Drunken laughter rang out as I followed the path from the gardens to the stable. The sun shone overhead, glinting in my eye. Charles' words swam in my head. I couldn't shake the image of the Lord Chamberlain and the King. Lovers.

Another burst of laughter. Slumped in the shade of the hedges, a bottle between them, Geoff sat with two other men in the grass.

Our eyes met once, and then his dropped.

A coat of mauve. Long greasy hair. Grime in the creases of his wide palms, dirt caked beneath broken fingernails.

Disgust crept up my throat. The days spent at Court with baths and fine perfumes had nearly washed my memory clean of what it meant to live this way. Nearly.

"What are you doing here?" I asked lowly. "You lot shouldn't be up here." The sick stench of the slaughterhouse hung on him, on all of them. Smears of red stained their clothes. Flashes of pigs on hooks dangled in my mind, blood still dripping from their throats.

The men all gazed at me with the same expression, lazy, squinting against the sun, distrustful. Like they were daring me to turn them in.

If I am not one of you, who am I?

"You a guard now... Auden?" Geoff circled the rim of the bottle with one finger before flashing me a smile. His teeth showed, lip curled a little before the scowl returned. He said the words slowly, surely so I would understand. Then I would have to kill you.

"Still slicing up pigs, Geoff?"

"Still slicing up men?" he returned, just as vicious.

Immediately my eyes flashed to the other two men. They made no visible reaction, just stared at me with those drunk, defiant eyes.

"Shouldn't have told me what you did to Fletcher." Geoff leaned back with a contented smile, one ankle crossed over the other. "Good man, he was." The man beside him raised the bottle and took a swig.

"If you think I killed him, why not report me?" Nerves pricked along my skin at the memory of that night. The butcher's blood on my knife. On my fingers. In my mouth. I eat you, pig.

Geoff laughed. Leaned back and let his head loll on his shoulder. "When rats kill rats in the dungeon, do you think they bother to report it to us?"

I stumbled back. The heat and the memories were enough to turn my stomach. I walked down the path without a word, trying to shake his sickening laugh from my mind.

A rustle of grass. Behind me, Geoff climbed to his feet, wiping both palms on his trousers. Left the bottle for the other two. The corners of folded parchment stuck out from the pockets of his mauve coat. His hair clung to his neck in stiff, greasy strands.

"You kill since?"

My stomach lurched. "No."

"You want to?"

A flash of red. Bubbling heat. A low hum in my head like screaming. A rotting pig's head with vines of green and black. A sweet, sickly smell.

Yes.

"Someone bigger than Fletcher?" Geoff turned to the chipped stone wall of the castle. "Someone up there?"

I angled my gaze up, past the darkened windows, where the towers seemed to break past the sky. There was something devastatingly distant about them. Distant and unattainable.

"Do you ever wonder what we could have been?" I whispered. "If we weren't born rats?"

The look in his eyes told me he did. Every day. Despite all else, we would always have that in common.

I looked down, twisted my lower lip between my teeth. The dirt below me seemed a safer place for my gaze than the high towers. "The world needs rats," Geoff said. "To sink their teeth into pretty lambs once in a while."

The heat in my stomach turned icy cold.

A grin of amusement spread like butter on his lips. "Tell me, Auden, is the King really a bugger?"

Memories lit up like little flames. Philip's arms around me, the way I fell asleep to his breathing every night. The first time I kissed him in the garden. The sound of his voice, the warmth of his hands, the gleam of tears in his eyes when he told me he loved me. My heart expanded and withered as I looked at Geoff. "No," I heard myself say.

"Shame," he murmured. "I would have loved to hear the tales of you two."

I wanted to cry. I wanted to run to him right now, my King, jump in his arms and say hold me, this world is so dark and you are the only light in it. But I couldn't. He was preparing to be wed. Tomorrow, his wife would have a chamber in his castle and he would sleep in her bed.

"He is good," I said. "He is a good man." It was hard to say the words when I still thought of him as a boy. My boy. But he was a man now. So was I.

The teasing smile faded as Geoff sobered suddenly. "You don't start a revolution by kissing the King's hand. You start it by slitting his throat."

"What makes you think I want a revolution?"

"Oh, revolution is coming." I had never seen anyone look so sure of anything. "Whether you want it or not."

The Death of England.

Who else would mark the ring on my left hand but the man who stole it from me?

And now I pictured him, always scribbling, always buried in his papers, quill scratching away. The only man in the servants' quarters who could read and write. Had he been sketching the leaflet that day in the field, right in front of me?

A pinch of pain. I stared down at my hand, where I'd spun and spun my ring into a rose-red cut on my finger. "Death of England," I whispered. "You bastard."

His eyes shone with sudden pride. Excitement. "Did you like it?"

And at that moment I was knelt before the throne again, the leaflet in my hands, the cold gaze of Captain Fitzhugh bearing down on me. The drawing. The beheaded King. Geoff's tribute to me. His cold revenge.

"They would have put me to death. Is that... what you wanted?" I despised how weak I sounded. Like a heartbroken child.

"I thought it was fitting. Auden Murray cutting the head from his beloved pig. I hadn't decided until the night I knew I had truly lost you. Then it became clear. You were the only one who could do it. The only one close enough."

"Is that why you gave me your knife? Hoping I would do something stupid?"

"Have you?"

I tasted blood on my tongue and realized I'd been biting it. "I still may."

Geoff pulled in a deep breath, eyes on my hands. How quickly I could tear it from my boot and thrust it into his stomach. Slice his side. His throat.

You fought him once already and lost. His dark eyes were reflective, like staring into a mirror. Fighting Geoff meant fighting myself. Fighting the strongest, blackest part of myself with twice the mind and three times the strength.

Geoff. Eyes a few shades darker, a few inches taller, a few years older. He was all the bad in me and then some.

"Show me." The sudden conviction in my voice surprised me. I nodded toward the papers stuffed in his coat pocket. "I want to see."

He smiled again. Flattered. We left the path and stood with our backs to the castle wall, the high tower offering a sliver of shade. The drawings were blotchy, ink smeared, written words scrawled over them. A crowd of men standing over the body of a fallen. I turned the page. An axe, with a smudge of red on the blade. Real blood. A dead pig.

Hungry Hungry Hungry scrawled across the parchment, messier each time.

A naked man hanging from a rope. Excruciating detail.

"I have sketches of you," he murmured. I felt his gaze on me like a branding iron. Burning.

"Me?"

"Yes. In the slaughterhouse. I draw there." His fingers crept over the edge of the page to my wrist. "Would you like to see them?"

My chest tightened as his hand reached mine. His fingertips skimmed over my callouses, the gentlest I'd ever known him to be. I looked past the strands of hair that hung before his eyes. His eyebrows were thick and full, cheekbones high. Beneath the filth, he might have been handsome.

"Do you think about me when you're slaughtering pigs?" I whispered.

His thumb reached the scar across the center of my palm. The scab was peeling away, pink flesh peeking out beneath. Geoff smiled. Pressed his dirty fingernail down ever so slightly. "I think about you all the time."

I gasped as he dug his nail into my flesh. The papers fluttered to our feet. The stinging pain was enough to make me grasp his arm, wrench it away.

He laughed. I panted for breath, cradling my hand to my chest. "Why did you do that?" I hissed.

"I wanted to know how it feels."

I stared at him, breathless. "What?"

"To hurt you."

Before I could choke out a response, a shout came from farther up the hill. "Oi!" Geoff's mates were up, bottle swinging between them. "When you boys are through buggering each other, we got work to get to."

"Auden." Geoff bent and lifted his sketch from the grass. He pointed to the boy in the center, the boy with the ring. "This is your chance. To be remembered for all time. Cut the pig's throat and feast on his flesh."

I didn't wish to be remembered. How peaceful it sounded, to simply be forgotten.

Geoff faced me deliberately. His smile was gone, replaced by cold solemnity. "If you don't do it, I will."

I felt the weight of the knife against my boot. Blood dripping. Bubbling up. I wouldn't kill again. I wouldn't kill again.

Geoff tucked the papers into his coat. The other two waited for him by the path, one holding the bottle crooked so the liquid slowly dribbled out. Idiot. Probably didn't even know he was spilling.

"No one escapes retribution," he whispered. "Not us. Not this land. Not even the King."

His words left a pit in my stomach. I watched him rejoin the other men, his coattails flapping in the dry wind. And then I was alone.

In the corner of the wall, where the stone met the earth, a cockroach wriggled its way out of the dirt, little legs scrabbling for hold. It crawled up, up, up the wall, closer to the sun.

Foolish thing. In a sudden burst of spite, I ground my boot down over it.

And felt its pain as I found the opening in my scab and pressed my nail down.

🦢•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧.˚ *•̩̩͙ 🦢. •̩̩͙*˚⁺‧.˚ *•̩̩͙ 🦢

I found Philip on the floor that evening. Plates of discarded food were spread on the bedside table, honey cake and sweet pudding. An empty pitcher of wine. I frowned slightly, tipped it towards me to see if any was left, then remembered the picture Charles had painted of King Philip III.

A drunken, fat slob. I released the pitcher.

"What are you doing?"

Philip sat by the fireplace, prodding a log with the iron fire poker. "Hiding, I suppose," he said.

"From who?"

"Sleep." He shrugged carelessly, let the fire poker drop with a clang. "If I never go to sleep, the day shall never end."

I let out a slow chuckle and lowered myself to feel the warmth of the fire, snapping and crackling. The sun was nearly set. This was it. His last night unmarried.

"Come here." I drew my arms around him and buried my nose in his hair. Flowers and soap. The drawstring tie of his nightshirt had come undone, revealing the splash of freckles across his shoulder. "Let me hold you."

He was so warm and perfect and beautiful, and I could feel the darkness inside me shifting, stirring, wanting to squeeze him, dig in.

I looked at his throat. Soft, white, hairless. Cut the pig's throat and feast on his flesh. The King had no sons, no brothers. With one nick, I could change the course of history forever. I really could.

"Are you hungry?" he asked me, eyes closed. "Did you get anything to eat?"

Hungry Hungry Hungry

"I'm alright," I said.

Philip frowned. "You should eat. Stay where you are, I'll bring you a plate." He kissed my forehead and stood.

As soon as he was gone, cold reality washed back in like waves from the sea. What in Christ's name was I thinking? Killing him? The only man in the world who cares about you.

I remembered standing in Beauregard's room, the light of one candle illuminating the words he had written. My Beloved One whom I so grappled with the urge to Destroy...

Perhaps we were more alike than I had ever considered.

Philip sat beside me again with a plate of dry meat and bread with seeds. A wedge of cake was stacked atop the bread, berries sprinkled throughout. My heart warmed.

"Eating on the floor is becoming a pattern for us, isn't it?" I said, thinking of the first time I'd ever visited his chambers.

He lay back, arms spread out, staring up at the ceiling while I took a hasty mouthful of bread. "Chairs are so constraining."

I laughed and ducked my head with another bite, swallowing the lump in my throat.

"We're never going to see the world, are we?"

His words came unexpectedly. Quiet but sure. I looked at him. His eyes remained on the ceiling, his expression the same. The twist of flames cast shadows on his face. I lowered my plate. "Philip, you're all of the world I care to see."

He turned. Amber eyes met mine. He smiled slightly, wavering like the flames that lapped the wood in the fireplace. Scarcely a moment passed before he leaned in and kissed me. My hands fell away from him and braced myself on the floor. A kiss. A real kiss after so long. A single, lingering, aching kiss after I had lost him to duty and manhood.

I wondered if he would kiss his wife. If he would look into her eyes, if he would hold her. As they created the future together.

Anger flashed in me, fast and sharp. Anger and the urge to grip his wrist and point to the scar on his palm and say, Remember. Remember what you promised me.

But I did not. I swallowed the words and filled my mouth with the taste of him, until his lips and tongue washed away the bitterness. He closed his eyes, all too willing to follow my lead. But I was blind, we both were, groping in the dark, using our hands to say what our words could not.

"Come to bed with me," I whispered.

"I have my whole life to lay in bed. I want to lie on the floor."

I laughed at the absurdity, but found myself down on the marble beside him, eye-level with the fire. Golden flames licked the logs in slow waves. In the warmth and soft light, the world held an illusion of peace.

Philip's ringed fingers slid up my chest and traced my collarbone, then rounded the back of my neck. His voice came between slow breaths against my lips. "We could still run away."

The cold touch of gold on my skin made me shiver. I counted his rings in my head. One, two, three on his right hand. "I'm ready when you are," I whispered.

He leaned his cheek on my bicep, staring up at me. Lips still. We both smiled.

Later, after I'd eaten and the fire had died down, he curled into me with his eyes closed, breathing slow. I held him for a while and watched the flames fade to embers, the remaining logs scorched black. I couldn't help leaning over him, brushing back his stray curls, letting my fingertips stray across the softness of his cheek. I held him the way a child held her favorite doll - careful, in awe of its beauty, astonished that it was really hers.

Was Beauregard, the spider, ever capable once of such tenderness?

My eyes drifted to the door that remained closed indefinitely, the room that had once belonged to the King's Lord Chamberlain. A room beside his own. Had they fallen asleep in each other's arms before the fire?

"Philip," I whispered. He was asleep. I kissed the center of his brow and he tilted his head. "I think you would be more comfortable in bed, darling."

"Don't want to sleep," he mumbled.

"I know. You don't have to sleep. Wouldn't you like being under the covers?"

He considered in silence, then finally nodded. He let me guide him to his feet and walk him over to his bed, where he collapsed on his stomach, feet dangling over the edge. "Don't let me fall asleep," he said. I rolled him over and drew the sheets up to his chin as he promptly snuggled in and closed his eyes.

Restless, I stood before the balcony doors and stared out into the night. The fear of being so high up crept through my veins, but I ignored it and opened the doors. The cold night air greeted me as I stepped out onto the balcony.

I pictured King Philip III, scepter clutched in his bloated white knuckles, ermine cloak framing his stooped form. How many nights had he stood where I stood now, looking out at his courtyard? Never could he have imagined a servant boy in the crowd would come to eat supper at his table, sleep in his bed.

I am sleeping where he slept. The realization came like a splash of ice water. I had known this, of course. But now the fact stood solidly in my mind like a dark figure.

There was darkness looming, spreading, growing like a black rose in a garden of red. I needed to speak to someone who would understand me. I needed to go to Beauregard.

Then perhaps I would understand what it meant to love a king.