Page 9

Chapter Nine

T he Highlands. Four days by the post-wagon, but closer to a week on the stodgy, plodding Piggy—or it would have been, if Tam hadn’t awoken to find himself atrociously sore after the first day, right along his inner thighs and the base of his buttocks and his lower back. He’d slept in an abandoned barn that night, which had been twelve kinds of mistake, as it had been shockingly cold in the middle of the night and drafty. The leftover hay had been very musty, and he hadn’t dared to light a fire for fear of burning the whole place to the ground.

“No more barns,” he told Piggy. He was too sore to do more than heave the saddle and saddlebags onto Piggy’s back. “We’re going to stay in inns like civilized people.”

The night before, Piggy had had access to a small pond in a little paddock of overgrown, summer-dry grass and wildflowers, and Tam noted several areas where significant munching had happened. Piggy did not therefore seem to be in dire jeopardy of starving or falling over dead from colic. Angarat wouldn’t have let him eat himself sick anyway, not when Tam was on a quest for her favored one.

He managed to figure out how to get the bridle onto Piggy—Tam had felt bad about the idea of leaving it on overnight, even though it was a plain, loose kind without a bit and probably wouldn’t have done the gelding any harm—but he could not bear the idea of trying to get himself onto Piggy’s back to sit in agony. Standing and walking was, at least for the moment, far preferable.

He felt better by noon, when he passed an inn and stopped to rest and resupply on snacks for the road. He couldn’t quite bear the indignity of attempting to scramble into the saddle in front of the inn yard full of people, so he took Piggy down the road another half mile before he made the attempt.

It was not the most graceful thing that anyone had ever done, but he ended up in the saddle and on top of Piggy, so that was something. By evening, he had a great deal more practice at mounting and dismounting, from taking many more breaks to walk alongside Piggy and give his aching arse a rest.

It was Idunet’s hours, the rich gloaming of late summer, when Tam turned into the next inn yard. The first stars were just peeping alight in the sky, and the first fireflies were dancing in the hedges alongside the road. He dismounted in the inn yard. No one laughed at him for being an obvious and hilarious amateur, and a pimply kid ran up to take Piggy off to the stables as Tam went inside.

The inn was comfortably lively—it looked like mostly local farmers stopping in for a drink, but there had been carriages in the yard, so presumably a number of the patrons were travelers. Tam moseyed his way through the taproom to the bar and set his elbows on it. “Evening, goodwife. Is there a bed available tonight?”

“So long as you don’t mind sharing,” said the woman behind the bar, filling a great tankard of ale from a barrel and handing it off to another customer. She was plain all over—plain clothes, plain brown hair tied back in a knot but all frowzy with flyaways, a plain broad face with a snubby nose.

“I would have been more surprised if I had one all to myself,” he replied with a vague wave at the taproom. “Looks like a popular place.”

She smiled brightly at him, and he nearly jumped in surprise as much at her reaction as at how... easy it had been to provide the compliment. “Thank you kindly. It’s been in my family for four generations.”

“Well, apparently you’re good at it,” he said, distracted and bewildered with himself all over again. Who was he becoming? Maybe it was just that he’d removed himself from the context of his home village and Lyford , and it was now easy to... try on a new hat. See what happened if he was nice instead of an awful goblin. Or still an awful goblin, but with manners. “Ah, who am I sharing with, do you know?”

She jerked her head toward the end of the bar as she filled up another tankard. “Red and blue coat, curly hair. Name’s Kel Gauda. Oi, Kel!” she shouted. “You’re sharing tonight!” In a normal voice, she said, “What’s your name, sir?”

Tam couldn’t answer, because he’d looked down the bar and entirely lost his breath. Kel Gauda had a gorgeous mop of black curls that fell into his eyes—dark and sparkling with intelligence and rimmed with long, sooty lashes—and the warm creamy-brown skin and sharp features common to those of Faiss descent. He had a sly, generous mouth that looked made for kissing, and there was a slow smile coming across it which, paired with the sparkle in his eyes, suggested that he did not at all mind the prospect of sharing a bed with Tam.

He was stunningly beautiful. He was objectively more beautiful than Lyford on his best day, and Tam was suddenly and utterly certain that if he had won that wager with Angarat, this was the handsome stranger that she and Idunet would have nudged into his path.

“Sir,” the alewife said pointedly. “Your name?”

He cleared his throat. ‘Tam Becket.”

“Great.” Even more pointedly, she said, “Want anything besides the bed? Dinner? A washtub? A drink?”

“Yes. Yes, all of those would be nice. Thank you.” He fumbled for his coin purse and slapped a couple of pennies on the table. “This should get me started. One for me and, uh, another one of whatever Mr Gauda’s having.”

He pulled himself together enough to totter down the bar in such a way that he hoped wasn’t too immediately indicative of his true goblin nature. Kel Gauda kept his eyes on Tam the whole way. When Tam stopped right by him, Kel smiled and propped his chin on his hand. “So. Roommates tonight, are we?”

“Seems so,” Tam choked out. Gods, even his voice was beautiful. Though his looks were unusual for rural Avaris, his accent wasn’t—Tam could have probably placed the shire that Kel had grown up in if he hadn’t been so rattled by how handsome he was. Somewhere in the northeast, that was the best Tam could do. “Nice to meet you. I’m Tam Becket.”

“May I call you Tam, since we’ll be sharing?” Kel asked, extending his hand to shake.

“Oh, certainly. Yes. That’s fine. Of course. And I’ll call you Kel, then. Is that a nickname? Short for something?”

“Kelavigo. Old family name. And yours? Tam sounds like a nickname too.”

“Tamerlin.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Tamerlin.”

Fuck. Tam wanted to lick his name out of Kel’s mouth. The way he said it made it sound like the name of some hero, someone who might well be sung about in the next song cycle. Surely not all the song cycles could have already been written, could they? Tam forced himself to sit like a normal person and stop fucking drooling . “So, what brings you here? The alewife spoke like you’re an old friend.”

“I pass through regularly, yes,” Kel said, smiling as the alewife brought over their drinks. “I go where my lord leads me.”

Tam paused to drink a great draft of his beer—his mouth was very dry, and even drier after that comment. Idunet. Kel’s lord was Idunet. He couldn’t have explained how he knew; he couldn’t put his finger on any one thing. He simply knew down to his bones that Kel was favored of a god, and that god had to be— had to be— Idunet, the Lord of Temptation.

Merely knowing wasn’t quite good enough. He tried that trick that Lyford had done and glanced at Kel out of the corner of his eyes.

There was a shimmer. There certainly was a shimmer, and here they were in Idunet’s hours, in the taproom of an inn—one of the realms of Idunet’s domain, what with all the drinking and gambling happening at the tables around them—and Kel was glittering and mouthwatering in the corners of Tam’s vision. Irresistible. Delicious.

Tempting.

If Tam had been less of a goblin, that might have been it for him. He could have swooned into Kel’s arms, flung himself joyfully into the welcoming embrace of temptation as Idunet so often dared mortals to do. But he was a goblin, and so:

“Oh, you’re Idunet’s favored, aren’t you,” he said lightly. “That’s interesting. My friend is Angarat’s favored. He’s currently trying to convince me that I am also Angarat’s, but I’m feeling a bit agnostic about it. Sort of. They’re batting me back and forth on some fucking quests like two cats with a ball of yarn.”

Kel’s eyebrows had risen steadily. He narrowed his eyes and peered at Tam. “Your friend is right, actually. It’s all over you.”

“Fucking great,” Tam muttered. “Well, I guess we can drink as colleagues, then. Bet you don’t run into colleagues all that often in this... profession .”

“Not too often, no,” Kel replied, lifting his cup and clinking it against Tam’s. “This certainly wasn’t how I was expecting our conversation to go.”

Tam took another gulp of his ale and said wetly, “Oh yeah? I can be even more unexpected, if you like. Here: If my friend were slightly more of a prick, Angarat and Idunet would have set us up.”

“You and your friend?”

“No, me and you .”

Kel raised an amused eyebrow. “Is that right? Sounds like a story.”

“Angarat made a wager with me that if Lyford—that’s my friend—ew, have I been calling him my friend ? He’s not really my friend, he’s just some awful man I know, and he has the most beautiful cock in the world—anyway, Angarat said I should go have a healthy fucking conversation with him, and that if it didn’t go well, she’d give me a magic horse and a bag of gold, and then she and Idunet would jointly find me a ravishingly handsome stranger to fuck me until my eyes cross.” He peered at Kel. “I’m pretty sure that would have been you.”

Kel’s slow smile returned. “Would have been? But our paths have crossed now, haven’t they? And we’re going to be sharing a room already...”

“Yes, yes,” Tam said impatiently. “But you don’t understand. Lyford is a prick.”

“And so you won your wager and got a magic horse, and here we are?”

“No, I mean he was the other kind of prick. The kind of prick where he was really fucking nice about it, so I didn’t win the wager at all. Angarat said that the consolation prize would be knowing somebody cares about what I want, which... is fine. It’s fine. Anyway, Lyford gave me a terrible horse named Piggy and sent me on a quest to bring him the Ram of the Highlands on a whimsy . Just to test me and see what else I could do besides grow him a giant marrow. That’s not a euphemism. Well. It’s also a euphemism. It’s both.”

Tam took another draft of his beer.

“I think I missed a step somewhere,” Kel said slowly. “I was flirting with you to see if you wanted to, ah, euphemistically come to bed with me once we’ve done so non-euphemistically.”

Tam gave him an aggrieved look. “I lost the bet, Kel.”

“Right, I got that part. And I understand that this Lyford fellow is awful and the only thing you like about him is his cock. He sounds like a smug, insufferable twit.”

Tam bridled. “You don’t even know him, you can’t talk about him like that.”

Kel got a very funny look on his face and took a sip of his drink. “Right,” he said slowly, licking a bit of foam from his lip. “I think I’m starting to understand why losing the bet is relevant to whether or not I kiss you later.”

Tam felt like he’d been walloped sideways when Kel licked his lip. “I’m not against it,” he said dazedly.

“Wow,” said Kel, with the kind of broad sarcasm that Tam did not at all appreciate. “You’ve been sitting down for thirty seconds and have in that time managed to thoroughly confuse the issue about what your relationship status is and whether you’re actively interested in being fucked cross-eyed today.”

“I am. Yes. I am. Please.”

“ Ten seconds ago, you seemed to be assuring me that that was not the case, on account of losing the bet with Angarat.”

Tam squinted into his drink.

“You can’t blame it on being drunk,” Kel said ruthlessly. “That’s your first glass. Nobody gets drunk that fast, and you’ve been confusing from the moment you sat down. If it were exhaustion from travel, you’d be showing more physical signs. You probably would have collapsed on the first chair you came to. So I can only conclude this is just your way of being .”

“Maybe it’s you that’s the problem,” Tam muttered. “ Lyford manages to understand me.”

“That poor fucking bastard. You were right, I shouldn’t talk about him with words like ‘smug insufferable twit’ even if I was just trying to flirt with you by agreeing that the fellow you hate is eminently hateable.”

“I don’t hate him.”

“I’m becoming fully aware of that with every further word you speak. I’m on his side now.” Kel took a long sip of his drink, gazing at Tam over the edge with cool, judgmental eyes. “Let me try to translate everything we’ve just said into human language and set some of your offhand remarks and implications directly on the table, hm? You and Lyford are favored of Angarat— no, do not interrupt me . I can see it on you just as easily as you saw it on me.”

“Lyford didn’t see it.”

“And how long has Lyford known you?”

“All our lives,” Tam muttered.

“Right. So he was probably too close to tell. Or he thought that you twinkling in the corners of his eyes was normal and unremarkable. Or maybe he’d assumed that Angarat earmarked you as someone he should take an interest in. Hello, Tamerlin, you’re favored of Angarat.”

Tam sulked into his ale.

“So,” Kel continued. “You think his cock is the most beautiful thing in the world, which tells me that you’ve had him. You’re annoyed up to your eyeballs with him and you’ve known him forever and you unthinkingly called him a friend before you caught yourself, which tells me that you’re not just sleeping with him, but that you’re entangled with him.”

Entangled wasn’t a fair word to use. It made Tam remember being entangled with him in bed two nights before, that perfect cock held tight between his legs, the slick oiled slide getting wetter and wetter as Lyford dripped seed everywhere ... His inner thighs tingled with how badly he needed it. Bloody fucking Lyford. He’d done it on purpose. He’d known he was sending Tam off to fetch the bloody Ram of the fucking Highlands, and he’d fucked Tam’s thighs because he knew it’d drive him to distraction, no matter how saddle-sore those selfsame thighs got from riding Piggy.

“I wouldn’t call it entangled,” Tam managed.

“Right. Entangled is some kind of fetish for you, then,” said Kel. As Tam spluttered, Kel said tiredly, “Don’t bother denying it either. I’m favored of Idunet, I can tell. Also, you weren’t that subtle. Your breath caught and you went all hazy in the eyes and squeezed your legs together just now. What’s it mean to you, entangled?”

“He fucked my thighs two days ago,” Tam said bitterly. “You know, like an absolute son of a bitch.”

“And you really, really liked it, and you’re mad about liking it. Right. And now you’re on some kind of quest because Lyford and Angarat are both bossing you around, and you’re mad about that too. And this bet with Angarat was about whether Lyford would be any good at having a healthy conversation with you about your relationship, and he was. At least within reason, enough to lose you the bet. Thus, your lady and my lord have not led us together so I can, ah, provide comfort and consolation to you. In summary, you’re not interested.”

“Incorrect. I am interested.”

Kel gave an allowing nod. “You’re interested, but you’re not going to act on your interest.”

Tam blinked at him several times. “What?”

“You’re in a relationship with someone you care about vastly— ”

“I do not!”

“Not caring in the sense of positive emotions, necessarily. Rather in the sense of how much space the poor bastard takes up in your thoughts and your life,” Kel said dryly. “Which is... oh, all of it, evidently, seeing as how you mentioned Lyford immediately, and we have talked of little else except him.”

That was not remotely fair, and Tam panicked a little bit. “He doesn’t take up any space in my life.”

“No? How often do you sleep with him?”

“Not that often. Three or four times a month.”

“Idunet’s fucking eyes,” Kel sighed. “Tamerlin, are you aware that there are married couples who do not fuck that frequently?”

“It’s not that frequent.”

“Roughly once a week is pretty frequent, actually.”

Tam, in the middle of a sip, inhaled some of his drink and had to spend a couple minutes hacking his lungs out.

Once a week somehow seemed far, far different from a couple times a month .

He tried to reassure himself that it wasn’t precisely once every week—there had certainly been times when he’d had Lyford three days in one week, realized what he was doing, flung himself out of the nearest metaphorical window to escape, and firmly barred himself from going anywhere near Lyford for... well, for as long as his willpower lasted.

But there had also been many other times when he closed up shop for the evening at the end of the week and (wholly exasperated and cursing himself every step of the way) trotted right up to Lyford’s house.

“I don’t see how the frequency of my poor life choices is relevant to whether I want to sleep with you,” he wheezed. “Which I do. I very much do.”

“I’m sure. But you’re not going to. More’s the pity.”

“I can if I want to!” Tam said loudly, still coughing. “What, you don’t fuck people who are in regrettable entanglements ?”

“No, I do.” Kel shrugged. “I’m favored of Idunet. I’m not responsible for anyone’s decisions but my own.” He eyed Tam. “Maybe we’ve been led together so I can give you some of my lord’s perspective. If all you’ve been getting is Angarat’s—or, rather, if you’ve been focused hard on avoiding Angarat’s, as I suspect based on how fiercely you scowl about being one of her favored—then perhaps you need a little come-to-Idunet chat.” He tipped his head on one side, eyebrows raised. “My lord did drop a few hints of that nature.”

Tam squinted. “Did he? What’d he say?”

“Just that he was sending me out this way and that I should wait at this inn until he told me otherwise. Wouldn’t tell me what it was for, wouldn’t even tell me how long he expected it to take. Just said it was Angarat’s work, and when I said I don’t work for Angarat, he said that it was in his best interest to do the occasional favor for his siblings, and that it was in my best interest to do as I’m told if I want to continue getting all the little perks of my position. So I said, ‘Are you going to cover my expenses this time?’ and he said that I’d either be paid in gold or a sweet piece of ass.” Kel eyed Tam primly. “I think sweet might have been a stretch, but then maybe you’ve got something as worthy of poetry as Lyford’s cock, so who’s to say.”

Tam reflected briefly on all those absurd things Lyford liked to say in bed and firmly shoved the thought out of his mind. “If Idunet’s got something to say to me—for one thing, he could come say it himself—”

“Too lazy,” Kel said promptly. “Doesn’t like to do things himself when he can delegate.”

“Fine. If he’s got something for you to tell me, then of course I will listen. I like Idunet. He has his priorities straight.”

“That he does.” Kel’s beautiful mouth quirked in a smile. “Why don’t we have a bite to eat, finish our drinks, and go upstairs where we can talk in private, then?”

Kel led him up to the room. It was far enough away from the taproom that the noise was muffled, and their neighbors in the surrounding rooms were either quiet or hadn’t come up yet. The room itself was tiny but workable, as far as inn rooms went. Kel had clearly been here for a few days—there were a couple shirts draped over the back of a chair, and the sheets were rumpled. There was also a lamp burning on the nightstand, decorated around the base with prayers to Talesyn, the Lord of Flame, to protect against housefires, and a washtub steamed in the middle of the room. It was about the size of the one that Tam had at home—just big enough to sit in to wash.

“That must be for you, because I didn’t order it.” Kel sat on the edge of the bed and took off his boots. “I like being cozy, so I’m going to be getting in bed for this conversation. You’re welcome to join me or not, as you prefer.”

Tam sighed. “I seem to be having all kinds of important conversations while I’m in the bath lately. Why not continue the trend?”

Kel laughed, stripping down to his shirt and underthings, and rolled into the bed and under the covers, fluffing the straw-filled pillows vigorously behind his back. Tam stripped naked; there was no point in being shy. Kel snorted softly. “Well. At least I can see why Lyford puts up with your confusing nonsense.” His eyes were warm and appreciative, raking over Tam’s body as he knelt beside the bath to rinse the dust out of his hair and off his face in the clean water before he got it all mucky with the rest of his body.

Tam rolled his eyes, wiped the water out of his eyes, and climbed into the bath. Oh, the heat on his tired muscles! And how lovely it was to feel the drying dust of the road soaking off. “Right. What’s Idunet’s business with me?”

Kel folded his hands in his lap. “Well, as I said, he didn’t actually tell me what he wanted me to say to you, but I’ve been his favored for a long time now and we have most of the same opinions on things, so I feel fairly confident in acting as the voice of the Lord of Temptation on this one: You’re an idiot.”

Tam glared at him. “See, this is why people keep tricking me into being in the bath for conversations like this. I can’t just get out and run away, can I? I’m fucking cornered. ”

Kel pointed sharply at him. “There it is. That’s the source of all your trouble. That’s what I’m supposed to talk to you about, I’d wager. You were not tricked into being in the bath; you chose to be in the bath. I invited you to make yourself comfortable, and that was your decision. The fact that you aren’t enjoying the consequences does not mean that the responsibility for your discomfort is suddenly mine to account for. That’s on you, Tamerlin.” He stopped, tilted his head as if listening, and held up one finger to forestall anything from Tam. “You love sex with Lyford,” he said distantly. “And Idunet thinks it’s very boring and pointless of you to insist on pretending like you don’t.” His eyes focused on Tam again. “He’s annoyed that you keep trying so hard to make yourself miserable.”

“Motherfucker, are you speaking to him? Is he speaking to you? That’s not fair—fucking even Idunet is against me?”

Kel smoothed his hands over the covers and folded them on his lap again. “People like to call my lord a lot of misleading epithets. The Lord of Temptation. Dream-plucker. Lord of Outcasts. They say that his domain is pleasure, sex, passion, gambling, drink and drugs. They say that he is the god of thieves, highwaymen, con artists, undesirables. Some particularly self-important people—Brassu people, generally—try to say that he is the god of evil itself. This is a gross misrepresentation of Idunet’s true domain.” He looked at Tam. His eyes were burning-bright with dark, delicious invitation. “Angarat’s domain, speaking as broadly as possible, is over the caretaking of others—your family of both blood and choice, the things you’ve planted and the animals you own and the land you oversee. It is caring focused outward to the world . It is selfless. In this way, Idunet is her inverse. His domain is caring focused inward to the self, and the self, and the self—the very roots of the self, the deepest-buried self. If he is the god of thieves and highwaymen, it is because those people, in that moment of taking those actions, are concerned only for themselves and their own interests. If he is the god of evil, it is because many aspects of evil stem from selfishness. It is all very nice to live under Angarat and give oneself tirelessly to others; it is all very nice to live under Brassu, and bow your head to the duties and obligations and laws that others have bound you with. Or under Talesyn and Mategat, and be an instrument of creation and inspiration, of making and doing things that bring light into the world. Or Ystrac and Nevainy?, and pay honor to the will and the power of nature itself, and acknowledge that you are merely human, and therefore small and mortal and temporary . But Idunet—poor, misunderstood, abused and mistreated Idunet—reminds us that we are powerful, that the choice to shape our own lives is ours, that there is always a way out, and that even as you care for others, you must always care for yourself.” He cocked a sardonic eyebrow. “There’s no guarantee that anyone else will, after all, is there?”

The water lapped around Tam’s hips. He swallowed. No one else had given him much care in all these years. No one had comforted him when he’d cried about his smashed marrow; no one had taken over the tea shop for him when his aunt had passed; no one had arrived to coddle him on the nights when he’d curled up in bed and cried for how crushingly lonely he was.

“I think about Idunet a lot,” Kel said, picking at a thread on the sheets. “No surprise there, I expect—probably all the favored ones spend a great deal of time thinking about their god, wrestling with their god’s philosophy, striving to understand it in its totality. If I could, I’d make everyone change the names they call him. He’s not the Lord of Temptation—he’s the Lord of Free Will. The Lord of Choices and Questions. The Lord of Consent. ” Tam flinched. Kel absolutely caught it, because his smile tightened. “Most people don’t find that a very pleasant thought. It’s easy to say ‘I was tempted by Idunet,’ isn’t it? It is much harder to say, ‘Idunet offered me a choice, and I said yes, because I wanted it.’ I might walk into a public house and catch someone’s eye—or maybe they catch my eye, and I flirt with them, because I want them—but if they’re married or promised to another and they still say yes and go to bed with me, I cannot be held accountable for that. It was their choice; it was their decision to say yes. They wanted my body more than they wanted to be faithful to their lover. It is not remotely my place to take responsibility for another adult’s poor choices and weakness of character. If they meet the consequences and are surprised at how unpleasant they are, that’s a shame, and perhaps they’ll learn a lesson about how to make choices that are actually in their best interests, rather than whining that Idunet made them do it when they find that they’re unhappy with how things turned out—but their personal journey is not my business, no matter how much their angry lovers would like it to be. Even if I flirted with them because I wanted them, at the end of the day, they were still the one who weighed instant gratification against their long-term happiness and said yes.”

Tam squinted at him. “Why do you keep saying that I’m not going to fuck you, then, even though I’m interested and we’re both undressed?”

Kel shrugged expansively. “Just the knack of experience. You can climb out of that tub and crawl into bed with me, and I daresay we’ll have a lovely few minutes of kissing and fondling, and then you’ll start getting annoyed because Lyford is taking up all the space in your mind. Perhaps you’ll feel guilty, perhaps you’ll miss him, perhaps your irritation will overcome your arousal...” He shrugged. “Either you won’t be able to stay hard for me and we’ll feel a bit awkward and tediously polite about it, or you’ll burst into tears and cry on my shoulder about him, or you’ll storm out of the room to jerk off about him by yourself, or you’ll be disappointed that my cock is not as beautiful to you as his. Or I’ll start noticing that your attention isn’t on me, so I’ll get bored and wander off to take care of myself or find someone else down in the taproom who’s going to be more fun in bed. The odds of successfully having any kind of satisfactory sex with you are too low for me to bother with.” He paused. “However, I do very much like talking to people about the philosophies of Idunet, so this is by no means a selfless act on my part. And I’m being compensated as well. ‘What’s in it for me?’, that’s the first question Idunet’s special darlings ask when offered his favor.” He tipped his head from side to side. “Very possible that I’m earning a few smiles from Angarat for this as well, which is no bad thing to have.”

“I would not cry on your shoulder about Lyford,” Tam said, aghast to the roots of his soul at the very suggestion.

“You have already been complaining about him nearly non-stop. There’s very little difference. I’ve known you for, oh, half an hour now, and it’s already exhausting to hear about him. I can only imagine what it must be like for everyone else who has known you more than a week. What am I supposed to tell you? What do Angarat and Idunet want me to tell you? It’s your life, Tamerlin; do something about it. What are you getting out of it? What choice is in your own best interest? Do you even remember how to tell what you want, or do you keep making choices based on reacting to Lyford or fucking him over just because he annoys you? What is going to make you, Tamerlin Becket, happy in your life? What brings you joy and satisfaction and utter, indulgent pleasure? How can you indulge yourself? You could shape your life to be delectable—you have that power. You can’t have everything that you want, but you can choose freely. ”

“I’ve decided Idunet is a dick,” Tam said, scooping up handfuls of water to hurriedly scrub the rest of the road dust off him. “And so are you.”

“Yes,” Kel said firmly. “But that’s beside the point. Is it in your best interest to refuse to answer the questions?”

Tam seethed. “What am I supposed to do? I’ve always done what I want, and look where it’s gotten me. Humbled, trying to get myself out of the rut—I’m already doing my personal growth—”

“I’m sure you are, but are you doing it to escape the bad feelings, or to pursue pleasure and self-satisfaction?”

“At this point, I don’t think I’ve earned those,” Tam snapped, and froze at the look of triumph in Kel’s eyes.

Kel snapped his fingers and pointed at him again. “There it is. There it is.”

“Fuck you,” he said to Kel the next day as the stableboy ran off to bring out Piggy.

“Nice to meet you too,” Kel said pleasantly. “Good luck with Lyford. Where are you from, anyway?”

Tam waved down the road. “That way.”

“What’s the name of the town, I meant.”

“I don’t know that it has a name,” Tam said, squinting into the morning light. “We’re the biggest village in the manor, so.”

“So what’s the name of that ?” Kel said impatiently.

Tam puzzled at him. “What are you talking about? Lyford Manor, obviously.”

Kel gave him a very tired look. “How is that obvious? You never mentioned that he was related to landed gentry. You mentioned his dick—many times—”

“The only thing worth mentioning about him.”

“Liar, you mentioned many other things as well. And yet you don’t care to mention his family? You? Favored of Angarat?”

“Ugh. Yes, he’s the lord of the manor, so what— ”

“So what ? Brassu’s fucking balls.”

“It’s not important, it’s just another reason for him to be a huge ass and a major obstacle in my life.”

Kel sighed. “You’re stupid.”

“Wow! Wow! Well, your god can suck a thousand dicks, Kelavigo!”

“You’re favored of Angarat,” Kel continued wearily. “You’re in an entanglement with the lord of the local manor , who is also favored of Angarat. He’s got what is allegedly the world’s most beautiful cock and you’re addicted to it. And for some fucking stupid reason, you haven’t gotten over yourself to settle down and be domestic with him according to the philosophies of your goddess, even though it’d mean a cushy, cozy little country life until you die , where you never have to worry about a roof over your head or food on your plate—” Kel raised his hands in surrender. “No, I’m done. I’m done here. Lyford Manor, you said? Two days ride away? I’m going to go flirt with him.”

Tam ground his teeth. “Fine. I don’t care. Fine. Do it. See how that goes for you.”

“Great. Would you like to make a wager about it?” Kel said silkily. “I bet he won’t fuck me.”

“I hate you. It was not nice to meet you.”

“He’s favored of Angarat, and he knows it better than you do. I bet he’ll invite me in, and feed me, and offer me all the hospitality of his house, and talk to me about philosophy and faith, and when I ask if he’d like to go to bed, he’s going to say no thanks.”

“He’s never said no thanks to me,” Tam said loftily, taking Piggy’s reins from the stableboy. “Except one time. Then he changed his mind when he saw the enormous girthy marrow that I grew. Horny bastard.”

“Nevertheless, he’s going to say no thanks to me, because he’s in love with you, and because as one of the favored of Angarat, he knows what his best interests are and how to choose accordingly. Shame there isn’t a god of being stupid, otherwise Angarat might have some competition for who gets to claim you. Do you want to take the wager? Do you think he’ll fuck me?”

“I,” Tam said breathlessly, in the midst of wrangling himself up onto Piggy, “am not going to participate in this conversation anymore, and I hope I never see you again.”

Kel stepped forward and gave Piggy a solid pat on his neck as Tam finally got himself settled and wriggled around in the saddle until he was comfortable and mostly off his bruises. “Well, blessings of Idunet on you both, for what it’s worth. Look out for yourself.”

I want to get in bed now, Tam had said the night before, and Kel had said, Alright. Do it.

I want to blow the lamp out, Tam had said. And Kel: Fine with me.

And then, lying in the dark and listening to Kel’s soft breathing across the bed, he’d whispered, Will anyone ever love me?

Probably Lyford does. Otherwise he wouldn’t keep giving you his dick every week, Kel had said, far more pragmatically than Tam had been looking for. Probably other people do as well. But if you want to be loved, really loved, first you have to be you . And when that’s what you’re struggling with, suddenly Idunet’s the only one who’s really there for you, eh?

Tam had been silent for another long, long time, and then whispered, his voice breaking, I guess you’ll say no if I want to be held.

Kel had turned towards him with a sigh and muttered, So, crying on my shoulder about Lyford it is. Come on, then. And he’d moved across the bed and bundled Tam against his chest (Idunet’s eyes, he’d smelled so fucking good, how could a person smell that good, even Lyford didn’t smell that good, and he was rich enough to afford perfume) and held him close, and said, Why do you think I’d say no ?

You’re not getting anything out of it, Tam had whispered, trying not to sniffle.

Well, compassion is its own reward. My lord is the most compassionate of all the gods, when you think about it. Even Angarat can’t touch him for compassion. He’s the only one who actually cares about everyone , even the assholes and the monsters and the murderers. He’s the only one who always gives you another chance, no matter how many times you fuck it up. He’s the only one who really cares that people are happy.

Motherfucking Kel.