The Blind Swordmaster Took In His Own Assassin novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Well

Ryeo-won asked Ra-on to wash his back at the well, and the poison pin stayed in Ra-on's hair.

It took Ra-on two days to find the weak spot in the Blind Swordmaster's life, and the weak spot was his back.

Ryeo-won could not wash it himself.

Dong-ju had refused to scrub it any more, after what the boy called "the incident with the bamboo brush."

So on the third morning Ryeo-won stood at the well with his robe slipped down to his waist.

The rain was finally gone.

"Servant," he said, to the air beside Ra-on's ear.

"Do you scrub?"

"I scrub," Ra-on said.

"Gently?"

"As gently as you need," Ra-on said, and then heard how it sounded and wished the well would swallow him.

Ryeo-won smiled at the stones.

In Ra-on's hair rag was a poison pin no longer than a finger.

One scratch on the neck, two hours, and a death that would look like a fever.

He had planned every step while he made breakfast.

He kept the rag tied on his head and dipped a washcloth in the tub of warm water.

Then he laid it against Ryeo-won's shoulder.

The skin was hot under the wet cloth, and the muscle moved beneath it, alive and strong.

Ryeo-won was all long lines.

There was a white puckered scar low on his left side, and another over the right shoulder blade.

"Ask," Ryeo-won said.

"Ask what?"

"Whatever you're thinking."

"It's a loud thing, thinking."

"I hear it in your breath."

"I'm thinking you've been stabbed a lot," Ra-on said.

"A dozen times," said the Blind Swordmaster, with dignity.

"And you?"

"Me?"

"You hold the cloth like someone who's been hit."

"You flinch when it touches the bone."

Ra-on stopped.

His hand was resting on Ryeo-won's spine, and he had not known he was flinching.

Ryeo-won reached back without looking and found his wrist, as lightly as he had in the dark.

He drew Ra-on's hand around to the front of his shoulder.

"May I?" he asked.

Ra-on did not understand until Ryeo-won's other hand came up and found his forearm.

The fingers began to read him.

They went slowly from his wrist up his forearm, which Ra-on kept bare by tying his sleeve back with a red string.

"Whip, here," Ryeo-won said quietly.

"Wire, here, a thin one."

"This is a burn from a lamp, and somebody did it on purpose."

"This is a knife, and it healed badly because nobody sewed it."

"You were small."

"I was nine," Ra-on said.

He had not meant to say it.

It came out of him.

Ryeo-won's thumb pressed gently on the knife scar.

"And now you cook, and haul water, and carry four knives," he said, "for a man you've never met."

The pin in Ra-on's rag felt very heavy.

He could have done it right then.

Ryeo-won's throat was a handspan from his face, turned up to the sun.

Instead Ra-on heard himself say, "You shouldn't touch people like this."

"Some of them like it."

"You do too."

Ra-on did not answer.

"Your breath changed," Ryeo-won said, as if remarking on the weather.

"It goes in quickly and comes out slow."

"Tell me where."

"Where what?"

"Where you'd like my hand."

Ra-on's mouth went dry as paper.

He had done everything a body can do, for the Hall, as a job.

Nobody had ever asked him where he wanted it.

"Here," he whispered, and pressed Ryeo-won's palm flat against his stomach, under the tunic.

The hand was big and warm.

Ryeo-won let out a breath that was almost a laugh.

He drew Ra-on closer by the waist until Ra-on's forehead rested on his bare chest.

"Good," Ryeo-won said into his hair.

"That's very good."

"Keep telling me."

"Lower," Ra-on said.

The fingers slid beneath the knot of his sash.

Ra-on made a short, ugly, grateful sound when they closed around his hard cock.

Ryeo-won heard every part of it and answered with a low hum in his chest.

"There he is," he said.

"There's my servant."

He stroked Ra-on's shaft slowly, with the whole length of his calloused palm.

The sun was warm on Ra-on's back, and water dripped from the cloth he had dropped.

Ra-on slid his own hand into Ryeo-won's trousers and found his thick cock already hard and hot.

Ryeo-won's breath stopped.

"Ah," he said, and it was a lovely sound.

"Don't stop."

"I want to hear what you do."

"You're big," Ra-on said, because it was true and because he could.

"Big and stupid, leaving your gate open for anyone."

"Mm."

"And you're tight as a drawn bow, and your hand is shaking, and I like it."

"Stroke me harder," Ryeo-won breathed.

Ra-on wanted.

He worked Ryeo-won's cock with his whole slick fist, while Ryeo-won rocked his hips into his hand with his teeth in his lower lip.

Every time Ra-on did something right, Ryeo-won told him.

"Like that."

"Just like that."

"You're good at this, so good."

Ra-on had been called good at a hundred things.

He had never wanted to be good for a man's voice.

Ryeo-won's thumb found the wet slit at the head of his cock and circled it once, and Ra-on came hard.

He spilled across Ryeo-won's hand with his face in Ryeo-won's neck, shaking, saying something that was not a word.

Ryeo-won held him up by the waist the whole time.

A moment later Ryeo-won followed, with a hoarse sound against Ra-on's ear and hot cum pulsing over Ra-on's knuckles.

He said Ra-on's false name like a prayer.

"Mu-seok."

Ra-on flinched.

Ryeo-won felt it, and his hand came up and cupped Ra-on's jaw.

"I don't mind," he said.

"Whatever your name is."

Then he kissed Ra-on.

It was slow and sure, and tasted of rice porridge and mint, and Ra-on forgot all four of his knives.

When Ryeo-won let him go, Ra-on stood there with the pin in his rag and his knees gone.

"Scrub the rest of my back," Ryeo-won said gently, "when you're able."

Something black tumbled out of the plum tree.

A crow landed on the well rim and fixed a bright eye on Ra-on, with a strip of paper tied to its leg.

He took it off with a wet hand.

There was one line in the Hall's neat script.

Twenty-seven days.

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