Chapter 1: The Royal Bedchamber Rebellion
The first sliver of dawn sliced through the arched window, painting the vast royal bedchamber in stripes of pale gold and long, deep shadow. It smelled of beeswax, sun-warmed stone, and… something else. Something sharp, acrid, utterly out of place. Ewan’s eyes snapped open. Cold dread seized him before his mind even fully surfaced.
He wasn't cold. The heavy velvet canopy above was a familiar blur. He was… wet. Drenched. A clammy, mortifying heat radiated from his lower body, trapped against the mattress. The unmistakable tang of urine stung his nostrils, thick and sour. His stomach lurched. He bolted upright, the soaked sheets clinging obscenely to his thighs.
No. No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. Not here. Not now. Not to him.
A memory flashed, brutal and jarring: the roaring crowd at the parade yesterday, the sudden spooking of his stallion, Apollo, the sickening crack of a shod hoof glancing off his thigh, the blinding white pain that had dropped him to the cobbles. The world tilting, darkness swallowing the sound of gasps and shouts.
He’d insisted he was fine afterward. Refused the stretcher. Stumbled back onto a different horse, jaw clenched, face burning hotter than the pain. Royal dignity. He had to maintain it.
Look where dignity got him. Pissing the royal bed like an infant.
Shame flooded him, hot and corrosive, washing away the lingering haze of sleep. He scrambled back against the carved headboard, pulling his knees up, trying to shrink into the damp mattress. His silk nightshirt was plastered to his skin. He wanted to disappear. To sink through the bed, through the stone floor, into the cold earth below the castle. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a too-small cage. Air sawed through his teeth, shallow and useless.
The heavy oak door groaned open, far too soon. Master Tobin, the court physician, entered with his usual quiet gravity, a leather satchel clutched in his wrinkled hand. His sharp eyes missed nothing. They swept the room, skipped past the ornate furnishings, and landed instantly, unerringly, on the king huddled in the center of the sodden bed. On the dark stain spreading across the cream linen. Tobin didn’t flinch. Didn’t comment. His expression remained professionally neutral, but Ewan felt dissected, laid bare. The shame curdled into something hotter, angrier. Humiliation tightened his throat.
Tobin approached the bedside. "Majesty." His voice was a low rasp. "How are you feeling this morning? Any lingering pain? Dizziness?"
Ewan couldn't meet his gaze. He stared at the damp silk stretched taut over his own knees. "Fine." The word scraped out, barely audible. "Perfectly fine." Liar.
Tobin set his satchel down. "The incident yesterday… Apollo struck you with considerable force, high on the thigh. A sensitive area." He didn't elaborate. He didn't need to. "May I?" He gestured towards the bed, towards the evidence.
Ewan nodded mutely, squeezing his eyes shut. He heard the rustle of fabric as Tobin leaned down, felt the slight dip in the mattress. The physician’s silence was worse than any words. Ewan braced for the judgment, the barely concealed contempt.
"It’s not uncommon," Tobin finally said, his tone measured, clinical. "After such blunt trauma. The body suffers a profound shock. Systems… rebel. Control can be lost temporarily. Nerves misfire."
Ewan forced his eyes open. "Temporarily?" The word was a lifeline.
Tobin nodded, straightening up. His gaze held Ewan’s steadily now. "Yes, Majesty. Temporary incontinence. The nerves are bruised, not severed. It should resolve itself. In time. Days, perhaps a week. Rest is paramount. Avoid undue stress." He paused, his eyes flickering with something unreadable. "And… accidents may recur. It’s to be expected. Do not be alarmed."
Accidents. The word landed like a physical blow. Recur. Ewan felt the blood drain from his face. Days? A week? Trapped in this humiliating fragility? Every courtier, every servant, every ambassador would know. The Young King who pissed himself. The joke. The weakling. The fear was a cold stone in his gut. His knuckles were white where they gripped the sheet.
Before he could fully process the horror, before Tobin could offer awkward reassurances, the door opened again. Connor slipped in, his footsteps light and quick on the stone floor. He carried a heavy stack of fresh, crisp linens, smelling faintly of lavender and sunlight. His gaze darted instantly to Ewan’s face, pale and stricken against the pillows, then flickered down to the bed. His sharp intake of breath was barely audible, but Ewan heard it. Saw the brief, wide-eyed shock register on Connor’s familiar, open face before he schooled his features into careful blankness.
He sees. He knows. The stone in Ewan’s gut turned molten, burning through the shame, igniting something else entirely. Raw, panicked fury.
"We'll get you sorted, Majesty," Connor said, his voice unnaturally bright, strained. He moved with efficient grace towards the disarray of the bed, avoiding Ewan’s eyes. "Just a shock to the system, wasn’t it? Happens to horses sometimes too. Strong beasts. Doesn’t mean anything." He started stripping the sodden top sheet, bundling the damning evidence quickly, his movements sure and practiced. He kept talking, a nervous stream filling the heavy silence. "Fresh linens. Sun-dried. Best for the skin. Master Tobin says rest, so that’s what we’ll do. Quiet morning. Maybe some broth later?"
Ewan watched him. Watched the careful way Connor avoided looking directly at the dark patch on the mattress protector beneath. Watched the faint flush creeping up his servant’s neck. Connor was trying. Trying so hard to pretend this was normal. To shield him. The kindness, the clumsy reassurance, only made the humiliation deeper, more suffocating. It was a spotlight, not a shield.
Master Tobin murmured about preparing a calming draught and slipped from the room, leaving them alone.
Connor tugged at a corner of the fitted sheet, his back partially turned. "Honestly, Ewan," he said, dropping the formality for a fleeting, intimate moment, his voice lower, softer. "It’s nothing. Truly. No one would think less of you." He risked a quick glance, his eyes earnest.
Liar. They both knew it. Ewan saw the truth Connor couldn’t voice. Saw the flicker of embarrassment, of awkwardness, even of pity beneath the loyalty. That pity was the final straw. The molten fury erupted.
"No one would think less?" Ewan’s voice cracked, hoarse with suppressed rage. "Look at me, Connor! Look at this!" He gestured wildly at the exposed, stained mattress protector, his hand trembling violently. "I am the King! And I just… I just…" He couldn't say it. The word choked him. "Weakness," he spat instead. "They'll see weakness. They'll smell it. They'll whisper. They'll laugh behind their hands. Then they'll stop listening. Stop obeying. Kings don’t…" He shuddered, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps. "Kings cannot be seen like this. Cannot be like this."
Connor paused, the clean sheet half-unfolded in his hands. He turned fully, meeting Ewan’s frantic gaze. His own expression was tight with concern, and something else – a dawning apprehension. "Ewan, no one knows. Just Tobin. And me. We can manage it. Discreetly. It’s just for a few days."
"A few days is an eternity in court!" Ewan pushed himself further up, ignoring the dull ache in his thigh. The panic crystallized into something cold, hard, and monstrously clear. An idea. A terrible, brilliant, desperate idea. "Discretion isn't enough! They need to understand. They need to share it."
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the damp chill of his nightshirt against his skin, the unsteadiness in his limbs. He lurched past Connor, who instinctively reached out a steadying hand that Ewan violently shrugged off. He stumbled the few steps to his massive writing desk near the window. The polished walnut surface gleamed in the dawn light. He fumbled for parchment, his hands shaking so badly the heavy sheet crackled. He grabbed a quill, splattering ink as he stabbed it into the crystal inkwell.
"Majesty?" Connor’s voice was thick with confusion and growing alarm. He took a hesitant step closer. "What are you doing? You need to rest. Master Tobin said—"
"Master Tobin isn't King!" Ewan snarled, not looking up. His knuckles were white around the quill. He scrawled words, jagged and forceful across the top of the parchment, ink bleeding into the fibers. The title came to him with terrible clarity: Proclamation. His mind raced, fueled by humiliation and the frantic need to disperse it, to dilute its power by spreading it thin. If everyone bore this shame… if it became commonplace… then his own would vanish. Wouldn’t it? The logic felt twisted but undeniable in the white-hot heat of his panic.
He dipped the quill again, the scratch of the nib loud in the suddenly silent room. Connor stood frozen a few feet away, the clean sheet forgotten in his hands, his face pale. Ewan wrote, his script furious and uneven:
"...hereby decree that all able-bodied men of noble birth and of similar age residing within the court precincts…"
He paused. Similar age. Nineteen. Connor’s age. He didn't look up, but felt the weight of his servant’s stare like a physical pressure between his shoulder blades. Connor, who had seen. Who knew. Who would be subject to this madness.
"...shall, as a gesture of royal solidarity and shared experience…"
Shared experience. The phrase tasted like ash. He pressed the nib down hard, a dark blot spreading.
The quill trembled in Ewan’s grip, ink pooling darkly where he’d pressed too hard. The silence in the chamber was thick, broken only by the frantic scratching of the nib and Connor’s shallow, disbelieving breaths behind him. Ewan hunched over the parchment, the words pouring out in a jagged, desperate scrawl, fueled by the burning humiliation still clinging to his skin beneath the damp nightshirt.
"...shall, as a gesture of royal solidarity and shared experience," he muttered aloud, the phrase tasting bitter, "refrain from using the toilets during daylight hours." His hand jerked, leaving a spatter of ink like tiny, accusing stars. He didn't dare look at Connor. He couldn't bear to see the horror he knew must be etching itself onto his servant’s face. "And shall instead…" He paused, the enormity of the command catching in his throat. He swallowed hard, the phantom sting of urine sharp in his nostrils. "...urinate in their pants if they cannot hold it…" The quill scratched violently. "...or otherwise, at least once per day." He added the final clause quickly, as if sealing a bargain with his own shame. "This edict…" He dipped the quill again, the inkwell nearly empty. "...shall remain in effect for fourteen days, commencing immediately upon proclamation."
He scrawled his signature – Ewan Rex – with a flourish that felt grotesque, a parody of royal authority. The ink bled into the parchment fibres. Done. The proclamation lay before him, stark and absurd under the strengthening dawn light. A decree of collective degradation. His chest felt tight, a strange mixture of relief and plummeting dread warring within him. He’d acted. He’d forced the shame outward, diluted it across dozens of others. They would understand now. They had to.
The scrape of Connor’s boot on stone was unnaturally loud. Ewan finally turned, slowly, bracing himself.
Connor stood frozen, the stack of clean linens forgotten at his feet. His face was bloodless, his eyes wide and fixed on the parchment. Not on Ewan. On the words. His lips moved soundlessly, forming the phrases Ewan had just written: urinate in their pants… at least once per day. The flush that had earlier crept up his neck was gone, replaced by a sickly pallor. His hands hung limp at his sides, fingers twitching slightly.
"Connor," Ewan began, his voice rough. He needed to explain. To make him see the necessity. The brilliance of it.
Connor’s gaze snapped up to meet his. The look in his eyes wasn't pity anymore. It was raw disbelief, edged with something perilously close to revulsion. "Ewan…" The name was a choked whisper, devoid of its usual warmth. "You… you cannot mean this." He took a step forward, his voice gaining a shred of strength, laced with desperation. "This is madness. Pure madness! Men… nobles… forced to…" He gestured helplessly towards the bed, towards the lingering stain Ewan had fled from. "To do that? In public? Deliberately? For two weeks?"
Ewan flinched as if struck. The raw description, the sheer impossibility of it stated aloud by Connor, pierced the fragile bubble of his justification. He straightened his shoulders, clinging to the remnants of royal authority. "It is not madness," he insisted, his voice tighter than he intended. "It is solidarity. Understanding. They will see… they will know…" He faltered. Know what? That their king was weak? That he’d wet his bed? That was precisely what he was trying to erase. "They will share the burden!" he finished lamely, the words ringing hollow even to his own ears.
Connor stared at him, his expression shifting from disbelief to a kind of horrified comprehension. "The burden?" he echoed, his voice low and dangerous. "Your burden, Majesty? The burden of your… accident?" He took another step closer, close enough that Ewan could smell the faint lavender scent clinging to the discarded linens, mingling nauseatingly with the stale tang of urine still hanging in the air. Close enough that Ewan could see the flecks of gold in Connor’s wide, stormy eyes, the faint tremor in his jaw. "You would humiliate every young man at court…" His gaze flickered, almost imperceptibly, down Ewan’s body, lingering for a fraction of a second on the damp patch darkening the silk nightshirt clinging to his thigh, before snapping back up, blazing. "...to hide your own humiliation?"
The accusation landed like a physical blow. Ewan recoiled, heat flooding his face. He wanted to rage, to deny, to order Connor silent. But the truth in Connor’s words, the raw, unvarnished honesty cutting through his panic, left him momentarily speechless. He saw the flicker of fear beneath Connor’s anger – fear of the consequences, fear of the king’s wrath, fear of what this decree would unleash. And beneath that… a profound disappointment that cut deeper than any insult.
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. The golden dawn light felt suddenly harsh, exposing every flaw, every tremor in Ewan’s hands. Connor stood his ground, breathing heavily, his loyalty warring visibly with his disgust. The intimacy of their usual closeness was twisted now, charged with something dark and unspoken – the shared knowledge of Ewan’s weakness, the looming spectre of the grotesque edict, and the terrifying power imbalance that allowed one young man’s shame to dictate the degradation of dozens.
Ewan broke the gaze first, looking down at the damning proclamation. His fingers brushed the drying ink. It felt like a brand. He couldn't unsay it. Couldn't un-write it. The deed was done. The only path was forward. He needed Connor. Needed his obedience now more than ever.
"Fetch the sealing wax," Ewan commanded, his voice stripped bare, devoid of its earlier frantic energy, leaving only a cold, brittle authority. He didn't look up. He couldn't. "And the royal seal."
Connor didn't move immediately. Ewan felt the weight of his stare, heavy and accusing. He heard the sharp intake of breath, the subtle shift of fabric as Connor’s fists clenched unseen at his sides. Seconds ticked by, measured by the frantic pounding of Ewan’s own heart against his ribs. The tension coiled between them, thick enough to choke on.
Then, finally, the soft rustle of movement. Connor turned stiffly, his footsteps unnaturally precise on the stone floor as he walked towards the ornate cabinet where the sealing implements were kept. The sound echoed in the vast, sunlit chamber, each step a punctuation mark in Ewan’s descent. He kept his eyes fixed on the parchment, on the words that condemned his court and himself. The scent of lavender couldn't mask the underlying stench of his own making. Connor returned, the small brazier glowing with a ready flame, the heavy royal seal cold in his hand. He placed them silently on the desk beside Ewan, his movements efficient, robotic. He didn't meet Ewan’s eyes.
Ewan melted a pool of deep crimson wax onto the parchment, below his signature. The smell was sharp, resinous. He lifted the heavy seal – the crowned lion rampant – his hands surprisingly steady now, the trembling replaced by a numb resolve. He pressed down hard. The lion sank into the wax, capturing the proclamation in unbreakable authority. Done. Irrevocable.
He stared at the sealed decree, the crimson wax gleaming like a drop of blood against the cream parchment. The silence stretched again, heavier than before. Connor stood rigidly beside the desk, a silent sentinel radiating disapproval and dread.
"Take it," Ewan said, his voice flat, devoid of inflection. He finally looked up, meeting Connor’s guarded gaze. The gold flecks in Connor’s eyes were hard now, like chips of amber. "To the Herald. It is to be read at the Midday Assembly. To every lord, knight, and attendant within the precincts." He held Connor’s gaze, forcing the command. "Go. Now."
Connor’s jaw tightened. For a heartbeat, Ewan thought he might refuse. Might speak again. Might shatter the fragile, terrible equilibrium they now inhabited. But the habit of obedience, ingrained deeper than disgust or fear, won out. Connor’s eyes flickered once more to the sealed proclamation, then back to Ewan’s face. There was no warmth there. No reassurance. Only a bleak acceptance of the inevitable.
He reached out. His fingers brushed the edge of the parchment as he lifted it, careful not to smudge the still-warm wax. The briefest contact, but Ewan felt it like a jolt – the coolness of Connor’s skin against the charged atmosphere. Connor held the proclamation as if it were contaminated. He didn't bow. He simply turned, his spine rigid, and walked towards the chamber door, the decree held stiffly away from his body. The heavy oak groaned open, then thudded shut behind him, leaving Ewan alone in the grand, sunlit silence, surrounded by the scent of lavender, wax, and shame. The echo of Connor’s footsteps faded down the corridor, carrying the king’s humiliation out into the waking court.