Chapter Three #4
“I don’t like pretending at anything,” Wes said. “Especially not to a dominant.”
“But that’s the fun of being submissive. You can be whatever they want for a time, they pet your hair and call you a good boy, and you can go home and do what you like.”
Wes fell silent. Delauney propped himself up on his elbows to find him glaring again, but it was at the wall this time. “That doesn’t sound like a way to live.”
“It’s the way I live,” Delauney pointed out. “First rule of manners, Wes. Never insult a noble’s entire way of life. I don’t mind, of course, but others will.”
“You should mind,” Wes said. “I’d mind, and I’m as far from noble as you can get.” He sighed, dipping his pen in the ink. “But you’d know how to influence them, I suppose.”
Delauney dictated the rest of the letter from the bed. When he was done, he watched Wes stamp the letter closed and tuck it away somewhere nice and tidy, where Delauney would probably forget it in a day or so.
“When we dock at Hekate’s Eye, please remind me about the letter,” Delauney said.
“Or I can just mail it off for you,” Wes said, watching him again as Delauney gathered the bedsheets around himself like a nest. “How long until we reach the island?”
“Three days unless the wind fails,” Delauney said.
“You can tell if you measure the angle of the Leviathan’s tail with the horizon.
” It was an old sailor’s trick, possible even without a sextant.
The Leviathan was one of the largest constellations above Diabolos, possibly because the old sea god of legend was purportedly a behemoth.
“I can’t measure the angle of anything,” Wes muttered, flopping onto his cot.
At least he could read without getting a migraine.
Plenty of people lived perfectly happy lives without needing to do complex equations in their heads, but everyone needed to read eventually.
There were wills, urgent letters, and missives from the king’s magistrates to contend with.
Now that King Adrien was establishing schools all over the countryside, even the poorest Starian would know their letters.
Only Delauney would be left behind, fumbling his way through the same sentence for hours while a headache pounded in his temples and his father’s voice rang in his ears.
Ah well. At least he isn’t the first-born.
Wesley wasn’t the first-born, either, but his parents didn’t seem to hold his brother in high regard like Delauney’s parents with poor, overworked Leo.
Delauney couldn’t imagine anyone being disappointed in Wesley’s brother.
Captain Ferrin was an intimidating dominant with an understanding of noble politics that had always impressed Delauney on his visits to the capital.
What did Wesley’s parents expect him to do, seduce a duke?
There were only three dukes in Staria, and one was married to the king, the other was married to the owner of a pleasure house, and the last was possibly a ghost, if the rumors were true.
Wes’ parents would just have to get used to disappointment.
“Did you notify your parents of your military hearing?” Delauney asked. Wes shifted around in his cot, giving him another bewildered stare.
“For fuck’s sake, why would you ask a man that when he’s trying to go to bed?”
By now, Delauney was starting to recognize when Wes wasn’t actually irritated. “It’s a reasonable question.”
Wes squinted at him as though trying to work out a complex puzzle. “No,” he said at last. “I have not informed them. Good night, Delauney.”
“But wouldn’t they want to know?”
“Good night, Delauney,” Wes said again, rolling around to face the wall.
Delauney sighed, staring up at the ceiling.
Things certainly were complicated when Wes was around.
Delauney hadn’t questioned nearly as many things before he’d pulled Wes out of that council.
Was that what Wes’ mind was like all the time?
Constantly questioning things, mistrusting authority, looking at the world with the cynicism of a heretic and the idealism of a young philosopher in equal measure? It seemed exhausting.
At least they had Hekate’s Eye to look forward to.
Delauney smiled faintly. Hekate’s eye had the best dominants in Diabolos.
Not as good as Delauney’s old regular in the House of Onyx, perhaps, but good enough to douse the flickering fire of Delauney’s brain for an evening.
And then there was the glassmaker from Kallistos; a clever, fastidious student of the Vitrier family, who’d been living in Hekate’s Eye for nearly ten years now.
He’d promised to deliver a commission to Delauney the next time he visited, and Delauney could barely wait to see the shore of the Eye appear over the horizon.
“You’re excused from my service while we’re on Hekate’s Eye, by the way,” Delauney said, pleasantly basking in his own altruism. “That way, we can both enjoy ourselves.”
“Delauney! Sleep!”
Delauney flopped to his side, defeated. He supposed that, in the long run of things, there truly was no winning with some people.