Brannal grinned at him. “I had a few things sent ahead. I mean, I’m imagining we’re going to spend a lot of time in this bed, but I thought it might be nice to have clean clothes to change into rather than insisting they launder everything repeatedly.”
Perian launched himself at Brannal, who caught him, laughing, and kissed him thoroughly. Then he said, “Shall we ask for a bath, get cleaned up?”
Perian nodded, so Brannal went and summoned bath water. A tray of tea, alcohol, and biscuits came up with the compliments of the innkeeper and an assurance that the bath would be ready soon.
“Ooh, speaking of baths, I wondered if you could heat the water.”
Brannal tsked. “A fireball in water has a predictable result.”
Perian pouted. “Molun said there would be steam.”
Brannal nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
“You can’t, I don’t know, smoosh the two elements together? Since you can control water and fire?”
Brannal’s eyebrows raised. “Smooshthem?”
Perian offered him an innocent look. “Isn’t that the technical term?”
Brannal laughed. “That is definitely not the technical term. The elements are entirely separate, or at least water and fire are. There might be some water content in earth, but water and fire do not combine. I’ve summoned both at once, but they’re entirely distinct. Well, they combine as a shield, but that doesn’t help with bathing.”
Perian shook his head. “No, I don’t imagine so.”
Looking like he was really considering it now, Brannal conceded, “I suppose if you had a bathtub that conducted heat, I could put water in it and then fireunderit, and that would heat the water.”
Perian grinned at the image. “So… now we’re climbing into a very large cookpot?”
Brannal snorted with laughter. “We are, rather.”
“But as long as you put the fire out before we actually climbed in, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work!” Perian said triumphantly.
“Not terribly practical, though,” Brannal pointed out, “given that there would be a very small market who would actually be able to use it.”
“Everyone else could light a fire the traditional way.”
“What, with a whole raft of wood underneath? That really would be a cookpot, and they’d be lucky not to set the floor on fire.”
A giggle escaped. “Yes, that’s a disaster waiting to happen, isn’t it?”
He’d begun to learn more since he’d been at the castle, but he could obviously not match the Mage Warriors for years of training and hands-on knowledge. But Brannal didn’t make him feel stupid or ignorant, just answered his questions—and shared in the joke, as appropriate.
Perian did still like the image of a ridiculously large cookpot-style bathtub, put up on some sort of fire-resistant surface. They didn’t need one at the castle, but Perian could have one built at his estate, couldn’t he? Maybe Brannal could even visit. They were managing this outing, weren’t they? It made things feel possible that had once been out of reach, and Perian was very excited about that.
“The bath’s ready.”
Brannal’s words and a gentle touch on his arm interrupted Perian’s musings, and he realized he’d gotten entirely lost in his own thoughts. He grinned.
“Time to get clean! Or perhaps alittle bitdirty, what do you think?”
This made Brannal smile back, the concern leaving his eyes, and they were soon stripping and climbing into the gently steaming tub.
Chapter Twenty
They settled the way they favored, with Perian leaning back against Brannal, and they scrubbed one another clean. They had to be a little more careful with the water since they couldn’t simply run more, but at least if they splashed, Brannal could get the water back into the tub with very little effort.
Perian might have done a bit of extra splashing because he loved watching the water rise and flow back into the tub. Brannal pinched his side, and Perian giggled and finally stopped doing it. Since Brannal kissed his shoulder, he clearly wasn’t actually upset.
They jerked one another off and then cleaned up before the water got too cold. Perian certainly wasn’t demanding a whole new tub.
