Broadswords - 11. The Letters

Broadswords

Chapter Eleven
The Letters

As he paced his room, Harmon imagined that the dragonslayer and squire must have reached their destination by now. It had been a full week since they'd made their departure. Though he himself had never made the journey, he'd discussed various travels made by some of the kingsmen that he felt closest to. He'd always enjoyed hearing their tales of adventure, and over time he'd pieced together that it typically took about seven days to reach Dorre.

He always had to be careful with the topic of the village. He couldn't let the king's guard know he was interested specifically with Dorre. Although he trusted several of them irrefutably, he knew that they also had a sworn duty to the king and there was no guarantee that they wouldn't share their concerns with him. And if they noticed his fascination with a specific place, they might figure out why.

Around eight years ago, when Harmon was seventeen, he had met a boy named Elsior. They had met within the castle, naturally, since Harmon was rarely allowed outside of its walls. He had been bored one day, and curious, and decided to wander down a series of hallways that he probably never had before. He knew them to be primarily used by the servants, and thus made sure to remain unseen. It wasn't forbidden for the royal family to utilize these corridors, of course; it was, after all, their castle.

At the same time, Harmon hated seeing the look of surprise cross their faces when the staff was caught off guard by a member of the family. They always looked taken aback, apologetic though they had done nothing wrong. They'd bow or curtsey, far lower than needed. He hated that he and his family were treated so impeccably all of the time. He sometimes wished that he was just a regular person. He assumed there were other princes and princess across the continents that felt the same exact way at times, but when the feeling hit him it seemed like nobody else would understand.

That's where Elsior came in. That day, when Harmon had been sneaking through the passages in the rear of the castle, he stumbled upon a small room past the kitchen. He had planned to duck past the entrance, remaining hidden, but he'd noticed a boy his age sitting on a stool within. It appeared that he had been peeling potatoes, based on the knife in his lap and the scraps of potato skins at his feet. However, at that moment, the boy was juggling three of the vegetables instead of performing that task. And juggling poorly.

Each of them fell to the floor in rapid succession, one rolling toward the entryway where it stopped a few inches in front of Harmon. When the boy noticed where it had landed and saw the prince there, Harmon expected him to follow the standard practice of bowing simply because of his presence. Especially considering this particular individual was clearly slacking off from his duties; in the rare instances Harmon had seen that from a member of the staff, they tended to go very overboard in showing their repentance.

Not this guy. He undoubtedly knew who Harmon was; everyone within the walls of the castle knew more about the royal family than they might have known about themselves. But he didn't act ashamed or like Harmon was anyone out of the ordinary. "Can you toss me that potato?"

Harmon had felt an odd feeling in his stomach in that moment. Initially, at the time, he had been perplexed by the sensation. As years went on, though, he realized it to have been approval. He was being treated just like anyone else, which is what he had wanted.

From that first meeting, Harmon often sought out the boy when he wanted to get away from the normal day's routines. He learned that they were the same age down to the exact same date of birth. Whether it was something preordained by the stars, that bond seemed to cement an immediate friendship between them.

Elsior was the same height as Harmon, but their similar stature was about the only physical commonality they shared. Elsior was gangly and pale, with shaggy brown hair and a faceful of freckles. He wasn't ugly, but wasn't quite handsome either. Regardless, Harmon had felt an attraction toward him.

In fact, after two years of knowing each other, Elsior finally did the thing that Harmon was scared out of his wits to do. He kissed him. It wasn't a quick, nervous peck. It was, like everything Elsior did, elaborate and unabashed.

They had been in Elsior's room, which was the easiest place for the two of them to spend time together without being disturbed. Even after all that time, their interactions were a complete secret. None of the other servants knew, and certainly none of the royal family or kingsmen knew. As sneaky as Harmon could be, Elsior was his match. And that kiss was proof.

It was a hard, rough kiss. There was a definite sense of passion involved, but Harmon could feel that there was also a hint of need to it. As if it had been building up within the servant boy for a while, and finally it exploded and he couldn't contain it any longer. And Harmon felt the same way.

He'd grabbed Elsior's neck, pulling him in closer, a ferocity building in himself as well. It was the first time Harmon had kissed another person. He had always felt uneasy at the concept – would he do it right, would it be awkward? In that kiss, he felt neither of those things.

Elsior's hand was squeezing his arm tightly, holding him in place, ensuring their embrace wasn't broken. The stubble on their chins grazed against each other's skin, causing a slight friction. Their tongues had found a rhythm with one another. Their faces fit together like two halves of something more.

At some point, which could have been seconds or hours later, they pulled apart. Their eyelids fluttered open, and they locked gaze. Harmon saw Elsior's pupils moving back and forth, studying his face. He knew he was blushing, but he didn't care. "Have you ever…?"

"Nope," Elsior responded, still as casual as ever. He brushed the hair out of his eyes, and leaned back toward Harmon. He smiled and kissed him once more, swiftly. "I've never kissed anyone before. But I definitely enjoyed it."

After that, much of the time in each of their visits was allocated to the activity. They did still follow their normal routines, talking and joking around and discussing things they were both interested in. But it always led to more.

It was generally just the kissing at first; they were both quite fond of it, and being relatively new at performing the action, they found it a fantastic way to spend time. But, as things do, it began to progress into more. Touching each other, squeezing, rubbing. Then one day their shirts came off. And then a few days later, their trousers did too.

And after a couple months of this evolution, one evening found them completely nude before each other.

"Wow," was all Harmon could find himself to say. He took in the sight Elsior's body. Still relatively pale, he had grown into his body a little more over the last two years. He wasn't quite as scrawny, anymore, though he was still on the slender side. But the way everything worked together – his chest to his stomach to his groin to his legs – it was breathtaking. Given that Harmon had never even kissed someone prior to Elsior, it went without saying that he had never seen another man fully nude, either. He'd seen himself, of course. But while their bodies shared the same general characteristics, they also bore many wonderful differences.

They absorbed the shapes of each other's forms, watching the way they reacted to each movement.

And everything seemed to happen in slow motion as they gave one another their virginities.

They shared the experience breathlessly, excitedly, unsure if they were doing things right but uncaring. It felt right. It felt very right. They ultimately wore themselves out and fell asleep on Elsior's small cot, one man's legs strewn across the other's, both of them euphorically exhausted.

And hours before the morning sun had risen, any lingering slow motion had been sped up to the point of chaos.

They awoke to the door being slammed open, a "here, your majesty!" uttered in a combination of a whisper and a yell. Both of them jolted from bed, frantically grabbing at their clothes and pulling them on. A guard stood at the door, thankfully averting his gaze to the hallway. However, the king had now approached. And from there, things only sped up.

It turned out that as Harmon had never returned to his bedroom the night prior, the king was alerted. His majesty had then had a handful of guards accompany him in a castle-wide search for the missing prince. They'd searched every room, the grounds, even the dungeons. The servants' quarters were the last place they'd looked.

As punishment for the secret he'd uncovered, the king banished Elsior from Jhirdyr. He'd commanded that the peasant boy be exiled at once; he didn't care where, as long as he never stepped foot in the kingdom again. Before Harmon had even been escorted out of the room, two guards had snatched Elsior by either arm and dragged him out. Another guard grabbed hold of a bag on the floor and swiped the few material possessions Elsior owned off a shelf and into it. Elsior was removed from the castle that quickly.

Now, six years later, pacing in his room, Harmon recounted those final moments. He knew his father hadn't ordered the banishment due to the fact that Elsior was male. On the contrary, the king advocated all relationships. A few of his top advisors were in relationships with members of the same sex. The same could be said for several of his close friends of nobility. Over the years since then, he'd even made it clear that he would enjoy seeing Harmon end up with a member of the knighthood.

No, it wasn't that Elsior was a man. It was that Elsior was poor. The king loved all his citizens: the young and the old, the dark and the light, and yes, even the rich and the poor. He truly was a great ruler in that aspect. However, the beliefs he held about having an inclusive kingdom did not match the beliefs he had when it came to someone being in a relationship with any of his children. While he was a progressive leader, he did not feel that there was room for the intermixing of the castes.

While Harmon hadn't laid eyes on Elsior in that many years, he'd never forgotten him. And to his delight, about a year prior, he'd received an anonymous letter by messenger dove. Though somewhat cryptic, likely in the event that it was intercepted, Harmon had known who it was from immediately. There was a poorly drawn sketch of a potato at the bottom, in place of a signature. Elsior.

The letters kept coming, and Harmon kept responding. Even through written correspondence, their conversations felt like they hadn't been apart whatsoever. At first, they kept things simple. Casual queries, basic updates on each other, general topics. Especially until they were sure they didn't have to continue the secretive messages, things remained light.

But once they were sure they could pen their thoughts freely, a more serious topic came up. It wasn't until around a month ago that Elsior had brought up the dragon. It had been dormant for a while, he'd written, nesting near the mountains at the furthest reaches of the swamp. But as time went on, the dragon began surveying the town. It began attacking livestock, infrequently at first. The attacks became more regular. Eventually the creature began actually soaring above the town itself.

It was then that Harmon knew he had to help. He was a very avid fan of the dragonslaying circuit within Jhirdyr, and knew everything there was to know about each of their slayers. That was when he decided to offer the quest to Daegon. While he knew that one of the top three slayers would have been a wiser choice on paper, he also knew that Daegon's hunger to be number one was a motivation so strong that it would guide him to victory. Further, sending a more recognized slayer such as Elan on an extended trip would be far more noticed by the public, and he couldn't risk that.

So he'd invented a white lie regarding his father's opinion on the matter. In fact, he had been very careful not to hint anything about it to his father; if the king knew Harmon was interested in having a dragon slayed in a small, far-off place, he might decipher that it was where Elsior now resided. But Daegon and Birten didn't need to know that.