Chapter Text
Izzy Hands was the most feared and respected fighter in all King Edward's lands, and very far beyond them too. He was a legend; there were songs about him.
But when they weren’t riding out to war with some neighboring kingdom, Izzy was Ed’s executioner. It lacked imagination, a little, but so did a lot of what Edward chose to do as a king. Izzy would have killed to be on Ed’s council, at least for war decisions, or to be a knight, or something that didn’t take the fact of his common birth and throw it back into his face. Executioner was not a job for the gentry, to say the least.
And Edward’s central jail was small, four rooms, so Izzy either executed people quickly or ended up tasked with their care. Being a de facto jailer was also far from noble.
He couldn’t believe that being Edward’s right-hand man on the battlefield time and again hadn’t yielded a more advantageous position for him, but that was the will of his king, and Izzy was obliged to comply — even if he privately thought the king was a prize idiot for his choice.
He heaved himself to his feet, loath to leave the fire in the grate in the jailer’s room, which doubled as his home, but called to do what Ed would have him do.
And what Ed would have him do now is make breakfast for the prisoners. Well. Prisoner.
The cells had been full last week, but two men were freed by a new magistrate who Izzy thought was inviting trouble, and one Izzy himself had hanged by the neck until dead. The remaining man was slight, hunched over as if to hide from Izzy whenever he saw him, in prison for some stupid petty crime, and, unfortunately, the most gorgeous man Izzy had ever seen.
He wasn’t meant to notice things like that. The men who came through the jail were all as good as dead — or had been, until Judge Bonnet started to preside in the capital and free two of every three criminals. Izzy waited for Ed to rein him in, but what actually happened was a horror beyond his comprehension: Edward was in love with Bonnet. Izzy hadn’t even thought Edward could be in love if he’d wanted to. But apparently so.
Edward’s love life notwithstanding, Izzy had to regard all prisoners, even the most beautiful, as effectively corpses. There was no room for attachment, or admiration, or special treatment. They died or they left, and Izzy acted accordingly.
As he shook precious cinnamon into the porridge he was preparing for his lone prisoner, he actively denied that this was anything out of the ordinary. Certainly not. Just keeping up Edward’s high standards of hospitality, Izzy was. It meant nothing that he was feeding the man oats from his own store with butter and spice.
He proceeded into the jail proper, whistling a tune he’d heard in a tavern a few nights ago.
“You can carry a tune,” his prisoner observed. “I didn’t know.”
Izzy nodded.
“I’m full of surprises,” he said. “Breakfast.”
The prisoner took his meal from between the gap in the bars (a gap Izzy wasn’t entirely sure the prisoner couldn’t make it through himself, thin as he was) with a muttered thanks. He dug in — no pretty manners here — and groaned a little. Izzy felt his leather trousers become that much less comfortable.
“Cinnamon?” the prisoner asked. “I’ve only had cinnamon once in my life.”
“Stole it, I reckon,” Izzy said, which wasn’t what he wanted to say at all.
“Yeah,” the prisoner said, “stole it. From my master, though, which I’ve always thought was fair play.”
Izzy thought about it. No one in Edward’s kingdom was owned, whether as a slave or an indentured servant or a serf, so he figured his prisoner was from elsewhere. It made sense; if he were local, Izzy might have seen him once or twice, at a tavern or in the market. The capital was very, very small. If he were from the outlying lands, bets were off, but even in the furthest-outlying places, no one owned anyone. It was a specific, repeated edict from the king.
Not that people weren’t exploited. Izzy himself was the son of a woman in service who had nowhere else to go by design. But no one was, on paper, the property of anyone else. That law was what had brought Edward’s kingdom to Bonnet’s attention, and the reason he had settled there. Swings and roundabouts, Izzy supposed.
“No one owns anyone here,” Izzy said. “Not like that.”
“Brilliant,” his prisoner said. “I’ll keep that in mind if I ever get out.” He licked the porridge bowl. “Guess I’ll die a free man, more than I expected for myself.”
All that Izzy could give this man was butter, cinnamon, and the news that he was free. It had to be enough; it was more than had given any other prisoner at any time. Why did he feel like it wasn’t sufficient?
The prisoner handed the bowl back and Izzy was overcome with the wild urge to lick where his tongue had been. He restrained himself, as always.
“I’ll be back with lunch,” he said.
“Three squares,” the prisoner said. “Can’t tell you how often I’ve wished for a dry bed and three squares.”
“Sorry,” Izzy got out.
“No,” the prisoner said, “I’m going out in style.” He narrowed his eyes at Izzy. “If I am going out. Do you know?”
“I don’t,” Izzy said. “Couldn’t tell you if I did, mind.”
“No,” the prisoner said, settling on his mat and covering himself with his thin blanket as though a lord in his four-poster bed. “Suppose you couldn’t.”
Izzy’s head was spinning with images of his prisoner as he walked back to his room. A beautiful man, dark, with curly hair and kind eyes. Someone Izzy would have bought a drink for at the tavern and tried to talk into his bed, rather than the alley round back. Someone he would have made porridge for the next morning, with butter and cinnamon, trying to keep him close.
Too late for all that. This man was, in all likelihood, fated to die.
The front doors of the prison clanged open. The only other person with keys was Edward, who liked to pop in at all hours for a variety of reasons and often no reason at all.
“Hey,” Edward called out.
“My room,” Izzy said as loudly as he could.
Ed opened the door and walked in like he owned the place, which he did.
“I’ve been talking to Stede,” Edward said, sitting on Izzy’s bed.
Izzy schooled his features into a mask of polite curiosity.
“Thinks we should elevate you, man,” Edward said.
Izzy schooled his features harder.
“Due to your service, and all,” Ed clarified. “He thinks that if you can manage a marriage, we can manage an elevation. Do you think you can do that?”
Izzy bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. Bonnet saw him as a rival, and this marriage plan was transparent. Get Izzy away from Edward by pairing him off. Bonnet hadn’t noticed, or hadn’t cared to notice, that Izzy’s devotion to Ed was more like that of a dog to his owner than a swain to his beloved, and that there was never any competition with what Ed and Bonnet had anyway.
But elevation? Izzy would do anything for that. Finally to have what he deserved after his loyal service to Edward, finally to show everyone who looked down on him because of his birth that he was as worthy as they were, finally to own money or land or something to pass on (to his nephew, likely, but still).
“I think I can do that,” Izzy said, clipped and careful. “A woman?”
Edward laughed.
“No, Iz,” he said, “not a woman. We’re not trying to make you a different person. Just get you settled.” He tapped his long fingers against his knees. “Do you have anyone in mind?”
For one blissful and ridiculous moment, Izzy imagined his prisoner, sleeping or pretending to sleep in his cell.
“Anyone?” Izzy asked. Edward always spoke carefully. If Izzy needed to marry landed gentry to get this done, he’d do it.
“Yeah,” Ed said carelessly, “anyone at all.”
Izzy pulled himself into his best at-ease posture.
“I want my prisoner,” he said. “For a husband.”
Ed laughed uproariously.
“Why not!” he exclaimed. “He’s yours, we’ll call off his trial and you can have him.”
“If he’ll have me,” Izzy countered.
Ed laughed again.
“Sure. If he likes being alive, he’ll have you.”
***
“No,” his prisoner said.
“No?” Izzy asked. “I ask to save your life and plop you into the lap of luxury and you’re telling me no?”
“I don’t give a fuck about luxury,” the prisoner said. “I’ll save my own life. I don’t like being beholden to anyone. Anyone thinking they own me.”
“You’d be doing me a favor,” Izzy says. “I can’t get nobility without marriage.”
“What do you want nobility for?” the prisoner asked, squinting at Izzy. “That your thing?”
“No,” Izzy said, “my thing is sleeping in a soft bed and never missing a meal and having something to pass on.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you there,” the prisoner said, gesturing at himself.
“To my nephew, you twat,” Izzy said with a smile. “But look. How often have you had a warm place to sleep and all the food you could eat? Never?”
“Never,” the prisoner agreed. “But I’m fine as I am. I’m a free man now.”
“You could be so much more,” Izzy said. “You could have an army of servants, someone to do everything for you.”
“Fuck off,” the prisoner said. “I don’t want servants .”
“Then we won’t have any,” Izzy said easily. No skin off his nose.
“I don’t want to marry someone who’s trying to tempt me with servants,” the prisoner said. “Not interested.”
“Look,” Izzy said, irritated. “I’m trying to save your life. I stay up all night thinking about —”
“About having to kill me?” his prisoner guessed. “Maybe you should have a different job, then. I’ve faked my death three times before now at the gallows and I can do it again, no need to worry about me.”
“Please,” Izzy said finally. “Just give me — give me six months of marriage. If you hate it after that, you’re free to go. I won’t stop you.”
His prisoner looked at him for a long time.
“You really want me?” he asked. “Specifically?”
“Yes,” Izzy admitted. “I want you specifically.”
His prisoner cracked his neck and looked up at Izzy.
“On your head be it, then,” he said. “I’ve never made a good husband before and I don’t plan to start now.”
“I don’t need a good husband,” Izzy said. “Just you.”
“Smooth,” his prisoner said. “Smooth. Yeah, all right. Six months. Shake?”
Izzy stuck his hand through the bars and they shook. The prisoner’s hand was softer than Izzy had expected, and warmer than another person’s skin had ever been next to his.
“Hey,” his prisoner said, still holding his hand, “what’s your name, anyway?”
***
Izzy and Frenchie, as the prisoner was called (though he wouldn’t clarify whether it was his Christian name), stood in Izzy’s room, looking at each other.
“Surprised you didn’t leave me in the cell,” Frenchie said. “You know, for insurance.”
“I’m going to marry you,” Izzy said. “I have to trust you, at least a little.”
Frenchie nodded.
“Fair,” he said. “Fair. Look, why don’t we get this over with? I know there’s a church nearby, I’m always hearing the damn bells. Can’t we just go over to the priest and get hitched?”
Izzy liked this idea more than he could say.
“I’m afraid the king is planning our nuptials, actually,” he said. “They’re going to be — a big to-do, I guess. All kinds of visiting lords and shit.”
Frenchie rolled his eyes.
“Of course,” he said. “King meddling in my private life, that’s one thing that’s never happened to me.”
“Get used to it,” Izzy recommended. “That’s my whole life, more or less.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Frenchie said, sitting on the bed and taking his shoes off. “You know, at the end of six months, if I run away, you can come with me.”
“That’s very gracious,” Izzy said.
Frenchie narrowed his eyes at him.
“That’s a no, ain’t it?” he asked.
“Probably,” Izzy said. “Unless we do something that means we have to go on the run.”
Frenchie flopped back on the bed, burrowing under the blanket.
“Sounds fun,” he said casually. “You getting in?”
He patted the bed beside him.
“Sure, yeah,” Izzy said, shucking his trousers and undoing his prosthetic leg. Frenchie was going to find out sooner or later.
From the bed, Frenchie gave a low whistle.
“That’s a damn good fake leg,” he said. “I’d never have guessed.”
“War wound,” Izzy said, busying himself with folding his trousers and taking off his shirt and blowing out his candles.
“Get in bed, future husband,” Frenchie urged, and, being essentially obedient in his heart of hearts, Izzy did as he was told.
Frenchie immediately wrapped his arms around Izzy.
“We’re getting married,” he said to Izzy’s scowling face, barely visible in the moonlight. “Get used to it.”
“Guess I’d better,” Izzy said, and brushed his lips softly against Frenchie’s cheekbone, willing himself not to give away how long and how much he’d fantasized about doing so. “Night.”
“Night,” Frenchie said, and promptly fell asleep.