“I could have asked for this,” Kazimir hissed. “I could have made this demand knowing he would do anything for me. I could have…” He stopped for the look in the inventor’s eyes, knowledge and pity where Kazimir was used to seeing desire. Kazimir inhaled and calmed himself before holding out his arms and closing his eyes.
Jacob stepped closer. He made a sound, soft, and his breath barely stirred Kazimir’s hair. Then he moved away. “Some other day, beautiful one.” His voice was blank. “I am not the sort of fool to think Aphrodite’s work is mine to lay my hands on however I please.”
He called the King a fool, and not for the first time.
Kazimir opened his eyes to find Jacob returning to the piles of ore. “I have given permission.”
Jacob turned to him only to quirk an eyebrow. “Have you?” His tone became gentler than Kazimir had thought it ever could.
Kazimir lowered his arms. “It does not matter.”
“It does to you. Therefore, it does to me.” Jacob smiled, a bitter thing. “The arrow was as sudden and painful as they say. But I wouldn’t have you spare me a thought. The likeness will be made and the King will be pleased. I will measure you when the time comes that you can suffer through it without fear, and not before. In the meantime, do as you wish in here. I will need to watch you dance, eventually, but I have other work, and it will keep me occupied.”
“You…” Kazimir stopped from habit, and did not say another word about anything that had flown from Jacob’s mouth. He also did not turn to begin his long walk back up to the palace. He stood for several moments more to watch the inventor work, and thought that he was being permitted to see, when no one else, not even an apprentice, stood nearby.
KAZIMIR did not know what to make of it, then did not want to make anything of it. He had no use for wondering that would lead nowhere. Jacob’s words of love, such as they were, he pushed from his mind. Others had said them, or something close enough. Even the King had, once, although Kazimir had known not to believe him. Eros may have done his work on the King, on the others, on Jacob, but none had ever cared to know if that work had been done on Kazimir as well.
That Jacob had instructed Kazimir to ignore his desires was unusual, but nothing to disturb him. Kazimir should welcome it if it meant he would be left alone for some reason other than fear of the King.
All the same, he was unsettled at the thought of returning to the inventor’s workshop. He waited a day, then two, and told himself it was to give Jacob time to work with his metals. But the King was not known for his patience, and so Kazimir went back down the mountain, to the workshop, to Jacob marking on a wax tablet.
“You return to me,” Jacob said lightly, after they had stared at each other without uttering any greetings, or indeed anything at all. While Kazimir had avoided him, Jacob’s hair had not been combed. His fingers were dark with soot or dirt, as was his chiton. The heat from the next room had brought a sheen of sweat to his skin, which he did not seem to notice, perhaps used to it.
Kazimir was freshly bathed, perfumed as the King wanted. He wanted to pluck at his tunic, to apologize for the ornaments in his hair that he had not asked for. But all he allowed himself to say was, “I can dance for you, if you like.”
“You know I would,” Jacob answered, his voice and eyes full of Aetna’s fires. “But you may do whatever you please. Stretch, practice, do nothing. I’m not here to order you around.”
Kazimir frowned. Jacob did not seem to mind his frowns. “Don’t you need to watch me? I was told you would.”
Jacob gave Kazimir the same quirk of his lips he had given him before. “It has to look like you, not beyou. He’s not concerned with that. That is more than evident. Does he think youwantto see a version of yourself performing for him?”
“Stop.” Kazimir closed his mouth but the single word escaped first.
Jacob looked down at his tablet. “I am too honest,” he said at last. “I am sorry. I have been told it will get me into trouble someday, and it seems that day is here.”
“It does nothing to speak of it,” Kazimir managed a reply before he turned away. “I will dance, then, or go through the motions of it, whether or not you look.”
“There’s no music,” Jacob pointed out, head raised again.
“I do not need it.” Kazimir was arrogant, but not enough to earn a god’s ire. “I am blessed, or so they tell me.”
He stretched first, like an athlete at the Games, pretending his limbs did not tremble for his audience of one. If he looked over, he was not sure what he would see, if Jacob watched with hot eyes or did not watch, though he should. Kazimir was not sure which he would have preferred. One, at least, was familiar.
He wondered if desire would look different on the inventor, if his gaze would stay sharp and his mouth would stay soft.
A dangerous thought that made Kazimir dance for longer than he should have, until the shaking in his limbs was physical and could be explained.
When he looked over at last, flushed and breathing hard, Jacob was gone from the room.
THE NEXT VISIT, Kazimir did not ask before beginning to dance. He did not look over to Jacob or express interest in the various tablets and tools now strewn about the room.
The visit after that, Jacob brought in water and wine and a cup for Kazimir and left them at a table far from where he sat. Kazimir drank the water when he was done, and hesitated before leaving, but it was not the place of the King’s dancer and bedwarmer to remind the inventor to drink some water, too, or to rest, or to have less of the wine. Work was being completed. That was the important thing. Soon, the likeness would be built, and some of Kazimir’s time would be his again, to spend how he wished.
“WHY DO YOU not watch me?” Kazimir held still in the center of the workshop, then tugged a hand through his hair to displace the ornaments. His curls reached his jawline this way, a sight it pleased the King to be the only one to see.
Jacob could not know that, though he raised his head from his clay when Kazimir spoke.
Kazimir took his time gathering the hair clasps shaped like birds and approaching Jacob to set them on the table between them.
