Spectred Isle (Green Men #1)(42)

“If I didn’t feel I could trust you I’d have decided that already, based on your history of inexplicable arrivals and departures, and your habit of never answering questions. The crooks of my knees and elbows, would you believe, as well as the usual. I wouldn’t recommend that until I’ve had a bath, though.”

“I wouldn’t normally make a fuss, but I don’t like the idea of getting anything of this place in my mouth. Or yours.”

“Not to worry,” Saul said. “I’m sure we can make do.”

Randolph closed his eyes. He wanted Saul, but he’d wanted plenty of men in his time. He hadn’t previously felt this way: not precisely nervous about asking, but certainly as if there were a pressing reason to get it right. “Suppose I were sufficiently villainous to make any advances tonight...?”

“If you can see in the dark, you can presumably see me waiting for you to kiss me. I’d do it but I’d be guessing where your face is.”

“Here,” Randolph said, and twisted round.

Saul’s face was shimmering silver, his lips slightly parted. He didn’t look afraid. Randolph met his mouth, felt its welcome. Saul’s lips were warm, his tongue gently flickering, his skin as clean-shaven as though no time at all had passed since the morning, as indeed it had not. He shifted awkwardly—blindly, even, mustn’t forget he can’t bloody see—and Randolph moved too, till they were face to face, body to body, breath to breath. Saul’s hands roamed upwards, into Randolph’s hair; Randolph let his roam down, and inside the jacket. He’d forgotten for a second Saul was naked under it; he was almost as shocked by the touch of fingers on bare skin as Saul was, judging by his intake of breath.

Randolph paused, letting his hands hover; Saul nodded against his mouth, his own hands sliding down the linen of Randolph’s shirt, and tugging at it where it was tucked into his waistband.

It seemed only fair. Randolph allowed his own hands to roam as they kissed, enjoying the gentle movements of Saul’s mouth, feeling the shape of shoulderblades, the dips of Saul’s spine, the careful, methodical touch of fingers as Saul worked his way down the shirt buttons. He pulled the two sides of the garment apart, pushed the cloth off Randolph’s shoulders and down his arms, and then his hands came up again and landed right over Randolph’s shoulders.

Saul’s fingers went rigid. He pulled his mouth away, and Randolph had to set his jaw not to jerk away himself at the touch. Thumbs on the scars under his collarbones, fingertips on the scars on his back.

“Randolph,” Saul said. “What am I feeling?”

“Scars.”

“Matching ones, on both sides, front and back?”

“Indeed.”

“Randolph.”

“Believe me, you don’t want to know,” Randolph said. “It will do nothing for the mood.”

“Nor will evasion. Why do you have— It feels as though something went straight through.” He sounded incredulous, as well he might. “They’re lined up.”

“Hooks.”

“Hooks,” Saul repeated.

“I carry words the human mind is not equipped to contain. I see in the dark. I can command obedience to an extent. That sort of thing has a price, which was this.”

“Hooks,” Saul said again. “But—”

“Nine days and nights, suspended by hooks through my shoulders, hanging off a tree. If you suspect that was unpleasant, you’re right.”

Saul’s hands moved up, cupping his face. “Randolph. My God. Who did that to you?”

“I did, of course. Well, my father, but it couldn’t have been done without my cooperation. It’s what I was born for.”

“The devil it is,” Saul said. “That’s monstrous. Your father.”

Randolph tried not to remember that. The ancient iron, the rigid look on his father’s face, the pain. His own too-late desperate begging for it not to happen, for it to stop. Father hadn’t begged when it had been his turn, he’d said, though Randolph always wondered, just as he’d wondered if his father’s chilly lack of affection had been in part because he’d known what he’d have to do to his son.

“It’s the family role,” he repeated. “Father to son—or occasionally grandson or nephew. It has to be done, or the Words will be lost.”

“And what about you?” Saul demanded. “Are you going to father a child and hang him off a tree by hooks?”

“I would have,” Randolph said, the words bare in the darkness. “I was intended to marry my cousin Theresa, you see. It would have been a sham of course—on both our parts, I may add; she didn’t care to stay with just one man for an evening, let alone for life. We’re not a romantic family. But she was my dearest friend. It would have worked in its way. And she died at the second Great Summoning, screaming through blood and broken glass, and I wasn’t with her.”

Saul’s hands, still on his shoulders, tightened, and Randolph felt himself tugged forward into warm arms. He resisted for a second, then gave in, loosening his rigid muscles by an effort of will. “I’m so sorry.”

“So am I,” Randolph said. “I’m sorry she’s dead, and I’m sorry I can’t do her job, and I’m sorry that I’m going to fail at everything because I can’t—the idea of having a child, of doing that, explaining— I can’t.”