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But he finds his way and the baths are indeed ready. The room is tiled in Azurian green and gold. The high windows let in morning sun that glitters on the surface of the water. Water that is heated and scented. He sheds his clothes. His battered leather jerkin with the torn patch on the breast, his leather breeches, his undershirt and boots, and sinks naked into the warm water.

Finally, he relaxes. This is his home, earned with his sweat and blood. This life he carved for himself from nothing. A dead whore’s bastard son.

And here he is, in the rich tiled baths of his own manor, in hot scented water. With a full house of servants and a beautiful young wife who wants nothing more than to bed him and bear his sons.

It should be enough for any man, but all he can think of is Lyr. And most particularly Lyr’s face as he begged to be allowed Damon’s cock in his mouth, while he writhed, full of that bewitching pleasure drug.

The idea of foribunda had fascinated Damon when he first heard about it. Who had told him of its existence? He had only been a boy. Lukas, perhaps, or even his father. No, he thinks, tracing the surface of the rippling water with his fingers. It was Tobi. Tobi had always been cocksure and wise beyond his years. He’d told Damon and Lukas all sorts of things about the wild world he inhabited travelling with his mother and her troupe of performers. And he told them about foribunda. He’d seen it used, he said, by pillow workers who travelled with the troupe. He described its effects with laughing glee.

The idea of that drug had ignited something in Damon. He had never forgotten it.

When he’d grown into a man in the Azurian army he’d still thought about foribunda. When he’d lost his virginity to his General on the dirt floor of a tent in Fanost, he thought how sweet it would be to instead have another young soldier who had caught his eye kneeling before him, desperate and needy, begging for him as foribunda made him weak.

Plumillar had taken it once. Teasing Damon about his silly obsession with the drug. He’d thought nothing of taking a dose of it for Damon’s pleasure, letting it wash through him until he was writhing for Damon’s cock.

It had aroused Damon so much to take Plumillar in that state, he had thought himself on the edge of madness.

But how Plumillar had looked when he had taken the foribunda paled when he compared it to Lyr. Strange beautiful Lyr who looked unlike anyone Damon had ever seen. Who had carvings on his chest that seemed to glow with strange magic.

Lyr begging for him in breathy, sweet Magaar.

How Damon had resisted it he isn’t sure.

He is still thinking of that and only that as he climbs from the water, pulls on a linen shift and finds his way to his private quarters. Large rooms at the back of the manor, with a stone terrace that looks out over the stable yard and gardens.

He thinks of Lyr as he lies down on his bed. He rubs the back of his hand over his hardening cock, his mind filling with the night before and all the things he didn’t do. Lyr, writhing, begging to be fucked so desperately he lapsed into Magaar.

It's dangerous to keep him. He should send him away. Find him a place in the kitchens of some other great house. It would be a simple matter to do so. To hide him somewhere. Attar is a big city. There are people here from all over the world.

Lyr and his secrets would melt away.

He should rid himself of Lyr and all the temptation he represents.

He won’t.

He won’t send him away, he will simply resist him.

Damon’s resolve holds as long as it takes for him to catch a glimpse of Lyr.

It happens two days later. Damon is walking through the yard at the back of the manor to inspect the stables. It’s early morning, he hasn’t even stopped to break his fast and he pauses in shock as he passes the pump behind the manor. The jolt of emotion he feels seems to knock the breath from his body.

Lyr is washing at the pump. He’s wearing a pair of loose brown breeches and a short linen shift that covers up the marks on his chest and back. The swirls and dots that cover his arms and shoulders are clear in the sunshine.

He has his head under the pump, his long dark hair is slick and wet.

Damon cannot help himself, he leans against the stable wall to watch. His whole body seems to hum softly. Not with the usual savage lust he feels when he thinks of Lyr, but with something else. Something warm and pleasant.

The feeling takes him by surprise. He’s never felt anything quite like it before and he isn’t sure what to make of it.

After only a moment, he shakes himself. He was lost in a dream. Why is he standing here watching a slave wash himself? He has duties. Before Lyr sees him, he pushes off the wall and marches into the stables.

But when he’s been shown the horses, two fine carriages and several carts by the head groom, he still can’t shake Lyr from his mind. Kres, he knows, wants to speak with him. So he walks into the lower part of the manor.

Damon is fond of Kres. He is one of the servants he had chosen from his father’s palace household. Rafus had been generous with Damon. When word had come from Selim that he would be gifting him a manor house in Attar for him and his new wife, and a generous annual income to run it, Rafus had written to Damon and offered him the choice of any of his personal servants as his own.

Kres had been one of Damon’s first choices. His father’s calm, efficient second Master at Arms as his seneschal. Kres had appeared to welcome the move and the chance to run his own household.

Kres takes Damon into the small room beside the kitchen where he keeps his records and sits down to discuss the items he brought back from Jur-Mattan as his share of the spoils. What is to be sold, what is to be kept.