Page 110 of Dragon Slayer

For a little while, Val allowed himself to pretend that he was back home in Wallachia; that the fingers in his hair belonged to his mother, or Helga. Someone who loved him, and who was fussing over the knots he’d gained from a day’s training and playing.Whatever shall we do with you?People who thought he was just a boy, rowdy and intractable like his brothers; people who touched him with love.

But all too soon he was clean, and the water was cold, and it was time to face reality again.

He dried with a length of toweling and the slave held up a blue silk robe that settled sweetly against his chilled skin.

But a robe, no matter how luxurious its gold trim and gold tasseled-ties, did not count as clothes. Not the kind you wore when you were out in the palace attending meals with other hostages. This was a robe for bedchambers. For intimacy.

A robe for a concubine.

“The sultan,” the boy sad, halting and red-faced, “wishes you – he wants you to stay.” He pointed at the floor with one small finger. “Here. He’ll be back by nightfall.”

Val swallowed…and swallowed again, trying to push down his queasiness. “What’s your name?”

The boy’s head jerked up, eyes wide. “M-m-my name, your grace?” Confusion writ large on his face. No one ever asked him that; no one ever cared.

“If you’re willing to tell me,” Val said. Both their voices were sad, hushed little things; they could barely meet in the space between them. He had the absurd mental image of two mice creeping along the floor of a predator’s cave.

The boy studied him a long moment, his face a mask, his scent giving off fear…and curiosity. Finally, just a whisper: “My mother named me Arslan.”

“Arslan,” Val repeated.

Turkish forlion.

~*~

Mehmet returned after sunset, after slaves had lit lanterns and tall taper candles around the room, started a fresh fire in the brazier. The suite glowed with golden light.

Val sat on the padded bench at the foot of the bed, still in his robe, his hair combed and oiled, arranged over one shoulder. Arslan had brought him a supper tray and seen to him: rubbed his skin with fragrant oils, drew careful lines of kohl around his eyes, painted his lips with pigment and oil so they shone. It had felt very much like being a horse groomed for a tourney; all he lacked was a ribbon in his mane.

Slaves attended to Mehmet in the outer room, stripping him of boots and turban, offering wine and carefully sliced wedges of goat cheese and pita. A bath had already been prepared, the copper tub full of clean, steaming water before the fire.

He dismissed them all, and came into the inner room alone. He lingered in the doorway a moment, elbow braced against the wall, cup of wine held in his other hand. He stared; behind him, the outer door closed with a thump.

The sultan was beautiful. Val could admit that objectively, though the beauty of men and boys had never inspired anything other than admiration in him. He felt no stirring of want, no niggle of embarrassed interest, like when he watched the kitchen girls at home home tuck loose curls of hair like corkscrews back from their faces, cheeks flushed from the cookfires.

He did not want the sultan to look at him as he was now, green eyes slitted and greedy as a cat’s. But. He had no choice, he supposed.

Finally, Mehmet took a long sip of wine and shoved off the doorframe and into the room. He set the cup aside on the dressing table and reached to pluck at the buttons of his plain blue kaftan. “You look comfortable,” he said lightly.

Panic welled in Val’s throat.No, no, please no. But he swallowed it down. The worst had already happened. “I am, your grace.”

“Hmm. Certainly a pretty sight to come home to. I’ve been negotiating with fools all day.” He flicked his fingers. “Come. You can attend me.”

Not only a concubine, but a servant as well, it seemed.

But this was better. This he could perform with less shame.

Val slid to his feet and went to attend the sultan. He made deft work of buttons and laces. Beneath his silk shirt, Mehmet smelled of horses and sweat…and of last night, still.

He touched Val’s chin, startling him, and tipped his head back. Bare-chested, golden and smiling in the candlelight, a work of muscle and sinew in the flickering shadows. “Do you smell it?” he whispered, delighted.

Val didn’t answer. He unlaced the sultan’s tight riding leathers with flaming cheeks. Mehmet swiveled his hips, leaned into the movement; he was growing hard behind his flies, and Val’s fingers grew clumsy with nerves and sweat. He didn’t want this. The gorge rose in his throat.

He pushed through, though, and finally the sultan was naked and stepping into the bath, sinking down into the water with a hiss.

Val knew a moment’s reprieve; nothing untoward would happen now, while the sultan bathed. Freedom for a spell, at least.

But then Mehmet said, “Wash my back.”

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