Bane went about his day mechanically, Talia's words ringing in his ears. He felt as if she had spoken to him in some code; he could not piece together her phrasing in any way that made sense.
As he trained in the armsyard, grunting with the weight of a massive polearm that taxed even his might, he returned again to the concept of manservant, the most perplexing part of all this madness. He had squires, two of them, good lads who stood at the edge of the yard even now. He wore little armor in battle- he was a commander of men, not a mere brawler, and when he killed it was swift and sure and brutal- and he made no pretense at luxury. He took his meals in the common hall, at the high table (though here in Bruce's palace he was seated near the end); he kept a simple billet that needed only occasional dusting by the palace maids; and no man now living was foolish enough to make an attempt on his life while he slept.
Only one solution presented itself: she intended for him to humiliate Blake, perhaps to beat him or otherwise punish him.
Had it been any other enemy of his, Bane would have rejoiced at this. He and Talia were kindred souls, fierce creatures who played with what they caught. Bane was no man to mete punishment for months and years, preferring the brief glimpse of hope and the painful death to Lord al-Ghul's spider-plots of self-destruction and torment, and he had presumed that Talia felt the same. She had, after all, dispatched her husband swiftly and cruelly, with poisoned wine rather than years of manipulation.
Perhaps he had been wrong.
None of this reverie prepared him for what he found when he opened his door that night, sated on bread and ale and exhausted from a day of training his men.
Armor hid a great deal about a man, and without his armor, Sir Blake was slim and lissome, a man of words and mind rather than arms and steel. True, John of the Robin had not been knighted for his prowess on the field, but rather for his abilities in tactics and intrigue; but this tried Bane's soul, looking down at this black-eyed lad with his well-groomed hair and imagining how best to injure him.
Blake could have been one of his own lads, the orphans and thieves of Lord al-Ghul's lands, fed and trained and raised into dangerous, dedicated militia. It took away Bane's stomach for violence.
Which left him wondering what, exactly, one was supposed to do with a manservant. Was there something about dressing? Did he fold laundry and make beds? "What in the gods' name are you here for, Sir Blake?"
"I confess," said Blake, eyes searching the floor, "that I do not yet understand my duties." Gods, he sounded insolent, angry as any boy Bane had ever trained. "I have been told to watch for your safety while you sleep, but I'm also informed that I may carry no weapon as long as I am in your service, which- according to your lady- may be a very long time indeed. So I suppose one of my duties involves blunting the blade of any man fool enough to attack you by burying it in my heart."
"Right," said Bane after a moment's pause, staring at Blake in amusement. "Help me get my boots off."
"As you like," muttered Blake, going to one knee, and Bane sighed and cuffed him in the head.
"Address me correctly, John, or things will go poorly for you here."
"As you like, Sir Bane," shot back Blake, having recovered his balance, and while Bane worked his left foot free Blake stripped his right one.
While Blake set to polishing Bane's boots (perhaps there were some good things about this arrangement), Bane shucked off his vest and trews, only stopping at his breechclout when he head a faint sound behind him. He turned to find Blake staring blank-faced at his boots, polishing as though his life depended upon it, white as a sheet.
"Gods, boy, rest easy. I may strike you, but I'll not mount you like a mare." It was a joke, but now Blake's ears flamed red, and Bane wondered exactly what rumors about him had spread.
No help for it. A man made enemies; a man who slew his enemies made tales. And a man who slept in his breechclout awoke in a sweat. He stripped the last cloth from his body, pointedly ignoring Blake's flared nostrils and shaking hands, and stretched out on his large cot.
"I don't care what kind of watch you keep," he said as an afterthought. "But keep it quiet, lad, and if you take a dagger to the heart for me you'd best not bloody the place up while I sleep."
"I'm not singing you lullabies," snarled Blake, and he let the boots drop with a ringing thud as he stood to snuff the lamp.
John knew better than to spite Bane immediately by making noise, but he could not prevent himself tossing and turning. He had half expected to be dead by now, or beaten bloody and left to groan on the floor as a sort of night-music for his new master. Instead he lay here on a bedroll near the brazier, listening to the metallic rasp of Bane's breathing and struggling not to recall to his mind the horrifying majesty of Bane's naked body.
He was immense, and beautiful in his dreadful way; the muscles of his back rose and fell as he worked his arms out of that enormous leather breastplate, half-turning in John's mind's eye to reveal the thickness of his neck and the power of his thighs. And the- and the rest of it, the coarse hair of his groin and the shaft that nestled in it, the muscular curve of his buttocks-
John felt a stab of guilt as he wrenched his mind away, forcing himself back to painful thoughts of his lost king. Bruce's shoulders had been mighty as well, his mouth wry and curling, his eyes kind and sad; there should be no room in John's heart for this barbaric interloper, this loyal servant of the realm's greatest foe.
But Bane had not butchered John's king. And for all John's strengths, he was a man afflicted with strange desires, and it seemed that even now- with his hopeless love dead and in the grave- he was not to be free of his lusts.
Beyond him, in the dark, Bane turned onto his side, and the movement of his enormous arms filled John's ears with the unbearable sounds of skin against skin. A moment later, he raised a hand to scratch around the edge of the mask, which he had not removed even to sleep- John had wondered about that. There was a deep yawn, and then a guttural moan of comfort that set John gritting his teeth and struggling not to respond physically.
This would be a long night, and many long nights awaited. John buried his hands in his bedroll to keep them from wandering, and resigned himself to a sleepless, miserable night.