Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
S parring was almost as good as fucking.
It was sweaty and physical and intimate, and Cosmo decided it was most likely the best he was going to get out of his beguiling travel companion. It became a new part of their ritual, and Cosmo had to admit there was something comforting about it.
They rode all day, dismounted in the evening to rest and water the horses. Leofric hunted. Cosmo cooked. They ate, and then they stood opposite in a ring drawn in the dirt, each armed with a stick, and hammered at each other until the sun went down. Cosmo went to sleep every night aching and exhausted, and sated in a strange way he couldn’t quite explain. Unfortunately, the gap between what they were doing and what Cosmo wished they were doing itched at him. He wasn’t so sure how long he could keep pretending he didn’t notice Leofric’s arousal as they fought every night, how much longer he could resist the urge to make Leofric yield in an entirely different way. To bend Leofric till he shattered, and lose himself in the resulting explosion.
One morning, they consulted a map before mounting up. “We are only two or three days from the Sokolian border,” Leofric told him, pointing.
Cosmo looked down at the map. “There is a village, here,” he said eagerly.
“It will add half a day, at least, to the journey,” said Leofric. “No.”
“From here the country grows meaner,” Cosmo reminded him. “A night at an inn would do us both well. We could refresh our rations and set out, better prepared, for the next leg of the journey.” And perhaps the village would have a pair of willing legs for me to find myself between.
It was as if Leofric could read his thoughts, damn the man. “This journey is not a for your pleasure. ” He spat the word pleasure like it was the most base and disgusting pursuit.
“Not all of us are content to be forever lonely and miserable,” Cosmo said back. “I’d love to look upon a face that isn’t yours.” That was a lie, but it felt good to say.
“I as well,” Leofric agreed. “But still, no.”
Though Cosmo had started it, the words still stung. “It will be raining, tomorrow,” he said. Early summer was the time for such. The earth needed to drink deeply, to prepare for the rest of the season when Cosmo could only send sparse rains. “A half a day riding in such with a soft bed at the end of it would do us well. We could wait out the storm at an inn and leave when it ends.”
Leofric looked at him, his face full of mistrust. “You lie.”
Static zipped over Cosmo’s skin, the static that preceded a vicious storm, but he was sick unto death of Leofric’s scowling mistrust. He shrugged. “Have it your way then, Captain.”
As they rode that day, Cosmo was so angry considered making the rain start early. He calmed himself. It wasn’t necessary. The storm would come and he would be proven right; Cosmo needn’t hasten it along. By midmorning, the sky was a menacing slate grey, and when the first drops of rain plinked off Leofric’s armor, Cosmo did his best to contain his smile.
An hour later they were both drenched to the skin, and they could scarcely see. The mud sucked at the hooves of their horses, slowing their pace even further. Cosmo thought of half a dozen barbs, but he held his tongue. The rain was jibe enough, and Leofric was so angry it was a wonder the droplets landing on his skin didn’t sizzle and turn at once to steam.
Finally, he called a halt, under a tree whose canopy was thick enough to slow the rain. Well, some of it at least. Cosmo dismounted when he saw Leofric doing the same, and he stood quietly beside his horse, waiting. Leofric shoved a hand into his pack to retrieve the map, and considered it angrily. When he looked up at Cosmo at last, his mouth was a hard line, and his eyes flashed.
“What is it?” Cosmo asked him in his sweetest, most innocent voice.
Leofric’s words were so venomous they would have poisoned a well. “You did this on purpose.”
“Did what?”
Like it was the one who had so surely vexed him, Leofric crushed the map in his large hand and stuffed it back into his bag. “Come,” he said. “We make for the town.”
“I rather like riding in this weather,” said Cosmo, tilting his face up to the sky. He was treading dangerous ground here, he knew, but taunting Leofric proved impossible to resist. “A little wet never bothered me much.”
“Oh, it doesn’t?”
Cosmo shook his head, grinning, but before he could offer any further wit, Leofric snapped. Faster than Cosmo would have thought, Leofric took a swift step forward and gave him a sharp shove, right in the chest. It startled him far more than it hurt, but it threw him off balance nonetheless. He took a step back, and his heel connected with a log and all at once Cosmo landed on his ass in a gigantic puddle of mud. He hit the ground with a squelch and the mud seemed to cling to his legs as he tried to get up. Leofric smiled, actually smiled, and swung up into the saddle. “I’ll meet you at the inn,” he said, and put his heels to his horse, leaving Cosmo on the ground.
By the time Cosmo reached the town and its singular inn, he was sodden and filthy, with mud worked into some very uncomfortable places. He approached the inn-keep after leaving Hestia with a stableboy. “Trouble on the road, good sir?”
“You have no idea,” said Cosmo under his breath. “I believe my simple-minded man servant has already procured a room for us? A tall man with a shaven head and fearsome scowl, perhaps looking like he has a stick lodged up his backside?”
The inn-keep gave him a peculiar look. “Aye,” she said. “He took room two, at the top of the steps there. And please, take care to step upon the mats, you’re dripping everywhere.”
“My thanks,” said Cosmo.
“Send your things down, I’ll have the girl wash them and dry them for you.”
Cosmo thanked her again and walked carefully up the creaky wooden steps, hoping Leofric had gotten a good laugh out of his little prank. He was cold and wet and annoyed, wanting nothing more than a good bath and a goblet of wine. Or three. Room two indeed was at the top of the steps, and when Cosmo tried the door it was open. Leofric had gotten them a room with two sleeping couches, and if the sounds beyond the curtain opposite were any judge, a private bathing alcove. Leofric’s things were on one of the beds, clean clothing laid out just so, as if he were going to be inspected by a superior officer any moment. Cosmo cast a furtive glance over his shoulder, ensuring the sounds from the bath still indicated a person sloshing and soaping about. When he was certain, he quickly stripped out of his wet, muddy things and cast them all over the bed and Leofric’s clothing. He used one of Leofric’s cloaks to wipe the mud from his hair, and tossed that in the pile as well. Naked and clean enough, he crawled between the blankets on the other bed and promptly fell asleep, a smile on his lips.
The inn was a large daub and wattle building in the center of town, the town Cosmo had pointed out on the map. By the time Leofric had reached it, he felt guilty at shoving Cosmo into the mud. He felt guilty as he brushed out Lyra’s coat. He felt guilty as he paid the inn keeper. He felt guilty as a clutch of servants carried kettles of steaming water into the room to fill the copper tub in the bathing alcove.
But then, once he’d stripped off his traveling clothes and climbed into the steaming bath, something strange happened. As he scrubbed himself clean, he found himself smiling. The look on Cosmo’s face as he’d gone reeling back into the mud had been a treasure beyond price. Leofric snorted as he washed, and the more he thought of it, the more he laughed. Every time he tried to get a grip on himself, a picture would burst behind his eyes of Cosmo on his ass in the mud, a look of disgust, shock and horror on his freckled face—and he’d dissolve again, laughing hysterically as he scrubbed.
Leofric had not laughed like that in a very long time, and he’d certainly never laughed all alone in the bath like a madman. It filled him with a strange sense of giddiness. If he’d had his wits about him, he would have made a grab for the bridle of Cosmo’s horse, given him a long, wet walk to the town. When the door clicked beyond the curtain at last and Cosmo called out a stiff greeting, Leofric took pains to stifle his laughter, lest Cosmo hear it.
He and Hamalcar had played games like these, along with all the soldiers. It was simply what happened, when young virile men were forced to travel together, sleep together, spend every moment in each other’s company. Petty grievances and rivalries, games and japes, all of it made to bind the men closer together. When they faced a foe, all these things were put aside and they joined as one, like fingers closing into a fist.
As Leofric finished his bath, he found himself wondering if Cosmo would retaliate, and when. He didn’t seem the sort to take things like that in stride. His temper always simmered just there beneath the surface, masked behind his teasing smiles, as Leofric’s burned hand could attest. He realized the adjacent room was silent as a crypt, and suddenly the bathwater seemed very cold.
What was he doing? He was no green stripling on his first mission, and Cosmo certainly was not a comrade in arms—he was a god, a proud and angry one. Leofric shivered. Taunting Cosmo, though it gave him immense satisfaction, was foolish.
When he emerged from the bath, he wrapped a linen towel about his hips and pulled back the curtain, wondering what had given Cosmo cause to remain so quiet. He surveyed the darkened room in trepidation. At first, nothing seemed amiss, which only served to make the hair on Leofric’s arms stand on end. Then, he saw it. Cosmo had discarded his muddy things all over Leofric’s bed, soaking his clean clothes and the blankets below. Cosmo himself was curled up asleep in the bed opposite, snoring. Smugly, Leofric thought.
He waited for the anger to swell in his chest, but it didn’t. Instead, before he could stop himself, he shook his head and smiled. Turnabout was fair play, after all. He considered what he would have done, as a young man, faced with a similar retaliation from a fellow soldier. There was only one thing to do. Leofric dropped his towel and prayed that Cosmo was a heavy sleeper.