Chapter Text
Even though Matthew had said that they would leave Scarnsea behind them, and talk no more of it, the monastery still clung to his thoughts and his heels like so much dust.
He was so lost in thoughts of Orphan Stonegarden, of poor, terrified Simon and of Alice Fewterer. He was in spite of himself hoping for her escape and worried about the dangers in the marsh. He pondered truth and justice — his currencies as she had pointed out. Had he served them or had he merely, like the gaudy bird, repeated Cromwell's words? What of his own actions, and were they just or unjust? Had it been just to close the monastery for its infractions or had he merely made the circumstances fit his purpose? Had he, like Barak said they must, made his own truth?
His despondent thoughts clouded his sight and Chancery walked more often than she cantered, in spite of Barak’s urging for speed. The man would spur his horse and rush ahead and then slow down again, as he also became mired in thoughts, no doubt of Alice, and Matthew and Chancery would catch up. Matthew found his gaze lingering on that dark, tousled head and remembering Alice's face smiling up at Barak. She had been lit with an inner glow and shining with joy, she had been more beautiful than the moon through clouds. The curls escaping her quoif had been something he had ached to touch, but never dared to hope that he might. He had thought of himself that he was too jaded about his appearance to experience disappointment, but every time he thought about that moment, of seeing them together, of her hand resting on Barak's shoulder, he could feel his heart breaking in his chest anyway.
He imagined that Jack's wooing of her had probably been charming and witty, and thinks of what he himself would have done, what he would have said, how dry and pitiful it would have sounded. Come to London with me, marry me, I have a good income and house. You could dutifully let me make love to you in the pitch dark so you'd never have to see my arm and back.
With so much crowding his mind Matthew was therefore quite surprised to look up and find that dark was coming on. They had not covered the distance they had planned and were still some miles away from the inn where they had spent the night on their journey to Scarnsea. The old trees of the Weald forest stood still and dripping around them.
He himself was inclined to press on and hope to find somewhere to stay, a village or a cottage, which could provide shelter for Cromwell's emissaries but Barak halted and dismounted.
“I remember this part from our travel to Scarnsea. The road divides somewhere up ahead, in this dark we are likely to miss the fork and continue on the wrong way entirely. Better to halt here and wait for first light.”
Matthew gritted his teeth against his sudden rage against Barak and his straight back and swaggering stance, whose body could support a night on the ground, and whose lungs were unmoved by the night chill.
“I would prefer to continue,” he said coldly, not moving to dismount Chancery. “There might be a farmstead or cottage up ahead where we can shelter."
“There are none, I remember this stretch quite clearly,” Barak said, casting around among the trees for a sheltered spot, his horse buffing against his shoulder, like Matthew expecting food and shelter, and finding none.
“I would prefer to continue,” Matthew said, which was as far as his pride would allow him to go. He would not admit that his body could not well sustain a night on the cold hard ground and that a chill could bite into his lungs, leaving him with a cough that leeched the flesh off his bones for months.
“And I would prefer a hot meal and a bed,” Barak retorted acidly. “But if we continue and miss the fork in the dark, or one of the horses suffer an injury, we would be delayed for days, and then someone else will carry the news of Scarnsea to Cromwell and we do not further need the reputation for delay.”
Mathew let that particular barb pass and gritted his teeth.
“I didn’t lie, earlier, when I said I catch a chill easily," he said, and Barak looked up at him seeing anew the crooked spine and a look of understanding passed across his face of what it might mean for Shardlake to pass a night on the ground.
“It can’t be helped,” he answered, not unkindly. "Daybreak comes earlier at this time of year."
Eventually they found a slope, close to the road where the hill behind them sheltered them from the wind and the ground was drier than the muck down by the side of the road.
The woods were soggy after winter and there was not a lot of dry firewood to be found so early in spring, and Matthew dearly lacked Joan’s talent for laying a fire. Eventually he managed a small sputtering fire which produced as much smoke as it did flames and warmth.
Barak genuinely laughed when Matthew started spreading out his blanket on the ground, preparing to lay down in cold misery.
“I may not be much of a woodsman, but if there is anything you learn growing up in rags it’s how to keep warm. I think you will find, master Shardlake, that I can be quite a handy fellow to have around.”
Before Matthew really knew what had happened Barak had bundled him into a little nest with the horses saddle blankets at the bottom and both their blankets and cloaks spread over them and Barak tucked up behind his back, close as two spoons in a drawer. Matthew even found his head pillowed on Barak's arm.
Matthew felt quite startled by it, but Barak was already half asleep behind his back, slinging an arm around him to keep him even closer.
“Here see, like this,” he muttered sleepily, tucking their hands together against Matthew’s front, shifting so he had Matthew’s right hand wrapped around his wrist and his own large hand splayed like a hot weight proprietary over his sternum.
Still, it was an uncomfortable night, the blankets could not quite shelter them from the hard ground and after a while his side and back ached with a ferocity he had not known in a good long while. Shardlake, unused to the close company, drifted in and out of light sleep, cursing the ground and their slow progress and master Barak most of all. He hated other people seeing or touching his back, and now Jack Barak, with his annoying swagger and beautiful strong body, limbs as slender and straight as a young tree, laid comfortably tucked up against it, probably using Matthew's hump as a headrest. He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes.
He fell into true sleep in the end, and when he opened his eyes again the fire had burnt out and the cold of pre-dawn was upon them. The morning chorus was starting tentatively up around them and the birds had begun their chirping. Matthew shifted sleepily, trying to alleviate the dull pain in his hip and back, and find a warmer spot in the blankets, stretching his legs and trying both to press closer to the delicious warmth behind him and move away from a rather insistent poking at his backside. He went back to drowsing, sleepily trying to shift into a more comfortable position until Barak's arm, still slung around him though he had entirely forgotten its presence, tightened around him.
"Master Shardlake, be still," he said, sounding morning-rough and unexpectedly commanding.
"I would, but your infernal codpiece keeps poking at me," Matthew answered peevishly, trying for the last time to find a better position, shifting his hips restlessly.
Barak laughed, a rough sound, a bark of genuine amusement startled out of him, the exhalation skating warm over Matthew's ear.
"I'm afraid sir, that is not my codpiece," he said, breathless. His tone had the same cadence as when Matthew had found him laughing with Alice Fewterer. He sounded playful and inviting, voice filled with mock indignation, and contrary to all Matthew's expectations he pressed closer, rolling his hips against Matthew's backside in an unmistakable gesture.
Matthew's breath caught in his throat and for a moment he laid perfectly still, breathing shakily while Barak gently nosed at the skin behind his ear, teasingly bringing his mouth closer and closer until he gently latched on to the back of his neck and Shardlake let out a great gust of air before tipping his head back so that Barak could reach to kiss his jaw, and mouth at his cheek.
However, Matthew was hardly some blushing bride to be ravished in a dark bed with his eyes tightly closed. He gripped Barak's arm and rolled them over so that he was on top of Jack, one leg wedged snug between his thighs.
"I feel like I have to ask, master Barak, you are aware that I am a lawyer, yes? And what you are suggesting is a rather newly minted capital crime."
Barak’s eyes looked dark and glittering and there was a red flush over his pale cheeks. He smiled an annoyingly cocksure smile with his whole wide mouth, his uneven teeth proudly on display.
"I didn't think you dealt in criminal law," he grinned. "But please," he said, spreading his legs and pressing up against Matthew, "if we are breaking any property laws, do enlighten me."
Mathew pressed down more firmly, using his knees to rock them together.
"Nor, are you struck by the utter hypocrisy of doing this, just a couple of miles down the road from Scarnsea? We would have closed the monastery for buggery, had we found as much as a shred of evidence to support it."
Barak raised his chin and grinned up at him, almost laughing where he lay.
"Even Lord Cromwell would have a hard time closing the monastery if all we could find was that the monks pulled each other off now and then."
Barak was, to Matthew's dismay, displaying himself. He had settled back into the blankets, baring his throat and open collar to quite entrancing effect and his hands had begun to move restlessly over Matthews shoulders and upper arms, kneading them in a way which was certainly not unaffecting, nor displeasing. Nor was the dark of his hair and pale complexion against the red wool of his cloak. A vain little peacock he had thought when they met, but now he rather saw the charm of it.
"Master Singelton's line of inquiry was if the monks were ‘affectionate’," he emphasised the statement with a roll of his hips.
Barak grunted impatiently, half in pleasure, half in frustration, and ground back against him. Matthew could feel him, hot and hard against his hip.
"I can't say I'm feeling very affectionate," he panted and Matthew rolled his eyes.
"Don't make yourself more foolish than you already are."
"I never thought I would enjoy arguing with a lawyer this much, but surely you must agree nobody has yet suggested buggery," Barak said with a laugh in his voice, his hands moving down Matthew’s back, towards his arse and squeezing, in a way that was certainly suggesting it.
"A technicality," Matthew grunted back, head dipping forward to rest against Barak’s shoulder, letting Barak knead away at him.
"And here I thought lawyers loved a good technicality."
Matthew, his face moving from Barak's shoulder to his neck so he could bite at it, trailed his mouth wetly over his jaw and stubbly chin, the beginnings of a beard prickling his lips, to kiss him, but stopped himself at the last minute. Barak had not at any point suggested that it would be welcome, there are things you might do with a warm and willing body by the side of the road, even if that body was a crookback of no importance, that did not involve anything so intimate as kissing. His mouth caught inches away from Barak's, and he felt suddenly fearful, and they both froze, Matthew with his eyes closed, feeling Barak's stuttering breath on his cheek and lip, both of them letting out wet little panting breaths.
"Oh what are you waiting for, you tit," Barak growled finally and grabbed Matthew's face between his two hands and kissed him, thumbs stroking along his cheekbones. Barak's long thin fingers scratched gently, maddening, against Matthew's hair and beard and his mouth was wide and plush under Matthew's.
There were too many clothes and blankets in the way to do more than fumble and paw at each other, but Matthew managed to undo Barak's doublet and slip his hand into Barak's voluminous undershirt, splaying it against his side, warm with wiry muscles. He was a little wary of touching Barak with his right hand, some people reacted badly to it, and like his back it was something he tried not to draw attention to. Barak didn't really seem to care one way or the other if the way he was clutching at Matthew’s cloak and doublet, tugging at the buttons and ties, was anything to go by. He had his eyes tightly clenched shut and was breathing harshly, rutting against Matthew without finesse or grace, whining when Matthew's hand pressed against his side, fingers dipping below the top of his hose.
"You, you," he muttered incoherently, "never met anybody so bloody…" He broke off to bite viciously at Matthew's collarbone, having finally wrung his collar open, Matthew could hear the distressing sound of fabric tearing and feared Barak had simply torn open the ties.
"Christ, Christ, Christ," Barak muttered fervently, pulling desperately at Matthew's doublet tugging it undone and with a growl biting into the swell of his chest, licking and kissing and mouthing him through the thin fabric of his shirt, leaving large damp spots. He nuzzled it and fondled at him, sending hot pulses through Matthew’s body but when he got his hands under the shirt and started to lift it Matthew stiffened, he'd not showed his back to anybody except his physician, even letting Barak grope him under the shirt to feel the straps and buckles of his harness felt too uncomfortable. He grabbed Barak's hand and brought it firmly to his crotch instead, something Barak seemed to appreciate if his dark eyes were anything to go by.
"I see," he muttered approvingly, stroking him carefully through the hose, feeling him out. "No wonder you don't wear a codpiece, you'd never find one to fit you."
Matthew blushed hotly and smacked Barak over the back of his head with his right hand to which Barak laughed.
Matthew had finally managed to loosen the laces of Barak's hose sufficiently to stick his left hand down his britches. He had to abandon his position braced on top of Barak and instead lay down on his side, bracing with his right arm, so that he could use his left hand properly; he was quite proud of the feat of doing it one-handed and at such an awkward angle. Impatiently Barak pulled his own shirt off, throwing it somewhere away from him. Underneath it Barak's skin was pale all over, his chest milky white with the veins on his arms and shoulders spreading out green like the arms of a river delta. The sparse scattering of chest hair seemed even darker and coarser against the white skin. His face was flushed and his mouth wet and wine red. For some reason the sight inflamed Matthew more than he could have thought possible. The narrow wiry hardness, the broad shoulders and narrow hips, the rangy muscles and sinews standing out sharply. The undeniable maleness of the body in front of him, all of their angry exchanges and combative approaches melted into this, to Barak writhing underneath him, helpless and undone for him. It went to his head like wine.
Barak's cock was narrow and long, like the man himself, flushed red and velvet to touch, jumping eagerly under Matthew’s hand. It felt almost like some strange animal, curious and alive in his hand.
"God's blood," Barak swore, ducking his head into Matthew's shoulder, his whole body twitching. "Yes, like that, like that."
"You talk a lot," Shardlake informed him, twisting his hand and Barak groaned.
"Oh, I talk a lot, he says," he muttered before burying his head in Matthew's shoulder again, biting at his collarbone and shoulder muscle, which Matthew felt was uncomfortably close to the hunch of his twisted back. He wished he could have put his fingers in Barak's mouth, get them wet and slippery, but that would have meant stopping what he did now or using his other hand, and he was still wary of that. Barak was almost mindlessly rutting against Matthew’s hand, eyes squeezed tightly shut and fingers clenched in the blankets surrounding them.
Matthew was quite surprised when Barak broke out of his stupor to haul him in and kiss him, teeth smacking against his lip painfully, he had fully expected to do all the work while Barak writhed and swore and refused to return the favour afterwards. He was sufficiently distracted so that Barak's hand on his bare flesh, low on his abdomen, was a chock, making him buck forwards and gasp, Barak rolling on top, kicking the blankets out of the way so he could lick his palm and line them up together, the head of his cock smooth and slippery against Matthew’s. Matthew himself was choked by the high whine that broke out of him, and the involuntary way his body arched against Barak's and Barak grinned, triumphant, down at him.
"Yeah that's it," he panted, "just lay there and take it you, you…" he said, hand working furiously.
Barak's body bent in arch as he came, deep red flush on his chest and throat, and Matthew tipped his head back and squeezed his eyes shut and came, the sensation ripping through him, from his feet to the crown of his head, so intense it was almost painful.
They lay still panting for a while as Matthew grew gradually more aware of his surroundings. He was uncomfortably aware that he had been tumbled on the ground like a simple country girl. Barak had not needed anything more tempting than a kiss on his ear to have him in the palm of his hand.
They had kicked their tidy nest of blankets apart, Barak laid spread on it half sideways with his feet sticking out into the leaf mulch.
"You fucker," he sighed. "You cunt," he said absently yet with satisfaction, staring up at the sky with wide eyes. He had captured Matthew's left hand and was clasping it between his own against his chest, rubbing the fingertips with the palm of his hand, in what Matthew suspected was more an effort to to ground himself than any attraction or affection. He could feel Barak's chest heaving under his hand, like he had run a great race as his breath slowly stabilised, he himself felt almost numb, his pleasure so intense it still seemed to bounce around in his body, he could barely feel his feet. His back was sore and painful but his body was still buzzing so much with pleasure he could barely feel it.
"I don't think I've emptied my balls so completely since I've discovered what my prick was for at fourteen," Barak groaned, sounding dazed, still absently rubbing Matthews fingertips. "I think I've accidentally ejected bits of my spine," he continued. "I think I might have pulled something" to which Matthew didn't reply, only turned his head and fixed Barak with a baleful stare until he rolled his eyes and laughed. "Besides the obvious yes," he added with a smile.
He let go of Matthew and reached for his shirt, carelessly thrown on the ground and started to put it on, frowning at a mud stain at the white linen. His dark hair was standing on end and his neck seemed very tall and straight, following the long slope of his back down to his arse. He had a dark bitemark at the junction of his neck and shoulder where Matthew could not recall biting him, and realised, with a searing pulse of want, from the dark purple colour that it must have been a few days old, that it must have been Alice. Matthew looked at his straight, broad shoulders and the twin wings of his shoulder blades and felt something like insanity tug at his mind. A crazed, salivating, desperate wanting, a vision of his rooms at Lincoln's inn, himself, sweaty and red-faced, crooked and ugly, buried in that body, Barak underneath him, straining and begging,that dull red flush over his chest and throat, the two of them grunting and fucking like animals. He would fist his right hand in that dark hair and hold him down as he worked him, until Barak was pliant and loose, the annoying cocksureness fucked out of him. He blinked and willed it away, stunned by the naked brutality of his desire, this was nothing like that, that would never come to pass.
As he had suspected Bark had simply ripped off the ties on his shirt but he could do up his doublet on top of it and his cloak was unscathed with only a few spots of mud, he didn't look quite respectable, but at least he didn't look like someone who had fucked in the woods.
Unfortunately there was nothing in to be done about Barak, who even with his doublet buttoned and his cloak fastened, still had the face of someone who had fucked in the woods.
Chancery was not best pleased with having stayed a night outdoors with only the meagre grazing of last year's leaves, but she responded well enough to handling and snuffled friendly against Matthew's shoulder hoping for a crust or piece of carrot.
"You need any help?" Barak asked and Matthew gritted his teeth, resolving that he would not need any help, in spite of his painful back and the fact that he was not sure of his own ability to saddle Chancery, should the horse decide to be difficult.
Thankfully Chancery stood still enough for Matthew to awkwardly heave the saddle on her back by hefting most of his strength from the left arm under the pommel and supporting the saddle with his right hand, and there was a suitable rock that he could use as a mounting block. Still, he had to close his eyes and just breathe against the dizzying vertigo of pain that came over him once he had heaved himself up, and it wasn't until the spasm had passed that he noticed that Barak was looking at him with a frown on his face.
"Well, are you ready Master Barak?" Matthew said stiffly, pulling himself up right and shaking out the folds of his cloak. "We should breakfast and water the horses at the inn, but we have a hard day's riding ahead of us in order to make up for the lost time."
The look Barak gave him was hard to read, but the smile that followed wasn't, and then he urged his horse past Matthew and down ahead on the road.