Step 2: The Exchanging of Rings
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"Well?" Alasdair asks as he steps a ponderous circle in the narrow slice of space between his bed and wardrobe. "Be honest with me. Exactly how stupid do I look?"
The outfit the prince had commissioned from his tailor is a rich man's idea of casual attire: a snowy white shirt with billowing sleeves shaped more for effect than practicality; a waistcoat that looks on first glance to be a plain, serviceable bottle green, but on closer inspection proves to be embellished with profuse embroidered foliage around the buttonholes and hem; and smart brown breeches tucked into long leather boots of a similar hue which have heels far higher than any Dylan has ever seen his brother wear before.
Nevertheless, each piece has been carefully cut to emphasise those aspects of Alasdair's frame that are already most striking, and their colouring complements his own. The only unflattering thing about the entire ensemble is the morose expression Alasdair has donned along with it.
That, and the cravat, which appears to be tight enough to serve as a garrotte behind, and resembles nothing better than a heavily used handkerchief in front.
"You look fine," Dylan tells him. "Except... I don't think you've tied the cravat quite right."
"I'm not bloody surprised. I haven't the faintest fucking idea how it's supposed to be done." Alasdair's frown deepens, and he plucks irritably at the crumpled spill of fabric at his throat. "Maybe it would be best if I just took it off and didn't bother with it at all."
"No, don't," Dylan says quickly. The addition of the neckpiece in Miss Labelle's package, was, he's certain, indicative of the level of formality that will be expected at the so-called 'relaxed' meal the prince has invited Alasdair to attend with his family. To do without would likely put his brother at a disadvantage, and leave him open to accusations of being underdressed for the occasion. "I'm sure we'll be able to find something in one of Da's books that'll help us fix it."
Whilst Dylan does eventually manage to unearth a slim and dog-eared tome of etiquette from their father's collection that offers a step-by-step pictorial guide to the tying of cravats, the process is still laborious and frustrating, and results in Alasdair nursing more than one neck wound caused by an ill-judged placement of the tie pin he had been provided with.
"I think that's as good as we're going to be able to get," Alasdair says, easing Dylan's hands aside as he reaches up to try, for the fourth time, to rearrange the position of that pin so that it doesn't immediately get swallowed up by the cravat's folds and its gold- and diamond-tipped head is thus put on proper display. "I'm late enough as it is. If I don't hurry and catch Francis' coachman at the end of the street, he'll probably drive the barouche right up to our sodding front door again."
"He's sending a carriage for you?" Dylan asks, surprised. He wouldn't have thought his brother would have countenanced such a thing, nor, given the regularity and vociferousness with which he has shared his opinion on the subject, that the prince would consider it a kindness.
"Aye. I doubt I'd be able to walk too far in these things," Alasdair says, gesturing with evident disgust towards his boots. "I don't know what he was... Surely he doesn't think I'm too short, too?"
He shakes his head, clearly baffled, and after one last, smoothing pass of his hands down his waistcoat, picks up his new overcoat and takes a step towards the door.
His second is hesitant, his third aborted and his forward momentum redirected into a swift about turn to face Dylan once more.
"I should be back around midnight, all being well. Apparently, we're going to be playing cards after dinner," he says, in the tone of someone who has fallen into the clutches of their sworn enemy and is now finds themselves peering down the barrel of a gun.
"Oh, I'd presumed you'd be staying the night at the palace, in your old quarters."
"My 'old quarters' are in Francis' chambers, which was all well and good when I was his guard, but now we're courting..." Alasdair's arched eyebrows and acutely curled top lip suggest that his sense of propriety has been offended by the very suggestion. "It'd give entirely the wrong impression. It's a bit early days for... for that sort of thing, don't you think?"
There is a hint of a plea to his voice, as though he's imploring Dylan to reassure him that his actions could be seen as proper in addition to suiting his inclinations.
Traditionally, couples are encouraged not to start exploring whether or not they are compatible inside the bedroom as well as outside it until the eighth month of their courtship at the very earliest. Despite his determination to cleave to the institution's conventions otherwise, Dylan is becoming increasingly concerned that that particular one may prove too onerous to observe himself.
His brother, conversely, could well wish it postponed until betrothal or even marriage, as would be expected were they living in the prince's homeland instead.
"Of course," he says soothingly. "You're quite right."
Alasdair's answering smile is bright but fleeting. "Okay," he says, drawing himself up tall like a man preparing to do battle. "I'll be off, then. Wish me luck; I imagine I'll need as much of it as I can get."
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Even at eight o'clock in the evening, the Bard's Hall is as busy as an anthill.
Stonemasons and builders scurry along the scaffolding that rings its crumbling walls, joiners and carpenters stand in ankle-deep drifts of sawdust on the now deeply wheel-rutted lawn as they saw planks and carve balusters, and a seemingly endless procession of wagons trundles along the narrow pathway that leads up to the old building.
Together they make such a cacophony that Llewellyn doesn't answer Dylan's knocking at his door for a good five minutes, and only then after Dylan has thrown his manners aside and added a few kicks to the wood for good measure.
His skin tinged a sickly shade of grey; his eyes glazed and dull. He looks exhausted.
"Sorry," he says. "It's difficult to hear anything inside over all this din."
As Michael had made the most uncharacteristic decision to go and visit one of his friends after dinner, Dylan had been left with nothing but his thoughts for company, and in that solitude, there had been nothing to check them from becoming ever more anxious and obsessive. When he found himself contemplating for at least the tenth time in the course of an hour what exactly Alasdair might be doing at that precise moment and thereafter all the many and varied ways the subsequently imagined occupation might go wrong, it was clear that he wouldn't get a minute's peace if he remained at the apothecary.
He had hoped that Llewellyn might invite him inside for tea and conversation, solely to enable him to escape the confines of his own head for a spell, but that desire now seems fully as selfish as it does impossible.
"How would you like to get away from it all for a while?" he asks. "Perhaps we could go for a walk?"
"That would be lovely," Llewellyn says, sounding so grateful that Dylan's feelings of guilt intensify in consequence. "Though it will have to be a short one, I'm afraid. The last time I was away from the Hall for more than a couple of hours, I came back and found that half of my furniture had been thrown out onto the street! His Highness seems determined that I will have featherbeds and... and solid gold chairs, no matter how much I might object!"
They talk very little as they make a slow, meandering circuit around Old Town's walls, as Llewellyn appears to relish the chance to be quiet. His presence – the warmth of his hand in Dylan's – is absorbing enough, however, that it's almost impossible for Dylan to think of anything but him.
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This lightness of mind is doomed to be fleeting, as Dylan's return to the apothecary is followed not ten minutes later by Alasdair, who bursts in through the back door like the very hounds and wolves of the hells are at his heels.
He crosses the kitchen in three long, heavy strides, ripping the cravat from around his neck and casting it to the floor as he goes, and then begins rifling through the cupboard at the base of their dresser.
"Aly," Dylan says hesitantly, "are you—"
"It was crap, Dyl," Alasdair snarls. "I'll tell you exactly how crap it was later, but right now, I need a drink."
"I... I don't think we have anything. You finished off the whisky a couple of weeks ago, remember? And we threw the last of the strawberry and blackcurrant wine out into the yard. I don't think my verbena will ever recover."
Alasdair's back sags, and he leans forward to rest his forehead against the side of the dresser. "Right," he says with what sounds to be extreme reluctance. "It'll have to be the Antler then, I guess."
In the days following his departure from the prince's service, Alasdair has scarcely spent more than a handful of minutes out of doors, save for his patrols. He has claimed to be too busy to spare time for anything save for his recent woodworking project, but Dylan has suspected throughout that some of the blame for this reclusion can be placed at their neighbours' doors.
Many of them have family who work at the palace, and the prince has apparently made no secret of his courtship. That particular morsel of gossip reached Old Town not long after Alasdair himself did, and has been chewed over at the Antler ever since.
"Are you sure?" Dylan asks. "You're still the favourite topic of conversation there, I'm sorry to say."
Alasdair nods decisively. "It's better than being sober," he says.
-
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"You'll be wanting wine, I suppose," Richard says with a smirk when Alasdair approaches the bar.
Alasdair shakes his head vigorously. "I've had more than my fill of wine for today, Dick. I'll have a pint of your finest horse piss, thank you."
He downs that first glass before Richard has even finished counting out his change, and then slides the coins back to him in exchange for two more, which he and Dylan take to the secluded table that Angus usually occupies when he is not – Alasdair explains as they walk – taking on double shifts for reasons that he is as yet disinclined to share even with his partner.
"Before you ask," Alasdair says as they settle themselves down in their seats, "Francis and I haven't fallen out or anything, so you can stop worrying about that for a start."
Truthfully, Dylan hadn't had chance to so much as wonder what might have caused Alasdair's black mood, given they'd practically sprinted all the way from the apothecary, but he thanks his brother, regardless, then asks, "What did happen, Aly?"
"Prince Lovino decided he should let me know that he believes Francis would do better courting a fucking horse than me," Alasdair says, scowling. "Not that he said anything outright – Francis wouldn't have stood for that – but he kept making all these sly little remarks about 'good breeding' and 'royal blood', and rolling his bloody eyes every time I picked up the wrong fork or passed the serving dish to the wrong side.
"The first moment he managed to catch me on my own he flat out told me that he thinks I'm just after Francis for his money, and that, if he is foolish enough to ever marry me, it'd be a 'irrevocable blemish on the proud Bonnefoy name', and I..." His colour rises. "And I told him that my great-grandfather was the cousin of the last king of Northern Britannia, so maybe Francis wasn't noble enough to be marrying me, given that there were nothing but wine merchants, sailors and mercenaries in the Vargas family tree not more than four centuries back."
He laughs quietly at himself, then takes a deep gulp of his beer before continuing with: "Gods above, I never imagined I'd be desperate enough to play a card that fucking ridiculous. Anyway, that gave him pause for all of about five seconds before he started in on critiquing the way I was holding my brandy glass or some such nonsense. Supercilious arse. By that point, it was plain that I was either going to have to leave or one of us would end up pulling their sword on the other. After I told him that, even Francis agreed that it was best that I go, so..." He shrugs. "Here I am."
"Do you think he'll make trouble between you and Francis?" Dylan asks.
"I reckon he'll try," Alasdair says. "I doubt Francis will pay him much heed, though. He did ask if I wanted him to send his cousins packing off back to Roma, but I know he likes having them there, so I guess I'll just have to learn to ignore Lovino. Plenty of people have in-laws they can't stand, and yet they still manage to avoid duelling to the death well enough, right?"
"They do," Dylan concedes. "But most of them don't have in-laws that could have them executed for treason if the fancy ever struck them, either."
Alasdair chuckles. "Well, I suppose that is one of the downsides to courting a prince."
"So it's true, then?" a voice rings out from behind them, startling Dylan, but not, it seems, his brother, who simply takes another sip of his pint. "You are courting the governor?"
To Dylan's astonishment, he discovers when he turns around in his seat that they have drawn a small crowd, three or four deep.
"Aye," Alasdair says placidly.
"And he knows that courtship isn't just a fancy word for a quick roll in the hay with the help?" asks Samuel Cooper, one of the Antler's hostlers; a sinewy little man with skin the texture of a badly aged walnut.
"He does." Though Alasdair's voice is still perfectly level, the muscle which has begun to twitch beneath his left eye suggests that he's uncomfortable with this line of questioning.
Dylan gives his brother's forearm a comforting squeeze, and then says, "I don't—"
"If he does," Cooper barrels implacably on, "how come he's not given you a ring? It's been close on a week since it was all decided, or so I've heard."
Alasdair's right eye starts twitching, too, but his hands are remarkably steady as he reaches up to unfasten the button at his collar. "He has, but I could hardly wear it on my finger in my line of work, could I? It'd get smashed to pieces before the week was out," he says, pulling a thin silver chain out from under his shirt. "I'll have to wear it round my neck. See?"
Cooper squints at it for no more than a second or two before he sneers and says, "Don't look like much. I would have thought he'd have sprung for gold, at the very least, if he's as dedicated as you seem to want us to believe."
"I thought gold was only for engagement and wedding rings." Alasdair's brow furrows in an exaggerated fashion that Dylan recognises as merely a sham of confusion. "He wanted to buy me one anyway, but I told him that wood was traditional for courtship. I guess I was wrong."
He knows very well that he isn't, as does Cooper, judging by the embarrassed flush of his cheeks. He opens his mouth as if to make a rebuttal even so, but eventually snaps it shut and slinks back to the safety of the crowd once more.
Catherine Phillips soon steps forward to take his place, though her interest seems strictly professional, her carpenter's eye fixed on the ring itself with only a speck of attention left to spare for the man wearing it. "Nice piece of work," she says approvingly. "Do you mind if I take a closer look, Aly?"
Alasdair quickly unclasps the necklace and passes it to her. "Knock yourself out."
Phillips crouches down beside their table, the ring cradled delicately in the palm of her hand, and Dylan takes the opportunity to look at it more closely himself as she studies it.
Alasdair had sweated and cursed for three full evenings in a row, paring down a small chunk of oak – not to mention several layers of his own skin – inch by meticulous inch until something that vaguely resembled a ring finally emerged from the wood. Having borne witness to the great care and attention that had been poured into its creation despite Alasdair's complete lack of aptitude at the task, Dylan had been loath to disparage his efforts in any way.
In his heart of hearts, though, he had acknowledged and accepted it was an ugly little thing, more oval than circular, and ragged around the edges despite the diligent and continued application of sandpaper.
And, Alasdair himself admitted, doubtless not fit to grace the hand of a prince, but he had been adamant that this was one custom of courtship that was not negotiable.
'Francis would buy me some great gaudy thing worth more than all the houses on Ashfield Street combined if he could,' he'd said. 'But what could I give him in return? It's better if we're both just stuck wearing bits of wood, if you ask me. He won't be able to contrive a way to spend more on it than he ought, then.'
The ring Francis has given Alasdair, however, is as beautiful as any 'bit of wood' could be, to Dylan's eye. It's a warm, creamy colour, perfectly round and polished to such a fine lustre that it shines almost as brightly as a jewel.
"And he carved this himself, did he?" Phillips asks, raising one eyebrow sceptically. "That's the traditional way, too, you know."
"He got some fancy Eastgate jeweller to give him some lessons first," Alasdair says. "But, aye, he did."
"It's not bad for an amateur. Not bad, at all." Phillips looks impressed. "And it's nice wood. Juniper, though not from one of our native trees. He must have had this ordered in specially from somewhere on the continent. Gallia, most likely. That must have cost him a pretty packet, too."
The smile that had been slowly building on Alasdair's lips collapses in an instant. "Oh, for fuck's sake," he growls, crossing his arms over his chest as he slumps down sullenly in his seat. "I should have known he'd find some way wriggle out of getting me something cheap for once."