Page 43 of Warlords, Witches & Wolves

“It is the truth.”

“You think a stiff cock is proof enough?”

“That’s just a bonus.”

Absolon sneered.

“I cared for you, Sol. I regret what I did to you. I…I am ashamed of it. Ever since I left you behind, I have thought of you and wondered how you fared. I hoped you had made it out of there and made a better life for yourself, much better than the one I could have given you.” He hadn’t planned to say all that. And he hadn’t planned for it to hurt so much.

“I didn’t want another life. I wanted the one we had.” Absolon thumped his chest, and pain twisted his features. “Together.”

“I know, but it was impossible, and I’m sorry. I’d do anything to make that up to you.”

“You will.” Abruptly, Absolon left the cell.

Ragnar backed away a little, a small trace of fear at what he would return with, but when he reappeared, he carried in one arm a thick brown woolen blanket and a change of clothes, and a stool in another. He placed the dry clothes on the stool. “Get dressed.” He didn’t look at Ragnar.

Ragnar had never before felt more naked and exposed and rejected. If he could not offer his body nor his heart, then what could he possibly give to save his life?

Absolon slunk from the cell and locked him in, and in the pale afternoon light, Ragnar dressed and huddled beneath his blanket.

* * *

That night Ragnarsang for himself as much as for Absolon. He paced the cell as far as he could, the ground still cold, damp and turning to ice, as the temperature plummeted. Unpredictable autumn eager to become winter. He couldn’t get the shirt on over the manacles but wrapped it over his shoulders and cowered beneath the blanket for warmth. The trousers were good enough. If it hadn’t been for all that water and the sodden earth, he would have been warmer than on any other night. A shame there was nowhere dry to lie down.

The sad songs of loss only made the night colder, and so he turned his voice to songs of hope and love found. One of which had been a favorite of Absolon’s, one that he’d sung only for him, and as it flew from his mouth and fluttered in the rafters, his heart soared with it, forgetting for a while about how and why he was there, and that it was the two of them once more in happier times.

He had been kinder to Absolon then. He had basked in the younger man’s idolatry. Surely, he had not always treated him so harshly? There had been tenderness, otherwise why would Absolon have stayed with him? Why would he have abandoned a good life for the rough one they’d traded it for?

Soon after they’d left the army and gone skulking off into the countryside, they’d gotten into trouble in some backwater tavern in a town that stank of pig shit. They’d been hassled, someone had threatened Ragnar, and Absolon had gone into his berserker fit. He’d cracked skulls, broken tables and chairs, terrified the locals and tackled four men at once. But when Ragnar intervened and the cowards had slunk away, Absolon saw him and calmed, the shame crashed over him, thinking he’d done Ragnar wrong. He’d taken Absolon’s hand and they’d run from the tavern, and Ragnar had soothed the beast within, and made love with such gentleness yet such ferocity that Absolon had been revived.

At no point during the whole ordeal had Ragnar thought about himself, only about Absolon. And he knew then that Absolon would be his downfall.

If anyone threatened Absolon’s life, he would be undone. He was the weak spot that he could not have if he were to seek his revenge. Because if Absolon tried to turn him from it, he would do it.

When that memory flooded him, he stopped singing, and though Absolon’s lantern light remained outside his door, he did not sing again. A restless night passed in which the cold in the cell could not rival the chill in his heart.

* * *

“Your singing is getting better.”Absolon brought food and water, this time adding dried fish to the dark rye bread.

Ragnar’s mouth watered, and his fingers primed ready to stuff the lot in his mouth once Absolon was gone. “I’m glad you think so. Do you have any requests?”

Absolon’s lips twitched as he considered the question, even though Ragnar had meant it as a joke.

“Hitta mig på morgonen,” he mumbled.

Ragnar was shocked. “I thought the one about the boy with the horse was your favorite.”

“It used to be.”

Used to be… Back when we used to mean something to each other.

“I’ll remember that. Thank you for the fish.”

Absolon grunted. “You haven’t put on your shirt.”

Ragnar closed the blanket tighter around his shoulders, unwelcome shame sliding through him over the display he’d made of himself the day before. He rattled one of the manacles. “Bit hard to do with these on. I’m fine, though. The blanket is warm.”

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