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HIS LITANY OF TASKS keep him busy, but, at the end of a long day, Clement enjoys nothing more than returning home to his wife with whatever flowers and treats he was able to scrounge from the market on his way home.
However, this morning, she woke up sick, fevered and coughing as though a fly had made bed in her lungs. Short of staying home—which Anthea, between croaks, made him absolutely swear not to do—he has done everything in his power to be with her, including, but not limited to, making sure he's home on time with absolutely no dalliances.
Of course, she is not well enough to greet him at the door, but his heart pangs anyway, sorely missing her sunshine-smile as he toes out of his hunting boots.
"My love," he calls softly, striding into the modest bedroom they share. Nothing like the grand vastness of the palace he sees every day, to be sure, but it's humble. Stationed amidst the barracks of his fellow guardsmen, in the centre of the estate. It's theirs. It's home. "My love, are you awake?"
Anthea forms a lump beneath the duvet, only her pallid forehead and a reef of barley-coloured hair peeks out from beyond its rim. She shifts, a stiff, wriggling worm, before two dazed eyes appear next, blinking in slow happiness.
"I'm so sick," she whines first, voice thick and lisped and raspy. Them, she sticks her arms up in the air like a doll. "I missed you."
"I know, I know, me as well." Clement perches on the side of their bed, accepting her embrace. Her, hot to the touch, a wall on the outside of her skin. Him, sweating and rumpled from his work. What a pair they are.
Slanted across her like this, he finally notices the mug and bowl at her bedside, different to the ones he left her earlier in the day. "My love, did you fetch those yourself? Did I not leave you enough food?"
"No, no, sir." Anthea laughs, albeit weakly, her frail chest rattling against his ear. "My sister was here. I had her take care of me."
"Ah. Another person at your beck and call," he replies fondly, turning his head to bury into her stomach, feeling the rise and fall of each of her breaths.
"Mm. A pity I have to share one of them." Her hand ruffles the back of his hair, heat-kissed fingertips at the nape of his neck and rubbing tenderly. "How was your day? How was work?"
"My love, you need to rest," Clement sighs, lifting his head once more to peer at the lovely underside of her chin. "I don't want to bore you with the details."
"Then, bore me until I fall asleep," Anthea retorts, as stubborn as ever. "Tell me something."
"Well." Relenting, Clement lifts himself up to be next to her, so she doesn't have to strain herself to look at him as he talks. He knows she's grateful for this decision, because she immediately begins fondling the side of his jaw. "What would you like to hear?"
Anthea hums. "I've always wanted to hear court gossip. Especially if you have any about His Majesty."
To this, Clement withers. He's not surprised by her request—quite the opposite, really—yet… Something about it feels—wrong. Treasonous, somehow.
Still. Anything for his beloved.
"Well, there is this one thing…"
▬▬▬
Clement arrived at his post with the dawn guard five minutes in advance, and his new captain—a slight man with silver hair and a warm smile—immediately extended his arm.
"Clement, right?" he checked, clasping Clement's hand in a surprisingly firm grip. "Welcome to His Majesty's royal guard! I'm your captain, but, you can just call me Ashe."
Captain Ashe Ubert was one of the generals who had stormed the Imperial Palace during the war, securing victory for the United Kingdom. It was no wonder that he would be trusted with the esteemed station of His Majesty's royal guard.
Briefly, Clement wondered what world it was that he was permitted to call such a legendary man by name.
"Thank you," Clement replied, his nerves now settled at ease. His wife had looked upon him with amusement when he'd hardly been able to swallow his breakfast for feeling sick over them, and, only now was he beginning to see the humour.
The rest of the dawn guard appeared in clusters, exhaustion clear on their faces and tugging on their eyelids. It was early, certainly. Not even a hint of light was visible on the horizon, as if the world was not yet aware of the possibility of there being so.
Clement counted heads around him, trying to predict assignments, when movement stirred past his eye. He spun on his heel, catching the dark flash of a navy ponytail as the Duke Fraldarius strode down the narrow corridor.
Ashe grinned. The Duke glared back, icy-sharp, before disappearing around the bend.
The girl next to Clement nudged him, "I heard," she began conspiratorially, "that the best spot for nighttime patrol is outside His Majesty's quarters, because the sounds of him and the Duke fucking will keep you up all night."
Clement's skin scorched. Both from the crudeness of the word fucking said so close to his ear, but also from the thought—that couldn't be true. Right? Word surely would have reached the Faerghus Herald by now. And, the whole country was waited with bated breath for the King to announce a partner, to even hint that he might be interested in someone beyond what they contributed to matters of foreign affairs.
The Duke Fraldarius? Clement wasn't an expert in these matters, but Anthea followed Faerghan tabloids religiously. She would scoff at the idea.
So—surely not. Right?
▬▬▬
Clement shivered, the fur-lining of his palace-issued hood unfortunately doing little against the persistent Faerghan cold.
Today, he had a simple routine: ground patrol. Marching up and down in a figure-eight around His Majesty's adjoining courtyards while clutching the base of his axe in readiness, the soles of his fine leather boots crunching against frost-laden paths and shorn heads of icy grass.
He had only been at this for a few hours. For lunch, he would be relieved by another guard, and the evening patrol would replace him in time for him to have a late dinner with his wife, which Clement was sorely looking forward to. The dining-hall food was nice, but Clement considered Anthea's cooking to be second to none.
Occupied with thoughts of her mischievous smile, Clement continued his route, only stopping when a panicked voice made his blood run cold.
No. Oh no. He was not about to listen in on one of His Majesty's private conversations.
Even if they were happening but a few metres away from him, easily within earshot, while Clement himself was conveniently hidden out of sight.
"Felix!" The King stumbled to keep apace with the quick-footed Duke, his arms halfheartedly outstretched. "Come here. Please. I didn't mean to upset you."
The Duke huffed. "Hardly."
"Then, look at me. Please."
Irritated, the Duke made a sharp turn. "What?" he groused, begrudgingly accepting the King's gloved hands that came to clasp his upper arms.
"Is it so terrible for us to be out here together? Where we are not even being perceived?"
Clement politely scrawled a mental note. They weren't being perceived in public, at least. This—situation? Lovers' quarrel?—was fixed firmly between the three of them.
Did that mean it would be improper of Clement to share with Anthea?
"I suppose so," the Duke admitted, begrudging. His Majesty beamed.
And, Clement was a fool not to predict what happened next, as His Majesty said, "My Felix!" and darted down to the Duke's mouth for a quick kiss.
Clement's own mouth hung open. Oh Lord, oh Saint, oh Almighty Goddess. They really were—intimate.
As the King attempted to pull away, the Duke wrestled him down for another, deep and vicious and hungry, and Clement found himself scandalised, unable to look, unable to tear his eyes away. They were kissing with the cover of a few hedges, for Cichol's sake. Yet, somehow, they were the palace's best kept secret.
When the thin sunlight glanced off the saliva hanging off the Duke's lower lip, Clement knew he had seen too much. He turned away, feeling faintly sick—among everything else. They were still at it, punctured, desperate breathing tucked right behind Clement's ear.
Goddess. Lunch couldn't come soon enough.
▬▬▬
The following week, Clement's slightly-less-new job carried him to door duty outside of the conference room while the King held a meeting with the heads of the old Faerghan houses and their heirs.
Clement had to stay alert. With all that politicking behind closed doors, who knew what could happen—what if the room exploded?—but his mind kept wandering. He was off work in an hour. He could imagine it now: the dinner Anthea was preparing, the bath already drawn and laced with perfumed oil, glittering across the water's surface. He would submerge himself, eyes closed and breath held, until she shed her clothes and came to join him, and the only heat that lingered was the one generated between them.
As he succumbed to his daydreams—allowing himself a brief moment of repose before he returned to guarding with redoubled efforts—something inside the conference room slammed.
"You fool!"
Clement's hand lurched to his axe. Was the King in danger? If anything happened to him, there was no way Clement was getting home on time.
He flew to the door, about the wrestle it open, when the other guard chuckled, pulling Clement back by a hand wrapped around his elbow.
"Stand down," she said, voice loaded with reckless exasperation. At least they were somewhere where no one of a greater position would pay them any mind. "It's just Duke Fraldarius being unpleasant, as usual. If he attacks His Majesty again, it'll just turn into a sparring match."
Clement wrinkled his nose. "Again?"
The other guard rolled her eyes. "Unfortunately. The Duke has a sharp tongue and the personality to match. Once you've worked here a little longer, you'll get used to it. Rumour has it he detests the King."
Clement raised his eyebrows. Detests. So, what Clement saw the other day in the garden—a hate kiss? A trick of the light?
If it was a hallucination, he ought to see the palace healer. "He hates him that much?"
"What is the matter with you?" From inside the conference room, Duke Fraldarius continued his tirade, venom in his voice.
"Felix." The King sounded weary. "I stand by my decision."
"And, it's a stupid one," Duke Fraldarius snarled.
The other guard nodded. "Apparently, since they were teenagers."
That long? Clement could only laugh at his past self. With Duke Fraldarius' words landing like snapping arrows against the door, the walls shaking in the wake of their force, it was the only explanation that made sense.
Hearsay and surreptitious kisses aside, how could anyone mistake the two of them for being intimate? Clement tried his best to align the Duke Fraldarius in there with any modicum of bedside manner, and shuddered at the half-baked thought. Definitely not.
It just—wasn't possible.
▬▬▬
Clement was stationed at the front gate when an urgent messenger arrived on pegasus-back, landing in a whirlwind of loose feathers. They scattered into the snowbanks littered around the entrance, leaving hardly an imprint, even as they sucked up all the moisture through withering fibres and shrivelled to half their size.
"You." The messenger scrambled through their back. Scarlet-cheeked, messy-haired. Clearly too hasty for formalities. Once they retrieved what they were looking for—a white, square envelope, speckled with dots of blood—they thrust it in Clement's direction, near-slicing the web between Clement's finger and thumb, even through his gloves. "For the King. Hurry."
Before Clement could respond, the messenger once again took to the air, and only then did it sink in that Clement did not have time to lose.
As dawn soaked the winter sky up above, he tore across the palace grounds, darting past the questioning gazes of the rest of the royal guard, ignoring the yelps and shouts of the training grounds, already crammed full with knights. He did not stop to check if he spotted a head of fine blond among the line-up, but he did not need to. Night patrol had let him know of the King's habit of working late—with a rare, empty morning, he wasn't expected to be seen beyond the palace walls until noon.
His Majesty's rooms were far, and Clement did not know the palace well enough for a shortcut. Still, he made it there faster than he had made it anywhere in his life, and his heart thundered against his chest as evidence, testing the wall of his skin to see if it would crack.
The guard here must have been doing a lap, so Clement couldn't even push off the task. No, he had to do it himself, though he had scarcely even been in the King's presence before.
Squaring his shoulders, he wrestled the door open, bee-lining for the bedchamber.
"Your Majesty, a messenger arrived with this." He shoved forth the letter in his hand.
And, to his shock-confusion-dread, someone that was surely not His Majesty sat up in bed, a scowl etched deep into his face. Waves of navy hair spilled over his bare shoulder like ink.
"What?" Duke Fraldarius growled, yanked straight from sleep, while the King's snores remained heavy and unbroken right beside him. Upon closer inspection, his back was also bare.
Oh—
▬▬▬
"—they are fucking," Anthea concludes triumphantly, evidently pleased with Clement's choice of gossip. Honestly, that makes two of them. "They have to be."
Clement frowns, his fingers pressed into a fever-pinked cheek. Her skin's still warm to the touch. Clement will have to fetch a compress for her before he leaves to work on their dinner. "Well, I'm not one-hundred percent certain—"
"Duke Fraldarius was in his bed! Shirtless! How else would you explain that," Anthea huffs, lightly smacking Clement's shoulder. "Saints. Does that make me one of the first people to know? What if I sold the story to a journalist."
"Hey!" Clement whines, gently pushing her back. She coughs as her back makes contact with the mattress, a frail thing, which Clement isn't entirely convinced is genuine. Still, he takes extra care to be gentle as he prods the centre of her chest. "You will do no such thing. Where do you think they'll suppose you got the information from?"
Anthea giggles, her chest rattling slightly beneath his touch. "You're right, you're right. I won't do that to you, love."
"Good." Clement pokes her once more for good measure. "Now, I'll go and reheat that stew your sister made. Will you be alright here?"
"Yes, yes. Go on, I'm hungry. I need the energy to recover."
"But, not to annoy me," Clement replies fondly, leaning over to kiss her heat-stroked forehead. "I'll be back in a moment."
He barely makes it to the door when Anthea starts speaking again. "So, all that fighting—"
"Love—"
"What? I'm just saying. Maybe, we should try it too."