Chapter 2
Haakon watched the boy visibly sway on his feet. He touched his shoulders roughly and the boy immediately knelt before him, looking up at him for direction, submissive and compliant.
The boy carried no supplies with him. No food, water, medicines—nothing. All he had with him were the clothes on his back, and they were torn and dirty, streaked with what looked like dried, blackened blood. One of his cheeks was dusted with dirt and Haakon realized that he had probably slept on the bare earth, with no blanket or other clothing to wrap around himself.
Haakon should have been angry with him, but somewhere deep inside he realized that it was the men who had done the killing, and not him. He was just a boy.
If he were a few years older, he would have killed him on the spot. But he was still young, and he could be taken advantage of. He wasn’t a threat to them just yet.
“Please, sir, what’s your name?” the boy asked him.
“Haakon,” he replied brusquely.
“I’m Eren.”
“I don’t need to know your name. And the only name you need to know is mine: Master. You will not call me by my given name. That is reserved for those of comparable status.”
“Yes, Master.”
Haakon took out his water skin and Eren reached for the leather satchel. Haakon snatched the skin away and seized the boy’s thin wrist, twisting it painfully, his grip merciless. Eren immediately let his arm fall limp, ceding control to Haakon.
“I’ll not have your dirty lips touch the same mouthpiece as my own!” he said indignantly.
Eren reached up to touch his lips and stared at Haakon with an apologetic expression on his face, conveying that he meant no harm and there was no need for punishment. If he didn’t appear so innocent, and if it weren’t for the red mark already marring his cheek, Haakon would have struck him again.
Instead he took a drink of water, long and lingering, and made the boy wait for his turn. Eren waited patiently, even though it was clear he was severely dehydrated. Haakon took the skin away from his own lips and said, “Open your mouth.” He slowly poured the water into the boy’s mouth, giving him just enough to wet his mouth and revive him. He watched the boy enjoying the water, head tipped back, throat exposed, mouth open, eyes closed. His light eyelashes were framed against the amber glow of the setting sun. Haakon enjoyed the total control he had over him. He tilted his hand and trickled some water on his face. It ran down his forehead, across his nose, and with his head bent, trickled down the line of his jaw.
Eren looked at him when the sweet trickle of liquid stopped, silently begging for more. “We’ll reach a stream soon. You can have more there.” He touched his shoulder and the boy slowly got to his feet. “After you carry this,” he added, throwing his bag to Eren. Eren caught the bag and slumped a little under its weight. “Yes, master,” he said quietly, seemingly resigned to his new position. Haakon nodded his approval at his deference to him.
ж
Much to Eren’s relief, they made camp soon after, once they found a safer place to spend the night. Despite his efforts to appear relatively healthy and able to the three men—and particularly to Haakon, who seemed in control of his fate—he knew he was just barely holding on to this façade of life. Death kept creeping ever nearer, chasing him, doggedly pursuing him in a race he knew he would not—could not—win. It would catch him soon.
“Come here,” Haakon said to him. Eren obediently came to him despite the protests in his aching body. His body pleaded him for rest and a little bit of solace before it surrendered for good. But he ignored it. He had always had a strong will to live, a quiet tenacity, and he knew he was truly fighting for his life now. People who knew him well might call him calm and gentle and very respectful; that was his nature. He assumed that being submissive to Haakon was in his own best interests. But if this man tried to kill him, he would fight him with every ounce of strength his failing body allowed him.
When he came near the man showed him some parchment. “What does this say?” Haakon grabbed him forcefully. He gripped him tightly, fingers digging into his shoulders. “What does this say?” he repeated when Eren didn’t respond immediately.
Eren studied the parchment for a moment, tracing the fleshy part of his pointer finger gently along the marks. He tried to make sense of the scratches across the parchment, but he couldn’t. “It shows a river here, and a forest there,” he said quietly. “There’s some kind of stronghold here.”
“I’m not dense. I know what it shows. I asked you to tell me what it says.”
“I—I don’t know,” Eren admitted, embarrassed.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I can’t read,” he said quietly.
Haakon turned to his companions knowingly. “See? The boy’s no danger to us. He can’t read. He doesn’t understand anything, much less basic directions. He’s a simpleton.”
Eren resented the insult as well as Haakon’s patronizing underestimation of him. He knew he was wholly capable of understanding anything the man said to him, but he bit his lip and was silent.
“He doesn’t have to know how to read to steal from us. I saw him eyeing our supplies earlier.”
Haakon turned to the other man and then clapped a heavy hand on Eren’s shoulder. “Is that true, boy? Are you planning on stealing from us?” His grip was so tight it hurt.
Eren shook his head vehemently. “No! I wouldn’t! I swear.”
Haakon loosened his hand around Eren’s shoulder a little and studied him. He seemed to believe him. “What do you know about their movements? Your soldiers, I mean.”
“All I know is they’re moving east to the river.”
“No, they’re not. I don’t believe you. They wouldn’t cut across that way.” The hand on his shoulder tightened again and those fingers dug at his skin.
“Please! That’s where they’re headed. That’s all I know. I swear.”
“I’ll thrash you later for lying to me. But right now, follow me to the stream. You reek of blood and disease. And you look horrible. You hardly look better than the men I killed today who are lying in a pool of their own blood. But perhaps that’s to be expected of your people. Do you all look like death?” He laughed a little.
Eren didn’t respond. He cast his eyes downward and followed Haakon to the stream.
Ж
Haakon shed his clothes and stepped into the cold water to wash his lower body. Eren had also shyly stripped and waded into the water. He looked at the boy, who had his back to him. The water came up to his navel, but he seemed loath to wade any deeper.
He recognized that his earlier assessment of the boy’s appearance had been unnecessarily harsh. The boy was very attractive, but that wouldn’t save him. Perhaps his looks would spare him an immediate, cruel death, but they would also ensure that he was used extensively to satisfy other men’s sexual appetites. They had been away from their women for too long, stationed in this strange land. And after seeing all this violence against their soldiers, the desire to own and possess and claim was great for many of them. The boy would be a temptation few could resist.
They would take his innocence away and steal his boyhood from him. And when they left this land, he would perhaps be used one last time, and then he would be killed. His beautiful, lifeless body would be left in a ditch, naked, the signs of his ravaging apparent and possessive bruises littering his hips and legs and chest. His limbs would lie tangled in the dirt. Either his throat would be slit or his belly would be cut open. His blood would slowly drain from his body as scavengers fought over his bones and picked them clean, stripping them of their flesh. He knew he would be discarded just as carelessly as he was used.
Haakon shuddered, but it had nothing to do with the cold water.
Perhaps it was more merciful to just do it now. Because after this war was over, after they had claimed this land as their own and prepared to return home, there would undoubtedly be more sorrow and anger over the lives lost. After the final battle was won, the reality would set in. And this boy prisoner would be defenseless against the onslaught of their grief. Haakon’s hand twitched over the blade at his side.
But then he looked at the boy’s bare back. He took in the smooth, unblemished skin on Eren’s back. His flesh was untouched and unmarked, though he claimed to be an indentured servant. Where were the scars and welts and half-healed cuts from the whippings and beatings he surely endured?
Haakon pictured his knife sliding smoothly into the untouched flesh on Eren’s back. He imagined his burgundy blood blossoming from the wound and spilling out to run down his back and send thin spirals of dark red through the clear, cold water.
But something he couldn’t understand—didn’t want to understand—stopped him.
He couldn’t mar his flawless skin. And somehow he seemed vulnerable; the way his shoulder blades came to a sharp point, the way his skin stretched over the fragile bones of his back as he bent forward. Haakon’s eyes traveled lower to the concave dip of the small of his back and over his firm buttocks. He felt a stirring, but it wasn’t just in his loins.
Haakon looked at the boy’s tangled, matted hair. “Put your head under,” he told him. At Eren’s hesitation to submerge more of his body, he grabbed his hair in his fist and dunked his head in the ice-cold water. He held him underwater with one hand until the boy stopped struggling, and then he let him up. Eren came up gasping for air and spluttering. His chest heaved, and he momentarily held onto Haakon for support.
“Therein lies your first mistake,” Haakon told him. “You don’t listen. If you continue not to listen and to disobey me, then your life will be very short indeed. That was your first chance. I don’t know how many other chances I will allow you.”
Eren managed to get out a choked apology, looking up at Haakon shyly in apology. His eyes watered from the near-drowning and he struggled to breathe normally. His teeth chattered violently and he trembled, arms wrapped around his body protectively. “Finish washing,” Haakon told him sharply. He strode out of the water and wrapped a blanket around himself. After drying himself, he picked up his clothes and re-dressed. He threw the blanket down on the ground, leaving the discarded cloth for Eren to use.
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