Chapter 102 - 101: Invite.

Chapter 102: Chapter 101: Invite.

"Well?" Gandy demands impatiently, arms folded tightly across his chest to hide some of the tension in his shoulders.

Montrel, grim faced, closes the door behind him and slowly turns to his audience, thriving on the drama.

"What’d he say?" Rogard demands, eyes wide. There’s a groove on his cheek from where he’s pressed it up against the door, straining to hear.

Jaga had only just managed to drag him away before it had smacked him in the face. Montrel swings his head to each of them in turn; a little more reserved with his curiosity, and then his face splits into a wide, shit-eating grin.

...

"...Piece of cake," he smirks cockily, and promptly gets himself whacked in the face.

"So, we’ve all been dying to know..." Rogard begins, too innocent-like to be anything but suspicious. Which Khobi immediately is, especially when Gandy comes up beside him for backup.

"...What the fuck happened to you," he finishes for Rogard, who looks pleased with the support. "You look more messed up than usual."

"Nothing," Khobi says flatly, but gives himself away by tracing one of the several ugly bruises that have started blossoming up on his body,too dark to have been sustained during any of their training.

Jaga hits like an avalanche but always remembers to pull his punches so they don’t do any real damage. Soldiers always look a little battered, but Khobi looks like he’s been in a particularly nasty bar fight.

"Wrong. Try again," Rogard chirps, and Montrel slings himself over the fence to join the interrogation. There’s obviously a rumour or two about --they just want to hear him say it.

"Fine," he huffs, and rubs absent-mindedly at a scab even though Binny told him not to. Loac’s knuckles had broken skin in a couple of places. "I got in a fight."

"With Loac?" Rogard immediately inquires, pouncing on the admission.

"Who else?" Montrel scoffs over Gandy’s head.

"Yeah." Because, like last time, he doesn’t see any point in denying it.

"What’d he do?" Gandy asks, leaning forward; intrigued.

"Did he make a move on you?" Rogard guesses, eyes gleaming excitedly.

"Did he hit you?" Montrel tries, and Khobi rolls his eyes because while he’s pretty sure they’re both correct in one way or other, the fight --the part of it that left him with the bruises, at least --actually had a much simpler catalyst.

"...He asked me to punch him."

Which is why everyone always seems so surprised.

Around him, mouths gape.

"And you did??" Disbelief makes Montrel’s voice pitch high.

"Yep," Khobi replies grimly, "Nearly broke his nose."

"Nice." Now he seems impressed. He offers Khobi a high-five in congratulations, which Khobi accepts, to Jaga’s minor disapproval.

"Montrel," he chides sternly, as a reminder that his dislike of Loac should come secondary to his duty to the royal family.

"What," he drawls defensively, "He breaks my nose all the time!"

"Does he look as bad as you?" Gandy asks with a small smirk, and Khobi briefly takes offense.

Sure, he’s looked better, but he doesn’t look that bad.

"I hope so," he snorts, since Gandy actually seems to want to know.

"You mean you haven’t seen him?"

"Nope," he shrugs, and couldn’t care less.

Binny’s been good enough to hide him in the servant quarters for a couple of nights. So he doesn’t go doing anything stupid.

He’s made it clear he can’t put him up forever though,he might not be chucked in a dungeon for harbouring a fugitive, but there are definitely other ways to punish him.

"...Aw man, Khobi," Montrel suddenly complains, like he’s just realised something, "We just swore on our lives to Bongo you weren’t getting into trouble!"

Well, that was their mistake, wasn’t it?

"Wait," Gandy frowns, stopping Montrel before he gets all dramatic and loud, "Why haven’t you been chucked in a cell yet? I thought you weren’t meant to be starting shit."

"Don’t ask me," Khobi snorts with a shrug and then glares, "And I didn’t start it."

The soldiers all share a look.

"Right," Montrel deadpans, adding, meaningfully, "See, Jaga, not even the king cares that he punched Loac."

"If anything, he’s rewarding him," Gandy points out helpfully, and Khobi doesn’t quite follow.

"What are you talking about?" he asks flatly, and the soldiers all share another look. Different, this time. Like they’re arguing over who exactly should be the one answering his question.

The unspoken vote leaves Montrel looking embarrassed.

"We uh, we got Bongo’s permission to let you out of the castle," he confesses gruffly, and hurriedly adds, before Khobi gets too excited, "Just for a few hours. The uh, gypsy fair starts tonight, and we’re all going, and I thought -- we thought you’d y’know...like to uh...come with."

Khobi’s first thought is that this is a prank. It’s loud, and it’s bitter, and it makes him feel like an idiot for ever thinking that maybe these guys weren’t so bad.

Because that’s in pretty poor taste, even for soldiers. They know he’s not allowed out there. They know this castle is his prison.

He’s not laughing, and...and neither are they, actually.

They look serious.

Which leads Khobi to a second, guilty thought. And that’s that this isn’t a prank at all; that he’s just gone and thought something terrible.

"You’re serious?" he says quietly. Hopefully, even. He hates that it comes out like that, even in front of them.

"Uh. Yeah," Montrel snorts, and cuffs him over the back of the head. It barely even hurts. "Dumbass."

"You’re sure it’s okay?"

"Yeah, Montrel got down on his knees and begged. Cried, too. It was kinda sad, really."

"Gandy, you fucker --that’s not what happened."

"It’s pretty close~"

"Rogard, don’t make me wring your fuckin’ neck," Montrel spits, and Rogard flashes him a pretty smile to show how little credibility the threat has.

"We gotta have you back by sunset. But yeah, Bongo said it was fine. King, too, actually."

"The king said...?"

"Yeah, like I said," Gandy snorts insistently, "He probably reckons it’ll do Loac some good to get smacked around every now and then. Sorry, Jaga, but it’s the only explanation --"

"Back to work, you lot!" Drogger’s voice rings out across the training grounds like a slap, and all the soldiers busy daydreaming of gypsy girl legs and ale immediately throw themselves back into their training before they can be landed with extra drills for letting their minds wander.

As one, Montrel, Gandy and Rogard all launch off the fence they’ve been lounging on like it’s hot and do their best to look busy. Rogard even sends the Second a reassuring smile to hide the fact that they’ve all just been slacking off, but Drogger isn’t looking their way.

Distantly, Khobi’s aware of Drogger’s orders, in the same way he’s vaguely aware of the rest of the training ground clamour. But something rises up on the wind, louder and clearer than the white noise of soldiers at work.

It sounds like music.

Khobi’s throat tightens as he listens. He’s been hearing it at night, when the stars are out and sound carries best across the plains.

Binny’s told him about the gypsy fairs. About the bright tents, and the blazing bonfires at night, and the stories they brought from all across the land.

They came every year, he said, on the cusp of autumn, without fail. Some old women still believed that they were a bad omen,that they were the ones that brought winter with them.

Which Khobi hadn’t understood at all --the gypsies had never ventured to his uncle’s mountains, as far as he knew, and winter still came every year anyway.

It was always a big celebration when they arrived, Binny had explained to him. Every year, noblemen, commoners, and servants alike made the pilgrimage down to their tents, because not only was their ale strong and their people beautiful, but they brought with them gold and silver, and all manner of things --both precious, and not --to trade.

Their music, and their stories took over the plains beyond the city, and then, as sudden as a freak storm in the summer, they’d be gone again.

He’d apologised, when he was done, like he’d forgotten that Khobi would probably never see them.

But unbelievably, he’s going to.

Going outside the walls.

He wonders what it’s like, out there.

He thinks it was storming, the last time he was outside these walls. It strikes him that he doesn’t even know what the castle actually looks like.

"So, you’re coming, right? Khobi?" Rogard asks suddenly, and nudges him insistently with the flat of his blade because this time Drogger is actually looking their way and doesn’t look too thrilled with what he’s found.

"If you don’t, Montrel embarrassed himself in front of the Third for no reason."

"Fucking... That’s not what happened, Gandy!" Montrel growls, and kicks his feet out from under him.

"I uh, yeah." Khobi honestly doesn’t know what to say. "If it’s fine..."

Rogard and Montrel both hit him.

"Ow."

"We already said that it was," Montrel glares hotly, "So you’ll come, and you’ll have a drink with us, yeah? And we gotta get you somethin’ fancy to wear to this ball, or whatever. His Majesty’s orders."

That sounds like a real hassle. Especially because Khobi is pretty low on gold these days.

Stone cold broke, even. He doesn’t have the gold to buy himself a new damn shirt, let alone anything fancy enough to be suitable for a ball.

He remembers vividly some of the awful things Rogard made him try on, and he’s pretty sure that they’re worth more gold than Khobi’s ever held in his life.

But when he points this out, Rogard just waves him away like that’s just some minor detail.

"Don’t worry about that," he says flippantly, "My dad’s loaded."

"Do you get punched a lot?" Montrel asks, holding back Gandy at the comment but looking like he’d really like to let him loose.

"Not really, no," Rogard replies, wondering where that came from. "But I used to, I guess?"

"...Yeah, that makes sense."

"...Rogard..." Khobi says, frowning at the mention of Rogard’s father. And for his generous and completely unacceptable offer to pay for anything.

He has nothing to his name, and no worldly possessions to speak of, but he has his pride, dammit.

And Khobi doesn’t want anything to do with Rogard’s Father. Let alone his money. It still doesn’t sit right with him, how he’d left, like that.

Rogard seems fine, and has been acting like nothing unusual had transpired, but Khobi can’t help but feel uneasy. A father shouldn’t look at his son like that.

"...Your dad..."

"...Is loaded," Rogard says, more firmly this time, and with a smile that’s all mouth and no eyes, and that’s as clear a hint to let it go as Khobi’s ever heard.

So Khobi clenches his jaw and drops it. None of the other soldiers seem to think too much of the exchange, and in an instant .

Rogard’s perfect smile is back at full luminosity, as a smirking Montrel slings an arm around his neck.

"So, apparently Rogard’s buying the drinks --"

"Hey, I never said that!"