"Four silvers a day?" Dylan repeats for the third time.
And for the third time, Alasdair says, "That's right."
"And all you have to do is follow him around, wearing a sword?"
"Well, I guess if someone tries to stab him, I'll probably have to fight them."
Dylan's brow wrinkles in consternation. "Is that likely?"
"Shouldn't think so, but there's always an outside possibility of it, I suppose."
"Is it any more likely to happen than when you're on one of your usual patrols?"
"Naw," Alasdair says, though with more confidence than he can truly claim to feel.
The prince's life might not be in immediate danger right now, as far as he knows, but there's no way of telling what unpleasantness they might stir up during the course of their investigations. As such unpleasantness remains purely speculative for the time being, however, Alasdair is loath to plant the seed of it in his brother's mind. Dylan will worry about him enough as it is; he really doesn't need the added burden of hypotheticals.
"It seems too good to be true, almost." Dylan gives a shaky laugh. "And you say you'll get room and board, as well?"
"Aye."
"In the prince's chambers?" Dylan says, handling the words as carefully as if they're made from blown glass.
"In my own separate room in his chambers. He doesn't expect me to curl up at the foot of his bed like a fucking guard dog."
Dylan's face is like an open book to Alasdair – one that consists mostly of pictures and small words in large print – so when his cheeks tint and his lips purse, his thoughts couldn't be clearer if he'd spoken them aloud.
"He doesn't expect me in his bed, either. Gods' sake, you know I'd never have agreed to that, and I can't believe you'd even consider it."
"I haven't," Dylan assures him hastily, "but what I'm concerned about is that other people certainly will. "
"There's not a great deal I can do about that, is there? " Alasdair shrugs. "Half of them have already decided that we're bedding together simply because he gave me a ride home in his carriage, and they'd no doubt keep on thinking that even if I never so much as looked him again for the rest of my life. I can't win on that score, either way, so I might as well choose the path that has almost sixty silvers at the end of it, regardless."
Dylan regards him shrewdly for a moment, and then says, "There's more to this job than just the money, isn't there? You wouldn't be so blasé about that sort of gossip, if not. Is it something to do with your investigation into the poisonings?
Alasdair hates lying to his brother, and withholding information only marginally less, but, for the prince's sake, he has no other choice. "It is, but I can't tell you exactly what. Sorry, Dyl."
"I understand," Dylan says with a tight smile. "Promise me you'll be careful, though, Aly? It's bad enough normally, having to wait until the end of your shift to know you'll be coming home in one piece. Two weeks is going to be more than a little nerve-wracking for me."
Alasdair only just manages to check the roll of his eyes. In some ways, it's heartening that his brother is always so concerned for his welfare, but, on the other hand, the heights his anxiety can reach are oftentimes slightly trying for Alasdair's own nerves.
"I'm going to be a couple of miles down the road, not at the other side of the world. I'm sure the prince will give me time off at some point so I can come and show you I'm still alive, and, even if he doesn't, you can ask Luise, because she ordered me to send her progress reports every day when I checked in at the guardhouse. Like you said, I'm probably just going to be following him around – and bored out of my mind, most likely – watching him do whatever it is he fills his days with. I'll be fine, Dyl."
Although Dylan contemplates his ragged fingernails for a while, which suggests he isn't especially reassured, he does eventually laugh and say, "And near sixty silvers richer. What are you planning to spend it on?"
It's hardly an enthusiastic endorsement for his plans, but it is acceptance, and Alasdair smiles at his brother gratefully for giving it. His captain wouldn't have been able to sway him from the course of action he'd decided on, even if she had protested it, but if Dylan really had found the idea impossible to stomach, Alasdair's not entirely sure he could have been as resolute as he needs to be.
"I'm going too buy some new boots for Mikey. So long as he doesn't perish from his cold as he keeps telling me he will, anyway. And then I thought you could use some to get yourself a new coat."
Dylan looks horrified. "I couldn't take that much, Aly. You need new trousers far more than I need a new coat. Most of them are no better than rags."
"I have one good pair. You don't have one good coat. Yours is full of holes."
"At least people can't see my arse through them," Dylan says, a mite snippily, as he gets up from the table and heads towards the kettle and its promise of much-needed fortification for the inevitable conversation ahead. "Which is more than I can say for those trousers you insist you can't possibly throw out."
Alasdair's smile grows even broader, because he can already tell exactly how this argument will go.
It'll last them all the way through dinner and beyond, and will doubtless culminate in them resolving to buy neither coat nor trousers, but that the remaining money should be added to the small stash that Alasdair keeps in a tin beneath his bed. A tin which they'll raid come Yuletide so they can gift each other with trousers and coat respectively, and both feel righteously gratified that they managed to avoid indulging themselves.
It's comforting, he thinks, to have someone he knows so well, and who knows him so well in return. He's going to miss his brother, even if they are only going to be separated for a fortnight.
-
-
The prince, Alasdair is informed at the front door of the palace, is at work in his study.
Alasdair nods, and waits, and nods some more, until the servant who had ushered him inside seemingly grows tired of watching his head bob, and informs him in a slightly exasperated tone, "He said that you already know your way and wouldn't need to be escorted there, sir."
It's yet another unexpected gesture of trust, to be allowed to wander unaccompanied around a palace filled to the brim with all manner of objects of great value and small enough size that they could easily be slipped into a waiting pocket, and one that Alasdair honours by not straying too far off the beaten track as he makes his way up to the prince's bedchambers, even though he still hasn't formed as clear a picture of the palace's geography as he'd like.
When he raps on the chambers' outer door, he is greeted by the prince's voice, rather than the man himself, urging him to, "Please, come in."
His lack of attention gifts Alasdair with an equal opportunity to explore the chambers more thoroughly that he'd been given the chance to earlier that day, but that feels like far too much of a liberty compared to poking his nose down an empty corridor or two, so he squelches his curiosity and lets himself into the prince's study, instead.
The prince is sitting at his desk, pen in hand, and apparently so engrossed in his writing that he can't spare the time to even look up from it to offer Alasdair any sort of welcome.
"My apologies, Corporal," he says when he pauses to dip his pen in the inkwell set close to his right hand, "I had meant to finish this letter long before you arrived."
"That's all right, sir," Alasdair says. "I'm a bit early, as it is. I've no problem with waiting."
Deciding on exactly where he should be waiting, though, does prove to be a problem.
Given their new situation, Alasdair feels as though he should probably station himself at the prince's back or else close to his side, but he doesn't want the prince to think that he's trying to peek over his shoulder (nor does he want to be tempted into doing so). Conversely, seating himself on the short leather sofa at the other end of the room seems not only unprofessional, it would leave him at a distinct disadvantage if someone were to burst in through the study door with the intention of abducting the prince and spiriting him off to some previously spurned revelry.
He settles for the compromise of standing slightly to one side of the desk but several paces behind: far enough away that he can't resolve the prince's looping handwriting into anything meaningful, but still close at hand in case he is needed to tackle any intruders.
The prince scribbles away at his letter for a minute or so longer, but then lays his pen aside with a low groan and starts scrubbing at his eyes with the knuckles of both hands. "I hadn't anticipated this would be so difficult," he says. "But then I've never had much occasion to give thanks to my father before, and it turns out the words don't come as easily as they should."
"Why do you need to thank him?" Alasdair asks, as he can't think of a single thing that he'd heard in the king's letter that could possibly inspire any gratitude in anyone.
The prince chuckles wryly. "For his compliment, of course. He called my governing 'tolerable', Corporal. Some of the highest praise he's ever offered me, and for work I received absolutely no training in, at that."
Alasdair's never given any thought to what the prince might have done with himself if he hadn't had the governorship thrust upon him, but guesses that it stands to reason that he, and his family, had some other purpose in mind for him before the events in Germania caused his life to swerve onto an entirely different track.
"What were you trained for, sir?"
"Oh, well, I wasn't really trained for anything, I suppose," the prince says, sounding surprised to have been asked the question. "No-one ever imagined that I'd inherit my father's throne, and Maman's estate will go to Madeline, as it's passed down through the female line. All that was expected of me was that I'd marry well some day, and then sire as many children as required in due course. I didn't..."
As he turns in his chair to face Alasdair, the prince's words fade away into a silent gawping that makes Alasdair feel at first uncomfortably laid bare, and then, as it persists long beyond that initial burst of acute shame, increasingly annoyed.
"What is it?" he snaps.
"It's..." The prince's gaze narrows, drifts upwards, and then fixes itself on Alasdair's chest. He pats his own and asks, "What are you wearing, Corporal?"
Alasdair looks down, puzzled, but sees nothing sufficiently unusual to warrant the naked incredulity in the prince's voice. Just his coat – which is a trifle shabby, but he's worn clothes in a worse condition in front of the prince before and he's never seen fit to remark upon them – and, "A jumper, sir. Don't you have them in Gallia?"
The prince moves his head, but in such a vague way that Alasdair can't tell if he's meaning to nod or shake it. "I've just never seen one with such... an unusual pattern before. Where did you get it?"
"My wee cousin made it for me," Alasdair says. Prompted by the prince's interest, he examines the jumper more closely than he ever has done before. Personally, he can't actually discern any particular pattern to its random assortment of colours, nor to the collection of lumps and bumps scattered across it, which he'd taken for mistakes made in the knitting rather than a design of any sort. "My aunt and uncle own a sheep farm a couple of miles from here, and they give him yarn enough that he always knits me and my brothers a little something for our birthdays and so on. I have gloves and a scarf to match, too."
After a fashion, anyway. Really, the only thing that brings the three together as an ensemble is the fact that they're all made out of wool.
"That's... very kind of him," the prince says, his eyelids fluttering closed. "And I'm sure they all have... great sentimental value, but do you think you could perhaps do without them for tonight? They don't exactly match the aesthetic I'm going to be aiming for with my personal guard."
"An aesthetic's not going to keep me from catching my death of cold, is it?" Alasdair says, wondering why in the many hells the man had asked him to bring his own warm clothes if he was so fussy about their appearance. "And besides, what does it matter what I look like if I'm just sitting outside in the dark, staring at a tree?"
"You're not going there straight away, Corporal. You can bring them with you, if you like, but I'm supposed to paying a visit to Lord Mason's estate tonight, so you have to be dressed accordingly."
Alasdair's heart sinks. He hadn't even entertained possibility that he might have to start the actual guarding part of their arrangement quite yet, and he feels woefully unprepared for it now. He doesn't suppose that his dealings with the prince have in any way qualified him for interacting with the rest of the nobility, who are, in his experience, generally a lot less willing to forgive slips of the tongue and forgotten courtesies.
"Who's Lord Mason, sir?" he asks gloomily.
"To me? A convenient excuse for late night excursions," the prince says, smiling. "To the rest of my family, well, they suspect he's been my lover for the past two months, at least. A flattering assumption for him, I'm sure, so I'm confident he wouldn't gainsay such rumours were they ever to reach his ears."
"So, you'll visit this Lord Mason for the night whilst I go on to the tree?"
"No, we're going to..." The prince opens his eyes a crack, and regards Alasdair speculatively. "Can you ride, Corporal?"
"Naw, closest I've ever got to it is when my aunt plonked me on a donkey when I was a wean, and even then I managed to fall off as soon it started walking. I've never felt the need to try again."
The prince inclines his head in acknowledgement, and after a moment's thought – during which time, Alasdair imagines, he makes some hurried adjustments to his plans – he says, "I would usually ride to Lord Mason's, but I think, as it's so clear out, I wouldn't arouse too many suspicions if I decided I would prefer to walk there, instead.
"But, ultimately, I won't be doing anything other than accompanying you, Corporal. It's going to be a long night, and I wouldn't want you to face it alone."
-
-
When they finally slog to the top of the steep, rocky slope, the prince stops, paces a circle with his lamp held out at arm's length in front of him, and then says, "I think this will be perfect."
Alasdair only just manages to suppress the urge to throw himself at the prince's feet in gratitude.
He's always thought himself to be a moderately fit and healthy man, because he must walk at least ten miles near every day on his patrols and he never tires from them. But, then again, he patrols on largely level, cobbled streets, and doesn't have to fight his way through brambles and mud, ford streams, or match the honestly quite gruelling pace of a man wearing boots with far better grips than his own.
They can't have travelled more than three miles, but he's winded, his legs are aching, and his heart is thumping so hard that he thinks the prince must be able to count every one of its rapid beats, even though he's standing several feet away.
If he can, it inspires absolutely no pity in him, because he doesn't give Alasdair time enough to catch his breath before practically demanding that he unpack the bag they brought with them and lay out one of the blankets it carries in front of a nearby stone wall.
"You could put your jumper on again now, as well," he adds, sounding very pleased with himself and his munificence .
Alasdair places the blanket as directed, but leaves jumper, scarf and gloves exactly where they are. He's clammy with sweat from the crown of his head down to the soles of his feet, and the mere thought of piling on yet more layers of clothing makes his skin start to crawl in horror.
The prince wanders over to inspect his preparations, and though he professes to be satisfied with them, he still doesn't seem very keen to seat himself.
"Perhaps we should have brought those cushions, after all," Alasdair says commiseratingly, because the blanket isn't thick enough to have smoothed out the lumps and bumps of the uneven ground beneath it, and the prospect of having them jab against his tailbone for hours on end is no more appealing for him than it appears to be for the prince.
"Lovino was suspicious enough when he spotted our bag," the prince says. "He would have been beside himself if we were toting cushions, as well. We'll just have to make do, Corporal."
With that, he hands Alasdair the lamp and then drops to sit cross-legged, his back propped against the wall. He leans a little to the left and then a little to the right, raises his shoulders and then lowers them, scowling all the while. "I doubt I'm ever going to get comfortable," he says irritably. "It's astounding how quickly one gets unused to such things. When I was in the army, I could have dropped off to sleep in a place like this without a breath of trouble, but not even two years on, I find myself wishing that we could have somehow contrived to bring a mattress with us, never mind cushions, just to sit here for a few hours."
"I thought Legates always got their own personal tent," Alasdair says, hunkering down to mirror the prince's position at the opposite side of the blanket.
"They do, and, even, on occasion, ones with maps." The prince chuckles softly. "When you're on the march, though, there's often neither the time nor the opportunity to set up camp, so you simply have to lay your bedroll down in the flattest place you can find and make do."
His voice has a strangely wistful quality to it that Alasdair would never have expected to hear, given the circumstances of the prince's military service, and it spurs him to ask, "Do you miss it, sir?"
"Well, not that particular aspect, as I'm very fond of my home comforts, but there are people I miss, and I enjoyed having a clear order to my days far more than I ever thought I would. However, I am..." The prince inhales sharply through his nose, holds the breath for a time, and then releases it, long and slow. "I must admit that, in some ways, I'm quite glad things worked out the way they did. I spent so much of my time terrified for my life that I'm not certain that my nerves could have held out for another year if it was anything like that first." His head droops slightly. "You can understand now why I'm not often called brave."
"My sister says that she's near shitting herself at the start of every battle, and she'd be the last person I'd ever call a coward," Alasdair says. "Being terrified when you're facing people determined to kill you is a pretty natural reaction, I reckon; it's what you do afterwards that decides whether you're brave or not. Were those stories they used to publish about you in the periodicals true?"
"It very much depends on which ones you're referring to."
"Did you ride at the head of your Legion whenever they engaged the enemy?" The prince shakes his head. "Defend one of your injured Centurions against ten Germanics hells-bent on finishing off, armed with nothing more than a tree branch?" And again, with more vigour. "Walk the field after every battle so you could personally count the fallen?"
The prince's back stiffens, and he gives a tight little nod. "My father insisted on it. He told me that I owed it to them, because, as their commander, their lives had been in my hands and so each one of their deaths was my sole responsibility. I think he hoped it would make me strive to do better, but it almost drove me to despair."
Alasdair can't imagine it having any other effect, because, frankly, it sounds like complete bollocks. War is chaotic, and a commander would have to be fucking prescient as well as a tactical genius to bring all of their soldiers through it unscathed.
The King of Gallia might well be regarded as one of the finest generals the Empire has ever seen, but even he has never, to Alasdair's knowledge, fought a battle in which there was not a single casualty.
It seems more like an act of deliberate cruelty than a teaching aid, but from what the prince has told him about the man, he's inclined to believe that the former had been his intention, in any case.
"Sorry to say so, sir, but your father sounds like a complete bastard."
"Don't be sorry, Corporal," the prince says, laughing dryly. "I've thought far worse of him, in my time. I give him the deference he's due as my king, of course, but I don't respect him as a father, or as a man."
"Weren't you ever tempted to just tell him to fuck off ?" Alasdair asks. He struggles to obey Sergeant Lewis' commands nine times out of ten, and the man's just an arse with an inflated sense of his own importance, and not someone who sounds as though they could well be a true sadist. "I know I would have been."
"All the time," the prince admits. "But he's a powerful man, with many corrective tools at his disposal, and I always had the threat of his disowning me hanging over my head if they proved themselves ineffective. Madeline and Alfred both came of age during my service in Germania, and I knew that he would turn his sights to them if he ever decided to wash his hands of me entirely. So, I endured."
That's an impulse Alasdair is far more familiar with, as he'd like to think he'd endure for his own siblings' sake if he were ever put in the same position. "See, you are brave," he says. "I suspect there are many who wouldn't be able to do that, even if they might wish they could."
The prince stares down at his hands, folded together primly in his lap, and makes no reply for several moments.
"What is it about you that makes me rattle on like this, Corporal?" he says eventually, sounding equal parts annoyed and bewildered. "It must seem as though I think of little else but my father, and pitying myself for his treatment of me. Truthfully, it used to be rare that I would care to remember him, at all, and I would speak of him even less. But then, with you, I find that I..." He laughs again, but this time it sounds slightly embarrassed. "Ah, enough of this. Even I'm getting tired of listening to me. We should talk about other things."
"Or we should perhaps not talk at all, sir," Alasdair says, only belatedly remembering with the prince's words that they're not sitting in a field in the middle of the night simply because they'd fancied a change in scenery for one of their conversations. "I imagine we might scare the Seeker off if they do happen to pop by and overhear us babbling away up here."
The prince's face darkens considerably with a blush. "Yes," he says, quickly dowsing the lamp's flame, "you're right, of course."
Thankfully, the skies are still clear enough that when Alasdair's eyes have adjusted to the sudden change in light, he can see the tree the prince had pointed out at the foot of the hill quite distinctly: an inky black smudge that stands stark against the washed-out grey landscape that surrounds it.
"I'll take first watch," the prince suggests, in what Alasdair imagines to be an act of contrition. "Why don't you see if you can manage to catch a nap for an hour or so."
-
-
Although the only words that have passed between Alasdair and the prince for the past two hours were a whispered request to hand over the binoculars once it became time for Alasdair's watch to begin, it would come as no surprise if the Seeker had been startled into hiding by the din they're making, regardless.
Even though the prince has drawn his knees to his chest, and tucked their second blanket up around his chin, he can't seem to stop shivering. The persistent rustle of his clothing sounds as loud as a gale wind whipping through a tree's branches in the otherwise silent night; the click, click, click of his chattering teeth as sharp as gunshots.
"You can have my gloves if you like, sir," whispers Alasdair, who had noted that the prince's own gloves, while clearly well-made, were roughly the same thickness as paper. "They're still in the bag."
"I wouldn't want to deprive you," the prince says, although, to Alasdair's ears, it sounds more akin to, 'My very flesh would peel itself away from my bones in revulsion if I ever deigned to place such things on my hands'.
"Take them," Alasdair insists, forcing his tone to stay hushed and mild, despite the prince's inopportune display of prissiness testing his patience. "I don't really feel the cold much."
"Even so, surely you'd be all the more comfortable wearing them?"
"I know you think they're ugly, but –"
"I never said anything of the sort," the prince says, his evident offence at the accusation causing his words to ring out more stridently than he'd likely intended.
"You didn't need to, sir." His reaction upon being shown them had been along the same lines as when viewing the jumper, only yet more pronounced, and it had led Alasdair to the realisation that, in retrospect, he'd obviously been horrified by that, too. "Look, it's so dark you won't even be able to see them yourself, and I promise I won't breathe a word of it to anyone. You can pretend it never happened come morning. Please, take them."
It's still too great a risk for him to take, apparently, because the prince says, "I can't, Corporal," as firmly as his shiver-hitched voice will allow. "Whatever you say now, you might find yourself wanting them at some point."
-
-
Ten minutes later, the prince retrieves not only Alasdair's gloves but also his scarf from the bag, and dons both without even a second's hesitation.
-
-
Ten minutes after that, the prince's shaking hasn't subsided, and it's since been joined by a loud, repeated sniffing and the occasional cough which betrays a nose and throat gone almost numb with cold.
Alasdair lays the binoculars down again with a sigh. "You can move closer to me, sir," he says. "I've been told I throw out heat like a furnace, so it should help you warm back up quickly enough."
All of the prince's extraneous motion stops in an instant. Alasdair can see nothing of the man beyond a vague silhouette, but he can nevertheless recognise that his spine has gone rigid by the way that shadow elongates and flattens out.
"I would have thought... I assumed you wouldn't be comfortable with that."
"Most do, I suppose, after I tell them how things are with me," Alasdair says, shrugging. "But I'm not averse to being touched. Just so long as it's all platonic, anyway."
That does not appear to serve as sufficient reassurance to the prince, as he makes no move to close the gap between the two of them. His breathing speeds up and grows yet harsher, and for a while, it's the only thing Alasdair can hear.
"Corporal," he spits out finally, "I haven't been entirely truthful with you."
Alasdair would be much more shocked to discover that wasn't the case. "In what way?" he asks resignedly.
The prince coughs again, more roughly than before, but even that doesn't seem to dislodge his words properly, because they come out stiff and halting. "If, um, if you weren't who you are, I would definitely be tempted to, um, pursue you romantically."
"If I wasn't who I am?" Alasdair says, grinning; amused by the delicate ambiguity of the phrasing, which, he suspects, was carefully chosen with his sensitivities in mind. "You mean if I was a lord rather than a guard, and interested in romance, besides? I had already guessed as much, sir."
"You had?"
"I might be slow about such things, but I'm not completely stupid, and you're hardly subtle about the amount of staring you do."
"My apologies, Corporal; I'm afraid I seldom realise when I do start staring," the prince says, sounding thoroughly abashed. "I'm not surprised that it happens more regularly than I'm aware of, though. You are often a very arresting sight."
It's an observation Alasdair would prefer not to be expounded upon, for his own embarrassment's sake, so he quickly remarks, "It's all moot, anyway, because I am me. And, more than that, you're you, and, well, you were very insistent that you're not the type to run after commoners. I trust that you're not going to try any pursuing, sir."
It's not much to give in exchange for being entrusted with the man's most dangerous secrets and the run of his palace, but as Alasdair is still not fully convinced that it's the truth of the matter, it feels like a pretty big leap of faith, all the same.
The prince certainly sounds as though he believes a great honour has been bestowed upon him. "Thank you, Corporal," he says, very gravely.
He shuffles over to Alasdair's side with a great deal of caution, as though expecting his offer to be revoked at any instant, and halts as soon as their shoulders brush together.
It's the only point of contact along the entire length of their bodies, and Alasdair can scarcely feel it anyhow through the thick fabric of his own coat. The prince is so quiet, too, that he could almost persuade himself that the man wasn't there, save for the fact that he can smell him.
Except it isn't the prince's scent – whatever that may be; the man wears so many different fragrances, day by day, that there's none in particular that Alasdair associates with him – but Alasdair's own, rising up from his scarf where it's wrapped tight around the prince's neck.
It's an odd thought, and Alasdair's unsure what to make of it, so he sets it to one side and picks up the binoculars again, instead.
-
-
Despite having purportedly lost the ability, the prince nods off almost immediately after his watch ends. Alasdair worries that his light snores are merely a ruse designed to excuse future encroachments into his personal space, but as time wears on and the prince doesn't lean against him more heavily or edge any closer, that seems increasingly unlikely.
He pushes the suspicion to the back of his mind, then casts around for something else to occupy it.
First, he mentally counts up to a thousand and then down to one, in the trade tongue and then Gallian. He tries to do the same in Old Brittonic, but as Da never got the chance to properly teach them how to construct numbers beyond a hundred, and it's the most unintuitive language Alasdair's ever encountered, the attempt eventually grinds to a frustrated halt.
Afterwards, he lists the Northern Brittonic kings and queens from Llewellyn the first to Llewellyn the last, then the monarchs of Hispania, Lusitania, and Gallia. He names herbs and their properties, rocks and their component parts, animal and plant phyla, and all the constellations from east to west.
It's not exactly an interesting way of passing the time, but it's definitely more absorbing than staring blankly at a tree, and it keeps his thoughts ticking over at a sufficient clip that he can stave off sleep for a little while longer.
When pale golden light starts to spill over the horizon, he sets the binoculars aside for what he hopes is the last time, rubs at his gritty eyes with the heels of his palms, and then gingerly nudges the prince with his elbow.
The snoring continues unabated.
Alasdair nudges a little harder, hisses 'Sir', says 'Sir', and finally bellows 'Sir' down the man's earhole.
The prince's nose twitches slightly, and he waves a languid hand towards Alasdair whilst muttering, "Une minute."
Alasdair gives him at least cinq minutes as he runs through his normal limbering routine of stretches and then straightens his clothes, but still the man doesn't rouse himself to a brisk shaking of his shoulder afterwards. Even splashing his face with a little of the water from their canteen only causes him to curl his body into an even tighter ball and pull the blanket up over his head.
Running short on ideas of how to proceed, Alasdair takes a moment to collect his thoughts and then ventures, "I'm going to take a look round the tree. If you're not up and about by the time I've finished, I guess I'll have to carry you back to the palace. And Gabs wasn't exaggerating; it'd be a bumpy ride.
"Or I might just leave you here. Of course, then you'll have to explain to M. Jansen and your family why you're keeping me as a guard even though I managed to misplace you on my first night on the job, but, well, I'm sure you'll think of something, sir."
This last ditch warning is answered only by a vague grumbling noise that might actually be nothing more than a particularly forceful snore. Alasdair abruptly tires of the whole enterprise, and thus doesn't wait for a more coherent reply before setting off down to the tree.
As he nears it, the ground flattens out but becomes even rougher underfoot; the earth churned by countless overlapping foot- and hoofprints that would mark it out, Alasdair suspects, as the focus of the prince's morning rides to anyone that might already have become suspicious of them.
There are so many, in fact, that Alasdair can neither separate one from another nor discern if any in particular is more recent than the rest. If the Seeker had managed to sneak past them in the darkness, their passage would be effectively disguised, in any case.
The tree itself holds no answers, either. It's a stunted wee thing which appears to have been struck by lightning at some point in its history judging by the cracked and blackened bark on its westward side.
The cracks coalesce to form a deep hole at Alasdair's shoulder height, almost as wide around as his head and with edges so regular that they almost look as if they've been sanded smooth. Apart from a thin layer of dust and a couple of conkers that were likely secreted there by an enterprising squirrel, it's completely empty. Yet another dead end.
Alasdair turns his back on the tree in disgust and then stomps back up the hill, fully expecting to meet with yet more disappointment when he reaches its summit.
The prince has stirred himself sufficiently to sit upright and thus confound Alasdair's low expectations, however, but as he still has the blanket wrapped tight around his body, Alasdair's scarf hitched up over his nose, and his eyes are open only by the very narrowest of margins, it's not change enough that he can claim himself to be shocked by it.
"I thought you intended to abandon me," the prince says as Alasdair draws near, his voice whetted sharp with petulance.
"I threatened to abandon you," Alasdair says with a broad, feigned smile, wilfully ignoring his tone, "which isn't the same thing at all."
The prince yanks the scarf down hard from his face, revealing lips contorted into an angry snarl that seems to forewarn of complaints about his impudence to come. But, although the man's nostrils flare, and his breathing quickens, all that emerges when he finally opens his mouth is a rough, pained-sounding groan.
He arches his back afterwards, to the accompaniment of a series of dull pops and crackles as his joints resettle, and then says, "I feel like... Well, like someone who has slept extremely poorly in a field. No doubt I look much the same, too."
His subsequent smile appears more self-deprecating than self-pitying, and therefore Alasdair feels no compunction against voicing his agreement.
This is the third morning that he's seen the prince before he's performed whatever miracles he usually works to transform himself into his daytime state of gleaming perfection, and the third morning he has resembled a person who's never been introduced to the concept of either a brush or a mirror. His hair is a frowzy tangle again, his skin is sallow, and the bags beneath his eyes are almost as capacious as the duffel they'd toted their supplies in.
Alasdair can't say that it's an appearance that suits him any better than the other, but somehow he prefers it, all the same. Perhaps because it humanises him more than deliberate attempts at finding common ground between the two extremes of their positions might, because there can be no suspicion of any subterfuge. Despite his clear advantages in fortune and taste, underneath them is a man who wakes in exactly the same sort of dishevelled condition as Alasdair does himself.
"Ah, if I don't watch myself carefully, your flattery will go to my head one of these days, Corporal," the prince says, bending stiffly at his waist in a mockery of a courtly bow.
He slides the blanket from his shoulders and then pushes himself up to his feet, all in one remarkably fluid movement. In the light of day, and laid in contrast to his smart navy overcoat and well-shined boots, Alasdair's scarf and gloves seem all the more ridiculously incongruous on him. The gloves especially, which are far too large for him; the fingertips dangling limply several inches beyond the prince's own.
Alasdair inclines his head towards them. "I'm guessing you're finished with them now," he says. "Shall I chuck them in the bag with everything else?"
"No," the prince says quickly, his hands curling in on themselves in a strangely protective-looking gesture. "No, I'd like to keep them for the time being, if you don't mind. At least until I've thawed out a little."
"You can wear them for as long as you like, sir." Alasdair shrugs. "I've no need of them myself. My walk to the tree warmed me up well enough."
"Did you find anything interesting there?" the prince asks.
"Naw, but then I wasn't expecting to, either. I didn't see any sign of your Seeker during my last watch, or anyone else."
"Well, though I had wished otherwise, I can't say it's much of a surprise," the prince says with a sigh. "The Seeker's last three letters arriving in such quick succession was an aberration from their usual pattern. The four previous to that came at roughly fortnightly intervals. They might not visit here again for quite some time."
"Is that why you wanted me to work for you for two weeks, sir?" Alasdair asks, a horrified chill washing over him. "So we could sit out here every night for the duration, waiting for the Seeker to make a reappearance?"
The prince's aghast expression answers that question even before he puts words to his reply. "Of course not, Corporal. As you pointed out yourself, it's doubtful this is the weak point in the letters' chain. It was a long shot, and one I don't think our time would be served well by repeating.
"If there was a way of knowing if someone had seen the Horton letter before I retrieved it myself, then that might be of use to us, but it's too late for that now."
"Maybe not, sir," says Alasdair, who had spared a moment to ponder this exact scenario in-between his endless internal recitations of lists. "We could always mock up a second letter, leave it in the tree, and you can check whether it's been taken or not when you ride out here of a morning."
The prince looks intrigued by the idea for less than a fraction of an instant before he frowns and says, "Whilst that might prove that the drop point has been compromised, it won't help us discover who might have done so, will it?"
"Maybe, maybe not," Alasdair says. "If we put the address as somewhere within easy distance of the apothecary, I can tell Dyl and Mikey to keep an eye on it and let me know if any suspicious characters start sniffing about."
The prince's frown deepens. "I'm not sure I like that idea, Corporal," he says. "I hope you understand that I don't intend this as a slight against your brothers, but I really do think it would be safer if you didn't share our work with them."
Alasdair had foreseen exactly that response, and prepared his reply accordingly. "You trust me, don't you?" he asks.
"Of course," the prince says without hesitation.
"And I trust my brothers even more so. I've no intention of letting them know the specifics, just that it'll help my investigation if they do this for me, and if I ask them not to tell a soul about it, they won't. I promise you, sir."
The prince contemplates this for a moment, and then nods curtly. "There's a pen and paper in the bag," he says, "and the Seeker's handwriting would be easy enough to forge, I think. You can write and inform your brothers of your plan as soon as we return to the palace."
-
-
On their return to the palace, however, Alasdair scarcely has chance to divest himself of his jumper, never mind put pen to paper, before M. Jansen comes knocking at the outer door to the prince's chambers, alerting him to the arrival of the morning's post.
The prince 'une minute's him, too, which stalls the secretary for just long enough for Alasdair to wash his face and hands, and brush the worst of the mud from his trousers.
The prince had used his stolen time much more effectively, it seems, for when he emerges from his bedroom, he is not only clad in an entirely fresh outfit of pale trousers, waistcoat and shirt, but has worked some kind of cosmetic miracle which has smoothed out his blotchy complexion and left his hair straight and shining once more.
He gives a couple of very pointed sniffs when Alasdair moves up beside him, and then produces a lacy handkerchief from one sleeve to press against his nose. "You smell like you spent the night in a field, Corporal," he says with a haughty air.
His eyes are warm and bright with amusement, which blunts the insult's sting, and Alasdair supposes he deserves it in retaliation for his own hillside remark upon the prince's appearance, anyway.
"I shall endeavour to stand downwind, sir," he says, and then steps forward to open the door onto the hallway for the prince.
Outside, M. Jansen is standing to attention only a few feet away, and he greets the prince coolly and efficiently, ignores Alasdair's existence yet again, then sets off at a quickstep march towards his office.
The prince keeps pace with him with ostensible ease, but Alasdair drops further and further behind the two of them, because he doesn't even have the dubious benefit of whatever meagre reserves of stamina a couple of hours of unsettled napping might have given him.
The muscles in his legs are still sore from their three mile hike back to the palace, and, proper personal guarding be damned, when he eventually does straggle into M. Jansen's office, he would have gladly accepted the use of a chair as the prince had suggested yesterday. The offer is not repeated, though, and he has to settle for a surreptitious leaning of his weight against a nearby bookcase as the secretary takes up his pile of correspondence.
His perception might be distorted by exhaustion, but Alasdair could swear that the reading takes much longer than the other one had. There certainly seem to be twice as many begging invitations as before, and he has to wonder how the hells the good denizens of East- and Highgate ever get anything productive done with their lives, given that they would appear to spend the vast majority of them either attending or hosting parties and balls.
The prince declines all but two of them: the first of which purports to be a charitable occasion to raise funds for the 'poor orphans of Old Town', and the second is thrown by Lord Mason, which he loudly claims will be the 'event of the season' and Alasdair silently presumes is a necessary engagement in order to maintain the fiction of their close relationship.
Once all the post has been attended to, and the prince's subsequent turn about the gardens completed, Alasdair also presumes the prince will retire to his chambers as he had the previous day, and thus they'll both be able to catch up on some much needed sleep.
Unfortunately, it transpires that the previous day must have been a particularly light one on the prince's calendar, because from the gardens they retire instead to the rose drawing room to meet with one of the aldermen from the Devan town council, who has a whole host of lengthy and tedious complaints – largely centred around the deplorable state of the Old Town sewage system – to share with the prince, and thence to a poky little room below stairs to discuss linen and lamp oil and coal supplies with the butler.
Alasdair's head is pounding with the sort of headache that's more unbearable pressure than pain and dims his vision around its edges in black waves, and it distracts him so thoroughly from his body's other demands that it comes as an honest surprise when his stomach starts growling in protest at its continued state of emptiness.
Shamefully, its vociferous enough that both the prince and the butler take note of it. The butler shoots him a chastising glare – likely meant to remind him that, as a servant, he should really try harder to prevent his involuntary digestive functions from intruding into the realm of his betters – but the prince looks at him with naked concern in his gaze.
"Forgive me, Corporal," he says in an undertone, "I'd forgotten that you haven't had chance to eat yet. Go through into the kitchen" – he waves a hand towards a door at the back of the room – "and tell one of the cooks that I sent you for your breakfast. I'm sure they'll be able to rustle up something suitable in moments."
Alasdair bows to him gratefully, and to the butler – whose glare has become even more censorious – rather less so, and then happily takes his leave of them.
The very instant he pokes his nose inside the kitchen a stooped and grey-haired old cook with a face like a wizened apple and a smile like sunshine bustles over to him and folds one of her thin arms around his.
"We've been expecting you," she says as she tugs him towards the long, rough-hewn table set in the middle of the room. "Though rather earlier than this, I must admit. Near eleven o'clock and you've not been fed?" She sucks in air through her clenched teeth. "It's a disgrace! You must be starving, poor thing."
She urges him to sit down on one of the low stools that line one side of the table, gruffly commands a passing scullery boy to fix 'a plate of meat and bread for the poor guard', and then starts filleting some enormous, flat and bug-eyed fish right next to him, all the while keeping up a constant grumbling tirade against the thoughtlessness of the nobility.
Perhaps Alasdair had been wrong, after all, and there really is an uprising brewing below stairs that the prince should be concerning himself with.
The scullery boy swiftly returns with a wooden plate piled high with thick slices of beef, gammon, and bread smothered with rich yellow butter. Alasdair thanks him for it, but the boy just grunts at him sullenly, doubtless resentful of his presence there, adding work to what is obviously an already busy part of the day.
The kitchen is teeming with busy life; scullery boys and girls and cooks rushing to clear away the debris of the royals' breakfast and begin the preparations for their lunch. It seems to be a well-orchestrated dance, and they twist and turn and swerve around each other as they move from sink to table to huge, fire-belching stoves, their paths crossing often but somehow never meeting even though they all appear preoccupied with their own concerns instead of each other.
Even though the food that had been thrust in front of him both looks and smells delicious, it turns to little better than sawdust in Alasdair's dry mouth. He's loath to distract anyone from their work for long enough to inquire where he might find a glass, though, never mind ask if they could fetch a drink for him.
He forces down some bread and the most tender portions of the meat before his both his will and energy abruptly run out. He slides the plate away, crosses his arms on the tabletop, and then pillows his head against them.
He had only meant to rest his eyes for a while, but the kitchen's soporific warmth proves impossible to resist, quickly lulling him into a light doze.
He's roused an indeterminable span of time later by the soft brush of fingers against the back of his neck, and the prince's voice, which is even softer yet, by his ear. "Our morning's tasks are done at last," he says. "I think our beds are long overdue, don't you?"
-
-
Alasdair had been a little alarmed by the bed in his new quarters when he finally sunk down onto it. The mattress was so soft and yielding that it almost felt as though it was trying to devour him whole, and he'd been concerned that he'd never dare rest in it for fear of being smothered.
He had, however, passed out mid-worry, and slept so deeply and soundly that when the prince taps politely at his closed door to invite him to have his dinner in the sitting room, he awakes feeling more refreshed than he usually would even in his own home.
As the prince had insinuated earlier, his smart shirt and trousers are both a little on the ripe side, so Alasdair has no choice but to dress in the spares that he'd brought back from his last visit to the apothecary. The prince will probably have a good moan and groan about how threadbare they are, but ultimately he'll just have to like it or lump it, because they're all Alasdair has.
He had expected the prince would eat his evening meal with his family, but instead, a small, round table has been laid with two place simple place settings in the sitting room: a spoon and fork flanking plain white bowls, with a glass half-full of red wine beside each.
The prince is already seated there, and he gestures for Alasdair to take the chair opposite his own. "You must have made a excellent impression on the head cook," he says, "because she insisted on preparing a dish for us in your honour. She tells me it's a Devan speciality."
The bowls are filled with a thick brown broth, crowded with chunks of potato, carrot, and beef, and plump white dumplings. "I wouldn't call it a speciality," Alasdair says as he sits down. "We do eat a lot of it, though. My ma always said that even the finest food in Roma surely couldn't compete with a good beef stew."
And it's a very good stew indeed; so rich and piquant that Alasdair has shovelled a good half of it down his throat before he thinks to concern himself about his table manners and that he might look like a complete pig to the prince.
That thought, once acknowledged, is difficult to shake loose, and eventually becomes sufficiently overwhelming that he has to put down his spoon and glance warily across the table, to gauge how contemptuous the prince looks and thus how embarrassed he should be.
The prince isn't sneering, but he isn't eating, either. His eyes are fixed unwaveringly on Alasdair, a faint smile curving his lips.
"Sir," Alasdair says slowly, "I'm guessing that this is one of those occasions you mentioned where you don't realise you're staring."
The prince blinks at him rapidly, and then turns his head aside. "I'm sorry, Corporal," he says. "My mind was elsewhere."
Alasdair's stomach churns uneasily. "Where exactly?"
"Oh, nowhere sinister," the prince says, and then immediately undoes his attempt at reassurance by adding, "Well, I don't think it's sinister. You might believe otherwise. We'll see which of us is right as soon as we've finished eating."
With that, he tucks into his previously untouched stew with great gusto. Alasdair's appetite, on the other hand, flees him entirely, and his only consolation is that his listless picking at his food delays the end of dinner – and whatever horror then awaits him – for a little while longer.
-
-
On first glance, the brown-paper-wrapped packages sitting on the prince's bed don't appear to be in the least bit horrifying, but Alasdair is suspicious of them all the same. Despite their unprepossessing appearance, the prince is so thrilled by them that he's practically vibrating out of his skin with barely-leashed excitement, which suggests that something of vast importance is concealed inside.
"It's your new uniform," the prince says, grinning at Alasdair. "It arrived from Mlle. Labelle just before I woke you. I thought we could unveil it together."
Not important at all, then, and Alasdair wasted the remains of his stew for no decent reason. He deflates slightly at that realisation, but his drooping shoulders and disgruntled expression do not put a dent in the prince's enthusiasm.
He tears into the largest of the five parcels like a small child on Yuletide morning, scraps of paper and string flying out fast in all directions around him. When the last tattered remnants are discarded, he carefully unfolds the garments revealed, and then makes a low sound of pleasure as he looks them over.
"See," he says, beckoning for Alasdair to come closer, "it's nothing dreadful."
To Alasdair's shock, he doesn't disagree with the prince's assessment. The short jacket and waistcoat are both plain, serviceable black, unadorned with nothing save their silver buttons, which are engraved with the sort of complicated knotwork Alasdair has seen decorating temples which were once dedicated to the old gods of Britannia.
They lull him into a false sense of security, and thus render him completely unprepared for the contents of the second largest parcel.
It's made from thick fabric patterned with alternating squares of dark green and Gallian blue, bisected centrally with a thin red thread, but, most important of all, it's: "A skirt."
"A kilt," the prince amends. "That isn't going to be an issue, is it, Corporal? I've seen a number of men in Deva clad in similar things, and I understand the Caledonians rarely wear anything but."
"Aye, they might well do, but I certainly don't," Alasdair says firmly. "I'm neither Caledonian nor do I have the legs for a skirt."
"I sincerely doubt that," the prince says, offering him an irritatingly blithe smile. "And, in any case, there should be..." He breaks off for a moment to rifle through the smallest package, and nods in satisfaction at what he discovers within. "Yes, such outfits always come with long hose, and if you pull them up as high as custom demands, there shouldn't be more than the tiniest sliver of your knees visible."
Outside of his immediate family and the guardhouse locker room, no-one's ever seen even that much of Alasdair's legs, so it doesn't really serve to put him at ease as the prince had doubtless intended.
"I'd still be more comfortable in trousers," he says. "Do you think Mlle. Labelle might run me up a pair? I don't mind if they're made of the same fabric."
It's more garish than anything he'd choose himself, but he's willing to compromise that far if the prince has his heart set on the tartan. As he's the one paying for the clothes, it seems only fair.
The prince heaves out a despondent sigh. "If you wish," he says, shaking his head. "I'll send word to Alaina first thing tomorrow."
He neatly refolds the jacket and waistcoat, but when he moves on to the kilt, the movement of his hands gradually slows to a halt. "Corporal," he says, in a small, rough voice, eyes still downcast. "Corporal, I really would like to see the uniform worn as Alaina envisioned it, just once. Do you think you could at least try it on? Please. For me."
He cocks his head towards Alasdair then, his lips still slightly parted on his last word, and for no real reason he can ascertain, Alasdair finds himself nodding.
-
-
The collar of the starched white shirt is so stiff that it feels as though it's intent on strangling Alasdair even before he fastens the bowtie around his neck, so he decides to forgo both tie and top button both.
The thin-soled shoes are also discarded in favour of his boots, as they're far too short for his feet and pinch his toes intolerably.
He hopes that his attention to the other fiddly little details of the outfit Mlle. Labelle inflicted upon him will appease the prince enough that he's willing to overlook these mild diversions from her 'vision'.
He's attached the useless little scraps of fabric to the garters which hold the hose up around the bottom of his knees; slipped the equally useless little knife behind one of them; donned waistcoat, jacket and sporran.
Nevertheless, he still feels practically naked as he makes the short walk between his own bedroom and the prince's. There seems to be a breeze blowing down the corridor that he'd never once noticed when his legs were snugly ensconced in trousers.
The prince's eyes widen fractionally as he rejoins him, but otherwise his face remains impassive. He holds one up one finger and twirls it around in the air, but when Alasdair compliantly spins on his heel, he laughs and says, "Plus lentement, s'il vous plaît."
Alasdair paces a slower circle, cheeks burning, and by the time they come back face to face again, the prince's brow is creased and he's covered his mouth with his hand.
"I look like a twat, don't I?" Alasdair's too flustered to modulate his tone, and the question snaps out harsher than he'd intended. "I can tell you're smirking under there."
"Not even close, Corporal. See?" The prince drops his hand to reveal a huge, fatuous grin. He shakes his head and sighs deeply. "You look absolutely exquisite, just as I thought you would. Which may cause us some problems tonight."
"Tonight?" The word fills Alasdair with far more dread than even his first sight of the kilt had. "How so? What's happening tonight?"
The prince blushes, too, and hurries off to pretend immediate absorption in admiring the Gallian roses in the vase by his bed. "Whilst you were changing," he says to the flowers, "M. Jansen paid a visit to remind me of an engagement that had completely slipped my mind during all the upset of the last few days.
"We're expected at a ball, Corporal, and, cutting the fine figure you do right now, you're bound to impress. I'm afraid you'll probably be fielding offers of alternative employment all night, as I'm sure most of the nobles in attendance will want to try and persuade you that you'd do far better as their personal guard than mine."
No, this is true dread. Alasdair shudders involuntarily. "If they promised I could do without the kilt, I might just take them up on it, sir," he says.