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The second-largest bath in Tumbleton was carved with the Footly caltrops, steaming hot, and, most critically, on the opposite side of the castle to Ormund Hightower. It should have been enough to secure Gwayne's peace, and yet, still, the face of his cousin's manservant poked around the door. Gwayne groaned.
"Does not the saving of my lord and King's lives warrant one uninterrupted evening?"
"Lord Ormund would furnish you with bathing oils from his own supply, ser, as thanks."
So, it was to be that kind of an evening. Gwayne had been surprised enough to receive an apology this afternoon, but this? The attempt on Ormund's life must have truly disquieted him. Gwayne sunk lower into the bath, weighing his aches and pains against Ormund's offer. He, too, was disquieted. Not by assassins—it had been a relief that no Baratheons had come to add fuel to the fire—but by the wretched road from Rook's Rest. And there were worse ways to quiet one's ghosts.
"As Lord Ormund wishes," Gwayne said at last, waving the manservant in.
The man produced no less than five golden flasks and a bundle of rosemary, which he mixed before adding to the bathwater. Gwayne chased a rosemary bud around the clouding surface with a frown that deepened when the manservant reappeared with a bucket of milk and honey for his feet.
"He was only at three oils, plus the rosemary, when I left."
"The campaign demands much of my lord, ser," the manservant replied, bowing his way out.
This did not bode well. Still, Gwayne was too petty to rush for Ormund. Twice, he sighted the shadow of boots on the other side of the door before he troubled himself to leave the cooling water, and he took his time soaking his feet. The room smelt wondrous, if on the cusp of overpowering. He detected alyssum amongst Ormund's mix, whose name always brought Alicent to mind.
There was no sign of servants when Gwayne reached the grand wooden door to Footly's chambers. Ormund always contrived ways to scatter them, driven by the same arrogance and insecurity that made him pull poor Daeron into mocking Gwayne by daylight, only to summon him when the sun sunk.
"Enter," Ormund's voice rang out at his knock.
Rosemary incense hung thick in the air. The chambers felt smaller with the curtains drawn, ceding even more space to Ormund. His robe, that deep Hightower green, was tied carelessly; Gwayne followed the flash of thigh and hips as he sprung up from his desk.
"You look better!" Ormund took Gwayne by the shoulders and inspected him, too intent to be flattering, until he smiled, as pleased and hungry as a hunting dog hauling home a rabbit. "Sit down with me; eat, drink. Ser Jon found a bottle from Cider Hall squirrelled away."
Of course, he left Gwayne to pour it. Angry slices in the table's fine oak peeked out from beneath their plates but the cider was sweet and apple pie was Gwayne's favourite, sorely missed. He toasted Ormund with the thought that that might have been intentional, and his spirits warmed as they had not since he left.
"I," Ormund said, stretching the single letter over whole seconds, "have sent a raven to the Iron Islands, suggesting that if they sail under our banner, they might find themselves back in possession of the Riverlands once the dust has settled."
"I was not aware pirates could read."
"Then you shall be as surprised as the usurper when they fall upon the remainder of her Hand's fleet. And with not one Hightower vessel endangered, I might add."
Gwayne sighed, "All that bathing, and you wish to discuss ships?"
Ormund looked at him, so blatantly considering his options that Gwayne flushed, then he tutted. "Are we the uneducated masses, who can speak only of base matters? Though you have taken your time to become presentable, the night is young. And you are overlooking the ingenuity of my Iron Strategy. They are savage, yes, but…"
On and on, he went. Gods, was this to be their foreplay? It must have been torture for Ormund to stay silent of his brilliance for so long. Gwayne heard his father's voice counselling him on the eve of his escape to King's Landing with Alicent: Power makes children of weak men. Say what you must, then do the intelligent thing regardless. And so, Gwayne made appreciative noises at Ormund's chatter and took a second slice of pie. He would follow his father's example in spirit, if not in method.
"I have another gift for you," Ormund declared, when he had run out of things to say about himself, "or rather, a promise."
Gwayne raised an eyebrow over his last forkful of pie. "This evening finds you generous."
"House Hightower is about to crown a king! And who can say? Perhaps the Mother will bless Daeron with only gentle daughters. I shall have sons enough to share. One day you, too, will take a wife and produce something marriageable. Hightowers were kings before the dragons robbed us and I intend to see our family elevated once more."
Gwayne put his fork down with a loud clink. That had to be a record—dismissing his father, Alicent, her children, and Gwayne's own unborn progeny in the space of a few breaths. Ormund rose, robe gaping far enough that Gwayne took it as the Gods' compensation for insults borne, and rummaged through Footly's pile of belongings in the corner. Gwayne exhaled his frustrations and settled back to watch. The body before him had been built with all the strength and soundness absent from its owner's mind.
"You must look the part," Ormund called over his shoulder, as various items clanked and rolled about, "Warrior, damn Footly for a coward, does he not own a single—ah."
Ormund wrenched an antique sword off its plaque, muttered something about its condition, then motioned impatiently for Gwayne to stand. It was no hardship to close the distance between them. Ormund was at his most agreeable loosened by drink and delusions of grandeur. Gwayne dragged a disapproving thumb down the dull blade's edge and gloried in how Ormund tracked the movement.
"Today," Ormund ploughed on, clearing his throat, "you reminded us all that you are a skilled and loyal knight of House Hightower. This sword, I grant you in lieu of a much finer blade." He bestowed it upon him with due flourish. "When we kill Daemon Targaryen, I mean for you to have Dark Sister."
Gwayne's mouth fell open. His fingers curled around the sword, crushing flakes of rust. He only ever stewed over being the youngest Hightower male when it came to the family's Valyrian sword, Vigilance. Dark Sister had been made for a woman's hand—the glint in Ormund's eyes said as much—but it had also conquered the Seven Kingdoms and served the Rogue Prince. It was a rare gift.
"How… thoughtful," Gwayne said. He prayed he would survive to wield it. And then, because the half-formed thing huddled in his heart whispered that Dark Sister ought be Ser Criston's prize, he blotted out the world beyond these chambers and relinquished the smile Ormund had been fishing for. "First an apology and fragrances, now a legendary blade? I fear I am being wooed."
Ormund snorted and reached past Gwayne for his cider. "You do not require wooing."
If only it were a lie. A thrill went through Gwayne when Ormund paused, cup in hand, at the point when they were closest. Ormund breathed in, then nodded to himself, smug. It was exasperating. It also awakened a need for Ormund to touch him.
"There is something about you that calls forth the charity in me," Ormund said at his ear, as if Gwayne had been earnestly prying into his psyche, "some quality of the Maiden in your bearing."
Gwayne cast the sword back into the pile.
"Seven save us. It is no quality of the bloody Maiden, Ormund. What you describe is the simple product of care. Quite frankly, it unnerves me that the feeling is so rare you cannot recognise it."
"Nonsense." Ormund leaned back, scowling. "I am a benevolent lord; I care for all my subjects."
"So you would apologise to any farmer or blacksmith?"
"A lord must keep a certain distance for discipline's sake."
"To whom else have you ever apologised? Daeron? Ser Jon?"
Ormund looked at him like he was a simpleton. "What cause could I possibly have to apologise to them, whom I have given all?"
"I, alone, then? One must be raised alongside you to merit such? Or perhaps"—Gwayne glanced down, smile turning catlike—"only be willing to… indulge you?"
"Do not be dramatic, I apologised to my lord father when the situation called for it. And…" Ormund visibly cast his mind far, far back. "Plenty of maesters and tutors. We were quite the pair of scoundrels at times, were we not?"
"It does not count if you cannot even remember it."
"Whatever point you are trying to prove, I tire of it." Ormund took hold of Gwayne by the waist without pretext, making him draw in breath, but let go just as quickly. "You did don freshly-laundered clothes after your bath did—oh!" Ormund's eyes lit up. "The Gods! I have apologised to Them faithfully enough."
Gwayne placed Ormund's hands back at his waist. "Only the Gods and I, hm?" Curse him for a fool, but Gwayne liked that. Just as he liked Ormund's broad hands reeling him in until their chests brushed. "Will you apologise to the Gods for this tomorrow?"
Ormund caught his chin. "The Seven do not begrudge their champions small comforts. Recall the parable of the Septon and the Apple, as I have explained it to you. Twice, in fact."
Gwayne reached for the cord of Ormund's robe lest it become thrice. The grip on his chin tightened.
"This, then," Gwayne said, loosening the knot, "it is holy?"
Gwayne had ever thought it was, in his heart of hearts, so he made himself scornful as he said it. He let the golden cord slip to the floor.
"If you mean to mock the Gods, I must find another use for your mouth."
Thank the Seven. Gwayne sunk towards the rug. Ormund stopped him short and made a face, wrenching open his mouth like a horse at auction.
"After you have cleansed said mouth, that is. There is salt and charcoal by the basin."
Gwayne had a strict conversation about dignity with himself in the burnished silver serving dish Ormund had stood up beside his basin for a mirror. It ended, as ever it did, with Gwayne unclothed and on his knees.
Ormund sounded best like this—lips parted, not for words, but for those hushed, low breaths. Gwayne smoothed a hand up Ormund's abdomen. The next barbed comment tossed his way, he would remember muscles contracting as Gwayne ran his tongue up the underside of his shaft; blunt fingers scraping through Gwayne's hair as he took him in to the root.
The fingers withdrew, and Gwayne's eyes fluttered open to see Ormund rubbing his hands together with a frown. Gwayne let himself moan around his length, pulling a curse from Ormund. A shudder ran through Gwayne. He palmed his own cock, ready for more, but Ormund was looking to the corner basin.
Gwayne drew off of him, keeping up the momentum with a hand instead. "Have your tastes changed in my absence? Perhaps you have found some other—"
"No other," Ormund snapped, "It is not I who tracks the comeliness of Baratheons like a girl in her first year at court."
Ormund did not shy from putting his hand in Gwayne's hair now, to urge him back down, although nothing else in him seemed eager. The muscles in his thigh were tight under Gwayne's palm. Still, Gwayne let himself be directed. The admission of fidelity had tickled him, and he did not require Ormund's confidence to banish ghosts, only his cock.
A thumb forced its way into Gwayne's already-full mouth to run along the flats of his molars. Gwayne choked, startled. Usually, Ormund would suffer no more than was necessary of himself to be inside of Gwayne, where lurked all of his body's foreign fluids.
"Are you certain you made yourself clean?" Ormund wiped his thumb on Gwayne's bare shoulder. "Did you use the charcoal?"
Gwayne pulled away, sputtering. "Yes! Gods, unless you mean to do it yourself, you shall have to show a little faith."
Ormund considered it, and Gwayne swallowed, unsure as to whether to follow the hardening of his cock or the screeching of his dignity. He felt the promise of Ormund's hands tending to every inch of his tired skin, probing inside him, excising all the dirt and sin until he was fit for the Maiden herself.
"Perhaps next time," Ormund said, gesturing at the state of himself, "let us salvage what we can of you tonight. On your back."
This fresh from the road, Footly's plush bed was a sacred thing. Gwayne obeyed, and closed his eyes as he melted into it. He had no warning of Ormund descending upon him. One heartbeat there was only the soft crackle of the hearth and the quiet, green embrace of Hightower banners drawn around the four-poster bed in place of its curtains; the next, a wall of flesh bullied him into the mattress. Ormund pressed his face into Gwayne's throat and breathed long.
"At last, a pleasant scent."
"Your scent, you mean."
He bit at the flesh between Gwayne's shoulder and neck, then mouthed over the indents. Gwayne squirmed but kept his eyes closed. A hand slid between the bed and the base of Gwayne's spine, cupping his arse on the way to hitching up his leg. Gwayne hooked his other leg around Ormund's back himself. He welcomed the cockhead that bumped up against his rim, glad to have prepared himself in the bath, and groaned in sweet relief when Ormund pushed in. He had needed this heat, this pressure, more than he had realised. Every thrust emptied more regrets from his mind, leaving only rosemary and desire.
Ormund tensed above him.
"Not yet." Gwayne opened his eyes to glare.
Ormund clapped a hand over his mouth and much of his nose. He seemed to need to gather himself to continue. Gwayne feared he would be ejected to the cold cruelty of his own quarters if Ormund finished so soon, but Ormund's face was far from satisfied. A moment later, he jabbed into Gwayne from some new angle, and Gwayne winced to adjust. He tried to speak, heard his voice muffled and stupid, and hesitated only a moment before licking Ormund's palm.
"Disgusting creature!" Ormund blanched and wiped a frantic hand in the blankets.
"What ails you?" Gwayne demanded, "you are not yourself tonight."
Ormund's jaw tightened. He twisted Gwayne face-down, making him yelp, and planted a hand over an aging bruise in the centre of his back. Gwayne shivered with the thrill and pain. Ormund rutted against him, never quite dipping in where he was needed.
"Quiet," Ormund ordered above him in the gloom, "it is your own fault for being so—slippery."
Gwayne reached back to fix things himself and his eyes widened. Ormund pinned his wrist to the bed too late; Gwayne had felt him. He had gone soft. Finished, then, and trying to cover his embarrassment—except, Ormund always made a fuss about the mess, and he wore his embarrassment as rage, not shame.
"You have lost your interest?" Gwayne asked in disbelief, craning to see his face.
Ormund kept him down. "I cannot be blamed, when you have spent the last months Gods know where, with Gods know whom." He released Gwayne's wrist so that he could spread him open, and gave a repulsed grunt. "How could I find satisfaction in such a body?"
Livid, Gwayne surged to one side and kicked free of Ormund's attempts to keep him on the bed. To his horror, he felt his face heat with humiliation.
"I am as I ever have been. I do not recall you finding umbrage with my ways before!"
They were both surprised at how viciously he said it. Gwayne cast about for where Ormund had stacked his clothes.
"You will not leave."
"I have half a mind to leave all the way to Oldtown!"
Gwayne found the pristine pile of clothes and yanked his shirt over his head. When he could see again, Ormund was an arm's length away. The firelight hung shadows off every line of his scowl.
"I have promised you a Valyrian blade. You will stay. We may talk of other things. If you find me harsh, it is only the strain of the—"
"Yes, yes, the strain of the bloody campaign. It must be great indeed, to excuse you." Gwayne forsook his smallclothes, that he might flee faster.
Ormund seized his elbow. "You have vowed to serve me."
"Forgive me, my lord, I do not recall the line in my vows compelling me to sodom—"
Gwayne caught the hand before it struck him. Ormund trembled; furious now in the way reserved for what made him feel scared, or stupid. That knowledge gave Gwayne the speck of pity necessary to reign in his emotions.
"Peace, cousin," he ground out, "we are both of us tired and out of sorts. I shall be yours to command once more in the morning."
"I am not a child to be sent to bed! You think I cannot hear when you don your father's voice? Even after he abandoned Oldtown, it blared out of every royal proclamation."
Gwayne cursed himself. It was an easy trap to fall into, underestimating Ormund. He raised his hands in surrender.
"I am loyal, despite your endless insults, and I, at least, am tired and out of sorts. What more do you wish of me?"
A muscle jumped in Ormund's jaw. He brushed off his wrist where Gwayne had held him, inspected it, and brushed again. Gwayne had opened his mouth to beg leave to go when the thing that had been eating at Ormund exploded out of him.
"I wish for everyone to stop acting as if I am unreasonable! Every step outside amongst the men, every breath of so-called fresh air, every piglet gutted for our table—they poison us with filth. My own men snigger at my good sense to guard against it. Even you, who may as well be my brother! Do not deny it."
So, there had been another in Gwayne's absence—madness. Gwayne shifted uneasily. He wished Ormund would not name them brothers on these evenings.
"You can be… opinionated."
"Opinionated?"
"Difficult!"
Ormund made a strangled sound and gestured in mid-air as if wringing an invisible Gwayne's neck. "What is difficult is crowning your sister's ungrateful whelp whilst all conspire to infect my war room—my inner sanctum. The septs themselves are not safe; the Gods turn a blind eye. I have checked the scripture. I have prayed—prayed, in my weakest hour, for Them to dull my senses to those of the common man, who knows not that he exists in a swamp of shit and muck and bile—yet this prayer goes unanswered. Every time the door is opened without proper precautions, I must waste hours fighting back the filth, lest it drown us all before the dragonfire ever arrives!"
Gods be good, leaving the scrubbed septs of Oldtown had undone the man. Gwayne's lifetime of practice schooling his expressions fell short. Ormund rattled him by the arm.
"You think me mad?"
"I think I have underestimated the strain of the campaign."
"I am as I ever have been," Ormund echoed darkly, "my father made me learn the Stranger's prayer against madness before he permitted me to touch even a wooden sword."
"Our fathers went to their graves underestimating us." It was a paltry platitude, but Ormund looked at him with such a raw desire to believe it that Gwayne stepped inside his cousin's defences and took his face in both hands. "Forget all this, Ormund. Just for a while. Clearly your need for distraction is as great as mine."
"For all the good that does me! I cannot—the Gods will not let me—" Ormund coloured. Shame and fear and rage quivered through him.
The solution came to Gwayne as if bestowed by the Mother's own mercy. It rekindled the heat in his stomach. He tamped down on it. Not even the Mother could gentle Ormund enough for this plan if he did not think it his own.
"I cannot believe that the Gods mean to punish their truest beacon in this war," Gwayne lamented, breaking away to pace, "why grant desire with one hand and smother it with the other?"
"I struggle to see the Father's justice in it," Ormund nodded savagely, "perhaps the cunt has laid some heretic's curse across my loins to—"
"Have you not often said that what appears to be disfavour may in fact be some subtle challenge?" Gwayne asked quickly. "That what makes a Hightower man is his ability to see reason in Their movements, and act in kind?"
Ormund grew sulky. "My reasoning is perfectly sound. If the world were as it ought to be, I would have you over the table by now."
His dark-eyed glare dried Gwayne's mouth.
"Still, this is the Gods' world," Gwayne said faintly, "and you have always found options others miss…"
Ormund tapped his fingers on the back of a chair, brow creasing. Gwayne began to despair that Ormund's ego would preclude the idea altogether.
"Ah, what do I know?" Gwayne turned to stoke the hearth to mask his desperation, "Give me a man to stab, and I may be of use, but faith, I must leave to the septons."
The silence behind him was absolute. Gwayne could not have said how exactly he knew Ormund had taken the bait, only that he had. Decades of attunement were seldom wrong. He turned back too eagerly to see Ormund's face. The man's jaw was clenched as tight as a fist.
"Perhaps a woman," Gwayne suggested, free to torment his cousin now that the seed had taken root, "Or a good, long prayer to the Maiden and a cold—"
"As the Gods challenge us, so must we adapt."
Gwayne called upon all Seven to keep his face straight. "Adapt?"
Ormund picked up Gwayne's cider, wiped the goblet's rim, and put it back. "You've lain with a woman before too, have you not?"
"A few." And more than a few less rigid men.
"Then you know how to use your own… advantage." Ormund picked up his own goblet. "You will take my role."
Gwayne had to transmute his laughter into a cough. Ormund's role, indeed. As if he had invented it. He let the silence stretch out, then prised the goblet away and drained it.
"I am sworn to serve."
Hunger swallowed Ormund's wariness. He had Gwayne out of his clothes again in moments. Gwayne hassled him as he folded them, pressing up against his back to stoke him to fullness once more, and was rewarded with a shove towards the bed so hard his arse almost ended up on the stone floor.
Gwayne clambered into the centre of the mattress and grinned. "Bring your favourite oil."
Ormund rummaged behind the banner-curtains, clinking, only to return to bed bringing a crisp, floral scent that knocked the grin off Gwayne's face.
"You cannot mean to use that! Every sept in the Reach burns apple blossom oil; my thoughts shall never again be pure before the Gods. Do you not still favour almond, or rosemary? I shall make it worth their expense."
Ormund clamped a hand around Gwayne's hips and mouthed a greedy line from his chin to his chest, leaving a hypocritically damp trail. Breathing heavily, Gwayne tried to pry the bottle away and was bitten for his trouble.
"Apple blossom oil is burnt for an offering," Ormund said, pulling back to fix him with an unimpressed look, "your lack of discipline is your own affair."
An offering. Gwayne could not hold his gaze. "Very well," he said, softer, "Let me make you ready."
But Ormund would not let him touch the bottle. "Proper separation must be kept. The oil is cleansing—holy—even if displeasing to the touch, but if you were to involve yourself…
"Will I not be involved soon enough? The preparations can be enjoyed, too, if you'd only allow me…"
Ormund looked sceptical. It was all preamble to him. "I shall attend to myself. Associations, once made, cannot be unmade. Your slipperiness—"
"That is the last I will hear of it, Ormund."
"Hmph. Suffice to say you have caused enough trouble for one night."
Gwayne gave a long-suffering sigh. "At least warm the bottle first. Put it between us, stoppered—there, yes—" He tugged Ormund off-balance onto him, trapping their cocks together with the cool glass bottle between their bodies. Ormund picked up the idea at once, with a force that made Gwayne drop his head to the pillows and moan.
Soon, Ormund was oiling his fingers, leaning away so that any stray droplets would miss them. The scent of orchards and septs tumbled into their sanctum in full. Gwayne rushed to prop himself up on his elbows to witness the moment of entry.
"Have you attempted such before?"
Ormund shot him a dirty look. "I am not"—discomfort spasmed across his face-—"like you."
Gwayne rolled his eyes and made a loose fist around Ormund's cock to counteract the stretch. "We need not rush."
Their bodies urged otherwise. Ormund looked as though he, too, might disagree, but his face creased and he shut his mouth. Smugness crept out of the crevices where Gwayne buried his resentments. He chased it back. What did it matter if Ormund had always been demanding with him? Gwayne could be kind.
"Curve your fingers towards me," he murmured, "there is a place firmer than the rest…"
"This cannot be what a woman feels," Ormund groused, nose wrinkling.
Still, he must have obeyed, because a heartbeat later, his eyes grew large. Gwayne's hips bucked of their own accord. How lucky those fingers were. Usually, Gwayne enjoyed the frantic mess of preparation, but Ormund kept himself in check. The strain of it played out across his chest in twitches that Gwayne chased with the pads of his fingers, entranced. He seemed inconsistent in finding his pleasure but his breathing was uneven by the time he withdrew his gleaming hand. Gwayne gestured to the bottle.
"On me, too, to ease the way."
"No."
"I do not ask for my benefit."
Ormund shook his head. Pity and frustration warred within Gwayne.
"You need form no associations, need not even look. We will be joined in a moment anyway, what harm could there be in—"
"I have explained myself already," Ormund huffed, "a fact you could stand to appreciate." He took hold of Gwayne, cutting short further protest. "If you release inside me, I shall follow the Starks' example and behead you with my own hands."
With that, he captured Gwayne inside himself. Gwayne hissed. He flailed to think of anything other than painting Ormund's insides white. He would be the first, whispered the worst of him. Gwayne could lord it over him forever. Stopper his endless insults.
"You are doing beautifully," he told Ormund.
"You are wriggling."
Ormund's face was one extended grimace as he worked himself down.
"The discomfort will pass," Gwayne soothed, stroking a hand down his chest, "if you will permit it, I could—"
"Be still."
Ormund peeled Gwayne's hand away and looked over his nails. Gwayne was glad to have scrubbed them. The man was ridiculous; torturing himself on every axis. A new idea presented itself to Gwayne.
"Perhaps you need not leave it to the Gods to dull your senses."
Ormund paused; wary, sweaty, on the brink of regret.
Gwayne propped himself up again, excited, "Let me fetch a bandage to go about your eyes. Once we are done here, we may make a proper inspection of the room, of course, but perhaps we might settle your mind a while first."
"Perhaps…"
Still joined, he reached over Gwayne to grope at the edge of the bed. He was a deadweight, but not an unwelcome one. There came the quiet tear of fabric, then Ormund straddled him once more and tied a length of Footly's soft bedding over his eyes. It was sliced so cleanly he must have used Vigilance. Gwayne laughed to think of his uncle passing down a Valyrian blade for this. The laugh jerked into a gasp when Ormund clenched down. Free of his constant scanning for disorder, he shifted more with curiosity than distaste.
"Tis a pity there is no blindfold for sensation," Ormund muttered.
"Sensation is rather the point," said Gwayne, glad Ormund could not see his smile. He coaxed Ormund's thighs wider and rolled his hips up into him. Ormund's lips parted in a low breath. "Perhaps you need only focus on the right ones."
"You may do… whatever it was you were blabbering about before."
Gwayne began to move in earnest, searching with each thrust until Ormund's breath broke around a moan. Ormund rocked down with purpose then but Gwayne refused to let him settle, first circling a thumb around the head of his cock, then slipping past his shaft to tease down to where they were joined. Gwayne delighted to discover that the Gods had built Ormund to shudder under much the same attentions he himself enjoyed.
At last, Ormund slapped his hands away and braced himself on Gwayne's chest to enforce a rhythm of his own liking. He moved like a holy thing, as if the Warrior had stepped down from his pedestal in the Starry Sept for a night. The Maiden herself might have shaped that crown of curls and stoked such a fetching flush in him. Perhaps Gwayne could have held him accountable more often if he were less lovely to look at. As it was, he could only seize little pockets of revenge, like yanking one trailing end of the blindfold the next time he drove upwards. Instead of snapping at him, Ormund arched into it. Gwayne went light-headed with lust.
"You deceived me," Ormund said, breathless, "you let me believe a reversal would be novel to us both, yet you are practiced in this, too. Is this what delayed you so, with your brothers-in-arms at Rook's Rest?"
Gwayne searched his face for signs of an oncoming tantrum but, if anything, his talkativeness restored was a good omen.
"Did you take that upstart Kingsguard commander like a bitch?"
Gwayne's cock and heart had very different opinions on that.
"No," he said through gritted teeth, trying to sound annoyed instead of wounded, "you flatter me, to think I could tempt a Whitecloak from his vows."
Gods knew he had tried.
"Arryn Baratheon, then?"
"Oh, for"—Gwayne saw what Ormund was hunting for now—"I would not trade this for ten Baratheons, nor any men from Rook's Rest. Is that flattery enough, my lord?"
"I do not seek flattery."
Ormund always sought flattery. Gwayne jolted his hips up to punish him but it was rather a doubled edged blade, being pinned there to witness Ormund's every muscle go taut.
"I can only beg my lord's forgiveness."
"Why should I grant it? You have been—difficult—tonight…"
Gwayne dug his fingers into the meat of Ormund's thighs for better purchase. If only he had the dignity to throw him off. But after trailing a dead man halfway across the Riverlands, Gwayne's spirit begged for the familiar. His cousin was as much home as the green banners and the ringing of sept bells. Here, was a game board Gwayne knew how to play.
"I would kill the real Arryn Baratheon if you ordered it."
Ormund smiled blindly in his direction. Not the pompous smile he wore to court but a boyish one, as bright as it was cruel. He had always smiled like that when he felt in control.
"It is good you are returned to me."
The warmth in his voice brought a sense of homecoming to Gwayne at last, as if sighting the roofs of Oldtown. Ormund made an approving noise and bore down on him roughly. They had been riled half the night now, and the reigns began to slip from Gwayne's grasp. He squeezed his eyes shut to prolong himself.
"All I ask," Ormund panted, closer than he had been, "is a little pleasantness. Somehow, you are the only pleasant thing in this wretched place. My dutiful heir. My very favourite knight." He ground onto Gwayne and inhaled again. "How pleasant you make yourself for me."
Gwayne cast aside dignity and gave him his all. Obtuse as he was, Ormund knew him, trusted him, wanted him. His cousin pet his hair, fond and proprietary, like one might a prized hunting dog. Gwayne would go to his grave without interrogating why that was the straw that hurled him to his edge. His eyes flew open.
"Ormund," he gasped, "Ormund, get off, I—"
Ormund scrambled free, leaving Gwayne to curl in on himself with the intensity of his finishing. Time stretched. The world was a buzz of good will. He pushed up onto one shaking arm with a breathless laugh.
A crack of pain lit up the side of his face.
"You would be so selfish?" Ormund demanded. The blindfold dangled around his neck. "After I—!"
Gwayne prodded at the inside of his mouth with his tongue where the slap had landed. The sting was an aftershock all its own; adrenaline throbbing through him. Ormund was still as hard as Gwayne had ever seen him. He was also winding up for another blow.
Ormund might well defeat him in a fair duel, but Gwayne was fresh from the hardest battles of his life and had only survived by turning the weight of bigger men against them. After a flurry of lopsided grappling that cost him an elbow to the ribs, Gwayne sat spry on Ormund's back with one arm captured and pulled up behind him.
"Will you not allow me to serve you?"
"You have made yourself useless! You have—" The words cracked into a vengeful grunt as Ormund wrenched his arm free.
Gwayne wanted to use his mouth until Ormund ate those words but neither of them could handle any more of Ormund's disgust. Gwayne trailed light hands down his hips instead.
"You have earned your release Ormund, let me give it. Let us be pleasant. If you cannot find faith in me, then who?"
Gwayne watched his hand ball into a fist, watched his back rise and fall. At last he gave a furious sigh and folded his arms in front of him to rest his face on. Perhaps to hide his eyes. Gwayne missed the chatter, Gods help him. He slipped his fingers in where his cock had left off and poured forth a stream of flattery as Ormund thawed. His back quivered. His walls pulsed. Gwayne snaked an arm under his hips, half to finish him off, and half to catch what he could so no spend would touch him. Barely a handful of strokes, and Ormund gave the sound of a man falling apart.
He lay there, collecting his breath, while Gwayne wiped his hand discreetly. Gwayne feared he had failed in that when Ormund grabbed his forearm but Ormund only used it to leverage himself up, muttering about Gwayne's own mess on the sheets. His hold lingered, warm, as they sat beside each other.
"You try me," Ormund said at length.
"Do not some salves burn, even as they cleanse?"
Ormund withdrew his hand. "I am not in the mood to be mocked."
"I do not—" Gwayne began, but there was a nakedness in Ormund's ruddy face as he looked glumly down at the floor that struck Gwayne as precious. "I apologise. I meant no ill will. You and I are… well, you call forth the charity in me, too."
Ormund scoffed, but his fingers trailed along Gwayne's thigh as he found his feet. He made a beeline for the bath—a touch unsteadily, Gwayne noted with pride. The servants filled it so quickly they could only have been waiting nearby; no point in sneaking back to his own chambers now. He wiped himself down with the cloth Ormund threw at his face, arranged a few furs over the bed's damper spots, and lay down with a contented hum.
"So much for a proper inspection," Ormund grumbled from the bath.
Gwayne gave a guilty start. He had offered his help, in pitching the blindfold idea.
"Do not trouble yourself," Ormund waved his aid away. "I shall see to it all once I am clean, as it always falls to me to do. You would doubtless miss something, in any case."
Buried in his scorn was grim self-acceptance; even Ormund had learned to work around Ormund.
Gwayne left the problem for another night and drifted in and out of dozing until the mattress dipped beside him. Dawn pried rosy fingers through the gaps in the banner-curtains around them. The smell of incense clogged the room. Gwayne shuffled just close enough that the hairs on his arm tinged to brush Ormund's.
"I did not entirely mean what I said about your being unclean," Ormund said, "in fact, I count it in your favour that men of your persuasion often have an improved sense of hygiene and presentation."
If Ormund were still blindfolded, Gwayne would have rolled his eyes.
"Flatterer."
When Ormund spoke again, his voice was so small Gwayne would not have recognised it, were he not breathing beside him in the dark.
"It grows worse. Each year, the stench embeds itself deeper; requires more vigilance to drive out."
Gwayne sighed. "He was wrong, your father. Whatever else you are, you are the Lord of the Hightower. You carry us all. He ought to have helped you, not held you back."
Ormund hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, but thinking. One could grow old waiting for Ormund's mind to stop churning. He closed his eyes. Ormund shuffled the last half-inch closer—skin against skin.
"Gwayne?"
"Hm…?" It was the first time he had heard his name that night.
"Will you return to Oldtown?"
Gwayne longed for them to withdraw Daeron's claim and crawl home, but Ormund may as well have burnt Oldtown behind them. Expressing as much, however, would only invite another lecture about how he lacked vision. Tumbleton was not a safe place to lick one's wounds; Ormund always underestimated women. But here, tonight, he was nestled in Hightower green, with his ghosts smothered by incense. To abandon this was to forsake all pleasantness and likely gain new ghosts.
And there was Daeron to think of.
Gwayne breathed in the rosemary and pressed closer to his cousin. "Oldtown will survive without me. There is more here in need of help."