As they slipped across the rooftops of the city, Diana kept pace alongside Bres with nimble ease and a craftiness he had not expected from her. His own senses were good, and that was no mere pride on his part. With her senses in concert, they were well nigh unstoppable.
There was little point to this moonlit hunt, but the freedom of the darkness, without the expectations of nobility and court.
Strange that Kal, who had been brought up so humbly, should be more comfortable with the mantle of nobility about his shoulders. Stranger still that Bres, who had been brought up well aware of the responsibilities due his people, should prefer the darkness and the secretive work of the night to the dealings in the court.
Which made Diana’s presence tonight quite inexplicable.
Bres could not help but be constantly aware of her as they made their way through the various sections of the city, passing over the heads of the city guard with no more noise than the footfalls of a cat. She leaped agilely from roof to wall, and walked slender walls without so much as a tremble in her balance. She clung to the shadows behind him, her form radiating heat beside him in the night as they paused under a huge tree in the gardens of some merchant house. She ran fleet-footed across the ridgepole of a house, and swung down to the ground without ever losing her calm, and the most shock she evinced was when he reared from the darkness, deliberately intending to startle her as she came around the corner.
The flat of her palm struck his shoulder with enough force to show her annoyance with his gambit, and in spite of the blow, he felt the warmth all down the length of his spine at her familiarity. However, he only allowed himself the faintest of smiles before he explained to her the next set of obstacles that would gain them access over the walls of the Palatia and up to a point at which they could enter the castle.
She was smiling as she pulled herself over the parapet, and landed on her feet, sleek and balanced as a cat. One hand hauled off the mask she’d worn all night, revealing flushed delight in her face, and a mischievous sparkle in her eyes as she turned to Bres, seeking his approval.
Something speared through him, a sort of disappointment, sharp as a knife in his flesh, and just as wounding. The smile that had touched his face was suddenly hard to maintain, and he looked away.
This princess of Themyscira was far more dangerous than she realised. More dangerous than even Bres had previously realised. In future, his dealings with her would have to be guarded - for her sake as well as his.
And for Kal’s sake, also, he thought, and the last remnants of his joy in the night suddenly fled.
Sickness churned in his stomach, and his mouth was dry as she raked her hands through her hair. The movement pulled out the ties that held her hair braided around her head in sleek coils, and tumbled the graceful waves down about her shoulders in exquisite artistry.
The warm night was suddenly stifling, like stones pressing down against his chest, the weight of his duty to her and Kal.
Diana was quite unaware of his thoughts. “Thank you for allowing me to join you,” she said, turning to face him. The torchlight flickered across the perfection of her features, animated and intent, beauty, grace, intelligence, and dexterity - so many gifts given to one woman, and all of them to be held for the pleasure and service of Kal. “I hope I did not hinder you too much.”
The statement was also a subtle question. “You’re welcome,” he said, and pulled his own mask from his face. A masked man in the corridors of the palace would cause more concern than a Lord out for an evening stroll before he retired. “But we won’t be doing this again, Princess.”
She stared at him, startled, and her brow creased in disappointment, “Why not?”
“You needed to see what I can do as Kal’s Spymaster,” he said. “But if you think I’ll be taking you out with me after this, you know nothing of Metrisian society.”
Her chin lifted, stung by his words. “Oh?”
His expression was smooth as milk and just as bland. “I don’t know how things stand in Themyscira, but, here, Lords of the realm do not take their friends’ wives out at night.”
She flushed and her eyes narrowed to thin chips of ice that snapped and sparkled at his statement. “And if I had Kal’s permission?” The words were ground out between her lips: the idea of asking anyone - even Kal - for permission to do something was anathema to her.
“Even then, I would not.” Bres felt a moment’s pang at forcing her into the role of submissive Metrisian wife. Her spirit might find other ways to soar, but looking at her now, he wondered if it might not fade away for want of freedom.
You cannot intervene, he reminded himself, even as something in him struggled to acknowledge her right to be who she was. Not this way. Perhaps if there are other ways for her to be who she truly is, out of the sight of the court...
No. It was more than just the proprieties of it.
He turned on his heel, choosing to walk away, to play the Wastrel, even before Diana, who knew him otherwise. “Good night, Princess.”
“Bres.” She used his name, not his title, taking a familiarity he would grant her, because of who and what she was to him.
He regarded her, pale gold skin limned in sunset shades by the torch that shone over his head, casting his own face in shadow. “Princess?”
“Thank you,” she said simply. “For showing me what you do. For doing what you did - for your people, yes, but also for mine.”
“My people are yours,” he reminded her with as much gentleness as he could muster. “And you are welcome, Princess.”
“Must you call me that?”
“What? Princess?” He shrugged, half-smiling. “It is your title and suits you well.”
A frown creased her brow, troubling the smooth planes of her face. “It does not suit me that you use it.”
“Consider it a nickname, then?” His fingers twitched at his sides, wishing to reach out and smooth the lines of her face with a caress. But his hands remained at his sides, obedient to his will.
“And what should I call you in return?” Diana challenged.
Again, the smile twitched his lips. “Just ‘Bres,’” he said in answer. And once again he turned and walked away, and this time, she did not call him back.
He disliked that he felt both relieved and resentful that she did not.
----
The way back to his rooms was navigated without undue notice. A servant here, a courtier there, neither saw anything unusual in Lord Bres of Cortham out for an evening stroll - or perhaps from a clandestine meeting with another man’s wife. Who knew? The gossip came and went and rarely knew the truth.
The truth was that it had been some time since Bres dallied with any serious intent. Women whose services were discreet and paid for easily met his physical needs; noblewomen were to be romanced, not bedded, and showing favour to the servants was unwise.
And as for love and affection...
He shut the door of his rooms behind him and rested against the solid wood with a sigh.
“Master Bres?” Alford emerged from the antechamber, took one look at his posture and promptly headed back inside. A moment later, he re-emerged from the room with a tray on which rested a crystal goblet of wine, a hunk of bread with a wedge of hard-rind cheese beside it, and an unpeeled arancia and a knife. “If you find yourself uninclined to peel the arancia yourself, I can be troubled to do it,” twinkled the old retainer, good-naturedly.
“I think I can peel it myself,” Bres admitted as he stripped off his boots and, at Alford’s pointed look, left them by the door for later cleaning. Beneath his toes, the plush of the carpet was thick and pleasant - a luxurious sensation, intermingling with he hunger he had not even realised was growling in his belly. The wine, bread and cheese would do him very well as a snack before bed, and he helped himself as Alford brought over his robe.
“Did the evening jaunt with her Highness go well?”
Bres paused and stared, even as he shrugged into the silky folds of the bed robe. “I said nothing of tonight’s activities--”
“It seemed a reasonable course of action,” Alford admitted. “Now that she is aware you do not wish her life, indeed, that she carries a debt to you, she would be intrigued by what you do.”
Bres narrowed his eyes at the old retainer. “Have you been speaking with the princess?”
Alford was unperturbed. “I speak to many people, Master Bres. The princess has been one of them.”
“Alford...”
“I intimated nothing about your evening activities - either as the Wastrel or as the Spymaster. The princess, however, appears to be possessed of a formidable intellect and a willingness to use it. And the life of a traditional Metrisian woman is not for her.”
So even Alford recognised that.
Bres let the conversation lapse, lost in his own thoughts, wondering if he dared offer Diana a place among those who worked for the Spymaster. Joran and Walvis were both able and capable agents in their places; they brought to him different aspects of the court, in spite of not knowing who was the Master behind the mask.
Diana could know and might still be capable of following the intrigues of the court, of taking over the reins when Bres must return to his duchy and acting in the place of the Spymaster.
And yet, working alongside her would twist the knife in his breast, he acknowledged. She was too close, too inimical to his senses.
In his hand, the wine gleamed dark and rich in the clear crystal of the cup, and he grimaced with the indecision and tossed back the draught.
Why must this be the way of things? What curse was upon him that doomed him in matters of the heart?
Too often, the women who challenged him in body and spirit were beyond liaison: the daughter of the pirate, the sorceress-witch, the street thief...
The bride-to-be of his oldest and closest friend.
Kal’s betrothed.
Kal’s bride, clothed in the cream chiton and olive leaves that were the triumphal gown of her people, tied with the scarlet sash of passion, shot through with the fine gold threads of fidelity. Kal’s wife, kissing her husband boldly before the people of the realm, laughter in her eyes and on her lips. Kal’s lover, her dark curls cascading across the sheets in the morning sun, her arm draped over the broad, tanned shoulders of her husband...
His hand flexed, involuntarily. Between his fingers, the chalice shattered.
Bres grimaced as glassy razor shards tumbled down around his fingers. He opened his hand immediately, and hissed as flecks of glass moved in his flesh. He began picking out the larger, visible shards with care. The pain was mild but bearable - more bearable than that which assailed him at his vision.
“Master Bres?” Alford appeared at the door. “Good gods!” A moment later, a small basin of water, along with a towel, gauze patches, and salve, had appeared on the table, shuffling cheese, bread, and arancia to the side. “An accident?”
Not trusting his voice, Bres merely nodded.
The extraction of the glass was painful, but in the hands of Alford, relatively swift.
“I considered giving you one of the blown crystal goblets presented to you by the Lord of Grechen,” the older man muttered as he doused the hand with water. “All things considered, I am glad I did not.”
“The boy grows up, the destructive instincts remain,” Bres said, wincing. He could not help the self-loathing that found its way into his voice, and Alford shot him a sharp look from nearly black eyes and began slathering on the salve.
“If you shattered that goblet in the full knowledge of what you were doing, Master Bres, then you are well aware of the wrath that should fall upon you.”
The pale, translucent lids with their fine blue veins dipped down over the dark eyes as Alford concentrated on binding the hand to best heal, but provide limited mobility. And as he did, he talked.
“Since I pride myself on the many ways in which a humble servant can make his employer pay for the wilful destruction of property, I believe that your destructive instincts are no more than those self-destructive instincts that take you out on the more dangerous errands when you could easily assign it to another of your people.” The end of the bandage was tucked neatly in, and the retainer rose up from his kneeling position beside the small table with its interrupted meal. “Do you wish more food, or would you prefer to retire for the night?”
It never ceased to impress Bres that Alford could mingle a reprimand and a concern so fluidly, barely stopping for breath from one utterance to the next.
“I think it best I go meekly to sleep,” Bres remarked, dryly. “It would appear to suit your mood.”
“Sending you to bed without any supper? I suppose it does.” The retainer began picking up the pieces of glass and piling them in the basin. “Shall I call in your valet?”
Bres waved that assistance past. “I can undress myself,” he said. “And don’t send anyone in to wake me up tomorrow,” he requested. “I’ll sleep until I wake.”
“Very good, Master Bres.” It was rare that Bres took all the rest he actually required, doubtless Alford was dancing for joy inside.
“Good night, Alford.”
“Good night, Master Bres.”
He did for himself after the retainer was gone. Lord of Cortham he might be, but he could ably fend for himself when necessary. And, if truth were told, he preferred fending for himself.
At last, disrobed, blew out the candle, and climbed into bed. The weave of the sheets slid gently over his skin, and he tucked them around his frame and lay back in the darkness.
The bed was no different to the previous night’s frame and mattress, but, tonight, sleep eluded him with nimble evasion.
It was more than the faint pulse of pain in his hand, the flesh tingling as it healed with the aid of the salve.
So much more than his injury.
Tonight, when they paused in the chimney shadows of the Derconnes mansion, Bres had been about to move off when Diana’ fingers plucked at his sleeve and drew him back into the shadows, even as another shadow slipped across the roof - a thief intent on burglary. The thief, thus surprised, had risked capture by crying ‘thieves’ into the peace of the night, and the city watch had come after them.
Two were more difficult to hide than one, but they’d found sanctuary in the shadows between two chimneys, an irony not lost upon him given the events of the day she arrived in Metris. There was barely enough space for one, and tight quarters for two. Yet, she’d stood in the circle of his arm, cheek to cheek, chest to chest, hip to groin, and he’d breathed shallowly of her hair, almost panting in the adrenaline and desire that coursed through him in twain.
And she was unaware of it all. She’d stood watch over his shoulder as he stood watch over hers, comfortable in the intimacy of his arm as it curved around her slender waist and neither of them moved.
The memory of her closeness, of the beauty of her smile as she regarded him on the Palatia terrace, of the frown that he wanted to smooth away from her face... The intimacy pierced through the layers he’d taught himself to hide behind, her curiosity tearing down the veils he’d crafted so painstakingly through the years.
To be seen and known for who he was - to be loved as he was...
Bres had lived a long time with few people who knew him and loved him as they knew him. Kal was one of the few - the most trusted.
Diana could be another, if he let her.
He didn’t dare let her in beneath the shields he’d formed. She was to be Kal’s wife and that was that. Diana was beyond Bres’ love, sworn to another man long before Bres had even seen her face, looking interestedly about her as she made her way up from the River gate to the Palatia Sol that morning nearly two moons past.
He dared not love Diana. She was not his to love.
With that knowledge aching his chest, Bres forced his mind to rest and cast out all thoughts of the Themysciran princess from his consciousness to sleep.
Yet in that sleeping, he dreamed.
She turned, her kirtle dragging in the long grass, and he watched from the shadows of the orchard as the sunlight dappled her shoulders, and illuminated the curve of her belly, big with child. The heartache struck hard and fierce, stabbing deep into his soul as he looked upon her. The years had barely changed her, but happiness and joy had given the fresh beauty of her youth maturity, and pregnancy had given her a glow like an immortal being.
He tore his eyes from her, seeking something else with which to fill his mind against the hollow screaming inside, and his eyes lit upon Kal’s son. The boy was slender, dark-haired, blue-eyed, with the look of his father about him and the same reckless, unending energy that Bres remembered from the summers spent with Kal.
Kal’s son.
The boy looked up, made aware of his presence by some premonition and leaped to his feet. “Uncle Bres!”
She looked up, seeking him; the dark curls tossing about her face, echoing the boy’s surprise and delight at his presence. Then she actually saw him, and an exquisite smile touched her lips, curving in sunlit brilliance.
Bres was pierced on the blade of that smile, like a man struck through the heart by a Themysciran spear, and left to die on the point.
He woke with her name on his lips, barely a whisper, but a betrayal nevertheless. The sunlight streamed in through the open windows, bringing with it the scent of the orchards, and the sounds of the morning.
Bres lay in the warm, golden honey of the summer morning and couldn’t breathe for aching.
----
He was grumpy when he finally emerged from his rooms, snappish as the proverbial bear with a sore head. His mood was not improved upon entering the breakfast room. As bad luck would have it, the only occupant of the room was the person he least wished to see.
Diana stared into empty air, a goblet in one hand, a platter of fruit laid out before her. Her hair, unbound, swept across the line of her girdle, the gold-threaded band binding the rich blue cloth to her slender form. She seemed lost in thought, and Bres remembered the thought he’d had that first morning as he met her, laughing as she rode into the court.
Wasted in repose? No, she would be never wasted, in repose or in action.
Bres let his gaze rest upon her for a long moment, before he took a deep breath and strode forward to sit by her. Avoidance was out of the question, so he would have to grin and bear the ache. Waking, sleeping, in court or out of it, he could not escape her.
He was not sure that he would, even if he was given the chance. There was a pleasure in the pain, a beauty in the knowledge that he loved.
“Princess.”
She looked up, startled. “Lord Bres. You’re not usually seen about at this hour.”
He shrugged as she seated himself opposite her. “Not usually.”
“We are graced with your presence, then.”
Bres was personally inclined to think it worked the other way around. “Did you sleep well?” He nodded at the servants who brought him bread and cold meat, and a platter of fruit.
“Very well,” she said lightly. “Dreamlessly.”
“Do you usually dream, then?”
“Usually.” Eyes that matched the brilliant colour of the sky out over the bay looked clearly at him. “Do you dream, Lord Bres?”
Her gaze caught at him, and he turned his attention pointedly to his meal, with only the monosyllable. “Yes.”
Diana didn’t seem concerned with his terseness. “Dreams are portents from the gods,” she said with a gentle seriousness. “They send them to us to warn us, to inform us, to show us the future.”
She was, Bres realised, quite in earnest. But his own lack of faith in the kindliness of any deity could not help asking her, “And if there are no gods, Princess?”
“There are gods,” she replied, and her answer was so certain that he found himself tempted to argue with her, purely for argument’s sake.
He did not and she noticed the absence of his argument.
“You do not contradict me,” she noted gently.
“You assume I would.”
Her fingertips pushed the arancia pips and cherry stones around her plate. “You are not one who believes in gods, my Lord.”
“I do not,” he confirmed.
“Yet you allow for magic, which is of the gods.”
“Or of men and women,” Bres said. “Princess, I must admit, I have never yet seen the gods cast a spell.”
She flushed a little at his mockery. “Then what of dreams and portents, signs and oracles that are given to us?”
Bres could not help a small taunt. “You say they are ‘given’ to us, Princess, where they may merely be the imaginings of our minds. Strange dreams are said to be brought on by the consumption of rich food, after all.” His lips curved into a faint smile, easing the mockery, teasing her gently.
“In that case, then all in the palace should nightly dream very strange indeed,” she retorted, but smiling just as did he. “You did not directly answer my question.”
“I am not given to answering questions directly. But since you ask, I can conceive of oracles and portents - but such are rarely proven - and only ever understood after the matter that they illuminate.”
Something like scorn passed over her face. “And you have never dreamed of something that was so real, so solid, that it was like a reality - that you had difficulty dealing with it upon waking?”
Diana could not know how close her words struck to the bone, no concept of how hard it was to look her in the eye at that moment. He had dreamed of her married and mother, pregnant with Kal’s child - with Kal’s love - and while the beauty of it had taken his breath, the pain of it had cut him deeper than a sword to his heart.
Portent and oracle, or merely a dream? At that moment, Bres didn’t know and would not have said which he hoped - or feared - it to be.
Any road, Diana of Themyscira would wed Kal of Metris, to rule by his side and bear his children as queen, lady, wife, and heart. Bres would watch them from the shadows, both as Lord Bres of the House of Wayan, and the Spymaster.
She had been watching him with eagle eyes as he remained silent. And Bres knew that, although his face had betrayed nothing more than a momentary stillness, she had looked upon him and read every shadow of doubt as he felt it.
Her knowledge of his hesitation made her question gentle, and he hated the gentleness of it.
“Do you dream true, Bres?”
Bres did not know what to say or how to respond. He would never tell her what he’d dreamed; it was a burden of which she had no need. He had cleared his own name in her eyes, but he could never offer her what he wished to offer her - not openly - heart and soul.
Then, too, there were moments when he wondered if he had a heart and soul to give. In the end, he had no answer for that. What he did know was that he could never give her all she deserved.
No, better that Kal should love her, marry her.
He looked back at her steadily, and she returned his gaze without a blush to her face. His eyes traced every arc, every curve, remembering her radiance in his dream, mother to Kal’s heir, pregnant with her second child.
The memory made him answer her true. “Sometimes, Princess,” he said, quietly. “Sometimes.”
Diana let him sit in his silence, accepting his reluctance to speak. When he returned his gaze to her, she was staring down at her plate, choosing not to probe where he would not welcome her. Bres felt the burden of her presence like stones upon his chest but did not lift his gaze from her face.
Finally, she looked over at him, aware of his gaze upon her face through the silence, but not aware of the cause of it. He smiled for her comfort, not for his, and the gentle smile that grew on her lips was the source of equal parts pleasure and pain.
And of one thing, Bres was certain. Neither she, nor Kal should ever know of it. He swore himself that.
Yes, perhaps it was best that Bres return to Cortham, to oversee his lands, and not be seen among the court for a while. He had been here long and done many things for Kal, but Kal could manage - and more than manage with Diana by his side. With forty-five Themysciran warriors, one Winged One bodyguard, and a Princess who could defend herself against assassination, the city would not require Bres’ shadowy presence.
He had been too long from his duchy. Presented with the months he’d been absent, he found himself longing for Cortham’s familiarity, away from Themysciran Princesses who so disturbed his equilibrium, away from the preparations that would be made for the union of Kal of Metris to Diana of Themyscira.
In time, Bres would return to Centris and when he did, he would serve her and Kal faithfully, without resentment or bitterness.
Love took many forms.
- fin -