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There has never been much of a future for swordsmen grown old: only death in a blaze of glory or a quiet retirement. Most finish their lives in serene obscurity, as house swordsmen at country estates, guards in the city. Even the greats rarely achieve more. Richard is beginning to find the idea attractive; he has nothing left to prove. He is old enough and tired enough of it all to walk away. But Alec has other ideas for them both: nothing of grace or oblivion or defeat. And Richard, who loves him, has always had difficulty refusing him anything.
The Tremontaine estates are bountiful, and would provide both Richard and Alec with everything they could ever want. They pay, already, for the vast house Alec keeps full of light and heat and interesting strangers. And Richard was proud once, and argued about it with Alec, but he has grown soft. It is pleasant never to worry about money, especially as he grows older and slower. There will always be wood for the fire and food or the table, and Richard can choose the jobs he wants-can choose never to take another one, never to put his life on the line for a handful of coins or jewels that will be spent by the end of the winter.
If Richard has grown softer with age Alec has grown harder, and he was hard enough already. Loving him is like holding a sword by the blade. His intensity borders on insanity; his enthusiasms are legendary for their diversity and their brevity. He studies history and philosophy and natural science, reforms the servants, and dabbles in trade. He takes lovers, both male and female, and throws them in Richard's face; he spends three months painting nudes and a year drawing up plans for a house he decides not to build.
None of this bothers Richard, because he loves Alec. He can bear the temper and he has come to enjoy the variety. And he has not always been faithful to Alec; his first love is the sword and he knows that Alec knows it. But it is Alec he pictures himself growing old with, when the sword has failed him. He cannot quite imagine how it will work; easy enough to picture Alec clad all in black, weeping by an open grave, but Alec-who seems no older now than the scarecrow of a student Richard first knew-Alec does not quite fit into this scenario of tidy cottages and steady employment.
It is one thing for the Duke of Tremontaine to live with the best swordsman in the city (Richard has quite outgrown false modesty); it is quite another for him to live with a guardsman, or to have his house swordsman as his lover. Richard can see all of this is true, and that Alec truly means well in pointing it out, but that doesn't make Alec's solution any easier to bear. Richard St. Vier and politics are simply not a natural combination. It is all very well for Alec to make rousing speeches about popular interests and the common man. For Richard to do it, would be ludicrous; he has neither the Tremontaine gift for public speaking nor Alec's love of the ridiculous.
They argue about it, politely, during dinner; their guests look on with what Alec presumes is interest and Richard knows is horror. Richard has no words to defend himself, can think of nothing drastic enough to express the awful stupidity of the plan. Alec takes for granted it is settled. They have only to buy a title for Richard and have him elected; his rise to the chancellorship will be meteoric. Richard catches Michael Godwin laughing and stares him down.
Apparently nobility is more difficult to buy than Alec had expected. The negotiations go on into spring and something about the warmer weather revitalizes Richard. He fights half a dozen good fights and begins to wonder if he really wants to give up the sword. Alec begins looking for officials to bribe and Richard sees him less and less often. They manage to be together only at night, and one or the other of them is always asleep. Richard does not know how to put a stop to it, anymore than he ever has. He is losing Alec, and without Alec he will be lost himself.
In the middle of summer, things come to a head. Richard realizes that Alec must be avoiding him; he corners the other man to ask him why-thinking, all the while, that this will be the end. Alec will have found someone else, a beautiful boy with a quicksilver mind, a handsome girl with child-bearing hips and a dowry as vast as a king's ransom. But Alec looks so guilty, so trapped, that Richard can't bear to confront him. He turns away, thinking that if he can keep nothing else he will keep his pride. He will walk away if that is what Alec wants.
Alec catches his shoulder, spins him back around. His face is very white, and when he speaks the words come out in a rush. He's sorry-he hopes Richard doesn't hate him-but he's failed. Failed Richard, failed them both. There will be no Lord St. Vier, no chance at a chancellorship, no making decisions that change the course of history-or at least, no decisions not made over a bared blade. Richard has never been so relieved he can't find words before. He's always known he loved Alec, but he's never known how much Alec loved him. For the first time there is no edge to Alec: for the first time he is entirely Richard's. It is like going from holding a sword by the blade-to holding it by the hilt.