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Lord Golden was deep in his cups when he had sent Tom Badgerlock away. “A night in town,” he’d suggested in a low voice, leaning close to the big man. Behind them, the wild stomping of Buckkeep’s finest lords and ladies made it seem more a common house than a castle. “To see Hap,” he added, quieter, and let the Jamaillian slide away. He was only the Fool. “It has been some time, hasn’t it?”
It always fascinated him, too, to watch Tom Badgerlock drain from Fitz’s large brown eyes. He could play the servant well enough, when he wished it. “I can go another time,” Fitz said softly. “You…”
“I…?” The Fool quirked a knowing smile at him. “I am drunk, and you fear for my behavior. Is that it?”
When Fitz was still and silent, his lips pressed tight with quiet disapproval, he sighed and put the smile away. He drew himself up and was Golden again, saying with a flick of his hand, “Go, Badgerlock. Do not make me say it again. You’re dismissed from your duties for the night, but I expect my breakfast tray in the morning as usual.”
Fitz had stared at him for a long time, and Golden’s heart had sped a beat beneath his fine silk shirt. His face colored briefly with shame — how it hurt him, still, to order the beloved man about! “Very well,” Tom Badgerlock had said woodenly. And with a short bow, he’d gone.
From there, it was easy enough to take Winsome up to Golden’s rooms. The pretty man had long, dark hair that he kept oiled and pulled back with a velvet ribbon, and his attentions to Lord Golden had not gone amiss in their weeks of gambling and riding parties. His flirtations were a soft sort — not the showy or clumsy overtures that other lords and ladies attempted. It was Winsome’s gentle nature, a share of apricot brandy, and a desperation for distraction that had finally convinced Golden.
You are drunk, you are very drunk, he thought as he closeted himself with Winsome in his resplendent bedchamber. He could still taste the apricots in his mouth as the man knelt to unlace Golden’s boots and then tugged gently on his trousers.
His undershirt, as ever, had been the last thing he removed. A few times he had slept with another, and each time, his tattoo was a spectacle. It was the same for Winsome. The man had gasped, eyes flickering over Golden’s back in shock at the colors, the twining serpents, the detail that was so perfectly needled into his skin. “It’s beautiful,” he breathed.
His voice was tight when he responded. “Thank you.”
“What does it mean?”
He forced himself to sound coy as he tossed his hair, letting the strands of honey fall down his back to obscure the tattoo. “What does anything mean?” he asked. He slid onto the bed, and onto his back. Hidden. That was the only way he could enjoy it. With a smile, he offered, “Come, dear.”
Once, in a different life, FitzChivalry had begged him to remove his shirt in the quiet dark of a bedchamber. “Let me see your chest,” he’d said. They had been so young, but Fitz’s voice was already growing deep. Oh, he had blushed, and been grateful for the dim, changing light of the bastard’s hearth fire. He’d considered it. Bruises ran up his chest, arms, and back; he knew his ribs hung broken within him. It was the greatest pain the Fool had suffered in a long time, and Fitz… Fitz would be able to fix him. How many times had Fitz been shoved to the floor and beaten? How many herbs did he grind, poultices did he make, for the very same wounds the Fool suffered?
He remembered how his fingers had ghosted the hem of his shirt — an ugly, checkered thing — before he remembered the tattoo. His insides went cold. Almost sharply, he'd replied, “I’ve seen it, and I assure you, it’s fine.”
But it had been that damned tattoo. There would be too many questions from too precious a source — Fitz never let anything go. He would ask and ask until he rooted out the truth of the tattoo, the school, everything. Would that be so bad? the Fool had wondered as he watched Fitz’s face in the firelight, the deep, tired lines set around the eyes of a boy too young. To tell him the truth, the whole truth, for once?
But he was a coward. To face Fitz’s scrutiny — no, worse, his pity — was unthinkable. To stand before him, to bare himself… Had he been that vulnerable with anyone in all his long life?
You are that vulnerable with Winsome. The thought was viper-like. He winced and shut his eyes against it. With him, and all the others.
“Are you alright?” Winsome asked above him.
He opened his eyes. There was worry in the other man’s face. “I am,” he said smoothly.
“You look pained.”
“No, no. Please. I would make quite the fuss if you were hurting me.”
How can you do it? a voice within him asked. These nights were rare, it was true, but he had never shared his body this carelessly before he returned to Buckkeep. He drank so much when he was Lord Golden — it was easy to give his body away for a night or two. Still. Drunk or not, he could not shake the feeling that he was betraying Fitz. His Beloved. He recalled that old tradition. His mother and fathers had called each other by their own names when they were happiest with one another; well did he remember their voices gone soft and low with love. And don’t you call FitzChivalry by your name? But you give your body elsewhere?
It was the breaking of a marriage vow — it was that shattering, that difficult to swallow. For a moment, with Winsome panting over him, he felt the truest shame he had ever felt. This is why you sent him to town, he reminded himself. So you would not have to feel this. Not with him near.
Winsome’s hand came gently to Golden’s face, tilting it up so that their eyes met. The man’s dark hair fell in his eyes, and his mouth hung open so Golden could see his straight white teeth and the pink of his tongue. He had brown eyes. Large, soft brown eyes.
Never had he imagined his lovers as Fitz when they were in bed. That was a line he would not cross. A secondary betrayal to his dearest friend, who would so loathe such a fantasy. Still, he closed his eyes against the vision of Winsome’s face. Against Winsome’s deep brown gaze. Let him think I close my eyes in rapture, he thought bitterly.
When it was over, Winsome kissed his cheek goodbye, and the door closed soft behind the man. He was quick to clean the room and right the sheets. The bath he drew for himself was scalding and scented with roses, and he lowered his body into the water until he was entirely submerged. Dryly, he thought of all the other lords and ladies in Buckkeep who were ushering their lovers out the doors of bedchambers, ordering their servants to clean and bathe them. He should have a servant to do this dirty work for him. I have the worst servant in Buckkeep, he thought. And the best. The thought made him smile.