“I was drunk, and I—” Steph, wisely, cut himself off, only to hiss at Bartlemeo. “It was no more than I did with you.”
Dahl laughed harder, pausing only to wipe a tear from his eye. “This is the best Ara in the history of them.”
“Am I the target of the day?” Owin wondered idly. “These were hardly secrets. I highly doubt that all of you are surprised.”Hewas a little surprised. None of them seemed that deep into their cups. “This is—mostly—far in the past.”
“There must be someone,” Bartlemeo mused, ignoring him, “aside from Maschi, I mean.”
Owin’s gaze went to Maschi without his conscious direction.
Maschi was still, his hands flat on the table, his head tilted as though he had been glancing back and forth between Dahl and Wolfe. His cheeks were dark. His lips remained parted, perhapsthe softest Owin had ever seen them. But it was only for one more moment. Then he shut his mouth and scowled down at the table, and nothing short of divine magic could have taken the tension from his shoulders.
It was a joke at Owin’s expense, not his, and it was not done maliciously, but Owin was too far away to explain it and doubted Maschi would listen to him if he tried. He and Maschi were not close in the way Maschi was with Dahl or Wolfe.
Wolfe must have had the same realization about Maschi’s discomfort because he said something to him in a voice too low to be heard at the distance and patted his hand. Or perhaps Maschi’s discomfort was not about that at all, and Maschi was a young man, near to be a priest, who was shocked at what he’d heard. Or perhaps Maschi could not believe so many people would seek out Owin for a bedpartner. Owin did not make a dashing figure like Aubrey or Wolfe.
“No chance for you there, Owin,” Steph remarked, with sympathy but also lightly, because it was only a joke among them.
“I did not expect there to be,” Owin answered and doubted Steph would bother to read his tone.
Maschi looked up. He was still and severe and sharp, like an unhappy priest, after all… or a young man furiously embarrassed with nowhere to hide.
For that, Owin looked away first, to his ale and the last pair of Steph’s cakes. He took one, merely to annoy his friend, and kept his eyes on that for some time.
HE could not be comfortable. Owin did not like think someone was angry with him if he had done nothing to deserve theiranger, and liked even less feeling that one of his friends was upset with him. But this was a different sensation altogether, something akin to guilt, although he would not have called it shame. He had nothing to be ashamed of. It had not been his choice to start publicly discussing his past affairs—if they could even be called that. And he refused to feel sorry for acts done with mutual comfort and pleasure in mind.
And yet, Owin was not at ease. He generally avoided priests, and his ability to read was limited and slow, so he wasn’t knowledgeable of their Book or their rules about such things. The little mage might not be a priest in his heart, but his education would have remained the same, and there was no telling if he knew or suspected that two of the priests tasked with teaching him were often found in each other’s beds. But if he condemned either the acts between men or the casual nature and number of those acts, then his friendship with Wolfe, to say nothing of Dahl, was odd.
Dahl was, at the moment, sitting at the opposite end of Owin’s table, rather loudly flirting with nearly everyone who passed by. Aubrey had vanished with some bold creature, and Steph had left some time ago, seeking out trouble, if Owin had to guess.
Wolfe had gotten up the moment Dahl had left his table, off to parts unknown, leaving Maschi alone and still obviously unhappy at the center of a half-circle of empty cups.
Perhaps it was a different matter to know for certain that one’s friends sometimes engaged in sinful behavior. Maschi was a sheltered thing. He did not venture out into the world unless it was at the Duke’s command, and even then, he stayed among the priests or the guards. He did not go to inns or wine shops, or even to the places in the village where, on days like today, there would be dancing.
Owin imagined Maschi would be an awkward dancer, at least at first. He would likely not believe that anyone wouldwantto dance with him, a notion which added to the ache that lived in Owin’s chest whenever he thought of their falcon. He would assuredly not believe it of Owin, who could never manage to speak to Maschi about anything but the Duke’s business or their assigned tasks.
It was difficult, when that gaze was fixed on him, to not think of all the ways they were different, all the ways Owin was a man of action, not faith, and how Maschi had grown since his younger years, but still had bones that looked as fragile as reeds, while Owin was as bruised as a village bully.
The trick to learning about Maschi was watching him covertly, and listening when his friends talked of him, and, once or twice, catching him when he was ill or too tired to control his tongue. Or, notoriously, being present when someone had put brandy in Maschi’s tea and not told him until after Maschi had spent an hour extolling the virtues of experimentation and reason and explaining earnestly to Owin and everyone else that magic was as natural as the sunrise and the coming of winter.
Bartlemeo had assumed Maschi had seen him put the brandy in his cup and had been appropriately apologetic. Maschi had blushed for a sennight and never spoken of it again.
He would do that for this, as well. Owin had no doubt. And frown over it, in his way, until exhaustion or more hidden brandy unleashed his every thought on whoever happened to be nearest.
Owin stood up with a sigh, and stretched to crack his bones before he picked up the basket holding the last cake and approached the other table. His heart was beating fast, but there was no one to know but him. He pushed aside some cups to set the basket down before Maschi’s slender hands, and sat nearMaschi but still at a distance. Then he sighed again without looking over.
“I need a moment of quiet.” He gestured loosely toward Dahl in explanation.
“You should have rested.”
The low, yet fierce statement tricked Owin into turning, and he was instantly pinned by a pair of dark eyes. He had to swallow, then try to remember the subject of discussion, only to realize he could not.
“What?” he asked at last.
“Before coming here.” Maschi’s voice was husky and soft but his words were abrupt and direct. “It was a rough journey you had. And fast, to make it here in time for Ara. Isaac’s presence also meant you had to work harder to help him. You should have rested.”
Whoever had cut Maschi’s hair last must have used a blunted razor. The fringe across his brow was terrible, and only made his stare harder to hide from.
“His Grace was impatient to be home,” Owin said despite the apology that sprang into existence on his tongue. “He was not the only one. People love the festival.”
