“Now?”
Gordon spread his hands. “You got somewhere else to be?”
Only his quarters if he didn’t wish to further compound his actions by seeking out Hamish.
Donning the garb was a simple matter, although the headgear took a few attempts for him to get right on his own. Style-wise, it looked pretty close to what the men around here wore, if a little on the drab side. If he understood Gordon’s chatting through the rustle of fabric, no clan had this sort of mottled dirt brown colour in their insignias, so it’d been adopted as a neutral.
Standing before the full-length mirror, Darshan eyed his reflection. The headgear had interested him when Gordon first unravelled the heavy scarf from the rest. Its length was now wrapped around his head in a manner that was eerily similar to the style worn by the desert tribes in Stamekia. With the lower half of the scarf covering his nose and jaw, he would’ve looked unrecognisable to his own twin.
Gordon stepped into view. He seemed to examine Darshan, his chest puffed out in clear self-satisfaction. “Seems like a near enough fit. How does it feel?”
Darshan rolled his shoulders, testing the limits of the attire. The loose clothing would certainly allow him to move freely. “It will serve its purpose. However…” He glanced over his shoulder at the man. “Are you certain about me wearing it? It did belong to your late wife and I would not want to sully it. I do plan to win Hamish’s hand. To marry him. With all that implies,” he mumbled as if the thought hadn’t entirely occurred to Gordon. Gods, that was awkward. But then it had been quite some time since necessity had him pussyfooting around the whole ‘I’m having sex with your brother’ scenario, although the man had to be aware of what his brother had gotten up to over the years. “I thought men liking men was illegal here.”
Gordon harrumphed. “It’s nae illegal. Nae anymore. Just highly discouraged.”
“People have died. I would say it is more than merely frowned upon.”
In the mirror, Darshan caught the man’s shoulders sag. “Aye, but that’s me mum’s overzealous response to the situation. They did have ‘Mish in a compromising position.”
No doubt that position had been with Hamish bent over a crate in some dark corner. And likely with his consent.
“It wasnae always like this. Once, even me mum was perfectly fine with the idea of men loving men. Right up until she learnt about ‘Mish. After that, any man who looked too long at me brother was suspect and out to corrupt him. And those who dared to go as far as to touch him? Treason.”
“I see,” Darshan mumbled around the scarf. His breath bounced back at him, troublesomely hot. And the fabric, although soft, clung to his scruffy beard. He would need to shave if he didn’t want to be driven insane by the constant irritation.
“ ‘Mish didnae tell you I was the one who found him the first time, did he?”
Darshan shook his head in reply, marvelling at how the scarf stayed in place. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about it falling off at an inopportune moment.
“He was just a young man of thirteen and besotted with the castle’s much older stable master, although only the Goddess understands why.” Sighing, he rubbed at his chin. “The bastard used me brother then left him broken and bleeding in the hayloft. I only discovered ‘Mish because he was sobbing.”
Darshan fastened his gaze on his own reflection. He’d been of a similar age his first time. And he’d quite a few regrets about his choice of partner there.
“They had to send him to the cloister to be healed before he bled out where no man should bleed.”
Daring to glance at Gordon’s reflection, Darshan sought for a sign of the man lying. “If he was losing enough blood for it to be a concern, he never would have made it to your cloister.” A week would’ve been far too long. “Or is the one we journeyed to not the closest?”
“It is, but there used to be one closer.”
“Used to?” His thoughts turned to the ruin Hamish had pointed out to him weeks ago. His lover had said it was a cloister, but Darshan had assumed it to be an ancient structure time had degraded.
Gordon inclined his head. “A small one. It housed me youngest sister along with a few other wee ones from around Mullhind. ‘Mish and I… we would visit her almost every day. Nora when she could, but Mum liked to keep her close.”
“What happened to it?” He’d seen it only from afar and just bits peeking through the trees, but it had seemed like a once-sturdy structure fit for housing inexperienced spellsters.
“Me mum had it destroyed. She claimed all the visits and having magic so close corrupted ‘Mish into his current path of only wanting men.”
“That is preposterous,” Darshan sputtered, whirling on the man. “Magic does not— It cannot do that. It is utterly impossible to alter such a delicate thing as the mind on a permanent basis.” He knew that from personal experience thanks to his father’s last botched attempt to persuade him into having a wife after failing at several other endeavours. “If you have the strength and skills, you can make a person hallucinate, you can even hypnotize them for a time, but it requires an active choice and a lot of effort. Even then, only a few are capable of such feats.” And most would resort to mundane methods of cohesion.
“Good to ken.”
Taking a deep breath, Darshan’s thoughts swung to the one question with an answer he believed already resided in the pit of his stomach. “The stable master was the first she had killed, correct?”
Gordon nodded, his face grim. “Me mum had the man executed for treason whilst Hamish was recovering.”
There was a touch of screwy reasoning there, given that the stable master had harmed a prince. “And I suppose she
