Page 55 of King's Man

“I don’t —”

“We could take a look if you’re not too tired. Just to see it.” He gave a sad smile. “We used to take walks together, remember?”

“I remember.” Nate reached for him, his hurt softening to sorrow as they clasped hands. “I miss that, Sam. I miss everything.”

For a moment, their eyes met, an aching collision of regrets. Then, blinking too rapidly, Sam gave Nate’s hand a squeeze and let go. “Fetch your hat, then.”

It was a cool evening, the clouds that had been rolling west all day trailing a buffeting wind. Summer in England was neither one thing nor the other, Nate had learned, and didn’t stay the same from one day to the next. But the stormy sky made a dramatic backdrop to the church — abbey, as was — as they approached. “I’m trying to imagine being a medieval monk,” Nate said, staring up at the stern portico. This would have been a place of awe for men who believed in an omnipotent God gazing down from his heavenly perch.

Sam gave a hushed laugh. “You’d have made a terrible monk.”

“True. I bet those cassocks itched.”

They paused in front of the door and by silent consent turned to stroll around the outside of the building. “You’ll be interested in this,” Sam said as they walked close together, the backs of their hands touching. Nate might have taken Sam’s arm in the way gentlemen did if it hadn’t felt too intimate. Strange, that their real intimacy made a more casual one impossible. “The landlord —”

“He’s quite the font of information.”

Sam inclined his head, nudging Nate’s shoulder in reproof. “He told me that the Magna Carta was written right here in this abbey.”

Nate stared. “Magna Carta. Really?” He stared up at the ancient stones, tried to imagine those old medieval scribes scratching the foundations of the rule of law onto vellum five hundred years ago. And now Nate and his comrades, on another continent, had defended those very rights with their blood. “That’s — Yes, that is interesting.Morethan interesting.”

“Thought you’d like it.”

Sam’s eyes were so fond that Nate could hardly stand it. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he pushed Sam into the shadow of the great building, and lost for any eloquence, kissed him. He didn’t think the shades of the monks would care because what he felt in that moment was akin to sacred — a pure love that broke his heart.

Sam took his face in both hands, kissed him deeply and then pushed him gently away. “Nate…” He looked like he was trying to say more, as if words were piled up inside and couldn’t find their way out. His lips parted and Nate leaned in to kiss him again, but Sam held him at bay. “No. Not here. It’s not safe.”

“Then let’s go back to the inn.” He felt shaky, his fingers flexing against the strength of Sam’s arms. “Let’s have tonight.”

Our last goodbye.

Sam closed his eyes, expression pained, but nodded. After a moment he dropped his hands from Nate’s face and smiled. “Hell, Nate, if those monks could see us now…”

He barked a laugh. “I doubt they’d care. What else do you think they got up to between matins and lauds?”

Chapter Eighteen

When they reached the inn, Nate slipped upstairs while Sam chatted with the gregarious landlord for the sake of appearances. Their room was rudimentary but clean: a bed, a table, and a chair. In other circumstances the bed might have been small for sharing, but Nate felt a thrill as he ran his hand over the counterpane; there’d be no way to sleep with Sam in that bed other than in his arms. And he longed for that almost more than the lovemaking. Though they’d been intimate for years in Rosemont, the times they’d woken together had been few and precious. Tomorrow morning would be one of them.

He set his hat on a hook behind the door and tugged off his coat, maneuvering it over his injured arm with care. He’d have liked to strip bare, to lay himself out on the bed like an offering, but he didn’t dare. He had to wait for the door to be safely locked behind them.

Sam was taking an age.

In search of distraction, Nate walked to the window. It looked out over the yard to the tower of the old abbey. Its eight hundred years made Nate feel like a mayfly, his life and struggles fleeting concerns. What did any of his labors matter, he mused, when set against the ceaseless turning of the years? What did his personal sacrifices matter? They would be forgotten as surely as the monks who’d labored to transcribe Magna Carta, or the stone masons who’d toiled to raise the abbey to the heavens. All that was left of them now was their legacy in velum and stone, as his legacy would be left in the founding of a new nation, rooted in principles of law and liberty. Or so he hoped.

Yet each of those men had lived lives. Whether they’d lived wholly, embracing the love and joy they found, or had set aside such things in pursuit of their great undertaking, Nate couldn’t know. History didn’t record the lives of little men like them. Like him. But one thing he did know was that, however they’d lived their lives, five hundred years later their legacy remained. As Nate’s would remain, whether he seized his chance at joy or sacrificed it on the altar of his duty.

And that was a remarkably liberating thought.

Behind him, at last, the door opened. Pulled from his musings, Nate turned and watched Sam lock the door behind him. The heavy clunk of the bolt seemed to shut out the world. Sam set his hat on the hook next to Nate’s and paused there, his back turned. Outside, even the noise from the yard seemed muted and all Nate could hear was the restless rush of his own pulse.

“This is a bad idea,” Sam warned, his back still turned. “It’ll only make parting harder.”

Nate thought of those long dead monks and masons, of their forgotten lives, and in two steps he was across the room, slipping his arms around Sam and pulling his back against his chest. He could hear Sam’s ragged breathing, feel the tremble of muscles held taut. Nate nuzzled his ear, kissed the soft skin above his collar, breathed him in and held him close. “Don’t think about tomorrow,” he whispered against his skin. “There’s only tonight.”

Sam leaned forward to rest his forehead on the door, chest rising as he took a deep breath. Then he moved, turning in Nate’s arms until their eyes met. A thousand words could have been spoken between them — every nuance of regret, longing, love, and reproach — but none were needed. The world simply fell away, time contracting to a single night, a single room, a single moment.

Now.

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