The next morning, we woke early and went to the baths together. The palace was quiet after the King’s long night of revelry; courtiers and servants alike slow to rise after. It was good we arrived before anyone else, for we found ourselves utterly unable to keep our hands off each other, and anyone fortunate enough to have come in while we were there would have begun their morning with quite a spectacle.

When he dressed, he pulled his hood back up over his head, hiding himself again. It changed so much, cut him off so completely, that I wondered if I had hallucinated our recent liaisons. Suddenly, he was once again the Lord Scribe, and I his apprentice.

I gathered our things and followed him out.

We worked again that morning on my posture and grip, but this time, he did not touch me. He pulled a chair up to the writing desk to sit opposite me, and gave me verbal instructions. I followed, doing my best to get the hang of it without correction, but beneath my serious demeanor, I was concerned. His distant behavior represented more than a return to normal from the tempestuous night before; it was a retreat even from our previous comfortable working relationship. The temptation to ask him if I had done something wrong, something to offend him – or worse, if he regretted our couplings – was strong in me.

But by dint of resolve, or perhaps of cowardice, I remained silent and focused on my task. Control. Control was my skill. I willed my body to remember its place, willed my fingers to remember their positions. By the end of the morning, I had mastered it.

“Very good,” he said, but his tone offered no more warmth than it had months ago, when I succeeded at a task. “We’ll practice it every morning for a time, to ensure that your body remembers. For now, we’ll start learning how to properly ink the pen.”

I had already spent many hours learning the various kinds of ink – I could make them all myself now, after all – and when they were used. Now, I got a professional scribe’s opinion on the way they behaved on the pen. It was complex stuff, often difficult to describe, but my lord made sure he was making himself clear at every step.

“Now,” he said, pointing to an ink block at the farthest right of the desk. “You’ll want to—”

A knock at the door frame interrupted him. I looked up to see Dester standing at the door, a silver tray in his hand. “Message from His Majesty, my lord,” he said.

I rose and walked over to Dester to take the white envelope. He stared at me, as if afraid of my reaction to it. “His Majesty wishes a reply,” he murmured.

“His Majesty,” said my lord, “will get a reply when it is convenient. You are dismissed.”

Dester swallowed and nodded, then scurried away. I closed the door behind him.

My lord reached for the envelope, and I could have sworn I detected a quiver of tension in his outstretched fingers.

He pulled out the card and read it, then snapped it back into the envelope. “He was duly impressed with your... display last evening,” he said, his voice hard and edged with frost. “He wants you to attend again tonight.”

I could feel the blood draining from my face. “I... I suppose I should have been prepared...” But, honestly, I hadn’t given it the least thought. I had indulged myself with Anderi as we stood face-to-face, then I had surrendered to passion with my lord, and nowhere in all that visceral satisfaction had I concerned myself with consequences.

The way my lord’s hand clenched around the envelope explained his cool manner all morning. He had expected this. He had concerned himself with the consequences. What had restrained him since our last embrace was not rejection, but fear.

“What shall I do?” I asked him, though the question was not a request for options, for I had none. I was, rather, asking for comfort, for sympathy, for reassurance that I had not gotten myself into this because I had acted wrongly or made a mistake.

“You shall do nothing,” my lord said, his voice sharp and short. “I will go see the King, and put a stop to this.”

My eyebrows shot up. “My lord...”

“It’s not for you,” he said, rising from his chair. “It’s long past time I confronted Deinon. You are my apprentice, after all, not his Statue. He needs to be reminded of that.”

He strode toward the door, suddenly appearing somewhat menacing in his flowing, dark robe. I stood frozen in place for a moment, my mind a-whirl.

“My lord,” I blurted out.

He stopped, and the hood turned slightly in my direction.

“May... may I go with you?” I wasn’t certain what I expected to accomplish; I was certainly in no position to tell the King anything, and my presence might, actually, be provocative. I knew only that my lord was about to go into a battle of sorts, and that I could not let him go alone.

But though my lord hesitated for a moment, he finally nodded. “I would be glad of your company, Timri,” he murmured. “Thank you.”

I followed him down the hall, fearing to speak to him or to otherwise interrupt his thoughts. I had no real idea where we were going, to be truthful; I had never concerned myself with the King’s routine before dinner-time, unless it involved a Council meeting. But my lord walked unerringly through the halls and corridors of the palace, and at last walked outside, to large, central courtyard just inside the gates.

It had been so long since I had been out in direct sunlight that I almost put up my own hood. But my eyes adjusted, and soon we were entering the shade of the stables.

Two guards stationed outside stepped forward as we approached. “State your business,” one of them snapped.

My lord halted, but did not give any indication of surprise. “Tell His Majesty that his Lord Scribe wishes a word.”

The guard nodded, apparently recognizing my lord, but he peered around to look at me. “And this is...?”

“My apprentice,” my lord replied, unfazed.

The guard nodded to his comrade, who disappeared. He returned a moment later. “Step in.”

We found the King brushing down an ebony mare in the last stall. He wore a rustic linen shirt and trousers, and boots that had seen better days. It was a moment of firsts for me: The first time I had ever seen a horse up close, and the first time I had ever seen the King in anything but his formal tunic and crown. Both disturbed and fascinated me at the same time.

“Ah, my Lord Scribe,” the King said, looking up from his work. “When the serving lad never brought me a reply, I wondered if I might see you this afternoon.”

“I preferred to deliver my reply myself, Your Majesty.”

The King rested the brush against the horse’s gleaming flank. “You didn’t have to come all the way down here to say ‘yes,’ my lord.”

“The reply is not ‘yes,’ Your Majesty. My answer is ‘no.’”

I swelled with pride at the steady, firm tone of my lord’s voice when he said that. If nothing else, he had given the King a nasty surprise, and it was almost worth risking the King’s wrath to do it.

“No?” he echoed, drawing out the word. “Forgive me, my lord, but the last I heard, you and your apprentice were both my... loyal subjects.”

“We are, and remain so, Your Majesty. But Timri is my apprentice, not one of your debauched Statues, and I won’t have him treated as one.”

The King at last looked at me, though he must have known I had been there all along. “Really? And what does Timri say to that?” He removed the brush from his hand and laid it aside, then stepped toward the door of the stall to draw even with me. “You enjoyed being a Statue, didn’t you, Timri? You certainly were very good at it.”

I gasped as I felt his hand on me, unerringly finding my groin beneath my light robe. His fingers stroked me beneath the fabric, and like a trained dog, I reacted. I was half-hard before I breathed again, and then I was aware only of the King, his face, his smell, his touch – so familiar. He continued, relentless, knowing what it did to me.

“Oh, yes,” the King murmured. “He enjoyed it.”

Why didn’t my lord say anything? Why didn’t he protest?

“Don’t you want that again, Timri? The glorious nights of being admired, cared for, stroked and kissed, fucked... You could live a life of pleasure and luxury again, even more privileged than before. Would it be so terrible,” he asked, “to be my plaything again?”

I closed my eyes against the rising tide of pleasure. Soon I would truly have to exert my control to keep his clever hand from winning this battle.

Control.

My lord had said it was an asset, my control. It had always been my pride; it was why he had taken the chance of taking me as his apprentice. And yet, to think: In every way that mattered, I had never really had any.

Would it be so terrible? Yes. It would mean giving up everything I truly wanted. I was no one’s plaything; I was no one’s trained dog. I would give my body to whom I pleased – that was control.

I drew in a deep breath and opened my eyes, searching out my lord. I could not see his face, hidden in the shadows of his hood, but I remembered it well enough. I remembered his eyes, glowing with desire; remembered his voice, patiently repeating instructions; remembered his hands as they etched out words whose beauty and grace would live forever.

Control.

I fought to kept my face expressionless and my voice flat as I replied, “Thank you, Your Majesty. I must respectfully decline.”

The King’s hand disappeared instantly. He stepped back, and looked from me to my lord. “Well,” he said, his voice betraying a testy edge. “It appears you have been away from your true calling for too long, Timri. We’ll have to re-acquaint you with what you’ve been missing all these months, locked away with my gloomy Lord Scribe.”

Suddenly, my lord reached out for me. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me forward, and I stumbled a little, trying to do as he wanted. He gripped my chin and turned my face toward the King. “You will see, Your Majesty, a scar on Timri’s lower lip, that extends down to his chin. This scar, this small scar, was enough to make him unworthy of your regard. This scar made him ugly enough to be summarily dismissed as a Statue. Now, you insist upon disporting yourself with him, after I have claimed him for my craft?”

The King glanced at my face but did not linger on it. “Statues must be perfect. But ‘imperfect’ does not mean ‘ugly.’ He is still a lovely young man, and being dismissed as a Statue does not mean he is not worthy of my continued attentions.”

“Oh,” said my lord, the word coming out more as a sigh. “So, it was only I who was too ugly for your continued attentions?”

The King’s eyes at last betrayed a reaction. “I beg your pardon? What on earth are you talking about?”

My lord reached up and tossed back his hood, revealing his pale face, his green eyes, his long, gray hair.

The King’s face turned ashen, his eyes widened in shock. “Marini,” he breathed. “Gods above, has it been you all these years?”

“All these years,” my lord confirmed, his voice betraying a deep, cold anger. “And because I remained attached to you for so long despite your summary rejection, it has pleased me to chronicle the most active years of your reign with a flattering stroke of my pen.” He waited a beat before adding, “Thus far.”

While the King stared, his cheeks turning red, my lord replaced his hood and reached for my hand. I took it, returning the squeeze he gave my fingers. “You have plenty of pretty toys, Your Majesty. Leave him alone.”

He bowed, as did I, and together we walked down the row of stalls toward the door.

“Marini,” the King called. “I never knew what happened to you.”

My lord paused, long enough to glance over his shoulder and reply, “It would have been easy enough to discover, if only you had asked.”

With that, we left, passing the guards at a brisk walk.

We returned to our chambers, neither one of us daring to slow down, or even to speak. When we were both inside, I locked the door behind us. When he turned to me, I went to him, pulled back his hood, and kissed him breathless.

“That was marvelous,” I told him. “I’ve never seen – never even heard of anything so brave.”

“You did well, yourself.” He smiled, though it held trepidation. “We may find our heads on the block tomorrow morning.”

I didn’t think so. As a Statue, I had learned to read men’s faces – as my lord had, as well. The King had been soundly defeated, threatened with his heretofore glowing legacy and shamed by his past mistakes. Besides, executing the Lord Scribe required an act of Council, and the King was not likely to pursue that with verbal humiliation as his only case.

Speaking of the King’s past mistakes... “Are you all right?” I asked him. “Facing him that way could not have been easy.”

He laughed, only a bit ruefully. “Serving him for all these years, going to all those court dinners – that has been hard. Today... today felt rather good.”

“I daresay it will be him squirming in discomfort from now on,” I said.

“Perhaps. For a time, at least.”

“Do you... ?” I bit my lip. I didn’t want to ask, but I had to. “Do you still...?”

He shook his head. “The rejection still stings,” he admitted. “But I have, over the past few months, found myself thinking of my time with him less and less...” He let his voice trail off as he looked me in the eye; his arms slid around my waist and he pulled me close. “I love you, Timri. I like our present together much, much better than my blurry memories of the past.”

I laid my head on his shoulder. “I love you, too.” I spent a moment in silence, breathing in his scent, enjoying the feel of his soft hair trailing against my cheek. Then I lifted my head and kissed him. “Let’s make those memories a little blurrier, shall we?”

His lips curved against mine. “Let’s.”

#

Thus concludes my story. He doesn’t know what I’ve been writing all winter; he only knows that I have spent many hours at my small table before the fire, practicing my script. For all he knows, I have been scribbling nonsense, and some might say that I have been. But I had to write something, to make sure I was ready to move to the next level of my training, and I thought it might as well be a task I enjoyed.

It’s written in scribe’s shorthand, anyway; which we use when taking dictation or the minutes of meetings. No one but my lord can read it.

He is glancing at me now, lifting his gaze from his own work to sneak looks at me, surely wondering why I keep pausing to gaze at my page in such supreme self-satisfaction. I wonder if the Statue Marini, fearfully plucking gray hairs from his scalp in the middle of the night, ever dreamed he would become the dashing hero of a romantic story.

My examination is tomorrow, and if I’m not ready now, I never will be. After that, I will begin going with my lord to Council meetings, learning to take the minutes and serve the King as my Lord Scribe does. I will do that for several years, after which, my bond will be paid and I will be a free man.

I will take the name Timrion. I will give my body to whom I please.

Right now, it pleases me immensely to give it to my lord. To Marinon, who never hides his beautiful face behind a hood anymore. Marinon, who believed in me.

And I think we’ve both worked enough for one evening.