The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [36]
Without a word being spoken between them, Borund and Nikandr both took two loping steps and dove toward the terrace railing. For a split second Nikandr thought about ceding the lead, but if Borund sensed he was doing such a thing it would cause more damage than could possibly be mended, and so he launched himself with all his might, sliding and laughing as he went. They used their arms to continue the slide, moving closer and closer to the railing. He was clearly going to make it there first—Borund’s belly had become too rounded for him to keep his speed up—but then Borund grabbed Nikandr’s wrist and yanked him backward. The underhanded trick gave him enough momentum to reach the railing first, and when he did, he slapped it soundly and rolled onto his back, laughing all the while.
“You were always too skinny for your own good!”
Nikandr gave him a sour look and slapped the wooden railing, only then allowing himself to roll around in the snow, cooling skin that had spent the last hour building and storing the heat of the bathhouse. He got to his knees and looked over at Borund. “Fat will get you in the end, Bora.”
Bora stood and turned so that his large, hairy backside was staring Nikandr in the face. “It already has, Nischka!”
The other men laughed as Nikandr grabbed a handful of snow and whipped it at Borund. Borund tiptoed away, howling and grabbing one cheek as the laughing increased.
“Enough,” Zhabyn said as he approached.
There was an indulgent smile on Zhabyn’s face, but no laughs, not from the Duke of Vostroma. There never were.
He held two towels. One of them he handed to Nikandr; the other he ran down his beard, which was flecked with snow and sweat. After scrubbing the back of his neck and his hairy chest, he wrapped it around his waist and waited until Nikandr had done the same.
“We haven’t yet had a chance to talk, you and I.”
“Nyet, My Lord Duke,” Nikandr said, bowing his head, “something I’ve been hoping to remedy.”
They had seen one another early this morning when Nikandr had finally signed the marriage documents, but they’d hardly spoken a dozen words to one another. Zhabyn had seemed furious, his face stern, his jaw set grimly, and Nikandr had been nervous to say anything for fear of angering Father or Zhabyn or both. The signing had finished with Zhabyn leaving the room with only a perfunctory nod to Father on his departure.
Thankfully he seemed to have cooled since then. He had greeted Nikandr in the bath cordially if not warmly, and now he was regarding Nikandr with something like acceptance. He motioned to the corner of the terrace, a place far from the other men. “This would seem like the perfect time, my young Prince.”
They strode together and stood near the railing, both of them staring out across the island and the churning green seas below. There was little wind, but the cold was beginning to invade the soles of Nikandr’s feet.
In the silence that followed, Nikandr found himself edgy and uncomfortable. When he was very young, he had been petrified of Zhabyn, and though those feelings had eventually been replaced with a mixture of awe and resentment, traces of that scared little boy had stubbornly remained. Even now, though he was a Prince, an heir to the scepter of Khalakovo, he felt inadequate standing before him.
He also recognized that it was time for these feelings to stop. Zhabyn had never been an overly kind man, but neither had he been cruel, and Nikandr vowed to right his unwarranted feelings; they were the remnants of his youth, nothing that should be allowed to taint the relationship with his second father.
“I am most sorry for yesterday, My Lord Duke. Much has happened over the last few days, and I will admit that my mind wasn’t in the right place, but I tell you that it is now.”
Zhabyn continued to stare out over the sea. “Five years from now who will remember such a thing?”
You will, Nikandr thought.
“I would speak with you of the Gorovna,” he continued.
“I know