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The Devil’s Den was a strange sort of place. Rain leaked through the roof and there were enough holes in the walls, from arrows and blades, that it hardly needed its windows, to say nothing of its patrons. That evening, however, as its air was filled with the sounds of armour clanking and swords being sharpened, Katherine thought it was the strangest it had ever been. Strange and dreadful. Filled with enough fear of what was to come that it could nearly be tasted on the wind.
And that was before she let her thoughts drift to the damned cannon.
Her stomach curdled as she packed her things, readying for the journey to Suchdol. Even that trek was risky and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end at the thought of how exposed she would be. In combination with the attack on Maleshov, which itself felt like the sort of hubris they punished other lords for, they were taking everything they’d spent years carefully piecing together, and thrusting it into the hands of chance, hoping it would go their way.
She balled the dress she was holding in her fists and bit hard on her bottom lip in an effort to keep the guttural shout of frustration bubbling in her gut from eeking out. She screwed her eyes shut, and tried to focus on the inn around her, rather than the tightening of her chest.
Overhead, the light evening wind rustled through the slats of the roof, and she could hear the groaning of the sign as it swung back and forth, on its hook, distorted from rust and age. Beneath her, the hardwood floor, sticky from spilt beer and God knows what else, dug into her shins and knees as she knelt on it. Further beneath her still, she could just catch the muffled noises of mumbled voices from the tavern, nervous and hushed enough that she couldn’t make out the owners. Then, there was a creak, followed by another; the tell-tale noises of a body’s weight being put on the rickety stairs that seemed ready to break at any second.
Katherine opened her eyes again, blinking in the orange and gold evening light that flooded in through the open door. She knew those steps.
It didn’t take long for Zizka’s shadow to appear at the door, blocking out the sunlight.
He didn’t say anything, and, in protest of his stupid, foolish plan, Katherine didn’t turn around to face him. For what seemed an eternity, the only sound was their breathing, in and out. It drowned out even the sounds of the makeshift army gathered below.
Zizka sighed, and even with her back to him, she could picture in her mind’s eye how he must have run his hand down his face, fingers catching in the bristles of his mustache.
“Kate…” he finally said, his voice softer than it had been when he was relaying his plan.
“Zizka.”
She could hear how he rocked back and forth on his feet - just once - and hated it. It meant he was anxious, churning with energy he didn’t know how to displace. So, she let her shoulders drop and turned over her shoulder to face him.
He looked ready to go, with his bascinet tucked under his arm, polished and gleaming, and his sword, so sharp she could imagine its prick even while sheathed, at his side. There was a frown on his face, a common occurrence these days, but it was deeper than usual, pulling his lips down and making his brow so heavy his eyes were darkened by it.
Her movement was the permission he needed. He stepped into the room - the room they shared most nights - saying nothing until he sat down on the bed that was flush against the wall. Katherine stared at his hands as he put the bascinet down on the blanket, tried to think, morbidly, about how they felt on her body during the night, when he rolled over in his sleep and pulled her close. In the morning, he’d pull away quickly, once propriety caught up with him, like her skin was on fire, but those few seconds before he did so were always sweet. She wondered if she’d ever feel them again - if he’d die under Maleshov’s walls, while she waited in Suchdol with only Peter of Pisek for company.
“You’d better leave soon,” he said, once his helmet was settled. “To be at Suchdol before it gets too dark.”
“Aye,” Katherine replied. “I’d better.”
Another sigh, more of a huff; one that wasn’t befitting of Lord Jan of Trotznov, and also one she was familiar with.
“We’ll reach Suchdol by early morning, all going to plan,” he explained, as though she hadn’t been there to hear it the first time. She wondered if it was to fill the empty air. “I’ll need you to have supplies ready for the wounded.”
She had already committed herself to doing that, had begun running through the things she’d need to check the fortress and surrounding town for. Her nerves, however, were so frayed that it stung just enough to make the following breath that escaped her to sound smart - petulant.
Zizka’s brow raised and he shot her a look she knew had made many a man quiver in his boots.
It’s now or never, she thought. Speak now, or forever hold my peace. I should hold my peace.
“I thought you weren’t expecting any one to be hurt,” she said, pushing the boundary, preparing him for where she was going, because she knew he’d pick up on it, if he hadn’t already.
“I’m preparing for the worst. Wouldn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t do any of this if I were in your position, and you know it,” she shot back, shoving the dress that had been turned to nothing but wrinkled cloth into her trunk and slamming it shut, even though there were still things she needed to put into it.
Zizka scoffed. “Do I? You haven’t protested anything we’ve done before now - you agreed to Nebakov!”
He didn’t raise his voice, but he put more force into it, and it sent enough of a shock down her spine that he didn’t need to do anything more.
“That was different and you know it! It’s one thing tricking a foolish old man, another to storm a fortress. What happens if Von Bergow doesn’t surrender? What happens if he has more men than we think? Have you even thought that far - that we might not win?” She couldn’t keep the same control of her voice, not with the anxiety that tangled knots in her chest, and it only made her even more upset; her shaking voice was ruining her point.
Zizka ran a hand through his hair and let out a huff of breath from his nose, like a bull. “Kate, I came here to - I…” He cut himself off with a shake of his head, took another deep breath and said, “what other choice do we have - let Von Bergow lay claim to Maleshov while we fight tooth and nail for scraps?”
“It’s better to live off scraps than to die going for something bigger!”
“Without anything bigger, this war will never be won, and you know it.”
She did. It made her sick to think about, but she knew it as well as he knew she didn’t like the fact. Their luck so far had been good more times than it had been bad (though when fortune turned its back on them, it was felt), and she knew it was only a matter of time before that changed, and they made a mistake they couldn’t rely on a daring rescue to get out of. “That’s easy for you to say, you’re not the one patching the men together again after one of our schemes. How long until I’m wiping your blood from my hands again, Zizka?”
Zizka stood, suddenly, and his helmet fell from the side of the bed onto the floor with a loud thunk. On her knees, he towered over her, and it reminded her of the man the rest of the world saw, the one that would make her Ma right to pray to God for her safety and wellbeing, because surely with such a man, it wouldn’t be guaranteed.
Katherine swallowed, her throat dry, and squared her shoulders. She wouldn’t be cowed either way.
“If it troubles you so much, why stay?” He said, voice low and deep, as though it were coming from the very base of him.
It stung like a slap to the face. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again, like a fish caught in some peasant’s trap, gasping for much needed air.
Why indeed? There were plenty of taverns and castles she’d worked at on Zizka’s behalf that had been perfectly fine. Had she so wished, she could have spent the rest of her days working as a kitchen wench or ale maid in as much safety as any one in this world could ask for. And every time, without fail, she returned to Zizka, shared with him what she knew and rejoiced in the ways he used her knowledge.
She had had plenty of opportunities to leave, yet she never did. She was as much a zealot as the rest of them. Where Zizka went, she followed, because who else in the whole world ever did as much for her as he did?
Her blood was boiling, though, and admitting any of that felt as impossible as chaining the sun.
“Maybe I will!” She swiped his helmet and stood up, coming only to his chin, and shoved it into his waiting hands. “Let someone else put you together again if you manage to survive this stupid plan.”
Zizka didn’t respond, not right away. His lip curled, making his mustache twitch, and his eyes widened in what might have been shock. This close, the scar down his left eye looked red and angry, and it served as another reminder of how close she had been to losing him, to Henry, of all people. Her fingers twitched over cool metal, filled with the sudden need to reach up and trace it, to prove to herself that he had survived many things, and would survive Maleshov.
But that was stepping over a line that hadn’t been crossed before, and rage was boiling her blood too much to consider doing it now.
“Well, don’t let me keep you,” he whispered, because they were so close that nothing else was needed. He swallowed, and she could see the bob of his throat, hear the shakiness of his breath.
Katherine recoiled, and it was only her hands, still wrapped around the bascinet, that kept her in place. His words were a bucket of ice cold water being doused over her head. She had expected, wanted, a fight, even if it was just him calling her ridiculous, or him drawing attention to her double standards. She had never expected him, of all people, to back down. She blinked up at him, searching for clarity, but his face was clouded to her. The ground beneath her feet may as well have crumbled.
He let out another sigh, a tired sound, then he stepped away from her towards the door. He cast one last look over his shoulder and, when their eyes met, Katherine’s heart jumped up to her throat. Then, he stepped through.
“Please be careful,” she called out, but the door swung shut, and she had no idea if he heard her.
*
Even before the men returned, Suchdol was humming with activity. Katherine had already harangued and hounded the bathmaids into giving her as many cloths and bandages as they had to offer, and had chased Lord Peter’s surgeon until he had given her some decoctions and pointed her in the direction of a chest that was filled to the bursting with herbs and salves.
With every passing hour as the morning sun rose up in the sky, she felt her unease grow. She knew that travelling with wounded men slowed everything down, even more so if they had a prisoner in tow too, but even still, she worried, picking at her nails and unspooling a loose thread in her skirts.
By mid-morning, she had gathered as many supplies as she could find in the castle. Once she had done so, she spent time tidying things, setting out the supplies in the order she thought she might need them most. Then she undid her work and redid it, the same way more often than not. It was pointless, but the second she stopped, the gnawing fear that the words she’d spat at Zizka last night might have been the last they shared crawled up to the front of her mind, and she needed to do something, anything, to keep the thoughts at bay. She’d even considered going into the small village outside the castle and waking the peasants to raid whatever supplies they had, and the only thing keeping her in place was the worry that the Pack might return before she did and when (not if) Zizka looked around and didn’t see her, he might think she really had left for good.
Her strategy could only last so long, however, and it got to the point where she had to give up. She fell against an archway in the courtyard, letting the cool, dew-damp stone seep into her back, and she slowly sank to the ground, watching the hustle and bustle of the castle around her.
Time passed so horribly slowly that days must have come and gone before a guard shouted that riders were approaching. A gasp slipped through her lips before she could stop it and she scrambled to her feet so fast that she nearly lost a shoe in the gravel, before thundering up the stairs to the battlements.
Approaching from the south, a group of forward riders loped towards Suchdol’s walls. Even from afar, she could make out the familiar blue and white of the Devil’s brigandine, the yellow of Capon’s gambeson, a strange woman with fiery red hair, and even the Trosky red and white, worn by the aged Otto Von Bergow, who bounced on his steed as he rode with his hands tied.
They were successful, she thought, and would have laughed with the relief it brought had she not been searching still until…
There!
Zizka’s bascinet gleamed in the sunlight and, while his gambeson is stained with dirt and blood, it was a stark contrast to the colours of the rest of the men. He rode straight, strong, on Schkrle’s back, and her knees nearly crumpled.
He was alive. His plan had worked.
She gave herself a moment to appreciate it, to let it sink in, as the horses cantered over the bridge and through the gate. Then, she took a deep breath, and steeled herself to deal with the wounded.
Once the Pack descended into Suchdol’s courtyard, Hell broke loose.
More men than even she had expected had been wounded, including the Devil, and the cursed groans of ‘Henry’ had her first confused, then frightened. It was only when Capon, bruised but no worse for wear, explained what happened with the villagers - that they still lived - and Henry’s request to stay behind and scour the fortress to make sure nothing was missed, that she started to get bits and pieces of what happened.
She nodded, sent Capon on his way, and helped Kubyenka from his horse, which was more like catching him before he fell to the ground. As he groaned in her ear, calling out in pain so loudly she would think he was trying to be heard on the other side of Bohemia, she caught Zizka’s eyes.
He’d taken his helmet off, revealing his sweat slick hair and battle-flushed cheeks. She gave him a once over, searching for any wounds that needed attention, and he must have understood her meaning, because he shook his head, a minute movement that she would have missed had she been anyone else. There was something in his eyes, something that she couldn’t (wouldn’t) name, as he stared at her, and it pinned her to the spot under the force of it. She wondered if he would come over. She wanted him to come over, to cross the space between them and say something about the fact that she had stayed.
Kubyenka groaned, and jolted her back to life.
She readjusted her hold on Kubyenka, muttered platitudes in his ear, though she didn’t think he heard any of them. When she looked back over to where Zizka was, he had turned away to ascend the stairs, followed by the Devil and Von Bergow, no doubt to be greeted by Lord Peter.
*
The rest of the day passed in a blur, the hours slipping by like sand through her fingers, and it was only when the sun was starting to set and a servant started to walk the perimeter of the courtyard lighting the torches in their brackets, that Katherine pulled away from the mercenary she’d been tending to.
Her back cracked loudly at the movement, a dull pain throbbed behind her eyes, which themselves were aching from the strain, and her hands were starting to cramp from the work she’d put them through.
Those that would survive their wounds were stable, the rest: all she could do was offer them comfort.
Wiping her hands on her skirts, she pushed herself to her feet and looked around at the surroundings she’d spent most of the day ignoring. The guards in the makeshift arena were tidying away their practice weapons, and the bathmaids were beating their cloths dry, or hoisting cauldrons of dirty water against their hips as they cleaned out the tubs for the day. Through an open door, she could smell the food that was being cooked for the lords’ dinners, and her stomach grumbled ravenously, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since that morning.
On shaky legs, she walked over to a trough, hoping it was clean, and gave an audible sigh of relief when she peered over its rim to see her reflection, haggard as it was, blinking back at her, rather than a pool of blood. She plunged her hands into it and started to scrub, washing away the blood that had caught behind her nails, until her hands were red raw.
Afterwards, she hardly remembered going to the stew pot in the kitchens and filling a bowl full of whatever it was that had been cooking on the flames. She blinked, and she was in her room - the squat space that was as much a storage room as anything else, but it was near to where they were keeping the wounded, so she put up with it - with the bowl on her lap and the candles and torches lit. She didn’t remember doing any of it.
A knock on the door, two loud raps of knuckles against wood, drew her from her trance with a start. She placed the bowl on the upturned wooden crate beside the cot and smoothed down the front of her skirts, before opening the door.
Zizka stood on the other side. His eyes were flanked by dark circles and his hair was slick with sweat and grime, the sort that only comes from hours of being trapped beneath a helmet. His shoulders were stooped, weighed from exhaustion, and he’d taken off his plate, leaving him in his gambeson, which too bore the signs of the morning’s fighting. She let her eyes do a cursory once over of him again, now that he was up close, and searched for his usual tells for when he was injured, and she came up mercifully empty handed, aside from some bruising.
He stood there, silently, as though allowing her her examination, before eventually raising his right hand. In it, he held a plate, overladen with bread and meats and cheeses. In his left was a goblet, filled to the brim with red wine. He cleared his throat.
“You didn’t stop to eat today,” he said in a stilted and awkward way that didn’t suit the blood on his clothes.
Katherine’s belly, still empty, did a flip. She hadn’t even noticed that he’d been paying attention, or maybe he just knew her well enough to know that she’d let something as simple as food slip through her mind while she worked. Either option had her feeling suddenly exposed as she stood in the doorway.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the plate, because it didn’t matter that the stew was slowly losing its heat behind her. “I trust you’ve eaten.”
Zizka nodded, had the grace to look bashful about it. “Lord Peter…”
Lord Peter hadn’t considered inviting her to whatever meal had been made for the lords. Why would he?
Katherine nodded, he didn’t need to finish the sentence.
“Are you-”
“Can I-”
They both spoke, then stopped, at the same time. Had she not been so wrung out, she might have laughed at it, but as it was, she motioned for him to continue.
“Can I come in?” Zizka asked, gesturing a hand towards the empty room over Katherine’s shoulder.
It wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. On some long buried instinct, her eyes darted behind him, half-expecting to see her Ma’s disapproving frown - it wouldn’t be proper for a widow. Of course, no one was there, except for a bleary guard who was too busy rubbing at his eyes to pay attention to what they were doing.
“Of course,” she said with a nod, and stepped aside for him.
She wavered at the door, of half a mind to leave it open, before chiding herself and drawing it shut, quietly. She saw it when Zizka’s gaze fell on the bowl already in her room, untouched, and she might have blamed it on a trick of the torchlight, but there was the faintest of blushes colouring his cheeks when he turned back to her.
More thoughts than she could grasp flew through her mind: apologies for what she’d said, reprimands for the stupidity of their plan, questions over how it went. She was nearly paralysed with them all.
To make matters worse, there wasn’t even a chair in the room for him to sit at, so she gestured to the bed. Had he not winced, with a sharp intake of breath, as he did so, she might have had thoughts about how it was a near mirror of last nights set up. As it was though, she placed the wine and plate next to the bowl, and quickly closed the gap, putting one hand carefully on his shoulder to feel the warmth that seeped from him even through his layers.
“You’re hurt!”
“I - I’m fine, Kate. Just some bruising,” he said, brushing aside her worry. “Damned guards hit harder than I thought they would.”
The rebuttal to that, to his thinking that the guards at Maleshov couldn’t compare to the Pack, danced on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed it down. She’d save it for later.
“Did anyone look at you?” She certainly didn’t. “One of the bathmaids at least?”
He grunted his answer, no. “It wasn’t necessary. Besides, I wouldn’t trust them to look after it.”
But here he was, in her room, letting her run her hands over his chest to feel for where it hurt the most. “You stubborn ox,” she chided.
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, holding her hand in place over his ribs. “I’m fine, Kate,” he repeated.
She huffed a sigh, muttered about his stubbornness again, and let it rest. “How did it go, then?”
“We got Von Bergow, you saw, Lord Capon promised his safety in exchange for information. And the Lady Rosa Ruthard, but we lost too many.” He paused, flexing his fingers around her skin, not so tightly that it hurt, but enough that she couldn’t step away (not that she wanted to). “Henry refused to torch the village. Beat the Devil over it. We had to take on all of Von Bergow’s guard to take the castle.”
He shot her a look, one that told her he knew that she agreed with Henry’s approach.
“I’m sure the Devil didn’t like that,” she said, diplomatically.
Zizka snorted. “No, he didn’t.” A beat. “What do you think? About Von Bergow?”
Katherine paused. It was a relief to know that he still sought her opinion, but on this matter, what did she know?
He read her mind. “You know him nearly better than the rest of us. You worked for him.”
She didn’t mention that she doubted Von Bergow showed his true self to the servants working in Trosky.
“I wouldn’t trust him,” she said, sifting through her memories and trying not to let them be swayed by the image of Zizka, hanging from chains at Von Bergow’s orders, “his back is to the wall right now and he’ll say anything to get away from it. But he’s a smart man - he won’t do anything that might get him killed.”
Zizka hummed, considering. “We should trust his desire to live, I suppose.”
She nodded, glad he was listening to her on this.
A silence fell over them, then. The only sounds were the footsteps of the guards on their patrols outside, the cawing of the rooks on the rooftops, and the flickering of the flames on the walls.
Katherine took a deep breath, after a minute. “I was worried about you.”
It felt like an apology, hefty and weighted, after last night. Zizka stared up at her, eyes wide and dark, like he knew it.
“Kate,” he muttered, and he placed the hand that wasn’t still holding her wrist on her waist, urging her to step closer, between the vee of his legs. Then, once she was close enough, he leaned forward, until his brow pressed against her stomach. “I was worried you’d leave.”
His head was warm against her skin, and she took a shuddery breath at both his words and his touch.
“Why worry?” She asked, trying her best to keep her voice light, like this was another one of their jokes. “You know I’d never leave.”
Her efforts to make it a jape failed, and her voice cracked at the revelation of a truth she knew so deep in heart, but had never truly vocalised before, certainly not to Zizka.
Zizka raised his head from her stomach to meet her eye again. “I know. But…”
But they had never snapped at each other like that before. Swallowing, Katherine lifted her hand up, slowly enough for Zizka to back away, like he was a startled animal, rather than a leader of men. He didn’t pull away, instead, he leaned into her touch when she cupped his face, her thumb brushing against the jagged edges of his scar. His hold on her waist tightened.
She considered her next words, forced her mind to focus on them and not the warmth of Zizka’s skin beneath her palm, the feeling of the muscles of his jaw. “I think these plans are dangerous, foolish, and we’ll be lucky to see tomorrow more often than not, but I’m not leaving, Zizka.”
“Wenceslas is lucky to have so devoted a supporter,” Zizka muttered. Like this, she felt the rumble of his voice through her body.
“Not Wenceslas.” You old fool.
Zizka’s shoulders dropped, like all tension had been snipped from him and, for the first time in what felt like an age, his lips curled in a smile. Not so foolish, then.
Carefully he leaned forward again and pressed his lips to her stomach. The kiss, if it could be called that, was soft, one she could barely feel through the layers of her clothes, but it still made her heart skip a beat.
“Zizka,” she whispered, because to speak any louder felt like a sin.
He pressed another kiss, equally as gentle, higher on her torso, and another, beginning a trail up her body. All Katherine could do was hold on to him, wrap her fingers around the nape of his neck with one hand, and cradle his face with the other. A voice at the back of her head, one that sounded horrifically like her Ma’s, screamed that this was a bad idea. Then Zizka started to massage circles into her side, kiss more forcefully into her skin, and the voice flew out of her ears.
Zizka kissed all the way up to her sternum, before she remembered how to move. She tangled her fingers in his hair, and pulled him away, enough that she could meet his eyes again. His pupils were blown wide and there was a question on his lips.
“Zizka,” she repeated, as her answer.
He dragged his hand down her side, over her arse to cup the back of her thigh. His touch was red hot, like an iron, as he hitched her leg up and over his own. She clambered the rest of the way onto him, trusting his body to hold her weight. Positioned like this, their faces were close, the gap small enough that she could breath in every breath he let out, could count the lines on his face.
“Don’t leave,” he said.
“Never.”
Zizka made a noise, deep in his chest, and pulled her down to him. Their lips met with a clatter of teeth, desperate and awkward, before Katherine let out a sigh and used the hand on Zizka’s face as leverage to adjust the angle, to slow the pace, until it was perfect. The bristles of his mustache tickled her lip, and the stubble on his face scratched her chin, and his tongue swiped against her mouth, so that it was hard to think about anything else. He tasted like sweat and the wine he had had for dinner, and it was enough that she might get drunk on it.
He kissed her thoroughly, with the same attention with which he did everything, running his hands over her body, up her back and over her breasts, so that every part of her felt like she was one fire, burning from the inside out.
When she pulled away, lungs screaming for breath, his mouth was slick and kissed red, and the flush had returned to his cheeks. She felt dizzy just looking at him, and balled her fist in his gambeson, using the scratchy material to ground herself. Beneath, the muscle of his body twitched and heaved with every breath, and her mouth dried at the thought of feeling it - not to tend to wounds or clean it of blood, but for pleasure.
As she thought, Zizka moved again, bringing his lips to her neck and kissing a trail along her throat, up to the hinge of her jaw. At the same time, one of his hands, calloused and rough but gentle with her, cupped one of her breasts, kneading at her flesh through her dress that was suddenly too heavy, too much.
A whine slipped through her lips, as wanton as any bathmaid’s, and she shifted as heat pooled low in her body. Like this, the beginning of Zizka’s hardness pressed against the inside of her leg, a reminder of what they were doing.
The heat, the sticky oppressive air in the room that tasted of herbs and sweat, was syrupy to breathe, making it hard to focus. And Zizka, the devil, continued to mouth at her jaw, coaxing noises from her lips that she had nearly forgotten she knew how to make. Too much.
She clawed at his shoulders. “Ziz - Jan…” she just barely managed to keen.
Zizka stopped his ministrations, pulling away from her skin with a wet sound. “Kate…I -”
She could see from the way his eyes widened that he was about to apologise, to make himself the ugly brute that forced himself on her. She wouldn’t have that.
“No, don’t apologise.” She punctuated it with a kiss, more hesitant and chaste than it had the right to be now, to his lips. “I just…” She wetted her lips and caught how Zizka’s eyes darted down to follow the slip of her tongue. “It’s too warm here.”
Zizka’s brow furrowed, so rather than explain herself further, explain how he was so much that she felt crazy, she started to undo the laces on the front of her dress, hoping he would figure out the rest of it.
“Can I?” He asked, as one of his fingers caught in the laces.
“Of course, you ox.”
Together, they made quick work of her dress, sensuality tossed aside in favour of a base desperation to be near to each other. Once she was bare, her entire body exposed to him, Zizka lay her flat on the bed, and leaned back on his heels over her. She fought with the dual urges to cover herself, to protect her body from others’ eyes, and the desire bubbling in her belly to let Zizka see her.
“God has blessed me,” he muttered, to himself it seemed, before pressing his mouth to her body, her chest and breasts and finally her lips, interspersing each kiss with a whispered compliment.
Katherine’s toes curled, and the feel of his mustache combined with the way his gambeson and chauses rubbed against her bare skin was maddening. She grabbed at his shoulders and ordered him to strip, not waiting for his reply as she pulled at the ties and straps.
When he was stripped naked, she took a moment to admire his body: his taut muscles, covered by his soft belly and a forest of black hair, the white lines that criss-crossed his arms and torso, his cock, hard and already leaking. It made everything she’d seen before, of him and other men, pale in comparison.
He allowed her a second of admiration, before laying his weight on top of her, pinning her against the bed as their bodies aligned. He was warm and heavy and slotted perfectly against her.
He pinned her with the weight of his body, just as he had done earlier in the courtyard with his eyes, and wrapped a hand around her waist so that, when he sank inside of her, they were connected in every way, so close that she could never leave - not that she wanted to.
With his fingers and his mouth, he touched and kissed every part of her, mapping her body. She ran her fingers through the coarse hair on his chest, over the breadth of his shoulders and she let her nails catch and drag when he shuddered at her touch. It was different like this, his body, different to how she had ever experienced it: warm and strong and everywhere.
The mix of hunger and exhaustion meant that neither of them were destined to last long, and after too short a time of Zizka thrusting into her, filling her, she felt a distantly familiar tightening in her gut, a spark at the base of her spine.
Another minute, and she fell over the edge to the sound of his encouragement and praises, words that turned unintelligible as his thrusts grew sloppier and his kisses more desperate. Her vision was still pinpricked with white when he pulled out, suddenly, leaving her gaping and empty, and pumped once, twice, then spilled over their stomachs.
Afterwards, he collapsed onto her, his body a warm blanket as they both slowly returned to Suchdol and her room with its damp walls and faint smell of herbs. Time slipped away again, as she traced idle patterns along his spine and felt the flutter of his eyelashes against her shoulder, but, eventually, Zizka rolled over onto the bed beside her. Even though their bodies were still touching nearly from head to toe, it was cold in comparison.
He brushed a strand of hair that had fallen from her braid (one of many) out of her face, and gave her a sweet smile that she had not seen before: equally charmed and bashful, like a boy at a village dance.
“I…I didn’t come here for this,” he said, after clearing his throat.
Katherine didn’t get the chance to stop the giggle of laughter that burst through her lips, it was too quick a reaction. “No, I didn’t think you did.”
“But I’m glad.”
She reached up and traced his bottom lip with her thumb. He met her eyes, and she saw he was genuine. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes - not that she would doubt it but…she had seen enough bathmaids tossed aside when they were no longer of use.
Zizka, though, as careful as ever, ran his fingers over her cheek, like he was trying to commit the shape of her skin to memory.
“I am too,” she replied, and it felt as much like an admittance of the ocean of feeling within her as if she had managed to somehow give voice to it.
If this was wrong, if she was going to be struck down, surely it wouldn’t feel like this, so natural, like the next step of the dance they’d been doing since the moment they met.
Zizka smiled at her, the sort that showed the crow’s feet around his eyes and made the scar seem softer. He understood her meaning.
Then her stomach rumbled, thunderously loud.
Zizka barked a laugh. “That’s why I came here. To remind you to eat.” He leaned over her, to where the goblet, bowl and plate remained on the crate where they’d left them, thus far ignored. “What do you want?”
Katherine pushes herself into a seated position. “What did you bring me? I’m sure it’s nicer than the stew.”
They fell into an easy rhythm, as she ate, and Zizka lay in the bed beside her, recounting more details about the morning and what was to be expected tomorrow, when the lords questioned Von Bergow.
Once she had her fill, and her eyes were heavy, drooping from a mix of good food, good wine and pleasure, it was easy to curl into Zizka, the warmth of him and the space that seemed made for her when he lifted his arm to wrap around her shoulders.
This time, she knew when they woke up, he wouldn’t pull away from her.