The Concubine King

The unharvested rye shimmered gold in the morning sun like an ocean of fine silk. Next to it, the stubbled fields of cut stalks looked more bleak and devastating than encouraging. Ethyr knew a bountiful harvest meant a safe winter, and sore muscles from days of hard work should have been satisfying, but to him it signaled only the death of beauty and life. Winter was waking, and when it stepped out of hibernation it would bring cold, dead darkness.

He finished tying his bundle of stalks and shouldered it to take to the dry-house. In a corner of Nivian’s field, she and Mikel swept their scythes through the last remaining rye in rhythmic, even strokes. Ethyr paused, wiping sweat dripping down the side of his face onto the shoulder of his sleeveless tunic. Mikel wore a sleeveless too, and the defined lines of his arms, muscles stretching and flexing as he worked, were made all the more distracting by glistening sweat.

“Ethyr!”

He jolted to attention at his uncle’s voice and scrambled to catch up to him at the dry-house. Standing in the doorway, bent nearly double to fit under the low awning, Tebhen held out his hands and Ethyr handed the bundle over to be laid with the rest.

“Tomorrow is our field,” his uncle said as he stepped back out, shielding his eyes from the sun to look at their rye standing tall beside its razed brethren.

“We finished early,” Ethyr pointed out.

Tebhen propped his hands on his hips. “We were talking of tasting Miya’s new brew.”

Drinking meant boisterous chatter and lewd jokes. Ethyr scrunched one side of his mouth up. “I think I’ll go for a walk.”

Tebhen sighed, surveying the landscape. “Make sure to be back to help Deian with supper.”

“Yes, Uncle, I promise.” Ethyr bowed his head before taking off between the huts. Chickens pecking in the dirt path flapped out of his way as he rushed through, and the surly rooster chased him down the street growling a low, angry rumble until satisfied that Ethyr was far enough away to no longer be a nuisance to his hens.

Ethyr slowed as the hamlet diminished to a small pond of thatched roofs in the distance. He twisted a plum from the tree beside the short stone wall, glanced around, then hopped over the stones into the forest.

It was much nicer in its shade, surrounded by vibrant greenery and the smell of earth kept damp in its shelter. He wandered through the sun-dappled quiet, filled only with the hum of insects, his footsteps rustling on fallen leaves, and the occasional punctuation of a loud shout or child’s shriek from the village.

The lone magpie that had lived on the edge of the forest his whole life watched him from its usual perch on an old alder bough; the rest of the forest didn’t like venturing too close to human activity. Ethyr couldn’t blame them, when they had the expanse of seemingly-endless trees to occupy. If he had been allowed to venture inside, he would have spent all of his time in its depths as well.

His walk looped him around the harvested crops to the untouched fields. He ate the plum to its pit and tossed it, then climbed over the wall and loped across the strip of untilled land to the standing rye. He carried the absent wind in his fingers as he drifted through the feathery stalks. They swayed under his touch, bobbing back into place behind him.

A calloused hand wrapped around his ankle and yanked it forward, his ass hitting the ground before he could register the touch.

Mikel laughed at his startled yelp, rolling to his back from where he had been lying in wait. Ethyr rubbed his sore tailbone with one hand and smacked him with the other.

“Not funny! That hurt, you know!”

“Ohh, I couldn’t help it.” Mikel twisted to his side, propping his chin up and offering a devilishly handsome grin. “You’ll forgive me, won’t you?”

Ethyr glared at him, but he couldn’t hold on to the fake anger for long. He dropped onto his elbow beside Mikel, leaning closer.

“I wonder if you can guess the fruit I just ate,” he challenged.

Mikel’s grin softened to an intrigued smile and he closed the space between them. Ethyr opened his mouth to let Mikel’s tongue venture inside, rubbing against his own and sweeping across the roof of his mouth, along the backs of his teeth.

Mikel pulled away, smacking his lips and squinting in thought. “A berry of some kind.”

“Nope,” Ethyr said, lips spreading to a gleeful smile. Mikel met them again, this time probing deeper, more thoroughly. Ethyr sucked on his tongue—to help him, of course.

He broke away again. “Plum?” he guessed.

Ethyr laughed. “You won!” He raised his eyebrows. “Can you guess your prize?”

Mikel ran a palm up Ethyr’s jaw and into his hair, grazing their mouths together. “No need,” he murmured. “I’ll take what I want.”

Ethyr lowered his shoulders to the ground and Mikel followed, planting short kisses onto his mouth, his cheeks. He wrapped his arms over Mikel’s shoulders and caught his lips to force the kiss deeper. Mikel’s hand, rough and warm, dug harder into his hair as they traded tongues.

He broke away after a minute, looking down at Ethyr with a heavy exhale. His eyes traced his face.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered.

Ethyr blushed. “Don’t,” he admonished. He was so sick of hearing it. As a child, the perpetual squished cheeks by adults cooing over how adorable he was. The well-meaning but patronizing exclamations on his looks as he became a teen, the joking asides to his aunt and uncle about marrying him off for a higher status. And now, in his twentieth year, the endless remarks about his desirability, the questions of when he’d marry.

He knew it couldn’t be helped; he stood out from all the others with his dark brown hair and hazel eyes, his relentlessly slender form and skin that turned dewy gold in the sun while others burned and freckled. It was from his southerner father, his aunt said, but never more than that. They never talked about his parents. Too painful, he assumed.

Despite the protest, Mikel continued, voice soft. “You could have anyone in the commune—no, the kingdom.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Ethyr brushed some of Mikel’s hair from his temple, combing his fingers through the copper curls. “I want only you.”

When Mikel smiled it was usually mischievous or jesting, but for Ethyr he smiled soft and sweet and gentle. Ethyr kissed the smile belonging only to him and Mikel returned to tasting his mouth.

If he could, he would have lived in that moment; spent eternity hidden in the soft golden bed of rye, its mild, nutty fragrance teasing the air, the late-summer sun bathing them through crosshatched lines of grassy shadow. Lazy twills and chirps of insects filled the air between the intermittent noise from the village a few fields away.

The noise grew to a strange note; it was no longer the casual chatter of domestic life, but rippled through the air with confused excitement. Mikel noticed the commotion, too. He sat up and Ethyr popped his head above the rye to follow his gaze.

A carriage rattled down the narrow dirt road that led to the village center. It was grander than anything that had graced that road before, its curling elegant details and glittering embellishments marking it an object of aesthetic more than purpose. The two white horses leading it, tall and proud with their braided manes and tails swishing in time with each step, made the village’s old bay pony look barely equine. On either side of the carriage, armed guards rode equally well-groomed mounts.

Despite having never seen one before, Ethyr knew it could only be one thing. A royal retinue.

He exchanged a glance with Mikel. If someone from the royal palace had traveled all the way here, to the very edge of the kingdom, they could not be bearing good news.

They scrambled up and out of the field to reach the village before the carriage did. Mikel went immediately to his mother and sisters, standing in the doorway of their squat home. Ethyr joined his aunt and uncle standing in the road with other gawkers. Uneasy murmurs took the place of excitement as the carriage drew closer.

“Do you think it’s war?” someone asked.

“Of course it is, what else could it be?” another answered. “Certainly never got this treatment when they raise taxes.”

The carriage rolled to a stop several lengths from the crowd. Everyone held their tongues. The guards dismounted and one stepped forward to open the carriage door. They waited with bated breath, a tense quiet filled with anticipation, to see what glorious beyond-human entity would step out.

It was an old man.

He labored from the carriage with the support of the guard’s arm, to the hanging step, then to the ground. Though bald on the top of his head, the rest of his long, silver hair was braided down his back. His robes were a rich, deep blue, and the neckline, wide sleeves, and hem brushing the ground were all embroidered with gold thread in intricate patterns, the shine of it in the sunlight not allowing any question of its authenticity. The cost of the thread alone could have bought their entire village. In the dust and stone of their rural hamlet, the entourage looked like an illusion, an impossibility come to life.

The old man’s reproachful gaze swept through the mass of faces. He walked forward, his slow, short strides not doing anything to disarm the unease pervading the air; if anything, with piercing blue eyes and a chin held high, he was more intimidating the closer he got. Ethyr assumed the old man would stop and address everyone, but he didn’t. He walked straight to Ethyr.

Deian pressed close, sliding her fingers through his and squeezing his hand. He could feel her trembling. He squeezed back, as reassuring as he could be when faced with just as much confusion and trepidation as her. He bowed his head as the man came closer, not sure what else to do and not able to take the old man’s unmoving stare any longer. The dead silence was suffocating. It seemed as though even the chickens and goats were holding their breath.

The man’s silk-clad feet halted an arm’s length from him and cold, bony fingers gripped Ethyr’s chin, forcing his face up. He pushed Ethyr’s face one way, then the other, examining him like a slab of meat he debated buying.

“Are you Ethyr of the Linwood Village?” he finally spoke. His voice was surprisingly strong and clear. If not looking right at him, Ethyr would have thought it came from a man half his age.

Ethyr swallowed, trying to open his throat that had squeezed shut. How did this stranger—from the palace—know his name?

“Yes, sir,” he managed to rasp out.

The man hummed, casting a critical eye down and back up Ethyr’s body without lowering his nose. “I suppose it’s not completely hopeless, then.”

Tebhen grabbed Ethyr’s other arm, and with Deian’s hold on his hand and the man’s grip on his chin, his skin was starting to itch uncomfortably.

“What do you want with our child?” his uncle asked, the force behind the words as impressive as it was worrying. Did he not fear for his life, speaking so boldly to someone so far above him?

The old man released Ethyr and slipped his hands into his sleeves. “The gods have chosen a new king,” he said, loud and clear for the whole crowd. His eyes slid from Tebhen to Ethyr. “They have chosen you.”