Page 9 of Forged

Nick hummed sagely and nodded.

Bax was teetering on the edge of asking something outrageously bold, like “Do you ever fancy men?” when the director called them all to attention.

“Right, you lot. In this scene, Henry is being marched up to the gallows, so we need you all to cheer and holler or look horrified as you see fit, got it?” the director instructed them.

What followed was fifteen minutes of pandemonium as the extras dove into their roles while the lead actor marched about twelve yards six or seven times. After that, everything stopped again as the cameras were adjusted to shoot the same scene froma different angle. For continuity’s sake, the extras were all told to stay right where they were.

“So what do you think?” Bax asked as the production crew’s attention turned elsewhere.

“About what?” Nick asked, swaying a bit closer to him.

Bax wanted to turn and throw himself into Nick’s arms so they could cuddle for warmth. He might be able to get away with saying it was platonic. Not that he wanted it to be platonic.

“Are weforthis Henry bloke having his neck stretched or are weagainstit?” Bax asked.

He got lucky when one of the other extras accidentally bumped him from behind, giving him an excuse to lean into Nick for a second.

Nick reached out like he would balance Bax. His hand spread across Bax’s back to steady him. Bax wished he would keep it there, but he let it drop.

“I’m against anyone being hanged for their crimes,” Nick said, sounding adorably good as he did.

“What?” Bax teased him. “Even last week, when Boris the miller’s son was caught drowning that sack of puppies in the river?”

Nick snapped a look at him and said, “What?”

Bax grinned and continued spinning his tale. “If you ask me, Old Boris has always been a nutter. Remember last year during harvest, when we were helping the farmers to bring in the sheaves and he was caught enjoying himself a little too much with Dan the cartwright’s donkey?”

Nick laughed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Bax took a risk of pushing things a little farther, all in the name of research, of course.

“We’d gone off to sit under the shade of an old oak tree, just the two of us and a jug of Matilda the Brewer’s finest mead. Thelord of the manor was off fighting the Crusades and since no one was watching, we decided to cuddle up for a quick nap.”

Nick sucked in a breath, but whether that was because he’d caught on to the fiction Bax was weaving or because he liked the idea of the two of them cuddled up under an oak tree with a bottle of mead was yet to be determined.

“Right,” he said, drawing the single word out. “It was just after we’d danced the maypole and…and did whatever else people did to entertain themselves back then.”

“Which also involveddancing the maypole,” Bax said, throwing as much innuendo into the comment as he could.

Nick flushed a deep shade of red and glanced down with a smile. It was the single cutest thing Bax had ever seen anyone do, but it still didn’t enlighten him as to whether Nick was strictly straight or not.

“I suppose you think this Henry bloke should hang,” Nick went on, throwing himself into pretend. “You were cheering awfully loud just then.”

“I’m the town crier,” Bax said with a shrug. “I do everything loud.”

“Everything?” Nick asked, a decidedly naughty look in his eyes.

Bax thanked all the old gods and the new that he was such a bad influence on his friend. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he asked, arching one eyebrow.

Nick laughed and blushed, but whatever hope Bax might have had of digging a little deeper to find out if he had a chance was cut short as the production crew ramped up activity again.

The rest of the morning was spent in the same stop-and-start cycle of filming what would probably end up being three seconds in the film, finishing one bit, then reworking the camera angles so that they could shoot the same bit again. They’d progressed a little by lunchtime, enough so that they were filming longerstretches of dialogue as Henry talked his way out of being hanged. By the time they got to that point, though, most of the extras weren’t needed as the scene could be shot in such a way that they weren’t in any of the shots.

“I can’t decide if I’m happy about being cut from the rest of the scene or ecstatic,” Bax said as he and Nick walked back up to the house along with the others who the director had decided wouldn’t be needed for the rest of the scene.

“I’m ecstatic,” Nick said, a heaviness in his voice that said he meant it.

“Aaw, don’t you like spending time with me?” Bax asked. The question was a risk, as was the way he threw his arm over Nick’s shoulders like they were best friends.

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