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“Sighing over your beloved again?”Percival frowned, turning his gaze away from the trees. The knights had all taken to teasing him, even the ones who used to tremble when he strode past in full armor. Duchess Picquery had only laughed at him when he despaired at his softening reputation.“What was it this time? The deep green of the forest remind you of his eyes?” Sir Strymwell, young and foolish, was smirking at him from his horse.Percival sent him a glare, tightening his grip on the reins. The man’s amusement turned more serious. “I am glad, if it has,” he said. “A knight may ride to war for duty, but he'll fight his way home again for love.”Percival’s glare faded, and he turned his eyes back toward the woods ahead, squinting into the shadows. “Keep alert, Strymwell,” he ordered. “We’ll be in unfriendly territory by morning.”-The battle was short and strangely quiet, the morning’s soft misting beauty fouled by the errant clash of steel. The enemy land was dewy and green, littered with death and bursting with life.Duchess Picquery plunged her sword into the soft fertile earth, muttered a spell over the sod in victory.“We claim this territory for our own,” she declared. “There shall be land for all who want it, and bountiful crops come autumn.”The sun glinted off her helmet as the knights cheered.-Their new territory prospered, bringing wealth back to the capitol. Days of questing came to an end, heralding days of feasting.Duchess Picquery smiled brightly as she paraded up the winding streets in victory, waving to the crowd from her horse. Afterward, Percival shouldered his way past the street magicians and the eager children handing out garlands of flowers. He found Artemis waiting for him on a terrace overlooking the harbor, the wind ruffling his long auburn curls.“Sir Percival,” the young lord said, turning, his voice sweet and melodic. “I hear your deeds of late have been brave and admirable, as usual. You have acquitted yourself most honorably.”Words were no use. Percival took him in his arms and kissed him with hungry lips, clung to him like a man starved for touch. “My lord,” he murmured, pressing Artemis against the low wall and burying his face in the soft skin of his neck. “If I fought well it was only because I was desperate to return to your side.”He could feel the vibrations of the man’s laughter against his cheek, gentle hands carding through his dust-streaked hair.-They were married on the eve of Artemis’ twentieth birthday, speaking their vows under the watchful eye of the Earl, who frowned as he handed his brother off to a knight of common birth. The Earl’s own sorcerer blessed the union, tying their hands together with flowering vines. As a wedding gift, Duchess Picquery petitioned the King to raise Percival to a Baron, giving him holdings in the west country. Percival carried his new husband over the threshold of their modest new manor house with all the pride of a lion.“My love,” he declared, “you are master of this house, and of my heart besides.” Artemis was blushing, fair and lovely, as he pressed their foreheads together. “I would do anything for you.”Their wedding night was warm and scented with apple blossoms, the breeze fluttering the curtains as Percival unbelted Artemis’ velvet robe, watched his long hair fall loose around his bare shoulders, copper against alabaster.“Darling,” Artemis whispered, his lips ripe and pink, as Percival laid him back on the bed, parted his long pale legs and pressed himself between those silken thighs. “Oh!”“You are dearer to me than any treasure, sweet husband,” Percival murmured, kissing his white throat, tasting his skin with eager hunger as they rocked together. “My little nymph. You snared me with your beauty the moment I laid eyes on you.”Artemis’ eyes were as green as the deep forest, emerald and jade. “And here I thought it was because I was the only one who didn’t swoon at the fearsome sight of you in your armor.” His voice was breathless, cheeks flushed, and his smile was as bright as the sun. “I was much more interested in how well you cared for your horse.”Percival laughed, moaning, as he spent his seed, wet and hot, deflowering Artemis’ body in a satisfying streak of white.-Their happiness was like a dream. By midsummer the crops were flourishing, the tenants bowing in deference as Percival and Artemis went riding past.They stopped by the river, in a meadow overhung by a willow tree, and Artemis shyly placed a crown of flowers on Percival’s head. Percival couldn’t help but kiss him for that, press him up against the tree trunk while the horses drank, slide his hand into Artemis’ silk breeches.“Mmm!”There was nobody watching. Artemis, lovely and fair as Adonis and twice as bold, reached for the heat under Percival’s tunic, his hand soft-skinned and clever. The quiet meadow was anointed with moans, Artemis’ perfect wrenching cry.-Percival followed Artemis out into the forest, exploring the far reaches of the barony amidst the quiet of the trees and the fine sweetness of the air.“Oh,” his husband exclaimed, endearingly fascinated. “A badger sett! You see the entrance?”“Indeed I do,” Percival answered, smiling. “Must be large clan, with a hole so wide.”Artemis beamed as they walked, occupied with thinking. “There must be wolves and foxes and stoats in such a fine old wood as this, and bears and mighty lynx also. I shall bring a journal with me the next time, to mark what tracks we find.”“An excellent plan,” Percival replied. “You shall be an expert in no time.”“My brother never liked me to go rambling in the woods,” Artemis said softly, linking his arm through Percival’s elbow. “He saw no use for gadding about in nature, unless it was to hunt.”Percival leaned over and kissed his husband’s forehead. “You shall gad as much as you like, now,” he said. “You can do whatever you please.”-The winter was mild, a boon from the earth. Percival wrapped Artemis in warm robes nonetheless, escorted him adoringly across the snow dressed in a fine scarlet cloak with soft downy wool around the collar.“My darling,” he whispered at night, warming those pale fingers between his sword-calloused palms. “I think you grow more lovely with each passing day. How is that possible?”His answer was an ungentlemanly snort and a swat to the chest. “Perhaps your eyesight is fading, husband. Or else you are blinded by love.”Artemis’ lips tasted of honey and wine, rich and hot. Percival smiled into the kiss. “I’ll grant that my eyes are in love with you,” he said, “as are all my other parts.”The next kiss turned into a laugh. “Your other parts, hmm?”They rolled among the sheets in the low firelight, under the quilts, a seeking hand wrapping around his manhood. Artemis’ skin was soft and smooth under his grip, thighs parting eagerly.“Oh!” He still blushed like a virgin when Percival mounted him, delicate pink staining his pale chest. “Yes! Oh, darling!”Afterward, Percival clung to him, still cradled between his legs. “I love you,” he whispered into the darkness.“And I love you,” his husband replied, stroking his hair. “More than the wide world.”-Happiness was not made to last.Two years of bliss, and then the call to arms came once again. The King would ride to war himself this time, to beat back an invading army from the north, a horde of barbarians aided by wild magic.“He calls all able soldiers to join him in the fight,” Percival said, letting the scroll of his summons fall disgracefully to the floor.Artemis’ eyes turned bleak and grey. “And must you go?”“I must,” Percival whispered, cupping his pale face. “For the sake of duty.”“Duty,” Artemis breathed. His voice was tinged with desperation, with bitter dismay. “Do you not also have a duty to me? I am your husband.”Percival kissed him, pressed as tightly together as a vine grasping a tree.“And yet, still I must go.”-The morning of his leaving was bright and cold, crisp autumn turning to winter. Artemis’ eyes were distant, his cloak billowing blood-red in the icy wind.“Until I return, my love,” Percival said softly, kissing his hand.Artemis clenched his jaw, hiding the glossy wet of his eyes behind his hood. “See that you do return, husband, as fast as you are able.” He clutched Percival’s fingers tightly. “You take my heart with you, and I need it back beside me soon.”“And I leave mine here with you,” Percival declared. “I will hurry.”His beloved’s lips were salty with tears, chapped and cold.Percival only looked over his shoulder once, as he rode away. Artemis stood pale and alone, his arms wrapped around himself, his face desolate.Percival turned his eyes back toward the road, and forced himself not to succumb to grief.

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Time cannot be rushed.Years went past, as slow and tedious as an eternity. The machine of battle groaned ever onward, on the distant borders of the kingdom.-The hour was late, and Artemis, the young lord of the barony, was in his study. His husband’s few precious letters were kept carefully on the desk, no other hand permitted to touch them. “My lord,” his mistress of keys said, appearing breathless in the doorway. “A messenger.”Artemis looked up from the crackling embers of the fire, his head heavy with the anguish of hope.“What news, Mistress Queenie?”She held out a letter, blue eyes wide. “Victory, my lord. The war is over. Baron Graves has been gifted a fine ship by the King for his admirable courage. He plans to sail homeward with his company of knights, for it will be faster than riding, and he is anxious to return to your side.”“Oh, thank the graces.” Artemis rose from his chair, hands shaking. The war was won at long last, five years sacrificed in the winning of it.He feasted his eyes on the letter deep into the night, then spent the hours of sleep with it pressed beneath his pillow.-They waited throughout the winter, kept the fires burning, hired a hedgewitch to bless the house for safe homecoming, set aside food stores for a welcome supper. The year’s harvest had been lean, but the cook carefully stretched the bread across the long weeks.Artemis sent his best rider for news of the returning soldiers, went striding anxiously out to meet her in the courtyard upon her return. Her long grey coat was stained with mud, flapping as she swung down from her horse.“Any word from the city?”“None but rumor, my lord,” she replied. “There was a storm at sea the other night, a fearsome tempest. The Baron’s ship has not been seen since, but there is no proof of dark tidings. It may simply be blown off-course.”Artemis’ face was shuttered, guarded against emotion. “I see.”“My lord Artemis,” she said softly. “I will keep searching for news.”“Thank you, Tina,” he replied. “You do me a great service.”-Winter thawed, and still there was no sign of the ship. The other regiments had long since come home on horseback, reunited with their families. The King paraded back into the capitol with royal fanfare, Duchess Picquery riding at his elbow, his finest general. But no-one returned to their small western holding.Early spring brought respite to the tenant farmers, who had weathered the long hungry winter with growing need. Artemis went out to take stock of their grievances, passing out alms, giving bread and medicine to the sick. He carefully looked away as he rode past the willow by the river, the distant sunny meadow of memory.There were reports of brigands in the forest beyond the road, thieves driven by starvation, eyes watching the manor.“Would you like me to journey further north, my lord? For news of the Baron?” Tina’s face was bronzed by the sun, her coat travel-worn.“No,” Artemis replied. “I thank you for your toils, but I have need of you here.”-He made her his knight and his personal guard, although she was a commoner. Blood status mattered little compared to honor and loyalty.Artemis took Dame Tina with him out to the forest, towing a wagon with the last of the manor kitchen’s winter stores. The leaves rustled as he squinted into the dappled green wood.“This is all we have left,” he announced to the listening trees. “Take it, and we shall all have equally little. Let us hope this next year is kinder.”The brigands stopped watching the manor, and Artemis grew pale and thin, staring at the sky out the window.“Perhaps the Baron is in a faraway land, lost, without knowledge of the language,” Queenie said carefully. “His Lordship is too mighty a man to be defeated by the sea.”“Perhaps,” Artemis murmured without hope, his eyes on the distant clouds.-The next autumn’s crop was merciful. A bounty.The barony prospered, though they had a shortage of hands to bring in the harvest, with all the missing warriors still yet to return to the west, noble and common alike.“We ought to go to the city and hire a few hardy workers,” Tina suggested. “And a kitchen boy to help Jacob with preserving what we cannot eat.”“Very well,” Artemis replied distantly, his eyes dull and grey.-The city market was jarringly loud after the quiet of the countryside. Artemis looked at the grand terraces, the cobbled streets, the children selling flowers, and felt as empty as an overturned barrel.“What about him?” Tina asked. There were many men looking for work, but few looked as if they were strong enough to lift a bale of hay and trustworthy enough not to spend their wage on drink.The boy she was pointing at was pale and hunched, his hair shorn close at the nape. But he was tall and broad-shouldered, with wide work-worn hands.Artemis strode closer, gently tipping up the young man’s chin. “Have you skill with a plow horse?” he asked.The peasant’s eyes were dark and hopeless. “No, my lord,” he whispered. “I’ve no skill at anything.”Artemis looked closer. There were faded scars from a lash stretching across the boy’s palms under the rough sleeves of his shirt. “But surely you can learn,” he declared.-The young man was called Credence, and he followed Artemis back to his carriage with eyes full of disbelief.“You’ll be helping with the farm work,” Artemis said, while the wheels jolted over the cobblestones and carried them back out through the fields. “Laboring for whichever tenant has the greatest need as the crops come in. In the winter you will help in the kitchens. I will pay your wage the year round,” he explained.“Yes, my lord,” the boy said, awestruck.“Have you a warm winter coat?” he asked. Credence shook his head. “Then you can have one of mine. We are of a size.”The young man’s mouth dropped open in shock.-“One pair of hands?” Queenie asked worriedly, when they returned. Tina frowned, nodding. “I fear we ought to have hired more.”Artemis looked down at his own pale soft palms. “Or perhaps it is time I stopped wasting my time with wishing. Work might be just the distraction I need.”Queenie raised her eyebrows. “I’d better find you a scythe, then. And boots you can wear in the mud.”-There was no point in sitting idle. It took all of the manor staff working together with the farmers to finish the harvest. Artemis’ fine shirt was streaked with sweat and muck by the end, his long hair tied back with dusty twine, pale skin burnt by the sun.His hands were blistered and stinging, but the pain was dull and distant.“Ask Jacob to bring out a barrel of cider from the cellars,” he told Queenie. “We’ll share it among everyone, out in the courtyard, to celebrate. Summon the hedgewitch to bless the soil in thanks. We have much to be grateful for.”She smiled. “Of course, my lord.”-The winter was quiet and peaceful, after the scorching rush of fall. Artemis went out riding with Dame Tina in the snow, spotting cheery red robins and bramblings among the trees, foxes and hares and roe deer moving silently through the wood. They came back to the warm kitchens for hot bowls of soup, pink-cheeked with cold.Jacob was making overtures toward Queenie, gentle and bashful, while Credence watched wide-eyed over his book in the corner. Artemis had been helping him improve his reading.“Will your sister accept Jacob, do you think?” Artemis murmured to Tina.“She already has. He doesn’t realize all he needs to do is ask,” she replied slyly.Artemis’ smile came slow, rusty with disuse. “Perhaps she should ask him first, then.”-The cook and the housekeeper married at the first melting of the snow, and Tina stood beside her sister and gave her away into Jacob’s arms, winter primroses wound through her golden hair.Artemis beckoned Credence closer to help him lift the flower-laden archway for the newlyweds to walk beneath.The couple paused on their way, bowing. “My lord Artemis. Thank you for everything.” Queenie’s cheek was dimpled with the force of her delight, Jacob’s eyes glowing with happiness.Artemis managed a fleeting smile. “My friends,” he said carefully. “I wish you well. May your joy be lasting and unspoiled, and see you through many long years together.”-Credence found him later, doubled over in the hallway, hot cries of anguish strangling his throat.Artemis felt as if his soul were fracturing, shattering in half.“Percival,” he sobbed, while the wide-eyed kitchen boy stroked his shoulder.-There was no word in spring, no sign of the Baron’s ship washed up in any foreign port. In summer, a rider appeared at last, his rusted helmet under his arm.“Sir Strymwell,” Artemis said, his mouth tasting of ash. “I fear my news is ill,” the knight said. “When I beheld your noble husband last, our ship had been blown east across the sea, wrecked upon a spire of rock. By the grace of fortune, I washed up on a far distant shore, injured and coinless, and made my slow way back to friendlier soil. It was a strange place I landed, full of sorcerers and danger, but I hastened back to bring word, though winter and hardship did delay me.”“I see,” Tina offered, giving Artemis her arm when his balance faltered. “A shipwreck,” Artemis choked. “And your fellows?”Sir Strymwell hesitated. “I found myself alone upon the land, my lord, no other souls spared by the merciless water.”“No souls…”“I have no doubt Lord Graves was valiant until the end, a brave and noble knight.”-There was no joy could pierce the veil of his grief, after that.Sir Strymwell was given a cottage on the grounds, and a handsome pile of coin, and then Artemis locked himself in his rooms, cried until all tears were spent, and stared with dull eyes into the fireplace.“My lord, you must eat,” Queenie whispered through the door. “Please.”The chamber within was still and silent.-It was Credence who finally roused him from his slow creep toward death, though not on purpose.“Please, Lord Artemis, the plow horse has bolted, Credence was out sowing a last crop of grain, he’s been kicked in the ribs.” Tina’s voice was low and upset. “The healer has been summoned, but he is delirious with pain. Please, he asks for you.”Pain was something Artemis could understand. Suffering called to suffering.He appeared in the hallway, pale and shaking, nearly collapsing into Tina’s arms when he unbolted the door.-The healer came to treat them both, prescribing food and fresh air for Artemis and rest for Credence.“My lord,” the young man wept, as they lay side by side in the sickbed. “Forgive me. I was careless with the horse.”“What nonsense is this?” Artemis replied, stroking the boy’s dark hair from his face with trembling fingers. Credence was tanned and strong after a year in the manor, well-fed and hearty. He would make a full recovery. “I know you. You are always careful. That mare was simply too spirited for farm work.” Artemis sighed. “We shall have to give her a different task.”Credence’s eyes were glazed with pain, despite the poppy milk they’d given him. “You are far too kind, too good. I do not deserve such kindness,” he breathed. “And yet I can’t resist accepting it, in my greed. All my life I’ve wished for someone to watch over me as you do.” His cheeks were streaked with tears.Artemis tucked the young man’s scarred hand carefully between his own palms. “You deserve all the kindness in the world, Credence,” he said. “Don’t ever doubt that.”-The next day, Artemis began to eat again. “I’ve decided to cut my hair,” he said, fingering the dagger in his belt.“Oh?” Queenie said carefully. “Would you like some help with that?”She was much gentler with his scalp than he would’ve been himself, shearing the soft copper curls short around his ears.“Does that suit you, Lord Artemis?” she asked.“Yes, thank you,” he replied, staring at his reflection in the narrow looking-glass. “I think,” he said, after a moment, “I should like to spread the word that I am to be called Newton, from now on. After my great grandfather.”“Very well, my lord Newton.”The name Artemis was dead and gone, laid to rest with Percival.

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Newton took to wearing black, though he did not always wear it grimly.“Shall we go out into the garden, Credence?” he asked brightly, levering the young man’s wheeled chair out past the courtyard. “Yesterday I saw a pair of nesting bullfinches gathering food for their young; shall we see if their chicks have fledged?”“Yes please, my lord.” The reply was soft and shy.“We aren’t at court, you know. You are welcome to call me Newton. I shall even deign to respond to a nickname, so long as it is of your choosing, dear boy.”Credence’s eyes were huge and shocked.-They took to reading in the evenings, sitting carefully still, until Credence’s ribs were healed.When he could walk again, Newton began teaching the young man how to shoot a bow. “Are… are you sure, my lord?” Credence asked, staring at the gilded wood bow and the finely fletched arrows. “I don’t think I should be using these, they are too fine.”Newton waved a hand. “They were a gift from my brother,” he said. “A thoughtless bribe, to make up for the fact he does not visit me himself. They are yours, if you want them, for I can already see the promise of great skill in you. And I thought we agreed that you’d call me Newt, for I am very fond of your choice of nickname. It suits me well.”Credence bowed his head in acquiescence. “Yes, Lord Newt.”Newt sighed in warm exasperation.-The autumn came on with a vengeance, a sudden chill nipping the air. The crops were harvested once again with as many hands as could be spared to help.Newt, Credence and Tina helped Jacob and Queenie seal the grain away, stack the potatoes and apples in the cool of the root cellar, seal the peppers in brine and preserve the peaches and pears.“Another year to be grateful,” Newt announced, anointing the ground with a burning branch of sage and a single drop of blood pricked from his finger. The hedgewitch from the village nodded approvingly.“Come along, Credence, fetch your bow,” he said afterward, “let us go shoot at targets in the wood before it gets dark, test your impeccable aim among the trees.”-The winter was long and slow, sleepy under a deep fall of snow. The cold days had almost reached their darkest when a pounding came at the door of the study.“Newt!” Tina’s voice was loud and shocked, waking him from a doze while Credence read a book by the fire.“A… a traveler has come to the gates! He says he’s Baron Graves, returned from the war after a dreadful journey. But he will not show his face, for he was horribly disfigured in battle and he does not want to frighten you.”The three of them went running down into the entranceway. “Let him in!” Newt cried. “Oh, sweet mercy…”The figure came inside, shivering, his face covered by a ragged cloth, his armor rusted and mismatched.“Percival?” Newt breathed.“It is I,” the stranger said stiffly, “I have come home at last, dear husband, snatched from the jaws of watery death. The road was long.”-Newt snuck glances at him all through supper, wondering why his husband had made no move to embrace him. The man ate three bowls of soup and gulped down two tall mugs of mulled wine, then staggered after Newt to their bedchamber and fell asleep on the couch, still in his armor.“Percival,” Newt whispered, brushing trembling fingers over his shoulder. He stared at the cloth over his husband’s face for a long time.He could love Percival no matter his disfigurement, he was sure of it. -When Newt woke in the morning, alone on the bed, the man was gone, half the manor’s silver candlesticks vanished with him.-“The winter is a harsh one, my lord,” Jacob said grimly. “Especially for those who did not stockpile as carefully as we did. Perhaps he came from the north, where the crops were poorer. He must have heard rumor of His Lordship’s absence and thought to take advantage of your grief.” He shook his head. “It was a foul dishonest deed, to be sure.”Newt made no answer, his unseeing gaze locked on his goblet.-The spring was slow in coming, winter’s chill sunk deep into the gradually lengthening days.“Shall we go out riding, Newt?” Tina asked. “Credence may yet shoot us a deer, with that eye of his.”Newt didn’t look up. “You go,” he said dully. “I’m too cold to go out.”They had venison that night, but Newt found no enjoyment in eating it. After dinner, he sat curled on the rug by the fire with his head slumped on Credence’s shoulder, listening to the boy read poetry aloud, his voice soothing and soft.-“I’m too tired,” Newt said one morning, refusing to rise from his bed.“Newt,” Tina sighed, “will you not come down for breakfast? Credence has made spiced porridge with fruit jam.”Newt buried his face in the pillow.“Would you spurn his hard work?” Tina asked.Newt groaned. “You are too cunning by far,” he complained, his voice muffled.The porridge was hot and sweet, but it only made Newt want to cry.-“I thought I had no more energy left to be sad,” Newt whispered. “And yet it never ends. I can barely breathe without feeling his loss all over again.”The night was bitter with chill, the manor frigid enough that his breath clouded in the still air, even with the fire guttering in the fireplace. Credence gently ran his fingers through Newt’s hair, smoothing the blanket that lay over his shoulders. The lord’s head was pillowed on the young man’s thigh, both of them curled on the soft hearth rug.“You love him deeply,” Credence said quietly. “A pure-hearted love like that never goes away, not even when you might wish it to.”Newt rolled over, looking up at him. “That sounds like the wisdom of someone who has felt the sting of love himself,” he murmured. “Has someone caught your eye, dear boy?”Credence gaped at him in something approaching panic. “My lord, I… I know nothing. It was only an observation.”Newt rose from the floor, tilting his head. “Alright, Credence, I believe you,” he said. “Come, let us go to bed. Please, stay here with me, if you like. The night is far too cold to sleep alone.”He caught a flash of longing before the young man bowed his head. “Thank you, my lord.”“Credence,” he sighed softly, climbing under the heavy blankets. “One of these days I’ll get you to call me Newt.”-Spring crept closer as the weeks passed, the smell of new growth bursting past the clean scent of snow. It was not so hard to face the prospect of each new day when Newt woke with Credence lying innocently beside him, dark hair curling across the pillow. The boy was bright as a lark in the morning, fresh and keen-eyed.“Tina wishes to teach me to throw knives today,” Credence said, biting his lip. “I don’t expect I’ll be any good at it, but perhaps it would please you to come out to the courtyard and watch, my lord.”Newt untangled himself from the covers and stretched luxuriously, his thick nightshirt askew, warm wool underthings toasty from the heat of the bed. “Hmm,” he replied languidly. “It would please me, but only if you can be convinced to call me by my name, sweet boy.”The young man’s blush lit up his cheeks like a wildfire. “I… but…”“It’s alright,” Newt said carefully, belting his velvet robe and coming closer to squeeze Credence’s hand. “Look here, I am flesh and blood, just as you are. A mortal creature no loftier than any other. Do you see?”Credence swallowed. “I see. Newt.”Newt smiled at last, his cheek muscles stiff from disuse.-Credence was quite good at throwing knives, as it happened. And javelins, and spears.“He’s got a sharp eye and a strong arm,” Tina said proudly, clapping him on the shoulder. Credence flushed beneath the glossy fall of his hair, now grown in soft curls past his ears. “All the makings of a fine swordsman, too.”“Mmm,” Newt hummed, smiling as he sipped from his goblet. “Perhaps I ought to make you a knight, then, dear boy.”It was spring, sun-warm and bright. The roses Queenie tended by the windowsill flourished, pale luscious pink, just like Credence’s blush.-Newt was out riding alone when he saw the convoy heading up the road to the manor, Percival’s banner flapping in the breeze.By the time he’d galloped back and skidded into the courtyard, the visitors were already inside the hall, Tina waiting by the door with her hand casually resting on her sword.“Again?” Newt asked.“He doesn’t have his face covered, this time,” she murmured. “You know him better than any of us. Is that really him?”There were five men sitting at the dining table, supping on bread and stew. One, however, was stood by the fire, tall and broad-shouldered, not eating.He turned, and Newt felt faint. There was Percival, down to the last eyelash, exactly as he had looked before he left. That was unmistakably his stern brow, his dark eyes, the noble cut of his jaw. Had he always been so tall? The man hardly even looked any older, as if he’d wandered into a fairy ring and slept the last seven years away.“Percival?” Newt breathed.“Darling,” his beloved replied, smiling widely. “You are a sight for sore eyes.”Newt blinked, confused and overwhelmed, his vision blurring with tears. “You… oh, my love!”The man grunted in surprise as Newt threw himself into his arms, burying his face in his husband’s neck.“You’ve come back to me at last,” Newt cried, unable to keep from sobbing, while the man patted his back.-He could barely stand to let go of Percival, even for a moment. At supper, he sat so close he was practically in the man’s lap.“Eager, aren’t you?” the man said dryly, raising an eyebrow.“Percival,” Newt scolded darkly, “you’ve been gone for seven years. What took you so long to come home?”The tale his husband told involved a sorceress, a long imprisonment, and many a terrible storm that had delayed their ship.“Yet somehow, you kept your armor spotless,” Newt said slowly.Percival’s dazzling smile didn’t falter. “You know me,” he said, “I always have to look my best.”Newt’s brow furrowed.-On the way to bed, they ran into Credence in the hallway outside Newt’s rooms, a book in his hands, probably the one he’d left on the couch by the fire the night before.“My lords,” the young man said, sounding choked. He bowed his head, eyes glued to the floor, his expression lost.Percival barely spared him a glance, brushing past him into the bedchamber.“Credence,” Newt said softly, reaching for him. “Are you alright?”The boy flinched slightly, face crumpling. “I’m fine, my lord. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”He fled quick as a ghost.-That night was sleepless and surreal. Percival kissed him perfunctorily on the lips and then pressed him down onto the bed without any ceremony, reaching for his belt. “Darling, what are you doing?” Newt asked, squirming away, a strange feeling of hesitation in his chest. “Are you not tired from the road? I would much rather wait until you are feeling rested.”Percival stared at him for a moment, his eyes dark in the flickering firelight. “As you wish, husband.” He rolled onto his side, facing away from Newt, shifting under the covers. Eventually his breathing deepened into sleep, but Newt looked numbly up at the dark ceiling for hours, his heart pounding. Percival had always slept curled around him before, no matter whether they made love or not.-Newt rose before dawn, eyes gritty, feeling restless, and crept down to the kitchens.Credence was curled on the stone floor by the fire, his head pillowed on his arm.“Sweet boy, what are you doing down here? Is not your soft bed upstairs warmer than the hearth?” Newt asked.Credence looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes, scrambling to his feet. “Yes, my lord,” he said, hair falling across his face. “Of course.”He dashed away before Newt could say more.-Percival came down to breakfast dressed in his finest robes. His thick gold signet ring sat glinting on his finger, inscribed with the barony seal, apparently plundered out of Newt’s desk where he’d stored it for safekeeping.“I should like to tour the lands this morning, my darling, take stock of the things I have missed,” his husband said.Newt nodded, staring at the band of gold on Percival’s hand. They rode out in style, just as they used to do before Newt had stopped caring about impressing anyone. Percival smiled patronizingly down at the tenants as they passed, rich fur collar ruffling in the cool breeze. He didn’t even glance at the willow tree by the river.-“I think the taxes ought to be higher,” Percival announced. “The serfs look far too comfortable. Your soft heart is not suited to governing, my love.”Newt stared at him. Percival took an unconcerned sip of wine.“I’ve done just fine in your absence,” Newt said pointedly.“Indeed,” his husband replied. “You’ve done well, for a meek city-born youth with no practical experience in the realities of the world. But I’ve had a look at the account books in the treasury and I can see plenty of areas to tighten the noose.”“But, surely–”“Leave it to me to sort it out, dear husband,” Percival interrupted. “You need not trouble yourself.”Newt swallowed around a sour taste in his throat. “Your trouble is my trouble, my love,” he said softly.“Mmm,” Percival said distractedly. “But the deed to this land is in my name. I shall do with it as I see fit.”-Newt watched hollowly as Percival assumed the mantle of power, drawing it around him like a cloak. He strode the halls of the manor with his sword shining at his hip, looking at the household staff as if they were made of dirt.One morning his angry voice summoned Newt out into the courtyard. “What is this, husband? You’ve given my coin away to a coward and a deserter? Housed him on my lands?”Percival and his hired men had Sir Strymwell on his knees in the mud, the knight’s eyes wide with shock and disbelief. “What are you talking about?” Sir Strymwell stammered. “My lord, I am amazed to see you returned, when last I saw–”“He left us in the midst of battle,” Percival declared loudly, cutting over his words, “rode away to save his skin. Whatever stories he told you about the journey home were lies.”They kicked him out of the barony, in naught but his breeches and shirt.-Percival sat at his desk for long hours writing letters to the King, the room perfumed by the scent of the melting candle. “Soon I will go visit court, my love,” his husband said smugly, pressing his signet ring into the soft sealing wax, dark red against the cream parchment. “And then my influence will become even greater.”“Shall I come with you?” Newt asked.“No need, dear heart,” his husband said. “It will be dull business, all money talk. You had better stay at home.”“I see,” Newt whispered stiffly, his heart sinking heavy under a rising tide of dismay.-There was a muffled shout from the back storeroom, a clatter and a crash.Newt threw the door open to find Queenie, pale and furious, standing over one of Percival’s men with a washing bat in her hand and an overturned basket of laundry at her feet.“My lord, he tried to do me dishonor,” she choked, breathless with shock and anger.“What is the meaning of this?” Percival asked coolly, appearing behind Newt.“The wench is crazy,” the other man snarled, wiping the blood from his broken nose. “Attacked me for no reason! Completely insane, best get rid of her immediately.”“How disgraceful,” Percival said.“No,” Queenie said, her voice even but her hands shaking. “He is lying. He grabbed me, tried to–”“Your lies will not protect you, harlot,” said the bloodied man, with hatred in his eyes. “You did seek to tempt me, but it did not work. Your sinful charms, witch, will get you burned or worse–”Newt drew his dagger, stepping in front of Queenie, his voice icy cold. “Be silent,” he told the man. He turned to Percival, who was watching with annoyance etched across his brow. “Husband, you will dismiss this brute from your service immediately,” Newt said. “I want him off our property, never to return.”Percival hesitated, his mouth twisting in displeasure.Newt leveled an incredulous stare at him. “When you carried me over the threshold of this house you told me I was master of your heart,” he said sharply. “For the sake of my love, if not your conscience, you will dismiss him. Or I shall drag him out of here myself, and fetch an axe to cut off his offending hand." He had had enough of this. "Banishment is the least of what he deserves.”Percival glared at him, clenching his jaw. He was quiet for a long moment. “Very well,” he finally replied, tight and displeased. He nodded to the man. "Get you gone."The villain wasted no time fleeing out the door.-This could go on no further. Newt caught sight of Percival looming over Credence in the hallway, saw him smack one hand across his face.“You will do as I say, boy,” he was growling, while Credence shrank against the wall, clutching his cheek. “And you will not ask questions of your betters. If my men catch you looking through their things again, I will have you hanged for thieving.” “What is this?” Newt said, dangerously quiet. “I find your household staff to be lacking, my love,” Percival said coldly. “I fear you’ve hired a slew of greedy half-wits. That common girl you made into a knight is a lazy idiot, and one of my men found this one snooping through his private quarters. This worthless peasant claims that the luxurious room my soldier has deservedly chosen was once his own, and that a gilded bow and a quiver of fine arrows are his that the man has stolen.” He shook Credence, hard, by the shoulders. “Little liar.”“Take your hands off him this instant,” Newt said slowly, his voice thick with anger. “He is not lying, nor have you any right to question his word. That bow was a gift.”Percival’s eyes darkened. “A gift?” he asked dubiously. “For a kitchen boy?”“Yes,” Newt spat, “a gift. From me. Which your man-at-arms has had the deplorable nerve to take from him, along with his bedchamber. This shall not continue, Percival, do you understand? I will not have those uncouth men in my hall any longer, nor shall you ever strike a member of my household again. Unhand him, now.”His husband stared, fury pulsing in the veins of his face. “Such fiery demands,” he said, voice soft with rage. “You command me like a King, and yet you are only my husband. I am the lord of this manor,” he declared, “and I will rule over the servants and all others who live here as I see fit. Including you. Go to your chambers, I will speak with you later.”“No,” Newt said icily, the word as flat and hard as a stone. “Absolutely not.”Percival straightened slowly, his hand drifting toward his sword. Newt’s eyes widened.“Disobedient as well as unfaithful, then,” the man snarled. “Such is my reward for my long toils to bring this house prosperity. A gilded bow for a servant! Do you think I am a fool? I see now why you spurn my caresses each night. You hand out my wealth to your lover while you spread your legs for him behind my back, and now you have the gall to tell me what to do.” Newt glared, his mouth falling open, so incensed he could not speak.Percival’s eyes turned cruel and impassive. “A husband like you is a stain on my reputation. You will only block me from rising through the ranks of power and influence. I see that now.”He drew his sword, advancing toward Newt.“What do you think you’re doing?” Newt cried, stumbling backward.Percival caught him by the throat, sword in his hand. “Exercising my right to drive debauchery out of my house,” he said hatefully. “Adultery is a capital offense, after all. And I shall finally be rid of a troublesome nuisance.” He raised his blade in a flash of bright steel.
Thud.
The man gasped suddenly, staring over his shoulder at the knife hilt protruding from his back.“What…”Credence’s eyes were blazing, his graceful arm still extended from the throw.Percival’s tunic was turning dark with spreading blood, but still he turned and staggered toward the young man, his sword deadly sharp in his hand.“Oh, you cowardly little snake! Why wait for a hanging, when I can kill you myself?” he growled, lumbering like a beast.Credence, horrified, scrambled to pull another knife from his boot.Newt got there first. His dagger made no sound as he drew it from his belt and leapt forward, cutting his husband’s throat.-Newt could barely breathe.The body, afterward, was not Percival.Credence and Newt clung to each other, shaking, staring down at the pale stranger laid out on the stone floor in a pool of red. His face had begun to change the moment he stopped breathing, melting like wax.“What new devilry is this?” Credence choked. “How is this possible? He… he stole the Baron’s face?”Newt could not speak. His face was wet with tears, his breath rattling shallowly in his lungs like wind through a chink in a wall.He retched on the stone floor, bile smoking in the air.-They emerged into the dining hall, a broad crossbow in Credence’s hands, Newt covered in blood.Queenie shouted at the sight of them, and Tina drew her sword. The four men at the table leapt to their feet.“The man who hired you is dead,” Newt said hollowly, the dagger still clutched in his hand. “Get out of my house.”The ruffians did not question him, nor did they stay to fight.Tina rode them off the edge of the property to ensure they caused no grief to the tenants on their way out.-They tightened security immediately. The gates were to be barred at all hours, no visitors allowed inside without vigorous questioning.Newt searched through the imposter’s things, staring numbly at the letters he’d been writing, attempts to ascend in rank and get closer to the King. There were other sheets of parchment covered in words he could not decipher, foreign symbols and strange code.He found a sour-smelling waterskin full of a potion that looked like mud, tucked inside the man’s travel bag along with a dark lock of hair.“Oh, gods,” Newt sobbed, slumping to the floor. That was Percival’s hair, he could feel it in his bones.-“An assassin, do you think?” Jacob asked, frowning. “A mercenary enchanter, sent by the northmen in vengeance? He was trying to gain access to court, to make some foul attempt on the King’s life.”“Perhaps his plan was wilier than that,” Tina said. “Else, why go to the trouble of maintaining the charade for so long? He could’ve gone to court immediately if his business was murder. Manipulation, on the other hand… mayhap he sought not to kill the King but to gain his trust, make him a puppet.”“Or maybe,” Credence said hoarsely. “He simply envied Baron Graves his wealth and status, and was driven by greed to steal his life.” He glanced at Newt. “And all the other blessings he holds.”Newt said nothing, his aching red eyes fixed on the lock of hair clutched in his hands. Percival’s signet ring hung heavy on a chain around his neck.“We must send word to the palace, either way,” Queenie said. “The King should be on his guard, lest there be others that seek to use the same dreadful trickery.”-Newt dreamt that night of many horrors. There were strange men chasing him with swords, their faces melting and bubbling like hot wax, speaking words that made no sense. He saw bloody visions of grimly-smiling death, watched as his friends were murdered in the hall by a foul imposter while he wept, unable to move. He dreamt that Percival was a ghost, wandering the halls of the manor with blood upon his throat and accusation in his eyes.It was a fearful parcel of imaginings. Not until the early hours of the morning did his dreams turn away from fear and into serene sadness. Newt dreamed of the sea, calm and green and rippling. Far below the swirling surface, he thought he saw his husband sleeping, rocked by the waves in a peaceful embrace. His hair billowed eerily around him while the fish danced and his bones turned into coral, his heart transformed into rose-colored sea glass.In the morning, Newt dried his eyes and tucked the dark curl of his husband’s hair inside a small ornate box.The box closed with a painful snap, like sealing a wound with a hot poker, sore and burning and absolute.It was time to snuff out the deceptive voice of hope.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Spring eased onward, rain sheeting down over the fields. Newt made Credence his knight, of course. It was as natural as breathing.The young man cut a fine figure with a sword in his hand, his brow dark with sweat from sparring with Tina in the yard.“I suppose I ought not to call you ‘boy’ any longer, sweet cavalier,” Newt said. “You are unmistakably a man.”Credence’s smile turned bashful, his dark hair curling with moisture around the edge of his handsome jaw.-A rider came from the King at the start of summer, bearing several chests of gold and a deed of title stamped by the royal seal.“His Majesty would like to thank you for your courage in facing the imposter in your house, my lord, and for your timely warning,” the herald announced, bowing with a flourish. “The royal sorcerer has used the brigand’s coded letter to uncover a web of spies within the city. Thanks to you, they are disbanded.”Newt’s mouth fell open.“Furthermore, the King wishes to convey his grief at the loss of your lord husband at sea, for he was a good man and a mighty and worthy soldier. His Majesty desires to outfit you in such comfort as befits the widower of so loyal a fighter.”He handed over the deed, the scroll of parchment fresh and crisp. “The barony is transferred to your new name, Lord Newton, along with an adjoining tract of fertile land to the south, and the King has given you the title of Viscount.”From the doorway to the kitchen, Jacob let out a muffled cheer. “His Majesty wished me to inquire if you have any other boon that you would ask of him,” the herald finished. “A larger manor, perhaps? With more staff?”Newt blinked in astonishment. “No,” he managed to say, “please tell him I am most grateful. But I only desire one thing, and it is not within his power to grant.” “Of course, my lord.”Not even the King’s sorcerer could bring back the dead.-Newt gave a rich purse to each member of his household and parceled out gifts among the tenants. Sir Strymwell was invited back to his cottage and given a fine sword encrusted with rubies.“It was not I alone who suffered at the hands of that fiend,” Newt declared. “Nor was it my hand unaided that laid him low.”He bought Credence a set of beautifully crafted throwing knives, his own horse, a shining suit of armor, and several tunics of fine velvet.“Oh,” the knight murmured, eyes wide, as he brushed the soft fabric with his fingers. “Newt…”“Do you like them?” Newt breathed, stroking a dark curl of hair behind the young man’s ear.“They are finer than anything I’ve ever dreamed of wearing,” Credence whispered, still shocked.Newt pressed a soft kiss against his cheek, leaning their foreheads together. “Then I think they will suit you quite well, my champion.”-One morning as they all broke their fast, Queenie doubled over retching into a bucket.“Blessed bough of Avalon,” Tina murmured, wide-eyed.Jacob helped his wife back to her seat and wrapped her in blankets, plied her with honeyed tea, his hands gentle on her forehead. Her face was clammy but her smile was bright.Credence looked hopelessly confused.“A baby. Mercy and grace,” Newt breathed in slow delight. Summer blossoms flamed in bright colors in the courtyard, a riotous outpouring of life.-There were nights when Newt woke screaming in the dark, his throat raw.Sometimes he dreamt of Percival’s ghost, sometimes not.“Newt,” Credence murmured, his voice thick with sleep. “It was only a dream.” He was a solid warmth in the shadowy bed, gentle calloused palms cupping Newt’s face.“Oh, gods,” Newt sobbed, his breath heaving.“You are safe here, have no fear,” the young man said. “I would die before I let any harm befall you.”Newt gasped out a pained laugh. “Sometimes that is what frightens me most,” he said hoarsely. “I was dreaming that you were dead, killed by that awful man’s sword. And my heart was broken.”Credence inhaled with quiet shock, his hands trembling slightly.“Your heart?” he whispered, barely audible.“Yes,” Newt replied.They lay twined together for a long time, neither saying anything.-Queenie’s morning sickness lasted until the start of autumn, her figure rounding with pregnancy. Jacob doted on her constantly, bringing her blankets as she sat by the fire, helping her put her feet up on a stool, plying her with bread and tea. She smiled at him fondly. “Darling, you are wonderful,” she said. “But I will not wither away the moment you turn your back. I have rested all day, and you are tired as well.”It had been a hard afternoon of threshing oats and carrying bags of potatoes up and down the cellar steps.Newt hid his sleepy smile in Credence’s hair, leaning against the knight while he massaged salve onto Newt’s work-blistered palms.-Tina was playing chess with Credence at the kitchen table, Newt draped languidly over the young man’s shoulders whispering advice in his ear, when a letter arrived from the city.“Baronet Abernathy seeks your hand in marriage, my lord,” Queenie read, eyebrows rising. Credence stiffened, and Newt straightened up in shock. “His Lordship remembers you fondly from your days of youth and professes his wish to court you with tenderness and devotion,” she read, blue eyes glancing up at him.“What?” Newt said blankly, gaping at the parchment in her hand. “Have you met this lord before?” Tina asked, her eyes narrowed. “Perhaps once, as a boy, on my brother’s estate,” Newt answered, mystified. “But we never exchanged more than a handful of words. I cannot even recall his face.”“Hmph,” Queenie said. “He seems quite keen for such a distant acquaintance.”“He wants my land, I’ll warrant,” Newt muttered. “A Baronet is a noble in name only. He must have his eye on acquiring some property.”Queenie’s eyes sparkled. “Shall I send him back a scathing reply?”Newt pressed a kiss against Credence’s temple, turning back to the game. “I leave the task in your capable hands, Madam.”-There were a handful more offers by the end of the harvest, though Newt was much more interested in helping bring in the cabbages, turnips and beets than he was in answering any of them.“This month you have apparently won the heart of Marquess Fulroy and the Earl of Pelsmark,” Queenie said, brandishing a new handful of letters. “They’ve been struck to the quick by tales of your courage and enraptured by rumors of your beauty.”Newt paused on his way out the door, frowning in incredulous dismay. “What rumors? Why would anybody want to gossip about me?”“I’d say you are irresistible to the rest of the peerage, my lord,” she replied, lips turning up in a knowing smile. “You are quite lovely. And young and wise and wealthy, and heavily favored by the King. Now that an appropriate period of mourning has passed, I suppose you are like a flame, and they are all as transfixed as moths.”Newt gaped at her. “I’ve…” he began, flustered. “I’ve got to go dig up the sweet potatoes before the slugs get to them,” he said, faintly panicked.“I will take that as a no,” Queenie replied.-“This one is from the Countess Lestrange,” Queenie said carefully.Newt sent her a dark look. “Burn it.”-He was mercifully distracted from his suitors by the onset of winter, sudden and bitterly cold, and by happier tidings.Queenie’s baby was born right after the first snow, a healthy girl, blessed by the hedgewitch and praised by the healer.They all congregated in the kitchen most days, sitting by the warm stove, reading and laughing and playing chess while Jacob massaged Queenie’s shoulders and she rocked the cradle with her foot.-The evenings were long and dark, but the mornings were blindingly white and crystalline, painting the world in glittering frost.“It has been eight years since he left,” Newt murmured, staring out at the snowy blanket muffling the courtyard. He had stood there, once, red cloak flapping in the wind, as his husband kissed him for the last time. “Four times as many years as fate allowed us to have here together.”Credence’s arms were warm and strong around him, chin resting on his shoulder as they looked out the window.“Some days it feels like a dream,” Newt whispered. “A different life that belonged to someone else, an eternity ago.” He shivered slightly. “And other days it feels like he left me yesterday, and this, without him, is the dream. How can it be real? How can I go on living when he does not?”Credence tightened his arms, his embrace steady and reassuring.-Tina and Credence went out into the winter forest and came back with a deer slung between them, a mighty creature with a proud rack of antlers.Jacob got to work immediately at preserving the meat, his eyes focused. “This venison will feed us for a long time, if we make it last,” he said.Tina squeezed Credence’s shoulder. “Well shot, Sir Credence,” she said, grinning.The knight smiled softly down at his boots.Later, Newt found him staring at the bloodied antlers out in the courtyard by the kitchen door, his eyes downcast.“If we did not need to eat,” Credence murmured. “I should never have wanted to hurt something so innocent. The buck was only out looking for food, trying to survive the winter just as we are.”Newt drew him close, caressing his face.“I take neither joy nor pride in hunting,” the young man admitted quietly.“That is because you are kind,” Newt said fervently, “unselfish and compassionate. My sweet champion, you are as rare and wonderful as a seam of pure gold in a quarry of rock.”-Perhaps this moment had always been inevitable, ever since they had lain side by side in the sickbed and Newt discovered that his heart had not turned to ice after all.“Will you accept one of them?” Credence whispered in the night. “Your fine suitors? Many of them could offer you great wealth and comfort, and anything else you desire.”“Darling,” Newt said, quietly curled in his knight’s arms, both of them cocooned in blankets to combat the cold. “What I desire is not in their keeping.”“No?” Credence breathed, gentle fingers brushing Newt’s jaw.“My dearest,” Newt said. He pressed their foreheads together. “I have no yearning for riches, no appetite for luxury. My ambition is spent,” he murmured. “And lately I find I have no hunger for food if it is not eaten in your company, no reason to rise in the morning if not to see your face.”Credence swallowed, his eyelashes growing dark and wet.Newt kissed the tears from his cheeks, kissed his forehead, his fluttering eyelids, his patient lips. “You must know that I will always love my husband,” he confessed quietly.“I know,” the knight answered softly, a raw whisper. “Else you would not be yourself. I am in love with all of you, including your devotion to him.”“I will always love him,” Newt repeated, “but I love you just as much.” Credence’s hands cupped his face like something precious. “Newt,” he said, desperately.“I gave my heart away long ago,” Newt declared, “but it seems I am capable of growing another. Two hearts in the place of a single one.” They kissed again. “My darling, you are my greatest joy now.”-The winter was long and cold, but it was warm inside their bedchamber, in the shy blush of new passion.Credence touched Newt with all the reverence of a mortal encountering a forest spirit, wide-eyed and innocent.Newt traced the lashing scars on his lover’s back, smoothed them with gentle fingers and soft kisses. Credence buried his face in Newt’s neck, mouthed at the hot skin of his throat.“Oh!” They moved together slowly, Newt perched in Credence’s lap, staring down into his dark eyes as they clung to each other in pleasure.“Newt!” Credence gasped, sweat gleaming on his brow. Newt stroked his hair, tasted hungrily of his lips, swallowed his panting cry of release.“My sweet love,” Newt moaned, spending his seed on warm skin.-When the first thaw came, Newt went out riding to inspect his county, bringing parcels of goods to his tenants and blessing the ground after the harsh winter.“My lord, you honor us with your presence,” the farmers said.Newt anointed the soil with a drop of bright blood, hung a dried wreath of sage on the barn door while the animals nursed their newborn young. “It is my pleasure, and my duty to you,” he replied. “We are all fed by this same earth, and by your care and toil.”There were new tenants also, ones who had been gifted to him along with their land by the King’s decree. They stared at their new Viscount as he rode up in his muddy boots and his work-worn breeches, handed them baskets of bread and apples, dried venison and pickled beets.“A strange one, he is,” they muttered, when they thought he couldn’t hear. “Very odd, for a noble.”His governance over them was not of their choosing, but they seemed pleased with his offerings.-Lusty spring brought nights of breathless contentment.Newt cried out, twisting in the sheets, with Credence’s dark head buried between his thighs. “Oh, gods…!”He panted with pleasure, bursting hot and wet, then pressed the knight down into the mattress, sucking at the salt of his mouth.“My sweet darling,” he whispered, kissing his lover’s chest, his beating heart, trailing down to taste the hard girth of his manhood, virile and flushed.“Newt!” Credence’s back arched like a bow, his head falling back in helpless ecstasy.-They went walking hand in hand out into the thick of the forest, to a gnarled old oak.The hedgewitch in the village had advised Newt to hang the rack of antlers from the winter stag among the trees, bless it with a libation of wine and offer thanks for the food that had kept them alive through the cold months.The antlers were wound with flowers and decorated by carvings scratched into the bone by Newt’s careful hand and the sharp point of his dagger.“The forest has been generous,” Newt said, kneeling on the soft moss with Credence at his side.They sat for a long while, fingers buried in the dirt, inhaling the scent of bright leaves and decomposing wood, life and death all mixed together.-By summer Newt’s suitors had gotten more insistent.“The Baronet Abernathy wishes to pay you a visit,” Queenie read, with little Evaine perched wide-eyed on her hip, tiny hand clutching the neck of her dress. “Despite your letters discouraging his affection, he seems to think your refusals do you credit.” She pursed her lips in annoyance. “His Lordship admires your steadfast will and loyalty to your late husband, and finds himself inflamed with love all the hotter for these fine qualities.” Newt rubbed a hand over his face, groaning.“He would like to call upon the house at midsummer, bringing gifts of courtship.”“No,” Newt said flatly.-“If they could see me as I am now,” Newt declared ruefully, “the Baronet and the others would have no cause to carry on as they do.”It was afternoon and he was stinking of sheep, covered in sweat with mud up his legs, pale aristocratic skin long since bronzed with freckles, his fine copper hair bleached gold by the sun.Credence smiled at him over the bleating of the flock, cradling a freshly shorn lamb in his strong arms as it blinked in bewilderment. “Or perhaps they would find you more beautiful still,” he replied.They helped the farmers herd the sheep home and bag up the wool, striding back to the manor in the twilight. “I find you irresistible with dirt in your hair,” Credence murmured in the hot steam of the bath, Newt curled in his embrace. “And at all other times.”Newt turned his head to kiss his lover, eyelashes brushing against his cheek as he smiled. “And I you, my lovely knight.”-“The Duchess Vorthian has invited you to attend a ball,” Queenie announced, another letter in her hands, “during which she hopes you will be impressed by her son and daughter’s many accomplishments.”Newt let his head flop into his hands. “Will this never end?” he complained. “Perhaps I had better declare that I am ill, a rare affliction, with unsightly pustules. No suitor would want me, then.”“Or they would send a healer and gifts of expensive medicine,” Tina interjected. Jacob nodded, bouncing Evaine in his lap, her chubby fingers stuffed into her mouth. “And ask to sit at your bedside and speak love-poems to you as you recover.”Newt sighed, shaking his head. “Then I had better announce unequivocally, once and for all,” he decided, “that I shall never marry again.”“Are you sure?” Queenie asked, glancing at Credence. But the knight only smiled in return.“Entirely sure,” Newt replied, “for I have no desire to replace my husband, even though I have learned to live on and find happiness without him. I would rather have no audience but you, my dear friends, no nuptial ceremony but this.” He leaned over to kiss Credence, softly. “Here is my beloved. I need no showy matrimonial fanfare to give him my heart. He knows it is already in his keeping.”Credence’s joy was bright as the sun, happiness shining from his eyes. “And mine is in your hands, as it has ever been,” he answered.“This quiet life with you is all that I desire, darling, to spend our days in the forest and the field and our evenings cherishing the gifts we have been given,” Newt said. “I pray to the gods that nothing now will change, nor unexpected commotion ever come to disturb our peace.”-Fortunately, the gods did not listen to his wishes. Sometimes commotion was a good thing.Far across the dark sea, Percival stared out at the horizon and renewed his wearied courage. His ship rocked as he battled against the wind, his eyes ever-fixed toward home.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The war had begun with confusion and chaos, in the cold of the north, where Percival rode with the mighty army of the King. Wild enemy sorcery confused the soldiers’ eyes, made sudden fools of their bravest fighters when they found themselves chasing after figures that dissolved into air.“What is this unearthly new witchcraft?” the knights cried.But their courage held strong, and they crossed swords at last with the northmen themselves, illusions aside, in bitter bloody combat. Percival was nearly bested by a foreign soldier, tall and strikingly pale, a man with a sword of unparalleled sharpness. He stumbled, gasping, to the muddy ground, and ducked out of the way of his foe’s bright blade as it flashed inches from his face, shearing away a thick lock of his hair.And then he forced himself to get up again, to fight back fiercely and beat the man until he fled. He thought constantly of Artemis, of home. No fire burned brighter than his need to return to his husband, no will was stronger than his own, nor any warrior fiercer.-The war had been long and terrible, their enemy mighty and bloodthirsty, but at long last, they had prevailed. After a grinding siege of many years, the last outpost of their foes had fallen, and the King and his army had made for home.Yet triumph was still not in Percival’s grasp.The sea was an angry rival, a merciless and turbulent adversary, and it had set its jealous sights on Percival, seeking to prove its power over such a mighty warrior in a battle of wills. Sailing homeward from the field of victory, the waves had snatched Percival’s ship from its course, barring him from his long-desired return, and smashed the vessel groaning upon the rocks while Percival and his knights bound themselves to stout beams of wood to stay afloat.Thus began a journey of strange perils and many setbacks, a tale that, if sung in its entirety, would take many hours in the re-telling of it, to account for all events from first to last. For as long as it could manage, the merciless water kept Percival from his home, led him astray toward unfriendly ports and plagued him with troublesome storms. It tried many times to swallow him completely, its wild strength unmatched, but he would not succumb to its crashing wrath. Percival and his knights had found themselves wrecked upon many islands full of mysterious dangers. They encountered a monstrous man with one eye who threatened to eat them, a land of people gone mad with the effects of gnawing on some strange flower, a cruel sorceress who transformed the knights into swine and ordered Percival to labor for a year within her ghostly house of steaming baths to bargain for their safe return.Another mighty tempest tossed them on an island where an exiled duke was waiting to take revenge on his traitorous brother, biding his time in anger and practicing his wizardcraft. He commanded magic that called forth the wind and set the waves to roiling, and his island was full of baffling illusions and otherworldly music that seemed to come from the air itself. Such strange sights were more perplexing than any Percival had ever seen. He clung to his courage, striving ever to press homeward, thinking always of Artemis and longing for the day of his return.He and his knights sailed on, navigating past a whirlpool so large it looked as if it might devour the entire world. They held their course, sailing bravely onward through waters writhing with all manner of perilous creatures, sea serpents and sharks and shrieking eels. There were many days of toil as their journey unfolded - weeks spent sculling over the desolate waves in search of a landmark to guide them. They were attacked by pirates, attacked by a kraken, attacked by cunning sirens whose beautiful songs sought to lure them to crash along the rocks. They stopped for fresh water on an island covered in thick jungle, only to flee in terror from a strange monster made of dark smoke. They saw many wondrous things as well; glowing sunsets burning on the water, the shining bright joy of a pod of dolphins dancing beside the boat, an island governed by beautiful warlike women, strong and wise. Several of the knights would’ve quite liked to stay in that lovely berth, but Percival urged them on again.“My friends, our homes are waiting!” he cried. “We cannot falter now!”The day finally came, after much adventuring, that their long adversity was ended. The sea, it seemed, had had enough of tormenting a heartsick man longing for his love, and ceased its cruel barrage of delays. The sky was clear, and the water calm, and the knights knew their bearing, for they had a map the Amazons had given them.Ten years after he had ridden to war, leaving his husband in tears to wait for his return, Percival stepped at last upon the soil of the eastern shore of his homeland, in the warmth of early autumn. He had lost his armor to the water long ago, but retained his bright sword belted about his hip.“Alas that not all our number are here to see this day!” Percival declared. “I mourn dear Sir Strymwell, lost to the waves at the start of our journey home.”“Aye, alas,” sighed another of his knights. “I pray to the gods that by some slim chance he washed up on a different shore than us, and has long since carried himself homeward. Else, he must be in a watery grave indeed.”“Let us hold on to that hope, and have courage, my friends,” Percival said to his companions, all of them exhausted and starving. “We have outlived many dangers to reach this land. Now we must draw upon our last measure of strength and seek shelter at the nearest town, to learn what has become of the kingdom in our absence.”-There was food to be had at the inn, though they had no coin to pay for it.“I am a Baron,” Percival declared to the innkeeper. “You shall be paid, and generously, once I reclaim my purse. My knights and I have made our weary way across the sea, battered upon rocks and delayed from home by countless perils. But here we have come at last, victors of the battle in the north that ended five years past.”The man squinted at their rough wool cloaks, their weather-stained breeches and tar-smeared skin.“I have seen your like before,” he said, “ragged and dirty travelers, declaring themselves long-lost companions to the King, only to rob me of my fee and run out in the morning with no word.”“We are not liars, I swear by my sword,” Percival argued. “I am Baron Graves, lord of the western shire, kept away from my husband and my lands by cruel fortune. You see me now clothed in humble garb, unshaven, my hair grown long and streaked with salt, but when I left I rode on horseback in fine armor. I have gold aplenty to give you for your aid.”The innkeeper shook his head. “You cannot be he,” the man proclaimed. “Lord Graves already came this way, some three years hence, on route into the west. I remember him well, for he arrived with great fanfare, clad in shining mail and velvet, and stayed a week to hire an entourage of men, holding important private council in his rooms. He was tall and mighty. Taller, I think, than you.”Percival stared at him in shock.“Your pretense cannot fool me, for I know my eye,” the innkeeper said, and shut the door in Percival’s face.-They camped that night beside the road, with what food they could forage shared between them.Percival sat quietly in disbelief. “My friends,” he said, “it seems my status will be no help to us. Some villainy is at work here which I must seek to untangle. I shall go homeward in humble disguise, and make no attempt to declare myself until I have inspected the state of my house and born witness to this supposed imposter.”“Of course, my lord.”“Please,” he continued, “go along without me to the capitol and find your way to court. The King will surely know you by your faces, and grant you rich reward for all your toils. I myself will wait to enjoy the warmth of His Majesty’s welcome until I have set eyes upon my sweet husband and taken back my name, for his loving embrace is the only victory prize my heart desires.”They parted in the morning, in the misty light of dawn. “I will send word, should I need your help,” Percival said. “But I have a wish to journey alone at first, in order to slip unnoticed past unfriendly eyes.”“We shall hope that all goes well, and bear news of your return to the King’s ears,” the knights declared.-Percival made slow time on foot, sleeping rough at night below the stars wrapped in his woolen cloak. He reached another town the following morning and found a caravan of travelers at the edge of the square, their horses and wagons made ready to ride.“Go you toward the west country?” he asked.“We shall go past there, indeed,” one woman replied. “If the gods favor us with fair conditions, we shall be in the village of Hogsmeade by tomorrow’s end, on the edge of the land you speak of. What is your purpose in asking?”“I am a knight,” Percival said, “though I look rough and travel worn and I have lost my armor and my horse. I swear to help protect your caravan from thieves and brigands, if you will allow me to join you. My home is in the west, and I long for a way to journey there.”She looked him over carefully, squinting at the strength of his arms and the shine of the sword belted about his waist. “Very well.”-“Sir knight,” one of the other travelers said the following afternoon, a man in fine clothes who had seated himself upon a velvet pillow within the wagon. “Where is your destination? I plan to spend tonight in Hogsmeade, and then ride on to visit the manor house in the morning, and I have a spare horse you may use if you would serve me on the journey.”They were drawing close to the village, the cart wheels jostling over the muddy road as they passed through lush green fields. “I humbly accept,” Percival said. “And I thank you for your kindness.”“Your company will be most welcome,” the lord replied. “I shall be grateful of a man-at-arms on the road, for there are those who would take advantage of a noble passing alone through the forest, bearing such rich gifts as I do bring to His Lordship the Viscount.”“There are greedy thieves aplenty wherever we may go, it is true,” the caravan leader declared from her horse, her dark eyes wary. “Though I find there are fewer on Lord Newton’s lands than most, for he is generous with his tenants and drives them not to desperation.”Percival stared in confusion at them both. “Who is this Viscount Newton you speak of?” he asked carefully. “When last I was within these parts, the western shire was under the care of a Baron by the name of Graves.”“Ah, but he is dead,” the lord in the fine clothes replied. “And now the land is in the keeping of Lord Newton, by gifting of the King himself. A few winters back, he performed some sort of admirable service to the crown, and the deed passed into his name.”Percival blinked, dismay rising in his heart. Which of these strange tales was true? Was some pretender ruling in his hall, or had the King truly given his lands away? And where had sweet Artemis gone?-The inn at Hogsmeade was crowded, but they found supper and refreshed themselves at a table among other travelers.Percival could not withhold his questions.“The lord of these lands, Viscount Newton,” he asked. “What manner of man is he?”“Oh, a brutish one!” a nearby man exclaimed. “A fearsome warrior, that is for certain. Keeps himself locked up in that manor of his, with bloody consequence for those who dare trespass within. They say he murdered Lord Graves when he returned home, killed him without hesitation and took the land for his own.”Percival clenched his hand tighter around his mug of ale.“But I thought the Baron died at sea, after the war,” someone else said. “No, no,” another said, “you must be mistaken. Several years ago, four men came running down from the manor with wild eyes, their voices quaking with terror. They’d seen Lord Newton kill Lord Graves in cold blood, with his own hand, and those that were loyal to the Baron were chased off his property by twenty fearsome knights.”The maid cleaning the tables overheard and scoffed. “That is nonsense,” she said. “Those men were in their cups, and not a word of their tale is to be trusted.”“Indeed,” another traveler agreed, “I believe them not. For I am certain I heard that the Viscount got the land from the King in reward for some secret and heroic service he performed. Perhaps he was a spy, or worked some mysterious magic on His Majesty’s behalf!” “Who is to say for certain where the truth lies?” a weathered farmer spoke up. “All I know is that Lord Newton is most peculiar, though he is a peaceable sort. He is a sorcerer, a wizard with strange power over the earth, for on his lands all crops crow twice as bountiful as anywhere else. ‘Tis likely he communes with animal spirits in the forest, makes shrines to them and dances naked under the moon.”“What foolishness!” the first man replied. “The man is a battle-hardened warrior!”“No, no, he is as gentle and wise as a hermit in the woods!”“He is all these things at once,” someone declared, “a trickster and a magician, his true face rarely seen by anyone!”-“You must not listen to the gossip of the rabble,” Percival’s traveling companion remarked as they made ready to ride in the morning. “Nothing they said last night was true. The Viscount is a noble lord, a perfectly prudent man. The townsfolk entertain themselves with tales at his expense, but I have known him since my youth and he is peerless in his wisdom, grace, and beauty.”The maid from the inn overheard them, pausing in her sweeping of the front stoop.“Oho,” she said, “Go you to woo him again, my lord Abernathy?”“I think you know that I do,” the lord replied stiffly. “Although he refuses me still, I cannot bid my heart to cease its longing, nor can I rest until either he is wed to another or he grants me my long-hoped-for bliss.”The woman snorted in amusement. “My lord,” she said, “I wish you luck. But the Earl of Pelsmark passed this way the day before yesterday, in grand procession up to the manor, planning to offer the Viscount a house of solid gold in exchange for his hand!”Lord Abernathy sniffed, his expression haughty. “My beloved lord is a man of impeccable taste and sensible demeanor,” he replied. “Such flashy shows of wealth do not impress him. I shall endeavor to hope, and march forward still.”-Percival only grew more disconcerted as they rode up the country lane. The caravan leader had spoken true, for they encountered no brigands. The fields they passed were bursting with crop, hearty and plentiful.“You said Lord Newton is beautiful, my lord?” Percival asked.“Yes,” the man replied slowly, with a look of suspicion on his face. “As handsome as the sun, tall, with piercing eyes and curls of burnished gold that he wears shorn about his ears. I have looked on him only rarely of late, seeing as he keeps himself very private, but each time I saw him he did set my heart aflame.”Percival tightened his grip on the reins. Would such a man have tempted his lovely Artemis, in his long absence? Had Lord Newton swept in and taken Percival’s sweet dear husband to bed, invading his marriage as well as his lands?“But do not let fancy sway you toward thoughts of courting him too, sir knight,” Lord Abernathy went on. “He would not wed a beggarly man such as yourself, though I am sure you are wise and worthy in your way.”Percival silently raised his eyebrows. Their horses plodded on.-They passed a wide hedge of berry bushes and an orchard of apple trees, full of workers plucking the autumn fruit.A water trough was set beside the road, a pony with a cart waiting ready to take the produce to be stored.“Let us rest here in the shade, and water the horses,” Lord Abernathy said, loosening the damp collar of his fine shirt, “for the sun has gotten very hot.”The midday hour was warm indeed, sweat moistening their brows. Lord Abernathy disdained to touch the water in the trough himself, but Percival shed his rough wool cloak and humble cap and washed the dirt of the road from his face and sun-bronzed arms, neatening his hair and beard. He’d certainly bathed in worse. When he looked up, there was a young man approaching from the orchard, a bag of apples in his strong arms. His tunic was rough, but there was a finely engraved knife sheathed in his belt and his boots were sturdy and well-made.“Excuse me, peasant,” Lord Abernathy said, his pale face pink with heat and exertion. “How much farther is it to the manor, by horse, do you know?”The young man frowned. “Ah, but I don’t suspect you have had much opportunity to ride,” the Baronet added. “Never mind, then.”At this, the man’s expression hardened further. Percival cleared his throat, stepping forward. “What my lord means,” he said evenly, “is to bid you a good noontide, sir, and thank you for allowing us to rest here. Do you live at the manor?”The stranger looked at him carefully, his eyes narrowed under the soft dark fall of his hair. “I do,” he said. Lord Abernathy made a sound of surprise. “You do?” he said. “Oh, yes, I suppose you look familiar! A serving boy, eh? And how much further have we to go?”The young man was still staring at Percival, his brow furrowed. “It is another hour by horse, for experienced riders hardened to the heat of the road,” he answered slowly. “For you, my lord Abernathy, it shall likely be longer.”-The man in the field was right. The afternoon shadows were lengthening and Abernathy was wincing in the saddle by the time they made it to the gates, their baggage-laden horses streaked with sweat.“You had best let me do the talking,” the lord declared, as they neared the tall fortifications.“Who are you?” rang out a woman’s voice. “State your business!”“I am Baronet Abernathy,” he replied grandly, “come to pay a visit to His Lordship the Viscount, and shower him with my affection.”There was a moment of silence on the other side of the gate, followed by a quiet sigh of exasperation. “My lord,” the voice replied with forced politeness. “Back again? And what have you brought with you there?”Abernathy flushed slightly. “They are gentleman’s things,” he replied. “And gifts for His Lordship.”There came a muffled cough that might’ve been a groan. “Well, I suppose you had best come inside, since you have travelled all this way, though His Lordship is very busy and is not likely to be able to meet with you. He will not be swayed to accept your courtship, either, for he has told you many times that he has no desire to re-marry.”“Re-marry?” Percival asked suddenly. “He has been married before?”“Oh, yes,” Lord Abernathy explained impatiently. “He grieves still for the death of his late husband. A sign of loyalty and true devotion that endears me to him even further.” He turned back to the gate. “I am grateful for the hospitality of your hall,” he called, “and would be glad of rooms within for my hired man and myself, for I am weary from the road. And a bath, please.”-Percival paced restlessly within the chamber he had been given, a servant’s bedroom within Lord Abernathy’s suite. His sword had been taken from him at the gates by a blonde woman with keen blue eyes, and now he clenched his hands on empty air.Who had been Lord Newton’s first husband, lost now to the grave? Had the Viscount married Artemis, Percival’s sweet gentle lord? Artemis who now was dead?There was a knock upon the adjoining door. “Shall we go down to supper?”He sat with Lord Abernathy in the dining hall, the fine table spread with a rich cloth, his joy at the familiar sight of his house’s walls soured by his growing despair.The Baronet frowned as another nobleman strode through the doors, tall and haughty, attired in fine silks glittering with gold embroidery. “Ah. Lord Pelsmark,” Abernathy greeted stiffly.“Oh, what a surprise,” announced the other man smugly, taking his seat at the table with a flourish. “Lord Abernathy. Have you not tired of your suit? Surely you can see I have been dealt the better hand in this game of courtship. My wealth is far greater than yours. Good sir, it is time to concede defeat.”The Baronet sent him a thinly concealed glare. “I seem to recall that His Lordship has shown no favor toward you yet, despite the richness of your purse. Perhaps his heart cannot be bought with gold. The field is even.”-The two men spent most of the meal glowering at each other, pausing only to address the cook when he came to clear away the main course.“Will His Lordship be joining us later?” the Baronet asked expectantly. “I am most eager to see him.”The cook’s eyes widened, trays of dishes balanced on his arms. “He… regrets that he cannot, my lord. He has taken an early supper in his rooms and must now rest, for he is tired from overseeing the harvest and meeting with the tenants.”“And tomorrow?”The cook looked politely apologetic. “Tomorrow he must attend to business,” he said. “And… taxes. Quite a lot of them. Many, many taxes to account for. He is simply overwhelmed with work.”Percival raised his eyebrows silently. The lie was smooth and practiced, but he could sense that it held no truth. It would seem that Lord Newton had no desire to speak with his unwanted guests. The suitors were more easily fooled.“Oh, I see,” Lord Abernathy said, disappointed.The Earl of Pelsmark frowned. “Very industrious, he is,” he remarked. “Admirably so, of course, though I must feel some displeasure that I have not seen him yet. Such a work ethic!”The cook gave him a vague nod and a courteous smile, and hurried back to the kitchen.-For dessert, they had pear tarts with candied nuts, the finest food to touch Percival’s lips in a decade, and yet he could barely taste it. His stomach was fed only by worry. Where was Artemis?The hall felt cold and unwelcoming, the triumph of his homecoming barren and stale without his husband there to share it with.“Until tomorrow, my lord,” Abernathy said stiffly, rising from the table.“Indeed,” Pelsmark replied. “May your dreams be peaceful, and grant you the wisdom to withdraw from your failing endeavor here.” Lord Abernathy scowled at him mulishly. “And may your golden pillows comfort you, and suffice as best they can in the absence of any loving arms.”Neither of them took any note of Percival, striding exasperated out of the hall.-He slept restlessly that night, kept awake by dark thoughts. Would Lord Newton be unwilling to acknowledge Percival’s claim to the land? Would he have to duel this man, just to win back the empty comfort of his home?He was so weary of fighting. This house was not the prize he wanted, only Artemis.His husband walked through his dreams, sweet and lovely, and Percival wept with grief and worry at what had become of him.-The next morning he rose early, staring out at the familiar sight of the courtyard beyond the window. Below, in the misty dawn, he saw the young man they had met in the fields sparring at swords with a lady, both of them highly skilled. Percival wondered if they were knights under Lord Newton’s employ, with training armor as fine as they wore. The man was graceful and lithe, the woman powerful and strong. Percival stared as the man wiped sweat from his brow, his handsome face bright with laughter at something his companion had said. He sat at the window long after they disappeared to ride out into the fields, his mind roiling irritably. Should he attempt a confrontation this morning? Or bide his time in silent observation? He knew almost nothing yet about Lord Newton, nor did he have his sword about him. Lord Abernathy’s voice came from the door. “Let us go have breakfast,” the lord declared, “and then I shall walk out in the garden and hope to come across my beloved. You may do as you like today, so long as you return by evening, when I shall bring my gifts before His Lordship, see if I can convince him to hear my suit. I should like for you to carry the chest of trinkets for me, for it is very heavy.”Percival shared a dry look with the passive blue of the sky. “Very well,” he said slowly.The time was not ripe for action yet, though waiting prickled. Caution before recklessness.-After he had broken his fast, Percival went out into the fields and offered his help to the farmers, seeking to burn off his troubled thoughts with honest labor. They were grateful for the aid of another strong pair of hands to dig up potatoes, and offered him hearty thanks and a midday meal of honeyed bread for his trouble. “Does the Viscount treat you well?” he asked them carefully.“Oh yes,” one woman replied, her eyes crinkling. “Lord Newton is uncommon generous for a noble, and does not scorn nor overlook the lives of those he outranks. He is polite and humble, and above all, he is kind.”“I see,” Percival said, furrowing his brow.Across the road, in the neighboring farm, he could see other helpers as well, working their scythes through the wheat field. He thought he recognized the cook from the manor and the lady knight. There he also spotted the young man they had seen the previous day in the orchard, his movements steady and sure, next to another man with golden curls.Percival squinted intently, but the figures were too far off for him to make out a face.-He returned to the manor in time to scrub the dust and sweat from himself in the water trough in the courtyard and join Lord Abernathy for supper.“Lord Pelsmark is dining in his private rooms,” the Baronet announced, with some glee. “He was foiled once more in speaking with the Viscount today. I think perhaps his resolve is weakening.”He looked expectantly at Percival. “How… excellent,” Percival managed. Abernathy smiled in triumph.They climbed the stairs to the familiar door of Percival’s study, old memories stirring like ghosts.Lord Abernathy knocked with a flourish while Percival stood behind him holding a large chest studded with gems, quiet and watchful, with a humble cap pulled low to shadow his face.The door swung open, framing a figure in the doorway. It was the young dark-haired knight from the field, dressed in a velvet tunic with his face and hair freshly washed, looking as elegant and noble as any lord, marked clearly with good fortune and the favor of the Viscount. His garments were crisp and glossy, and everything about him was clean and immaculate. Standing before him, Percival felt as grimy and grizzled as an old bear.“Yes?” the young man asked coolly. “Have you a meeting scheduled with His Lordship?”Lord Abernathy seemed flabbergasted into silence, both by the man’s appearance and his question.“Who is it, darling?” came a voice from within, and Percival felt the strength of his arms falter, the blood draining from his face. He knew that voice.“My dear Lord Newton!” Lord Abernathy called, though Percival could scarcely focus on his words through the roaring in his ears. “I have humbly come to beg for your affection once more! I have journeyed here from the capitol to ply you with gifts and pledge to you my never-ending love.”Percival’s breaths were shallow, his throat bone-dry, his eyes fixed on the doorway. There were footsteps coming closer, the sharp sound of boots upon the stone floor.“I made your position here quite clear when last we spoke, Lord Abernathy,” the Viscount said, appearing at last, and then Percival could no longer breathe at all.There was Artemis, transformed, but no less beautiful. His hair was short and sun-streaked, his face tanned and freckled, and faint lines had etched themselves upon his brow. His tall form was garbed in somber black, with a long silver dagger at his hip, his green eyes calm but stern.Abernathy took in a short lovelorn gasp. “Yes, Your Lordship, but…”“You are no longer my suitor,” the Viscount interrupted, clear and firm. “I have already told you my answer.”“Of course, Your Lordship, but I…”“Lord Abernathy,” the man said. “This office is currently concerned with very important business. Please go, rest well and enjoy your visit. But do not approach me thus again.”“Yes, of course.”And then the door was pulled shut, leaving Percival to stare unseeing at the blank wood, in the place his beloved had just been standing. Artemis was alive. O, by all the gods and the muses and the merciful graces of Avalon!Artemis was alive, and as transfixing and astute as ever, lovely and brilliant and golden. Percival knew not whether to be relieved or dismayed that his husband hadn’t even glanced in his direction.

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Percival followed numbly back to Lord Abernathy’s rooms that night, for lack of a better plan.The man was full of sorrowful sighs and exclamations of heartache, though Percival hardly listened, preoccupied with the whirling maelstrom of his thoughts.Clearly, Artemis had grown even more wise and powerful with the passage of the years, and had flourished in Percival’s absence. A decade was a long time. Would he even want his new life disrupted by Percival’s return? Perhaps he had no need of a weather-beaten old knight to advise and adore him, when he had found such excellent success on his own. And that young man in his chambers was lovely as a spring morning, dark-eyed and ethereal.Artemis had called him ‘darling.’Percival clenched his fingers around the edges of Abernathy’s jeweled chest of trinkets, before setting it down on the man’s bedside table with a thud.-On the way down to breakfast the next morning, they were confronted by the lady knight.“Lord Abernathy,” she said in disapproval. The Baronet cleared his throat. “Dame Tina,” he said awkwardly.She raised her eyebrows pointedly, frowning. “Did you butt in on His Lordship again last night?”In lieu of answer, Abernathy turned a blotchy pink. “My lord, I must advise you to take his refusal to heart,” the lady continued. “It places a strain upon both his patience and his goodwill each time you needlessly renew your efforts. For your sake as well as his, let it rest,” she said sharply, “or one of these days I shall be forced to remove you from the property.”Abernathy frowned, his flush deepening. “I assure you, that shall not be necessary,” he sniffed. “I can see I have no choice but to live with my broken heart, doomed forever to love the one who rebukes me.”“Oh, by the gods,” Percival heard her mutter under her breath as she turned in frustration to stride down the hallway. “Absolutely ridiculous. Hardly even know him.”Percival carefully held in a snort.-Lord Abernathy wished to go riding that morning, and Percival reluctantly went with him, his mind in turmoil. How should he best declare himself? Would Artemis be pleased to see him? The weather was fine, bright sun with a crisp hint of the oncoming chill of winter. Upon returning to the manor, they took the horses back to the stable, passing through the courtyard on the way. “Will you spar with us, Your Lordship? And your guard also?”Both the lady knight and her young companion stood watching them; it was the dark-haired man who had spoken.“Oh,” Lord Abernathy replied, smiling tightly. “Goodness. I’m afraid I must decline. Swordplay has never been my forte. But perhaps my man-at-arms would care to join you.”He gestured to Percival.“Please do,” the young knight said, his demand polite but irrefutable.-Percival fought the lady first. They were near-even matched, though his years of experience leant him the edge.“Well,” Lord Abernathy crowed, “it is good to know I would’ve been well-defended, had bandits attacked us on the road. You fight very well.” He was looking quite pleased, watching them from a safe distance at the edge of the yard.“Indeed,” Dame Tina panted. “Sir Credence, we have found a worthy adversary against which to improve our skill. Come, take your turn, I concede defeat for now.”The young man’s gaze was focused, his expression serious. “Very well,” he said.-The clash of swords sounded loudly in the yard as the sun grew hot overhead. Percival had long since shed his cloak and cap, sweat pouring down his back, his eyes locked on Sir Credence’s face as they danced around each other.A crowd gathered slowly, the Earl of Pelsmark wandering out of the garden to watch, while the housekeeper came to stand at Dame Tina’s elbow, biting her lip.“By the gods,” Lord Pelsmark murmured, intrigued. “A most thrilling contest.”“What ho, my lord,” Abernathy said, preening. “Can any of your men-at-arms boast such skill as mine?”The fighting reached its peak, and Percival knocked the young knight’s sword from his hand, leveled the dulled point of his practice weapon at the man’s neck where he knelt in the mud.And then Sir Credence was up again, nimble as a fox, his knife at Percival’s throat.For a moment, they stared at each other, both out of breath. The young knight’s dark eyes were fixed on his face, searching and intent, some elusive emotion flickering in their depths. The man had sweat on his brow, and his breath heaved, but no smug trace of triumph graced his expression, only patient scrutiny. What was did he see, when he looked at Percival?Percival was so focused on Credence that he almost jolted when Lord Abernathy broke the silence.“Oh, but he cheated!” the lord announced, disappointed. “That knife was not part of the match!”“How now,” the Earl of Pelsmark replied smugly. “Ashamed your man has lost? It would seem that success of many kinds is out of your reach at present.”“But he did not lose,” Abernathy argued hotly. “That move was hardly sportsmanlike. A rematch! I declare there must be another bout.”“No, no, it is too late,” Pelsmark answered. “The result shall not now be changed to suit your fancy, my lord.”“It is not fancy to wish for fairness!”They might have gone on debating it all afternoon, had Percival not grown weary of their commentary and thrown down his sword. “With respect, my lord,” Percival said dryly, “I have no quarrel with such a maneuver. It was resourceful and clever. There can be no question he is the victor.” “But…” the Baronet spluttered.“Sportsmanly conduct holds no sway the battlefield,” Percival went on flatly. “Skill is all that matters. A true fighter must know how to improvise, if he does not wish to lose his head. Any soldier who has ridden to war will tell you that.”His words fell heavy in the astonished silence. And then Dame Tina let out a low hoot from the fence, applauding the match, and the tension was broken. Percival gave Sir Credence a respectful bow in acknowledgement of the defeat.The knight watched Percival with eyes wide with shock.-The young man observed him shrewdly the rest of the day. The Earl and the Baronet went off into the garden, still arguing, and so Percival strode restlessly out to join in the wheat harvest, Credence close behind.And there in the field, like a vision of beauty and plenty, was Artemis. Lovely and strong, his arms graceful and practiced as he swung the scythe. Artemis was as entrancing dressed in a rough shirt as he ever had been in velvet, laughing in the sun as he worked across the rows of grain, a weathered farmer by his side.Percival’s impatient heart nourished itself on the sight of his smile, biting his tongue over the urge to call out to him. For what would he say? He knew not yet what sweet words would best serve such an occasion. Instead, he kept his head ducked down, raking his scythe through the wheat as he sought to form a plan.How might he gain an audience with Artemis alone?Midway through the afternoon, the cook appeared, with a cart bearing water and bread and cheese to feed them. He distributed the food with a tiny child riding on his shoulders, a girl with angelic golden curls who reached eagerly for Artemis.“Hello, my darling little mistress,” Percival’s husband cooed, taking her in his freckled arms and kissing her round cheeks as she giggled and clung happily to his neck.Percival felt as if he had been struck a blow, sharp longing slicing straight through his chest. -Sir Credence was a man of immeasurable focus. Percival found himself being carefully surveyed still, as the day wound to a close. He had stripped out of his shirt, splashed a bucket of water over his head, and now he scrubbed at his face as the young knight strolled closer.“Who are you?” the man asked quietly.Percival froze. “No lies,” the knight said. He was fingering the blade in his belt, his dark eyes bright with suspicion. “I know you are no humble man-at-arms. You are not who you pretend to be.”“I am a knight who was lost from my home,” Percival replied slowly. “A man who traded love for duty, and paid dearly for it. And now, perhaps, I am nobody.”Sir Credence looked at him closely, his mouth tight with dismay. “I think you are far more than that,” he breathed. “I know you, even under your cap and beard.” His words made Percival’s heart stumble. “The last man to come here wearing your face was a liar.”Percival straightened up, staring at him. Across the field, Artemis called for his knight.“You will meet me in the stables at midnight,” Credence said quietly, looking determined, “and explain your business here, why you are sneaking about in this disguise.” He clenched his fist around the hilt of his knife, leaning closer. “Or else I shall assume you are as villainous as the last imposter,” he whispered hotly, “and you shall die by my hand just as swiftly as he did.”And then he strode away to join Artemis.-Percival couldn’t help but be impressed by the young man’s gall. Midnight found him waiting silently with the horses, biding his time by brushing out their coats to gleaming.“You kept our meeting,” Sir Credence said, appearing out of the shadows with a blade in his hand. “I was not sure you would.”“You left me little choice,” Percival replied, raising an eyebrow, “though I understand why you did so. You must ensure I am myself.”“What proof have you?” the knight asked, his eyes narrowed. “Convince me you are Baron Graves, and I will do my duty to help you reclaim your house, if only for my lord’s sake.”Percival watched him carefully. “There is a long scar on my husband’s thigh, above his right knee,” he said. “Know you of it?”Sir Credence was silent for a moment, and then he let out a tight breath. “Yes.”“He got it when he was a boy, on a hunting trip with Earl Scamander, his brother,” Percival went on. “Artemis was distracted, arguing with the Earl, protesting that they should hunt no more than was needful, and a mighty boar did take him by surprise, charging from the bushes and wounding his leg. He begged his brother not to harm the boar, despite the injury it had done him, for it had only been defending its young which they had nearly trampled upon.” Percival swallowed. “The Earl did not listen, but struck the creature down immediately in his anger, and Artemis learned that day that he and his brother would never truly understand each other.”The young man’s eyes glinted in the darkness of the moonlit stables. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “So he told me also.”-“You are nothing like I expected.” The knight had put his knife away now. The two of them regarded each other warily as they walked out into the shadowed garden and back toward the manor.“Indeed,” Percival remarked dryly, brushing his fingers through a low hedge. “I have heard tell that my imposter was taller than I am. I must be a disappointment.”There was a bark of shocked laughter. “Oh, no,” Credence said hoarsely. “I can’t say that you are. Though I would love nothing more than to find you lacking, you seem to be everything Newt told me you were. Mighty but humble, cunning but honest.”Percival looked at him carefully. “You are his lover,” he said. It wasn’t a question.“You must not punish him for it,” Credence replied tightly. “You were dead, my lord. We had word of your death, by Sir Strymwell’s own lips. And still Newt passed many years in the lonely void of grief before he finally allowed himself to find comfort in a new embrace.”“I see,” Percival said evenly, dark jealousy burning in his heart, imagining the two of them twined together. But why shouldn’t Artemis have fallen for such a man? If Percival had been dead indeed, should he not have wanted his husband to be happy? Sir Credence looked even more ethereally beautiful in the moonlight, his eyelashes long and dark, his finely formed features elegant and striking.“Why do you sneak about watching him? Why not declare yourself?” the young man asked.Percival paused.“I suppose I do not know how,” he answered honestly. “And now that I have seen his new life, I am afraid he will have little need of me in it.”The knight stared at him. “That’s not true,” he said quietly. “He has needed you ever since you left.”-Sir Credence had a luxurious set of private rooms, though he clearly did not use them often.“I must return to Newt, or he may wake and wonder where I’ve gone,” he said softly, waving Percival inside. “You can stay here tonight, sleep comfortably and refresh yourself. There are fine tunics in the closet, and soap and a shaving knife by the sink. Meet us for breakfast early, for Newt rises with the dawn.”“My thanks to you,” Percival replied in wonderment. “You have no reason to help me thus.”“Do I not?” Credence said, his eyes turning sad. “He loves you as deeply as I love him.” He ran his fingers absently along the frame of the door, biting his lip. “To see you alive will bring him so much happiness. And I suppose a part of me must love you for that, for his sake.”Percival’s gaze sharpened. “Must you indeed?”Sir Credence’s mouth twisted in a frown. “It would be easier if I could find a way to hate you,” he said.“But you don’t?” Percival murmured. The knight stared back at him, his cheeks slightly flushed.“It seems I cannot,” Credence breathed. “Not when he has told me so much about you, and loves you still with all of his heart.” He swallowed. “I could never stand between you two, for to do so would ruin the joy he deserves. And I have come to care about his happiness more than my own.”Percival watched, speechless, as the young man ducked his head and darted down the hall.-In the morning, everything seemed surreal. Percival carefully shaved his beard and stared at his own familiar face in the mirror, wondering if he’d strayed into a different world. Had he drowned after all, and this was but a fantasy, a second vision of life granted after death by a merciful spirit? His hair was combed neatly, soft and clean and raven-black with streaks of silver at the temples, his tunic was made of rich cloth, belted around his waist. The weary weight of his long journey had washed away like sand in the cold water of his hurried bath, leaving him shivering and renewed.Artemis had not yet appeared when Percival arrived in the dining hall, his heart galloping in his chest.Before long, however, there were footsteps in the kitchen, soft voices behind the door, followed by a sudden shout.“He what?” The door banged open, Artemis standing in the opening, his face deathly pale. He strode out into the dining hall, eyes locked on Percival, Credence hurrying behind him. “I made sure it was really him, I swear it,” the knight was saying breathlessly. “He knew the story of your scar, which you only told me in great secrecy.”Percival rose smoothly from his seat as Artemis approached him. The lord was wide-eyed and shocked, drinking in every detail of his face, one trembling raised hand as if to stroke Percival’s brow.“Artemis, my love,” Percival began fervently, only to fall silent again as his husband’s expression shifted from astonishment into blazing anger.By the gods, he was furious.-“Ten years,” Artemis seethed, pacing up and down the hall. “Ten years, Percival! You left me,” he cried. “Each day I lived without you, I lost you all over again! I have grieved for you in torment and yearned for you in agony, and only now you return? After time has wrung enough tears from me to fill another ocean? Oh, I have half a mind to kill you myself!”Credence was looking slightly alarmed. “I thought you would be happy to see him,” he said nervously.“I will be happy,” Artemis replied, his voice brittle, “after I am finished being angry. How did you know he was here? When did he arrive?”“Earlier this week, with Lord Abernathy,” Credence answered dutifully. “He was disguised as a servant, but I recognized his face.”Artemis’ glare grew hotter, and Percival winced. “Disguised?” he said dangerously. “All these years have passed, and yet you tarried further by sneaking about in costume to spy on me? What was this to you, a game?”“Of course not,” Percival replied carefully. “Darling, I came here with no fanfare because I did not know what welcome I would receive, nor even if you still lived. Lord Newton is not a name I know, and I heard many strange rumors on the road.”His husband’s tirade halted, his lips pressed together. His face was pale and his hands shaking, and Percival wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around him and hold him close.“I feared that you had been cast out by some imposter,” Percival went on, taking a cautious step forward, “or that you had been killed, my love. It is far beyond my hopes to find you here prospering, when I had readied myself to take vengeance on your murderer, or grieve at your passing by some other means.”“I see,” Artemis murmured, his voice breaking, “and why did you not immediately come forward, once you had seen me alive?”“I…” Percival was not sure how to answer that. “I did not know how best to present myself. My courage deserted me,” he said honestly. “And perhaps I did not want to upset you.”Oh dear.The anger was rekindled. “Upset me!” Artemis replied incredulously, fury crackling in his voice, the cook and the housekeeper watching wide-eyed from the kitchen doorway. “Oh, what a noble sentiment! And where was this concern when you left me in the first place? You were quite willing to upset me then!”His face was hot with tears, flushed and devastated, and Credence reached desperately for him, looking worried.But Artemis was not in a mood to be comforted. “Oh, no,” he said hotly. “I am not best pleased with you either!”Credence’s sudden wide-eyed look of heartbreak would’ve melted the resolve of any number of hardened souls, but Artemis was unmoved. “What were you thinking?” the lord demanded. “He’s been here days and you didn’t tell me?”“I wished to make sure it was really him,” the knight replied pleadingly, “before I raised your hopes.”“And what if it hadn’t been him?” Artemis cried. “What if he’d been another assassin, and he’d killed you when you confronted him, without me even knowing? What then? I would live the rest of my short days in grief, full of agonized guilt that I was not by your side to defend you! You think I could survive losing you too?”Credence’s face crumpled, the despair in his eyes pricking at Percival’s soft heart like a needle. Those sad dark eyes were as lethal as any weapon.“Sir Credence would never have allowed such a thing to transpire,” Percival found himself saying, stepping impulsively closer. “He was cautious and clever, testing to make sure he could best me in combat before we spoke alone. It was well done.”Artemis and Credence both stared at Percival, utterly astonished. Credence gave him a tiny hesitant smile. “Why are you taking his part?” Artemis said incredulously. “Since when are you two allied against me? This is no business of yours, Percival. I do not need you telling me what to think.”“I know you don’t,” Percival said quickly. “Your mind is your own, my love. I simply wished to allay your fears, for I can see how dearly you care for him. Your knight handles himself well, and tends not toward recklessness.”At that, the tempest of his husband’s ire seemed to lose its gusting vehemence. The lord’s breath rushed out of him in a defeated sigh. “You were careful?” he asked Credence shakily.“Truly, I took great pains to be. You know my habits,” Credence said earnestly, his expression fervent, and Artemis’ anger seemed to lessen by a further degree. “You shall not lose me,” he said. Artemis bit his lip, his hands still trembling slightly.“Indeed,” Percival said firmly, “you shall not lose either of us, for as long as you are content to keep us by your side, I swear it.” He looked into his husband’s lovely green eyes, willing him to see his sincerity. “My darling, shall we break our fast together? We have much to speak on.”-They settled into a sort of strained peace around the table, though Artemis was still frowning, a flush in his cheeks. The cook braved the hall to bring out breakfast, hot porridge with sweet fruit and nuts.“Where did you disappear to last night?” Artemis asked Credence, his fingers twisting his silver spoon through his bowl.The young man hesitated. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I went to speak with Lord Graves.”Artemis’ smile was fragile. “Not your fault, darling,” he replied, brushing his fingers against Credence’s hand. “My sleep was unusually restless, that’s all. I had strange and frightful dreams.” He glanced at Percival. “And why is he wearing your tunic?”“Oh,” the young man replied bashfully. “Because I offered to lend it to him, along with my rooms.”“Did you indeed?” Artemis asked, something vulnerable in his voice. “Quite the generous gesture, for a stranger you had only just met. Your secret late night rendezvous must’ve endeared him to you most deeply.” He was still dragging his spoon fitfully through his breakfast, not yet eating. He turned to Percival. “Was there a reason you could not meet Credence in daylight?” he asked thinly. “Ah, but you did not wish me to know you were here. Instead, you called upon my knight to hold midnight council with you and keep secrets from me.”Percival struggled to form an answer, but Credence spoke first.“Actually, the late hour was my idea,” the knight admitted. “I have keen eyesight even in the dark. In case His Lordship had been a fraud, I wanted every advantage in a fight.” He looked slightly apologetic. “Tina was waiting in the hayloft, too, just in case.”Percival couldn’t help but be impressed. “Your forethought shows great wisdom,” he said. “Always bring backup, and stack the odds in your favor if you’ve got the means.” He gave Credence a nod. “You’d make an excellent strategist.”Artemis looked a bit thrown, his gaze darting between the two of them. “Well,” he responded tightly, “I suppose I can see the logic in that.” He laid a proprietary hand on the knight’s wrist. “Not that it comes as any surprise. We’ve always known Credence was clever. He’s very skilled at chess and cards.”Credence flushed, looking down at his plate. “Not as skilled as Queenie,” the knight mumbled. “Or you.”Artemis’ eyes softened.“You see, my darling,” Percival said carefully, sensing that all had calmed. “We meant no mischief by our meeting. It was not out of desire to avoid you that I kept myself secret, but the opposite. I longed to come before you, but I was travel-worn and tired, filled with foolish doubt over whether I would still be welcome in your hall and in your heart. Sir Credence was kind enough to lend this fine shirt to me so that I might finally feel worthy to appear in your presence and beg your forgiveness.”Tentatively, Percival reached for Artemis’ hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it.His husband looked at him warily for a moment before letting out a low sigh. “You have always had a silver tongue, haven’t you?” he said. “Don’t think I will be any less angry with you for being so charming.” But he tightened his grip on Percival’s fingers and made no move to pull his hand away.-They were nearly finished with their food when Lord Abernathy strode through the doors to the hall with a fine plume in his hat and not a clue what had just transpired, Lord Pelsmark a half-step behind him.“Oh!” Abernathy exclaimed breathlessly, “my lord Newton! I would’ve risen from my bed earlier if I had known this morning would bring the gift of your presence at breakfast.” Beside him, Lord Pelsmark flourished a bow. “My dearest lord Newton,” he said grandly, “you are looking as lovely as ever, more graceful than a swan and more golden than a flower in the sun.”Artemis raised his eyebrows slightly, his mouth tightened into a frown.“My lords,” Sir Credence interjected quickly. “Good morrow.”“Good morrow, sir,” Lord Abernathy replied, “and good… Oh!” He was looking at Percival in shock. “Aren’t you my hired man? I wondered where you had gone this morning.” He glanced at Percival’s new clothes in surprise, and then openly stared at the calloused hand he had clasped around Artemis’ equally work-worn palm.“Actually,” Percival replied smoothly, with some smothered amusement, “I regret that I must end my service to you. For, in truth, my sword arm is solely Lord Newton’s to command, as is my heart.” Pelsmark frowned in confusion, while Abernathy looked completely baffled. “But what on earth can you mean?” the Baronet asked, looking as if he expected the conclusion to a joke.Percival did not so much as crack a smile. “Perhaps one of the other knights would be willing to escort you, when you are ready to return to Hogsmeade to await the caravan,” he suggested calmly. “I shall be busily occupied reacquainting myself with my house and earning back the goodwill of my husband.”His stare was steady and even, his thumb idly stroking the back of Artemis’ hand.The Earl of Pelsmark looked like he had swallowed something very sour. Lord Abernathy’s eyes were enormously wide in his rapidly paling face, his gaze fixed on their intertwined fingers.“What… you…?”“I must thank you for the use of your horse,” Percival continued blithely. “And for affording me a way to get home. In fact, you both have been such friendly and excellent guests. Such a favorable visit is not to be forgotten.” He let a hint of steel creep into his tone. “Luckily I have a very long memory; no detail shall be overlooked.” Abernathy was white as a ghost, Pelsmark’s mouth gaping open.“You… you are Lord Graves?” the Earl asked hoarsely. “By the gods, I…” He cleared his throat, giving a nervous laugh. “Such a miracle! Alive, after all this time! What a… what a wonderful surprise!”“Indeed,” the Baronet said, voice unusually high. “Simply marvelous. How…. how can this be?”“I was lost at sea for a number of years,” Percival said. “I fought against all manner of strange foes, battling monsters on strange islands and fighting brigands and pirates under dark sail. It was a grueling and unlucky journey, but I never ceased my efforts to return home, for I knew that my husband was here waiting for me. Now that I am back, I mean to atone in every possible manner for leaving him alone so long.”Artemis was biting his lip softly, his green eyes fixed on Percival.“I… I see,” the Baronet replied. “Of course, my lord. Such a fighter as you are, a master with the sword… you must have vanquished all number of enemies on your voyage.” He looked a bit terrified at the prospect.The Earl likewise seemed to be remembering yesterday’s swordfight. “How brave,” he said, somewhat fearfully. “Battling the northemen and the sea. How very…” He swallowed. “How very joyous that you succeeded.” “I will send out an announcement shortly,” Percival finished, “to alert the kingdom. The knights of my company are already on their way to bring news to the King. But the important thing is that I am returned. My husband shall have no further need of suitors, for I never intend to leave his side again.” Percival gazed at Artemis honestly. “He has my full devotion, and there is no quest on earth that could tempt me away from him now.”And this time when he kissed Artemis’ hand, his husband seemed to believe him completely.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Abernathy went rushing from the hall soon after that, declaring in a rather high-pitched voice that he was not so hungry after all and was keen to be on his way. Pelsmark was close on his heels, sending one petrified look over his shoulder on the way out.Percival hardly spared either of them a glance, too busy coaxing Artemis into his arms at last. His husband’s cheeks were salty with dried tears as Percival pressed kiss after kiss against them, soft and tender.“I’m so sorry,” he murmured into Artemis’ short curls. “I know I cannot bring back the time we lost, my darling, but I am back now, and I shall adore you ten times as ardently to make up for it, if you let me.” Artemis’ eyelashes were wet, one graceful hand curled in Percival’s tunic, clutching him tightly. “You have every right to be upset with me,” Percival continued, “and I shall endure all your angry words with pleasure, my love, for I have yearned for so long to hear your voice that any speech from your lips is as sweet as music.”Artemis let out a dark, despairing laugh. “My hopes of staying angry are pitifully few, when you say such things as that,” he breathed. “Cruel thief, robbing me of my last impenetrable defense. What am I to do now? Without my anger, I have nothing to keep me from weeping.”Percival pressed their foreheads together. “Then let us both weep, my love, and unburden ourselves of sorrow, leaving us clean and renewed. Fortune has dealt us an ill hand these past ten years, but all shall be well now, I swear it. The future is bright,” he whispered, “for we face it together. And nothing shall part us now.”And then, indeed, Artemis began to cry, and Percival felt as if his heart were being squeezed in his chest with every sob.“You must never go away again,” his husband demanded, wrapping his arms around Percival so tightly that he could hardly breathe. Artemis was a very strong man, for all that he was slim as a willow. “Not even to visit the capitol, not unless I ride with you. I shall not let you out of my sight. And no sailing, not even if the King should command it.”“Not if fifty Kings should command it,” Percival replied. “Nor for all the riches in the world. I shall live happily on land, tethered to you for the rest of my days.”-At some point Credence slipped away, silent and unnoticed. Percival was lost in the pleasure of burying his face in Artemis’ hair, giddily following the tug of his hand as his husband led him up the stairs. They repaired to Artemis’ chambers, tears finally dried away, both trembling in shock and joyful wonder. “I can scarce believe it still,” his husband’s sweet voice murmured. “I see you before my eyes, and yet I feel I must be dreaming. I have wished for this moment for so many years.”“Sweet darling,” Percival murmured, cupping his husband’s face. “I feel the same. I have yearned for you every minute since I left.”They sat twined together upon the couch, unable to stop caressing each other’s features.“You really did come home as fast as you could, didn’t you?” Artemis whispered.“I swear to you that I did,” Percival replied solemnly, “though it was not nearly fast enough for my heart’s longing.”“We received word you were drowned,” his husband said softly. Percival sighed. “I know. And I very nearly was. Though Sir Strymwell brought you false tidings, he spoke of what he truly thought had befallen us, for the sea is a masterful trickster. We thought him drowned as well.”Artemis ran his fingers over Percival’s brow, his cheekbones, stroked through the grey strands in his hair. “Someday, I shall desire to know all that transpired on your journey home,” he breathed. “Every detail. You shall tell me of all the dangers you fought against in order to return to me.”“I will tell you all you wish to know,” Percival whispered, stroking down the supple curve of Artemis’ spine. “As soon as you are ready to hear it.”His husband nodded, running his thumb over Percival’s smooth jaw. “Eventually,” he murmured. “When picturing you in danger no longer makes me feel as if I have taken a sword through the chest.”-Artemis sent his regrets to the farmers he had planned to visit that day. Instead, he passed the hours with his head pillowed on Percival’s broad chest, listening to the thud of his heartbeat while Percival’s fingers dragged through Artemis’ short curls. “When did you cut your hair?” he asked softly.Artemis stretched his neck, nuzzling against Percival’s shoulder. “The same day I changed my name and started wearing black,” he mumbled.“I see,” Percival whispered.Artemis rolled, blanketing Percival with his body, weighing him down like an anchor. “I found I didn’t have the strength to be Artemis anymore.”Percival wriggled one arm free, tracing the freckles on his husband’s cheek with his thumb. “And would you like me to call you Newton now?”“No.” Artemis kissed his lips lightly, breathing the words against them. “Not unless you prefer it. Before, I could not bear to hear any voice but yours call me by my name. Now that you are here again, perhaps it will not hurt so much.”“Artemis,” Percival murmured, and his husband shivered. “My gorgeous nymph, my sweet lovely Artemis.”“Mmm,” Artemis breathed, brushing a fingertip along Percival’s jaw. Percival greedily wrapped his arms around his husband’s narrow waist. Artemis smiled. “Yes, that’s quite nice to hear again.”And then the space between their lips was lost, and further words were replaced by hot kisses and wet sighs.-Percival felt as if the rest of the world had faded into the distance, just vague shapes and unimportant detail. Artemis was all Percival could see, smell, feel, and taste. He kept Percival pinned beneath him, undressing him carefully, until at last they lay skin against skin. Artemis’ body was leaner and harder than Percival remembered, narrow wiry strength and sun-speckled skin. They were kissing still, slow and deep and time-starved.“Percival,” Artemis murmured, nudging their noses together. Percival grasped hold of him covetously, legs wrapped tight around his husband’s lean hips. They were both sweating, skin taut and slippery, the room grown humid as they moved together.“Artemis,” Percival breathed hotly against his mouth. “My Artemis. My darling.”Artemis fisted both hands in Percival’s hair. “My husband,” he murmured. “My love. I would keep you right here forever if I could. Safe and naked and mine.”Percival laughed, and the sound felt rusty and strange and wonderful. “Naked forever?” he replied, smiling. “I’m not sure the rest of the kingdom would appreciate that.”Artemis bit playfully at Percival’s lower lip, letting go of his hair to grasp hold of the headboard of the bed. “Or perhaps,” he said breathlessly, his hips rocking sinuously, “they would appreciate it too much. You are a fine figure of a man.”“Oh?” Percival asked dryly, squeezing his husband’s backside with both hands. “You think so? Even after all this time? Surely I am not as dashing as I was when we married.”Artemis huffed, panting. “Don’t be ridiculous. The years have only made you more handsome. Anybody with eyes can see that.” He kissed Percival’s throat, breathing wetly in his ear. “But they can’t have you, darling, for you are mine.”- Afterward, Artemis lay boneless atop him for a long while, sweat cooling. Percival pressed kisses against his lips, his cheeks, the slope of his nose.The sun shone lazily through the open window, glinting on the mirrored glass set by the washbasin in the corner. There was a carved wooden comb sitting on the shelf there, with several strands of fine dark hair caught in its teeth. Marks of Credence’s presence were scattered throughout the room: a journal full of writing in an unfamiliar hand sitting open on the desk, a set of engraved knives on the bedside table that matched the one the young knight carried in his belt. Percival let out a near-silent sigh and held Artemis closer, breathing in the clean smell of the fields and the forest, the herbal scent of his husband’s hair.-“I know that things are not going to be simple.”Artemis’ expression showed only the barest hint of dread in the tightening of the crease between his eyes. “You are speaking of our marriage,” he replied. “And of Credence.”Percival held him tighter, kissing the tension away from his forehead. “Yes. He told me of your closeness, the life you built while I was away.”“I… Percival, I am sorry,” Artemis whispered. “I never forgot you, nor wavered in my love. But I grew to adore him equally as much as I adore you, and now I do not think I can bear to cast him aside. It would be just as painful as cutting my heart from my chest, or losing you all over again.”Percival pulled back hurriedly. “Grace and mercy, Artemis, surely you know I would not ask you to do that,” he said firmly. “And you should not heed me, even if I did.”Artemis propped himself up on his elbow, staring at him. “You are the master of your own life, not me,” Percival went on. “If you have given Credence your love, I have no right to take that from you.” He ran one soothing hand up Artemis’ back.But the lord only bit his lip, looking increasingly upset. “Do you not?” he asked. “You are my husband, to whom I swore my loyalty and my love, eternally and above all others. Are you not angry? I have betrayed you, while you still lived, though I did not mean to. My darling, I was unfaithful! You have full license to be jealous,” he said, his voice rough with anguish and sharp truth.“And I am,” Percival replied, raising his eyebrows. “Let it not be said that I am immune to the covetous voice of passion, nor so indifferent as to blithely share you with another. You are more precious to me than my own life, and I will always want you for myself. I would fight off a hundred strangers at once if they dared aspire to take you from me.”Artemis’ cheeks were fetchingly flushed, his lips cherry red, as Percival cupped his face. “But he is not just a stranger, is he?” Percival asked. Glossy wetness gathered in the corners of Artemis’ eyes. “You love him,” Percival said. “I do.” His husband’s answer was immediate, raw words spoken in honesty.Percival nodded. “And that makes him infinitely more worthy. Dearest, you have my word. I shall not seek to bar him from you, not ever. Your love for him was borne in part from the neglect of my absence, and such a bond cannot now be unmade, so why would I want to bring you unhappiness by trying?”Artemis breathed out a shuddering exhale. “Percival,” he said, tears tracing down his cheeks.“And anyway,” Percival continued, “he spoke much the same sentiment to me, in great purity of spirit. If I must share your affection, let it be with him, for there can be no question of his virtuous nature, nor his devotion to you.” He pulled Artemis back into his arms, pressed a kiss against his curls. “I am not so miserly that I cannot learn to be content with that.”-They passed several more hours speaking quietly in a languid tangle on the bed, until the fall of evening. When the sun sank low in the sky, they dressed in clean robes from Artemis’ closet to venture down to the kitchens for supper.“Darling,” Artemis declared joyfully, ushering Percival through the door, “here are the companions I mentioned, friends who have stood by me through much hardship.”The cook and the housekeeper bowed while the lady knight watched him warily.“Well met,” Percival declared. “Friends, please do not stand on ceremony, nor bow. I am not royalty. I was washing in the horse trough only yesterday.” This earned him a chuckle from the cook, the housekeeper’s cheek dimpling in a smile. “You have my deepest gratitude for keeping this house and its inhabitants safe,” Percival continued, “and I shall look forward to being better acquainted.” He nodded solemnly toward Dame Tina, whose expression softened, though she still stood stiffly. “And where is Credence?” Artemis asked. “He ought to be back from the fields by now.”“Sir Credence regrets that he will be occupied with the harvest until late this evening,” Tina said carefully, frowning. “Too late to join us.”Artemis blinked at her. “Oh,” he replied. “Well, we must leave a lamp lit for when he returns, then, if it be after sundown.”“He insisted that we go to no such trouble,” the knight went on. “One of the farmers has offered him a room and a bed, and he intends to stay there, though I entreated him to reconsider.” She sounded faintly frustrated.Artemis stared at her in dismay. “Stay in a farmhouse?” he asked. “Why? For how long?”“Just for tonight, though he spoke of lodging there through the end of autumn, if you give your blessing, so that he might begin work each day at an earlier hour. He was convinced that such a plan was helpful,” Tina said pointedly, glancing at Percival, “for everyone.”“Ah,” Artemis said, his voice threaded with unhappiness.-The food was excellent, though Percival spent most of supper worriedly watching his husband stare down at his plate.Distraction came when a soft sound from an adjoining room prompted Madam Queenie to hurry off and return with her daughter perched in her arms, the child rubbing drowsily at her eyes.“Little Evie,” Artemis cooed, happily perking up. “Dear girl, how fares your stuffed lion? As brave as ever before?”The youngster gave him a tiny shy grin and a miniscule nod, cheeks still flushed from sleep, her face half buried in her mother’s neck.“And did you dream of any wonderful things today during your nap?”The girl migrated quickly into Artemis’ knee, her shyness evaporating as she babbled to him in cheery youthful incoherence, her small fingers curled familiarly around a gold chain tucked in his robe.“This is Percival,” the lord announced gently, when the child’s tale was complete, glancing across the table with eyes that glowed with affection. “A knight just as brave as your lion. He shall live with us now.”Percival smiled back, helpless with joy, while the little girl regarded him with wide eyes.-They undressed for bed slowly.Percival watched his husband unbelt his robe, pull the chain from his neck and nestle it in a velvet-lined box set close on a table by the bed.“Oh, is that my signet ring?” he murmured, stepping closer and running a finger over the heavy gold band. “I took no notice of it earlier.”“Yes,” Artemis replied, “I suppose I ought to give it back to you now.”Percival smiled, climbing onto the mattress. “No need. It doesn’t fit under my gauntlets, nor my riding gloves, and I hardly think I shall be wearing it out to work in the fields. In any case, it is just as much yours as mine, for we both write letters, do we not?” He pressed a kiss against Artemis’ cheek as his husband joined him on the bed. “I think it should stay in your keeping, lest I lose track of it. In all honesty, I find the damn thing quite bothersome when it is upon my hand, and am most likely to take it off and lose it.”Artemis let out a half-strangled laugh. “By the gods,” he said. “I should’ve known.”“Known what?” Percival asked, tangling his fingers in the gold silk of his beloved’s hair. “Am I being careless? Do you think I ought to treasure it more dearly? I should rather covet you, darling, for you are prettier than any bauble and infinitely more extraordinary.”Artemis just shook his head, smiling, though his eyes were glassy with some dark emotion.“My love?” Percival murmured, pulling him close. “Are you well?”“I have missed you,” his husband murmured thickly, nestling into his embrace, “more than words can say. That is all.”-Percival slept deeply that night, wrapped in Artemis’ arms.They rose early and went walking out into the fields, Artemis guiding Percival by the hand.“We’ve been blessed with many years of bounty,” he said, “though I know not why. Luck, or fortune, or the will of the gods and the earth. See?” He held up a handful of rich soil, black and moist and fertile. “It is wonderful strange.”Percival smiled. “In the village they call you a wizard, tell tales of you casting wild spells on the land and dancing naked under the moon to appease the forest spirits.”“What?” Artemis dropped the dark loam, eyes wide. “Goodness. I’ve only done a bit of hedgecraft. Nothing shocking.”Percival stepped closer. “I must admit to curiosity,” he teased. “Would the sanctity of such a midnight ritual be sullied by an observer? For, if such a sight exists, I should quite like to see it.”Artemis sputtered. “What, me dancing under the moon?”“Naked,” Percival grinned. “Do not forget naked, the rumors promised it. Preferably crowned with flowers, with leaves in your hair, the starlight glowing on your skin, painting the luscious curve of your– ”Artemis ended up throwing a clod of dirt at him.-They were laughing still, breathless and dirty, when they joined the others in the orchard. The farmers were picking pears today, plump and yellow-green, and Percival recognized Credence’s broad-shouldered figure among the crowd already working. The knight glanced in their direction as they approached, dark eyes shaded by his straw hat, before he studiously looked back to his task. Artemis sighed. “Perhaps he thinks you will run him off, now that you are returned,” he said. “Like you did to Lord Abernathy and Lord Pelsmark.”“I did not run them off,” Percival replied, surprised. “Did I? I thought I was subtler than that.”“You did not expel them overtly,” Artemis said, raising his eyebrows. “But your manner certainly did not promise continued welcome.”“Indeed, I suppose it did not,” Percival said wryly, hiding a small smirk. “Well, I shall tell Credence it is not so with him.”The work was pleasant this morning. The sun was warm on Percival’s shoulders, a breeze rustling the pear trees as he worked his way through the swaying leaves, filling his bag with fruit.By noontide they had made excellent progress, and stopped to sip water in the shade. Artemis spoke intently with Dame Tina while Percival strolled over toward Credence.“Sir Credence,” he said, “good morrow. How do you fare?”The young man looked upon him reservedly. “Perfectly well, my lord,” he said, his voice hesitant.“Will you come home to the manor tonight?” Percival asked. “We missed the chance to see you at dinner. And surely it is more restful to lie within familiar walls than to sleep in a new place.”Credence eyed him in uneasy confusion, before fixing his gaze back on his cup of water. “My lodgings in the farmhouse are entirely adequate, my lord,” he murmured respectfully. “I have no cause for complaint. I am most grateful for the generosity of my hosts, and I desire to work all the harder to repay them. By His Lordship’s leave, I should like to live out here a while,” he said, looking up at Percival. “Close by, but not underfoot.”Percival frowned, stepping closer. “Do you imagine that is what I want? To have you thus exiled? Please know, I desire no such thing.”The young knight’s gaze was full of despair. “I know, my lord,” he said, raw and forlorn, “for you are too generous to force me out. But I must do what is right nonetheless.” And he turned away, obstinate and sad.Across the orchard path, Artemis and Tina looked on with worried eyes.-The day wound to a close, the cool air of early evening fluttering Percival’s hair around his face. He packed a barrel with the last of the pears, watching over his shoulder as Artemis stepped carefully up to Credence.“I hear from Dame Tina that you are still determined to forsake my hall,” the Viscount said softly. “Can I not convince you otherwise?”“My lord,” the young man said thickly, looking down at his boots.Artemis looked devastated. “What is this?” he asked, gently cupping his lover’s face. “You cannot say my name, nor even look at me? Will you fly my company too?”Credence’s face twisted with emotion. “My lord, I think you know exactly why I now keep my distance. I beg you give me leave to stay awhile in the farmer’s cottage.” He looked miserable. “I shall readily answer your call whenever you have need of me. My loyalty and devotion are ever yours; that has not changed.”Artemis’ face fell. “I shall not keep you under my roof against your will, but it is not my wish for you to go. Please,” he said, “come back to the manor. Let us speak together.”The young man bit his lip, his expression stubborn.“Please,” Artemis breathed, “I am begging you. Hear me tonight, and then I shall detain you no further if you truly wish to leave.”-Percival looked on as Credence followed Artemis into his chambers, appearing for all the world as if he were going to his execution. The knight’s shoulders were hunched, his face blank with hopeless desolation, no sign of the courageous fighter who had challenged Percival in the courtyard. “We three shall take our supper in here,” Artemis said. “My love, would you bring word down to the kitchens?”Percival nodded. “Of course.” His husband was a clever man. Percival dallied on the stairs, giving Artemis time to speak his piece in privacy. The kitchens smelled of pottage and fresh bread, steam rising from the soup pot hanging over the fire. Jacob looked over his shoulder, ladle in hand, and raised his eyebrows at Percival.“Do you sup down here, my lord?” he asked. Queenie was sat at the table with Tina playing chess, though they had paused to their game to listen, Evie watching bright-eyed from her aunt’s lap.“Not tonight,” Percival replied. “I’ve been sent upon the errand of fetching food up to Artemis’ rooms. Three bowls and a tray, if you would.”“Three bowls,” Queenie remarked quietly to Tina, the corners of her lips quirking upward.-Percival knocked upon the door before entering, the tray balanced in his hand, and Artemis beckoned him inside.His husband was seated on the couch, Credence held close in his arms. The young man’s eyes were red from weeping, his expression a mix of wary hope and confusion.“Thank you for bringing supper, my darling,” Artemis said smoothly. “Let us eat here by the fire, for the nights are beginning to grow colder.”“Excellent idea, my love,” Percival replied. “Credence, sit you comfortably and eat your fill. The day has been long, and you must be hungry.”-“How can you possibly be alright with this?” Credence whispered hoarsely to Percival, when Artemis rose to shut the curtains. Percival looked at him carefully. “Because I feel much the same as you did, when you offered your help to me. He loves you,” he said simply, “there can be no denying it. I have no wish for you to leave, for that would only bring misery to all of us. If you and Artemis are unhappy, so am I.”“But I bring a stain upon the sanctity of your marriage. I sully your good name,” the young man said in agony. “It was one thing to ride the edge of impropriety when Newt was known as a widower. But now, my presence brings far more than mild scandal in its wake. I dishonor both of you.” He took in a deep shaking breath. “I have tasted the bitter loneliness of being shamed and scorned by society,” he said, eyes pained. “I cannot let that befall you. What if someone should talk?”“Who is going to talk?” Percival asked calmly. “We are not in the city, nor at court. What does anybody care? Our business is our own.”-Credence stared, wide eyed, when they suggested he sleep in their bed.“Come,” Artemis said plainly, “you have spent more nights here than I could count. Darling, please, I am cold, and I need you both to keep me warm. Surely there is no guilt to be found in simple comfort.”Credence gaped at Percival, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “You’ve slept here longer than I have,” he said. “It’s just as much your bed as mine.”Still, it took quite a bit of convincing to settle the knight’s doubts. “If you do not join us, I shall lie naked on the floor all night and catch cold,” Artemis said at last. “See if I don’t.”Credence choked, looking to Percival in shock. “Has he gone mad?”“Perhaps so,” Percival said, hiding a smile. “Quite mad. In which case, there is nothing for it but to appease him. Come, dear knight, let us help our witless lord into bed.”Artemis scoffed, pulling a face, but allowed himself to be manhandled under the covers.-“What will we tell the rest of the household?” Credence whispered in the dark, later, as Artemis snored softly in between them. Percival looked at the knight over his husband’s shoulder, his eyes glinting in the low firelight.“We have no need to tell them anything,” he said quietly. “Those who we trust already know.”The young man’s face was tight with dismay. Percival reached over to stroke a lock of soft hair off his cheek. “Do not worry,” he murmured. “Truly, they do not care.”“But the rest of the kingdom would care,” Credence breathed. “If they knew Artemis had broken his vows, and that he dallies with me still, though you are home... there are those who would hate him for it. Who would… would think to discredit him, would think he should burn at the stake. I know it, I… I have seen people punished terribly for the merest suspicion of far less.”“There is no question that the world is cruel,” Percival replied. “But I have not fought my desperate way across the sea only to live now in fear of what others may think. I defy any man who says I should live not as I wish to. Soothe your worries, dear knight. You do not stand alone. Here in this house, you are under my protection, and we are at the mercy of no-one’s judgement.” The clench of Credence’s jaw eased slightly. “And when we are not in this house?” the knight asked. “There will be times when we shall have to take pains to be discrete, though it goes against your proud and fearless heart.”“And so we shall be, if needs must. Discretion can I perform, should the circumstances demand it. I would not let harm come to Artemis, not even for the sake of my pride,” Percival answered. Credence stared at him, fragile hope flickering in his eyes. Percival stroked his cheek once more. “Nor would I ever let harm come to you.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It was pleasant to have the heat of three bodies in the bed in the cold of the morning. Percival lay with his husband sprawled across him, Credence fast asleep against the curve of Artemis’ back.“Darling,” Artemis said sleepily, clutching Percival’s open nightshirt. “You are still here? I did not dream your return?”“I am here, sweet love,” he murmured in reply.-Credence seemed to be nursing his final few doubts in silence. “Did you sleep well, my dearest?” Artemis asked, caressing the knight’s face at the breakfast table.“Yes, my lord,” the young man said uncomfortably, staring down at his plate with eyes full of guilt.“Not this again,” Artemis sighed. “Do you not desire to call me by my name any longer, my love?”Credence shifted in his seat. “It is not right for me to address you so familiarly,” he whispered. “Especially not in front of the others.” Queenie, Jacob, and Tina were sat with them at the table, Evie in Jacob’s lap.Artemis’ eyes widened. “And what shall such restraint accomplish?” he asked. “Last week, our friends saw me sit across your knees and kiss your neck. I think they know very well just how familiar we are. A return to formal address is hardly going to change that.”But Credence still looked anxious, his gaze darting toward Percival. “It does not bother me, dear knight, that you should call my husband by his name. Nor do our friends seem the sort to spread rumors of it,” Percival said calmly. “Is that your fear?” he asked.“Rumors?” Jacob said incredulously. “Surely you know we would never do that!”“Do you really think we would betray you thus?” Queenie asked. “Oh, sweet boy, are we not as close as family by now?”Tina just raised her eyebrows. “I’ve told you all along, my friend,” she said, “the world will not fall to ruin if you allow yourself to be happy. You expect condemnation, but you will not get it from us. We stand at your back.”-The cold of autumn grew deeper, crisp wind whistling past the windows. The approach of winter brought with it great urgency, a race to finish the harvest before the snow came. The days were spent toiling in the field, after which they clambered exhaustedly into the warmth and comfort of the bed. Credence seemed too tired to care about propriety when his back was sore and his limbs were cold, and Artemis was beckoning him beseechingly.Percival woke one morning to find that the young man, in sleep, had draped his arm over Artemis to touch Percival’s skin, one scarred hand resting on his chest, right over Percival’s heart. Between them, Artemis blinked awake, smiling sleepily. “Percival,” he breathed. “Oh, thank the graces. I still open my eyes each morning afraid you will have disappeared, that you were nothing more than a desperate imagining of my grieving heart,” he whispered. “And then when I discover you have not vanished, I feel so happy I could scream.”Percival chuckled, reaching over to stroke his cheek, careful not to dislodge the delicate pressure of Credence’s hand. “I would have you save your joyful screams for better purpose, my darling,” he said.Artemis kissed his hand, his eyes grown dark and devious. “So I shall, husband.”-The crops were in, the pantry was full, and the spiced wine flowed freely as they dined on roast turkey and buttered carrots and thick soft bread. Afterward, Artemis giggled as Percival hand-fed him sugared almonds, a high flush in his cheeks.“Darling,” Artemis whispered, “shall we go to bed?”Percival grinned, sliding a hand up his husband's thigh. “Certainly, my love.”Credence was over by the fire, cracking walnuts for Evie, but he looked up with wide eyes when Artemis strode over and whispered hotly in his ear.-Percival kissed his husband hungrily, pressed tight against the bedchamber wall with his arms wrapped around Artemis’ waist and his beloved’s graceful fingers tangled in his hair. He paused, panting, when he saw Credence wring his hands uncertainly, still hovering by the door.“Come here, lovely knight,” he said softly.The young man looked at him in surprise, inching hesitantly closer. Percival reached out and cupped Credence’s cheek, drawing his thumb over the perfect pink bow of his lips.“By the gods, you are so beautiful,” he declared. “Can I–”But Credence was standing stiffly frozen, his eyes huge. Percival gently withdrew his hand.“Go on,” he said instead, “Artemis wishes to kiss you.”His husband’s lips were swollen pink, tempting and glossy, as he reached for Credence. The young man went willingly, meeting his mouth in a needy embrace of tongues.-“Ah!” Artemis was gasping, chest flushed, impaled gracefully upon Percival’s lap as if seated on a throne, Credence’s worshipful head ducked down between the lord’s trembling thighs. “Ohhh…!”“Sweet mercy,” Percival groaned, unable to resist tangling a hand in the young knight’s long dark hair as his head bobbed, soft wet sounds filling the air.Artemis’ head fell back on Percival’s shoulder, his breaths gusting hot and moist against his ear. “He’s very good at that,” he panted.Percival licked at the glistening sweat on his husband’s throat. “So I can see,” he replied.-The next day, Credence couldn’t seem to look Percival in the eye. He blushed throughout breakfast and was skittish and quiet all afternoon, hiding away with a book.“Was it too much?” Percival asked, finally cornering the young man in a chilly hallway where he sat curled on a windowsill. “Did we push you unwilling? Dear knight, I must apologize most sincerely if I took liberties that were not mine to take.”Credence flushed bright red, looking mortified. “No,” he croaked. “You did me no offense.”“I am relieved to hear it,” Percival said quietly, “though perhaps my presence last night made you uncomfortable in some other way. From here on, I shall not intrude on your time alone with Artemis,” he promised. “And he and I shall conduct our intimacy where you need not see, if you do not wish to.”Credence bit his lip, his eyes unreadable, and Percival turned away down the hall.-The winter stretched onward, sleepy and cold and content.Percival received a letter from the King rejoicing at his return and applauding his tenacity in surviving such a long journey. He also had a lengthy missive from the Marquess Fulroy, anxiously wishing him good health and enumerating on the miracle of his continued prosperity.Percival raised his eyebrows. “Lord Fulroy seems quite keen to ingratiate himself with me. There’s an entire paragraph here complimenting my swordsmanship, though I doubt I’ve ever sparred with him.”Artemis snorted, drifting past the kitchen table. “And I expect he is hoping to keep it that way, for he was one of my suitors while you were gone,” he said. “No doubt he is afraid you will hold a grudge if he does not befriend you, and has heard tales from Lord Abernathy and Lord Pelsmark of your fearsome skill in battle and your jealous demeanor. Rumors tend to exaggerate such things.” He leaned over and kissed Percival’s cheek. “Though you were a bit menacing that day, darling.”“Ah, yes,” Percival said, hiding a grin. “I suppose I was.”“You’ve got quite the reputation in the village as well, my lord,” Jacob said, grinning. “According to some, you were swallowed by a sea monster and then single-handedly slew the beast from inside its belly with your mighty sword. Others say Newt is a necromancer and he raised you from your watery grave to sail homeward, a living ghost with strange power over death.”“I’d say the whole kingdom is a bit afraid of you,” Artemis said. “You are a mystery and a myth.”“Really,” Percival smirked.“Oh, I should’ve known that would please you,” Artemis said exasperatedly.-Duchess Picquery wrote to announce that she would come and visit at the start of spring, the soonest she could get away from court.My friend, her letter read, I am most annoyed with you, for news of your survival reached me while I was training a new batch of squires. I burst into joyful tears, of course, and now the lads are not nearly so afraid of me as they were before.Percival smiled helplessly, warm with nostalgia.
I cannot say how grateful I am that you are returned unharmed from the sea.
He looked up from the letter to find Credence hovering in the doorway of the study, his fingers curled around the edge of the doorframe, pink tongue moistening his lips.“Credence,” Percival said carefully, “what can I do for you?”“I…” the young man began, looking at Percival with dark intensity. Something about him seemed to ache.Percival rose from his chair and stepped closer. “What is it?” he asked gently. The man hesitated. “I did not mean to interrupt your reading,” he murmured. His eyes were raptly fixed on Percival’s face. “You were smiling.”“And so am I now, too,” Percival said, grinning, “for I am always glad to receive the gift of your sweet company, dear knight. Do not hesitate to interrupt me any time. I trust nothing is amiss?”Credence’s face smoothed into hesitant pleasure. “Nothing is amiss, my lord,” he said. “Supper is ready. I… I have been sent to bid you come downstairs to eat.”“I thank you for carrying the message, then,” Percival replied. “Shall we go down together?” He offered his elbow, and Credence’s cheeks flamed in a blush as he delicately settled his hand in the crook of Percival’s arm.-The winter days grew darker, but the manor was warm and bright.“More letters for you, Newt,” Queenie said, wandering into the kitchen to hand Artemis a sheaf of envelopes. “Seems like everyone in the peerage wishes to congratulate you on Percival’s safe homecoming, while not-so-subtly prying into the details of his return. Some of them went so far as to blatantly angle for an invitation to visit, just to gawk at the both of you.” Percival raised his eyebrows at Credence, who sent him back a dry look of sympathy. Percival winked at him.“They’re completely shameless in their curiosity,” Queenie tutted.Tina was bouncing Evie on her knee by the fire. “I suppose it does make for quite the story,” she said. “The lovely but reclusive Viscount Newton, reunited with his long-lost husband, mysteriously returned to life after a heroic battle! It’s a romantic tale to enrapture any ear.” “Tis true,” Queenie replied, “and with such a happy ending!” She beamed. “Oh, and Duchess Vorthian is holding her annual midwinter ball, and once again wishes the pleasure of your attendance.”Artemis sighed. “Ah. I shall have to refuse her as politely as possible. Maybe one of these years she’ll stop asking.”Percival looked on bemusedly. “Darling, do you have Madam Queenie read all of your mail for you, so you don’t have to?”Behind Artemis’ back, Credence nodded at Percival in playful confirmation.Artemis turned faintly pink. “It’s easier that way. She is uncommonly good at writing witty responses as well.” “I don’t doubt that,” Percival replied. “And was Duchess Vorthian another one of your suitors?” he asked casually. Artemis’ flush deepened. “She would’ve liked me married to one of her children, yes,” he said.“By the gods, was there anybody in the kingdom who did not attempt to wed you in my absence?” Percival asked incredulously. He pulled Artemis close and laid a noisy kiss on his cheek. “I suppose I should not be surprised, considering you are the most enrapturing husband anyone could want,” he murmured.“You flatterer.” Artemis smiled indulgently as Percival pressed another kiss against his temple.Across the table, Credence bit his lip over an uncertain smile.-They did not attend the ball, though Queenie wrote a long and eloquent reply apologizing for their absence.Instead, they celebrated midwinter by riding out to give gifts to the tenants and coming home to a mouthwatering roast for supper. Evie was fascinated by the shiny new cloak pin Artemis had given Percival, and spent the evening sitting in his lap and intermittently staring at it while he dutifully cut her meat for her.Credence looked shocked when Percival handed him a handsome leather-bound journal. “I noticed your old one is almost full,” Percival said. The young man stared at him.“I could tell from the wear in the spine,” he added hurriedly. “Not from reading it, of course.”There was a pink blush crawling up the knight’s neck. “Thank you for thinking of me, Percival,” he said.Percival gave him a chivalrous bow, helplessly mesmerized by Credence’s small smile. “It was my pleasure. I hope that it serves you well.”-The young man approached him in the hallway later, his face shadowed in the torchlight.“Credence,” Percival said in surprise. “I… I have been a coward,” he announced.“Oh?” Percival replied. “Somehow, I doubt that.”“But, truly, I have,” Credence insisted. “Tina tells me that I am sabotaging myself, and she is nearly always able to see what I cannot.”Mystified, Percival tilted his head. “Sabotaging yourself? Do you wage war, then, one part of you against another?”“Yes, exactly,” the young knight said fervently, stepping closer. “Duty against recklessness, loyalty against passion.” He swallowed, taking another step. “What I feel against what I think I ought to feel.”He was impossibly beautiful in the flickering light, the warm flames painting his skin with yellow gold, glinting off the shining curls of his hair.“Is that so?” Percival said, his throat suddenly rather dry.“Yes,” Credence whispered.-He could not remember how they ended up in Credence’s rooms, just a hurried rush of eager hands and the young man’s mouth suddenly pressed over his own.“I told myself it was unforgivably greedy to desire you also,” Credence panted. “I did not wish to make further mess of a marriage I had already besmirched.”Percival cupped his face in both palms, tangling his fingers in the knight’s silky hair. “You are no greedier than I am,” he breathed against the man’s soft lips, in between fierce kisses, “nor Artemis. It seems we are all of the same bisected passion.”“I see that now,” Credence murmured, “and I think it is not greed, after all. For I could never think of either you or Newt as so flawed. Perhaps it is only a strange and fortunate gift, that our hearts have changed hands twice instead of once.”Percival hungrily tasted the skin of his neck, breathing hotly against his ear. “I could not agree more,” he said.They fell in a tangle on the bed, eager and clutching, hurriedly unlacing their clothes. Credence made a perfect, breathless sound of lust as Percival settled between his thighs, running his hands over the firm breadth of the young man’s chest, the hard strength of his arms, the graceful length of his legs.“You are absolutely exquisite,” Percival said ravenously, hiking the knight’s muscled calves up over his shoulders and pressing him open, consumed by heady oil-slick pleasure.“Ohh…! Percival,” Credence moaned, raking his fingers over the tight density of Percival’s stomach, stroking the ripple and flex of his back.The chamber echoed with sighs, a chorus of gasping satisfaction.-The sound of the door bursting open woke Percival the next morning. Artemis stood silhouetted in the dim light of early dawn, looking shocked.“Darling,” Percival croaked groggily, swiping Credence’s hair out of his mouth and blinking the sleep from his eyes. It took him a moment to disentangle himself from the blankets and from the young man’s clinging arms, rising naked from the bed. “Good morning.”Artemis stared at him, eyes huge, his lips bitten tight.There was a sleepy snuffle from the bed as Credence rolled over, stretching luxuriously, as graceful as a cat. He was breathtakingly lovely, the covers falling away to expose dark curls and smooth skin.“Percival,” he mumbled, drowsy still, eyelids heavy. “Come back. You made me several promises last night that I expect you to keep this morning.”Artemis let out a short, heartbroken gasp and fled from the doorway.-They dressed hurriedly and sprinted after him.“My love,” Percival pleaded, “I didn’t think you would mind.”Artemis, pale and stiff, stood by the window in his own chamber, overlooking the snowy courtyard. “I have no right to mind, do I?” he said, wrapping his arms round himself, a vulnerable quiver to his mouth.“I’m so sorry, darling, we should’ve discussed it with you first, at least,” Percival declared. “Not left you alone to wonder where we’d disappeared to last night.”Credence looked absolutely devastated. “Newt,” he whispered, eyes red with tears. “Please, I’m sorry.”Artemis’ face turned miserable and sad. “I don’t know why I’m jealous. It’s not as if I haven’t done the same to you. But I felt so foolish and alone, waiting for you to come to bed, and then…”Percival rushed forward, taking his husband’s hand. “We never meant to ignore you, sweet love. It was inadvertently done, malice played no part. Yet still, we ought to have known better, and invited you to join us.”Artemis’ expression crumpled further. “No,” he said. “If you had wanted me with you, I think you would have come back here. Deliberately or not, you sought to be alone together. And I have no desire to intrude where I am not wanted.”“Not wanted?” Percival repeated incredulously. “How could you ever think we would not want you?” He shook his head, drawing his husband closer and kissing his pouting lips, seizing him by the waist and devouring him with all the passion of his love. “You are always wanted,” he breathed, as Artemis clung to him desperately in return.-Breakfast could wait.Percival had Artemis laid out on his back, spread open and gasping, naked and delicious, cheeks flushed bright red.“Oh, yes,” Artemis cried, clutching at Percival’s arm as he caressed him, arching into his touch.“That’s right, my little nymph,” Percival replied in a low rumble. “You see how you inflame me? I cannot resist your beauty, your spirit.” Artemis let out a perfect sound of satisfaction as Percival kissed the heat of his groin, lingering with worshipful lips. “And your sweet young companion feels the same, I think.”Credence was sat beside him onto the bed, dark eyes wide.“Come here, darling,” Percival murmured, beckoning the knight closer.They folded together like a lady’s fan, interlocking perfectly, Credence sliding in between Artemis’ thighs with Percival pressed tight against the young man’s back, his eyes on his husband’s face.“Oh,” Artemis moaned, wide eyed, as Percival grasped hold of Credence’s hips and drove forward, the motion thrusting through all three of them. “Oh gods!”“Never doubt that we desire you, my love,” Percival panted. Their shared pleasure shook the bed frame.-“I was only being foolish before,” Artemis whispered, later. “For a split moment when I saw you together, I was sure you would choose each other and leave me alone forever.”Percival was peacefully counting the freckles on Artemis’ shoulder, drowsy and content, while Credence dozed, his long limbs splayed across both of them.“Very foolish,” Percival murmured. “We could never do that, no more than you could dispense with either one of us. You’re stuck with us forever, darling.”Artemis beamed at him.-The winter days grew slowly longer, inching steadily toward spring.The manor readied itself for Duchess Picquery’s visit, Queenie fluffing the pillows in the guest quarters and Jacob planning a welcome supper.Percival was searching for his cloak pin in the chest of drawers by the window when he came across an ornate box with a dark lock of hair inside.“Credence’s?” he asked, holding it up to show his husband, who was sitting with a book on the bed.Artemis gave the box a strange look, biting his lip. “Yours,” he said.“Indeed?” Percival asked in surprise. “And how did you come by that? I can’t recall you ever taking a lock from my head.”Artemis hesitated. “Perhaps it is time I told you the tale of the imposter,” he said slowly. “No doubt you’ve heard some of it already.”“Through rumor, mostly,” Percival admitted. “And what you have alluded to. I did not wish to press for more details.”Artemis nodded, the ghost of ill memory passing through his green eyes. “He was a sorcerer,” he said. “He used your hair for his spellwork, to give himself your appearance, though I do not know how he acquired it.”Percival frowned. “Sweet mercy,” he said, unnerved. “Never have I heard of such magic. How good a likeness did he achieve?”“An incredibly accurate one,” Artemis whispered, not meeting Percival’s eyes. “Down to the last detail. It was witchcraft the likes of which I’ve never seen.”Percival climbed onto the bed, reaching out to cup his husband’s face. “Artemis,” he said.“I thought he was you,” his beloved said tightly, still unwilling to look up. “Crueler and more arrogant, perhaps, but still you. War changes men, hardens them where they were once soft, sours them where they were once sweet. It was not impossible that you could be so changed, I thought, for I had no reason to doubt my eyes. But I should have,” he said hoarsely. “I ought to have seen it sooner, realized that it was a trick.”Percival wrapped him tightly in his arms. “My darling, I too have been fooled by sorcery. The war was full of such things, awful trickery and illusion. I see that the battles you fought here against the forces of deception were no less frightening and terrible than those I faced abroad. And I am all the more grateful that you prevailed, my love.”Artemis finally looked at him, his eyes glassy. “Percival,” he whispered. “I killed him.”“For good reason, I am sure,” Percival replied, stroking his hair. “My love,” he said, the words sticking in his throat. “Did he…? Did he dishonor you? Lay hand upon you against your will?”Artemis’ eyes hardened. “No,” he said roughly. “He touched me not at all.”“Well,” Percival said, relief making his voice weak. “Thank the gods for that.” He leaned in for a kiss, but Artemis pushed him back.“Percival,” he said again, agonized. “You aren’t listening. I killed him.”“And I am sure it was bravely done,” Percival replied soothingly. But Artemis was weeping now, shaking in his arms. “I killed him, thinking he was you,” he sobbed. “I killed you, my love. I had to.”“Oh.” Percival stroked his back, wide eyed. “I see.”“I’m sorry,” Artemis breathed, burying his face in Percival’s neck, wetting his shirt with tears.-Credence found them later, still curled together, Artemis red-eyed and sniffling while Percival held him. The knight’s sharp eyes found the open box on the bedside table, the lock of dark hair sitting inside.“Banishing old ghosts?” he asked. Artemis reached out a pleading hand, pulling Credence onto the bed.“I hope you told Percival I played an equal part in slaying him, too,” the young man said. “If there is any guilt to be had, I bear a share of it as well. But truly, can we be blamed for murdering a man about to murder us?”Percival’s blood ran cold. “Darling, you didn’t explain that part,” he said, tightening his grip on his husband. “He was trying to kill you?”“Oh,” Artemis breathed blearily. “I suppose I forgot to say. My mind does its best not to recall the horror of it all.”Credence shifted closer, letting his head slump onto Percival’s shoulder. “I still have nightmares about it. That villain had his sword raised, ready to strike Newt down. Sometimes I dream that I didn’t get the knife out of my boot fast enough to throw at his back.”Percival swallowed, chilled. “So it was you stabbed him first?” he asked. “And then?”“Then he turned to come after me instead, and Newt cut his throat.”“Gods,” Percival croaked, pulling them both closer. “I see I must endeavor not to upset either of you, for you are both quite formidable and could easily lay me low.”Artemis made a sound that fell short of a laugh. “Don’t say such awful things,” he said hoarsely. “This is nothing to joke about.”“I’m sorry,” Percival replied, kissing his forehead. “My darling, I only jest to distract myself from what might’ve happened otherwise, for I cannot bear to think on it. Thank the graces you are so brave and mighty, else I might’ve lost you both before I found you again.”-Winter melted slowly away, bringing the smell of new leaves and new life, bright and fresh.Credence and Tina took to the frosty courtyard in the mornings to practice throwing knives, and Percival watched with new appreciation as they both hit mark after mark.“I’m glad,” he said softly, one afternoon by the kitchen fire, “so glad you were here when I was not.”Credence looked at him in surprise.“I have no words to express just how glad,” Percival continued. “I know only that my life would hold no joy if not for you. You’ve protected my husband and my house, done me kindness when you had every reason to spurn me, you’ve allowed me a place in your affection and given generously of your heart.” He cupped Credence’s face. “I fear I have little to offer you in recompense for such beautiful gifts.”The knight’s eyes were wide with emotion. “You owe me no recompense, Percival,” he breathed. “All of it was freely given. Surely you know that.”“I do.” Percival leaned over and kissed him, long and adoring, then pressed their foreheads together. “But I hope you will accept my humble repayment anyway,” he whispered. “I should like to offer you my full admiration and my unwavering devotion, along with my love.”Credence took in a shocked breath. “Oh,” he murmured breathlessly. “You… oh.”Percival kissed him again. The young man was smiling against his lips, cheeks flushed with joy.“I… of course. And you have mine as well, Percival,” Credence said softly, beaming. “I love you too.”“Well,” Percival replied, “and now you have made me happier still.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Duchess Picquery arrived in style, swinging down from her horse in full ceremonial armor with a golden headdress adorning her brow.Her two squires were eerily silent and obedient, stabling the horses without a word.“By the gods,” Percival said dryly, “what did you do, forbid them to breathe? You need not terrify the poor lads quite so much.”Her Grace grinned at him slowly. “Oh, no, my friend, it is not me they are frightened of. You are Lord Graves, the fiercest warrior of our time, peerless in the battle against the northmen, the brave adventurer who walked to the edge of death and back again and fought the wind and the waves until they obeyed his command. You are a legend, the master of land and sea.” She raised her eyebrows. “Or so the rumors say.”Percival strode forward, smiling ruefully. “The rumors exaggerate,” he said.The Duchess laughed, embracing him tightly. “I am so happy to see you.”-Supper was a private affair, held in the solar. Duchess Picquery shared the latest news of court and the kingdom at large, effortlessly charming Artemis with her knowledge of hedgecraft.“I passed through the forest on the way here,” she said. “I can tell you care for the trees and the animals. The air under the leaves is warm and welcoming. Your land loves you.”Artemis stared at her, enraptured. “Oh,” he breathed. “I… really? All I do is offer thanks out in the woods once in a while.”Her Grace smiled, easy and bright. “That’s more than most people ever think to do. And your yearly blessings have brought richness to the soil throughout the county. It’s nice to see a landowner forging a direct bond with the land; most nobles disdain to dirty their hands with such wizardry, assuming magic to be the sole province of village witches and court sorcerers,” she said, “but your fields are all the happier for your care and attention.”Artemis blushed, pleased. “Oh,” he said. “Well, I’m just doing what I can.”-The following day was clear and fine.“Shall we go for a ride, Percival?” the Duchess asked, grinning. “I must see if I can still beat you in a race across open pasture.”He led her to the stables, passing Credence and Tina sparring in the yard.“Oh,” Duchess Picquery said, with interest. “And what do we have here?”The two paused in their match, panting, to bow to her carefully.“Good morrow,” the great lady said. “You both fight very well. Where did you learn?”“I learned from Dame Tina, Your Grace,” Credence said, nodding humbly toward her.The Duchess looked fascinated. “And you?” she asked Tina. “From whence comes your skill and focus? You move with both power and precision, a rare combination.”Tina appeared to be blushing. “I learned from my father, Your Grace,” she replied. “He taught me all he could before he died, though he was only a blacksmith. He had a way with swords.”Duchess Picquery leaned against the fence. “Indeed,” she said slowly, “I’ll say he did. I should like to hear more of him, if you’d grant me such an honor.”Tina looked back at her in slow astonishment.-“Please tell me she’s unwed,” the Duchess murmured under her breath as they led their horses out past the gate.“I believe so,” Percival replied, amused.“Oh, stop smirking,” Her Grace said. “You notice I haven’t brought up the lovelorn cow eyes her companion was sending toward you.”Percival’s heart stuttered, though he tried his best not to make any outward show of surprise. But Duchess Picquery knew his face well.“No need to look so pale, my friend,” she said, tilting her head in concern. “It was only a joke.” Percival attempted to look unconcerned. “Of course it was,” he said. “I only feigned at turning pale, in jest.”The Duchess narrowed her eyes at him. “You’ve never been able to hide your heart from me,” she said. “That was no jesting look. I see there is more to it.”Percival’s cunning appeared to have deserted him, for he could not think of a word to say. “I…” he attempted, clearing his throat. “He….”“Goodness.” The Duchess was frowning. “Do you return that young man’s interest? By the gods, does your husband know?” The horses twitched their ears when Percival let out an unwilling bark of laughter. “He is certainly not unaware,” he replied weakly. She stared at him.“It is not what you think,” Percival said quickly. “On my honor as a gentleman, I have not forsaken my husband. But there is more to it that I cannot speak of. The rest is not mine to tell.”Duchess Picquery raised her eyebrows. “I see.”-Perhaps inviting her here had been a mistake.She was too clever by half, her dark eyes following Credence at supper, surely noting the numerous glances he sent toward the head of the table, where Percival sat next to lovely Artemis.They were all eating in the dining hall tonight, Her Grace’s two squires and the manor staff invited to share in the feast.“What is your weapon of choice, Sir Credence?” the Duchess asked, her smile deadly sharp and her teeth gleaming white. “Have you skill with any arms other than the sword?”Credence blinked in surprise at the question. “I favor knives, Your Grace,” he replied carefully. “And the bow.”“Versatile and easily concealed,” she declared, impressed. “The mark of a cautious and cunning fighter.” Her eyes were steely, intently focused. “Clearly, you are dedicated to your craft, meticulous and level-headed in strategy. I should hope that a man such as you applies the same wisdom and devotion in all other areas of life.”The young knight’s brow furrowed slightly. “Yes, Your Grace,” he said, clearly confused at the veiled threat in her tone.-“What in the world was that all about?” Percival muttered in her ear, as they bid each other good night in the hallway.“Testing the waters,” the Duchess replied calmly. “It is my duty to ensure your lover is steadfast and worthy, is it not? I am, after all, your oldest friend. And suitably intimidating, at that,” she smirked.“So you are standing guard over my reputation?” Percival asked, baffled. “Ensuring he is not the sort to run off and leave me ruined?”“Not your reputation,” she scoffed. “Percival, I am guarding your heart.” She leaned closer, clasping his arm. “You forget, I know you almost as well as I know myself. You must be smitten indeed if you are risking your marriage for that young cavalier. There was a time I could’ve sworn there would never be room in your affections for any but Artemis.”Percival swallowed, taken aback. “And now,” he said roughly, “I suppose you think me inconstant. A fool. For allowing my eye to stray anywhere other than the lovely sight of my husband.”“I know not what to think,” The Duchess replied, raising an eyebrow. “You have not told me what passions are at work here. But even if I did, it is not my custom to judge my friends for their own private business. Fool or not, I am always your ally.”Percival huffed.“Come now!” She smacked him on the arm, grinning. “I’ve stood by you through far brasher exploits than this,” she said. “You think I would turn on you now? Who was the one who talked us out of being expelled, that time the schoolmaster caught us both in the bell tower with a flask of whiskey?” “Ah, yes,” Percival snorted. “That was a fine display of speech-making, even if your words were a little slurred.” “At least I kept my head together,” she said. “As I recall, you tried to climb down the bell ropes and accidentally raised the entire town to alarm with your clanging.”They both went off to bed still laughing.-They had a picnic in the meadow by the river, enjoying the ripple of the sun on the water. If they were alone, Artemis would have stripped off his boots by now to go wading in the stream to look for toads and salamanders along the bank.As it was, he sat elegantly upon the shore in a tunic of emerald-green silk, his eyes on the swaying of the willow tree.Percival couldn’t help but kiss his cheek. “My love,” he murmured. “It cheers me to see you in colors other than black. You are as lovely as a fairy prince clad in the very leaves of spring.”Artemis turned, smiling. “You sly charmer,” he whispered. “If you keep on in this vein, I shall think you determined to see me clothed only in vines and flowers.”Percival grinned. “Dancing naked in the forest under the moon?” he asked hopefully.His husband snorted. “Not likely. But perhaps, in our moonlit chamber.”“Mmm,” Percival breathed, pressing a hot open-mouthed kiss against Artemis’ freckled wrist. “My own sweet nymph,” he murmured, trailing kisses up his arm.“Darling,” his beloved whispered, giggling, as Percival moved to nuzzle his neck. “Not while our guests are watching.”Duchess Picquery was some distance away, speaking with Dame Tina by the water, her keen eyes ever observant.“Very well,” Percival replied, contenting himself with holding onto his husband’s graceful hand. “I shall restrain myself until later, you tempting little sprite.”-They arrived back at the manor to find Credence in the stables feeding apples to his horse.The young man wandered out from the stall as they swung down from their own mounts, his tunic dusted with horsehair.“Oh, look at you all covered in fur,” Artemis said fondly. “The horses are shedding their winter coats.”“Hm?” Credence looked down. “Oh! We’ll have to curry them extra well tonight.”He brushed at his clothes, tidying himself. “You missed a bit,” Artemis murmured, reaching out and fussing with the cloth, smoothing his hands over the knight’s broad shoulders.Percival subtly cleared his throat.“What?” Artemis asked.The Duchess, hiding a grin, was still watching, standing casually outside the stable doors.-It was too much to hope that she would not be clever enough to figure it out, for she was sharper than a knife’s point.“I think I understand now.”Sure enough, Duchess Picquery found him after supper, dusk falling softly over the garden.“I had it all wrong, before. Did it begin between the two of them, while you were away?” she asked. Percival rubbed a hand over his face, debating whether it was any use trying to deny it.She seemed to take his silence as an affirmative. “Percy,” she said softly. “You must not speak of this at court,” he replied in defeat. “Please, do not hold Artemis to fault, nor look upon him with disdain. I was dead, for all he knew, and grief is a cold burden, not one I would wish him to bear alone.”“Is that what you think of me?” the Duchess asked. “That I would spread your business among the nobles, to spare no compassion for what your husband had to endure? I am no gossiping lordling with air between my ears. None of this shall leave my lips.”He looked long into the face of his oldest friend. “Thank you, Seraphina,” he said quietly.She smiled at the use of her private name. “Percy,” she said, “are you happy? Do they both make you happy?”“Yes,” he said, without hesitation.Her smile glowed brighter. “That is all I wish to know.”-That night, Percival and Artemis coaxed Credence into their chamber, the young man uncertain.“But what if Her Grace notices I am not in my own room?” he whispered.“She shall not,” Percival replied. “But even if she did, she would not speak a word. I know her, and trust her as deeply as I trust you both.”And then the knight was distracted by Artemis, his robe falling to the floor, flowers and leaves wound through his hair.“Oh,” Credence said, his cheeks flushed a fetching pink.“Come to bed, darlings,” the beautiful lord said, climbing up to recline naked on the mattress like a god of the forest, like youthful Dionysus among the grapes, masculine and lithe.“Oh, yes,” Percival breathed.There was no more room for talk of doubt after that, just worshipful words of pleasure.-The Duchess passed her visit in sunny pleasant leisure, speaking often with Tina, sparring with Percival and Credence, and walking in the woods with Artemis to breathe in the goodwill of the trees. She watched with smiling eyes over the breakfast table as Artemis kissed Percival’s cheek. “Darling, I am off to shoot arrows with Credence,” the lord declared playfully, rising from his seat. “The student has far outstripped the teacher, and I must reclaim my skill.”“Tis not so,” the knight said bashfully, rising also. “You still have the longer range.”“Ah, but you, my champion, have the keenest eye in the kingdom,” Artemis said proudly. “It shames me not to come second best to such a contender. Come, let us go out into the sunshine!” And forth he went happily through the door.Credence shook his head, blushing, his fingers making the shyest of affectionate passes over Percival’s shoulder as he strode out in pursuit.The Duchess made no attempt to hide her grin, winking at him from across the table.Percival shook his head at her, though he could not disguise his joy.-“I am glad for you,” she said, as they walked out to the edge of the wood, relishing the quiet solitude. “It takes a steady hand to balance three hearts, but I see that you have managed it with grace.”“Sometimes I cannot fathom it,” Percival admitted. “There were days I never thought I’d make it home, nor see my husband again. Never did I expect my homecoming to bring such a happy outcome, but such is life’s mystery. I have been given a rare and precious gift.”Duchess Picquery smiled slyly at him, glancing out of the corner of your eye. “Tis not as rare as you might think,” she said.He paused under the shade of a swaying oak tree, looking at her in confusion.“You know I deal not in rumor,” she said, leaning closer, “but to put your mind at ease, I may tell you that you are not the only one to find that your marriage bed stands better on three legs than on two.”Percival raised his eyebrows. “Indeed?”“You have no cause to worry,” she went on in a whisper, “for the King would be very sympathetic, if ever word did reach him of your plight. He finds himself in much the same entanglement, a tender triple knot.”Percival’s mouth fell open in shock. “It cannot be! His Majesty is known far and wide for his devotion to his Queen.”“And is he not known also for his friendship with the Knight of the Lake, his closest and dearest confidant?” the Duchess replied with a small grin. “The same handsome knight who happens to be a particular favorite of the Queen, her most devoted champion and friend?”“Ah,” Percival answered, amused. “Yes, so I have long been aware, though I never suspected any further.”She raised her eyebrows triumphantly. “It can be done, then,” Percival replied. “If His Majesty has managed it all these years, so can I. With care and discretion.”“Yes,” she said, “though it took much of my skill and friendship to guide him past the fumbling stages of guilt and jealousy. Imagine! When he first discovered the Queen’s affair, the King thought he had an obligation to burn Her Majesty at the stake, though all his heart desired was to join them! And they, ever loving, wished for nothing but his company in return! It took no small amount of stern argument for me to council him toward finding happiness.”“It is fortunate indeed that you were there to aid him in finding the wisdom of such a course,” Percival said, amused.-The flowers budded on the apple trees, perfuming the air as spring ripened onward.Duchess Picquery tried her hand at cards against Madam Queenie, both of them sitting in the kitchen with looks of concentration on their faces.“Ah!” Her Grace finally declared. “I must concede. You’ve bested me. It seems almost as if you can read the pattern of my thoughts, for you always know what suit I am about to play.”Queenie smiled her dimpled grin, sweet and enigmatic. “It is only luck, Your Grace. Truly, you are a masterful opponent.”“And so are you,” the Duchess said, bowing regally. “My dear sir,” she said, turning to Jacob, “she is a marvel. You are a fortunate man.”Jacob held Evie in his strong arms, his smile bright as the sun. “I do know it, Your Grace.”-Although they desired to keep her company longer, soon the passing of the weeks required the Duchess to return to court.Her Grace bid her farewells under the bright sun, with promises to return again in autumn.“And you must come and visit me as well,” she said, “if ever you can be pried away from your peaceful country life. The nobles at court, no doubt, would fall over themselves to greet you, Percy.”“Perhaps we shall,” Percival said, his arm wrapped comfortably around Artemis, “if my husband wishes it. For now, I go nowhere without him.”Artemis beamed. “I understand completely,” the Duchess replied, smiling, “for what joy would journeying be, without love’s company? But you, graceful lady knight, are free to travel as you will, are you not?” she continued smoothly, kissing Dame Tina on the hand. “Please consider my doors open to you always. Come spend a measure of time in my hall, for I should dearly like to speak more with you.”Tina was blushing, radiant. “Indeed I shall, Your Grace,” she said. “When next I travel to the city.”“Please, call me Seraphina,” Duchess Picquery replied, warm and low. “You delight me with your promise, Dame Tina. I look forward to your visit most eagerly.”Tina’s eyes lingered upon Her Grace’s smile, their fingers sliding apart with artful slowness.“To you, brave cavalier,” the Duchess said next, stepping toward Credence, “I gladly entrust these merry fools. For you seem to be the wisest and most devoted of companions. It brings me joy to know that you reside here, to watch over them.”He looked at her in astonishment. “Th-thank you, Your Grace.” She smiled serenely, approval in her gaze.And then she swung up onto her horse, the oiled leather of her saddle gleaming and her fine embroidered cape rustling in the gentle breeze. “Farewell, my friends all,” she called. “Thank you for everything. May your fields ever prosper and your house remain as lovely and warm as the generous welcome you offered me.”She rode away along the road among the trees, her two squires close behind her.-The hall was oddly quiet without her company.“How shall we pass the days now?” Artemis asked, grinning, lounging at the dining table with his shirt unlaced. “With no guests here, nor eyes to watch our movements,” he giggled, “I wonder how we might spend the hours?”“I suppose,” Percival replied, mock-serious, “we must do whatever we please. We shall fill our days forevermore with happy freedom. For there is nobody here to stop us.”Credence’s cheeks were fetchingly flushed, his eyes darting between them.“Mmm, I suppose so,” Artemis said. And then the lord was shrieking with joy as Percival heaved him over his shoulder, carrying his husband up the stairs and chasing Credence, laughing, into the bedchamber.