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The throne room has this massive tapestry along one wall. It’s got the Red King in the centre, battle axe in hand, flanked by kneeling servants on both sides. There are more figures, too, out by the decorative edges; Martyn remembers hearing something about these being representative of conquest or whatnot. It’s not like he doesn’t see it — they’re not dressed like anyone around here dresses, and he’s pretty sure the wheat and gold in their hands is the sort of thing kings taxed, so, sure. Tapestry of conquest.
Really, it’s mostly convenient for offering somewhere other than the King himself to stare.
The king in question is currently holding court with one of the several dozen noblemen who seem to frequent the palace — this guy is short, with manic eyes and a missing tooth. He rambles on about some issue they’ve been having with the food supply in the east of the Kingdom, and Martyn does his level best to keep eye contact with the effigy on the wall, instead of letting his eyes wander to the way that the King’s head rest upon one gloved hand, unimpressed, almost bored despite the noble’s nervous energy. Yep. Utterly devoted to his post, is Martyn.
It’d become a point of contention, or at least of ridicule, that Martyn never looks directly at the King. Which is ridiculous — he does look, occasionally, just not when anyone’s going to notice and never for too long. Best not to linger on the impossible.
The nobleman shifts again, and even out of the corner of his eye, Martyn can see how hasty the man’s bow is. Something’s got him all freaked out — more freaked out than normal, anyway; a lot of the nobles seem to struggle with acting normal around the King, which is something Martyn definitely wouldn’t know anything about. It doesn’t make Martyn panic, but it does make him shift his hand to rest on the hilt of his sword. If it’s needed, he’ll be ready.
Across from him, Impulse seeks out eye contact. Martyn raises his eyebrows minutely. Impulse, in turn, offers a subtle shrug and a flattened line of his lips.
The guy leaves without further issue, though, and then they’re practically alone for once. If anybody else has pressing matters, there’ll be a messenger to herald their arrival. Until then, it’s a throne room for three. Nice and roomy, well-lit space. You’d make a killing on AirBnB.
Yep. It’s just the three of them. Just Martyn and Impulse standing around while the King lounges on his throne. Just three dudes in a room.
The King fusses at his claws. Impulse rolls his shoulders.
This is the weirdest part of the whole thing — the boredom. Sure, getting used to life without WiFi or running water or basic medicine was weird, but it was the expected kind of weird. Martyn hadn’t expected the boredom. It’d be fine, mostly — he can entertain himself, thank you very much — but Martyn’s somehow ended up spending all his bored time standing in a room pointedly not thinking about how nice it’d be to take care of the King’s ever-knotted braids. The worst part of it is that he’s not even really supposed to speak out of turn, so he can’t get them warmed up with some stupid question or another about… their favourite horse breeds? Best bit of stained glass in the palace? He doesn’t know. Another thing — really hard to make small talk when there’s no popular media that even your coworkers have seen. He supposes it could be worse, though. He could be in Game of Thrones rather than just missing its existence.
“Men,” says the Red King, and Martyn snaps to attention, “what say you we mount ourselves and find a good hart to unmake?”
Martyn turns right back to the tapestry at that, staring so hard it feels like he’s about to develop laser vision and revolutionize fantasy religion.
Impulse, apparently undeterred by the King’s ability to make anything into a double entendre, perks up. “Is there a quest and relay ready, milord?”
The King waves the concern away. “The hounds are fine enough without relays. And surely such a hunter as thineself needs no quest to find thy prey.”
Was Impulse a hunter? Had Martyn missed an entire dimension of the captain of the King’s guard? “Hang on,” he says, not bothering to imitate their Old English or whatever it’s called, “we’re going out?”
“We’re going hunting, me Hand,” says the King, and Martyn feels his face light up.
(It’s fucked, admittedly, that the old-timey honorific makes him feel so special. But — but Impulse doesn’t get a special name, does he, only Martyn has had bestowed upon him an extra fancy title. Hand to the King. Makes him have to suppress a little grin every time, or, in this case, start blushing, which is infinitely worse.)
Martyn’s ridden a horse, like, once before, at a friend’s stag do. He’s not very good at it, and the horse is taller than he is, which seems unfair, given he’s on two legs and the horse is on four.
“Hey, buddy,” Martyn says, holding out a hand. You’re supposed to do that, right? Hold out a hand so the horse can smell you? Impulse turns to look at him quizzically; apparently horse-smelling is not the custom here.
Last time he got on a horse he also had a handy stepstool. They have not given him a stepstool this time.
Both the King and Impulse have already settled atop their trusty steeds, and Martyn dithers, feeling not for the first time like the fish out of water he is. The Martyn he’s pretending to be, the one who grew up all his life in medieval times, probably went to horse school and learned all about it when he was training to be a royal guard. This Martyn might be good enough at bullshitting his way through conversations and brandishing a sword to pass himself off as the other one, but this is neither of those things.
“Do you…” Impulse’s voice is quiet, as if he’s trying not to alert the King who’s maybe three feet away and can definitely hear him anyway. “Do you need help?”
“No, I got this. I got this, I’m great at horses.” As if to prove the exact opposite of his point, Martyn proceeded to promptly step into the stirrup, tangle his foot in it, and fall back off. Brilliant. Not at all embarrassing.
A heavy hand falls on his shoulder and Martyn jumps near out of his skin.
“Allow me to assist ye, Hand.”
Tense literally all the way up his body, Martyn reluctantly allows the King to help him into place. His touch is sturdy and firm, and Martyn can just tell that this guy could absolutely rip him to shreds if the situation called for it. He tries not to get too distracted by it.
“There,” the King says, once he’s atop the horse, “that wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
“Yeah,” breathes Martyn. He still feels unsteady, even though he’s got a leg on either side. He’d brace harder, but he’s kind of scared the horse will get uncomfortable and buck him.
The King reseats himself astride his own horse and leads them from the stables deep into the forest before turning to Impulse. “What say thine instincts, Captain? Be there fine quarry here?”
Impulse studies the ground like he’s cramming for a test. “A young hart, southern-bound. We may catch him yet, if we ride the dogs fast and hard.”
“Aye, then fast and hard it shall be.” The King whistles long and loud and the hounds at his steed’s feet begin to bay and plunge into the underbrush. The King spurs his horse onward, as does Impulse; Martyn grips the reins and gently kicks into his horse’s side.
He’d be the first to admit that he’s not the expert in hunting here, but it seems an awful lot like they’re going right into the middle of nowhere on this trajectory. Then again, maybe that’s what you’re supposed to do. That would be where the deer live, right? Away from all the humans?
It doesn’t seem super possible to call out to Impulse and ask without making him think there’s a problem, so he just elects to follow the leader and hope for the best. Presuming ‘the best’ is a deer bursting out of a bush pursued by dogs, it seems like it all works out pretty well. The King bears down on his saddle at the sight, pushing his horse, the dogs, the deer, and Martyn by proxy further and faster down the theoretical woodland trail. The horses seem to know what they’re doing, which is good, because Martyn definitely doesn’t, and as long as his horse behaves nobody will ever know.
Eventually, after what feels like hours, the party bursts into a small clearing. The deer turns and lowers its head, antlers poised to strike at the dogs hounding it. It’s no match for this number of attacking mouths, though, and some set of sharp teeth or another wrench it down to the ground with a strangled noise (which is cool, Martyn’s never heard a deer make noise before), in perfect position for the King’s blade to strike.
But, of course, nothing’s ever that easy or that cool, because the Red King pauses with his sword halfway to the stag’s heart, his whole demeanor changing like the sun behind the clouds.
“Milord?” says Martyn, not quite fully alert yet, still assuming this is some part of the hunt. Impulse is at the King’s side, one hand bracing his shoulder — did the deer graze one of them or something?
Ren collapses under Impulse’s hand. Martyn starts, only to freeze when Impulse pulls a sword from the King’s ribs. He should do something, should… what, kill Impulse? Is this treason? Is treason happening?
Impulse hasn’t let go of Ren, hasn’t let him collapse fully yet. “This unmaking does not belong to you, milord — it be yours instead.”
Ren’s shoulders are heaving, and Martyn vaguely remembers some daytime TV show talking about keeping patients with rib injuries from gasping. Should he be getting off the horse? “Hey — hey, don’t —” and now he has to make the choice between preventing Impulse from getting away with this and saving Ren’s life “— fuck — milord, stop breathing so hard,” that’s a stupid thing to say, “Impulse, what the hell are you doing?”
If the profanities are particularly offensive to Ren and Impulse’s old-timey ears, they don’t betray it in their faces. “Queen Cleo sends her regards.”
“Cleo,” Ren growls, suddenly invigorated, “this betrayal is delivered by her will?”
“Don’t — there’s no time to fight about whose idea it was! You’re bleeding out!” Martyn dismounts, loosing his sword as he does. He can’t well enough save Ren’s life if Impulse stabs him again.
Impulse sheaths his blade before Martyn can reach him and snaps his reigns hard. His horse rears and Martyn stumbles a few steps back — don’t get a concussion from a horse, you’ll die — giving Impulse the opening to dash off into the forest’s depths.
Right. Revenge is off the table for now. First aid time.
Martyn drags Ren from his saddle, frantic apologies playing off his lips all the while. It’s bad, if Martyn’s half-forgotten memories of biology are to be trusted, but he can’t do much for a punctured spleen. He rips his coat off and tries to ignore the shock of late autumn air against skin protected by nothing but a linen undershirt. Tourniquet, maybe? Or not, because he doesn’t wanna restrict Ren’s airflow? Or should he be removing everything from Ren’s torso altogether? He’s got no clue and he hates his pathetic incapability at a time like this where he ought to be Ren’s knight in shining armor.
It’s still bleeding. Jesus Christ. Instinct pushes him to lift away Ren’s shirt, check how bad it’s gotten. Oh, shit, if it gets infected, they’re in the middle of the woods — He can’t handle this alone. He’s not a doctor, and really neither is anybody else here, but maybe the doctors back at the castle actually have something to sterilize the wound. He’s not even trained in first aid!
“Alright, um. I’m gonna…” Martyn presses his coat into the wound and Ren’s hand against the coat. “Try and hold that there, yeah? And I’m gonna put you up on a horse, and we’re gonna go find a doctor.”
Ren nods mutely, weakly. It’s a wonder he’s even conscious, probably — or is adrenaline meant to kick in when you’re stabbed? Couldn’t Martyn have been one of those hypothetical time travel victims who knows how to culture penicillin?
They make it back to the castle grounds, by which point Martyn has already been calling for help for like a solid minute. Ren’s pulse is still beating under his hand, which is wrapped around the whole of him, too practical to really stoke any of the fluttery feelings he’d thought he’d experience when he held Ren’s body close to his own for the first time. He’s breathing, as well, so that’s a plus. Someone reaches out to take Ren away, and Martyn’s grip tightens.
He’d trusted Impulse. They’d both trusted Impulse — who knows who else is in on the conspiracy with Queen Cleo or whoever that is? Maybe the entire castle is out to kill Ren.
“Sir Martyn,” the stranger presses.
Martyn backs away from them, puts himself against the plinth of the massive statue of Ren-with-a-banner that dominates the courtyard. It’s cold against his back where Ren is warm against his front, putting him in the middle of a temperature sandwich.
“I can’t treat him if you don’t let go.”
“Hand,” says Ren, almost too quiet to hear, “ye can stand down, for now.”
… Which is enough, unfortunately, to make Martyn obey. The King is whisked away for emergency treatment, faster than Martyn can follow which sharp corners of the grounds they take him.
Okay. He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine! It’s okay. Martyn can focus on other things.
Like sniffing out that noble who was acting so uneasy earlier, the one who’d made him apprehensive, who Impulse hadn’t seemed to share his suspicions about. In hindsight, it’s blatantly obvious that that was the signal for whatever funny business him and his Queen have been up to here. Nobody gets that antsy for no reason.
There will have been guards at the door. They’ll know who they let in. They might still be at their post.
Martyn takes off for the great hall just barely under a run — no time to waste, and no reason to give himself more time to think up extra conspiracies. As he shoves his way into the more populated areas of the keep, he’s dimly aware of servants staring at him. Jesus, are they all in on it? Is this whole court implicated?
“You!” Martyn shouts far before he’s actually up in the guards’ faces. “Who visited the King today?”
They both seem startled, but they don’t look guilty, at the very least. “Um,” says the thinner one, “His Majesty received a number of audiences today, Sir Martyn, you were… there.”
“I need names, though,” he insists, and doesn’t care if it makes him look like a crackpot, because “the King’s just had an attempt made on his life, and it’d be nice if we could, y’know, prosecute about it, or something.”
The stouter one doesn’t look like they know what prosecute means, but they do at least seem to be taking this some degree of seriously. “Uh… well, there was the Houndsmaster… and BigB, I guess.”
“And Bdubs,” the taller one tacks on. “From, ehh… Queen Cleo’s court, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, he’s from Cleo’s court.”
Martyn’s ears are starting to burn. Are they stalling him, or do they just not care? “What does BigB do? Where can I find him? Where’s Bdubs now?”
The taller one — Martyn’s probably learned their names three times over, but he doesn’t have the brainspace for that right now — puts his hands up like he’s placating a feral mutt. “Woah, dude. You’re taking this real aggressively.”
“Listen, I think I’ve got the right to be a bit ticked off about an attempt on the Red King’s life, don’t I? Y’know, high treason and that? Seems pretty serious to me.”
“Okay, okay, calm down!” The other one steps between them, thank god. Martyn’s about ready to punch this guy for insubordination. “I’ll getcha the information you need, just… don’t freak out, alright? His Majesty’s gonna be fine.”
Martyn takes as deep of a breath as he can, and to his irritation, it does help somewhat. “Start talking, then. Bdubs, what’s his deal?”
“Well, he’s, uh… I mean, I think he’s technically her steward, isn’t he? But he’s Cleo’s man, basically. Carries messages back and forth for her, things like that.”
The insubordinate guard nods. “One of those diplomatic types.”
Okay. So a foreign diplomat, steward — whatever, a foreign agent visited the court and then the captain of the guard tried to murder the King right after, shouting fealty to that first guy’s crown. Seems like a right conspiracy to commit murder forming under their feet.
“So, what, did Bdubs jump out of a bush with a bow and arrow or something?”
“Wh— no,” Martyn huffs, “but he gave the signal. It was Impulse, got us out in the middle of nowhere and stabbed his Highness when he wasn’t looking.”
Both guards reel at that. “Impulse?”
“Yeah,” he says, expression stony. After a moment, they shift to look the same.
“Man,” says the stout one, “you think you know a guy.”
He doesn’t spend much longer delivering the details of the situation, doesn’t care what gossip floats around the guard as long as the main idea’s got through. The guards who know who Bdubs is can handle going after him. Martyn has a king to check on.
Whatever weird pseudo-medieval medicine they’ve got going on, it at least looks like they understand the concept of stopping a bleeding wound. Ren is laid out shirtless on the doctor’s cot, eyes closed in an expression that might be approaching repose if not for the furrow of his brow. The cloth at his side is already turning red, but it seems vaguely clean — at least cleaner than Martyn’s coat had been. Does it need to be changed? How do you know if a bandage should be changed?
He really didn’t think about what to do once he was standing here. It occurs to him, belatedly, that there are no sprawling tapestries for him to keep his eyes on in the infirmary.
Ugh — he feels… guilty, almost, for raking his eyes across Ren’s form in the way he is, because yes it’s primarily to make sure that the man’s still in one piece, but he’s also never seen the King without his shirt on before, and wow. This guy looks good. Not movie star, dehydrated eight pack abs, of course, because it’s like the thirteen-hundreds or something, but well-formed in all the ways that matter to Martyn’s sensibilities.
Once he’s sure Ren isn’t actively dying anytime soon, Martyn turns his attention to find something — anything — to stare at that isn’t Ren. The doctor keeps their rooms sparse, save for the tools of their trade — Martyn spends a tick staring at the various bottles of dried plant parts and wondering how many of them he could find in a pharmacy back home — so it’s slim pickings. Eventually, he settles on the desk as a decent focal point; it’s not as feature-rich as his tapestry, but it works well enough.
“Hand.” It’s so quiet, Martyn thinks he’s imagined it. But, again: “Hand.”
“Milord?”
“What are ye doing here?”
“Er —” isn’t it obvious? “—come to stand guard, haven’t I?”
“Indeed.”
He risks another peep back over to the King’s reclining body, only to find they’re making full eye contact. This doesn’t tend to happen, principally because Martyn’s so good at avoiding it, but also because Ren does like to have cover from the sunlight where he can (in lieu of glasses, which he reckons the King might need from the way he never seems to know anybody’s names from faces).
The stained glass and the tapestries are always giving the Red King crimson eyes to match his moniker. Now, Martyn finds that they’re actually blue.
“Hand,” says Ren, “could ye get me a cup of water?”
“Wh— I— yeah? Yeah, I can do that.” Of all things. Man nearly dies and what does he want? To dictate his last will, to see sunlight one last time, or some romantic garbage like that? Nah. Glass of water. Which involves Martyn taking his eyes off Ren again — literally, yeah, but more importantly it involves leaving the room to get water. “Um. D’you mind if I wait until nobody’s… like, someone just tried to kill you, not really sure I wanna be leaving you alone and unarmed, milord. Not really standing guard very well if I just walk off in the middle of it, am I?”
“Oh. Well, yes, I suppose that’s—” he’s wracked by a sudden coughing fit, and Martyn flinches in to steady him “—that is true, yes. Could ye get the doctor to do it, then?”
“Alright,” Martyn sighs, perhaps putting a few too many dramatics into it, and hails the doctor. “You’ve been dying of thirst over here, is that what’s been happening?”
“Aye, thirst and me captain’s own blade, it seems.” Ren moves to sit up and Martyn pushes him back down in panicked quickness.
“Woah! Woah, woah, don’t — don’t sit up, you’re still bleeding out on me. Need you to stay right where the doc put you, yeah? Don’t want you tearing your stitches or anything.”
“Stitches?”
Right. Modern medicine hasn’t been invented. “Uh. Gotta give your skin time to knit itself back together, yeah? You need rest and fluids, stuff like that. Probably also antiseptic — you can use whisky to clean a wound, right? Do we have whisky, or rubbing alcohol, or…?”
“There’s only wine in the cellars,” Ren frowns.
“Right, well, we’re not putting that in your wounds, even if it is a really good Merlot.”
“A what?”
“Don’t worry, milord.” He takes another breath, steadying himself against the gradually rising wave of realization that there’s no antiseptic, nor anaesthetic. “Did they give you anything for painkillers? Honestly, the wine might do for that, if we’re really wanting…”
“I’ve had some mint leaves,” says the King.
“Mint. Yeah. Okay, fuck, okay,” it’s bad out here, “well, I stand by that; you might want something a bit stronger than water to be going on with.” Although he’s never known what thins or clots the blood, if alcohol would help or make it worse. It’ll definitely help with the pain, but helping the pain isn’t worth much if it also kills him. “Do you want, uh… more mint?” Is mint even actually a painkiller? Is he seriously offering mint to a dying — not dying. Injured. He’s injured, but he’ll be fine. What’s the survival rate of being stabbed in the ribs pre-modern medicine anyway, 60%? Those are great odds that he just made up on the spot. Fantastic odds, even.
Ren coughs again. It sounds bad, phlegmatic and deep in the chest, and Martyn grimaces — and then realizes there’s specks of blood on Ren’s fingers.
Fuck. Fuck! Okay.
“I still want my water,” Ren pouts, and it strikes him how utterly pathetic the Red King can be when he’s not depicted in aggrandizing tapestries.
“Right, I’ll check on that.” He pokes his head out into the hallway — quickly — and intercepts the aide that’s bringing both wooden cup and jug of water on a tray. “Hydration at hand, milord!”
“Thank ye, soldier,” says the King, drinking at what Martyn immediately recognises as a little too enthusiastic of a pace.
“Ey, slow down a tick,” he chastises, fingers landing on Ren’s arm. “Sip it.”
To Martyn’s mild amazement, Ren does ; he settles with the cup against his sternum, eyes watching Martyn’s eyes.
“When were ye servant to an apothecary, Hand?”
It takes Martyn a moment to realize he’s being teased. “Eh — hey! I get you your water, make sure you don’t choke, and this is how you thank me? You know very well I, uh —” Oh dear. What did this Martyn do before he was a knight? Ren doesn’t know Martyn isn’t Martyn; he can’t know. He might burn Martyn at the stake as a witch or something. “I — you know, um — was — aaaaa farmhand,” is what ends up coming out, “I had to tend to the animals, make sure they were fit for the slaughter, or… milk.” He coughs. “And you’re not so different from an animal, are you, milord?”
“I suppose not,” Ren grumbles. “God made us as He made the animals, with mouths to feed and blood to spill.”
“... That he did,” says Martyn, hoping that’ll be the end of the religion talk.
And it is, because Ren lapses into silence after that, obediently sipping from his cup when prompted. Well, it’s more like he’s a dog on a chain, waiting for the signal to be allowed to run free once again. Water gets all down him, and if Martyn wasn’t tempted to look at his bare chest before, he sure is now.
Martyn is acutely aware of the doctor rearranging their shelves behind him. He is also acutely aware of Ren’s gaze holding his, or else finding his hands in its stead. Just a king, a doctor who is probably not in on the conspiracy, and a knight. Totally normal day.
Martyn clears his throat. “Could me and the King have a moment, maybe?”
The doctor looks up, glances down at Ren and then back at Martyn, and excuses themself with a curt bow.
Martyn watches them go, then sighs. He opens his mouth, but Ren beats him to the punch.
“Ye saved my life today, Hand.”
“That I did,” he says, a fair bit softer.
“And I thank ye,” continues Ren, “for yer service to the Crown.”
“Just doin’ my job, Milord.”
“Is there anything yer King can do to repay ye?”
That stops him in his tracks. He’s never really considered the possibility before, that Ren might end up in a position where he owes anything to Martyn. That, someday, he might have any power in this relationship. That’s not how it works, right? Knights don’t ask things of their kings; kings are served by knights that don’t ask for favours. What’s a knight meant to do when offered one?
“Uh,” Martyn says, picture of elegance that he is, “well, living would be a good start. Kinda suck if I went through all that only for you to die of tetanus or something. Milord.”
Ren is quiet. His eyes, Martyn realizes, are a soulful sort of piercing. Finally: “Aye.” Ren nods, slow and thoughtful. “I think I can do that for ye, Hand.”