Aleksey's Kingdom by John Wiltshire

Author:John Wiltshire [Wiltshire, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-04-27T23:00:00+00:00

ALEKSEY AND I planned to do our first circuit a couple of hours after the fires had been lit. Until then I had little to do but stare morosely at him across the camp table. I could have devised any number of more pleasurable things to do in those two hours, and he must have known this.

Finally he commented a little waspishly, “I have not seen much sign of wooing, Nikolai. Glaring at me is not doing it at all.”

“I am not glaring. I am composing something suitable in my head.”

“Oh, a poem? I hope I will like it.” He began to clean his nails with the tip of his knife. “Well?”

“I am stuck. I cannot think of anything that rhymes with arse.”

I expected him to throw down the knife and rise, furious, and that I could then appease his anger in my usual way, and we would then be able to indulge in those more pleasurable activities, but instead he replied mildly, “Farce. How about that? Farce seems very appropriate, does it not?”

Damn him. I nodded sourly. After a suitable juncture, I grumbled, “Then I need a rhyme for adore.”

He smiled. “Try abhor.”

I stood and made to go toward the horses, but he caught my arm, glancing to see if we could be observed. Then he realized he was holding my burnt arm and made a contrite face as he dropped it. “I’m sorry. I would like to hear your poem if it contains the word adore.”

“Well, I would not call it a poem, as such. I have not got much beyond that one word, for it seems to me to say all that needs to be said without further adornment.”

“Do you mean that?”

“That I have not got much further?”

He punched me, and we were back to normal. I would have pulled him into my arms, but we were too visible. Instead, I began to walk toward the river and down the bank to the water. It was very dark, of course, and we were soon out of sight of the good major.

I then pulled him into my arms and admitted hoarsely, “I am sorry I did not tell you about Etienne. But do you now see what he saw? When he called you my tether?”

“I have told you that I do not like that—”

“Hush. You are missing the point. There is no tether, Aleksey, except the one in my heart. I am like Faelan: a wild creature you bind to you by the force of your presence. Even burnt, even disfigured with the pox or some other disease that might leap upon you suddenly as you ride home to me, I would still be entirely bound.” He made a small snort of disbelief, but I added, “If you died, I would not find another. You are the end of all this for me.”

He held me off a little. “Do not say that! I would not have you live on alone. God’s teeth, why are we talking like this?

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