Not a Fairy Tale
By Byrne
Rated PG
Archived at Pastorale, Bellum Viri
 
 
Once upon a time there was a young prince.  He was handsome, as princes in tales tend to be, fair of face and strong of body.  Given his upbringing as a noble he was thought to be rather kind even if he did not have much knowledge of how the poorer people in his land lived.  In all other areas he was very well learned, and his tactful, diplomatic nature and soft voice made him a court favourite.
 
He had little trouble throughout his youth and early adulthood in securing companionship; he had hunting partners whenever he had need, and there were always discreet and careful ladies of various stations willing to bed him.  He lived a quiet life, knowing that his older brother would take the throne or, if not him, another of his older brothers.  He was a prince but not a true heir, unless some great calamity should befall his family.  Therefore, he had a great deal of freedom so long as he remained as discreet and careful as his bed partners.
 
When the prince was in his twenty-third year he took to watching his younger sister when she was with her schoolmaster.  The man was new to the palace, and though it was exceedingly unlikely that he should make presumptions on the princess, it was not unlikely that the princess would make advances of her own, thus necessitating a quick marriage before the king was ready with a suitable alliance for her and the kingdom.  
 
The prince did not mind playing chaperone; indeed, he rather liked the afternoons he spent at the back of the chamber, as still as he could be so as not to interrupt.  He watched the schoolmaster, only a year or two his senior, and constructed careful counter arguments to whatever the man was discussing with the princess.  He never had a chance to use them, of course, for he was not to disrupt her education.  When he tired of creating arguments he could not use, he took to simply watching.
 
The schoolmaster was tall, and thin, with dark eyes which would change colour as his passion rose when he was reaching the goal of the lesson.  His robes were soft, and always of the same blue the prince favoured, though the style was less opulent.  The prince often left the lessons anxious, full of arguments he wanted to have and needing to touch, to feel the schoolmaster.  Quite simply, he desired the man.
 
He was not, it should be noted, unaccustomed to this.  When he was but seventeen he had bedded a particular lesser noble for almost year before losing the man to a marriage.  While the prince respected his former lover’s faithfulness to his wife, he did miss the feeling of a man next to him by times, and could not get the same feeling of satisfaction from any of the ladies he knew.
 
Finally he could remain silent no longer and one spring day, after his sister’s lessons, he followed the schoolmaster into the hall and asked him question after question about the history lesson he had just given.  The schoolmaster was respectful and polite, but no more than that.  Unsatisfied, the prince repeated the after lesson discussion the next day.  Again, the schoolmaster answered him, completely and respectfully, then took his leave and left the prince standing in the hallway.
 
This went on for a fortnight.  The prince, full of questions and arguments, would detain the schoolmaster and engage him in conversation.  The schoolmaster would escape him as soon as he could and not seem to be rude.
 
“Why do you flee from me?” the prince asked one afternoon.
 
The schoolmaster was startled by the question, by far the most personal one he had been faced with since coming to the palace.  He replied in all honestly by saying, “I am aware of you watching me during the lessons, your highness.  I see a hunger in your eyes that I do not understand, nor do I find comfort in it.  What do you really want with me?”
 
The prince was pleased with the schoolmaster’s honest answer, even though he was disappointed in its implicit rejection.  “I wish only for conversation and knowledge,” he replied.  
 
The schoolmaster looked him, eyes full of silent reproach, and the prince was brought by force to true honestly.  
 
“I wish to court you, then,” he said, for the prince was not a man who gave up easily.  “I want only your time, and I assure you I shall not insult your person by making unwanted gestures.”
 
The schoolmaster was a keen judge of character, and though he feared for his position if he did not do what the prince asked he was also certain the prince did not lie with his words.  He would not lose his dignity to this man.
 
“And if I give you my time?” he asked quietly.
 
“Then we shall have long conversations and arguments.  Fear not, I am not a dunce.  And when we tire of discussions I may entice you to a game of chess or three.”  The prince looked very sincere and held himself away from the schoolmaster.  
 
Further reassured the schoolmaster agreed to a daily conversation with the prince, for it would have been foolish in the extreme not to.  There could be not harm to either of them in discussing books, and it would, perhaps, be unwise to spurn a man on the basis of the look in his eyes.
 
And so it began.  They talked of art and history, politics and religion, their conversations growing loud and vitriolic as the days wore on.  They walked through the gardens and yelled at each other, then through the halls, voices raised again as they had the same argument again, but from each other’s standpoints.  
 
They railed against one another and exhausted subject after subject.  They traded books to shore up their positions and traded insults with alarming imagination.  
 
The palace populace looked on with wide eyes at the start, for to see their quiet prince so vocal was unheard of.  When the schoolmaster was not dismissed the looks took on an added curiosity, to see what the prince’s game was.  The two men took to skipping meals at court so they could continue their discussions, and the servants learned quickly that they were not noticed in the least as they did their jobs.  Meals were delivered and taken away, drinks refreshed, and still the two men would talk.
 
Over the course of two months the court’s notice of them lessened—the servants were the eyes and ears of the palace and to a one they declared that when the prince’s door closed on the men they did nothing but talk.  There was never a hint of scandal, never so much as a whisper of romantic affection between the two.  The schoolmaster, no matter how late, always returned to his rooms, and the chambermaids swore no one but the prince lay in his own bed.  
 
There simply was nothing to gossip about, and discussing the prince’s latest argument on the works of a particular painter soon lost its appeal.  The two were left to their discussions, only noticed when their voices were loud enough to scare the pigeons from the walls.
 
As fall settled over the land the prince and the schoolmaster took to spending longer hours in the prince’s chambers, with his books and maps, his art and his letters.  They ate together and had their evening brandy as they looked through volumes, trying to find something new to talk about.  Finally the prince closed the books and put them away.
 
“I think it may be time to play a new game,” he said, his eyes bright.
 
The schoolmaster wondered, for a brief moment, if he had been caught in an elaborate trap, so clear was the desire in the prince’s face.  But the prince merely took out a chess board and started setting the pieces out.
 
They passed many evenings with the board, their arguments now played out with little black and white armies instead of words.  The nights were long and quiet, and the schoolmaster watched as the prince studied each move carefully, his choices with the pieces as exact as his choices in debate.  His prince had a fine mind.  The schoolmaster, whose one great fault was perhaps his ability to fool himself, found himself returning to his rooms each night with a tired mind and a too awake body.   When spring returned once more and he could achieve an adequate amount of outdoor activity he would return to normal, he was quite certain.
 
The servants looked upon this new arrangement of gaming with their usual curiosity and were once more dismayed to find nothing to gossip about.  Now the court murmurings were all about the lack of heat in the prince’s bed, and how the young man was obviously going through some kind of enforced celibacy.  The ladies he had lain with were quick to send for midwives and physicians to check their own health.
 
One night as the snow lay deep around the palace grounds the schoolmaster lay down his king piece in surrender.  “You have won, my prince.”
 
The prince smiled at him.  “This time.  You shall conquer me with the next game, I am sure.”
 
The schoolmaster looked into the prince’s clear eyes and could hide the truth from himself no longer.  “No, my prince.  You have won.  You have courted and conquered me.”
 
The prince looked up at him, not quite believing his own ears.  He’d longed to hear just that for so very long, and now that he had words deserted him.
 
The schoolmaster stood, back straight to still his shaking nerves.  “I shall grant you one pleasure this night,” he whispered.
 
“This night?  And then you will leave me?”  The prince would turn down any pleasure from this man if it meant he would leave.
 
“Nay,” said the schoolmaster.  “I fear I could not leave even under order of your father’s seal.”
 
The prince rose and stood before the fire, slender and beautiful.  The schoolmaster readied himself, readied his mind to accept his prince into him, whether he be bent over or on his knees; it mattered not—he had promised a pleasure and he would willingly grant it.
 
The prince walked to him, trembling slightly for a moment.  “I will take a kiss,” he whispered.
 
The schoolmaster had not expected that, but as his prince held him, lips gentle on his own, he knew that he should have.  The kiss was as contradictory as any of their oft repeated arguments; gentle and tender, passionate and fiery.  It was, all told, the most possessive experience the schoolmaster had ever had.  When the prince drew away the were both breathless, their bodies crying out for more.  
 
“I think,” said the prince as he brushed the schoolmaster’s swollen lips with his thumb, “I think you had best go now.  I doubt my control.”
 
The schoolmaster nodded and bid the prince a fair night, withdrawing to his own rooms, were sleep eluded him.  In the blackest part of the night he redressed and went back to the prince’s chambers, passing no one in the halls.  The palace, excepting himself, slept.
 
When he entered the prince’s bed chamber he found the bed empty and cold, his prince sitting on the window sill dressed only in his nightshirt.
 
“Please,” said the schoolmaster, though his voice broke.  “Let me warm you.”
 
~end