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Sir Jamie stares up at the castle with no small amount of trepidation.
It’s not like he’s not used to a castle. He lives in Camelot, yeah? But he’s been questing for fucking months now, right, he's dirty, and this one is particularly fine, and then there’s the small matter of how its inhabitants are hopefully going to be able to tell him how to find the Green Chapel by New Year’s Day, so that he can fulfil his part of the bargain with the mysterious Green Knight and likely end up losing his head. No big deal.
Still, he got himself into this mess. He made a promise, he’s not going to break it. He swallows once, resolutely, and strides through the castle gates. And if he trips over a cobblestone as he’s walking under an arch, nobody seems to be around to spot him, so good luck proving it.
He knocks on the door with a confidence he does not feel and then blinks as the doors swing slowly open to reveal behind them a man and a woman, standing arm in arm.
The woman is small and slender, her golden hair tied up in an elaborate style on the top of her head. Jamie tries to memorise it, certain a fair few of the ladies back at Camelot would like to emulate it. If he makes it back to Camelot with his head intact that is.
The man is a hair's breadth taller than Jamie, with a beard the colour of good, black earth. He has a longsword at his hip, and his brow is furrowed as he looks Jamie up and down.
Oh yeah, and they are both really fucking fit. So there’s that too.
~
Lord Roy and Lady Keeley Jones de Kent — “Just Keeley and Roy, Sir Jamie, we insist,” — welcome him in with open arms. Well, Lady Keeley’s arms had been open. Lord Roy had just grunted, but he'd stood to one side to let him pass, and he hadn’t stabbed Jamie with his longsword, so Jamie had taken it as an invite.
Also, it became very clear, very quickly, that that was just his face, and not a reflection of his views on Jamie.
Jamie had explained that he needed to find the Green Chapel in four days' time and they’d said it was a short walk away, and he could stay with them in the meantime. Relieved and grateful, Jamie had agreed, and after freshening up in the comfortable chamber they’d led him to, he made his way down to the Great Hall for dinner.
He’d noticed, on his way through the corridor, that there seemed to be a lot of rabbit droppings around the place. Bit weird, but Jamie’s not about to ask rude questions of such gracious hosts.
“I’ve got a proposition for you.” Jamie looks up at Lord Roy’s words, swallowing his mouthful of mead and raising an eyebrow in question. “A bargain if you will.”
Jamie should probably say no. Last time he’d accepted a bargain from someone, he’d ended up getting a bit carried away, beheading them, watching them pick up their head and walk out of Camelot, and agreeing to suffer the same fate one year and one day hence. But, well, common sense has never been his strongest point, so.
“Go on then,” he says with a grin. “Let’s hear it.”
“It’s a holiday game. Every day, while you’re staying with us, I’ll go hunting. Whatever I catch, I’ll give to you, but in return, you have to give me whatever you receive here, in my home.”
That bet, at least, sounds safe enough. Although given Jamie’s probably going to be dead in four days time, Roy’s probably going to claim back whatever he offers Jamie forthwith. Still, if Roy wants to have a bit of fun, Jamie can’t find it in him to refuse, not since he’s made him feel so welcome.
“You’re on,” he says. “Though I’m not sure what exactly I’ll be getting, resting up here all day.”
Lady Keeley laughs at that, though Jamie can’t suppose to why.
~
Keeley leaves the library looking smug, her long skirts flowing around her legs as she walks. Jamie watches her leave, a hand touching his mouth, feeling astonishment and remorse in equal measure.
He’d spent the day browsing through Roy’s extensive fiction collection — lots of books about murder, Jamie tried not to read too much into it — when Keeley had wandered in a candle mark ago. She’d said a quiet hello, and then strolled slowly around the room, picking up the odd book, flicking through the pages, and then placing it back on the shelf before making her way over to stand in front of him.
“Would you like to kiss me?” she’d asked, and Jamie believed that all good knights should be honest, so he’d nodded.
“Yes,” he’d said simply. “Definitely.” She’d smiled, but Jamie thinks there had been a hint of disappointment hidden within it. She’d leant down though, and he’d held up a hand to stop her.
“Wait.” Keeley paused, mouth a few centimetres from his. “I said I’d like to, but I won’t. I could not dishonour your husband, not after the hospitality he has shown me.”
She’d pulled back a bit at that and her smile grew wider and more genuine this time. “Do not trouble your noble head about that , Sir Jamie. Let me worry about Roy.” And then before he could stop her, she’d darted forward again and brushed her lips over his in a delicate, feathery kiss.
~
“Sir Jamie!” Roy’s voice comes echoing through the hallway and Jamie stands up with only the faintest hint of foreboding, ready to meet his fate.
His fate, as it turns out, is a rabbit, still alive, that Roy drops wriggling into Jamie’s outstretched hands.
“Here,” he says. “The spoils of today’s hunt. Now, what have you got for me in return?”
Jamie is really, really confused. But fair’s fair he supposes. Clutching the soft brown bunny to his chest, he leans in and slightly up and presses a kiss against Roy’s lips, doing his best to match the pressure and sensation of Keeley’s mouth on his.
“Hmm.” Roy pulls back, looking pleased. “Very nice. Dinner should be ready in half a candle mark or so, see you in the hall?”
Jamie nods and turns to go back into his room. He’s really not sure what he’s supposed to do with the rabbit, but it would be rude not to keep it.
~
“So, the rabbit?” Jamie eventually asks, as they’re halfway through the second course. “Not exactly what I was expecting when you said you’d bring back anything you hunted successfully.”
Roy shrugs, and Keeley laughs. “Going hunting is the done thing when you’re the lord of a castle,” Roy explains. “But I really hate killing animals, so I’ve come up with some clever ways of catching them. We’re not big meat eaters, so I bring them back as pets, not food.”
“We do eat some of the things you hunt though, babe,” Keeley chimes in.
Roy rolls his eyes. “Yeah, when I hunt for mushrooms. That’s hardly the same.”
“Truffles, too.” Keeley says. “Don’t forget truffles.”
All nobility, Jamie’s aware, are weird, himself not excluded. Probably due to the inbreeding and shit. But Roy and Keeley are particularly odd.
~
Today’s kiss, exchanged after Keeley tracks Jamie down in the castle’s well-kept gardens, is a bit more intense. As he sits on a bench in the thin winter sun, she straddles his lap, buries a hand in his hair to tip his head back, and seals her mouth over his, kissing him deeply for a few languid moments before climbing back off of him.
“That was lovely,” she says, straightening her clothes. “See you at dinner, Jamie.”
Later, when Jamie pushes Roy down onto a chair outside his chambers, clambers on top of him and devours his mouth hungrily in exchange for a sweet fawn on a string, Roy takes it in stride. He returns the kiss eagerly, then stands up and claps Jamie on the shoulder once.
“I enjoyed that. Shall we go find Keeley and eat?”
This is all very strange, but it is at least a distraction from his probable impending death.
~
Jamie is a Knight of the Round Table, pledged to uphold the code of chivalry and all that shit. He prides himself on his honour, his strength and resolve, but he is still a man, and even he has limits. He blames his manhood for his lack of swiftness in preventing Keeley from getting a hand down his trousers and a few quick squeezes in, along with her now standard kiss, on the third day of his sojourn with them.
He untangles himself from her apologetically, and she grins at him.
“Ah well,” she says. “Thought that might be pushing it, but I figured it was worth a try.” She tilts her head to one side and looks at him curiously. “Are you ready for tomorrow?” she asks. He doesn’t know really. He’s been trying not to think about it.
“As I’ll ever be,” is all he says, trying to muster valour, and her grin softens in a gentle smile.
“You’re a good man, Sir Jamie. You may even be a great one. Would you accept something else from me? A charm, of sorts, to protect you from death. Call it a token of my affection. But this time, if you say yes, you have to keep it. You can’t pass it on to Lord Roy.”
Fuck, this is difficult. He wants to say yes, he does, and the knight's code requires him to do whatever a lady might ask of him. But then there’s the promise to his host. He and Roy have spent the past three evenings in conversation, sitting close together on a chaise in front of the fire. It turns out they have a lot in common in terms of their perception of the world, the nature of the men and women who inhabit it, and if Jamie wasn’t so sure he’d die tomorrow, he’d want to come back here and spend more time with Roy, with both of them really. He can’t in good conscience break his and Roy’s bargain, not with all he now knows about the man.
“I cannot accept your private favour, Lady Keeley, I apologise. I would that I could. But know that I appreciate the gesture.”
“Hmm.” She’s undeterred, and he watches as she unwinds a green sash from around her waist. She pulls out a small dagger from somewhere beneath the folds of her skirt and cuts it in two. She ties half around Jamie’s wrist, and the other half she tucks into his pocket.
“Well, if you must share. I’m not sure if it’ll work as well cut up like this, but you can give one half to Roy, and hopefully the half you keep will do the job.”
Jamie thinks he can accede to that compromise. He does however refuse her offer of one final kiss.
~
“Jamie,” Roy says with a smile when Jamie opens the door of his chamber. “I’ve brought you a wood pigeon. Have you got another kiss for me?”
“Not just a kiss,” Jamie says. He offers up a swift prayer to whatever deity may be listening and then leans in to capture Roy’s mouth in a messy kiss at same time as shoving his hand into the front of Roy’s breeches and running his hand up and down his cock a few times before pulling back.
“Well that’s far too brief for my liking,” Roy says with a grin. “But I’ll take what I can get. If that’s all, I’m going to go change into something less muddy. I fell out of a tree into a puddle trying to catch that.” The pigeon, which, after an initial burst of fluttering, had landed on Jamie’s head during the kiss and grope, coos innocently.
Roy turns to leave but Jamie grabs his forearm hastily. “Wait!” he says. “There’s something else.”
He pulls the sash out of his pocket and ties it carefully around Roy’s wrist. “There. Now we’re done.”
Roy grins at him in delight. “Oh, Sir Jamie,” he says, shaking his head. “We are so far from done.”
And then he turns and heads off back down the passage, whistling tunelessly to himself. Jamie closes the door, reaches up to pull the pigeon off his head, and retreats into the depths of his chamber. The pigeon flies over to perch on the fawn's back and Jamie collapses into a chair. This place makes Camelot seem sane, and that was saying something.
~
It’s New Year’s Day, and Jamie is so fucking confused.
“I’m so fucking confused,” he says. He’s standing in the Green Chapel, head still firmly attached to his body, staring at the Green Knight who has just removed his helmet to reveal himself to in fact be Lord Roy. “What is happening?”
“You’ve been a very good boy,” Roy says, dropping his helmet and his axe on the floor with a loud clang. “Didn’t lie to me. Didn’t sleep with Keeley, despite her best efforts, and believe me I know how good even her most mediocre efforts are.”
“Aww, thanks babe!” Lady Keeley calls from the far side of the chapel, because of course she does, of course she’s there watching.
“I told her what you looked like after we met last year. She didn’t believe me when I said how fit you were, and then you showed up and she admitted I was right. So we thought you’d give you a little test of virtue.”
Ohhhhh. Jamie’s heard about those. He’d never thought such a thing would happen to him. He never gets to do anything good.
“If you had betrayed me, if you had given in to temptation and taken my wife as a lover in secret, Keeley was just going to have some fun with you before I chopped your head off, but you had to go and be all worthy, didn’t you? Figured out a way to keep everyone’s honour satisfied and give us both our proper due. All that pure of heart and deed wank’s fucking sexy. So now, because you’re so very good at sharing, we’d like to keep you.”
“Keep me?” Jamie asks, head spinning in addlement.
“Only if you want,” Keeley is quick to add, walking over to stand in front of him and taking one of his hands to hold in both of her own. “But yes, if you want to, we’d like you to stay forever.”
Jamie looks from her face to Roy’s, and he’s nodding too, smiling softly at Jamie, and the answer is immediate and obvious. “Yes,” he says, nodding his head fervently. “Yes, I want to. But I have to go back to Camelot first, so I can let King Josep know where I am, and that I’m safe. Since I still live, I cannot, in good conscience, abandon my duty.”
“That’s fair,” Roy says and Keeley nods in agreement. “We’ll buy him out. You can take them the rabbit and the fawn and the pigeon as a trade. Three for the price of one, can’t argue with that.”
Jamie thinks, on balance, that his service to Camelot is worth perhaps a bit more than three woodland creatures, but he’ll let it slide if it means he wins Keeley and Roy out of the deal.
“It’s a bargain,” he says, before pulling first Keeley, then Roy, in for a pair of long, heated kisses.