For Hild

[bells_will_ring]

The work at the Cat Cafe, it turns out, is incredibly simple compared to the work Erasmus has been training for all his life. To be expected to simply take down requests and fulfill them with little need for anticipating needs is work that he enjoys, wishing only there was more opportunity for him to customize his services to each of the patrons but even that is wildly improved. The work is safe and it does not hurt and he is allowed to spend time with the animals.

The gentleness and the kindness that he finds at work is nearly disquieting, to be honest and he tries to fill the hours in between with gaining knowledge of the city, determined to figure out how to successfully live alone, rather than flounder his way through as he's done since leaving. The humiliation of learning who Damen has become to The Prince has simply been too much to bear, despite Damen's protestations.

He can now earn his own coin and prepare simple meals so his thoughts turn to those things that had always been provided by his trainers. Modern healing is simply beyond him but a shop catches his eyes during his daily wanderings. Some of the things look familiar, herbs and powders and the like and he finds himself opening the door, calling upon all of his hard earned bravery to seek out assistance with whomever he might find inside.

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[light_of_the_world]

Hild had thought that opening a shop would afford her some kind of freedom that previously she had not known. Her menewood back home, from the day it had become hers, had always been managed by others. She sent gifts and people, told them what to plant and when best to harvest, but she rarely if ever saw the place that she had fostered. She had not harvested its barley or caught its fish, built its homes or brewed its mead. This menewood suited her better in that respect. She decided the stock and stocked it herself, brewed the tonics and tinctures, dried the herbs. She saw the processes through from beginning to end, and that pleased her.

Unfortunately, her own shop did not afford her freedom in her schedule. Ellie had work and Jolene had a second job that required every other morning. So, with a bit of a hangover, Hild was slowly going about her work, refilling a jar of lavender springs when the young man entered.

"Hello," she said, managing a warm smile of greeting. Her gaze passed over his whole self, including the collar at his neck, but did not linger there. "Welcome. How can I help you?"

[bells_will_ring]

He is immediately put more at ease when he sees a young woman, especially one who makes no mention of his appearance and offers up a small smile.

"I am Erasmus, of Akielos," he murmurs, forcing himself to look her in the eyes. "I am new to this place and new to living alone. I'm trying to learn the basics of many things but this place, it seemed more familiar to me. I need to learn how to treat basic ailments and," he pauses to take a careful, steadying breath. "And scar treatment. I have coin to pay."

[light_of_the_world]

Rarely did the people of Darrow announce their kingdom or country alongside their name. It was an old custom, one not practiced by those born here nor, on the average, by those who were brought here. What was more, Hild recognized the land he called home. Her smile brightened somewhat at the familiar custom and the familiar reference.

"If you have coin, I think this means you have a job already?" she asked with a raised brow. She chose not to acknowledge the hesitation, the way his body wanted to shake at the mention of scars. "I am teaching one of my employees these basics as well. It would be easy to teach you at the same time."

[bells_will_ring]

"I was fortunate enough to receive help in finding work," he answers, gesturing down the street. "I am in service at Un Chat Gris."

His head raises at the mention of training, once again overwhelmed by the generosity of the people of Darrow. "I assure you, I am not looking to take advantage, I just need to know which remedies do what, so that I might learn to care for myself. I...at home I was unused to such matters. I was only mean to care for my appearance."

[light_of_the_world]

"I would not think it taking advantage," Hild assured him, quick but firm. She knew the way of slaves, the way they were trained to think. Eager to serve and terrified of taking advantage. A firm hand was needed, not a punishing one.

"To learn anything, I think, is a brave act and should be rewarded with help, when asked for." She set aside her small basket of neatly trimmed sprigs of lavender, taking one.

"I am Hild, of Northumbria. I will be happy to help you." She looked at him, not hard, but with the respect deserved by a fellow man.

[bells_will_ring]

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance," he says, shoulders easing at the familiar greeting. She holds herself like the great women of the court and it is immensely soothing.

"I do know of certain herbs and oils but they were for the sensual arts, not the practical. But I have been made easy to train and I assure you, you will only need to tell me a thing once."

[light_of_the_world]

She offered a small nod at his words. They did not have slaves and bodywomen for such specific purposes, not trained in such ways, but the gleaning woman who would follow the war band served often in such a way. Gwladus had served in such a way. Hild wondered what she would make of being only for such use.

"I am glad to hear it," Hild said, rather than insisting she would be a patient teacher, which she would be. Praise was needed. "You said scars. Yours?"

[bells_will_ring]

He nods, gesturing at his thigh, covered by the uncomfortably stiff new pants he'd been encouraged to purchase and driven by the cold weather to need.

"I have scars from fire that were not treated. I didn't understand how to treat them. I was hoping there was something that would lessen them. I am staying with a fellow countryman, Damen of Akielos and he felt there might still be a way to make them less cumbersome."

[light_of_the_world]

She smiled when he finally referred to Damen openly. It was both her affection for the man and the confirmation of a real connection between them that brought her approval and pleasure. Clearly Damen cared about this one, enough at least to wish him healed and healthy.

Hild began to move toward a specific aisle, signalling that Erasmus should follow.

"Did your prince send you here in particular?" she asked. "I know him. I would thank him for thinking of me, if so."

[bells_will_ring]

He frowns a bit, thinking for a moment she means Laurent before he smiles, making note to tell Damen of this mistake. He thinks it would please him.

"Damen is not a Prince. He was a soldier, later taken as a slave to Vere along with me. But he does share a name, of course, with the Prince Damianos. Damen is very much what I'd imagined a Prince to be like, however."

[light_of_the_world]

Hild paused before a row of plants in pots, their leaves thick and green and slightly prickly, and considered her options. The possibility that she was wrong, that there existed two men named Damen, one a soldier turned slave and one a prince turned slave, was slim. Were they in Akielos itself, perhaps that name was common. But not in Darrow.

She could play the fool and let the young man come to the realization in his own time, but she thought of Gwladus, how she would feel to be tricked so, not only by the omission of the fact but by her mistress lying to her. It was not her secret to tell, she thought. But Damen had not told her it was a secret at all. You couldn't scoop spilled milk back into the jug; it had to lay where it fell.

"Damen is Damianos. Damen is a prince." Her insistence was gentle, her gaze calm. "I do not know why he has not told you so, but it is the truth."

[bells_will_ring]

He stops, blood running cold at her quiet assurance. It pulls something up in his mind, something Prince Laurent had said about who Damen really was.

Damen who is uncommonly strong and handsome and educated. Damen who Prince Laurent sees as his equal.

He lets out quick, panicked breaths as his hand flies up, grabbing at his collar. He's been living with him, speaking to him as a friend, an an equal. The garden, the garden with Govart's rough hands as Damen watched.

"Gods," he breathes, turning wide eyes on the woman who watches him so calmly. "I am his bed slave. I am supposed to be Prince Damianos's bed slave. I didn't, I didn't know. He said he was a soldier."

[light_of_the_world]

She had expected a reaction like this, once the information had wormed its way into his unwilling mind. She had half-thought that maybe, yes, if he were a slave of Akielos then he would have been meant to serve Damen in some way, so the confirmation of that came as no shock. His panic she understood distantly; she had never been a slave, but it had been her work to know how everyone thought, whether slave or farmer or king.

Turning away from the shelves, Hild placed a gentle but steadying hand on Erasmus' shoulder. Her eyes never left him.

"If your prince did not tell you who he was, then he wanted you to treat him as an equal. You were fulfilling his wishes. You served your prince without knowing it."

[bells_will_ring]

"It's abhorrent, for a slave to speak with a Master in such a way," he chokes out, squeezing his eyes shut as he tries to steady himself under her hand. He doesn't know how she understands any of this but she does, she does and he's so grateful he doesn't have to explain himself.

"I was meant to be pure for him, only him, and he saw...he saw me used and defiled. He's seen the scars. He must think me so simple. I should have known, I was created for him."

[light_of_the_world]

Her mouth tightened into a thin line, not from anger at him, but his situation, that he was put through such agony and disgrace and that there had been no one there to protect him. She had had to threaten Lintlaf to keep his hands off Gwladus, but he had done it and Hild would have done worse if need had arisen. Someone should have been there.

"He told you nothing. You could not have known." She used her kind but royal tone, a tone to reassure and to quell argument. "You did only what you could do. Damen is kind and good. He will not judge you. He has not judged you, has he?"

[bells_will_ring]

"I hardly know," he whispers, scrubbing his hands across his face as he tries to pull himself back together. "I hardly know if he has judged, I hardly know what he is thinking. I have been trained to anticipate his every desire and thought and I hardly know. How do you understand this? Are you from a time with such customs?"

[light_of_the_world]

She removed her hand from his shoulder, thinking quickly as he did. It would not do to lie to him now, now that he had already been lied to, but she did not wish to cause him more distress than he had already suffered.

But, she thought, it was better to give him the truth and let him decide what to do with it, rather than choose what he should know and make the decision for him.

"Yes," Hild said. "You remind me of my bodywoman, Gwladus, back home. I am niece to the king, there."

[bells_will_ring]

"My lady," he breathes, wincing as he stops himself from kneeling, remembering what Damen had warned him against. He bows his head, though, again thinking he ought to have known. He ought to have recognized how she held herself.

"I appreciate the attention you have shown to me, to a slave. It has been difficult to explain myself to those unfamiliar with what I was."