Chapter Text
“A staff is quickly found to beat a dog”
-English proverb, William Shakespeare, Henry VI
Winter solstice has come and gone, taking with it the languid days of fall. In its place there is a stubborn washing of December gray. Gray skies, gray faces. The view from Levi’s tower window is just gray. Townspeople walk here and there in the citadel wearing gray. Gray wagons and gray horses clop on gray stone paths.
Levi wishes the sky would finally open, the way it’s been threatening too. It was time for the snow, you could just about scent it in the air. The crispness. At least a proper snow would cover up all this gray.
Children play in the street below, bundled in woolen layers and fur-lined hats. They must not notice all the gray, for them to be laughing and playing like that. They must be friends. The tall one and the short, stout one and the little girl who looks to be faster and stronger than the both of them. From where Levi sits, he can’t quite make out what game they’re playing. It looks like, well — it looks like fun. And it’s been so long since Levi has had fun. Or friends. Maybe Levi could go out and join them. He’s not so old, after all. He’d like a friend, or to play, or to be carefree like them, with ear-to-ear grins and a tooth missing in the front. He could leave his chambers, just like that. There isn’t a guard at his door, he doesn’t think. And Levi is quite good at sneaking. He made a living off of it, once. And he could walk down to the courtyard in his winter cloak and mittens and say, hi, my name is Levi, what game are you playing? Levi mouths the words to himself, letting his breath fog up the window glass until his make-believe friends disappear behind his cloudy reflection. What a stupid fantasy.
The fire crackles in the fireplace and it is warm. Levi should remember that he is lucky to be so warm, when he was not warm for so long. The sun is setting and the children are called inside by their mothers. Alone again, Levi watches the horizon change from yellow to orange to purple. He wonders if he should dry his hair more properly, or reapply the rouge on his lips and cheeks, or the perfume at his wrists and ankles. Levi sighs, uncrosses his legs, and switches them. His right foot swings in little circles. A nervous habit.
It is Levi’s wedding night. The members of the court are celebrating in the hall, no doubt planning to crack open barrel after barrel of mead until the sun returns. And there was much to celebrate, it seemed. That afternoon, the priest handfasted Levi to his now husband, the heir apparent, before the gods and all their subjects as witness. And the gods accepted their union, bringing prosperity in the next harvest and a ward against evils.
The maids had arrived early that morning to begin dressing Levi for the ceremony. It began with a ritual bath, one that made Levi pure. The dressmaker arrived soon after to sew Levi into his frock. The sleeves on the gown were long, spilling down to the floor like another train, weighed down with beads. The ornate headdress was heavy and uncomfortable, with gold-inlaid silk fanning out around his head. It reminded Levi of the stained glass windows in the cathedral depicting the many gods with the sun rising behind them.
The wedding garments were a tradition of the fair people — the blue eyed, straw haired peoples of the plains. Levi knows it was not the sort of headdress his mama would have worn on her wedding day, if she had been married.
As the priest recited his blessings, Levi could feel the burning gaze of the members of the court. Levi kept his eyes forward, staring directly at his husband’s chest, ordained in metals and ribbons. Levi realizes now that he can hardly recall the man’s face.
“You must learn to abide,” the lady's maid had told him as she undid the pins keeping his short hair tucked around the headdress, “You must learn to accept this as a gift, young one. The ritual is a gift from your alpha and from the gods. He will plant a seed in you and you will be fulfilled. You will bear a gift for this kingdom. So cease your crying, or all that beautiful kohl will run.”
Levi is lucky, they remind him, so blessed to have been chosen like a gem among the rubble. To be lifted from his station. Levi would be foolish to not accept this great fortune. And so Levi lets the maids touch up his makeup and wash his body and cinch his robes. It is easy to abide.
Hours may have passed. Perhaps it had been only minutes. But the sky outside of Levi’s window is finally black when there comes a knock. Levi watches the door creak open in the reflection of the glass.
“It’s time,” the lady's maid tells him as she stands dutifully to the side, hands clasped in front of her.
Another maid glides in from the hallway, Levi recognizes her from before. She has a beauty mark on her chin.
“For your feet, my honorable one,” the maid with the beauty mark asks as she kneels at Levi’s feet. She has a pair of ornate slippers in her hands, soft-soled and tassled.
“Ah,” Levi understands the gesture and lifts his right foot for her to slide the shoe in place, “thank you,” he says, feeling strange. He goes hot in the face looking down at this nice woman handling his feet with such reverent care. They’re just commoners' feet , he thinks, I am like you.
They guide him down the winding stairs in silence. The sounds of reverie echo through the castle. Levi hears little over the hammering of his own heart.
The doors to the heir’s chambers are polished wood, and they are grand. Levi recognizes symbols of fertility in the carvings of the frame, but also symbols of war. Grapes and orchids and moonstone. Spears and wolves. The maids stand before the door, blocking Levi’s entry.
“You are to speak when spoken to,” the first maid, the stern one, warns him, “present yourself with your chin to your shoulder and your hands behind your back. And you must let him swell within you for the seed to take. It will hurt, but that is your duty. Understood?”
Levi swallows and nods. The second maid, the one who helped him with his slippers, looks at him with what Levi thinks might be sadness. Only for a moment, and then it is gone. How peculiar, Levi frets, because he has been told by all that this is a joyous occasion. And that the heir is great and honorable. That Levi should be elated, and not sad.
Levi’s stomach flips as the handmaids step aside and unlatch the doors. There is a warm glow from the hearth that spills out into the dark hallway.
“Enter,” a voice, his husband, calls from within.
The maids nod at him and Levi breaches the threshold, his slippered feet making hardly a sound. The doors shut and latch behind him. There’s a crackling of embers from the fireplace. A log must have burned through, but Levi does not dare raise his head.
“You look pretty like that,” his husband says.
Levi has his chin to his shoulder and eyes cast down. He has no sense of where the man is watching him from. Somewhere to the right, based on where his voice carried from. His self preservation instincts tell him to look, to sight the predator, just a subtle shift of the eyes up and back down. But he knows he must abide.
The room smells of woodsmoke and something else, something sweeter and heady. Levi feels it fill his lungs and his fingertips and toes begin to tingle.
“You may relax,” he orders, “I don’t find much appeal in a statue. Go on.”
Levi lifts his chin and releases his hands, letting the blood return to his fingers where he was squeezing too tight. There’s so much to take in. There is a fine woven rug running from end to end of the room, with furs pelts cast about. A sword is mounted above the fireplace, polished like a mirror. Lavish furnishings he’s seen repeated throughout the castle create a seating area before the mantle. And his husband is there, the towering straw haired man, languidly smoking in a chair with his shirt collar undone.
“Ah, there you are,” he says with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, “Not a statue after all.” The man takes the pipe from between his lips and taps out the ash into a tray.
“Apologies,” he says with a nod to his pipe as he blows out a last mouthful of smoke. “I wasn’t expecting you for some time.”
When Levi doesn’t reply, the man clears his throat, pulls at his loosened collar, “Poppy smoke is pleasant, is it not? Ah, no doubt you’ll have never encountered it, not with your station,” his husband stands, walks around to the sill where he fetches a bottle of spirits, “It’s rare, a delicacy from the east. Gives a little bit of a buzz, like strong tobacco.”
Not sure if expected of him, Levi simply nods, shifts his weight from foot to foot.
“We should toast to our marriage, yes?” His husband offers, “You can speak,” he pauses in thought, “You can speak, can’t you? It’d be a shame if I married a mute,” he asks as though the thought just occurred to him.
Levi swallows. “Yes, my liege.”
His husband smiles to himself, “Excellent.” His eyes travel Levi’s form as he pours them each a small glass. Levi’s dressing gown hides nothing and so the man looks his fill.
“You must be scared,” his husband chuckles, “I can see you trembling from here.”
Levi feels his face get hot. He shakes his head.
“No, my liege. ‘M not scared,” Levi explains. But it is a lie, and Levi is a terrible liar.
This seems to amuse his husband who chuckles as he replaces the glass stopper upon the decanter.
“I’ll take you at your word, little one.”
And Levi does feel little, at this moment. In this big room, with this big alpha, and in this big, billowy robe that shows everything, he is little. And Levi loathes the feeling.
“Fear not, we have much time to get acquainted now. You know, I chose you myself,” his husband muses, “Rather bold of me, to go against my father’s wishes. But he is weak. Ah, do come closer so that I may look at you again.”
Levi walks closer to stand by his husband at the window. The view here must be so much grander than in Levi’s chambers. Based on the series of turns he took on his way down — a spiral staircase with four and a half clockwise turns, a left and a right — Levi figures this must be a western facing wall. The sunsets from here must be beautiful. But it is dark now, and there is little to see in the night but their own reflections.
“Remarkable,” his husband says as he slides a crooked finger down Levi’s cheek. Levi holds his breath, and doesn’t miss the sinister smile his response evokes in the man.
“To think you were hiding amongst the servant class with all this…exotic beauty. A rose among weeds. Don’t worry,” he says as he pats Levi’s cheek, “I’m not going to eat you just yet.”
Levi exhales, stomach in knots.
There was a stable boy, once. On the estate Levi’s mother served in. He had copper hair and freckles, and he wrote poems and picked apples for Levi to eat. Levi felt a weightlessness around him, a sort of swooping thrill — like when a carriage goes over a big bump in the road. But it was a good feeling.
This man, his husband, is different. Something feels off. Like there is no light behind the man’s eyes. No compassion, no mirth. And when he touches him, it makes Levi feel more sick than happy. But the maids and the priest and his husband all say this is right, and that this is good. So Levi smiles, a little wobbly but enough to appease the man before him.
“Yes, excellent. A toast,” his husband repeats as he hands Levi the small glass. He clinks the rim of his cup against Levi’s and smiles back, showing canines. A shiver goes up Levi’s spine, a survival instinct that has his heart skipping like a hummingbird.
“To us,” he says. Levi parrots the statement, wondering why it feels so empty.
—
Levi is sitting in a window alcove in the library with his knees tucked to his chin when he hears a pair of maids whispering behind the bookcase.
“Did you hear?” One of them asks.
Levi assumes the other one must have shaken her head, because her companion continues.
“The ritual, it was a failure after all.”
Levi hears a gasp and some ruffling, “Well, go on.”
“Aye, I heard it from Florence. Said she heard nary a grunt or a moan from those chambers all night. And you know how vocal the prince is.”
Her companion gasps, “You shouldn’t spread such slander, Pen. It is salacious gossip. The prince confirmed the union himself.”
“Oh, you’re no fun. I heard the bride, that little thing with no meat on it, was squealing like a stuck piglet and —,” the pair were silenced by the sound of the library doors closing.
“Excuse me,” says the new entrant, voice deep and authoritative. The maids scuttle out from behind the bookcase to make themselves known.
“Good evening, sir. We were cleaning as there was no one about. We will be on our ways,” the chatty one says with a deep courtesy.
“Ah, well, I do believe the library already had an occupant,” the gentleman at the door says, tilting his head towards the window.
Both maids go white in the face when they notice Levi in the alcove, and their bows deepen.
“Our deepest apologies, we did not see you, honorable one.”
Levi quickly wipes a tear away with the back of his hand — had he been crying?
“Think nothing of it. I was caught up in this novel,” he hopes his voice sounds stronger than he feels, “I must have missed you coming in, as well.”
The maids depart with a final bow and the gentleman steps aside to grant them passage.
“You look troubled,” the man says.
“Do I? Sorry — it’s a sad story,” Levi replies. The gentleman is straw haired, like so many folk in these parts. He’s browsing a row of books against the wall, hands clasped behind his back. Even across the room, Levi can scent him. He smells of musty papers and sealing wax. He scents of alpha. Levi quickly turns his attention back to the book lying open in front of him.
“Why read it if it’s a sad story? There are so many other happy stories, like this one,” he says as he pulls a red leather bound book from the shelf. He opens it in the palm of his hand and flips carelessly through the pages. “The gentler sex shouldn’t trouble themselves with unhappy things,”
Levi frowns.
“Have I upset you?” The man asks after a pause.
“You think me silly,” Levi replies as his eyes track the man across the room, “And if you say it is true, then it must be.”
The man casts him a quick glance from over his shoulder and smiles, “Cheeky.”
Levi’s frown deepens. Who was this man, to waltz into Levi’s space and mock him. Levi turns away and returns to his book, hoping the man will get the message that their conversation is over.
“Now I believe I have wounded you,” the man sighs, “here, let me have a look.”
Levi startles as the man slides into the alcove next to him and grabs his book.
“What are you —,” Levi starts, face red with indignation. He’s suffered enough humiliation this evening. Since his wedding night, the castle library has been his sanctuary. It it the only place within the four walls of the citadel where Levi can hide from prying eyes and wagging tongues. But it seems today, trouble has sought him out in the form of gossipy maids and an overly familiar stranger with, well— now that Levi can see up close, a stranger with the most dazzling blue eyes.
“Let's see what has you all in a tizzy, shall we? Ah, the passage begins here —,” the man clears his throat theatrically, winks at Levi, and begins, “You are young, and young your rule, and you think that the tower in which you live is free from sorrow: from it have I not seen two tyrants thrown? ” The man recites. He looks at Levi with a bemused sort of smile and says, “Huh, I didn’t take you for one with an interest in politics.”
“The third, who now is king, I shall yet live to see him fall, of all three most suddenly, most dishonored,” Levi finishes.
“I’d call that a treasonous sentiment, if I didn’t know you were reciting a poem,” the man says. He looks relaxed, dressed down in casual wool trousers. Levi can see the skin of his ankle where it rests atop his knee. Levi is not relaxed — rather, he is tense and on edge around this man. He is handsome, and charming, and Levi somehow finds these things irksome.
“It’s a tragedy,” Levi retorts, “it’s a play, not a poem.”
“Indeed,” the man replies, “Sophisticated reading. Tell me, what is it about?”
For some reason — maybe it’s his clever eyes or his casual manner — but Levi can tell this man has already read each and every book in these archives.
“It is about injustice,” Levi replies.
“Really?” the man says as he flips idly through the pages, “I rather thought it was a story of love.”
Levi sucks his teeth, annoyed.
“Why ask my thoughts if you are only going to contradict them.”
The man laughs easily, a deep rumbling chuckle that is pleasing to the ear.
“No need to snap,” the man chides, “I am merely challenging you, as a scholar of equal merit.”
Equal merit, he said. The man smiles. Levi releases his knees, folds his legs properly, and finds himself sitting up a bit straighter.
“So, scholar,” the man says with a glint in his eye, “tell me, why is this story a tragedy of injustice?”
The way this man is looking at Levi is, well, intense, is how Levi would describe it. Like he was hanging off of every word. Like Levi was a prophet and his words were tantamount to gospel. Levi can’t remember the last time he held another’s attentions for any reason but his sex.
“In this story, the gods strike down those who do not execute their will,” Levi says, “Without mercy. They are cruel and untouchable beings.”
“Ah, but they are the gods,” the man counters, “and their will is, by nature, just. I rather view it as a tale of love—between the gods, and their followers.”
“I see no justice in cruel and eternal punishment,” Levi replies, coolly.
“So you are a godless atheist as well as a seditious traitor,” the man hums, “My, what a minx the prince has brought to his bed.”
Levi’s heart skips. This man knows who he is, and he has pried dangerous words from his lips with such ease. Sensing Levi’s panic the man laughs again.
“I am teasing you,” he says, “I said that in jest. And if my accusations were indeed correct, I’d have to throw myself into the stocks with you, because I do believe I share your sentiments.”
“You’re not funny,” Levi replies sourly.
The man sighs, “And here I was trying to impress you with my wit.” The man has the tail end of Levi’s long skirts between his fingers. Levi watches with detached fascination as the man rubs the silk between the pads of his thick, ink-stained fingertips. Levi is suddenly acutely aware of how physically close they have gotten, and how improper the scene may look should someone stumble upon them, huddled there in the corner of the library.
Levi blushes when their eyes meet. Levi is hypnotized by the intensity of his stare, the fullness of his lips.
Who are you? Levi wants to ask, the question hanging on his tongue for some time now. But Levi doesn’t get a chance to ask, as a knock echoes across the room.
“The king is holding court and he desires your presence, my liege,” the servant at the door says with a bow and a polite nod in Levi’s direction, as well.
The man releases his hold on Levi’s hem and stands at attention. Levi can scent the faint annoyance off of him, at their time together interrupted.
“I’ll need sometime to dress,” he says as he pulls at his cuffs, “I was not planning on attending court today.”
“I’ll send word of your delayed arrival, Erwin,” the servant says before he bows and steps aside, gesturing for the man to follow him out with an outstretched arm into the hall.
“Who are you?” Levi finally finds the words. His book is forgotten, knocked over onto the ground.
The man, Erwin, smiles at him, “I’m sad you don’t remember me. But perhaps it was hard for you to see behind that veil.”
Levi shakes his head, confused.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Levi. Ezekiel, your husband, is my brother,” the man says with a smile that seems ingenuine and rehearsed, “I must be going. I greatly enjoyed our conversation today.”
And just like that, Erwin vanishes beyond the entryway, taking long strides as he goes. Levi wonders why he feels so out of breath. Tragedy, and love, Levi rolls the ideas around in his head as he fetches his book off the ground. Perhaps he should read it again from the start.