bay. I ignored his near panic and set the tray I carried on the table, pushing the litter of books and papers to one side with the back of my hand and sliding the tray into place; I was closely followed by Rhys, who set a covered basin and ewer on the chest beneath the window and withdrew silently. I poured a cup, turned and offered it to my guest, who took it with shaking hands.” Sip it, Hal,” I warned, “it’s brandywine. That’s a pretty toy, is it not?” I continued, nodding at the jeweled skull. “I picked it up in Rome, but I forget which saint’s skull it was supposed to hold. I use it for quite a different purpose.” I crossed to the fire and took down the box, flipping back the top to reveal a small pipe and a greeny-brown cake. “It’s hashish, from Turkey. Would you like to try it?” Hal nodded and watched with interest as I prepared the pipe.
“What did you do with the skull?” he asked suddenly.
“We buried it,” I smiled. “It was a woman’s, Geofri said, or a child’s. There are ossuaries there, as you know, and an endless supply of ‘martyr’s bones’, but somehow we thought returning the pitiful object to the earth was best, to keep her from being taken away and sold again, as was likely if we had returned her to the catacomb. Geofri has rather strict views on the respect due to the dead.” I lit the pipe and drew the smoke before handing it to Hal, who took it gingerly and imitated me, but choked on the unfamiliar taste. He soon became accustomed to the flavor, and began to relax.
I pushed the chairs back, pulling the cushions from them and arranging them on the floor before the fire. I stretched out my legs, using one of the heavy chairs as a backrest. Hal gazed at me for a moment, then did the same, settling between me and the fire. “Now Hal, do you wish to tell me why you could not stay away?” He hesitated, unsure. “Well, I think that I know,” I said carefully. “But this choice must be yours, and I will not try to force you to my will, or even influence your decision. Have you loved with a man before?” He nodded slowly, his eyes smoky with memory.
“Twice,” he answered huskily. “One older and one younger. I was fifteen, and he was twenty, a groom in Lord Burghley’s household, assigned to look after me, though not, I fear, in the fashion he did,” Hal chuckled, then saddened.” He died about a year later, of the plague. I took a younger boy, a page, as a lover, to try to forget him, but . . . it was a mistake,” his voice hardened.
“The boy threatened to go to Burghley if you didn’t pay dearly for his silence, I suppose. What did you do?”
“Planted a ring of mine among his things and went to Burghley myself, and had him turned out for stealing. He tried to tell Burghley anyway, to defend himself, but as I had been rather spectacularly discovered that morning with two of the serving-wenches in my bed, no credence was paid him.” Hal smiled as I laughed out loud.
“Masterful! I must be wary, I see.” I reached out and tentatively touched his hand, running my fingertips across the back and around the thumb into the palm, lightly holding it, and raising it to my lips to press a kiss there. Hal shivered, then sat up and began deliberately undoing his doublet, one jeweled button at a time, his gaze never straying from my face. He untied his points and slid out of doublet, trunk-hose and hose in one graceful movement, with practiced ease. Clad only in his shirt he leaned over me, first easing my filmy shirt over my shoulders, then his eager hands searching for the fastening of the outlandish trousers. I could see his eyes catch on the scars upon my shoulder and chest, arrow wound and brands. He tenderly bent his head and kissed them, causing me to shudder with the intensity of my desire.
“Do you know what you are doing, Hal? Is this truly what you want?” I asked hoarsely. “You still have a choice.”
Hal shook his head sadly, raising on one elbow to turn a bittersweet look on me. “I have no choices at all,” he breathed, then smiled tightly as I leaned forward to