Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The dawn sky was dismal.

Grey and heavy in the way of waiting rain, a smell of the same in the air. A depressing musk that drifted with the scents of the backyard cagery as Oscar fought past the quails and pheasants for their spotted eggs. He could hear the old couple that lived in the attic of the next-door winery already complaining about what the weather would do to Madame Jorgie’s knees, and how the gutters would back up for a week if Melior saw as much rain as it had on the fifth of Simont, four years past.

Rain was good for business, not that Oscar was quite sure why. Patrons would come from every corner of Melior with their soaked overcoats and sodden hoods, from the docks along the river Ravenway to the stone-slab streets in the smithy quarter. Some already full of wine, others ready to be, they’d all at once stomp up the porch in muddied boots and clog the entranceway to the point that the hostess would prop open the front doors with potted flowers as patrons flooded the cloakroom and gallery.

The lanterns wouldn’t go out until three bells past midnight on days like that, though Oscar knew they’d be lit for far longer tonight.

Thunder rumbled away east, almost quiet enough to be lost under the clucking murmur of the quails. One scrambled across Oscar’s hand and left another red line as he snatched two eggs from a nest of cloth scraps and brown grass. He bled, but it was difficult to be annoyed when Oscar was sure he wouldn’t have to work the floor that day.

Sort of sure. Almost sure.

As sure as one could ever be at Jewel Street Kitchens.

-----

By ninth bell Oscar had the cagery swept and the cold room arranged. His left shoulder still ached from his last appointment the day before, but the morning orders were finally all taken care of. Well, no, he was still waiting on the girl from the butcher. She never liked to pay much mind to the bells, even though it was Oscar’s hide that would see a switch if the lunch meats weren’t ready and waiting come noon. It’d be the easiest thing to jog across the way and take the order himself, but that meant taking a trip upstairs for permission.

Oscar eyed the staircase for a long moment, chewing on the inside of his lip. It was never a good idea to bother the master this early in the day.

He turned away when footsteps echoed in the hall, and quickly wet a rag to wipe down the bar.

“Filth everywhere,” the overseer hissed as he entered the dining room. His shirt sleeves were rolled and his collar was damp despite the early hour. Adrian was at his heels, as ever, along with half a dozen of the taskers. Oscar didn’t look up from his work to see exactly who. Didn’t much matter either way. “The soldiers bare hours away, and this entire floor no better than a sty-.”

“We’ll have the scrubs in directly,” Adrian assured, with that cheerful lilt to his voice that never sounded as false as Oscar was sure it was. “Nothing a wash and shine won’t take care of.” There was nothing that Adrian didn’t think a wash and shine could set to rights. Be it floors or dishes or beorc.

The overseer muttered something under his breath and then slapped a hand down on the bar top. “Well?”

Oscar didn’t flinch, but his fingers tightened against the rag. “Morning sir,” he murmured, quiet enough to be thought demure but not so much that he could be scolded for shyness. “The usual?”

“Not today, you fool,” the overseer snapped, slapping the bar again. Oscar did flinch this time, but covered it by rubbing at a stain that wasn’t really there. “Or are the fowl likely to lay again by supper time?”

“No sir,” Oscar said, still demure. Still quiet. He wiped away the damp mark left by the overseer’s hand and kept his eyes low, hidden by his bangs. “Toast and jam then?”

The taskers complained, but Adrian shooed them away to a table. “Fine, but be quick about it. You should already be downstairs as it is.”

Downstairs?

“But-, but what about the soldiers?” Oscar asked, a little desperate as he lifted his head. His stomach began to twist. Sour and tight. He still had marks from the day before, still hadn’t even been allowed a proper wash yet. “They’re coming home tonight.”

One of Adrian’s eyebrows went high, something expectant in his pointed face, “And we’ll need every hand.”

“Every. Single. Hand,” the overseer growled, wagging a warning finger in Oscar’s paling face. “Be a goddessdamned disgrace if we don’t fill more than eighty cards by morning. And no less than three of those best be your own.”

Three cards tonight?

That-, that was more than he did in half a week, more than what even Alexis did in two days! They couldn’t just-, it wasn’t-, Oscar’d been waiting for this day for the last fortnight, since he’d first heard rumor of the march ending. How could they think to keep him on the floor tonight? Who would cook? Who would be able to keep up with the orders? Who else knew how to make even half of what the menu offered?

“They-, the soldiers will be hungry,” Oscar insisted when the overseer made to turn away. He tried to keep himself demure, to still be docile. As docile as he could hope to be right now. It was one thing to be bruised by patrons, but another entirely to carry the overseer’s displeasure. “Th-they won’t want to stay if there’s nothing decent to eat.”

One of the taskers whistled from their table. “Little jade must think he’s something special!”

“Bet even the king doesn’t dine so fine,” another called, a tall woman that always volunteered to break in the new stock.

Adrian sighed as the taskers all laughed, but the overseer just stared at Oscar with his pebble grey eyes and drummed his damp fingers on the bar top. “…He has a point.”

“He thinks he has a point,” Adrian sighed. “Ruth can man the grill just the same.”

“Ruth makes slop not fit for swine,” the overseer muttered, still eyeing Oscar like a virgin one more whimper from being slapped. “Though she’s not worth much downstairs either.”

The bar was high enough that no one saw how Oscar’s hands twisted in the rag when he dropped his arms. His mouth had gone dry and his shoulder stiffened worse than it had since waking. “I’ll handle lunch and supper, all myself,” he tried, even though he knew better than to push. Adrian wanted him on the floor tonight, and Adrian generally got what he wanted. Things tended to go badly for Oscar when he didn’t. “Ruth can’t even reach the top shelf wine.”

The overseer lifted his lip the way he always did when thinking about the ledger, “Lose a twelfth of our profits right there.”

“Toast and jam,” Adrian reminded, rapping the bar with his freckled knuckles. He swept the overseer away towards the taskers with the sort of mindlessly cheerful smile seen sewn on dolls. “We might have you up to deal with the dinner rush…but you’ll be back downstairs right after.”

-----

The lower floor of Jewel Street Kitchens never smelled the way it should, of over-dabbed perfumes and stagnant tubs of bath water that were refilled only twice a week. Especially so today, when the scrubs had been at every bit of the carpet and walls. The fabrics had already been taken out and beaten the day before, and every pillow in the salons had a fresh case. Even the brass doorknobs to each room had been shined so much that they gleamed like copper in the lantern light. There were no scrubs left but taskers were scattered throughout, handling furniture and preparing the last remnants of the new stock and scolding those foolish enough to complain at a rough touch.

Oscar was put to work the moment he was sighted coming down the stairs. He cleaned and greased the tools in the stage room and moved all the linen to the basement so the closet could be fit with a curtain and couch. The braziers yet needed to be filled, especially so with the coming rain, and the cold room hadn't been stocked for the patrons in the sitting room. The Clover twins begged him for help making their plaits the same size and asked him to shoo the cats upstairs before the taskers could start kicking at them. Gretchel made him tidy all the cobwebs that the scrubs hadn’t been able to reach in the reception hall, and sent him into each salon to do the same with a broom.

Some were already in use, but no one ever gave much thought to privacy downstairs.

“Ollie!” one of the new girls called as he entered the plump comfort of the last salon in the east hall. He couldn’t remember her name, but she was new only in that she’d been at Jewel Street Kitchens for a less than a month. She never seemed to mind being made ready by the taskers, even though Oscar always felt his chest go tight whenever they came near. “Are you with me today?”

“I’m…not sure,” Oscar murmured, careful to keep his eyes on the cobwebs. “Are we doubling up?”

She giggled, upside down on the only mattress in this hall that was fully stuffed. “Course! Don’t you know? The soldiers-.”

“Mm hmm,” he hummed, sweeping the corners of the ceiling as quickly as he could. “Back tonight, I heard.”

“Randy here said that every single one of them went off a-marching,” she sing-songed as Oscar crossed to the other side. “All but the-, oh, what are they called again, Randy love?”

“Royal Guard,” the tasker between her legs grunted. “Why you not dressed yet, jade?”

Oscar swallowed a little thickly and brushed harder at a stubborn bit of dust and cobs, “Was just sent downstairs, sir.”

The tasker grunted again and gave him a gruff order to get ready for a stretch, but Oscar managed to slip away when the new girl giggled something slanderous and earned herself a scolding.

Most of the new stock were still making a fuss when he got back to the sitting room. Scattered cries, sharp words from the taskers, the quiet jeers of those that had been servers at the Kitchens for years. It was a cruelty that Oscar couldn't understand, one he didn’t like to be around. He still remembered too much of his first night on the floor; flinching from taskers and patrons alike, feeling as if he would burn apart from the inside out, wondering if he could possibly take even one touch more-.

That-, no, that was years ago. That was a different Oscar. A more foolish Oscar. One that still flushed at a joke too crude and dreamed about a future where a thousand hands not his own didn’t paw at him night and day. 

Try as he might, Oscar didn’t get back to the stage room unnoticed. The weekday foreman saw his scratched hands from the morning chores and the dust in his hair from the cobwebs, and cussed him out as a lazy loitersack. She pinched his throat, up by the hairline where a patron wouldn’t notice the blemish, before sending him away to be washed in cold water that had been spelled to smell like lavender. One of her aides scrubbed at his thighs and feet until he was sure he would bleed, and dressed him in a belted tunic that was almost sheer. It ended above his knees and split at the hip. He wasn’t allowed any leggings, no matter how politely he asked.

“Shush,” the aide said with a swat when Oscar opened his mouth, though he hadn’t intended to ask again. “You know there won’t be any time for redressing tonight.”

Most everyone downstairs looked the same, clothed in thin robes and shawls that would come apart with the pull of a cord. The favorites wore the best jewelry there was to be had, loops that could have been true gold and rings set with a dozen stones that flashed in the light. Oscar held still as a dull bronze stud was forced through each ear, and held his breath the way he knew he shouldn’t when a tasker came over to make him ready.

It was one he didn’t often see, a pale woman with auburn hair shorn close along the sides of her skull. He almost bit his lip bloody when she moved his tunic aside.

“Well?!”

The tasker jerked, Oscar too. The overseer was standing at the top of the stairs on the other side of the sitting room, broad face red and furious. “You!” he bellowed, pointing at Oscar. “What are you doing, boy? Get upstairs!”

Oscar’s breath caught. He barely felt where the tasker’s fingers had stilled. “I-, I thought-.”

“Upstairs!” the overseer shouted, so loud that spittle flecked from his lips in the lamp light. “Upstairs this instant, you idiot!” He began to stomp away, but turned again to snarl, “And good goddess, get dressed!”

-----

The overseer wasn't there when Oscar got back upstairs, again in the black blouse and trousers of the dining room. He still smelled like lavender, and would for days, but he didn’t look anything like a whore anymore. Not even a little. His ears weren’t pegged, he had something far more substantial than cotton slippers on his feet, and a chance draft wouldn’t expose his thighs to any and all waiting to see. If was always a relief to be covered. To be more a person than he was usually allowed.

Adrian just tisked and shook his head. “Look at you,” he sighed, smiling still, but in a parentaly disappointed sort of way.  “Washed and readied, just to turn meat.”

Oscar lowered his eyes, and told himself he didn’t need to feel ashamed.

“Well, you know what you’re about,” Adrian said, gesturing away towards the dining room so that his rings shined in the light of the candelabras. The scrubs had already been through here again, little as there was to do. Sometimes it seemed as if the overseer could conjure dust just by looking. “Whole menu tonight, send Wilheim out for whatever’s needed. Cut the portions come evening if stores start getting low, but don’t let the soldiers see.”

“Yes sir.” He shouldn’t have felt so excited. Oscar kept his eyes low and his hands folded, but still almost smiled. Didn’t know why. This-, it wasn’t really that special. Oscar cooked nearly every day. Eggs and ham hash for the overseers and the rest, a mug of cinnamon porridge for the master, cold sandwich fixings for the taskers’ luncheon, and sometimes the rare supper for a patron that wanted a roasted hen done proper. This was nothing. Just a day of hard work. Of a different sort of work than he usually had to attend.

But still.

Still Oscar had to bite the inside of his cheek against that forbidden smile.

Adrian drifted near, until the polished tops of his boots were in Oscar’s sight. He clicked his tongue against his teeth then and tapped Oscar in the center of his chest. “Don’t you get comfortable on your feet, jade.” He pressed there, hard. As if readying a nail to strike with a hammer. “We both know this isn’t where you belong.”

Oscar told himself that wasn’t true, in a quiet voice that never felt steady, but still dipped his head and said, “Yes sir.”

“So meek,” Adrian complained loudly, shooing Oscar away with a flap of his jeweled hand. “No fun whatsoever. It’s an honest wonder you have any regulars at all.” His polished boots clicked away, a quiet tattoo that echoed around the dining room. “Like I said, send lil’ Wil if you need anything more, and keep the grills hot until two bells tomorrow.”

A long day. Oscar would be exhausted the next morning. His feet would hurt and his head would ache and he wouldn’t be allowed to sleep it off, or find his bed early the next day. He’d be worked just as he always was every morning and night. Chores and taskers and appointments, just like every day since he’d been released from the basement years ago.

But he wouldn’t be touched, not for a whole day. That was enough.

That had to be enough.

-----

Jewel Street Kitchens grew flooded with soldiers at some point between fourth bell and fifth. They were rugged and road stained, as if just moments from their march. Men with weeks’ worth of beard and women that hadn't waxed in just as long. Their hair one and all was longer than what the Royal Guard wore, and many hadn't taken the time to be washed from the sweat of the road. The scent of horse flesh and leather hung heavy in the air.

Oscar had smelled like that once. Years ago, when the only sort of stirrups he'd known of were those that came from a horse’s saddle.

The soldiers were as hungry as a horde of bears come spring. Oscar’d spent all afternoon making ready, steeping and baking and slicing as much as he had bowls to hold after the butcher’s girl finally showed face, but even most of that was devoured by the start of supper time. The grills sizzled away beneath stew and drums of chicken, beneath lamb and pork racks and a rare slab of steak for those with the after-march urge to waste all the coin in their purse. Most didn’t linger after their meals, not longer than it took to swig another ale and pay their tab before heading downstairs. Only a few recognized Oscar, disguised as he was in the drab colors of the dining room. They touched him, he knew they would, but didn’t grow angry when he pulled away. Not many of them, at least. Most were content with pinching him as he carried past another patron’s dinner, or laughed when a sneaking hand would nearly make him upset a tray.

They were kind in the manner of those full of food and drink, and a little stupid in just the same way. One soldier called her neighbor a shaved mule and a moment later they were both determined to beat the other bloody against the floorboards. Their fellows pulled them apart after a moment, but only after a man’s ale was knocked askew. Even with such a crowd Oscar only had to call for the taskers twice. Once when a drunken knight just couldn’t understand that he wasn’t working the floor that day, and again when a brawl broke out over a cheated hand of flash. The crowd was loud and brash, as sudden in temper and forgiving of one another as only soldiers were. Oscar almost felt at home again among them.

As if it were all a world he’d never left.

“Another, and another then after!” cried a bearded man the size of a barn door. He wore no uniform, but was jolly enough in his drink that Oscar only grew a little nervous on the other side of the bar.

“I’ll bring them around,” he promised, quick to retreat to the tap when the man turned away to shout at his fellows. The summer ale had run out an hour ago, but no one gave complaint when Oscar’d begun to serve the barrels of fifth-watered reserve.  The overseer had already sent lil’ Wil out to the brewery, but he hardly kept better attention to the time than the butcher’s girl.

The giant retreated with that same jolly cheer when Oscar passed over two flagons, his gap at the bar soon filled by half a dozen hungry soldiers that bore the badge of an archer brigade. Oscar didn't recognize the emblem inside, but that wasn't so rare these days.

Soon made content enough with bread and drinks, the archers left him alone to tend to the crocks of stew coming along on the back range. They wouldn't have time to simmer properly, not with the ever-flowing horde of hungry mouths that came through the door. Oscar wouldn't be allowed to let the broth come together the way a good stew needed. The overseer liked to say that the soldiers had coarse tongues and couldn't tell a fine dish from a decent one. Even so, Oscar set the best of the crocks on the back burner and gave it another stir. Steam bathed his forehead and fogged his sight, but the stew was nearly thick enough. Another ten minutes, maybe twenty, and-.

“My word!” a man hailed behind him, sudden and a bit jarring, “what is that smell?”

Oscar turned enough to see a redheaded knight over his shoulder. One as bearded and traveled-stained as the rest. “This-.”

“Let me see,” the knight called, gesturing with a broad sweep of his hand. “That smell, what is it?”

The front crock of stew wasn't warm enough to serve yet, but Oscar took a ladle-full and carried it to the bar over his apron. “Beef a-and barely, my-.”

“Yes!” the knight cried, as he leaned forward on the spokes of his stool. His hand was a sudden shackle around Oscar’s wrist. “Goddess, that smell! Hold still, now-.” Oscar couldn’t quite quit the insistence of his hand to flinch, or even get a word out to call a tasker before the knight had let him go. “That, I want that!” the man proclaimed, licking his lips once before flashing a bright smile. “It’ll be ready soon?”

“A-aye, of course.” Oscar retreated with the empty ladle and gave the coals beneath the range another stir. It didn’t settle his nerves. Little ever did. “Anything else?”

The knight rested against the bar on his elbows and stared up at the chalked menu above. It was all written in the master’s hand; crisp and orderly. No one in the Kitchens could write half so fine, though most never had much opportunity to try. “Brisket,” the knight muttered, scratching at a whiskered cheek. “You know I met the man they named that after?”

Oscar paused as he bent over to take a tray of roasted hens from the oven. “Brisket,” he repeated, just to be sure. “You mean the meat?”

“What else would I mean!” the knight barked. He smiled though, so Oscar didn’t quite know if he was upset. “It was just a side of beef, you see, until a fellow from away east -past even that pit of sand trying to swallow Daein- moved to the empire and started trade as a butcher. You’ve never seen such a butcher,” he insisted, beating the bar once with his first, as if Oscar had scoffed. “He could have the hide off a cow in three minutes, and the meat on the range in two more!”

That…that just wasn’t possible, but Oscar wasn’t foolish enough to say so. “I’ve never met such a butcher,” he said instead.

“I should say!” the knight laughed, striking the bar once more. “Never had a roast so fine, believe you me.”

“Is that what you’d like?” Oscar tried, daring to glance back over his shoulder to tell the knight’s mood. He was still smiling through his burgundy whiskers. Rarely did one ever see a Crimean knight with a beard so haphazard, but there couldn’t have been much opportunity to groom on the march. Even for an officer. “Roast and some stew?”

“And some cider,” the knight decided, staring once more at the menu. “The spiced kind, if you please.”

Oscar barely got a glass of the third shelf cider poured before a dozen soldiers rushed the bar. They gave the knight something of a berth, but were as loud and demanding as only a drunk might be in front of a royal officer. They all wanted a dozen things, only half of which Oscar had on hand. He tore bread and poured wine and sent away platters of sliced meats and olives and cheese. He barely managed to hand off the knight’s stew before three hails for ale echoed across the room.  

There were at least four taskers spread around the dining area, but none of them thought on Oscar fondly enough to lend a hand. Sometimes he thought it’d be nice to have someone that did. Someone that-, that maybe would step in when things got too much downstairs, that had enough weight to keep whores and taskers alike from touching at him when all he wanted to do was put his face to the wall and sleep the world away.

But that wasn’t the way things went for Oscar. Not in life, and certainly not at Jewel Street Kitchens.

He apologized to the knight again and waded out from the bar with two flagons to each hand. Oscar was just past the first row of tables when a soldier hooked his apron and tugged him near enough to see where the rain had washed the dirt and sweat from his dark hair. A ring of filth circled his throat and smudged the skin beneath his ears. “One of those mine, sweet pea?”

“Course,” Oscar decided, quick to set a flagon aside. The soldier smiled at him with blackened teeth and offered to let him take a bit of a break on his knees.

It took a moment, and the distraction of a falling drunk, before Oscar was able to slip away and deliver the remaining ale. He could yet feel where the soldier had put a hand between his legs, but that wasn’t so strange.

The redhead was still at the bar when he finally returned, the back of him more defined than Oscar had realized. He was certainly a knight, but maybe one that actually knew the meaning of a full day’s labor. “Be just a moment,” Oscar said as he came around, wiping his hands hurriedly on his apron. He couldn’t count the times this evening that they’d been doused in ale from the ruckus of the soldiers. “Did you want some more cider, or-.”

“Jade!” Oscar’s gut went a bit tight and sour as two women he barely recognized took stools to the knight’s left. One stood up on the bottom rail and reached across the bar, fingers splayed wide. “Lookit you, jade! Come over here!” She got a hand in Oscar’s sleeve and tried to tug him close. She was soused, her friend too, and the both of them laughed like they'd never seen a thing so funny when Oscar skidded in the grease drippings on the floor.

He caught himself on the counter top, but was too close to duck away when one of them got a hand in his hair and tipped his head back. “Sweetheart,” the soldier cooed, even while her fingers gripped achingly tight. “Don’t break yourself before we get a chance to.”

A moment was all Oscar would have needed to summon a tasker; a second to take a breath past his thrumming heart and another to call out. Just a moment, but it took less than one for the knight to kick out sideways and upset both the soldiers’ stools enough that they cussed and stumbled to the floor. “Behave yourself!” he snapped, an explosion of volume that nearly quieted the dining room. “You’ll not be pawing at civilians like unleashed hounds!”

The soldiers looked tempered enough to tip the knight off his own stool by the time they regained their feet. But then maybe they saw the knight’s crest, or knew him to be a lord, and as one found some sense. “Sir,” they slurred with a salute, not that they should have uncovered and indoors, before they stumbled away towards the staircase.

The knight shook his head and downed the rest of his cider in a gulp. “You’ll forgive them,” he said, after cleaning his whiskers with a napkin. “Keep a soldier from the city long enough and they won’t recognize a tavern from a bawdy house.”

Oscar waited, but the knight didn’t wink or give the joke away with a laugh. He seemed the sort that would. “…Of course.” He could still feel the heavy beat of his heart, that and the shallow pull of his lungs, but his nerves would fade. They always did. “I-, um, thank you,” he managed, soft and rather unsteady. He said the same words all the time, when a patron was finished or when a tasker was done making him ready, but only ever because it was an expectation. It wasn’t often that-, no one ever…

It was just nice to be treated so. As if he really were just a civilian, and this wasn’t the ground floor of a bawdy house.

If the knight thought him bashful or strange, he made no mention. A wave of his broad hand, the matter brushed aside, and the knight leaned back and smiled so charmingly that Oscar nearly smiled back. “I’ve never been out with the men after a maneuver,” he said, glancing aside at the guffawing soldiers gathered at the other end of the bar. “I hope they aren’t always so bold?”

“…Not usually.” Lying wasn’t so uncommon, but Oscar almost felt guilty. He lied every day, and to every patron, but this man wasn’t anything the same. It wasn’t often that anyone talked to Oscar like this. Neither would this knight if he knew what Oscar actually was. But for right now, if only for right now, Oscar wasn’t a whore. He was just a man. Just a civilian, and as utterly plain as both described. And if Oscar were true, if he told the knight that the behavior of those soldiers was almost tame, he wouldn’t talk to Oscar the way he did now. He would be startled, he might begin to wonder, and then…

And then Oscar wouldn’t be quite so plain anymore. 

“Good,” the knight decided, before pushing forward his bowl. “Another stew, won’t you? And whatever that was you put in the oven an hour ago.”

Had it already been so long? “I would,” Oscar said, rather cautiously as he took the bowl. His fingers began to tremble, as they always did when he had to disappoint another, patron or otherwise. “But the ribs, they-, well, they won’t be quite done y-yet?” The knight leaned forward, and Oscar nearly slipped in the grease so quick as he was to move away. “But-, but th-that’s fine, I-.”

“How long?” The knight didn’t look angry, or even annoyed. He was resting on his elbows, his head cocked to the side.

Oscar’s nerves had already come alive again and didn’t abate even the slightest while he spooned out what remained of the last crock of stew. “Ha-half an hour.”

“Is that all!” the knight cried, laughing the way a lion might roar. He sat back again and beat his knee, flashing Oscar once more with that brilliant smile. “Half a mark! I’d wait far longer for a decent rack!” He then began a story about a club on the other side of Melior, the sort of place that Oscar would never be allowed inside, and claimed he’d waited from dawn to dusk for the first pick of buffalo ribs. “Dry as a bone and under spiced,” he said at the end, glaring briefly at the eastern wall as if the club could feel his ire from here, “but I will never forget that sauce. I took a pitcher of it home and had the galley smother my ham every morning until it was gone.”

He sighed happily, and then made a sound of such stark satisfaction after having a bite of stew that Oscar began to flush. “That one’s been simmering the longest,” he said, almost pridefully. “There’s no more, though.”

“No more today,” the knight corrected, with a wink. “Tomorrow is a different story.”

Oscar was saved from disappointing him when a flood of soldiers entered the dining room. It was easy to tell that they’d already been downstairs. Most hadn’t bothered to redo their belt or make their hair less a mess. Serving them ended both the bread and the last of the fifth-watered reserve. Lil’ Wil still hadn’t come back, but there wasn’t a moment to tell a tasker. Nor did Oscar much want to. Until someone complained about the forth-watered there wasn’t much point.

The knight disappeared at some point, but was returned the next time Oscar turned his head. He shook his empty cider glass and waited with a patience that the Kitchens rarely saw until there was no one else left to demand Oscar’s attention. It was something like a pleasure to watch his face light up the way it did when Oscar finally passed him a plate of ribs. “Why haven’t you any help?”

“I-, I’m alright,” Oscar assured, even though he wasn’t. There was a mound of unwashed dishes in back that he wouldn’t be allowed to leave for the scrubs and every time he caught his breath the headache simmering behind his eyes flared again to life. His shoulder ached no less that it had since waking, a sharp grating pain that flared every time he lifted something heavier than a tray.  There was nothing for it, nothing to do but keep working until the night came to an end. “It’s hard work in the kitchen, and not everyone’s up for that.”

“It’s a shame,” the knight told him with a scowl. “No one knows the value of real labor anymore. I met a farmer once, three hills over from the Windfall Woods. I’m sure you’ve been there-.” Oscar had actually, years ago. When he’d only been brother to one and more concerned with chasing beetles in the dirt than wondering how much more coin he need beg for father’s blessings. “-windmills everywhere, too many you know, and this farmer, she hails me on the way through the midst of them all. I come alongside her, to see what need she had of a kingsman.” He paused only to take another slurp of stew, and after wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Perhaps he’d forgotten his napkin. “She tells me bandits came through and stole her younger brother’s dowry. Said that they escaped on horseback, but the sack split and the dowry spilled out on the ground. She went to collect it all, jewels apparently, but a storm forced her inside and covered everything with dirt and mud.”

He muttered something too mangled to hear through another spoonful of stew, but his mood was clear enough to tell. “…Did she want you to hunt them down?” Oscar asked as he took up a rag. The backbar wasn’t all that dirty, but more than once now he’d caught a tasker glancing his way. It was always best to look busy.

“Wanted my help digging up the jewels, if you can believe it,” the knight grumbled. “Said that her brother’s betrothal depended on it and convinced me to hitch a plow to turn the dirt as she sifted through, claiming her horse had just that morning cast a shoe.”

“And you did?” A knight’s horse had no business pulling a plow. They weren’t built for that sort of work, especially when battle dress and farm equipment strained the withers differently.

Maybe the knight didn’t know that.

“I did,” he grumbled. He then tore a bit of meat free from the bone with an aggressive jerk and talked through chewing. “Had a bruise from here down afterwards,” he gestured from his collar bone to the bottom of his chest, “bad enough that the barracks healer was convinced I’d been taken captive on the border and tortured.”

Oscar paused his rag, brows together. “You were bruised? From what?”

“From the plow, man! Weren’t you listening?” He huffed and crossed his arms, plate barren of anything but bone. “Couldn’t hook that blasted contraption to my steed. Don’t you know a thing about Silvinian horseflesh?”

He did, not that the knowledge did Oscar much good as he was. “You pulled it yourself?” he asked, just to be sure. His brows were high, his rag still paused, all unintentional, but Oscar couldn’t help it. Who’d ever heard of such a thing? Of a royal officer himself hitching a plow? “Did you ever find the jewels?”

“Bah!” the knight barked, motioning for another round of ribs. “There were no jewels, no brother, no dowry! Just a scheming farm hand getting out of hard work. In the end I’d nearly plowed half the field! The gall of her!”

Oscar bit his lip against another smile. It was getting harder to keep himself in check. It would do nothing well for him if Adrian or one of the taskers saw him enjoying himself in the dining room. “I can’t think she meant to upset you-.”

“Don’t you dare,” the knight snapped, without a smile but also without beating the bar. “Don’t you excuse those sort of folk. Lazy and conniving, three thieves to every dozen.”

Oh, well…there was only one sort of folk the knight could mean. Politics weren’t something that Oscar really had a head for. He’d seen beastmen of course, even serviced one once, but didn’t know what he was supposed to think about them. Each client had their own way of thinking and trying to keep up usually just ended with Oscar getting hit. “Was she a-, um-.”

“Laguz?” the knight said, before waving the word away. It was strange for an officer to speak so much with his hands, but maybe he was just tired. “No no no, just some backwater Crimean that didn’t know how to care for her animals. You’d not believe the state of her mare.” He called the horse a poor dear under his breath and took a noisy gulp of stew. “I’d have taken the creature home and found her a better lot, but I had no coin and nothing to barter with.”

“Kind of you,” Oscar told him, with a sincerity he rarely felt. “I’m sure she’s taken better care of her since.” He’d of said more, but a heavy knock on the wall behind him had Oscar turning.

The overseer was staring at him through the window to the back. He beckoned with a curled finger and stalked from sight.

Oscar put his rag aside and willed away the sour uncertainty buzzing beneath his skin. He’d barely begun to turn when the knight reached out and caught his apron strings, “Hold on! Where are you off to?”

Oscar opened his mouth, unsure what to say, but the knight just smiled and asked if he'd be back. “I-, yes, I’ll just be a few-.”

The knight waved him away, already tucked back into his ribs.

The other side of the kitchen was never busy, not even on nights like this. There was no reason to keep staff here, so said the overseer, when they were worth far more on their backs a floor below. Usually Oscar didn’t mind, but it was hard to enjoy the rare solitude when he had too many things to do and too few hands to do them. “Sir?” he asked, careful to keep from wringing his nervous hands. Though clenching them in his apron was hardly better.

The overseer looked at him and flung a dirty platter into the overflowing sink. “How many times must I tell you, boy? Get rid of that squint!”

Oscar’s eyes flinched wider of their own accord when the overseer then snapped a finger in his face.

“Why is there not a single clean tankard in this building?” the overseer continued, hissing though his clenched teeth. Sweat clung high on his forehead and had dampened his collar. No wonder when he always wore such heavy cloaks no matter the temperature or time.

“I was heading back directly,” Oscar promised as his hands began to tremble, even though the matter hadn’t occurred to him since twelfth bell. “If you’d like-.”

“I would like a clean object from which to drink!” the overseer bellowed, snarling in the way of a furious hound. “I would like a single individual in this establishment to do as they are told! I would like to know why there is still no summer ale!” The headache behind Oscar’s painfully wide eyes spread the way ripples would a lake. He tried not to let it show. The overseer could be sympathetic in his own way, but never on such a night as this. Never when his fisted hands were crackling with a white-gold light that cast fearsome shadows on the floor. “I would like to know where in the Goddess’ blessed name is Wilheim?!”

“He’s been out since before fourth bell,” Oscar reported, refusing even to blink when the overseer turned back his way. There was something wrathful in his eyes. Something that made even the taskers put their heads down and hurry about their duties.  

“…Go,” the overseer growled, so dreadfully low that the hairs on Oscar’s arms lifted high. “See to the soldiers. Encourage them downstairs.”

Oscar did not wait to be told twice. Still unblinking, without yet taking a breath, he hurried to the dining room and willed his trembling fingers to become steady.

The knight hadn’t moved. He almost seemed a statue amidst the revelry all around. At least, until he glanced up and caught sight of Oscar pushing through the curtains. His brown eyes crinkled as he smiled, the flare of his beard and flash of his teeth again so charming that something strange and fluttery came alive in Oscar’s chest. “Took you long enough,” he chided, leaning forward on his elbows. “Here I thought you’d left me all alone.”

“Not on purpose,” Oscar assured. His voice caught some, and he saw the knight notice. There was a frown pulling down the edges of his mustache. Oscar didn’t think he could lie well if the knight asked anything difficult, and hurried to distract.  “Your plate’s clean, my lord, would you like anything else?”

The knight roared out a sudden laugh. “I am no lord,” he said, again as happy a man as Oscar had ever seen at two bells past twelve. “See this crest here, don't you know how to read them?”

Oscar did, and he read there a lord, but the knight didn’t give him a moment to speak.

Instead he spent the next twelve minutes explaining heraldry to Oscar in painfully precise detail, and another four detailing his own family line, naming every cousin that separated him from the lordship of House Erestor. He gestured at the house epaulet threaded onto his left breast all the while. “-and then myself! Though I've a number of cousins even further down the line. Aethis and Sether and Georgina and Eric -but he has a terrible temper, never give him red wine- and Ferguson and Beryle and-.”

“I will certainly say hello to all them if we meet,” Oscar cut in, though carefully. Still docilely. So that the knight wouldn't have reason to complain.

But the knight only smiled again with his strong teeth, “Kind of you, but perhaps not Eric? He isn't the most friendly even when sober.”

“Not Eric,” Oscar agreed. He had to bite his lip again.

“Exactly,” the knight said, with an approving look that made another strange flutter erupt in Oscar’s chest. “But you understand now?”

Heraldry, yes.

Why this knight had come all the way to Jewel Street just for dinner and a chat? Not at all.

But if he’d rather talk than touch, then who was Oscar to complain?  “So… you're within twelve inheritances.”

The knight opened his mouth, and then closed it with a frown. He lifted a hand -Oscar went quite still- but only counted five twice on one hand and then added one. Oscar counted along with him after his fright bled away, and couldn't help but grin when the knight cussed. “I suppose I am.” And then he looked down at his crest, really looked at it, and let out that lion's laugh when he noted the golden fretting around the border, “I really am!”

Oscar wasn't used to smiling this much. His cheeks hurt, and for no reason but humor.  “You still haven't answered my question.”

The knight glanced up under the unruly mop of his red bangs, “Hmm? Are you sure?”

It was strange, so much more than strange, to find himself on the cusp of laughter. Oscar almost couldn’t leash it. “Is there anything else you'd like, my lord?”

The knight grinned back at his cheek and ordered another plate of ribs.

He finally left at third bell, still sober. Still smiling. He hadn't said a word about the ribs, but hadn't quit ordering them until there were just no more to give. And even then he didn't become angry. He didn't strike Oscar or call him a useless whore, or threaten to rut him bloody with a rusted fork.

The knight just smiled with his dimpled cheeks and strong teeth, and left a little mountain of silver coins on the bar.

-----

Oscar didn't go to sleep until all the grills were cleaned and greased, until every pot was scoured and each glass pegged. His hands weren’t quite steady anymore, his feet like lead. Even so late the lanterns on the porch were still lit as he finally began his last descent of the day.

He was tired, so beyond tired, but no one had really touched him all day.

Was it a fool’s wish, to wonder if tomorrow would be the same?

Chapter Text

“Enter.”

Oscar startled at the summons, forcing his eyes back to the painful wideness required. He'd expected to wait in the hall far longer.

Morning sunshine bathed the master’s office from the four-panned window behind the desk. The light was almost too much as Oscar came through the doorway, nowhere on the second floor quite so bright as it always was here. Maybe the mirrors were to blame, or the white paint of the ceiling. “Morning, sir,” Oscar offered, though his voice felt too rough to be the sort of demure the second floor required. A single patron had filled three lines of his card last night, and all of those after the midnight bells.

“Good morning,” the master returned, quick and curt in his usual manner. There was parchment and letters spread across his desk, so Oscar didn’t set down the steaming mug of cinnamon porridge in his left hand or the mug of spiced tea in his right. The master always preferred his breakfast to have a handle. “There,” the master gestured to a just-cleared sliver of space, “and don’t forget the coaster.”

“Or course, sir,” Oscar said, not that he ever did. It was one of the lessons he’d never been made to learn twice.

“Three minutes early,” the master told him, snapping his gathered envelopes smartly on the desktop to make the edges align. “Which timepiece did you use?”

It took a moment for Oscar to think back, more concerned as he was with keeping the tea from spilling over as he nudged two coasters into place. “The one hung above the bar, sir.” There were over a dozen clocks in the Kitchens, nearly one to every room. The downstairs salons were the only exception, and that more the overseer’s decision. Many a patron lost track of time and could oftentimes be charged extra by the quarter hour.

The master opened a drawer and took a monogrammed napkin from a starched pile of the same. “When you go downstairs have Adrian send for the engineer.”

“Yes sir,” Oscar said, though his mouth went a bit dry at the thought. For no reason, though. It wasn’t as though he’d have to serve the engineer. Well-, he hoped so, at least. “Will you be wanting a pitcher this morning?”

The master didn’t look up until his napkin was tucked and the creases smoothed away, but even then he didn’t answer. He squinted at the calendar chalked on the wall to Oscar’s right and considered the dates overtop his half-glasses. Oscar knew better, but he still ducked his head a bit and took a sideways look through his bangs. He was in the master’s office most days but was always careful not to take too obvious an interest in anything, especially if management was nearby.

It was a much finer calendar that the one downstairs. There was a frame for every month, with painted lines and weekdays. The master’s crisp script was only in a few spots, the rest done up by his butler. Her name was either Ahna or Anna, though Oscar didn’t often see her except at the end of each quarter. She and the master would take over the ground floor guest parlor for three days and tally each and every receipt from both the downstairs and up. Oscar was made to stay awake those nights, with a fresh pitcher of kahveh delivered every second hour. “No,” the master decided, turning back to his breakfast and post. “But have one sent up with supper.”

“Yes sir,” Oscar said again, quick to return his eyes to the gilded corner of the master’s desk. “I’ll let Ruth know.” 

The master lifted a pale brow and reached for his spiced tea, “Have you an eleven o’clock appointment already booked?”

“N-no, sir, not today.” Oscar held himself a little tighter then, not that he needed to. Just…asking something personal of management always unnerved him. The master was never so quick to temper as the overseer, and not so spiteful as Adrian, but it was still so difficult. So uncertain, and there was little that Oscar disliked more than uncertainty, “But I-, I was wondering if I might take my usual?”

The mug was set aside with the handle parallel to the edge of the desk. The master leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other the way a lord would. “Adrian claims that you were back late last month.”

Oscar swallowed, though it didn’t soften his voice so much as he’d hoped. “I wasn’t,” he managed, but quieter than he’d meant. It was always difficult to know what to say when the master forced him to defend himself, and certainly when it was his word against one of his betters. “The overseer tasked me with clearing the gutters as soon as I’d returned, sir. I-, I don’t think Mister Adrian knew I was back.”

The master hummed and took a moment just looking at Oscar over the top of his glasses. “…So, a mistake?”

“Yes,” Oscar immediately agreed, though his gut tightened a second after. “I-, my mistake, I mean,” he hurried to say, even as his heart decided to pound harder than it really needed to. “Mister Adrian, he-, I should have come to see him before tending to the gutters.” He nearly forgot himself and began to apologize, something any tasker would have required no matter whom was truly to blame, but the master had little patience for that sort of sentiment.

A waste of both breath and word, he’d say whenever a server had erred enough to require his attention. Correction was all the master cared about at such times, though it was hard to watch, or even to hear, that correction take place.

It was always something to be avoided, being scolded by the master.

Oscar hadn’t been, not in his nine years as a server, but he knew better than to tempt it.

“…Very well,” the master finally allowed, something bored in his voice as he reached for an earmarked book. Something on farming in the desert, from the title. “You’ll be back by sixth bell, and not a second more.”

“Sixth,” Oscar agreed, careful not to let relief crease his eyes. The master was just as quick to accuse him of a squint as the overseer.

“Don't make me send Satcha to herd you back,” the master threatened, as he always did when Oscar took his usual, “else I'll have you tied bare to a mule and sent to the mines for a night.”

Jeremy’d just gotten back from the mines. The cleric still wasn't sure if putting him back together was worth the hassle.

“Sixth,” Oscar said again. His voice trembled, much as he tried to hold firm.

-----

The sky was never this clear when Oscar was allowed away from Jewel Street.

Either there was rain on the horizon that would drench him on the way back, or winds quick and cutting enough to leave his nose red and his eyes wet. Blue skies and soft clouds didn’t often grace Melior. The sun was a warmth that Oscar scarcely felt, the sensation almost enough to make him linger as he took the south lane that led him towards the fields.

It always felt foreign to be seen in something other than the crisp blacks of the dining room or the shawls and leathers of downstairs. These were rather ragged, the knees nearly worn through his trousers and his sleeves fraying at either cuff, but Oscar couldn’t actually afford any better. There wasn’t any need for him to have anything else really, so rarely as he was out. His jacket had that same threadbare quality, both elbows patched and the sleeves a little short, but Oscar still didn’t look anything like a jade.

A vagrant maybe, or a beggar, but both always received far less attention than a whore.

Even a little tired and a little sore, Oscar made it to the apiary sooner than he’d expected. Tenth bell echoed from the capital walls as he passed a neighboring field of wasting pear trees. For how often rain fell in Melior it was strange that the orchards were doing so poorly. Oscar only ever saw this one, but Henna had a regular at the Kitchens that liked to talk loudly about the market. Last time she’d said something about the fruit crops disappointing for the last three years, but then Henna’d done something unseen to distract her from the topic.

Oscar heard the bees before he saw any of the little box huts they lived in once he reached the apiary. Difficult as it could sometimes be to sleep at the Kitchens, he couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be constantly surrounded by this noise.

It only took him a moment to find his brother, when usually Oscar would wander the paths and circle the sheds for at least a quarter mark. Rolf was standing on the stone wall that edged the path to Master Kenneth’s hut, pressing up on the tips of his toes as he swung a broom at the underside eaves of an unpainted shed. Oscar came near, calling as he did, but it still took three times before Rolf lowered his broom and glanced behind. Not his fault, when Oscar could only be so loud. His throat was still sore, but to be loud, to be purposely heard, just didn’t sit well. Especially out in public.

“Oscar!” his brother cried, quick to drop his broom and scamper the length of the wall. “Did you bring it?"

So much for hello. "Didn’t I say I would?" Oscar took a folded napkin from the inside of his sleeve, though both the pastry and his brother nearly fell when Rolf snatched it from his hand. “Careful-.”

“Just the one?” Rolf had the napkin in one hand and his treat in the other, more disappointment in his eyes than he’d had joy at seeing his kin after a month apart. “Shouldn’t there be more?”

Yes, sure, if Oscar had his own oven and didn’t have to filch each and every ingredient from the Kitchens’ pantry. “The rest burnt,” he said instead, taking a seat on the stone wall. “You wouldn’t have liked them.” Only the one had been promised, a hedging promise at that, but there was no point saying so.

Not when the corners of Rolf's were already turning down and sullen. "You're sure?"

Oscar did his best to keep a smile. "Absolutely. I couldn't even get the prince's dogs to eat them."

Only a few years ago Rolf would have laughed at the thought of hounds turning their noses up at blackened pastry, but now he just sat beside Oscar on the stone wall and took a petulant bite. The moon had come and gone but once since last they met, but now it always seemed as if Rolf was somehow changed each time Oscar had his usual. Some months the shape of his face, other times the length of his shadow, but most often it was his eyes.

Sometimes when Rolf looked at him it was as if there was a stranger staring out from his brother’s face.

“Are you sleeping alright, what with all this noise?” Oscar asked, though he didn’t know what he’d do if the answer was no. There really wasn’t anywhere else for him to go.

Rolf sighed and kicked his feet, “They’re not like this all day, Oscar. I told you before.”

If he had, Oscar didn’t remember.

“You’re only ever here when they’re busy,” Rolf continued, before taking another bite of pastry. He didn’t even look to be enjoying it. “And you always ask that same question.”

Well.

Oscar’s eyes fell, but caught on a red welt near his brother’s knuckles. He reached and took Rolf’s wrist in hand, frowning down at the sore. “When did this happen?”

"Day before last."

Two days gone, and still the sting stuck up from Rolf's flesh like an anthill. “I thought the bees were supposed to get used to you.”

Another shrug. “They haven’t, and Master Kenneth still hasn’t replaced the smocks.”

“What smocks?”

“The canvas ones,” Rolf huffed, so piqued and full of a child’s exasperation as he took his hand back. “I told you last month, Oscar! They got all burnt and ruined, so there’s nothing to protect us from getting stung if the smoke doesn’t put them to sleep right away.”

There’d been a beekeeper back home in Turbeth that used to spell the bees to sleep, though he’d only tended a dozen or so huts. He was a dark towering man, and Oscar couldn’t ever remember him complaining of a sting. Beyond weather and the cost of flour, no one had ever complained of much in Turbeth. Not until their liege lord’s carriage broke a barring in the summer of Oscar’s tenth year.

Though even with a new lord the complaints had been few. Those said aloud, at least.

Oscar put his hands in his lap and tipped forward enough that his hanging bangs blocked the sun. “Has Boyd been to see you since last I came?”

Rolf shook his head and kicked his feet.

Of course not.

The buzzing of the huts hadn’t quit, still an omnipresent haze of sound that made Oscar so strangely anxious. It wasn’t often that he felt comfortable in his own skin, but usually he knew some small measure of relief being away from Jewel Street. Surrounded by the country on every side, at least an hour from the Kitchens’ burden, and still it seemed as though there were bands around his throat and chest making each breath less full. Each word less sure.

“Rolf!”

Oscar started and turned to see a girl running up the path. She must have been some merchant’s child, her ruffled skirt and buckled boots bereft of a single scuff or tear. Even her hair looked soft, no dirt on her knees or face.

She certainly wasn’t a country girl.

“Hey!” Rolf exclaimed, twisting to wave. “This is Mist,” he whispered to Oscar as he dropped from the wall. “You have to be nice. Her family just moved here last month.” He was finally smiling, the pastry left half eaten on the stone behind him.

The girl skirted the length of the wall and came to a halt so suddenly that she stumbled. She giggled and latched upon Rolf’s arm, both them wearing identical grins. “You said you’d be busy today!”

“Master Kenneth said I was done after sweeping the eaves,” Rolf told her, lips spread widely enough to show a gap in his bottom teeth. “Now I can show you where the raspberry bushes are!”

“Is he going to come?” Mist asked, blinking at Oscar. She still smiled though, so far from shy.

“That’s just Oscar, my older brother,” Rolf said, waving a hand. “Not the blacksmith one. He’s a-, um-.” Rolf looked over his shoulder, brows furrowed. “What’d you say you do?”

It was difficult to manage in front of a stranger, even if that stranger was just a child, but Oscar forced a return of his smile, “I’m a steward in the castle.”

The girl looked as impressed as Rolf had the first time Oscar’d fed him that line. “I just saw the castle the other day,” she told Rolf, rocking forward on her toes in too much excitement. “I saw the king and the queen, and even the princess! I can’t believe your brother gets to be there every day! Do you think he could take us inside?”

They both looked at Oscar with eyes far too wide and hopeful.

Oscar swallowed thickly and wondered if the bands around his chest had gotten tighter. “I-, I’ll ask the septa when next I see her.”

“Oh, it’ll be so fun!” The girl bounced on her toes and took Rolf’s hands. “I’ll have my brother come too, you must come meet him.”

Rolf agreed, and even took a step away before stopping short and glancing over his shoulder. “Are you leaving now?”

There certainly wasn’t any reason to remain. “Be careful,” Oscar said, a little thickly.

His brother didn’t notice, or bother with a farewell. Another moment and he was off, running the path with his new friend. Hand in hand and laughing as effortlessly as only children did.

Or maybe only some children. Oscar couldn’t ever remember being that carefree. Even when he’d only had the one brother. There was always something to be done, always a chore that no one else had the time to do. That was only natural though. The way of any eldest. Boyd had certainly never realized that same responsibility.

After taking a moment to himself Oscar pushed to his feet gingerly and wrapped the pastry in the fallen napkin. He’d have it himself for noontide rather than let the ants partake. He then followed the path to Master Kenneth’s door, and gave him thirty five silver for Rolf’s room and board.

Master Kenneth tried to protest, but took another ten for new smocks when Oscar insisted.

-----

The sun was higher than expected when he returned to the road. Usually Oscar spent at least an hour in his brother’s company, more if he was feeling well enough to keep his pace back to the city brisk, but Oscar was already heading back north with eleventh bell still half a mark away. The pastry wasn’t so dry as he’d thought, for all that Rolf had forgotten all about it, but the dough wasn’t as sweet as Oscar knew it should be.

Or maybe he was just too preoccupied to taste.

He’d never been quite so thoroughly dismissed by his brothers before.

Seeing Rolf with a friend…it was good, of course. Children needed friends. They needed playmates and those their own age to grow with. Oscar’d had friends after Father moved them to Melior, even if only a few. They’d all been training to squire, always awestruck whenever the knights gathered in the yard to practice formations. One of his dearer friends had always been the most ardent among them, and surely the loudest, a round boy with freckles and wild red hair.

Oh, Kieran. How long since Oscar had thought of him? Of that life?

Not even yet sworn squires, they’d played such foolish games of knighthood and pretend valor. He’d be second only to the prince, Kieran had always claimed so loudly, so brashly that one day the retired knights that ran the stables tasked him with enough chores to keep him busy far past the midnight bell. Oscar couldn’t remember if he’d helped that night or not, so often as Kieran had gotten himself into some sort of trouble.

No matter the chore, be it scraping paint or washing the stable floor with sand and water, Kieran never gave up his spirit. Always smiling, even as he swatted horseflies and dug ditches in the mid-summer heat.

But that was years ago. No doubt he’d lost his smile by now.

Oscar certainly had.

-----

The bands around his chest only tightened further when Oscar returned to Melior proper.

Smoke and dust colored the sky, the air burdened with the many scents of life outside the walls of the true castletown. Such was especially true of the trade district, where the streets were narrow and ever thick with the traffic of peddlers and merchants. It was impossible to keep to himself, Oscar forever brushing shoulders and stepping down on the heels of tradesmen darting this way and that.

Dutcher Street was the worst in this district. Even the air felt gritty, each breath catching in his chest and throat. There were forges on either side of the street that fogged above the stalls and workshops in an ever present black haze. Oscar kept his head down and navigated by the shadows on the ground, sidestepping these muddy boots and those dirtied clogs. The road was fully bricked, one of the few in the district, but soot and grime clung to the pores of each brick so deeply that they were only grey in all but a few spots.

Oscar followed the street as it curved to the left. He ducked beneath the fallen beam of a burned building and turned down an alley darker than the rest. There was only one shop down this way, a ragged affair with a sunken porch. Oscar hovered at the entrance and had to squint to see past the smoky haze. “Boyd?”

His sight hardly cleared, but it was enough that Oscar could tell that the form at the stove wasn’t his brother. Amir looked a bit like Boyd from the back, about as tall and similar in girth, but the blonde hair gave it away. Though not quickly enough for Oscar to get gone before Amir looked over her shoulder and barked a question.

Much as he’d rather not, Oscar edged further within and tried to see past the gloom beyond the stove’s fumes. He’d never served Amir personally at the Kitchens, but Oscar was still almost certain that she knew what he was. “Morning,” he offered, holding a painful cough in his throat. “I-, my apologies, but I was just looking for my brother.”

Amir’s eyes were always hard, and especially so now. “Who?”

“My-, my brother,” Oscar said again, though not quite so loudly. He tried, but the fumes clogged his throat with bitter heat. “Boyd? I thought-, isn’t he apprenticing here?”

She spit and fixed Oscar with a scowl. “Ran out last week.” Her lip lifted. “And with my best pair of tongs, little rat bastard.”

Of course he had.

Oscar apologized and paid her his last fifteen silver for the inconvenience. He put his eyes down and hurried away before she could demand anything else.

-----

Melior in sunshine. What a day to be allowed out.

Even with his head tipped to feel the sun full on his face, the light so warm and red through his eyelids, Oscar just couldn’t find it inside to feel fine.

The air was cleaner away from the trade districts, the streets wider and less covered in debris. Oscar didn’t have to watch his feet quite so diligently to keep from stepping in some unknown filth. There were still too many people for his liking, but that wasn’t to be helped. There were always too many people no matter where he was, his burrow down in the warrens the only exception. And even then-.

“Ho there!”

Oscar almost stumbled, so sudden and loud the bellow.  

He managed to keep his feet and glanced aloft to see that there was a knight smiling at him from atop a gate. A redheaded knight that two weeks past had made Oscar’s lips stretch from nothing but cheer. “Afternoon, my lord,” Oscar greeted, shielding his eyes from the sun. Lord Erestor still had his beard, though much lessened. It wasn’t so difficult to see the firm cut of his jaw through the dark fringe.

“Are you off to work?” Lord Erestor called, leaning forward from a standard pole that bowed dangerously as he hung there.

“I-, yes-.”

“What?”

“Yes!” Oscar tried again, curling his other hand tightly in his trouser pocket. To be loud was to be noticed, even away from Jewel Street. “I-, I’m headed there now.”

Lord Erestor began to frown, a sudden displeasure that swept down from his furrowed brow to his flaring beard. He dropped from the standard pole so suddenly that Oscar’s eyes snapped wide, a shout nearly on his tongue, but there was no need. Lord Erestor caught the edge of a ladder and slid down with his heels on either side of the frame. A moment more and he was standing before Oscar on the street, and much closer than he’d been two weeks prior. “There,” Lord Erestor muttered, frowning still. “You’re impossible to hear, you know? Speak up, man!”

Oscar opened his mouth, an apology immediately on his tongue, but he didn’t actually have a second to give it.

A clamor of anger and hooves erupted on the far side of the gate, an overladen wagon bursting past a moment after. “Watch yourself!” Lord Erestor bellowed, so terribly loud and wroth that Oscar’s breath froze in his chest. The lord wasn’t even looking his way, but it was still sounded too akin to a discontent patron that Oscar wanted to get so very low. Couldn’t though, a hand suddenly fisted in his collar and forcing him aside as shouts echoed all around.

When the dust cleared Lord Erestor let free Oscar’s collar and turned towards the fleeing wagon, his voice still like thunder. He almost rivaled the noise of the street, but soon the crowds surged and the wagon was lost from sight. 

“Criminals,” Lord Erestor muttered as he turned back, chaffing roughly at Oscar’s shoulders as if to brush away any dust. It was difficult to just stand there, to not drop immediately to his knees the way such a touch usually required.

Oscar had to remember that he wasn’t supposed to be a jade, not right now. Not out here.

“Always charging this gate like a stampede of wild boars,” Lord Erestor continued, almost a growl. “I’d throw the lot of them in the dungeons, every driver in Meilor, but my captain says there isn’t room enough.” He did not ask if Oscar was alright, or then do anything more than pull Oscar’s wrinkled collar taut with his gloved hands, so strangely tactile for a peer of the crown. Behind the curtains and walls of the Kitchens was one thing, but lords did not often mix with the common folk in public. Not this familiarly, at least. “I told him there was room and guards enough to jail them in the old stables, and he still refused me! Do you believe that?”

It was difficult to say one way or the other, thought Oscar felt his lips start to curve. This certainly wasn’t any place to smile, so swift as Oscar’s heart had begun to beat in all this traffic. He tried to keep to himself on the streets, wary of any lingering glance or pointed word. “I-, well-.”

“Do you come this way often?” Lord Erestor interrupted, stepping closer as the street traffic increased on either side.

Oscar dropped his eyes in habit and steeled himself not to move away. “Once in a while.”

“But you’re off to work now?”

 “I am -.”

“Then I should escort you,” Lord Erestor decided, nodding to himself quite definitively before Oscar could say anything more. “Yes, you’ll never make it in one piece with the roads this terrible. They always are after third bell, you know?”

It was long past third bell, past fourth bell even. Oscar still had more than an hour to get back to Jewel Street, but he couldn’t be sure that he’d manage it unnoticed with Lord Erestor at his side. Someone was sure to recognize Oscar the nearer they got to the Kitchens. Maybe not Adrian or the overseer, but word would reach them and then Oscar would be expected to entice the lord downstairs.

And when he failed, when Lord Erestor denied his forced advances and called him a filthy jade…

“That-, that’s alright,” Oscar assured, nearly tempted to reach and press his palm against Lord Erestor’s chest. As a server he would have. The expectations of the Kitchens would have required it. A demure touch of his hand when he was to entreat a patron to stay, when he was to encourage them to waste a little more time and a little more coin between his legs. This wasn’t the place for that sort of subservience. People would see, and Lord Erestor might wonder, and Oscar just couldn’t stand the thought of being recognized for what he was. Not here. No-, not right now. “Really, my lord. I’ll be fine on my own, Jewel Street isn’t so far away.”

Lord Erestor had a frown so fierce as his smile. Each corner of his lips were turned down excessively on either side, his brown eyes far more sharp and foreboding than they’d been just a moment prior.

Again, Oscar felt that urge to reach. To head off the inevitable violence in any way he-

 “You’ll be careful,” Lord Erestor instructed, in so serious a way beneath his burgundy whiskers. He took Oscar’s arm in hand, but there was nothing terrible in his grip. Nothing like how a patron would have held him fast. “Look both ways twice between blocks, and have the ribs on order if you can. I plan to gain two stone tonight from those alone.”

Oscar couldn’t say why he felt a new urge to smile. An urge he wasn’t successful in resisting. “Of course, my lord.”

-----

The front hall was full when Oscar made it back to Jewel Street Kitchens.

He slipped between some guffawing soldiers and the door frame, careful to keep his shoulders rounded and head down. His height never caused him much but grief indoors, but if he could avoid being seen long enough to get into the dining room blacks then maybe he could pass the night more peacefully than usual. So peaceful as it ever was behind the bar with this many patrons already crowding the parlor.

Still, the sun was rather high for the Kitchens’ to be quite so packed. It wasn’t raining, wasn’t even overcast, and Oscar still had to twist through a mass of dock workers before he could escape the-.

“About time!”

This bellow he knew, a shock of sound so great and wrathful that Oscar’s blood ran cold.

He hadn’t even the time to turn, a sudden hand clasping the nape of his neck in a grip that was sure to bruise. “Half past fifth bell,”  the overseer hissed, the feel of his breath a new terror as he forced Oscar down the hall, “and here you come strolling in from the goddessdamned street.”

“M-my u-u-usual, sir,” Oscar whispered, fingers curled tight in his shirt sleeves lest he make the mistake of reaching to ease the overseer’s grip. “I-, th-the master allowed me out until s-six.”

“Damn your usual!” The grip was no less, the overseer’s wrath just as loud and biting. “Busiest night of the week, and off you go gallivanting round the capital! Get dressed and behind the bar this instant!” The overseer threw him towards the laundry with enough force that Oscar tripped on the floor runner and fell. He was quick to gain his feet, and quicker yet to hurry down the hall as the burn from the overseer’s nails began to fade.

The upstairs laundry was never tended so diligently as it was elsewhere, but Oscar only spent a few moments finding clean trousers and a blouse tidy enough that only the master would have made mention of the wrinkles. He took a care with his stockings, pulling them high enough that his ankles wouldn’t be seen past the too-short cuff of his trousers. His left foot felt strange as he did, likely from the fall, but that was fine. More than fine, when Oscar would spend the evening serving the dining room on his feet rather than on his back a floor below.  

He nearly even left the laundry with a smile.

Back through the door, down the hall, and Oscar was a single step from the kitchen door when he was once more forced aside. Though this time the hand was not so heavy, the fingers twisted tightly in the back of his collar. “Jade.”

Oscar dropped his eyes in routine and didn’t resist when Adrian jerked him around. “Sir-.”

“What’s this?” Adrian snapped, gesturing at the length of Oscar with his jeweled hand. “You should have been downstairs an hour ago!”

“I-, the dining room is full-.”

“We’re overbooked,” Adrian bit out, grabbing at the ties to Oscar’s trousers.

“The-, the overseer said-.” Oscar's teeth caught on the edge of his tongue as his head snapped aside.

Adrian dropped his hand back to the laces. “Do I look like I care what Laurence said?”

The taste of blood flooded Oscar's mouth. He swallowed and shook his head mutely.

A tisk, and Adrian finished with the laces. “The Yorkis lords have already been waiting fifteen minutes. You’ll wash and be in the Hesh Room in five.” He shoved him hard enough towards the stairs that Oscar had to catch himself on the rail lest he tumble down head first. “And have Randy put you in the blue leathers.”

-----

Morning wasn’t far away, when Oscar was finally allowed to remove the blue leathers.

There were dark bands left behind after he unlatched the buckles, thick lines of tender hurt that almost felt worse to be uncovered. He left the leathers in the stage room with the rest of the tack and tools, sore enough that he only ran a wet towel over each strap. A tasker might punish him for the laziness in the morning, but that just meant a few more marks among the many already littering his thighs.

He descended the stairway to the warrens slowly, his steps uneven, even his breath tight by the time he reached the bottom. The floor was cold and rough against his bare feet, carpet reserved for the levels above.

Comfort wasn’t something to be worried over for servers.

A single candle flickered above the warren threshold, illuminating a clock face that Oscar didn’t look at too closely. They were only even allowed one on this level because patrons never came this far downstairs, and because tardiness tended to be punished with a switch. Though late as it was, sore and exhausted as he was, Oscar hardly needed to see the hands to know that sunrise was but a few hours off.

The halls of the warren were narrow and mostly unlit at night. Oscar found his way by the feel of the weathered floor and the quiet sounds of servers behind their curtains. There was a girl crying away to the right where the new stock were kept, an echoing misery that Oscar tried to ignore as he found his burrow and slipped inside.

He’d never had a room of his own before coming to Jewel Street, and it was rare that he did so now. There was nearly always a whore against the far wall, and sometimes more than one. Oscar couldn’t tell who it was in the dark but he kept to himself so much as he could, lip bitten against each and every pained sound as he went first to his knees and then to his back. The blankets were not many, and most of them ragged affairs that were there only to buffer the hardness of the floor. They didn’t help tonight. Not when his thighs and hips ached like this.

Still now, his day finally done, Oscar shut his eyes and tried to dispel the throbbing remnant of where the leathers had latched so very tight. That and the sore indents above his either hip, where blunt nails had raked his flesh and left red bloody lines that burned in the air, where a stranger’s hands had forced him to move and move and move-.

Oscar gasped in a breath. And another. And another thereafter, until his chest felt less like a vice and that sickly burn faded from his lungs. He forced his body back slack against the floor, but his hands wouldn’t quit trembling. They often didn’t, after so long spent serving patrons that found release only when accompanied by bruises and cries.

Lord Erestor wouldn’t have been so cruel.

...What a strange thought.

Oscar sighed and rolled over, curled on his side with his back to the curtain. He tried not to move his legs too much, slick as his thighs still were. 

It was silly to think, to consider even for a moment, that Lord Erestor wouldn’t be the same as any other patron if ever he came downstairs. People forgot themselves behind the door of a salon. Or maybe it was that they became less false, allowed to only amount to whatever desires held within. Lord Erestor might smile, he might look at Oscar the same kind way he did in the daylight, but that didn’t mean his hands wouldn’t clench so terrible and tight that the breath was driven from Oscar’s lungs. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t twist and force and hurt until everything was burning and broken and-.

The burn quit when Oscar again forced his chest to move, when he went slack once more against the blankets. The trembles didn’t abate, but he knew they wouldn’t. Not after a night like this.

Still…he wondered, once and unbidden, what Lord Erestor’s hands would really feel like against his skin.