The Prince's Boy

THE PRINCE'S BOY: CHAPTER 46

Again I saw no sign of Sergetten. I took another nap, wondering if dinner would appear in the same way, but when I woke again there was nothing. I could see the sun was setting and I wondered if I nightfall would bring the return of my Night Magic master or not.

It did not. I eventually began to move through the series of sword practice drills Bear had taught me, miming a non-existent sword in my hands, out of sheer boredom, though I had to stop when it became too dark to see. I had no means of lighting the lamps in the room. Did he expect me to go looking for him? Or to stay here? Or was it a waiting game to see what I would do?

I decided if that was so, I would stay put and make him come to me. I woke once during the night at the sound of the door closing, and found more food had been left for me. It wasn't until dawn I found that a number of books had been returned to the shelf, though.

The next day I took one from the shelf and examined it, but it was in the old tongue and I could not read it. I put it back, and walked through my sword drills again, and examined what was in the large jars. At least one of them appeared to be the same balm Sergetten had used on me, but it was hard to be sure by scent alone.

When the second night fell and still I had seen no sign of Sergetten, I began to worry. What if some accident had befallen him? But no, then who was leaving the food?

What was he waiting for? Was he busy with his mission for the crown? Or was this part of the power game he played with me?

It was the longest I had gone without sex, and without release, since I had left the castle. I had little to occupy my mind other than alternating between worry over my own fate and Kenet's, and soon Kenet was all I could think of.

On the third night I lay upon the sleeping pallet and stroked myself, imagining that it was my prince's hand rather than mine arousing me so.

Later, when I discovered I could not spill, no matter how I tried to coax or force my straining cock into it, the only release I could find was in tears.

It was not yet dawn when I was woken by the sound of voices, low enough, yet some part of me had been straining to hear his return. I stole out of the room and down the stairs until I could hear them clearly. I stood with one hand on the stone, one hand cupping my ear to catch the echoes from some parlor below I could not see.

The first voice sounded like an elderly woman. "Please, your lordship, we would not come to you in the dark of night if it were not urgent."

And then a man's voice I did not know, a younger man, from the sound of it. "We saw your light burning. We have been looking for it every night."

"What you ask is not so simple," Sergetten said, and I could hear the exasperation in his voice. "I cannot just clap my hands and make the blight go away."

"But Sir," said the woman. "The boy upstairs, I've been feeding him as you asked. Surely—"

Sergetten interrupted her. "Do not make assumptions about him."

There was a short bark of laughter. "Your lordship, please," she said, but sharply this time. "What other purpose would you keep a naked boy like a pet for?"

"Grandmum!" the scandalized young man exclaimed.

"Well? The blight doubles in size every day, your lordship," she went on. "If you expect your boy, or yourself, to eat half so well as you have, it must be beaten back, and we do not have the hands to do it. In five or six more days, the entire crop could be lost."

"Thank you for informing me," Sergetten said, and I could hear resignation in his tone now, softer and more diplomatic. "I can make no promises. The boy is an untrained initiate and I will not endanger him."