Page 103 of Seducing the Sorcerer
“Exactly.” Morgrim ran a hand through his disordered hair and suddenly looked every inch the court sorcerer, despite being naked in a tangle of sheets. “The coronation celebrations start tomorrow. Tullivo will probably stay away now he doesn’t have me anymore, but the Lutian ambassador and court sorcerer are still expected. So, we need you everywhere, front and centre. Horses in the sky. We’ll get you on the welcoming committee. You can go down to the docks with Aramella. I’ll hang back, but I’ll be there. On show. Make sure you get really close to their sorcerer when you make him your bow. Find an excuse to touch him, if you can. Solicitously, of course. Oh! I’ve just thought—even better! Offer them a ride up to the palace on horseback. Act as if it’s an honour they can’t refuse. The retainers can take the lifts or the palanquins. And we’ll suggest a private audience between you and their sorcerer. They might decline, but it’s—”
“Hold up! Just hold up a second.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to meet these fancy folk. I don’t know anything about—Gods!—diplomacy or anything like that. What if I say the wrong thing? I ain’t some courtier. What do you mean ‘make him my bow’? I don’t know how to bow. And I ain’t sure I want to learn. And anyway, what would I wear? I ain’t wearing no fancy court suit with hose and that. Or a long black robe. I just ain’t. I love you, and I’d do anything for you. But I ain’t doing that.”
“You won’t have to wear—”
Morgrim’s business-like expression melted away, to be replaced with something much softer.
“What?” Fenn asked.
“Nothing.”
“You getting the horn again?”
“I could, easily. But no. It’s just that you said you love me.”
“Ah. I did too. Like that, do you? Hearing it said?”
Morgrim nodded. “I do. Did you really never say it to anyone else?”
“Never. Never expected to, neither. Thought I’d be a lonely grumpy old bastard ’til the end of my days. Funny how life can turn, ain’t it?”
“Yes, it is. But Fenn, that would never have happened to you. You’d have met someone. It’s wonderful it was me, but if it hadn’t been, thousands of men out there would want you. Tens of thousands.”
“Sweet talking, eh? Reckon you have got the horn.”
“Perhaps I have, but we’re not doing anything about it.” Morgrim got out of bed and proved that he was indeed in a very fine state. He started getting dressed. “We should get to the palace because they’ll be tearing their hair out. But anyway, you’ll wear whatever you like, of course. No hose. No robe. All right?”
“All right. And while we’re on the subject, I am not being introduced to some ambassador as court sorcerer. Got that?”
“You have to be introduced as something.”
“Groom, then.” Fenn put his trousers on. “It’s what I am.”
“What about ‘master of horse’?”
Fenn rolled his eyes, pulled his shirt over his head. “Groom is better.”
“I like the one with the word ‘master’ in it.” Morgrim gave him a sidelong glance.
“Oh, aye? Want to say it front of everyone, eh? And them none the wiser.”
“Can I tell them that, then?”
“Cheeky bastard.”
***
The next few days passed in a whirl for Fenn. There were an unnecessary lot of processions and speeches and events that involved a lot of standing around indoors. People’s gazes seemed to glide over him a lot of the time, and he soon realised that despite his new black clothes—or because of them—at least half of the guests thought he was some kind of manservant to Morgrim, something between groom and valet and retainer. This suited Fenn fine. He could stand at Morgrim’s elbow and watch and listen and start to put names to faces and meaning to some of the dull conversations people seemed to want to have with Morgrim.
The Lutians were different. Fenn met them at the docks and their court sorcerer—a handsome blue-eyed fellow named Warrard who carried a wand and wore a blue tunic with silver stars—had from the start watched Fenn the way horses watched their first velocipede, which is to say with curiosity and fear alongside horrified disbelief and barely concealed loathing.
“Reckon he sent that river hex?” Fenn asked Morgrim as soon as he could.
“I couldn’t say for sure.”
