue and willingness to please. He was amusing enough. He was watching me a great deal and not Aleksey, which was novel. I quite enjoyed it.

  The reverend was very quiet, but not, I thought, in a good way. He appeared to want to say something of great import but then desired everyone to notice this and stop what they were talking about to graciously ask him to bless them with his words of wisdom. No one else, however, noticed, and as I wasn’t talking anyway, he was thwarted in a most amusing way. His expression became more and more pinched, and his nostrils whiter as breakfast progressed.

  Even at this early stage in my acquaintance with these people, I concluded that his was not a particularly happy marriage. For a man enjoying such bounty as Mary Wright, he appeared to me strangely unconcerned with her. I would at least have expected him to ensure she had the best portion of the food available. He did not even cut her bacon for her, which would have been the kind of attention a man usually paid his bride. The reverend sat some way away from her and his new son and did not concern himself with them once. I had a very strong suspicion then that she was not as keen to make this journey to the wilderness colony as her new husband. She must have left a pretty cottage and garden and all her new friends. I felt sorry for her and determined to tell Aleksey to offer her any assistance she might need on the journey ahead of us. It would keep him happily engaged. Better than helping Jonathan Rochester with anything, anyway.