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Drinking is not forbidden among the Knights Moralis, but with Easthies in the echelons of the highest ranked and his alcoholic abstinence renowned, a wise Knight will not divulge their favored establishments so loosely. Utowin himself has told a select few—and most definitely not Easthies—about his stashes of liquor magically hidden here and there in alcoves of the Great Hall. In turn, he knows which barkeep will slide you a gratuitous pint if you flirt with them, and where a Knight as a patron will be met with blissful indifference, and even where they brew their own potent rum. Let Easthies embody the indomitable, the leader you can invoke your faith to knowing it will be harkened.
Utowin takes the role of the laidback Knight gladly; it is in him that their men can confide in as a friend and not a superior. Then it is he who passes on to Easthies what he is told. For it, Easthies has never given him anything grander than a Thank you, and yet Utowin hoards that etiquette-demanded gratitude like he does his liquor bottles.
It is one of those very drinks that Utowin seeks tonight. Weary, guided by the brilliance of the sconces hanging in symmetrical intervals—the nights fall so much thicker underwater—he trails a hand along the walls, feeling for the first subtle break between the bricks, the slightest lift in the dust for greedy hands coming and going to the buried secrets as many nights as necessary. When he finds it, he turns his head left and right, confirming no one is around, and deftly undoes his own wards to reveal an array of bottles and glasses, glinting decadently in the smothering underwater night.
A nightcap never hurt anyone, he thinks, grinning, pouring himself a glass of willow-wine. The castle is sparse with people; there is little risk of being caught. He savors the drink, and then another, feeling the tiredness of a long day seep into the pleasant tipsy drowsiness that precedes a good night’s sleep. After finishing the second glass, he tidies up, rinsing the glass with a contraption he’d acquired in the Shopping Gallery. He re-corks the wine with an apology to it for needing to ration it, and then obscures the whole set-up again.
On a whim, heightened by the loftiness of the alcohol in his head, Utowin takes a different route out of the castle than the one he’d used to enter. One that will have him passing by Easthies’ office.
Long before he is within knocking distance, he is entirely unsurprised to find light streaming in a hefty parallelogram from beneath the office’s door, ajar. As he nears, he peeks his head in.
Easthies’ head is bowed in concentration, his quill rasping on the scroll on his desk. For the lateness of the hour, and his incessant work, the artful plait of his hair is in the mildest disarray; his circlet is askew. Absently he reaches for a teacup beside him, and as he lifts it, his scribbling pauses. He frowns at the teacup.
Utowin huffs a fond laugh. There his silent watch ends.
Easthies snaps his head toward Utowin. His face settles to flat politeness, a single eyebrow raised in question.
“Sorry, sorry,” Utowin says, hands up in guilt and placation as he steps in. “Eas, you know even you have to sleep, right?”
“I am unfinished reviewing these documents,” Easthies answers simply, returning to his scribbling, pushing the empty teacup away.
Utowin glances at the tea set-up Easthies keeps behind glass, under lock and key. It is the single luxury he has allowed himself; the room, inherently rich to establish the prowess of the Knights, is utilitarian: a desk, large windows, cabinets with tomes of magical history and law. Guests are served welcoming tea, to be sure; but for Easthies himself, even his single personalization to the office is used to further his work, not to savor a teacup to pass the time.
Utowin huffs again. “Those piles will still be there tomorrow.”
“Yes. Along with more.” Easthies folds the scroll, stamps a lockwax seal on it, and adds it to a pile of his own organizational understanding, to his left. “It is only prudent to finish everything possible at once.”
“Sheesh. I’ll brew you more tea, then,” Utowin says, taking the empty teacup. “What are you feeling? Something black, to keep your energy up?”
“If you would.”
The shuffle of paper, the scratch of ink; the gurgle of water, the clinking of porcelain; Easthies’ silence and Utowin’s idle humming. Two separate worlds existing not in discord but in harmony, meshing where they meet like red and blue yielding a new, beautiful color. Minding the paper piles, Utowin puts a fresh teacup on the saucer on Easthies’ desk. Easthies thanks him, taking the teacup without looking, Utowin having placed it knowing exactly where Easthies preferred it—it is the precise angle where he idly reaches out to between writing, the desk scuffed by the frequent presence of the saucer. Easthies doesn’t blow cool air on the tea before drinking it, unflinching, its steam parting around his face, barely letting Utowin see Easthies’ small smile.
Utowin clears his throat, quickly stepping back, lightheaded for more than the alcohol should grant. “Need anything else? Anything I can help with so you’re done sooner?”
“No.”
“...alright. But if you’re still here in an hour,” he says, headed for the door, “I’m carrying you outta here if I have to. G’night, Eas.”
A slight pause, so slight that anyone else under Easthies’ command would have missed it. “Goodnight.”
There is no reason Utowin should drag his steps on his walk back, but drag they do.
Duty demands that Utowin drops off reports at Easthies’. But as he knocks, entering before Easthies can answer, he steals a peek at his tea set-up. It is locked behind its glass casing. “Mornin’, Eas,” Utowin says. “Got something for ya! But it’s not fun.”
“The new docket that you are holding,” Easthies says, beckoning him closer with a curl of his finger, “is precisely why I was adamant you let me stay later than you permitted me to.”
The docket is rather thick, secured under his arm. He thumps it on Easthies’ desk, looking at the extant pile, unfinished from yesterday. “Your health’s more important to me than some report getting your signature. It should be the same for you!”
Easthies scowls.
“You need someone who understands not to work too hard so it balances out how much of a workaholic you are.” Utowin jabs a thumb at himself with a grin.
“Is that what someone of your high position should admit to someone of my higher position?” Easthies says, but Utowin doesn’t miss the twitch to his lip.
Utowin’s sigh also upturned to fondness. “I’m still going to see you here at a terrible hour again, aren’t I.”
“Yes. But, Utowin, you need not stay longer than your tasks entail.”
“I’ll stay,” he says, “‘cause otherwise, who’ll come bother you to make sure you actually take care of yourself?” He slips out from the door, adding, “Or enable you by making you tea?”
And stay he does. The darkness descends, the castle has been almost emptied, but there Utowin goes.
When he saunters into Easthies’ office, the tea set is perfectly behind the glass. The paperwork Easthies diligently studies is as heavy as yesterday’s; and he doesn’t turn his head up when he says, “Yesterday, you were here earlier.”
“Hey, I have my own work to do, too.”
“Of course.” Now he pauses, taps his forefinger to the quill feather’s shaft exactly twice. “I am almost finished. I am considering ending the night with a cup of tea, if you would like to join me.”
Utowin blinks. A smile spreads lopsidedly across his face. “Well, don’t get yourself up. I’ll take care of it like I said I would. What are you thinking?” he asks, going over to the cabinet, pulling out everything he needs. “If it’s to unwind, something herbal?”
Easthies hums. Assent as much as anything.
It’s pleasant, this rapport they’ve made. There’s pride tinging it on Utowin’s part—Easthies is not an approachable man, the moral embodiment of the Knights, face in all the harshness of their uniform’s metal. But Utowin had closed that gap with his stubborn extrovertedness, aided by Easthies’ knowledge that despite it all, Utowin valued upholding the laws of magic as much as him. So Utowin can make himself comfortable in Easthies’ office, using his belongings to make them bookmark tea, fragrant, best savored when alongside another.
“Here you go,” Utowin says, serving Easthies, who reaches for the teacup immediately, his hand brushing Utowin’s with the softness of the creamy papers flanking him.
They don’t say anything about it: Utowin retracts, goes to his seat with his own teacup in hand; Easthies offers only a thank you that Utowin waves away. He looks at his hand, unchanged, a pulse nevertheless felt where Easthies had so briefly touched it. And he, too, drinks.
The need for conversation scratches at Utowin’s throat. He keeps it down with hasty sips of his tea, scalding him, welling tears in his eyes that he blinks away. Easthies is endearingly talkative about the mundane, but when it comes to chatting while working, he has little patience. Tea and companionable silence it is. Utowin can do that. Yes.
“Utowin. Are you well?”
He swallows down a cough. “Never better!”
Easthies lifts his teacup with exceptional grace. He says nothing, merely eyeing Utowin over the rim of his teacup like a report littered with lies.
Leave it to him to notice something. “It’s just,” Utowin says, “it’s hard for me to not talk.”
“Why do you refrain?”
“It’s not how you like to spend your evenings. You just half-close the door so we know it’s better not to bother you but that you’re still available. Then you toil the night away while you chug your tea in silence before I show up to force you to sleep.”
Easthies looks at him again, now with his eyebrows ever slightly raised, the thinnest full rings of white around his eyes. Utowin realizes, a moment too late, the details he has revealed by his private observations of Easthies.
“While that is true,” Easthies eventually says, composure smooth to ease on his face, “it does not preclude me listening to you.”
“Ah…”
“After all,” Easthies continues, “it is my duty to ensure those under and alongside my command are heard.”
Utowin slouches. “Ah.”
“So speak freely about whatever you wish, Utowin.”
Scrutinized so officially, the special little nothings Utowin had been eager to chat about flit away. He sips the last of his tea and clinks it down on its saucer to rub the back of his neck, wondering what to talk about.
He mulls over what Easthies had said: the distinction between leader and follower, but the need for open communication, as without a follower a leader is nothing. That cool professional distance isn’t what Utowin wants. He drops his arm and smiles at Easthies.
“I think I’m fine just sitting here with you. We don’t get to do that often, and it’s nice,” he says, standing with teacup and saucer in hand, deliberately avoiding Easthies’ eyes. “I’m getting another cup. Are you done with yours?”
“Yes,” Easthies replies, and there is a kindness to it that makes Utowin’s heart stutter.
He deftly scoops up Easthies’ own saucer and teacup, busying himself in cleaning them with a contraption, and then with the ritual of more tea to steep.
The water burbles through the pressed layers of flowers and fragrant barks, swirling to a pleasant green in the teacups. And on the cabinet’s open glass door, if Utowin should look: Easthies’ cool-toned reflection, a hand propping up his chin, a subtle curve to his mouth, and eyes on the back of a head tufted with hair red as fine as a cup of redbush tea.