Pash didn’t even pretend to be amused. “He’s known for many things, including being an associate of Arden of the Canamorra.”
Tiiran couldn’t hear it and yetknewNiksa had stifled a whine at that name. Perhaps because hearing it had definitely brought Tiiran’s shoulders to his ears.
Tiiran clenched his hands tighter, grateful for his robe to hide them and to offer some warmth to keep him from shivering. He was suddenly freezing although heat suffused his face.
“The Canamorra are traitors,” Pash added, as if everyone didn’t know that.
“That’s in the histories too,” Tiiran answered stiffly. And in songs. Arden of the Canamorra had turned his back on the palace as much as his sister had, running away with his commoner husband to join the Outguard, where he had stayed for well over a decade. Of course, he and Orin would be friends. It all made sense to Tiiran now. Orin had even mentioned his name once or twice, hardly concealing the fact. But Tiiran couldn’t lie about it. He was a rubbish liar, and not only to Orin, who was good at seeing through deception. He took a breath. “Though that is not usually something assistants and outguards would discuss in their time together, if they doanytalking.”
“And what do the outguards talk about with Nikoly of the Rossick?”
Pash smiled again, probably at Tiiran’s shocked, indrawn breath.
Tiiran stared at him, his mind so blank it was if Orin had commanded him to be still.
“Rossick?” If nothing else, Nikoly would have approved of how quietly Tiiran said the name. “Astvan,” Tiiran insisted. “He’s Nikoly of the Astvan, a minor noble. Not… notthat.”
“It’s highly unlikely the Rossick would bother themselves with palace business.” Pash gentled his tone ever so slightly, as if trying to accommodate Tiiran’s shock. “But they might know things others wouldn’t. You see, the Rossick and the Canamorra were allies—that’s also in the histories but might not be something you know. And you, Assistant Tiiran, have been seen around the palace with both of them, Vahti and Rossick. Nikoly Rossick also goes into the capital, certainly, and assistants are not known for staying in one bed for too long, but it is interesting to us, tome, that they should both be here together at this time, and that one of them would lie about his family name to work here.”
“I’m sorry,” Tiiran began sharply as he understood, “Do you think thatI—no, no one would thinkIseducedthem, not if they’d seen either of them. So I don’t understand why you’re saying these things to me like a beat-of-four making a request without actually making a request.”
Pash thinned his lips.
“Do you think the assistants are using them for bed sportandfor information?” Tiiran prompted, only for his stomach to swoop when Pash raised his eyebrows. “Oh,” Tiiran continued faintly while his stomach swooped, “you thinktheyseducedmefor information.”
Put that like, it was far more reasonable to question why Orin or Nikoly would spend so much time concerned with Tiiran’s well-being when they would not have bothered doing so with any other lover. They wouldn’t have needed to, but also either of them could have found a less troublesome bed partner without any effort. Choosing Tiiran, getting him to trust them, made more sense if it was for a purpose outside of making Tiiran spend.
Tiiran had thought their attentions a dream because they nearly were. None of it had ever been real.
…Except that was shit from the queen’s stallion, as the saying went. The finest horseshit.
“It would have been easier for them to seduceliterallyanyone else. And I have no knowledge of anything outside of running this library.” Tiiran hadn’t even known Palace Guard ranks and he lived in the palace. “But no one would need to do that for access to the records anyway. Anyone can request anything. Anyone can walk into the library or listen to gossip—gossip widely heard throughout the palaceandthe capital. And gossip is just that—gossip. It’s usually nonsense. You should know that as well as I, if you live here too.”
If Nikoly and Orin were eyes-and-ears as Pash suspected, whether or not they worked together, they would have had no need to bother with Tiiran. At best, he would have been a way for them to pass the time.
And now they were gone. Orin well out of the capital by now, and Nikoly quite possibly also on his way from the palace. Without Tiiran, but Tiiran had expected that, hadn’t he?
“You have quite a mouth on you,” Pash remarked. “I’ve heard that too.”
Tiiran had hardly even begun to suck cock, so he surely couldn’t have a reputation for it already. He was about to say so before he realized that hadn’t been what Pash had been referring to.
“Hardly someone to lie, am I?” He shrugged, although it was stiff with his shoulders so tense.
“So, you are choosing to tell me that a Rossick and a friend of Arden Canamorra both chose to consort with you at the same time, purely by coincidence?” Pash dipped a look over Tiiran. “The assistant who makes so many library visitors nervous?”
“Oh,” Tiiran said softly, for he had to say something as the force of those words hit him. To Captain Pash and apparently others, it didn’t make sense for Orin or Nikoly to look at Tiiran, much less both of them together. Tiiran was odd and strange looking, difficult and mannerless, plain except for the light hitting his hair.
Hair Nikoly could not stop himself from playing with, and which Orin had commanded Tiiran to wear down so he could admire it. Which Mattin had braided with a long ribbon of satin, and Orin had left untouched while using a rope in much the same way to make Tiiran feel better. To make Tiiran feel calm and warm.
Warm, Tiiran thought again, as he had the first time they had held him between them. Protected like a original volume on a high shelf.
“I wouldn’t leave you,” Nikoly had promised. Tiiran would never have asked for that. Nikoly had given it, and put Tiiran’s hand to his throat and begged for Tiiran to claim him.
“…Scale the palace walls if the gate is shut,”Orin had said even after Tiiran had told him he needn’t bother worrying over him.
They could have left with clear consciences. No promises needed, unless both of them were secretly cold and cruel and would enjoy laughing about Tiiran later.
Cold and cruel enough to speak with him for months—years, in Orin’s case, and tolerate his rudeness and awkward caresses, and send him gifts and peel oranges for him. Just to possibly, someday, get the chance to laugh at him?
