The royal court had kept me well away.
They had kept me well away for a long, long time.
I agreed with this decision. It was a well-made one, as opposed to basically every other decision the royal court and their political whores ever made. They kept me well away because they suspected I was power-hungry, that I had my eyes on the throne and that I wouldn't limit myself in the methods I would use to claim it.
They were not wrong.
Well, they had been wrong in that I was power-hungry. The rest, however... Pretty good guesses.
I had been a natural, they had said when I was a child after I, just like every other male being born in a peasant family, had been put in the royal school of battlements. It sounded more prestigious than it was. It was basically just the most unfortunate workers of the court coming out to the cities, training the boys of close-by villages who had or would turn six years old that year for a week. The point of it was to select out a small handful of boys that were then to come and be trained at court by the very own Master of War Arts working for the royal family, to then become knights in their army. Almost every one of the boys tested was deemed unworthy, causing their families great disappointment as being a knight was always followed by great glory and riches. That was if you survived the wars, of course, but the peasant families were usually so poor that they were willing to take that risk, even with their own children.
I, however, had not only been deemed worthy; I had been deemed exceptional. I was brought in to court and was not only trained by the Master of War Arts working for the royal family, but the Master of War Arts directly responsible for training the offspring in the royal family. As a teenager, I was already known as the best knight of the country. But I was also known for my impulsivity, for my hot-headedness, for my dirty mouth and my brutality.
And rumours started to spread that I wanted the crown, even if it meant I had to kill the entire royal family.
I had never met the royal family. I hadn't seen them any more than any other person in the country. I knew they consisted of the king, the queen and their two sons, both of them quite a bit younger than me. But they definitely had their eyes on me, the king and the queen, so when I turned twenty, I was sent away to foreign country.
The royal family sold me for a hefty sum to the royal family of this foreign country, and I was shipped overseas like cattle. I didn't mind being treated as property in and of itself, but I didn't like being so far from my goal, which was the throne of my home country.
I hadn't understood why they would give me, the most dangerous man on the planet, to the enemy, but as soon as I got to learn the customs of the new country, I understood why. The new country had a powerful tradition of peace, and never went to war. The army was just for show, not even to protect against invasions as the country wasn't strategically beneficial, nor did it contain any riches or minerals that other countries could desire.
I was sent there to be kept at bay.
At first, I had fought against my establishment in the new country. I wanted to be out to fight, to be in the battlefield, to win glory to my name not for the sake of the glory itself, but to enhance my status as a dangerous man. But after a while, I had formed a different plan, a plan where I trained myself to increased my skill levels to an unpalatable level without anyone knowing.
And I saw the benefit of having been sent away. Of the vast mistake the royal family had made. They would no longer have any knowledge about my greatness. To them, I was a problem they did no longer have to think about.
So I started enjoying myself in this new country of mine; its hot climate, its date trees heavy with sweet fruit that were perfect for energising your body during heavy trainings, the salty ocean, the beautiful, dark-skinned women, all the while training vigorously for hours a day and indulging myself in books about the art of battle. I thrived, and seventeen years had passed since I was shipped. I was thirty-seven now, and still hadn't reached my prime; I could become more.
I was still awaiting my opportunity, my opportunity to come back to my home country.
It would come to me sooner than I could have hoped for.
I grunted, grabbed the soft flesh of the waist of the woman in front of me.
She was moaning as if she was possessed, which she was, in a way; possessed by me. I had my long, white hair up in a knot in my neck or it would be in the way for me as I worked, and I wanted to avoid it getting salty from the sweat drenching my skin.
With one final thrust, after having taken the woman through ebbs and floods of pleasure for a long, long time, I came with a harsh grunt. I pulled myself out, spilling half of me on her skin. When I was done, which took a while since I hadn't taken anyone or touched myself for a couple of days, the woman immediately turned round and took me into her embrace. I let her hold me until my heart-rate decreased back to normality.
"What's troubling you, my knight?" she asked softly, her sweet voice a bright contrast to the darkness of her skin.
"Just thirsty", I lied.
"Would you like me to fetch you some water?" she asked kindly.
"Yes, please."
She immediately went up, naked still, and went to one corner of the dark, luxuriously decorated and dimly lit room. The benefits of expensive brothels, I'd learned, was not only the immaculate quality of the women, but also the services they provided additionally to fucking. The woman poured ice-cold water from a brass jug into a beautiful goblet and handed it to me.
"Thank you", I said and drank deeply.
"It has gotten salt in it." She put a meaningful hand on her thigh, where the milky, sticky fluid from me was running down delicately. "Because you've lost some."
"That's incredibly thoughtful of you", I said.
She crept up in bed with me again, and I put my arm around her. I knew people were watching us through the small open windows in the wall to the corridor and had been for a while, but I didn't mind. I actually kind of liked it.
"That's what I like about you", she said. "You're so kind, saying 'please' and 'thank you' despite your greatness."
"You know nothing about my greatness", I said
"But I see whispers of it", she said, putting her hand on my strong abdomen, my skin so pale it looked ghost-white against her beautiful skin. "In your body." She stroke a scar on my bicep, that was as thick as her thigh, and she was by no means skinny. "And in your old wounds."
I didn't say anything. Instead, I planted a kiss on top of her head, her thick, black hair soft against the sensitive skin on my lips. It was a rare display of affection from a paying customer to a whore.
"Are you going to tell me what's troubling you?" she asked.
By now, the eavesdroppers had left, their hope for more fucking dying, not finding our conversation particularly interesting. I thought I might as well tell her.
"I might have found a way to get back to my home country."
She propped herself up on her elbow.
"Really? How?"
"There's a tournament. A tournament held for knights of the world. A tremendous battle of glory. Our king provided me the information. I will ask him to give me permission to go, to represent our country."
"It's everything you've ever wished for", the woman next to me said softly, but I could hear sadness in her voice; she was getting used to me. We were getting used to each other.
I tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.
"I would bring you with me. But what man would I be if I tore you away from your family?"
She smiled.
"I couldn't leave my parents. They need me. But I will miss you."
I listened to the sounds coming from outside of the room she had chosen for our evening together. There was a whole feast going on, with drunken men laughing and screaming and toasting. It didn't matter that I paid a hefty sum for the quality of this brothel; men would always behave like swine if given a little bit of alcohol while surrounded by women far too pretty and kind for them. From rooms further down the corridor, I could hear moans from other paying customers and their chosen whores. I wondered, not for the first time, if the woman next to me actually liked me as much as she seemed, or if it was all just part of the services she provided which I paid for. I was ashamed to admit it didn't matter to me. I cared about her, but the way I acted towards her was only a game to provide me comfort. And I suspected it was the same for her. The sweet words of praise we spoke was a way to lull us, mostly me, into a feeling that things that happened around me mattered. But both she and I knew that the only thing that mattered to me was the throne back in my birth country.
I held her close to me, but I didn't say anything. She didn't seem to mind, or if she minded, she did an exceptional job of hiding it.
"You never told me", she said. "Why do you desire the crown? And why do you desire it in your old country? Isn't it better to set your goals here? I mean, you will soon have lived here for as long as you lived in your birth country before you were sent away."
I frowned, looking up into the ceiling. I had never truly talked about this, mostly because I always kept to myself, not being very fond of the thought of having friends. Also, who would befriend me? I wasn't exactly known for my approachableness.
"It's because of justice", I said. The woman was quiet, respectfully waiting for me to elaborate. "The royal family in my country isn't like here. Here, the king is kind, and he is thoughtful. Seeing himself as a servant of his people and not the other way around. The royal family in my country are hungry for money and glory."
I felt anger bubble up within me, and had to take a break to breathe before I continued.
"Just see how I was raised, torn from my family to decorate the royal army." The thought still disgusted me. "To this day, children are being torn from their families when they have hardly left their mothers' breast to go train to become knights in war, just like me. So that the royal family can show off. At the same time, crime rates are increasing in the country. The death rates just as well. They would do well in investing in safety guards in the bigger cities, as well as education for medics and healers. Yet they spend their money on an international tournament for fun. I'm not educated in economics, but I know enough to understand that the cost of what I'm going to participate in is unheard of."
I turned to look at her. She was looking at me with warm, understanding eyes.
"I don't give a fuck about the tournament", I continued. "But it's my first opportunity to get back to my country in seventeen years."
"Do you think you'll have the opportunity to kill the royal family off during the tournament?" she asked. God, she was good at conversing.
"It won't be a problem", I said. "No matter how many guards are protecting them. I can get through anything." I didn't say this to brag or to impress her; it was just the way it was.
"Do you think they'll allow it? For you to become the personal guard of the crown prince if you win? Or to even participate?"
"They are too proud to go back on any promises", I said. "They will regret not thinking it through more, not forbidding me to participate in the first place or working harder to prevent information about the tournament to reach me, but they won't make up rules in hindsight. I know how the royal family works. All about pride. I'll make them regret the mistake of forgetting me."
The woman snuggled closer to me.
"You have a good heart, Tobirama", she said. "Doing all this to make people's lives better. Normal people. Like me."
I didn't answer because I knew it wasn't true. I didn't have a good heart.