Page 22 of Fought it Through the Teeth

"I've had practice being insulted by large men. It's something of a regional pastime where I'm from."

Garrik laughs. It is a good laugh — warm, unforced, the kind that reaches the eyes. He has a presence that is markedly different from Ivan's, Morgan notes. Where Ivan fills a room by taking up all the air in it, Garrik fills a room by making you want to look at him. It is a subtler skill and a more dangerous one, and Morgan respects it even as he clocks it for exactly what it is.

"I imagine," Garrik says, "that a man of your intelligence finds this stronghold… limiting."

"I find most places limiting. It's a character flaw."

"It's not." Garrik tilts his head, studying him. "I've met a great many people who come through these walls. Diplomats, traders, brides. None of them have spoken to Ivan the way you do. None of them have had the nerve."

"Nerve and stupidity share a border," Morgan says. "I'm never entirely sure which side I'm standing on."

Garrik smiles. He unfolds his arms and takes a step closer — just one, just enough to shift the geometry of the conversation from casual to intentional. His voice drops half a register, not to a whisper but to something meant for fewer ears.

"If you were interested," Garrik says, "unlike my chieftain, I am more than capable of satisfying a prince."

The words are well aimed. It isn't crude or threatening. Garrik delivers it with quiet assurance, meaning exactly what he says, with the experience to back it up, having calculated that directness will be more effective with Morgan than any amount of circling.

Morgan looks at him.

Garrik is attractive. There is no point in pretending otherwise. He is well-built, carries himself with the kind of easy physical confidence that comes from years of training, and there is an intelligence behind his eyes that Ivan has never once demonstrated. He is also, Morgan is acutely aware, the ward and probable successor of the man Morgan has been sent here to help assassinate, which adds a layer of complexity to this proposition that Garrik cannot possibly appreciate and Morgan cannot possibly explain.

He considers, for exactly one and a half seconds, what it would feel like to say yes.

Then he says, "No, I don't think that would be wise."

He says it without softening it, without apology, without the diplomatic cushion he would ordinarily deploy. It is flat and final and clear, a ledger closed on numbers that don't add up.

Garrik takes it. His expression doesn't sour and his posture doesn't shift and Morgan files that, too — a man who can hear no and not make it someone else's problem. He gives Morgan a wry, self-deprecating smile. "Can't fault a man for trying."

"I don't fault you at all," Morgan says. "But the answer is still no."

"Understood." Garrik dips his head in something that is not quite a bow but carries the same weight of respect. "If I might offer a word of advice though…"

"You may."

"Be wary of the chieftain's ambitions. He's not as accepting of being turned down." He steps back, gives Morgan a last look — warm, frank, and without resentment — and turns and walks out of the gallery the way he came in. He is unhurried and unbothered, and he seems to treat a proposition as a hand of cards, with the understanding that losing is simply part of the game.

Morgan sits alone in the thin light with the book on his knee and his pulse steady and his composure intact, and does not tell himself he made the wrong choice, because he didn't.

He does not intend to tell Bohdi about this. Morgan is a grown man. He handled it. He said no, the man accepted no, and the matter is closed, and there is absolutely no reason to involve an overprotective bodyguard in a situation that resolved itself in under two minutes.

But there is another reason.

He thinks about going to Bohdi and saying, Garrik offered himself to me and I refused, and watching Bohdi receive that information. Bohdi would shrug, probably, or grin and make a joke about Morgan's standards being too high and clap him on the shoulder and move on. That is what Bohdi does — he absorbs things, he deflects things, he turns everything into a laugh so he doesn't have to turn it into a feeling.

And the idea of standing in front of that grin and handing Bohdi proof of his own loyalty — proof that Morgan had a willing, attractive man in front of him and chose not to, chose him again, a man who spent the previous night in someone else's bed and felt nothing about it —

No, that is not a humiliation Morgan is going to volunteer for.

He picks up the book. He opens it to the page he wasn't reading. And he sits in the gallery until the light fades and the tapestries go dark around him and the stronghold fills with the noise of the evening meal beginning without him.

That night, Morgan drinks.

He drinks considerably more than he should, in front of an audience that would love nothing more than to watch the northern prince disgrace himself in a Wolfe hall. The evening meal is a long, loud, brutal affair — roast meat hacked apart with knives and served on wooden planks, ale flowing freely from casks propped on trestles along the walls, and the warriors getting progressively drunker and progressively louder until the hall rings with it. Ivan presides at the head of the table, holding court, and the man is in fine form tonight — expansive, generous, magnanimous in the way of powerful men who enjoy reminding everyone in the room that their generosity is a choice and not a guarantee.

Morgan sits in his assigned seat and drinks the ale put in front of him and then drinks the ale put in front of the empty seat beside him, and when that runs out he reaches across the table for the pitcher and refills his cup himself. He is aware, in the back of his mind, that he is being stupid. He is aware that every cup is a brick removed from the wall he has spent the day building. The wall is the only thing between him and the thing underneath it, and the thing underneath it is ugly and vast and has teeth.

He drinks anyway.