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By the time Ragnar fulfilled his word and brought Uhtred directly back to Winchester, the lash marks on Uhtred’s back had healed, though not faded. The scar tissue, thick along the deepest marks, the places where Sverri had laid the whip again and agin, was tight and hard. It itched sometimes, an abominable feeling.
The scars those marks left on his mind had not healed. Though Hild’s words and care and gentle touch had begun the process, it did not drain the shame from Uhtred’s marrow nor the revulsion that filled his chest whenever his attention was brought to the marks on his back.
It was not until they reached Winchester that Uhtred was able to drain that wound and balm it into healing.
Or rather, not Uhtred, but Alfred.
When they arrived, Alfred sat very still and very regal upon his throne. He thanked Ragnar for completing his task and had him sent to a small room in the guest wing of the palace, Brida with him, though they were both kept under heavy guard. He thanked Steapa for accompanying the Dane and asked after the trip.
Uhtred stood, silent and staring, while conversation flowed around him. He could feel himself slipping away, deep into that cavern in his mind that he’d carved out aboard the ship. It took a loud call of his name to jar him back to reality. When he blinked hard and straightened his spine, he realized the room had emptied. He blinked again. How had he not noticed?
“Uhtred, are you well? Tell me truly.” Alfred’s voice was gentler than Uhtred had ever heard it.
Uhtred swallowed and nodded. “Better every day, Lord. Though some wounds are slower to heal than others.”
He offered Alfred a tight smile, hating the distance between them, which couldn’t have been more than two dozen feet, but felt wide enough to swallow all of England.
Alfred nodded and then said, “Come. I would speak with you.”
Uhtred followed, for he’d grown accustomed to taking orders without questioning them, like he’d grown accustomed to pulling. For a moment, he felt the phantom warmth of Finan at his back, pinning him and preventing him from doing stupid things, like throwing himself into the sea. He wondered if Finan would think this was a stupid thing?
He was almost sure it was, for what was there but pain and despair in his immediate future? He was certain that Alfred was leading him to the King’s Royal Bed Chamber. He had been gone nearly two and a half years now, what with the nonsense of Guthred and then his own enslavement, and they had not gone so long without humping since they’d begin this madness so many years ago. But of course, the last time they’d humped, the only scars on Uhtred’s body were from battle and thus worn with pride. No so anymore. Alfred would be disgusted, just as he himself was, when he saw them. And that was saying nothing of the fact that Uhtred had lost nearly two full stone on the slave ship and much of that in muscle. His ribs were now visible under his skin where once there was strength and power.
He was a hideous, broken thing, who could no longer serve any purpose. He could not fight, for the weight of his sword made his arms ache. He could not hold both sword and shield together, his body too weak for it. And what use was a warrior who could not fight? But he wasn’t even any good for humping either, for everything appealing about him had been taken from him: his strength, his muscle, his unmarked back, even his lips that remained roughened and pealing for so long at sea in the frigid cold.
Alfred would surely turn Uhtred out on his ear and possibly vow never to touch him again.
To save himself the humiliation of it, Uhtred spoke the moment they entered Alfred’s bed chamber. “Lord, I fear you will find me changed and likely no longer appealing.”
Alfred stopped, frozen completely in the center of the room, where he’d been crossing to open the far curtain. He turned slowly back to face Uhtred, his face very carefully blank. His eyes burned. “Excuse me?”
“It is just that…I am marked, Lord, in a manner which I was not before and…”
“Uhtred…do you believe that the only reason I bring you here is to hump you?” Alfred’s voice was flat, inflectionless, and gave away nothing.
Uhtred was confused. “Yes? That…is not the reason?”
Alfred swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. He took a step toward Uhtred, one that appeared involuntary and then stopped again. He grit his teeth. “Uhtred, I do not believe it is possible that I would find you unappealing. Would you take off your boots and lay on the bed?”
Tensing all over in confusion and fear, Uhtred did as he was bid. He shifted uneasily against the mattress, thinking that he shouldn’t have listened, thinking that he should have turned and left the room, thinking that he could no longer do that because Alfred was the King, which meant Alfred was the Master and therefore to be obeyed, just as Sverri.
The thought sat in his mind for a moment before he realized what it was he was thinking and he recoiled from it. He sat up, shoving his hands through his hair and holding on tight. The sea air and lack of bathing had left it brittle and rough, but he couldn’t feel a difference against his palms through the thick calluses that rowing had left there.
Everything about him was wrong. His body was wrong. His mind was wrong. His spirit was laying in pieces around his feet. He would never be allowed in Valhalla like this, even if he died with a weapon in his hand. He no longer had a warrior spirit.
Alfred’s light touch against his shoulder startled him so badly, he flinched. He’d forgotten where he was for a moment. Hadn’t even noticed that Alfred had climbed onto the bed from the opposite side and was now sitting next to him.
Uhtred glanced at the man from the corners of his eyes. He’d taken off the over robe that he preferred, leaving him in only trousers, bare-chested and slight as always.
“Uhtred, because you seem concerned and perhaps a little ashamed…I need you to listen to me very closely and I need you to believe me.” Uhtred turned his head to stare at Alfred more fully, but said nothing. “You, Uhtred Ragnarson of Bebbenburg, are a beautiful man. I do not care what new scars your slavery has left you with. You could be covered in scars from your forehead to your feet. You would still be a beautiful man, here.” He said and reached over to tap the center of Uhtred’s chest.
“I have treated you poorly in the past. I have lied to you and mistrusted you and been very careless with both your spirit and your life, because you are a pagan. It was wrong. I was handed a precious thing and I squeezed it, trying to crack it. Well. It did not crack. That precious thing held strong, resilient, and beautiful all along, no matter how hard I squeezed. It is only now, when I see another squeezing this precious thing that I realize what a tragedy it would be for it to break.”
Uhtred shook his head, one jerky sideways movement, more a flinch than a disagreement, although it was that too. He wasn’t precious and he wasn’t beautiful. He never really had been. He had been strong and fierce and skilled in battle. He had been a pawn in Alfred’s giant chess match with the Danes and he’d played his part because he could. But now…
Alfred, moving as slowly as one would to prevent startling a wild beast — and isn’t that what Uhtred was anyway? A beast? — Alfred reached out his hands and took hold of Uhtred’s face, tugging him gently around. He tilted his head a little, forcing eye contact. Alfred’s deep brown eyes were steady and forthright, holding no hint of manipulation or deceit in them, as they so often did.
“I love you. I am in love with you. I have been in love with you for many years, though I have tried to fight it. Since before we began laying together. Possibly since the moment I saw you in the courtyard, in your furs and leather armor, so young and brash and easy with your smiles. I am so very sorry that you never knew. I should have told you every day how I feel about you, but I did not because I was afraid.”
Uhtred’s eyes had gone wide and wet. His throat was tight with tears and there was a feeling too large for his body, too large for his soul and growing, in his chest that he couldn’t explain or understand. He tried to shake his head again, but Alfred held fast to his jaws.
“No. I will not let you hide from this. I will not let you deny this. If you do not feel the same, if you no longer want me, then you are free to rise from this bed and leave my rooms and never ever see me again. If that is your wish, I will make it so, but before that, before you go away from me forever, I need you to know, to understand, that I have always loved you and that I will always love you. If I could have gone to retrieve you myself from that slave ship, I would have flown on the fastest horse I could find. I would have been there, waited on that beach for however long it took. I would have killed every man who tried to stop me and every slaver who landed there until I had recovered you. If it took a dozen lifetimes, I would have done it. I am more sorry that I could not than you will likely ever know.”
The sob that tore itself from Uhtred’s lips at that agonized statement shook his frame. Uhtred closed his eyes against the brightest of love he could see in Alfred’s warm eyes. He wanted to hide away from this softness, this care that he no longer deserved. He wanted to wrap his whole body around it and never every let go. He wanted it and Alfred to stay far from him so that he would not taint either with his shame.
He’d told Hild that he was ashamed of what he’d become. He had not lied. What he had become was shameful. He was a beast. A dog that had been kicked too many times: timid and fearful and feral, unfit for human interaction. He should be sent to the kennel, he thought with an edge of hysteria, because that was where he belonged. They should make him sleep in the kennels with the dogs or simply turn him out of the city entirely because then he would not spread the sickness in his heart to anyone else.
Alfred made a soft, wounded noise and suddenly Uhtred found himself wrapped tightly in strong arms, pressed against that bare chest. He shuddered and curled into himself. He did not deserve this embrace.
“Uhtred, you are not a dog. Please, please never say such a thing about yourself. I cannot bear to hear you speak like that. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
And like a slick of pig fat on the wood of a ship’s prow when sparked, Uhtred was suddenly blazingly angry. He jerked himself out of Alfred’s arms, prompting another wounded sound, and turned his back on the King. He stripped off his jacket and shirt, baring his back and his barely healed lash marks to Alfred’s inspection.
He did not know what he expected. A scoff of disgust, maybe? Or a curious touch, like Hild’s had been? Perhaps another blow of some sort: Alfred staking his own claim, overwriting what was etched into Uhtred’s flesh? That seemed like something Alfred would do.
The thought of it, of Alfred taking a knife or a whip and carving more scars into Uhtred’s back was at once revolting — Uhtred’s stomach clenched and heaved at the thought — and somehow titillating. Electricity ran over Uhtred’s skin, pricking it with little bursts of sensation and raising gooseflesh as it went.
Alfred did none of it. There was a long moment of stillness that seemed to stretch out for an eternity before Uhtred could take the suspense no longer. He turned back to the bed and was met with an astonishing sight.
Alfred, the King of Wessex and leader of their armies, commander of men and wielder of immense power, was weeping silently.
Uhtred’s breath stuttered in his lungs. He dropped back down onto the bed, his legs no longer able to support his weight, and stared. Alfred’s red-rimmed eyes skittered across his front, no doubt seeking out new scars or additional lash marks, but finding none, he looked up to meet Uhtred’s eyes.
Uhtred’s voice was rusty and hoarse, but he grated out, “So you see me for what I am now. You see that I will never escape that ship. That I will always be a slave, a beast, worthless but for the labor that can be gotten out of me.”
Alfred shook his head, tears rolling faster down his face. “Never. Uhtred, my love, never. You have been freed and you will learn, again, what it means to be free. I will help you. You will learn that your scars, those whip marks on your back, are beautiful too because they mean you survived. The scars tell me a story of a man who was strong enough to endure a winter under the lash. You are an ealdorman in two kingdoms. By rights, you hold enormous tracts of land and the combined fyrd that you could call numbers over two thousand men. You are a Lord. And yet, I know of no other man who holds that title who could have done what you did. Any other among my ealdormen would have surely died before the first month, under such circumstances. Uhtred Ragnarson, you are a true warrior, a true friend, and the truest love I have ever experienced. Your humanity and your kindness and your heart know no bounds. Your strength is unmatched in any I have met. I have seen your scars and I am beginning to understand the scars that were left on you that I cannot see and I love you still. I love you more because of all you have endured. It has not broken you. You are perhaps a little cracked, but cracks can be repaired and wounds can heal. You will not let that slaver conquer you. And someday, some distant day, when England is more within our grasp, we will march on Cumbraland and you will run your sword through Guthred’s gullet and we with both watch in satisfaction, in pleasure, as he dies, knowing it was you who killed him.”
Uhtred gasped, suddenly unable to get enough air, helpless against the overwhelming tide of love that surged through him at Alfred’s words. Some frozen thing, some stone that had encased his heart, that had filled his lungs since he’d been locked inside the cage with Halig, began to crumble and to crack. There was nothing, now, of the shame he’d felt, though somewhere in some vague place, he knew that that shame had not gone entirely, that it would return and he would have to deal with it again. For now, there was only love, and desire, and a tenderness so deep that it ached.
It was Uhtred, this time, who reached across the space between them to cup Alfred’s face in his palms. “I will love you all my life and into whatever comes for us afterward.”
Alfred’s face lit with a wide smile, tears still flowing freely down his face. Uhtred could no longer resist the temptation of Alfred, bare-chested and in love with him, on the King’s own bed, though he had not been conscious of resisting it before. He tugged the King forward and took his mouth in a searing kiss that left them both panting against the other’s lips.
“Will you let me show you how beautiful you still are? Will you come to bed?” Alfred whispered against his mouth, carefully making it a question.
Uhtred was grateful for it and eager to feel the slide of Alfred’s body against his again, after it had been so long. “I am yours, always.”
Alfred kissed him, quick and darting, like he couldn’t help himself. “As I am yours, Uhtred, until my dying day and beyond.”
And so it proved to be true.