The Blue Prince

Left alone in the magnificent bedroom, Gerulf attempted to order his thoughts. He’d broken the Prince’s rules, fucked him so vigorously that he could barely stand and…was employed. He had the distinct feeling that there was a great deal more to the Prince and his preferences than he’d been told, even more than he’d uncovered tonight. But then of course, he was in the palace now. He could find out, he was sure.

Smoothing his clothes into place over his sweat-glazed skin, the warm room became stuffy, so he was surprisingly relieved when the door opened, admitting a draught of cooler air and a sour-faced Armas. The retainer remained in the doorway until Gerulf finished buttoning his shirt, as if he could catch sex like a cold, and then approached him reluctantly, holding out a folded paper like a shield.

“Your name has been added to the contract now. Please sign.”

Gerulf nodded and offered him a calm smile as he accepted the paper; predictably it didn’t go over well, and Armas darted back, putting the wing chair between them. Fool. He glanced through the rather smart looking document to confirm it was the same as the one he’d seen the night before. The only difference was a slightly longer paragraph regarding confidentiality; it was made very clear that telling anyone he was being paid to fuck the Prince would be considered treason. He dipped into his coat pocket for his stylus and turned to the desk, looking for ink.

Armas cleared his throat meaningfully, and Gerulf turned to find him proffering a small metal flask of ink.

“Do not presume to use His Majesty’s things,” he intoned, attempting to be menacing. The effort succeeded only in making a lewd image pop into Gerulf’s mind. He smiled and reached out for the flask. His signature was clear and simple, and he capped the stylus, handed back the ink, watched as Armas returned the document to his pocket with the dexterity of a street conjurer and followed him from the room.

Back down the stairs and into the rooms on the lower floor of the annexe. It was clear that the Prince was not expected to see this area of the palace; while neat and scrupulously clean, the hallway was practical and plain. He could detect the distinctive sounds and scents of a kitchen winding down for the night, most likely behind the double doors at the end of the hall. Armas stopped outside a door about halfway between the entrance and the kitchen and took a small key from his pocket, proffering it to Gerulf.

“Your quarters,” he said simply.

Gerulf nodded, accepted the key, and opened the door. Armas waved him to step inside, then followed him through. The room inside was quite small, but comfortable. A fireplace at one end of the room with a small cabinet and an armchair next to it, a bed and a chest of drawers, and a modest desk with a wooden chair against the far wall. A narrow window, above the desk, was draped with heavy green curtains. A cosy room.

“The water closet is the door opposite yours. When you wish to bathe, ring the bell by the door and a maid will come by with hot water. I will be back tomorrow morning to …impart some information.” Armas spoke briskly with a bored tone, like he showed the Prince’s new paid lovers to their rooms on a regular basis.

Gerulf simply nodded, smiling at him. As expected, Armas gave him a look of mild disgust, then with a quick step, was gone. Gerulf closed the door, briefly thought about locking it and decided to better be safe than sorry. Only now, looking at the soft bed, did he realise how tired he was.

A quick investigation of the cabinet next to the fire revealed a wash basin and jug. A wash would be good, practically necessary in fact, but however tempting the bell pull by the door was, he would be no kind of man to bother a maid at that time of night. He took the jug across the hall to the WC, a small room divided into cubicles, pissed, filled the jug from the pump and went back to the room. His room. The fire seemed to have been going for some time and was giving out a lot of warmth. Gerulf put the jug on the hearth to warm the water, then explored the room a little more. There was a small shelf with fire lighting implements in the cabinet, the chest of drawers were mainly empty, except for an extra blanket and some towels and washing cloths. There was a blotter on the desk, and a small ink well, and a thick sheaf of cream-coloured writing paper in the drawer underneath it. Very nice indeed. As soon as he got his other belongings from his lodgings he felt he could be quite at home here.

He checked the water in the jug and found it sufficiently warm, and so poured some out into the basin and dropped a cloth in it. There was a bottle of gelatinous soap in the cabinet too, and he mixed a little into the water and stirred it until it foamed. It smelled pleasantly of some sort of citrus fruit. He stripped and folded his clothes into a drawer of the chest, then washed his skin down, only realising how sticky and uncomfortable he’d been once he was clean. Naked in the warm room, he stretched and flexed his joints, as he always did before sleeping, then climbed into the cosy bed and quickly fell asleep.

*

A soft noise woke Gerulf, and a quick glance around the room told him that it was morning, thin fingers of light reaching around the edges of the curtains. The sound was that of a gentle knocking at the door. Armas would likely just barge in, so it was probably a servant of some order. It was at this point that Gerulf realised that the only clothes in his possession were those he’d worn the previous evening, which were now smelling rather the worse for wear, after being applied to his body immediately after sex. Hoping that the person at the door wasn’t a sour-faced, prudish ass, he called out “Come in, but be aware I’m not fully dressed.” Ought to do.

The door opened a little, and a young woman’s face peered cautiously through the gap. She looked curiously at him, taking in his bare chest and the shape of his body under the blankets that were pulled to his waist, then evidently decided she wasn’t offended by a mostly naked man.

“May I come in and clean sir?” she asked, her city accented voice a pleasant change from Armas and the Prince’s deliberately cultured tones.

“Of course you may miss,” Gerulf replied, “but I don’t know how much there is for you to do. I doubt I’ve been in here eight hours.”

The door fully opened and the girl bustled in, smiling at him sunnily. She was around twenty years of age, fair coloured and attractively plump. Her hair was neatly pulled back and her sensible dress was covered by a plain, practical apron. A housemaid, Gerulf guessed, not a senior one but she’d been there a while and shown her worth.

“I’m Zita, sir. I’ll usually be around here, if you need something. Mrs Burry and I take care of most of the Prince’s House.”

The way she said it made Gerulf realise; the odd little annex had a proper name. He was a resident of The Prince’s House.

“My name is Gerulf, Miss Zita,” he replied. “Forgive me if I don’t stand to greet you properly.”

She smiled sweetly, and stooped to pick up the wash basin, whisking it outside into the hall. Gerulf heard the sound of the water being poured out into a bucket and she whirled back in. Crouching to jab the remains of the fire with the poker, she turned to ask “Do your clothes need laundering Mr Gerulf?”

“Ah…”

“Only, we’ve got a very good girl on the laundry duty today, ever so quick she is. And I’d hate to see what Mrs Burry would do if you showed up to breakfast in your birthday suit.”

Gerulf laughed, and she let out a trilling little giggle in return. He decided he liked her.

“That would be much appreciated, yes.”

She nodded, finished bullying the fire, and walked around the bed to the chest of drawers to retrieve his clothes. Her little upturned nose wrinkled a tad as she did so, but she didn’t comment on the smell.

“Zita, may I ask you a question?” Gerulf enquired, not quite sure what, precisely, he wanted to say.

“Of course, sir,” she nodded, carefully folding his trousers and smoothing them over her arm.

“Has…hm. Does the Prince often…”

“Does he always have a gentleman housed in this room?” she filled in for him.

Gerulf was by no means an insecure man, but he always liked to know where he stood.

“Yes. I take it you know of the nature of my employment.”

“Well, as to the nature of it, you’d be surprised how little most realise, sir. As for the room,” she took a moment to glance around the small, cosy space, and seemed satisfied by something she saw there. “You aren’t the first to stay here under the same conditions. I must warn you, few have stayed more than a week or two. I believe the record is twenty days.”

Gerulf nodded. She had his jacket draped over her arm now and was fingering the fabric next to the left lapel.

“You’re a military man sir?”

“I was. Honourable discharge on medical grounds.”

She smiled at him a little coyly. “Once a military man, always a military man, no sir?”

“True enough. Your father?”

“And my older brother. Both lost to the Brinnan Campaign when I was eight.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shook her head, shifted the jacket in her hands a little to run her fingertips over one of the shoulders. “King’s Brigadiers,” she said confidently, and he realised she was feeling the patterns of stitches where the pips and badges had been sewn on. “A gunner, yes?”

“You know your stuff.”

She gave him another bright smile. “I’ll have your suit back to you in around two hours, sir. In the meantime, I reckon there might be something hanging about the cupboards in the laundry that might fit you, if you don’t mind a cast-off.”

“Thank you.”

She bustled out, leaving Gerulf feeling rather better about the whole situation. The palace wasn’t full of Armases, at least.

He got out of bed, feeling the pleasant sensations of warm air from the freshly roused fire all over his skin. There was a sufficiently broad space in front of the fire for him to do his exercises, so he did a few stretches then settled on the thin rug to do his sit-ups, counting each one off on the puff of breath squeezed out by the clench of his stomach muscles. His mind wandered, as it always did when his body was repeating these familiar actions.

Had he made the right decision? It was too early for him to say. Thinking back over the course of his life, it was a profound and genuine surprise that he’d ended up here. A…what? Courtesan? Whore? For the Prince of Nerimule, third heir to the Nerim Empire. Before that, struggling to find work, acting as bodyguard to travelling merchants or chasing dust plague sufferers out of abandoned buildings for the city guard. And even longer ago, seemingly decades in his past, though in truth it was only two short years, the bone-shaking thump of a house timber as it dropped heavily onto his shoulder, the flames leaping along it, searing his skin…

Gerulf’s count got to three hundred, his belly muscles feeling pleasantly strained. He turned himself over and started on the press-ups.

Fifteen years in the Nerim army, if he counted his days as an attendant when he’d still been too young to sign up. The campaign in Gretia, the border wars on the Vast Continent, and then the years of quiet, manoeuvring and training and making sure they looked frightening enough that nobody would attack them. Peaceful yes, safe yes, but somehow those gentle years lacked something, something he’d found running across battlefields, the iron mass of his unit’s gun barrel strapped to his back, him and his men clattering the artillery together into a working machine, their feet sliding in bloody mud, arrows and pieces of shot falling to the ground about them like rain.
Getting the gruesome contraption together and sending deadly hails of cannonballs roaring into the air.

Even now, his hands remembered the feel of a sword grip juddering in his hands as its blade hacked bones and sliced muscle. It sometimes occurred to him to wonder how many people he’d killed in his military career. He wasn’t ashamed of it, that blood on his hands, but sometimes…sometimes, as much as he missed the military, the sense of purpose, the camaraderie… he was glad to be out.

He was up to two hundred and forty one press-ups when another knock came at the door, and he leapt to his feet, grabbing up a bed-sheet to wrap around himself. A moment later, he realised he needn’t have worried; whoever it was was evidently not about to barge in.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s Zita sir, I’ve found you some clothes.”

He checked to make sure nothing was showing that she hadn’t seen already. “Come in, Miss Zita.”

The door opened again and she slipped into the room, a pile of rather washed out looking garments draped over her arm.

“Sorry I took so long, it took a while for us to find something that we thought would fit.”

“Quite alright,” Gerulf told her, and accepted the pile of clothes. She pottered a little, smoothing out the rug where he’d rumpled it doing his press-ups and tossing a few more pieces of wood on the fire.

“If you’d like to join the staff for breakfast, we usually eat it at about nine. First jobs done, more to go, and the body needs its fuel, you know?”

“Certainly. I’ll dress and join you all. In the kitchen?”

“That’s right. Ahmmm…”

“What?”

She shifted a little, not uncomfortably, but like she didn’t quite know how to say something. “I hope you won’t be…upset if…”

“If?”

She sighed. “You’re an…oddment.”

“A what?”

“You aren’t a servant here, but you aren’t really anything else. It’s like with the other men who’ve stayed in here. Nobody’s quite sure of what you’re here for, but folk will assume the worst. Nobody knows how to act.”

It made sense. “Don’t fret about it,” Gerulf said, giving her a smile that hopefully looked reassuring. “I’m a big lad, I can cope.”

She smiled at him again, and left the room. As the door opened, Gerulf caught the scent of cooking bacon and heard the sounds of voices and clattering cookware in the kitchen. It was enough to spur him on, and he rapidly wiped himself clean of sweat with a towel, and put on the clothes. Zita had done a good job of judging the sizes, as they fit quite well, other than the trousers being a little short. It was clear they’d been kept a long time and washed a great deal, as the fabric was thickly soft and the colours washed out to near nothing. It’d do though. He attempted to comb down the tufts in his light brown hair, then set out for the kitchen, locking the door behind him and pocketing the key.

The kitchen was warm and full of people, two cooks busy at the stoves and a bustle of servants around a large table at one end of the room, pouring tea from large kettles and slicing bread. Zita turned and waved him over, started introducing him to the others, her eyes bright and her voice cheery. It made no difference though; the eyes that regarded him were either dismissive, disdainful or slightly intimidated.

Breakfast was… interesting.

Zita and her boss, the housekeeper Mrs Burry, sat to either side of him. It was a novel experience, being guarded by a pair of women whom he could probably have picked up off the floor with one hand. Conversation at the table was steered carefully and conspicuously clear of anything to do with Gerulf, or indeed the Prince, just in case something should send him into heat, or whatever they supposed might happen. The men avoided making eye-contact with him, whereas the women would glance at his face, then turn to one of their cronies and make eloquent facial expressions of distaste. With the exception, it should be noted, of one girl of about fifteen, who stared at him open mouthed, until he smiled at her, whereupon she blushed, squeaked and dropped her cutlery.
Then the rest of the women glared at him.

Very, very…interesting.

Half an hour later, having been delivered back to his room with an apologetic smile by the harried Mrs Burry, he finally got a break when he found that Zita’s miracle laundress had delivered his suit back to him. He’d just finished changing when another knock battered at his door, and he didn’t have a moment to answer before Armas, as Gerulf could have predicted he would, barged in.

As he was about halfway through buttoning his shirt, he briefly considered unbuttoning it again, to see if it would make Armas leave.

“Settled in?” he was asked briefly. “Good.” Armas perched on the edge of the chair at the desk and waved Gerulf toward the armchair. Gerulf sat, feeling the rather dainty chair creak under his weight, and saw the subtle sense in Armas making him sit there when he realised that they were now at eye level with one another.

“I’ve some instructions for you.” Armas told him, abruptly. “You’re a member of palace staff now, I’m sure you understand that you must…behave in certain ways.”

He wasn’t looking directly at Gerulf either, his voice sharp but impersonal. He wondered if the Prince had told him about the broken rules. He wondered how the Prince was walking and tried not to smile too broadly.

“Obviously you will now be housed here, in the Prince’s House. Where were you living before?”

“I was in lodgings in Olstoff street. Can I go and get my things?”

Armas shook his head. “I’ll send somebody to pick them up.”

Gerulf nodded, and reached past Armas’ side to take a piece of paper and a stylus from the desk, writing quickly.

“As stated in the contract you’ve signed, “Armas continued, his tone of voice now suggesting that he suspected Gerulf of conveniently forgetting the contract, “you are required to keep the nature of your employment confidential. If anybody, including the staff and residents of the palace, enquire as to the purpose of your employment, they are to be told that you are His Majesty the Prince’s personal guard. You-”

“Wait, they’re to believe I’m his body guard?”

“Yes. You also-”

“But, what of the fact that I’m only around him at night? And then only for a few hours.”

Armas sighed, as if he were being quizzed on the art of counting to ten by a fool. “You may not be aware of this, but many persons of note will hire a bodyguard purely for show. A large man, usually, of military background. You were telling me only two days ago, were you not, of what people want others to think of them?”

Clever ass. “Yes, I suppose.”

“His Majesty the Prince, of course, has a small compliment of personal guards to protect him on a daily basis. Few people will become suspicious if they believe he has elected to employ a more…visible guard. Palace soldiers are the best,” he added with a small smile, obviously enjoying the implication that Gerulf hadn’t been among the elite, “and as such tend to be very inconspicuous.”

“I see,” Gerulf replied darkly.

“As I was saying, you will be required to remain quiet, as it were. The palace and its staff have very strict procedures and time tables, so it’s best that you stay out of their way. You are, of course, welcome to explore the grounds and the servant’s quarters in the Prince’s House, but please do not enter the upper storey or the Palace itself unless His Majesty the Prince asks you to do so. Do you understand?”

“Of course,” Gerulf replied. He knew blue-bloods and their fussy ways, all too well. “Anything else?”

“Yes, in fact. An assistant of the seamstress will be by to take your measure for some more suitable clothes. Your quasi-military garb is…inappropriate for court, even if you are rarely to be seen.” He looked like he was hoping for Gerulf to argue, and seemed a little put out when Gerulf simply nodded.
“Finally, you will receive your wages on the Friday of each week, as stated in your contract. Your duties will primarily concern the, ah, the …uh…”

“Carnal-”

“Yes, yes, the Prince’s…requirements. Naturally, His Majesty the Prince may make additional requests to you, regarding other aspects of his life. Simply pass these on to another member of his staff. We’ll take care of him.” The way he said ‘His Majesty the Prince’ made it sound like a name, like one long word.

“Very well,” Gerulf replied. He rose from his chair and reached around Armas to the desk drawer for an envelope, making the man flinch worriedly. He couldn’t quite squash the smirk he knew he wore at that reaction. Sitting on the foot of the bed, he folded the letter he’d written into the envelope, then removed his wallet from where he’d placed it last night on the mantle piece, counted out some paper money, added it to the envelope and wrote his landlady’s name and address on the back.

“You know fellow,” he said to Armas as he dealt with his letter, “You’re terribly nervous around me. Do you feel that I’m a danger to…what? Your manly composure?”

Armas gave him a narrow glare and rose to his feet. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, Gerulf pushed himself up from the bed with a sigh and stepped past him to reach into the desk once again, this time for the small cylinder of sealing wax (this type a more common reddish brown shade).

“Do you intend to imply that I am se…s-s-s-”

“Sexually intimidated by me? Yes.”

“Why of all the ideas! You dare-”

Wordlessly, Gerulf stepped into his personal space, staring coolly down at Armas’ face as it paled and his mouth became pinched. After a moment, when he couldn’t resist smiling anymore, he turned away and stooped to hold the end of the sealing wax near enough to the fire to soften it.

Dabbing the wax onto the envelope, he felt a pleasant satisfaction at hearing Armas huff and fidget and try to find some way to reassert himself. He had no sealing ring, and so simply pressed his fingertip to the wax once it had started to set.

“Here,” he said, proffering the completed envelope to Armas. “Please have your messenger give this to my landlady when he fetches up my things.”

Armas looked at him with suspicion. “What is it?”

“A letter explaining the situation,” Gerulf replied, allowing a slight patronising tone into his voice. “And my final week’s rent.”

Feeling the envelope, Armas frowned. “This is a great deal of money. She must have been charging you an exorbitant amount!”

“Not at all. I included another week’s rent.”

“Why, man?”

Sigh. “It will take some time for her to find another tenant. She’s a widow and already works damned hard. No need to make her life more difficult now, is there.”

Armas hmphed a little more, and tucked the envelope away in his jacket.

“His Majesty the Prince expects your presence in his suite at nine o’clock this evening. I’ve asked Burry to arrange for a bath for you. And try not to be quite so clumsy this evening, his Majesty the Prince was in some discomfort today.”

“And you think that was due to clumsiness? Fellow, have you ever engaged in sex? In any form?”

Perfect. Spluttering, red-faced and floundering, Armas stormed from the room. Gerulf glanced at his watch, which lay on the desk. It was now just after ten in the morning. Eleven hours then, before he would attend the Prince.

Just perfect.





Just a couple of little notes; Thank you very much to Paradox13 for betaing this story for me. And thanks to everybody who left me such encouraging comments :)