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Ren is getting married tomorrow, and Martyn is fine.
He’s fine! He is… he’s working, is the more important part, so it doesn’t really matter what Martyn feels about the whole thing. Martyn fixes a drape that’s slipping from its fixture on his way down the hall and pushes his headband back on his head, because that’s slipping too. It feels like everything’s slipping today - the decorations, the sun beyond the clouds outside, and Martyn’s will to live, right down the drain.
Hey. No. That’s - he shouldn’t think like that. He’s got to stay focused. Martyn has a job to do, because he’s always got a job to do.
He’s not here in the palace to sit around and drink tea. He’s here to be the king’s personal guard.
And so he does as any good guard would do, and he keeps walking through the hall towards his post. Martyn has a very special job this evening - a job fit only for the Hand of the King, some might say, although Martyn reckons that any old fool can keep one hand on a sword and the other on the door handle for a few hours. It’s only special because they make it special - because of his ward, and because of the date.
It’s getting dark in the hallway. Martyn motions for one of the passing servants to light up the lamps - and they see his face, and his attire, and his scabbard, and they immediately cow their head and scrabble for a flint and steel. He keeps walking, and his shadow flicks up in front of him suddenly as the orange of lantern light begins glowing in his wake. It’s not even sunset yet, but the day is rapidly becoming overcast. Just like his future.
(No. Chin up, idiot. Mind on the job. No time to wallow.)
He comes to a door with two locks and a bolt, and his unlocking movements are practiced and precise. Before any spy would even have a chance to see which keys exactly he was using - and there are a lot of duds on this ring - he’s up and away. Right-handed staircase, which he thinks is quite funny, honestly, because the king’s left-handed and he’d have an absolutely awful time attempting to defend himself if there were intruders coming up the steps to his private quarters. It’s not like this place was built for Ren, though; no, it was built a century ago for his far more illustrious grandfather. (And if you think Ren’s illustrious, with his diamond-studded spectacle frames and his fur-lined cape, then you should see the portrait hall where his ancestors hang.)
Martyn raps out two quick knocks on the door at the top of the stairwell.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, my lord,” he says.
“Oh. Enter.”
And so he does.
The first thing he notices when he swings the door open and beholds the King’s chamber is that, well, it’s an absolute bloody tip. Clearly, Ren’s been searching for something - books and clothes and assorted kick-knacks strew across the floor in shambolic piles, and the carpet has been half kicked under the four-poster bed. Well, either that or he’s been burgled. “Have you been burgled?” Martyn asks cautiously, just to be sure.
“No, I was - there’s a specific… accessory I was looking for. And it wasn’t in my jewellery box, so I had to look everywhere else, and - really, I’ve just made a mess of it. I know that.”
“Did you find it?”
“I did.”
“What was it?”
Ren hesitates. The second thing he notices is that his lord is wearing his glasses, which he doesn’t usually do when he’s all alone in his room. Or when it’s just him and Martyn. “You know the rhyme - something old, something new, something -”
“- yeah, borrowed and blue, I do know it.”
“I wanted it for one of those.”
“I assume it wasn’t for new, then, if it was this deep in your storage. Or borrowed.”
“Yeah, no, it was - it was for old. You’ll see it tomorrow.”
Tomorrow sinks Martyn’s heart like a stone. “That’s right,” he nods, instead of dwelling on the feeling, “it’s gonna be a big day, eh?”
“The biggest.” Ren’s head dips ever-so-slightly. He’s sitting on the side of the bed, something twisting in his hands - a bracelet, he thinks. Maybe that’s the thing he spent all that time searching for. “Hand - have you ever been married?”
“No, my lord. I did have a sweetheart, once. Netty. She was lovely, but - I couldn’t do her like that, so I left.”
“Like what?”
“Run off to join the army and leave her all alone. I could have made her an early widow, and she didn’t deserve such cruelty. And even if I had married her, what kind of life would that be? Never knowing when your husband would come home - if he’d come home from the battlefield. I know it’d be torture if I were the one left to man the house.”
“So what became of her?”
“I think she found somebody else. I don’t know. After I got hired on here, I never… well, I haven’t been back to my old home town since.”
“That’s a shame. I should give you some time off. Let you go back to your roots for a while - see your family.”
“Oh, no, my lord, I wouldn’t… I’d never. I like it in the castle. Work keeps me busy, and I’m happiest when I’m busy, so - all works out.”
Ren frowns at him from under glinting lenses. “All work and no play…”
“... makes Martyn happy,” he finishes quickly, “and productive, and feeling like he’s doing some good in the world. I live to serve, my lord. It’s better than being bored.”
“Hmm.”
“Right,” he says, because speaking of productivity, “let me sort out all this mess, eh?” He spins around, pulls a lantern off the wall and uses it to light the rest, brightens up the bedchamber somewhat with the thorough disappearance of the sun. There’s a distant rumbling outside that’s probably thunder. (The alternative is a dragon, which would be a first for Martyn.)
“Oh, no, you don’t have to -”
“Live to serve,” repeats Martyn, and begins piling up the dress shirts that Ren has discarded as he was pulling through his wardrobe. The king watches with what looks like pent-up anxiety and discomfort creeping into his expression all at once. “I mean, if you want to help, you’re welcome to, but -”
“Oh, that’s true, I probably should,” Ren nods quietly. “Wouldn’t want you to get all tired out before your night watch, now would we?”
“We would not,” he replies absently, slotting a shirt into place on the shelf once it’s been folded. Behind him, the King stands up and begins moving about the room as well. Together, they make short work of it - despite what appeared to be the enormity of the mess, it’s actually pretty easily sorted, especially with Ren in charge of putting things back into his drawers exactly where he knows they’re meant to go. Martyn pulls a boot off to shift the carpet back into place without having to use his hands.
“That’s certainly one way to do it,” laughs Ren.
Martyn takes off the other boot as well - just because he’s gonna be in here for a while, he reckons. Or maybe it’s just that he wants to be in here for a while. (Maybe he’s deluded himself into thinking that if he can just stay long enough, that today will never end, that he’ll never be forced to reckon with the reality that Ren has promised himself to someone else now and was never really Martyn’s in the first place -) “Is this alright?”
“Of course.” Thunder booms, again, outside. There are raindrops starting to hit the window. It’s glass - clear glass, worked painstakingly into transparent panes by some expert team across the continent from here and shipped into place after weeks of waiting. This was, when Martyn first got here, probably the most luxurious thing he’d ever seen in his life. Now it’s just another facet of the castle that he’s spent his entire life in - and which, after today, he will be manning on his own.
That’s a good point, actually - he hasn’t asked yet, whether he’ll be left behind, or whether he’ll be coming with Ren to the new lands. Martyn thinks that being forced to wait hand and foot on not only his boss but his boss’ new spouse would be nothing short of living torture. “So what’s the plan?”
“Hmm?” Ren sits back down on the bed, leaving just enough space for somebody else to sit beside him. Martyn doesn’t take the bait. (He’s not strong enough.)
“When you go. After the wedding. Am… who’s coming with you?”
“I don’t know,” the King muses. “I haven’t been asked about it. I suppose I’ll need to pick out an accompanying party, won’t I? And that means I’ll have to work out who to leave behind, as well. It’s a difficult question. I have a good cohort out here.”
“Fine people,” he agrees.
“And you the finest of them all, me Hand,” nods Ren, his tone full of such earnestness that Martyn wants to jump out of that lovely expensive glass window right then and there.
“Thank you, my lord.”
“But I really don’t know,” he repeats - and then, surprising Martyn, “what do you think?”
“Sorry?”
“Would you prefer to stay here or come with me? I’ve never been to Bestadt, but I hear it’s lovely. Very temperate. I’m not sure - maybe you like the cold.”
“I,” he hesitates, his words coming out affected, “don’t think I can make that choice myself, my lord. It’s a big question.”
“For a big change,” agrees the King.
Martyn looks away - he thinks Ren does as well, although he can’t be sure. His feigned interest in the nuance of the floor is far outweighing his desire to look into the eyes of the man he’s always loved and the man he cannot help but lose.
His delusions end tomorrow.
Tonight, though?
Tonight, thunder cracks outside, and the door to the tower is shut and bolted from the inside, and there’s nobody who could see within to stop him from doing something stupid. Something reckless. Something totally inadvisable. (And, as the King’s chief advisor, he knows a thing or two about that.)
Tonight, he could delude himself for just a few moments longer.
“How are you feeling?” he asks, under his breath. Ren’s ear flicks up - he’s never had to strain to hear the things that Martyn mutters just for him.
“Scared," admits the King. “It’s like I’ve been saying. This is big.”
“If there’s anything that I can do to help…”
“Don’t burden yourself. What you’re doing is enough - just lending an ear.”
“I told you, my lord, I live to serve. It’s no burden.”
“Then lend that ear a couple minutes more. I fear I’ll find it hard to sleep tonight, knowing what’s around the corner. Or, rather, not knowing.”
“It is frightening,” Martyn says, moving closer, against his better judgement. “The thought of the future. But we can’t stop it from coming, can we?”
Ren looks at him. He can’t see it through the glasses, but he could read that troubled look from miles away. “No, we can’t.”
“So make the most of it. You’re going to have the grandest wedding of the decade tomorrow - suits and gold trim and fresh flowers, and it’s going to be beautiful. And then you’ll have a feast, and a party, and then you’ll get to start your life anew with a political ally by your side.”
“An ally I barely know anything about,” laments Ren. “They’d better take this seriously, in the Copper Kingdom. It’ll all be for nothing if those forces don’t back off under the threat of our coalition.”
Because it’s all politics, really, isn’t it? Martyn’s entire life, his love, his very sense of self is being stripped from him in the name of a stupid political alliance, and all in the space of a single damnèd day. And how could it have worked out any other way? The wellbeing of the Red Kingdom was always going to come before his feelings, and he knew it.
He's been doomed since the beginning. He knew this, and he loved anyway.
“They’ll retreat,” he soothes, instead of dwelling on the pain, although it crests like the curve of a blade into his sternum. “They’ve got nothing on us.”
The King nods, lips tight. When he speaks, it’s with the threat of overflowing emotion closely clipped out of his words. “Yeah. Nothing on us.”
It’s a different kind of us, though. Martyn had been generalizing the grandeur and glory of a twofold army, Red soldiers and Bestadt’s accompanying force to make short work of Copper posturing. Ren’s us is smaller, more fragile - you and me.
In the silence, his mind turns back to the question of whether him and Ren is even in the cards. Apparently, the King’s mind does the same.
"You should come," says Ren.
"I should stay," says Martyn, at the exact same second.
They look at each other.
"I'll come, if you want me to -"
"No," the King sighs, suddenly weary, like he's had the fight drained out of him, "you're right. Stay."
And that - that feels wrong, somehow, because they’ve switched in a second. Martyn only wants to want what his lord wants - and if Ren wants him there by his side, he’ll be there, even if it kills him a little every day to do it. "But what if you -"
"I've had my share of good from you, Hand. And this place needs somebody to keep it going strong. Somebody who cares."
“We have men who care. Like - like Captain Skizz. He would do a fine job of protecting it.”
“None so fine as you.” It’s the same sentiment he’d expressed before. Somehow, it feels a lot more tired this time, but just as sincere.
Martyn looks down. This is what he’d wanted - a clean break. So why does it feel like his heart is breaking messy, a hundred ugly rips along ungainly seams?
"And I'll come visit," the King offers, "every so often. I promise. I couldn't be without my Hand for long, now could I?"
It’s salt in the wound.
“I love this place,” and Martyn doesn’t need to hear the more than I love you to gather it. “I want you to keep her safe for me. Maybe one day I’ll come home.”
There is an ocean of things that he has left unsaid - and now can never confess - between them. Martyn thinks he might drown without Ren.
But the future is coming, and neither of them can stop it. This is no time for delusions, after all.
“You’d better get to sleep, my lord,” he murmurs.
The King gives him one last look, then collapses into himself. “Yes, I suppose that’s true. I’ll see you in the morning, Hand.”
“Rest well.” I love you. I don’t want to lose you. I need you like I need air, I don’t know how I’ll bear to be without you.
He will live. This is the important part. And, as he has loved before, it’s true that he might one day love again, as hard as that is to imagine walking down these spiral stairs. So it's fine. He is fine.
The rain outside slams cold against the wood and glass and stone. The lanterns on the walls glow orange-warm in the rapid descent upon them of the night. The Hand of the King begins his night’s watch.
(And only yards away, alone in a four-poster bed, the King weeps in soft mourning of a love he’ll never get to make his own.)