“I dinnae trust you.”
“That is… fair.” He’d been here a scant handful of days and, when it came to Hamish, had done nothing apart from upset the queen whilst simultaneously putting the man squarely under her suspicious eye.
Shock darted across Gordon’s face. Whether he was aware of it or not, he recovered well. “Me brother told me all about you asking for him to return to Minamist with you. He willnae go.”
“I beg your pardon?” That hadn’t been the impression Hamish had given him earlier this morning. Had he told his brother something different or was that Gordon’s opinion?
“Me brother willnae leave his homeland, even if it was in his best interests. There’s too much tying him to here.”
“Like what?” The only obstacle he had witnessed was a rather controlling mother and he was willing to bet that was the only impediment to Hamish living however he wished.
“His family. We’re very important to him.”
Darshan’s gaze slid to where his lover chased the oldest boy, the other two firmly tucked under an arm or balanced over his shoulder like sacks. Hamish would certainly lose these moments if he travelled to Minamist. “Like a mother who abuses him every time he is himself?”
Gordon fell silent.
“You do know what she does to him, I assume?” More had happened than Hamish’s one-time incarceration. Such an act might’ve left the man slightly hesitant to repeat his transgression, but Hamish had been terrified of the queen’s guards.
“Do I—?” the man snapped before his voice dropped into a menacing rumble. “You’ve known ‘Mish—what?—four days? You think I have nae seen, that I’ve been blind, to how she treats me brother? Because I assure you, what you have witnessed is the mere graze of an arrow.”
“And?”
“And what? What do you expect me to do about it?”
“Intervene?” Even as the suggestion left his lips, he knew it wasn’t usually as simple as that. And to challenge a ruler’s word… Maybe it was different enough here to give them some breathing room but, back home, the Mhanek’s word was law. “Stand by him. Stand up for him. Whatever it takes.”
Laughing mirthlessly, Gordon threw up a hand. “And there it is. The imperial prince comes to educate the barbarians on how to deal with all matters.” The smile he gave was one of crocodiles and jackals. “That is how you see us, right?”
“I assure you, I have no idea what you are referring to.” That wasn’t entirely true. He might not see Tirglasians as such, but he had heard enough grumbling from those in the Crystal Court to know there was a general discord on allying the empire with the backwards little kingdom from up north.
Gordon grunted. “I’ve read enough stories of your people coming in and taming so-called savage lands. Your lot are just as bad as the Obuzan fanatics hammering at our shores,” he muttered.
Darshan calmly refrained from uttering a word. His thoughts refused to be so generous. We share a border with them, too, you know. And they clashed with Obuzaners quite frequently despite it being mostly mountains. There was a pocket of sorts north of the range where the Obuzaners had erected a rather impressive wall to keep out the filthy spellsters who had, in their minds, followed the devil down the path of shadows. Never mind that Obuzan had once been a part of Udynea back before the latter could be considered an empire.
“Is that how you see me brother? As some savage thing you can tame and parade through your city?”
He stared at Gordon for some time before the words soaked in. “Of course not.” Steepling his fingers before him in supplication, he continued, “Look, I understand how it must appear from the outside.”
Gordon sneered but said nothing.
“I am a chaotic unknown in the largely stable equation of your family’s life, correct? And I admit to miscalculations on my part. I did not mean to create such an upheaval, nor did I factor in the queen’s reception of matters that are seen in a less than favourable light. Asking Hamish to journey with me to Minamist is a big step, I am aware of this. You may think I have an ulterior motive, but I truly only wish to—”
“Intervene?” Gordon snarled just under his breath. “And just what do you think I’ve been doing for the past three decades? Twiddling me thumbs? I have spent years standing between me mum and ‘Mish. And you undo all of it in one day.”
Even with Gordon’s apparent deflection, Hamish had still spent decades of being tailed by his brother or guards like a naughty child. “An aviary gives a bird more room to fly, but it does not mean it is free.”
Gordon frowned and opened his mouth.
His youngest nephew collided into his leg before he could say anything further on the matter. “Did we win?” Mac asked between pants. His curly red hair was a sweaty mass clinging to his face.
“Of course we won,” Ethan answered, trotting up alongside his older brother. “We got him before the bell. That’s a win.”
“Right you are, lad,” Gordon replied, further ruffling the two older boy’s hair. “Although I cannae say the hunt was an entirely fair one. Deer dinnae tend to bury themselves in piles of hay, do they, ‘Mish?”
Hamish stumbled to a halt before them, grinning sheepishly. “Nae typically.” Hay still clung to his clothes and he plucked a few pieces free as he spoke. What drew Darshan’s eye were those ridiculous antlers. They bobbed with the slightest motion, threatening to come loose. How were they even staying on? “But they found me all the same and it does them good to think beyond the confines of ordinary every once in a while.”
A bell resounded somewhere deep within the city, echoed by another within the castle proper.
“Come on, lads,” Gordon said. “Let’s go see if we cannae cadge some grub off the cooks.”
Cadge? Were princes treated so differently from back home that the heir to the throne
