Martin awoke, feeling like everything had stopped. He was a long way away from the worrying decisions he had to make at work, and he was also a long way away from all the pressures of Bretwalda. He loved the group, not to put too fine a point on it. It was his baby and his pride, but shit, there was so much that needed to be done, and he ended up doing it all.

But this morning all the responsibilities he took on because someone had to if anyone was going to have any fun had been lifted off his back. It was dark behind his closed eyes—too dark for the inside of a white canvas tent on a summer morning, and the bed was too firm and too supportive for an air mattress that had been losing pressure all night long. He cracked open an eye as memory reengaged, and found that Billy had turned away from him in the night and lay on his side on the very edge of the bed, ceding Martin all the space and the duvet.

Billy looked very young there, curled like a child in the womb, his long limbs slender and coltish, his skin blued by the predawn light. Young and vulnerable.

Martin wondered what he was getting into. His sister Sheena had her depression pretty much under control now with medicine and self-help groups, but reaching a normal level of functioning was still a struggle that took up most of her daily energy. She’d changed her diet, changed her habits, given up any number of things she loved, structured her life around the illness so that she could manage it rather than letting it manage her. And still he felt the need to call every week, check with her husband that she was coping with the constant pressure of desolation on her shoulders.

Did Martin want to take on another such responsibility, given how much harder it was to hide who he was, from his father, from the school, from Bretwalda, when he was in a relationship? If he didn’t, then this would be the point to slide out of bed, throw his clothes on, and disappear. And yes, that would be a pretty awful thing to do to a guy who was as on the edge as Billy was, but it would be easier on both of them than doing it later, after Billy had begun to expect him to stay.

Billy looked cold as well as young. He’d let Martin take all the covers as though even in sleep he didn’t think he deserved them. Martin reached out a hand and touched the guy’s bare back. It was as chill as if he’d been sleeping in the fridge. Martin couldn’t have that. Carefully and quietly, he leaned in, got an arm around Billy’s waist, and drew the curled-up form against his chest, tucking the covers around them both. Billy shifted with a little complaining grumble and turned into him, tucking his head under Martin’s chin.

He was at first all elbows and knees, bony and cold, but when Martin smoothed the palm of his hand down Billy’s back, across his shoulders, he gradually unfolded, his arm going around Martin’s rib cage, his legs easing down until Martin could press their hips together and feel the welcome scald of an erect prick against his lap.

“Morning, springbok.” He smiled and cupped his hands around Billy’s arse, pulling him closer. They rubbed together in lazy contented warmth.

“Springbok?” Billy opened one eye, no longer quite so shocking a blue against his natural pallor, but still a startling brilliance. Sleep had restored his cocky smile, although Martin could now see the effort in it.

“You have to have a nickname, those are the rules.”

“I suppose it’s better than Prancer.” Billy uncurled all the way, stretching up until he could mouth at Martin’s neck, interspersing licks and gentle bites along the muscle and up the hinge of his jaw. He sucked Martin’s earlobe into his mouth and pushed into him harder as Martin realized that he’d made the decision to stay without even being aware of it.

“You noticed that?” Still there was something delightfully languid about this early-morning lovemaking. Martin shifted to press more of his weight onto Billy, to feel the other man yield beneath it, Billy’s legs opening so that he could lie between them. “You were a bit out of it last night, I thought. How’re you feeling this morning?”

Billy screwed his eyes shut and arched up under him, effectively distracting him from the topic. “Don’t ask. I don’t want to get started thinking about it.”

Martin could obey that instruction easily enough. He tangled his fingers in Billy’s coffee-coloured curls and took possession of the other man’s mouth in an exploratory kiss, opening him up. Billy responded gradually, his tongue tentatively stroking against Martin’s, his lips softening, opening wider. Billy’s hands tightened where they rested on Martin’s hips, making him gasp for breath and ratcheting up the urgency with which they were both now moving together.

Martin slid his hands down the long elegant slope of Billy’s flanks, rubbing warm circles into the slim muscles, brushing fingertips over the V of muscles at his hips, moved by the perfection of that little dint in the skin. He wormed his hands between Billy and the bed, took an arse cheek in either hand and squeezed.

Billy groaned, long and deep, his thrusts turning from languid to wanton. He shifted his weight, spoiling the rhythm. Martin was about to protest, until he opened his eyes to find Billy was wriggling out of his boxers. Martin sat up to help, and by the time he had tossed them into the distant washing basket, Billy had stretched out to reach the drawer of his bedside table and returned, his hand now dripping with lube.

A moment of intense shivery cold as Billy reached between them and slid his slick fingers up Martin’s cock. “Ah!” Martin tipped his head back as cold melted into delicious warmth and suddenly everything was hot and tight and wet.

Then for a long while it was just lust and the pulse of friction against Billy’s soft skin and his hard cock—long and slim like the rest of him, touchingly elegant in Martin’s big fist when he reached down and squeezed them more firmly together.

Billy turned his face away when he came, and it made something in Martin’s chest hurt. The guy was too beautiful to be this sad. “Hey,” he said, as he wiped them both down with Billy’s T-shirt and drew him once more snug against him. “Shh. You’re all right. I understand. We’re not going to think about feelings this morning. I’m just going to tell you you’re fantastic and move on. D’you want some coffee? I’m sure I can figure out your kitchen and bring you some, if you want to lie here and snooze for a while.”

Billy looked up, charmingly rumpled and concerned. “You’ve got to go back.”

“Yes. I really ought to be back in the field before nine, so I can be in kit and going over the campsite to make sure everyone’s hidden everything inauthentic away before we allow members of the public on site at ten. You know, I don’t mind stuffing everyone’s camping chairs out of sight in my tent, but I’ll be damned if I have to clear up the beer cans all by myself.”

“You do all this for fun?”

Martin had to laugh because was it really that obvious? “Well . . .” He rubbed at the roots of his braids where they pulled tight against his scalp. “I love the clothes, the fighting, the crafts, the sense of connecting people with their history. That’s a passion of mine—I’m sure you know how it is.”

He leaned down to disengage his discarded heap of clothes from Billy’s. “But the group leadership? All the man management and administration, and worrying about finance and viability, and the endlessly telling people what to do and somehow having to make them actually do it? That’s the part I could do without.”

Dropping a kiss on the tip of Billy’s nose, he slid out of bed. “Can I catch a quick shower?”

“Of course.”

After the shower, he dressed. He didn’t bother shaving—would have grown a beard in order to be more authentic if the Head hadn’t made it quite clear that kind of look was not going to fly in her establishment. He staggered out into the kitchen to boil the kettle, and made two mugs of coffee. He’d hoped to be able to put one down on the bedside table for Billy, leave him tucked up and sleepy with a smile on his face and a final kiss, but Billy had thrown on jeans and a T-shirt and followed him, looking uncertain.

Here was another chance to leave and not come back, rule a line under this as a one-night stand, and save himself from a potential lifetime of angst. Billy handed Martin a bowl of cereal, turned away to find milk, his face still averted, not saying anything. And Martin had just about had it with being careful and responsible. So this hadn’t turned out quite how he’d expected; it had still been good.

He didn’t want to be sensible and say good-bye, damn it. It wasn’t like he was afraid of a little hard work, and if Billy was complicated, then he also seemed worth it.

“Look.” Martin took the tiny Biro out of his Swiss army knife and wrote his number and email address on top of yesterday’s paper. “Will you call me tomorrow? Maybe we could meet up again during the week? As normal people, you know? Do something real-life together?”

Billy’s small smile looked dazed. He untied the tablet-weave bracelet from around Martin’s wrist and used it to tie back his hair. It left him with both arms around Martin’s neck, and so they had to spend his remaining ten minutes just kissing, while the cereal turned to mush in its bowl.

“Yeah,” said Billy at last. He opened the door for Martin and padded with him down the stairs to the hall. “That sounds nice. I’ll—”

A thunderous knocking made the front door tremble on its hinges. Martin caught Billy’s arm as he jumped and overbalanced on the stairs, righting him. It was 6:45 on a Sunday morning. “What the . . .?”

Whoever it was out there found the doorbell. They buzzed and buzzed until a cacophony of dogs started yammering overhead, and the door opposite Martin in the downstairs hall began rattling with the sound of opening bolts.

Billy raked his fingers through his flattened bedhair and opened the front door. Two policemen shoved their way inside, dark uniforms topped by reflective jackets, one of them holding out a permit or a badge or something he didn’t have time enough to really see. “Mr. Kaminski?”

The bolted door swung open, and a blond pit bull of a man leaned his naked shoulders on the jamb. “You want what?”

“To come in, sir.”

Billy licked his lips and gave Martin an unsettled, apologetic look, but he directed his words to the blond thug. “Are you all right, Mr. Kaminski?”

The first policeman had already squeezed past Kaminski and gone inside the downstairs flat. The second took a long look at Billy and Martin and drew his own conclusions. Martin judiciously kept his mouth shut.

“Who are you, please?” the second policeman asked Billy.

“Is my landlord.”

“I live in the flat upstairs.” Billy waved a hand at his landing and the bike leaning against the wall there.

“And you, sir?” Martin had to hand it to the police, they did menace and disdain very politely. Maybe without even trying.

“I’m just visiting. In fact I was going, right now, if that’s okay?”

“Of course.” The policeman gave him a little smile as if to say, “I see that guilty conscience of yours; you’re just lucky I don’t have time to investigate it.” Or maybe that was Martin’s paranoia. He grabbed Billy just as the second policeman went into Kaminski’s flat and shut the door.

“What’s that all about?”

“I don’t know.” Billy looked as unsettled as Martin felt, following him out of the door into a wash of dilute early-morning sunshine. Mist made the air almost visible, milky and luminous in the fresh cool. “Kaminski is a good tenant. I mean he’s quiet and he pays the rent on time. He brings in the milk if it’s out. But you’ve seen what he looks like. And yesterday I swear I saw him bringing in a gun. So I don’t know.”

“Shit!” Martin’s thoughts leapt immediately to Gerard Butler movies, Eastern underworld drug bosses, and the Polish immigrants who had arrived seeking a better world only to find no jobs and no pot of gold at the end of the relocation rainbow. “Are you going to be all right?”

Billy laughed. “I’ll be fine. If the police hassle me about him, I’ll just ask him to leave. It’s not like he’s running some kind of bomb factory in my basement.”

“I guess,” Martin agreed, though he couldn’t think of a nonsinister reason for the police to come barging in the door at this time in the morning. “Why don’t you come back to the show with me? We’ve got spare kit; we can always use another Viking.”

Billy ducked his head to hide his smile. It was a good face, now Martin could see it, with a strong nose and a pointed chin and cheekbones that seemed to combine hardness with elegance. But Billy spent half his time trying to conceal it, turning away, looking down. The face paint had drawn a confidence out of him he couldn’t seem to muster without it. “My neighbour upstairs can’t get around much. I can’t leave her to handle this.”

“Then d’you want me to stay?”

Bad idea. God, that would be a terrible idea, for the leader of a nascent society to abandon them on their very first show. Rolf would carry on without him, but he’d rightly be treated like a piece of scum if he ever turned up again.

The thought must have shown in his face because Billy shook his head and shoved him in the centre of the chest, edging him down the stone steps at the entrance of the house and out onto the pavement. A milk float was rattling past, and from the village church came the shattering sound of the bells striking seven o’clock.

Martin looked around. The haze was already beginning to lift, but the streets were still empty. No one was watching, no one to disapprove or see. So he reached up to slide his fingers into the hair at the back of Billy’s neck and pull him down into a kiss. “You will call me, yeah?”

“I will.”

When he let Billy go, the man’s head remained bent, his gaze fixed on the ground, too downcast for Martin’s liking. So he hooked a hand around Billy’s chin, pushed his face back up, and got one fleeting glance from periwinkle-blue eyes for his trouble. They looked worried but amused. Billy’s smile was obviously at least half-genuine.

“Good. Good, then.” Again, Martin found himself wishing he’d not taken on this leadership role in Bretwalda. When he’d started reenacting, he could turn up in kit when he liked, laze about the civilian exhibit, do some whittling, fight in the daily battle, eat when he liked, go home when he liked, with nothing more worrying to transport than a shield and a spear.

How had he ever got to the stage where if he wasn’t there the entire thing would fall apart? He’d picked up responsibility not because he wanted it, but just because other people had left it lying around. Now he didn’t know how to put it back down. “I wish I could stay.”

The awkwardness seemed to strike them both at the same time. They laughed, and with one final kiss Martin turned and strode off to his car. He saw Billy wait a long time on the front doorstep, watching as he drove away. One final wave as he turned the corner, and then he was back on the road, wishing for the first time ever that he could have more real life instead of more of the fake.