CHAPTER FOUR
He didn’t know why, but the next day when Ancel saw Berenger talking in a low voice to Lord Droet’s pet, it made him angry, and he stalked out of the stuffy, overlit rooms, into the cool shade of the gardens.
Inside, people were thronging and gossiping wildly at the latest outrage from the Prince. Here there were only pleasing lamps, not the blazing bright of a thousand candles, and Ancel could think.
There were plenty of lords at court wealthier and higher in status than Berenger. Ancel could get any one of them. But that wasn’t a triumph. He had come here to rise to the top.
He heard footsteps behind him. Berenger. He turned.
It wasn’t Berenger. It was the Ambassador to Vask, her face familiar to him from a dozen evening entertainments. Ancel knew her sculptured style of dress well, the Vaskian elements she incorporated into her clothing. She had the straight-backed posture and poise of a woman used to power.
‘Lady Vannes,’ he said.
She was regarding him. He thought of saying something risky and flirtatious, that she should not be alone with him, thinking of the scandal and excitement of it. But she wasn’t alone. Her Vaskian pet was alongside her, stern-faced and decked out in heavy gold.
Vannes spoke. ‘You and Berenger are utterly mismatched. And you’re clearly ambitious. I hope you won’t hurt him too badly when you move on.’
Ancel pushed himself away from the garden railing and dipped his lashes prettily. ‘I wouldn’t be a very good pet if I didn’t break at least a few hearts.’
She seemed to like this reply. ‘Perhaps your next conquest will know what to do with you.’
A small party of courtiers was approaching. Ancel frowned. Berenger was still with Lord Droet’s pet. At least no one knew that Berenger was the one dissolving his contract. Everyone would think what Vannes thought, that Berenger couldn’t hold Ancel and Ancel was moving on to someone better.
His whole purpose in coming here had been to secure a brilliant contract. Now he needed to do that.
Ancel thought of the impossible. For pets, it was epitomised by one man. The Prince. The Prince, who had never taken a pet. The Prince, who had never taken anyone, or been taken, so they said. They said he was frigid, that he had ice in his veins, that pets failed to interest him.
But there was one person who had the Prince’s complete attention.
Ancel’s gaze swung around the gardens, and in the bower on the corner, he saw the Prince’s slave.
He was kneeling, muscles rippling, tied to the post with the flimsiest chain, the dark curls of his head bent. Someone had chained him up and left him alone, with no handlers.
By the time Berenger and the others arrived, Ancel knew exactly what he was going to do.
‘Let’s take a turn around the garden,’ said Ancel, smiling sweetly at Berenger, taking his arm in place of Lord Droet’s pet.
He led the group, let their path wind slowly down the paths towards the bower where there were fewer lamps, and the sounds were less. They strolled with the others, Vannes, Lord Droet, Berenger and their pets, a party of six, until they came to the bower that held the Prince’s slave.
The slave was more frightening close up, and bigger. Physically imposing, and dripping with disdainful pride, he looked as though he could break any handlers in half. He was nothing like a court pet: it was as if the other courtiers were playing with kittens while the Prince had brought in a lion.
Ancel halted in front of the bower deliberately.
The Prince’s slave wasn’t alone. There was another slave with him, a blond, slender, wide-eyed young man, also from Akielos. The two slaves were caught up in one another, conversing quietly amid the dimly lit greenery. As Ancel watched, the blond slave lifted his hand gently to the face of the Prince’s slave, tipping it up.
‘Don’t stop on our account,’ said Ancel.
They sprang apart. The younger blond slave pressed his forehead submissively to the floor, a pose that seemed designed to make you want to step on his head. Ancel found himself unaccountably irritated by the passivity. The Prince’s slave moved back on his knees only far enough to rake them all with a scathing look. Ancel looked down at him coolly.
‘Another minute or two, and we might have caught them kissing.’
Berenger was frowning. The Prince’s slave stayed where he was, with the air of one tolerating an intrusion that would be gone soon. He looked scornful and unimpressed when his eyes passed briefly over Ancel, Berenger and Vannes. His only movement was to shift slightly, a rearrangement of muscle.
He was chained to the metalwork of the bower with a delicate gold chain. Ancel remembered that this slave had knocked a fighter unconscious in the ring, that he had put hands on the Prince in the baths, then attacked him in the great hall. If he stood up, that tiny chain wouldn’t hold.
‘I think it’s more exciting now that we know he’s really dangerous,’ said Ancel.
‘Councillor Guion suggested that he wasn’t trained to perform as a pleasure slave,’ said Lady Vannes. ‘But training isn’t everything. He might have natural talent.’
‘Natural talent?’ said the Prince.
He strolled up, coolly. Ancel had to force himself not to turn, his heart racing wildly as he bowed with the others. When he looked up, the Prince was right there, the closest Ancel had been to royalty.
Arriving in the bower, the Prince of Vere was instantly commanding, with nothing soft or yielding in him. A young man with golden hair, cold blue eyes and an arresting profile, he had a pet’s looks and a Prince’s bearing, laced up tighter than Berenger, in dark, severe clothing. He looked capable of mastering the slave through force of will, as though the slave’s discomfort was his pleasure.
‘I’d happily perform with him,’ Ancel announced. The Prince didn’t react, his eyes on the slave.
‘Ancel, no. He could hurt you.’ Ancel ignored Berenger, and spoke to the shoulders and back of the Prince.
‘Would you like that?’
Berenger frowned. ‘No. I wouldn’t.’
‘What do you think, Your Highness?’ said Ancel.
The Prince turned, and Ancel found himself the sole subject of the Prince’s attention.
‘I think your master would prefer you intact,’ said the Prince.
‘You could tie the slave up.’
He saw the moment the Prince took in the idea. There was something more in the Prince’s eyes, something private, though it was only there for a moment, before the Prince’s expression hardened.
‘Why not?’
Two handlers began to move towards the slave. They were going to restrain him further, because he was dangerous.
Ancel looked Berenger right in the eyes. ‘Tell me how you want me to fuck him.’
‘I don’t want you to fuck him,’ said Berenger.
‘I do,’ said Ancel. ‘I want to do it with you watching.’
You mean with the Prince watching, Berenger didn’t say. Instead, Berenger frowned in that way that he had, turned to the handlers, and gave some instructions about safety. Ancel barely heard him, only half aware of the flurry of activity, the preparations being made.
Drawn by the rarity of the spectacle, a few other courtiers had drifted over, and then a few more, a small audience gathering. Servants approached, distributing refreshments. The clink of glassware and serving trays seemed too loud.
Ancel didn’t need Berenger. He was going to do it with the Prince’s slave, in front of everyone. No other pet had ever won the Prince’s attention.
Because the tiny gold chain was not strong enough, handlers had secured the Prince’s slave to the bench, where he was positioned with his wrists cuffed to the metalwork above his head, his torso one long line of muscle, his legs spread.
The slave’s eyes lifted to meet Ancel’s for a moment, radiating fury, before he turned the full force of it on the Prince, who just stared back at him coldly.
And then it was time, everyone was taking their seats on the bower benches, and Ancel was approaching the slave with all eyes on him.
Close to, the slave was a dominating presence, the long muscles of his thighs bunching as Ancel knelt between them. Ancel remembered the trail of blood in the arena, and adrenalin spiked his pulse higher. This slave had clubbed his opponent to the ground in the ring. He wasn’t a court pet, or a brothel client. He an Akielon, named for the Akielon prince-killer.
Ancel could see, as he put his hands on those thighs, that the slave disliked him. That was irritating. Did he think Ancel was salivating to suck his cock? Pets had to do things they didn’t like all the time. Ancel leaned forward and wrapped his hand around it. It was big, and not hard yet.
It had been a long time since Ancel had given head, thanks to Berenger’s prudery. It was disconcerting, uncomfortable at first, like he didn’t want to be this close, or put his mouth on it. He pushed past the feeling. He was good at this. He knew what to do and how to do it.
The uncomfortable feeling grew. The slave was too stupid to realise he was supposed to be performing. He was slow to rouse, half hard and unmoving. How had he ever achieved a court position, with skills this poor? Wasn’t he trying at all?
And then came the cool words, ‘I wonder if we can do better than this. Stop.’
Ancel felt the slave jerk, his cock hardening as the Prince settled himself on the bower seat alongside them. Ancel shifted as the Prince’s shiny boot extended out right next to him. He looked up, and saw that the Prince’s eyes were on the slave, while the slave sat with his jaw clenched, his face turned away.
‘You’re more likely to win a game if you don’t play your whole hand at once,’ the Prince said. ‘Start more slowly.’
‘Like this?’
The wait was deliberate, to make the Prince say it.
‘Like that.’
Ancel clasped his hands behind his back, mostly for show, and used his mouth only, bowing his head to tongue the slit. Fully hard now, the slave was bigger than any Ancel had taken.
‘He likes that. Do it harder.’
He felt the slave jerk again, heard the new hitch in his breathing. He did like that, tugging unconsciously on his restraints as Ancel, on the Prince’s instructions, began to slowly suckle the head.
‘Take it all the way down,’ said the Prince, and Ancel took it deep into his throat.
Not quite all of it. He heard the slave say something in Akielon. It sounded like a swearword. Ancel half expected the Prince’s hand on his head, pushing him down the last inch, but when he glanced up, neither of the men were paying him any attention, their eyes locked on one another.
He came up without coughing or needing a breath, a cultivated skill that was often admired. He might not have had bigger, but he’d had a lot, and began the performance in earnest: the repeating up and down, angling his body to the side a little to let the onlookers see better, moaning to indicate pleasure.
‘All of it,’ said the Prince, and Ancel went down again until he managed all of it, his entire throat a vessel.
The Prince, sitting casually on the bower seat, continued giving instructions. The slave eventually began panting, and after a while, started thrusting of his own volition. When that happened, Ancel had no control over it, other than to open his throat. It didn’t matter that the Prince didn’t seem pay him any attention, or that he was only a conduit. The slave wasn’t even looking at him.
It was what he wanted. What he was good at.
‘Finish him off,’ said the Prince, who rose, walking away in disinterest even before the end of his last instruction.
It blurred a little after that, Ancel picking up the pace, the slave jerking, his body curving over itself, unable to hold back the sound as he came.
Ancel swallowed before he realised what he was doing, a hazy instinct. The slave was panting, looking up through a tangle of curls in a furious way, as though he’d like to have a second go-around, this time with his hand around someone’s throat. But he wasn’t looking at Ancel at all. He lifted that gaze and fixed it right on the Prince.
The two of them were locked together, Ancel utterly forgotten as he rose unsteadily to his feet.
His throat felt abraded. Everyone was fussing over him. Courtiers crowded around with accolades, comments, and congratulations. ‘You really are the perfect pet,’ and ‘I’ve never seen anyone take it like that,’ and, ‘I’d pay a fortune for you.’
Berenger had him by the arm, and was pulling him aside, tugging him away so that he was being ushered into the privacy of a second bower before he could resist.
He remembered the last time Berenger had pulled him into a bower. He remembered what he thought had been going to happen. Ancel could feel his own bruised, reddened lips. He could taste the thick salt of it, feel the roughened thrusts.
Berenger had a hand on his shoulder and was staring into his face. Ancel lifted his chin.
‘Did he hurt you?’ The words were short.
‘I liked it,’ said Ancel. ‘I like sucking cock. I’m a pet.’
For a moment they gazed at each other, before Berenger let go his shoulder.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Berenger, ‘that your stunt didn’t work out the way you planned.’
‘Who says it didn’t? Everyone’s talking about me,’ said Ancel. ‘It’s what I want.’
The unlit fire stick smelled of lamp oil, and it was heavy, the soaked, weighted cloth wrapped around each end providing a wick.
It was ready, as Ancel was ready, waiting in an antechamber adjoining the great hall. He wore gauzy, ephemeral silks, of the kind that would flash burn in an instant if he made a mistake with the flame. His face was painted to highlight his lips and his green eyes, and he wore his hair flowing and out. Red, the colour of fire, the colour of the Regency; the similarity was deliberate.
‘The Regent’s going to call on you to attend him at dinner.’
The familiar boy’s voice that piped behind him was not yet broken by puberty. Ancel turned to look at Nicaise, really look, at his big blue eyes, and his beautifully curled hair, and the long earring too heavy for the young face.
‘If you do one thing.’
Ancel could glimpse the great hall through the door behind Nicaise. Dinner was ending, and people had begun to move on to the next part of the evening, mingling, entertainments. Among the courtiers, pets, servants, heralds, retinues, and guards. There were three princes inside: Torveld, Prince of Patras; Laurent, Prince of Vere; and the Regent, the most powerful man at court, who sat in command of it all.
‘Attend him,’ said Ancel.
‘It’s easy. You have fire. The blond slave doesn’t like fire.’ Nicaise pointed with his chin through the archway, to where a handler was bringing a blond slave into the antechamber with them, drawing him forward by a chain attached to the collar on his neck.
It was the blond slave from the bower. The insipid, spineless creature who made you want to pinch his skin, or shake him to wake up. Like a useless doe in a forest. Expecting someone else to help him.
With looks like that, the blond slave could have owned this court if he’d put any work into it. Instead he was trembling and helpless and waiting for a rescue that was never going to come. It was irritating.
‘Then the Regent will call you to attend him. Everyone will see you sitting with him. That’s what you want, isn’t it? The bids for your contract will go up.’
‘A whole night with the Regent?’ Ancel twirled the stick. ‘Aren’t you jealous?’
‘I’m not jealous,’ said Nicaise. ‘You’re old.’
To Ancel’s disbelief, Prince Torveld liked the slave.
The night started well. Every pair of eyes in the hall was on him, admiring, even before he tipped the sticks into the fire and they burst into flame.
Ancel knew from the first toss of the sticks that the performance was a triumph, the fire like liquid light in his hands. He felt like he was part of the fire, beautiful and strong and full of dangerous heat. It was like holding power in his hands, his body supple and responsive, tossing the sticks higher and higher, spinning them, bright and hot.
Riotous cheers broke out as he finished, panting slightly, feeling the triumph of the moment pumping in his blood. And then the blond slave was brought in by a handler.
Nicaise was right. Ancel didn’t have to do very much, just approach with the sticks, twirling them lightly. Just the heat made the slave baulk, pulling against his chain like a horse pulling on its lead rope. He had to be dragged forward, which made him choke, the chain pulling at the collar around his neck. He looked terrified.
It made Ancel angry. This mewling creature who had been brought to court and lavished with every opportunity that Ancel had worked for, was doing nothing to advance his own career, even now.
But in the next moment Prince Torveld was calling the slave over, and—rather than booting him out of the hall—was fussing over him, talking to him, stroking his tousled blond head.
Ancel gaped. Prince Torveld was taking the slave into his household? For what? For being too weak to survive at court? The unfairness was terrible. If Ancel had wanly lain down and waited for a rescuer, he would have died in the street.
He put the sticks out, the smoke thick and acrid, and returned to his own table.
Berenger was looking at him with sickened eyes. ‘What you did was—’
‘Not your business,’ said Ancel. ‘I’m nothing to do with you after tonight.’
As he spoke, a liveried servant approaching their table said, ‘Ancel, the Regent of Vere requests your company.’
He stood. The insipid blond slave wasn’t the only one who had won himself royal attention. Ancel walked right up to the dais that led to the Regent’s chair, kneeling and then rising at the Regent’s gesture, looking up past the robes edged in ermine to the face of the most powerful man at court.
He was older than Berenger, by perhaps ten years. Not older than Louans—Ancel had certainly entertained older men than this. It was difficult to think of other men when standing before the Regent, whose power gave him an authority others lacked.
Tonight, he was dressed in red, the rich royal colour flattering his looks, wide powerful shoulders and dark hair still mostly untouched by silver. The Regent had a trimmed beard, different to the clean-shaven look his nephew preferred. He had heavy jewelled rings on his fingers, and a thick gold-and-ruby chain of office around his neck.
He gestured for Ancel to step forward.
‘Come. Sit.’
There was nowhere to sit. Ancel stepped up and simply straddled the Regent’s lap, twining arms around the man’s neck. He heard the murmurs as he did it, and lifted his chin, brazenly. He met the Regent’s gaze, his body language like a claim, like ownership.
‘You are exotic, aren’t you,’ said the Regent, and touched his hair. Red, like the regency.
‘I’m one of a kind, Your Highness,’ said Ancel. The other title was on his lips. Your Majesty. The Regent felt like a king. The Regent’s other arm settled about his waist.
‘Tell me about your master,’ the Regent said. ‘Lord Berenger.’
‘He’s boring,’ said Ancel. ‘Serious. Loyal.’
‘Loyal to my nephew,’ said the Regent. He spoke pleasantly, tweaking Ancel’s hair as he did so. The sharp tug hurt.
‘Loyal to the throne.’ Ancel’s heart had started beating faster.
‘I’ve heard he’s met with my nephew, several times. What was discussed?’
‘I couldn’t say. I wasn’t there for the meetings.’ He kept his tone light.
‘So there were meetings.’
His mouth felt dry suddenly, and it was hard to swallow. He thought of Berenger in the hall somewhere behind him, wondered if Berenger was looking at him, thought he probably wasn’t.
‘No. I mean that I don’t know—I don’t know what meetings he’s taken.’
‘Oh dear.’ The tone was disappointed. ‘I thought you were clever.’
The Regent shifted, forcing Ancel to reposition, awkwardly. He was motioning for one of the servants to approach, looking past Ancel as though he was done with him.
‘I am.’ Ancel’s heart was pounding. ‘You just haven’t asked the right question.’
‘And what’s that,’ said the Regent.
‘If I’m loyal,’ said Ancel.
‘And are you?’ said the Regent.
‘Very,’ said Ancel. ‘To the highest bidder. That’s what a pet is.’ He made his words soft, like velvet. ‘Berenger owns my contract today, but tomorrow…?’
‘I admire your enterprise,’ said the Regent. ‘Look around this court. I’ll arrange a contract with whoever you like—’
The servant had arrived, with a silver tray full of sweets. The Regent took one, then held it, between thumb and forefinger, in front of Ancel’s lips. ‘—if you’re good.’
Ancel leaned in and ate the sweet from the Regent’s fingers. He did it holding the Regent’s gaze. The Regent smiled, and brushed some powdered sugar from Ancel’s lips with his thumb.
‘Your pet is very obliging,’ said the Regent, as he returned Ancel to Berenger at the end of the night. ‘We’ve spent a wonderful night, talking.’
‘Your Highness.’ Berenger bowed low. His face was wiped of all expression.
They walked back to Berenger’s rooms together in silence. Ancel didn’t take his arm as had been his custom. It was late enough that there was no one in the passages or on the stairs. Ancel could hear the echo of every step. Their presence seemed unbearably loud, though Berenger said nothing to him at all.
Inside their rooms, Berenger dismissed him with a shake of his head. Ancel watched him turn away, watched him enter the darkened part of the rooms that held his bed, beginning to unlace his own jacket.
‘I didn’t tell him anything.’
The words were a blurt, delivered to the back of Berenger’s shoulders. Berenger’s movement came to a halt.
‘What do you mean?’
‘About you and the Prince. That you’ve been meeting secretly each night. That you’re taking his side, that you’ve offered him funding and passage through Varenne, I didn’t tell him any of that, I thought that you—’
Berenger turned. Berenger was across the room, his hands on Ancel’s arms, gripping him tightly, his eyes boring into Ancel’s.
‘Stop it. You’re spoiling my clothes. I didn’t tell him. I told you. I didn’t tell him anything.’
Berenger didn’t let go. Berenger eyes were searching his face.
‘How do you know about any of that?’
‘Just because I like nice things, and don’t read the boring books you like, doesn’t mean I’m stup—’
‘This isn’t a game, Ancel.’
‘I’m trying to secure my future! I need to go somewhere. After you—after you end my contract. The Regent’s the most powerful man at court. Why shouldn’t I try to better myself? But I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t tell him anything about you. You’ve always been—generous—you gave me gifts, and I thought you—’
Berenger released him roughly, and moved two steps off. ‘So that’s it. You want gifts?’ Berenger said, in a flat, deadly voice, ‘Are you trying to blackmail me for money?’
Ancel felt his mouth turn to sand. ‘No.’
Berenger didn’t turn back to face him. ‘There are lives at stake. I’ll give you whatever you want to keep my dealings private.’
‘I don’t want—I told you, I didn’t tell him anything. I wouldn’t. I was your pet, I thought we—I don’t want your money like that—’
Ancel’s chest hurt. Berenger turned as Ancel said the last words, and when their eyes met, Ancel couldn’t look away.
Was he going to beg?
‘You must hate me.’
‘Hate you?’ said Berenger. ‘Why would I hate you? You’ve always been honest with me. You never tried to hide what you were.’
‘A whore,’ said Ancel.
Berenger didn’t argue. Berenger didn’t say anything at all, just looked back at him. Ancel lifted his chin.
‘So what if I am? I’m not ashamed of it. I’m good at it. I can make men want me.’ His voice felt raw. ‘It just doesn’t work on you.’
He thought, in the silence that followed, that it didn’t matter. Tomorrow he would have a new patron. He would go to his room, where he would pack his things, the clothes, the paint, the gifts, and Berenger would be just one more owner, one more man from his past, one more name on a list.
There was a hard pressure in his chest that he had to ignore. He would turn and walk away from it, he would move on to the next man, and the next.
‘It works on me,’ said Berenger.
The words, in Berenger’s honest voice, at first didn’t make sense. Ancel didn’t understand it, it was too close to his own hopes. The look in Berenger’s eyes was like the tone in his voice, painfully honest. Ancel’s heart was beating wildly.
‘You’ve never—’
‘You never wanted me to.’
‘Is that what you think?’ said Ancel.
‘Yes,’ said Berenger, steadily.
The stark truth of it hung between them. Ancel knew it, and yet he knew also the confusion that he’d felt, when Berenger had kissed him, knew the hot, sharp feeling at the thought of Berenger ending his contract.
‘Don’t give me up,’ said Ancel.
‘Ancel, I’m going to be supporting the Prince’s claim to the throne. There’s every chance he’ll fail, his supporters cast out as traitors—I can’t guarantee you a life, a future.’ Berenger was shaking his head. ‘If the Regent prevails, I won’t have money or lands. You should be with someone who can give you the luxuries you deserve, not someone who’ll embroil you in—’
‘That’s why?’ said Ancel. ‘That’s why you decided to break my contract?’
He made sense of that much. And he clung to it. He wanted to ask, Does that mean you’re not giving me up because you don’t want me? He didn’t know how to ask that. He was usually so good at asking for what he wanted.
‘Can you honestly tell me that you’d want to stay with me if it meant risking your position?’ Berenger said. ‘If I had no money?’
‘I’ve never fucked anyone without it being for money.’
The words came out differently than he’d intended. The painfully straightforward way that Berenger had asked him that question meant that Ancel had given an honest answer.
It was Berenger who spoke. ‘When I saw you in the ring, I thought you were incredible. You were fearless, powerful. You took on every lord in the room, and beat them. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.’
‘You want me, too,’ said Ancel.
‘Ancel—’
‘When we kissed, you—’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t care what might happen.’ He was moving forward, because Berenger wanted him. He couldn’t keep the way that made him feel out of his voice, the pleasure of it, the new confidence. ‘You’re not poor now. You can afford me.’
Berenger was shaking his head. ‘Ancel, I’m not poor now. But if the Prince fails—’
‘If he fails,’ said Ancel. He was stepping into Berenger’s space. He put his hand on the laces of Berenger’s jacket, and Berenger didn’t move away. ‘But if he wins?’