We are not in love. Let never be said that we are in love, nor that I have any warm feelings for you or you for me. I am poor and you are rich. I am the servant and you are the king. You pay me for what I do, and I do what I am paid for. There is nothing more to it than that.

…..

My Dear Brother,

I trust that this letter finds you well and that you are competent and satisfied with your schooling. Remember what I said to you: listen, and you will understand. I recollect that in your last letter you said you were lonely. I too wish that we did not have to be separated in this way, but it is for the greater good, and it is far better that you stay safe at home while I am here. The city is full of dangers and people eager to corrupt a boy such as you; I could not in all conscience have brought you with me.

Rest assured that I have not forgotten your birthday is approaching. I will find you a gift to bring light in the eternal winter. The midnight sun and midday moon – how I miss them. We have nothing of the sort here. Every day seems so short, so curtailed by the nightly fall of the darkness. It is enough to send a man mad, or drive him into the depths of misery.

Enclosed you will find the money for the next two terms' schooling and a little more for yourself, to supplement what they feed you. I hope that it is enough, for you were so pitifully thin the last time I saw you. I would send more, but you know well that restraint and moderation are vital parts of a man's character. You may spend frivolously what you earn yourself.

Weather continues very fine here.

Your affectionate brother,

Lukas

Lukas felt a tired smile rise to his lips as he folded the letter over and sealed it. Weather continues very fine here. It was an old coded phrase he and his brother would exchange in their letters. It meant that there was nothing wrong, that they were fine in their present situations. How he missed his brother, his Emil. More than anything, he wished that they could live together as they had in childhood. But things had changed as first their father then their mother had died. Robbed of parents and prospects, Lukas had taken sole charge of Emil and was determined to see that his brother turned out well, even at the expense of his own happiness or success. He would see Emil through a full education, regardless of the cost – both in money and in other, less tangible things – to himself.

He had come down from the remote Norwegian north three years before, when he had been sixteen years old and Emil half his age. Being what was euphemistically called a 'delicate' boy, he had little to offer the farms and dockyards where he sought work and gradually worked his way all the way down the country in pursuit of money for the brother he had left in a boarding school. He found the occasional few days of casual labour: a week mending fishing nets, a week bringing in the harvest, three days picking stones out of the fields… It was never enough for more than a mouthful of bread and a few sips of cheap alcohol, certainly not enough to pay for Emil to stay at school. So he had crossed the narrow sea that split Norway and Denmark and had gone to seek his fortune – or at least a reliable income – in Copenhagen.

Having carefully addressed the letter in his spare, neat script, he put it aside and stood up from his desk, stretching sleepily as he did so. His chair was cushioned and its softness had a strangely anaesthetising effect on him; he was unused to such opulence. All his childhood, he had sat on the hard wooden benches of the schoolroom, on the rocks strewn around the mountains, on the perpetually cold flagstones of the small house his family had shared. It had been a hard life in the far north, and one that those who lived it expected to be short, and he had become as slight and resilient as all the people there who carved out lives on the mountains or in the violent sea. He felt spoilt and useless in his new room, upholstered in the rich colours of a cathedral window, where even the walls were adorned with fabric and all corners were scrolled and rounded and plastered with superfluous gilding. There was nothing to represent his predilection for coldness, for silence free from the rustling of silk that whispered of wealth, for the plainness of a little wooden house that stood on its own.

He blinked slowly a few times, trying to clear the fog of exhaustion that hung over him, the sense of spiritual emptiness he always seemed to feel. Now was the worst time for him to be tired, for it was now, in the thickening night, that his work began. Wearily, he picked up his embroidered coat from where it lay thrown across the bed that was far too large for him alone. He longed for the days of the narrow mattress with Emil squeezed in beside him and wished that he was there now, watching the milky midsummer night through the window and whispering stories of the things that lived, half-real, in the shadows into his brother's fascinated ear. With distaste, he noticed that his shirt from the previous day was lying on the floor and bent to pick it up. Little things like that had been happening to him more and more recently; the servants signalling through their negligence what they thought of his occupation. He tossed the garment onto the bed with a sigh and went out, letting the door shut heavily behind him.

Lukas's footsteps echoed against the high walls and ceilings of the palace, hollowed and magnified by the emptiness of the corridors. He moved with purpose, though his freedom was curtailed by the tight coat and breeches that fashion dictated and the brutally tight stock that forced his chin up into a parody of dignity. The clothes were like a suit of armour, and every careless movement would cause the embroidery-crusted layers of fabric to dig into him. The skin of his face felt dried out and tight beneath the layer of white paint, his eyelids loaded and heavy with shading. It was what was expected of him. He was expected to exist at the intersection of man and woman, and to possess qualities of both: a woman's passivity and pliability and a man's stoicism and resilience, but also a woman's petty capriciousness and a man's quick-witted assertiveness. It was exhausting to maintain such a façade, but there was little else he could do, and it was only the knowledge that Emil relied on his money that sustained him.

He soon reached his destination, a small chamber from which soft music emanated, a honey-like hum of strings and the endless, pounding bass of the harpsichord. He slipped inside, noting as always the plump Classical figures painted on the ceiling, captured in a playful game of chase across a generic backdrop of clouds and sun-tinted blue sky. Pursuit, he reflected. Rarely was it so happy or so easy for those involved. He was the favourite of the young king Mathias, lifted out of his penury as a valet to a minor nobleman. He knew that he should be happy with his newfound wealth and status, but could not bring himself to be so. In his previous job, he had woken before dawn every morning to prepare everything for his master, endured insults and the occasional physical assault when the man was drunk or displeased and collapsed into bed each night with only three or four hours until he would have to wake again and begin working straight away. It had been a punishing and degrading routine, but in a strange way he found himself missing it. There was honour in honest work, and he had always felt that he had truly earned the pittance he was paid. He could not say the same for his current situation.

There were only a few people in the room, sitting in chairs arranged in semicircle around a group of six musicians – chamber music indeed. Mathias was in the middle, watching with an air of concentration, albeit concentration on other things. He had gone from being a flightly, dissolute young man to a monarch, and the responsibilities, the constant need to please the court and people, weighed heavily on him. The chair beside him was empty, for the place to the right of the king always belonged to Lukas. Lukas took up position and Mathias turned to him.

"And how is my love tonight?" he asked with an affectionate smile, stroking the back of Lukas's hand with his thumb.

Lukas stiffened. There was no love involved, none. Why did the talk always have to be of love?

"Well as always, my lord." he replied, fixing his gaze on a tapestry behind the harpsichordist. It was ugly, older than most of the things in the room. Its basic medieval pictures, near stick-figures, seemed unrefined compared to the painted ceiling and the elegant workmanship of the instruments themselves.

"What do you say of the music?" Mathias asked him, making no attempt to lower his voice. The small orchestra played on, steadfastly ignoring the disturbance.

Lukas shrugged. It was all one to him, the sequence of chords, the gliding of the bows over the strings, the nasal hum of the oboes. He felt a certain vague envy towards the violinists, having always wanted to learn but never having had the chance at home. Emil was learning the flute, hundreds of miles away, without him.

"Very good, as always." he replied emotionlessly. Tonight, more than any other night, he wanted desperately to be alone. His particular position in the court embarrassed him, and although his relationship with the king meant that no one could openly show him disrespect, he knew that between the other courtiers the two of them were objects of ridicule.

Mathias laughed. "Always 'as always'," he said. "Does nothing change in your world?"

"Many things have changed. Countless things, of a magnitude I would not in my childhood have believed possible." Lukas replied seriously, thinking of Emil and of their separation. Emil did not know the true nature of his work, and it was Lukas's intention that he never would.

"Understandable, I suppose," Mathias said thoughtfully. "Few children know that such people as us exist." he continued, leaning forward as if the music had captured his attention, though Lukas knew that it was simply his attitude of thought. He did not know how or when he had come to know him so intimately. How could he truly know someone who paid him for his company, someone for whom he felt nothing? Nothing, he reminded himself. The nature of the game was to keep the advantage, and here the advantage was emotional detachment. He had it, and he would not give it up easily or willingly.

"Such people as you." he corrected, taking a moment's pleasure from the fact that he was able to speak to the king as he liked. Sometimes he would taunt him, revelling in the power he possessed. Pitiful, he knew, but it was a source of satisfaction to him to sound the depths of the king's devotion.

"How would you describe yourself, then?" Mathias countered.

"You are the lover," Lukas said. "And I am the one who is loved. My own feelings are immaterial, for I am merely a vessel for yours."

Mathias sighed and began to twist the buttons on his waistcoat, another of his little gestures that Lukas knew to mean frustration and confusion.

"I wish I could understand you," he said, his voice containing none of its usual levity. "But you seem so veiled to me. Can you not speak plainly?"

"There are a hundred other boys desperate for your attention," Lukas said shortly. "All of whom, I am sure, will be more than willing to do as you ask."

"I don't want them!" Mathias protested childishly. "I only want you!"

"You have me," Lukas replied. "And I am beholden to you, so you need not concern yourself with pleasing me."

Mathias turned away from him and closed his eyes, letting the music wash over him. It continued, ceaseless, an unbroken melodic chain that filled the gap between pieces with improvisation. Lukas waited for a moment or two, wondering if Mathias's childish desire for attention would put an end to his sulk, then, when it did not, stood up and flitted out. He sighed as he realised he would not be paid tonight, then retraced his steps back to his room where the candle still stood burning on his desk and his letter to Emil lay there, waiting to be sent.