Chapter Text
Gone.
They'd walked into the desert, not even bothering to tell Paris any of it. Of course. Of course. Why bother telling him? It wasn’t as though he was waiting for them in order to continue on, to translate for whatever Menelaos wished to say to the nomads.
Paris had never been put in charge of anyone, at least not during the war. Sure, he’d taken care of younger siblings, helped lead with his brothers on hunts, but never led any amount of troops on his own. He’d always figured Hektor and their father didn’t trust him to do so, or thought him incompetent and incapable. They were probably right.
“You’re better up on the wall,” Deiphobos had said, more than once. “With the archers and newly-ranked.”
Unlike some of the other things Deiphobos tried being cruel about, no one ever bothered correcting him on this — because it was true. Even when out on the field, like when he’d dueled Menelaos, he’d had to borrow a doublet. And he’d not even needed it, because whether he liked it or not his patron was whisking him away and out of danger once again.
“You are lucky to have me looking out for you,” she had told him, after dropping him with a clatter into he and Helen’s bedroom. “Not many gods would do what I do to protect you.”
Paris had hardly been able to breathe, still high on the adrenaline of the field and trembling. He’d thrown off his armor, tossed aside the borrowed doublet, kicked off his boots, and made direct eye contact with the goddess as he buried his muddied fingers through his curls.
“That was supposed to end the war!” He stopped pacing when she frowned, feeling a spike of anxiety when she did so.
“I’m terribly sorry, little one,” she said, not quite a snarl that a mortal would make, and yet still all the hair on Paris’ neck stood up. He hated when she called him that. “Were you not terrified, crying, trying to get away from that beastly king?” A smile curled her plush lips, devious, plotting, and Paris could’ve cried with what she continued with. “Had you not released your own bladder in fear, like a child?”
Of course he had been terrified. Who wouldn’t be? Dragged by the plume of his helm, strangled, pulled away from the walls of safety. He was sure he was going to die. But why, why, why did she have to bring that up? Humiliate him like that?
Hastily he moved across the room to the washing basin began tearing off his tunic to scoop water over his bare, sticky skin. If dirtied water pooled on the floor beneath his feet, he couldn’t care. Just as long as he could clean himself.
“It doesn’t matter!” Paris said, trying not to raise his voice too much, only glancing beside himself to where Aphrodite stood. There were already downy white feathers floating from her hair. He shivered, then used the cleaner part of his tunic to wipe the water running down his legs. “I would do just about anything to stop anyone else from dying in this war.”
“Have you not said,” Aphrodite shot back, gave no time to consider what he said, “that you want to stay alive, above all?”
Paris had remembered saying that, years ago, and wished now that those words had never left his mouth. “I— I’ve changed my mind.”
There was that snarl on Aphrodite’s face again, grown with each response Paris gave, and she looked about one word away from slaying him where he stood. Paris felt sweat drip from his brow, felt the churning in his stomach he always felt on the field worsen, standing there before this goddess. He thought he’d probably vomit if he moved too quickly.
“You know not how much I do for you,” she hissed, a sound like steam rising, like the surge of seawater. “You poor, tragic mortal. Life is so fleeting for you, and still you would throw it all away? You would abandon your love for Helen, would condemn her to be captured by Achaeans? Would allow them to chain her, rape her and take her away?”
That was not what he’d said. But it didn’t matter. “No, my goddess.”
Perhaps it was just this form she took, so strangely… herself, only slightly taller than Paris this time and with a gently curved but angular face unlike any mortal woman, but Paris was sure she’d begun to smile. It was a hideous thing. Curled her plump lips like the grin of a lioness. The curls of her hair had begun to droop, blonde paling white with her clearly grown anger.
“You will please her.” She took another step towards him, and Paris stumbled to move back and away, falling when the backs of his knees hit the bed. “I will bring Helen here to you. And as an apology for being a coward, you will bed her.”
Paris was, for the first time in a very long while, not in the fucking mood. He felt vile, coated in dust from the field turned to mud and grime on his sweat-wet skin, hair greasy where it’d been pulled from the braids, eyes a mess of running kohl, so nauseas he wanted to curl up on the cold tile and stay there. And he knew he’d cleaned it off, but he could still feel, still know, that he’d —
— dragged across the field, that massive hand wrapped so easily around the plume of his helm, all the pressure of his bodyweight pulled into that leather strap under his chin, around his delicate throat, digging in until he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but squeak and struggle to get even one quickly numbing finger under the strap, even one already numb foot underneath himself… and he couldn’t even think to pray for his life, seeing only the walls of safety grow farther away, and like a child dragged from their bed into the cold, forced to see their family die before them, forced away from all safety they’d ever known, Paris cried and pissed himself in fear.
“I do not wish that,” Paris said, bravely. Stupidly. “I do not want to make love in the state I am in. I do not believe she’d want to fuck me, either.”
Aphrodite looked him up and down like a slaver, stepping forward again so her knees brushed his. “I did not ask if you want to.”
Bile rose in his throat, and he had to swallow it down. “You cannot…”
Her pale hand grasped his chin, tipped his head up towards her, and the smile there was so predatory Paris felt as though he was back in battle. There were oceans in her eyes. Deep and endless, dangerous and unknown in the dark. Her smooth thumb brushed over his bottom lip, then slid down his jaw, and in an instant her nimble hand had raised to fist his hair like a strong sailor gripping rope. Paris could not stop the cry that left his lips, feeling tears prick his eyes as Aphrodite’s bottomless magic tighten around him. Her other hand brushed so gently over the already blackening bruise around his throat, and Paris yelped.
“You do what I ask, little one,” she snarled, head lowering towards him, and Paris didn’t even dare to raise an arm to try and release her strangling grip. That other hand pressed down onto the bruise, and pain whitened his vision. “Or I will enchant you to do so, but I don’t believe you would like that.”
Perhaps to prove it, her magic dug deep into his flesh, sunk into his gut, rested heavy in his groin. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten hard so quickly, and the rush of blood from his head made him sway with dizziness. Or he would have, if the goddess didn’t still hold him by the hair and neck.
“Please—” he squeaked out, hardly able to make a noise over the strangulation.
Aphrodite leaned over and jerked his head back so she was all he could see. Which he supposed was purposeful, because he yelped in surprise when her hand closed over his cock, far too much stimulation far too quickly.
“I care not for your petty emotions,” she hissed. “And it does not matter. If I take your release from you right now, I will still make you fuck Helen. You’ve disappointed everyone today, Paris. Until you tell me you understand and are sorry, I will not allow that release. Does that make sense for you?”
Gods, why did she have to belittle him like that? She was stroking him so wonderfully, so perfectly, twisting her hand, hitting every sensitive nerve. It did not take long for him to reach the brink, to silently beg and try thrusting up into her hand. It took even less time for it to become painful, not allowing that release, not able to as godly magic prevented it.
“I— I’m sorry!” Paris cried. He couldn’t feel his fingers, and that nausea was growing again. “I’ve been— I’ve been cowardly. I’ve been a— a disappointment. I’ve— been wrong to— to throw my life away. Please, please…”
“Do you understand everything I’ve said to you?” She was smiling still, she was fucking grinning.
“Yes!” Paris thrust into her hand and felt the wetness of his cheeks, knew he was crying but didn’t know when he’d started. “Yes, I understand, I’m— sorry, I’m sorry!”
She released the hold of that enchantment, loosened her hold on his hair, and the release struck Paris like a spear to the chest, groaning aloud, breathless.
“Was that so hard?” Aphrodite let him go completely, and Paris collapsed back onto the bed, hardly able to catch himself on his elbows. When he was able to look up again, able to start to catch his breath, her hand was clean and she looked more comfortably mortal once again. Her eyes were an even blue, if a bit too bright, and her hair remained blonde, no downy white feathers in sight. “Clean yourself up, and I will fetch your wife.” She glanced down, where he’d released on his just-cleaned abdomen, and looked back up to meet his eyes. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
As quickly as she’d appeared to take him from the field, she was gone. Paris couldn’t even recall if she left using the door, or if he’d blinked and she vanished.
It didn’t matter. Because he’d cleaned himself up in dreadful silence, wiped his face clean of smeared kohl, sweat, dirt and tears, and when he caught sight of his pathetic face in the reflection of the basin water he fell into cries once again. It didn’t matter what’d happened, he told himself. It didn’t matter what Aphrodite came to do with him, what she used him for, whether her rescue from the field meant anything about her actual fondness of him, because everyone else would call him a coward and a whore regardless.
He wasn’t made to be a leader, because leaders weren’t cowardly whores. Leaders didn’t curl up on their bedroom floor and sob, didn’t want so badly to be a nobody-peasant-son-of-a-herdsman again, didn’t want to avoid his own wife if it meant he didn’t have to be touched again that day. If it meant he could crawl beneath his bed the same way he did when he was a child and curl into a ball and not exist for a little while.
Then Helen burst through the doors. And she was already screaming, calling him pathetic, a coward, shameful for being swept away despite not having a choice to have done so. When Paris forced himself to shove everything he’d felt that last hour deep, deep down into his body, when Aphrodite’s spell sewed into his flesh once again, he could see a very familiar dread in Helen’s eyes, too.
So Paris wasn’t exactly comfortable with being left in charge. But the King and Queen were both— gone, walked into the desert, and the only one left with any semblance of responsibility was the King’s captain that was strangely quiet and unhelpful.
He couldn’t exactly say he knew what to do when left alone with Alegenor and the entire Spartan army. Or what remained of it, that is.
“They didn’t…” Paris tried pulling the blanket off of himself, but with his wildly shaking hands he couldn’t do more than clumsily push it off. “They did not say… where they were going?”
Alegenor had been very clearly distressed by something since he’d woken, but had refused to say why. “I told him to leave,” he muttered, almost as though he were unaware he was speaking. “I told Chrestos to leave. Helen followed him. I— I went out a while ago, to see where they went, but they were gone and no one knew what direction to point me in.”
Paris groaned aloud. “You are not in charge in the absence of the King?”
It wasn’t something Alegenor wanted to think about. “I am. But I do not wish to be, and would rather you take a job that requires far more charisma than I could ever have.”
More charisma? How so? The men listened to Alegenor, respected him. The second any Achaean heard Paris’ accent, they assumed stupidity before anything else.
“I wanted you dead,” Alegenor added, which startled Paris enough that he turned fully to the captain. “When you appeared on our ship. I prayed to the gods for your death. After you got better in Egypt and the crew started to like you, I was thinking about killing you myself.”
A shiver swept down Paris’ spine, rightfully. “Why… didn’t you?”
Alegenor turned his eyes up to him again, but Paris still couldn’t read him. “Because,” he said, voice low and shaky, “Chrestos was right. You remind me of my dead younger brother.”
Icy-cold dread cut down his spine, enough that Paris jolted where he sat and felt an immediate itch in his eyes. Because he immediately knew what Alegenor was talking about; he remembered the deep unease about Alegenor after he and Chrestos had beaten those men away from him in Aethiopia, after Chrestos had said “Besides, you remind me a bit of my brother.” He’d not meant his own brother. Of course he hadn’t.
“His name was Dositheos,” Alegenor murmured, and Paris leaned towards him to hear better. “He was killed at the end of the eighth year. He was—” Something close to a laugh puffed out of him. “He was an idiot. Endearingly,” he added, when Paris furrowed his brow. “Chrestos pointed out that you talk the same as him. That your mannerisms are so, so similar. And they are.”
Paris felt that all-too-familiar pang of dark guilt strike his chest, as it did every time he heard of a death during the war. “And that made you no longer feel murderous towards me?”
Another breathy almost-laugh escaped Alegenor. “That, and you are— frustratingly, annoyingly endearing. I’m meaning to say you are far more capable of being a leader than you think. Dositheos was.”
Paris wasn’t quite sure how to react to that. Fortunately, he didn’t really have to — the flap of fabric over the entrance of this blanketed room lifted, and in came a soldier Paris couldn’t say he even recognized, but he never put in an effort to learn any of these men’s names. He said something lowly and worriedly to Alegenor in their Achaean tongue so quickly Paris wasn’t really able to catch it, which was unusual. Something-something-horse, he thought.
“What’s happened?” Paris asked, the moment Alegenor dismissed him. “Nothing about the King or Queen?”
Alegenor shook his head and got slowly to his feet. The dog that’d previously been lain over Paris huffed, stood, and shook off a fine layer of dust, which Paris had to swat away. There was a look of true offense on the tazi’s face, and with another disgusted huff it trotted from the room.
“One of the horses is lame,” Alegenor said, finally getting Paris’ attention again. “They’re apparently worried about a few of them, so we’re to take a look.”
Paris paused. “We?”
Alegenor sent a look he couldn’t quite figure out. “Yes, Alexander, we. What did you miss about the conversation we just had?”
He had, for possibly the first time, not said that name like it was a curse, like it meant something awful, and Paris wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about that. He must’ve paused a second too long, because Alegenor had leaned over to offer a hand with raised eyebrows.
“Are you— able to?” He scanned Paris, sat there vaguely trembling. “Or are you going to start crying again if I touch you?”
Paris sent a glare and took the offered hand just to shut him up. “Fuck off. Help me stand.”
Despite the fact that Alegenor was definitely holding back another jab of some kind, he wordlessly lifted Paris with all the care of a soldier used to carrying injured comrades off the field. Paris knew Chrestos had that kind of gentleness to him, but he’d not expected it from Alegenor; but he should’ve, if he’d had a younger brother much like Paris. One that, he’d assume, got into as much trouble as him.
Still, he helped Paris stand relatively stable (as stable as he could stand, that is), and said nothing as he guided him to the flap of the tent, where he bent down and handed over his crook.
“You’re fine walking just with that?” Alegenor nodded at the crook, not letting Paris go until he planted it atop rugs and took a stumbling step forward. There wasn’t much judgement in that question, just a genuine ask.
Paris shrugged and stepped forward again, trying to make sure he had enough balance, but he didn’t feel any worse than he did the last time he woke. “Fine enough,” he said. “But if I fall and twist an ankle, I’m blaming you.”
Alegenor rolled his eyes and lead them both from the blanketed room, but there was a small smile crooking the edges of his lips.
The horses were restless.
They’d been restless for months, practically since they started this journey into a wasteland, but even the mules and donkeys were very clearly unhappy. The soldiers watching them in the corral, or whatever they’d managed to stake up while they stayed with these nomads, were nervously holding their dorata like they were ready to spear the poor beasts.
“Eftychídas,” Alegenor called, and the same soldier that’d entered the tent before turned with a much more worried expression on his face. “Which one?”
The soldier looked Paris over for a moment, not appearing to have expected him. Paris tried not to shrink under that gaze, strangely… exposed, without Helen or Menelaos.
“Over here,” Eftychídas said, nodding to the side and walking no more than a few feet to where three soldiers held the reins and bridle of a very agitated gelding. The poor thing couldn’t put the least bit of pressure on its front right leg, but continued thrashing in the soldiers’ grip, stomping in the sand and trying to bite anyone who got close enough.
“…Should probably kill the beast,” Eftychídas was saying to Alegenor, gesturing at the leg making it lame. This man had a strange, stronger accent compared to many of the other Spartans Paris had met, but when Alegenor responded he appeared to lean more into that accent, too. Perhaps a countryside accent? Hadn’t Alegenor said he was from a village on the hillsides north of Sparta?
“Which is why I’ve brought our horse-man,” Alegenor huffed, clapping Paris on the shoulder a bit lighter than Paris had expected. “No need to kill a needed resource if it’s not necessary.”
Paris had been studying the gelding since they’d first looked upon it. Eftychídas scoffed under his breath, so Paris made a point to ignore him and lifted the rope around the corral with his crook to walk towards the horse.
“It’ll bite you!” called the soldier holding the bridle, and Paris laughed aloud.
“You think I’ve never been bitten?” He only glanced slightly towards him, to not entirely knock his balance off-center, and stopped a few feet away. The gelding whinnied and shook his head, lifting up a bit on his back legs, as though to kick with the uninjured foreleg, but Paris stepped to the side. The soldier on the lame side yanked the reins, and once again the gelding bit towards him.
“It’s not one of ours,” Eftychídas shouted from behind them. “We got this one from the Aethiopians.”
“Untrained,” commented the man on the other side, who yanked on the reins to pull the biting, frothing mouth away from his companion. “Feral.”
Paris raised a hand, moving it quickly away when the horse tried to bite, then moved it back into place. It was breathing very, very quickly, nostrils flared, spitting stringy, frothy saliva. But after the first attempt at a bite, it didn’t try to chomp at his hand again, and Paris did not move it from where it was raised.
“Back off,” Paris said, tucking the crook under his arm to reach for the reins. The soldier holding it did not hand it over, especially not when the gelding thrashed its tail and leaned as though to kick out again. “Give me the reins. Back off.”
Still, the man did not hand them over, and didn’t move to do anything Paris said until Alegenor called from behind: “Listen to him, Damippus.” And the soldier handed over the reins and backed away. Paris had to turn his head briefly to Alegenor, then, just to send a look with raised eyebrows, and turned back to the horse. More capable of being a leader than you think, my ass, he thought.
“You too,” Paris said, to the other man with the reins, and took it from him, too. The one holding the bridle still didn’t look close to listening, and was now watching Paris like he was insane, which really made him feel like the ‘horse-man’. Damn his trust in Alegenor, what the hell was he talking about, before? In what way were the men going to listen to him?
“Men,” Alegenor sighed. “I’ve said, listen to him. The King is not present, nor is his Queen. I am in charge here, in case you have forgotten.”
“We’ve not,” said the man holding the bridle. “And we’ve also not forgotten that this idiot is Ilian, and a war-prize the King is not around to protect.”
A shiver cut down Paris’ spine, something dark and dreadful and sickening dropping in his gut he hadn’t felt since those three men had assaulted him in Aethiopia. Perhaps Alegenor saw his posture change, but the gelding looked about ready to bite again, and Paris would not be stupid enough to take his eyes off it.
“For the gods—” Alegenor spat. “He’s Ilian, you fool, so obviously he knows his horses. And if you intend on harming our guest, I will gladly mete out our King’s punishment myself, right here and now. Do what he says and I won’t have a reason to beat the shit out of you later.”
So finally, finally, because his own men respected him enough, the one holding the bridle stepped back and let go. Immediately the gelding thrashed its head and snorted, and Paris lowered his hand to step carefully around its injured side.
“This should be good,” one of the men muttered, and Paris closed his eyes for a moment just to quiet his loud mind, to shut off those dumb thoughts, to imagine he was nowhere near this place, with no memory of war or killing and death of men. When he was not, nor was he ever expected to be, a leader.
And when he opened his eyes again he could see the mountainsides of Ida, the broad sloping fields, the flocks and herds, and in front of him was merely one of Agelaos’ workhorses.
“Consistent movement, boy, consistent movement,” he’d always said, starting from when Paris was so young he hardly had control of his own body. Agelaos’ horses weren’t like those in Ilion, not like Hektor’s horses he worked so hard with on training and trust. No, Paris thought he had more scars on his arms from horse-bites than he did from any of their other stock.
This gelding was in so much pain; he could see it in the panic of those dark brown eyes, in the flaring of those rapidly moving nostrils, in the hyperventilating filling and deflating its broad chest. But he did not know this animal, was not friendly with it, so whatever chance he had of keeping it calm while he searched for the injury was low.
“Who is this one close with?” Paris turned his head to Alegenor and the soldiers now gathered around him, and tried his very best not to be affected in any way by the amused expressions. “A friend in the herd, perhaps?”
Eftychídas thought about it, then nodded. “Paddock next to you. Just ahead.”
Paris leaned and saw a black gelding staring over the rope of its corral, ears all the way forward, sharp. “Bring it through.”
Eftychídas paused, but fortunately needed no more scolding from Alegenor to listen. He stepped forward and untied the rope, letting it drop for the black horse to immediately rush through to the injured one. Paris smirked at the disappearing expressions of amusement from the men as the previously violent horse visibly relaxed and bonked heads with its friend. Paris raised a hand again, and the injured beast in his grasp made no move to bite when he stroked the side of its face. Good.
Its hoof appeared to be the issue, at least from afar, so Paris held the reins in one hand as the other brushed over its shoulder and down that wounded leg. Its ears pinned, but still it didn’t move to attack, so Paris only stopped when he was at the ankle of the thing.
He’d been right — it was the hoof.
If that’s what he could call it; the shoe that’d at some point fitted to it was mangled, looking to have been burned by desert heat into the hoof itself, blackening and flaky where metal met hoof-horn. He’d not seen something like this before, or at least not to this point; he’d seen plenty of workhorses with shoes long overdue for replacement, and cracked hoof-horn, but how this poor gelding had gotten to this point was beyond him.
“Gods,” Paris muttered, setting down his crook on the ground beside him, carefully to not startle the on-edge animals around him, then turned his head towards Alegenor, who was watching with frankly far more interest than Paris ever would have expected. “Alegenor,” he called, “bring me your knife.”
There was a look of incredulity on Alegenor’s face only for a moment, but then he was crouching under the corral’s rope-fence and walking slowly towards him.
“Stop slowing down,” Paris huffed. “You’re freaking him out. Just walk steadily. And don’t look him in the eye.”
Alegenor did as he said, though still he was hesitant in passing over the knife, sheathed in worn leather.
“Hold his reins,” Paris added, passing off the reins so he could properly kneel at the injured hoof. “How sharp is your knife?”
Alegenor did not turn his gaze from the gelding and his friend. “Sharpened it just the other day.”
Good, Paris thought, because he was likely going to chip it. He brushed his hands down the horse’s leg again, then lifted its ankle, and sighed in relief when it did not resist. He held the sheathed knife between his teeth, momentarily, so he could lift and rest the ankle on his raised knee, then took a deep breath and unsheathed the blade.
He could not be more glad that the beast did not react. Perhaps, Paris thought, it knew he was going to help, as it sometimes appeared animals did. Still, he kept half an eye on the gelding as he wedged the blade between the shoe and the hoof wall, and tried only to steady his always-shaking hands to pry upwards. The metal separated from burnt horn, and it was only then, as nails pulled slick from pus-filled cavities, that the horse screamed and lifted up on its hind legs.
“Woah, woah,” Paris breathed, falling back on his ass, knocked off balance. Gods, it was hot — he was going to very quickly get dizzy and faint, in this heat. “Hold— hold him, Alegenor.”
Alegenor was, to give him credit, doing an excellent job staying silent and calm. At least, on the surface; Paris had no doubt he’d get a scolding from Alegenor later. With a steady hand on the reins, though, eventually the gelding lowered back to its three uninjured hooves and lifted the half-pried shoe towards Paris again. He must’ve known, then, that he was helping.
“It’s alright,” he puffed out, holding the horse’s leg and sitting up once again. It was watching Paris, this time, head tipped towards him, eyes so wide the whites were near always visible. He took another deep breath and eased the shoe up from the sole, only using the flat of the knife. It was… vile. Smelled rotten. Like meat left out in hot sun, festering for far too long.
Eventually the shoe fell away and dropped heavy to the sand, and the gelding let out a rather satisfying snort and shook its head. The black companion on the other side snorted sympathetically, then leaned to rest its head on the other’s back.
“Ādduwakuišša,” Paris hissed, looking over the remnants of rotted hoof horn and soft tissue.
“That won’t heal,” said the soldier still watching over the rope-fence, Eftychídas. “That wound. It’ll never heal well enough. We should just slaughter the poor beast and be done with it.”
“No,” Paris said, unwavering. “This can be cut away, wrapped. Anyone have alcohol on them? Wine, beer?”
The soldier Paris thought was called Damippus groaned and crouched under the rope to hand his wine skein to Alegenor, who passed it down. Paris stroked the length of the horse’s leg as he uncorked the skein and let the strong wine trickle over sensitive skin and open flesh. The gelding pinned its ears, shook its head and snorted, and Alegenor leaned away.
What an awful day this was. If only Paris could give his opiates to this animal.
Much of the rotted, loose flesh and fluids had washed from the hoof, so Paris took the knife again and kept his hands as steady as they could manage to make shallow, long cuts over the hoof wall, not yet cutting into the frog; but the gelding wasn’t reacting, so he sliced into that, too.
It was quick work, though, and Paris only stopped cutting when the snorting of the horse became a bit too frequent and its movement too constant. He didn’t want Alegenor to get bit, after all. So he set the knife down in the sand and said nothing as Alegenor passed over a long strip of linen — bandage, it looked like, that he must’ve had on hand. Paris wrapped the hoof as tightly as he could, then lifted and set it down. And for a moment, the gelding looked like he didn’t know what to do, how to walk, but it set down the foot tentatively over and over until it leaned on it, whinnied, and bent its head to mouth Paris’ hair.
“Yes, yes,” Paris huffed, laughing as he struggled to his feet. “You’re welcome.”
Alegenor handed Paris his crook and, desperately, the reins, which he took both of and adjusted his stance before reaching up to pat the horse again.
“Do not,” Alegenor hissed, low enough not to be heard by the other soldiers, “make me do something like that again.”
Paris laughed aloud and clapped Alegenor on the shoulder. “Thank you. Should we maybe start looking for the King and Queen, now?”
Alegenor grumbled something under his breath and turned to his men once again. “Load the carriages. We set off for the coast.”