Hallowed Be

Poised in Providence - Part 9

Prince Heiko slammed the door shut and Baptist started slightly – it would’ve been a larger surprise, had the slave not been expecting it. 

“Convince them, I said.” Heiko spoke, turning to face his slave, who was bracing himself. His muscles were tense, and there were no excessive Simonese clothes to hide it. “You’re Burkean, I said. They may believe you. The folly lies with me, it seems, as I too believed you.”

Baptist’s face was scrunched with a culmination of guilt and raw fear. 

“My prince-”

“Do not ‘my prince’ me, like some slave,” Heiko purred the dangerous words, with his venomous tone. “You were no Burkean lowborn.”

“My prince,” Baptist said in a quiet voice. “I…I…”

Heiko said, “Hesitating as you spin more lies?”

Baptist wanted to yell out his frustration. It was the Simonese soldiers who stole him from the Burkean town. They were the ones who chained him. The ones who assumed him a pissant. 

But instead, he mumbled, “I have not lied to my prince.” 

His brow pressed in sudden and overwhelming worry. He did not want to be discarded - or worse, deemed worthless as a companion. As his companion. 

“Lies can be spoken without words.” The prince replied with that deadly calm that often accompanied his anger. 

“I-”

“An archer,” murmured Heiko with an air of disbelief, before he growled at Baptist. “A damn archer!” 

The boy jumped at the ferocity, abandoning the prince’s gaze lest he be consumed by it.

“You were training to be a soldier.” 

The fluctuation in volume was enough to put even the most even keeled man on edge. Perhaps even that stony Ilysian general, Baptist thought. 

“Did you not think such would be pertinent information? That I would dislike it? Did you think it would upset me?” After a long moment, his upset was quelled. With a softer, quieter voice, he spoke aloud what he knew from the start, despite his tempestuousness. “You thought you would be considered too dangerous and consequently killed.”

There was a silence that hung heavy in the room, buzzing between the boy and his master. Nothing but the wind from the open balcony whispered through it, and while Baptist was staunch in the moment, prince Heiko was not. Eventually, the prince sighed and strode to Baptist, grabbing the front of his chiton and bunching it tightly in his fist. He pulled the slave closer, locking their gazes with the exacting celerity that no man ought ever possess. 

“I am not a man who fears a challenge. I am a man who carefully assesses his resources and uses them.” Heiko spoke with mastery and volition, bright and burning eyes on Baptist, as if he did not know the power they held. “Did you think I would rather a pliant little w***e as a slave than a longbowman in training? If so, then you know me little.”

“I…I never thought…” Baptist stumbled with his words, trying desperately to find the proper ones. The boy knew his master, and he also knew his value would be defaced if he let that notion stand.

“Does my brother know of your skill?” Heiko prompted impatiently, indifferent to the blundering. 

Baptist shook his head so fraughtfully that it felt more like a muscle jerk. 

“The last person who knew was slain by Simonese soldiers.”

The prince appraised him once over before exhaling a sigh. 

“Good.” He released Baptist’s chiton and stepped past him. “You did well today. After your display, I do not think they will doubt my claims.”

Baptist didn’t move. His muscles were knotted and tense - he didn’t trust his legs to properly function, and he would’ve much rather looked abstracted than like a newborn fawn.

“However, do not lie to me again.” Heiko said, reclining on the couch and picking up a book. It was a new one, Baptist noticed. He couldn’t read the Ilysian letters, but there was an image pressed onto the leather of the front, of two figures entwined. If Baptist didn’t know any better, he would’ve guessed his prince was reading a romance story. 

Suddenly, his master’s gaze flicked up.

“What are you doing?” He demanded irascibly. 

“I…” Finally, he broke from his position, grabbing a pitcher of wine from a stray table and approaching Heiko, who had his goblet extended and ready to receive. The boy poured the contents with care, and then sat beside the prince, as he always did.

“What are you reading?” He asked, gazing over at the foreign characters scrawled meticulously. 

“The Tryst of Casander and Ios.”

His answer was distracted, which would’ve come as no surprise had the title not actually bolstered Baptist’s tales of love suspicions. 

“What-”

“It’s a popular traditional story in Ilyos,” Heiko huffed in irritation. “If you were so curious you should’ve learned how to read Ilysian.”

Baptist deflated, though it was not entirely unexpected. His gaze drifted up, and he began to count the tiles that splattered the wall behind the bed to bide his time, when the prince spoke again. 

“Shall I read it aloud?”

Baptist turned to him in shock.

“Only…If you would prefer.” 

“I would prefer reading to myself,” Heiko shot back, a stony gaze on his slave. “That is not what I asked.” 

No, it was not, thought the boy.

“I would like that very much.”

The prince lifted the book from his lap - a gesture Baptist knew and readily obliged to. He rested his head on his master’s right thigh, a habit that was started years ago when Baptist (and subsequently, Prince Heiko) discovered that he was allergic to the greens in a popular Simonese dish. Arugula, his master had informed him, but the boy had never heard of it. He let Baptist rest his feverish head on his lap and stroked his hair gently until he submitted to fitful sleep. 

When the prince next spoke, it was in Burkean, illustrating the tale of a demigod, preparing to wage war against the mortal king he had come to love. And when sleep came this time, it was not fitful, but all-consuming and unencumbered.