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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 11:15:31 GMT 10
Title: Life's Fitful Fever
Summary: In one winter, Neal loses two brothers and confronts the question of what to do with his own life. Canon compliant at first but ultimately diverges into a Neal stays at university AU. Compatible with my "Comets and Compromise" AU but can be read independently as well.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: References to death, mourning, grief, and loss. Also references to corporal punishment.
“After life’s fitful fever, he sleeps well.”-Macbeth, William Shakespeare
Demerits and Drama
Neal was supposed to be focusing intently on the review Master Payne was providing on basic anatomy and physiology. Instead, he was sitting in the back of the lecture hall crowded with student healers, eyes shut. Mind and body resting after a night spent late in the university library, preparing for the exams that would take place in two weeks and writing the end-of-term essays for his masters.
Masters that included Master Payne, who did have a lovely, luting voice–almost like a lullaby–to drift off to. He was grateful that there were women such as her–both male and female teachers at the Royal University were referred to by the title of Master, a peculiar custom he understood was modeled after the practice in Carthak– on the faculty. It added some romantic passion and interest to a course that would have been immensely boring otherwise.
Basic anatomy and physiology being a subject he was already comprehensively familiar with given that his father was chief of the Crown’s healers. Not that this very convincing fact had been able to argue him out of the need to enroll in the mandatory for all future healers basic anatomy and physiology course.
At least Master Payne’s above average attractiveness made the class less boring than it otherwise would have been. She was certainly easy to look upon. When he had his eyes open, of course.
The bell tolled from its tower in the center of the green. Ringing across the campus. Ending Neal’s first interminable lesson of the day. Summoning the students who had wisely signed up for later classes from their dormitory beds.
“Why did I sign up for a class this early?” Neal grumbled to his friend and deskmate, Hamlin of Princehold, as they both shoved inkpots, quills, and notebooks into their satchels. He considered any class that started before the noon bell rang as too early for his tastes.
He had intended this as a rhetorical question. A complaint designed to infuse drama and flare into their conversation, which might have been dull without it. Unfortunately, his friend was merrily oblivious to such nuances. Perhaps the anatomy and physiology review had leaked all traces of wit and humor from Hamlin’s brain.
“Because it was a required course, a prerequisite for any more advanced anatomy and physiology courses,” Hamlin reminded him tartly, as they slung their satchels over their shoulders and joined the press of pupils streaming out of the classroom door. “And this was the only time slot in which the class was offered.”
“Thanks for reminding me.” Neal’s lips quirked. By mutual, unspoken consent, they stepped out of Queen Thayet’s Hall–every building at the university was named for some monarch, living or dead–into the inadequate warmth of a feeble midwinter sun in a charcoal gray sky hung over a green speckled with dirty snow. Strode down a shoveled path past a marble statue of Thayet that hadn’t been able to fully render her transcendent beauty and charisma. No chisel, wielded by however devoted an artisan, could hope to capture her elusive charm.
Continued toward the King Roald Dining Hall, where they could partake of such delicacies as burned toast and watery porridge for an hour before the servants closed the hall to students to prepare for lunch.
Never reached the dining hall and the lackluster breakfast prospects it promised because a student who had to be at least two years younger than him snaked out an arm to stop him.
“Dean Harailt of Aili asked me to give you this.” The blonde girl thrust a scroll of parchment between his fingers. Not meeting his eyes or offering any form of farewell before she melted like a snowflake into the swell of students thronging the pathways that crisscrossed the green.
Neal drifted out of the crush of fellow pupils who had flocked to the university in the same vain search for shallow enlightenment that he had before they could curse at him for impeding their progress on their journeys to their very important destinations. Unfurled the parchment with a mental, portentious drumroll. He had to provide the drama and color in his own existence when others refused to do so, after all. Read the message’s contents. Stifled a groan.
“Dean Harailt wants to see you at once.” Hamlin elbowed Neal none-too-gently in the ribs. Plainly, he had been reading over Neal’s shoulder. Reading over someone else’s shoulder to obtain confidential and sought-after information not being as massive a breach of etiquette at the university as it was elsewhere. It was understood the pupils at Royal Univeristy were a curious lot with little appreciation for privacy. Not that there was much space for privacy when they were jammed cheek-and-jowl up against each other in their tightly packed dormitories. “Can’t believe Master Payne reported you to him for sleeping in her class already.”
“The sword of justice falls swiftly in these hallowed halls of learning.” Neal embedded his words with a false gravitas. According to his calculations, he could afford to be flippant. This term, which would be a mere memory in two weeks, he had accumulated a trifling five demerits.
All in one fell swoop for missing an anatomy and physiology lesson after a rowdy night drinking in a Corus tavern with his friends. That morning, he had been too hungover to even attempt to cure his throbbing headache and had been reluctant to visit university healers regarding the issue. Healers were oath-bound to discretion about their patients’ ailments, but somehow that discretion seemed to end in loosened tongues whenever his father asked questions. It could be a nuisance–a headache in its own right–to have a father as respected in the healing profession as his was.
At any rate, the five demerits would be erased at the conclusion of the term as they always were. He would be granted a clean slate, and he had another twenty-five demerits as a buffer from any real consequences this term. Sleeping in class was a scant two demerits (and only if a hawk-eyed master happened to notice the transgression), and it took thirty demerits in one term to face expulsion.
The expulsion, of course, could often be avoided in the case of all but the most severe infractions if the miscreant agreed to submit to a caning. Royal University grapevine had it that most offenders did choose the cane. A caning being preferable to the shame and pain irate parents would doubtlessly inflict when the expelled scapegrace was sent home.
After all, Royal University rumor also had it that Dean Harailt didn’t swing his cane too harshly. Was too soft-hearted and sympathetic to the rambunctious excesses of youth for that. Besides, Neal wasn’t particularly afraid of any punishment his father’s best friend might inflict on him. There were offsetting benefits to his father being a respected healer. Life was filled with such balancing equations.
Hamlin snorted as if he could read Neal’s thoughts easily as a library tome. Maybe he could. They were friends, after all, and what were friends for except to read one another’s minds and sometimes copy each other’s coursework?
“I must hasten to my own beheading.” Neal waved his hand in a sardonic farewell. “Remember to wear all black for a year to mourn me.”
As Hamlin called good luck to him, Neal spun on his heel and directed his resigned footsteps toward the King Jasson Research and Administrative Building, where the majority of the masters had their studies.
In less than twenty minutes, he would come to regret that jest. The levity with which he had treated the gutting, soul-destroying reality of death. A death that came all too quickly for kinghts fighting unleashed Immortals with centuries of pent-up fury at their confinement. Twenty minutes. That was all the time it took to hear devastating news. To ruin and uproot a life with a turbulent grief too profound for expression.
Looking back, he could feel searing remorse and guilt for that characteristically sarcastic remark. He was a clever boy at a university. Old enough to understand how much more clearly everyone could see the patterns–the bright and dark threads–weaving the tapestry of their lives looking back. With the benefit and wisdom only hindsight could provide.
His Gift–emerald as his father’s–was not of the stripe to grant him prophecy. Perhaps that was a mercy from the gods though they seemed little enough disposed to pity him in other aspects of his existence. He did not have to look ahead, know, and dread the pain that would come. He could remain blessedly ignorant in the present moment.
Imagining a mild scolding and two demerits (if he couldn’t argue his way out of receiving them) in his future as he climbed the stairs to Dean Harailt’s office and knocked on mahogany door carved with an impressive depiction of the university’s seal. Could picture no greater horror awaiting him than that. Felt no true fear.
The confident and innocent swagger that defined his youth. That hadn’t quite developed into the full-fledged cynicism that would become his dominant trait after grief and loss befell him. The cynicism that was an outgrowth of that grief and loss. An effort to escape a repeat of that pain. A tough exoskeleton constructed to conceal a too-tender, too-vulnerable interior.
He knocked on the door to Dean Harailt’s study. Blissfully ignorant of the fact that the Old Ones would have said that he was opening a portal to death.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 11:17:06 GMT 10
The Great Mystery
As he knocked on the door, Neal was marshaling his arguments as his grandfather Emry of Haryse might have prepared troops before battle. Readying himself to insist, quite persuasively, that he hadn’t, in fact, been sleeping during Master Payne’s lesson but in actuality had been so intensely focused–so riveted in deep thought–that his eyes had shut.
He didn’t care so much about the demerits. It was the principle of the debate that appealed to him. The spirit of argument that he thrived off. That animated him. It was the thrill of testing his mind against others and winning the confrontation that he lived for even more than healing or reading. At his core, he wasn’t so much a healer or a scholar as he was a debater. An instigator and winner of arguments.
The marshaled arguments slipped from his brain and lips, however, when Dean Harailt opened the door. The head of the university’s expression was graver than Neal had ever seen it. So somber that it befitted a funeral. As if Neal had murdered someone instead of fallen asleep in class.
That made Neal’s stomach curl. Because he hadn’t, in fact, killed anyone.
“Neal. Thank you for coming this morning.” Dean Harailt took a gentle hold of Neal’s shoulder. Guided him into the study. As if Neal would or could have gotten lost without such steering.
Neal considered making a facetious remark to that effect. Decided to swallow the words. This wasn’t the time or place for Neal’s acerbic attitude to rear its ugly head again as Father would have said if he were here.
But Father was, in fact, here. As Neal stepped further into the bright candlelight of Dean Harailt’s office, he blinked in astonishment as he saw Father sitting in one of the crimson-cushioned chairs before the dean’s mahogany desk. Blinked again when he saw Mother occupying the chair to Father’s right.
Parents of university students did not attend disciplinary meetings. Not unless an expulsion was being considered, and taking a nap during a lecture was not an expellable offense. Had never been an expellable offense in the entire history of the university.
That meant this meeting couldn’t be about his drifting off during Master Payne’s review after all. It had to be about something else. Something that was a mystery to him. That he couldn’t fathom because he didn’t know what he could have done that was horrible enough to put expulsion on the table.
Yes, he argued with his teachers, but none of them seemed too upset or angered by that. Most of them appeared invigorated by the intellectual exercise and stimulation of the argument. Fierce debate was promoted rather than discouraged at the university. Part of cultivating an environment of intense academic inquiry. Questioning and critical thinking built the institution–defined its identity–more than any stone and mortar.
His redoubtable mother–usually as strong as her famed general father–was weeping into a lace handkerchief held to her face with one hand. The other hand clutched his father’s fingers in a white-knuckled grip. Father himself wasn’t crying but wore a tired, wan expression. The features of a man providing what comfort he could to his wife while wrestling with his own devastation.
Neal’s heart wrenched and broke inside him at the sight of his parents reduced to such a miserable state. He might have a tongue too quick to sarcasm and debate, but he wasn’t a bad son, or at least, he liked to believe he wasn’t. Deep down, beneath any argument and cynicism, he did not want to distress or disappoint his parents, whom he loved and knew loved him. He was not the sort of rotten soul that intended to make his mother weep or his father look crushed.
The fact that he was ignorant of what he had done to hurt them came out as irritation and indignation as it almost always did. It was in his nature to interpret almost any situation or person that left him bewildered as an affront to him because, on an instinctual level, he believed in his blood and bones that he should be able to understand everything. Certainly everything that happened to him and impacted him. Everything that wounded those dearest to him.
“What are my parents doing here?” he squawked. Not the proper, polite greeting for a son to offer the people who had created him, but he had never been the proper, polite son. Hadn’t even tried to be that most of the time, because he was aware that he would fail spectacularly at it.
Mother might have chided him for the improper, woefully impolite greeting if she hadn’t still been sobbing into her handkerchief.
“I think it would be best if your parents explained that for themselves.” Dean Harailt patted Neal on the back. Gestured at the empty chair to Father’s left. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
Students didn’t sit when they were reprimanded. They stood, formally, with their hands folded behind them. All hope that this meeting might be about something he understood–something as simple as him falling asleep in Master Payne’s class–abandoned Neal at that moment.
He sank into the chair the dean indicated. Dropped his satchel on the carpeted floor beside him. The sound of the satchel hitting the carpet echoed loudly in the otherwise silent room. The random, extraneous details he so diligently and uselessly noted when he was uneasy. His way of attempting to master the anxiety that could all too easily overtake him.
“Very well. I’m seated. Now will anyone explain to me what is happening or am I to remain in ignorance until time itself ends?” Snide questions. That was his other great knife for cutting through his fear. Slicing through his anxiety. Conquering his turmoil.
“There’s no easy way to tell you this, son. So I suppose the straightforward one is best.” Father cleared his throat. Reached out to rest a hand over Neal’s knee. A knee Neal was ashamed to see was trembling before Father had even told him what was wrong. Would he always be such a pathetic puddle of adolescent nerves? “Your brother Cathal is dead.”
Dead. Neal reeled at the word. Struggled to understand the weight of it. He was studying to be a healer. He had been taught what death was, because death was a healer’s trade as much as it was a soldier’s. He had read about it in books. Attended in crowded study halls lessons on the stages of it, the myriad manners in which it could occur, and the extensive methods by which healers throughout history had valiantly sought to keep it at bay for their appreciative patients. Taken elaborate notes on the clinical side of what death meant.
Had never, while recording such notes, paused to contemplate the personal side of death. How it was a dark ending, a black mystery, not just for the one who died, but for the family and friends that person inevitably left behind.
He knew what death was. How it made a warm body a forever cold corpse. How it stilled the heart. Robbed the breath. How it might make lifeless limbs reflexively twitch and writhe in a death throes. How the dead could void themselves. How death transitioned into decay. Yet, all his knowledge only rendered him more profoundly and achingly aware of his own staggering ignorance. His own inability to understand death or to apply any feeble meaning of it that he did have to Cathal.
Cathal couldn’t be dead. He was too vibrantly alive–in his twenties, the glorious summer of his prime–to be dead. He must be out there somewhere. Still charging his stallion into battle. Wielding his sword so that it sparkled sharp and silver in the sunlight. That was how Neal remembered him, riding off to fight the invading Immortals in his proud armor. How he would always remember Cathal. Though he was starting, numbly, to suspect that it would only ever be a memory of Cathal now.
He couldn’t accept that, however. Couldn’t accept the idea that Cathal was dead. That death and his older brother were in any way compatible.
Still, he found himself asking through lips that felt very much as if they never wanted to move again, “How?”
He stared at the overflowing bookcases lining the walls of Dean Harailt’s study. Reading the titles of the tomes without truly seeing them. Fixing his gaze elsewhere because it was too hard to look at his father. To behold the grief that must be etched into every inch of Father’s face.
“Shot down slaying a herd of centaurs attacking a village.” Father’s voice cracked. He squeezed Neal’s knee so tightly it hurt. The pain, no doubt, unintentional. Father being the sort of man who preferred to relieve rather than instill suffering in others. Perhaps the touch on his knee was only even painful because everything hurt and was too overwhelming for Neal right now. “The knights serving with him report that he took the lives of five centaurs before he fell. That the village would have been lost without him. There were over a hundred people living in that village.”
Cathal had died nobly–heroically even–and it had availed him nothing. Meant nothing. Death was the great nullifier that rendered everything and everyone equally worthless eventually. The eraser of everything.
What did it matter that Cathal had died saving a hundred villagers? Neal would have preferred to have those hundred villagers–whom he had never met or cared about–dead if it meant that his older brother could be alive beside him. Would have gladly traded their lives for Cathal’s in a heartbeat.
A bitter, selfish notion. One Cathal would have cuffed him on the ear for if he could hear. But Cathal would never be hearing anything again or be giving anyone a cuff on the ear. He was dead, and that was part of what death meant. Part of the hollowness it left behind.
Neal had never longed for Cathal clout on the ear so much as he did in that instant. That instant when he knew a Cathal clout on the ear would never and could never come again. The paradoxes of mourning that made him reinterpret his own past so that painful memories of brotherly taunting became pleasurable instead.
“We are proud of his sacrifice.” Mother spoke for the first time. Her sentiment putting Neal’s selfishness to shame. She was struggling for composure. Neal could hear that in her determinedly brave tone. “We will mourn him properly. I am going to return to Queenscove to prepare for the funeral. Your father will remain in Corus for the time being. Tending to his patients and readying his assistant to assume responsibility in his absence. We think it would be best if you went home to Queenscove with me tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Neal gaped at her as if she had just suggested he should swim to Carthak. “I can’t return to Queenscove then. I have exams to prep for and essays to write. Term isn’t over yet, Mother.”
Exams and essays. It was stunning that he could think about them at all at a time like this. Yet, somehow, it was easier–less painful–to think about exams and essays than about death. Than about Cathal no longer being among the living.
Essays and exams. Yes, they would be just the thing to distract him from his grief. The antidote to his sorrow. The cure to his mourning. The something else he needed to focus his attention and energy on to go on living when he wanted to stop doing anything. Seeking oblivion in himself. Nursing his own numbness.
“Given the circumstances, you can certainly travel to Queenscove immediately and remain there as long as you like,” Dean Harailt interjected. He had claimed the seat behind his desk without Neal noticing. While Neal had been enmeshed in thoughts of death. “I will exempt you from the exams and essays for now. I will also explain your situation to your teachers, so they will understand. When you are ready to resume your studies, we can arrange for you to make up the exams and essays you missed.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Neal shook his head swiftly. Few things sounded less appealing than being trapped in Queenscove. Stewing in his own grief. Wallowing in his own sorrow. He was a wallower. He would avoid wallowing with his studies. Letting academics consume him as ever. “I would rather finish what I started now. I want to focus on my essays and exams until term ends. I don’t want to return home now.”
Before Dean Harailt could reply, Mother insisted on contradicting him. “Nonsense, Neal. You belong at Queenscove with your family while we mourn your brother together.”
“Father’s not dropping everything and rushing off to Queensceove,” Neal snapped. “So I don’t know why I’m expected to do that.”
“Your father is the Crown’s chief healer,” Mother retorted. “You aren’t.”
“Graeme’s not hurrying off to Queenscove right away, is he?” Neal’s green eyes narrowed as another angle of argument dawned on him. “He’s staying in the field until the funeral, isn’t he? Doing his duty?”
It was almost a rhetorical question. One that didn’t need to be asked. Of course Graeme was doing his duty. Graeme would die before he refused to do his duty.
The thought of death claiming another one of his brothers–his only remaining older brother–made Neal shudder. Death seemed to be shadowing his mind. Clouding his vision. Shadowing his heart. Dominating his existence.
“He won’t be able to go on leave until the funeral.” Mother dabbed tears from her eyes with her handkerchief. “Yes, he’s doing his duty.”
“Then I would like to do my duty.” Neal brought his palms together. The customary university pose for a well-concluded argument. One made so persuasively that it would be impossible for the opposition not to concede the debate. “My studies are my duty, Mother.”
Mother hesitated. Glanced at Father. The two exchanged those looks between a happily married couple that contained an entire conversation. After concluding this quiet colloquy, she announced to Neal, “You may remain at university until the term ends. Your father will collect you before he leaves for Queenscove.”
“Yes, Mother.” Neal was happy enough to be obedient and obliging now that he had won his case. Gotten what he wanted.
“I do admire your dedication to your studies, Neal.” Dean Harailt’s manner managed to be soft and serious all at once. “You are not locked into your decision, however. If you change your mind about returning to Queenscove or just need someone to talk to, I am always here.”
“I won’t change my mind.” Neal couldn’t imagine anything more humiliating than admitting that he was wrong. That he had miscalculated and misjudged himself. Overestimated what he could handle. Nor could he envision willfully engaging in the ultimate embarrassment of asking an adult for help or advice. That infused his tone with more sharp defensiveness than he had intended. “Nor will I need to talk to you.”
“Neal!” Father’s stern pronouncement of his name made it clear that Neal had committed some unpardonable rudeness again. Forgotten some rudimentary social nicety he was supposed to know and observe without being reminded at his age.
Flushing at the reproach, Neal mumbled an attempt at making amends for his curtness. “Thank you anyway, sir.”
Father sighed. Neal’s intractable insolence often provoked that reaction from him. Directed his next words to Dean Harailt, “I apologize on behalf of my son for his discourtesy. Please forgive his impertinence.”
“There is no need for forgiveness between old friends.” Dean Harailt waved away the apology. “I understand the lad is grieving and do not blame him for that.”
Neal’s cheeks burned like forest fires. He hated nothing more than being discussed as if he weren’t present or were too obtuse to comprehend what was spoken about him in his hearing.
“Well, if we’re done pardoning me for my impertinence–” Neal bent to snatch up his satchel, which felt marvelously solid between his fingers in a world fixated on stealing everything from him– “perhaps I might obtain permission to finally fill my belly with breakfast?”
Not that he particularly wanted to eat. The thought of food was enough to make him feel sick actually. He only craved an excuse to escape this room with its horrifying talk of a death he had no desire to understand.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 11:18:24 GMT 10
Rumors of Demise
Instead of heading toward the dining hall, Neal walked rather purposelessly–it was hard to believe anything had a purpose in a world where Cathal had been alive one moment and dead the next–to the library. The library where he had the vague idea that he would find Hamlin studying before their next class.
All his ideas were vague right now. Distant. Faded like a road in mist. As if his brain were disconnected from his body. As if he were disassociated from himself. Such a feeling was often a symptom of shock and grief. Healers were taught that. Trained to recognize it when diagnosing a patient. Neal was a healer. Diagnosing himself. If only to distract himself from his own numbness and pain. How he could be both numb and in pain was something only a person who had been in mourning could ever understand.
He had reached the Queen Jessamine Library with its marble pillars carved in the classical style. The style of the Old Ones. Meant to be evocative of ancient philosophies, learning, debate, and inquiry. To create a sense of continuity and unbroken succession between a past that was little more than a collective memory and a new university meant to propel the realm forward so that one day it might be able to rival Carthak in its glory. A sense of continuity and unbroken succession that could only be a false one. Rooted in sentimentality. Not truth. Even at this university designed to be a bastion of enlightenment, truth was elusive. Rarely sought after, and even harder to find when it was.
He stepped into the library’s atrium. Turned away from the circle of desks where the university librarians and archivists sat, answering student reference and research questions. Pointing pupils to resources in the crowded, dusty shelves of the vast, ever-growing university collection.
Spotted Hamlin at a table by a great, floor-to-ceiling length window. Bent over a stack of notes. Another friend, Josse Chapman, sat opposite Hamlin. Josse was the son of a wealthy Port Legann merchant family. A family wealthy enough to afford the university tuition fees. A family with the funds to buy their way into the nobility within a generation or two, Neal was sure.
As Neal crossed the room filled with tables and studying students to claim the chair next to Josse, Hamlin glanced up from his notes to remark, “I see you survived your own execution.”
His own execution? Neal’s mind struggled to understand the reference. Make the connection. Appreciate the joke and the irony. Then he remembered–as if some other tongue had spoken it a million years ago–that he had quipped flippantly hastening to his own beheading before he had departed to obey Dean Harailt’s summons. No doubt that was Hamlin’s allusion.
“I am not dead. Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.” Neal should have ended the jest there. Shouldn’t have carried it beyond humor into bitterness, but he could no more resist bitterness than he could breathing. “Rumors of Cathal’s demise have not been greatly exaggerated, however.”
“Cathal’s demise?” Hamlin blinked. Wrong-footed at how a joke had suddenly become so serious. “Is your brother dead?”
“That’s why I was summoned to the dean’s office.” Neal gave a grim nod. “My parents were there, too. A whole committee had assembled to relay the bad news to me. Though I guess that’s not surprising, is it? Everything is done by a committee in a university. Academics derive such comfort from numbers.”
“I’m sorry.” Hamlin and Josse uttered the condolence at the same time. Hamlin continuing with the question, “How?”
“Shot down saving a village from a herd of centaurs.” Neal’s jaw clenched like a punching fist. He would not cry in the middle of a library like some uneducated, uncultured buffon. “It was all very heroic and selfless. The knights serving with him said so. Though what that heroism and selflessness is worth now that he’s dead is a mystery to me. Can’t be worth more than his life. Or his death.”
His voice had risen. So much that a girl with her waist-length auburn hair woven into a plait at a table diagonal to them lifted her snub nose from the book it was buried in to hiss, “If you aren’t going to study, would you be quiet or leave the library so the rest of us can study in peace?”
Neal had been angry before, but for the first time in his life, he truly saw scarlet veiling his eyes as he retorted, “My brother died so that you could study in peace.” Then, as if that wasn’t a low enough blow, he made magnificent use of his anatomy education to provide graphic, detailed suggestions of how she could employ various bodily crevices as receptacles for her studies.
His younger sister–named Jessamine in honor of the same queen the library memorialized– would pout if she witnessed such behavior. Petulantly accuse him of not being gentlemanly. His mother would slap him upside the head for being vulgar.
The auburn-haired girl did neither. Merely arched an eyebrow and observed with icy indifference, “The librarians will give you demerits if you don’t stop shouting.”
“I doubt it.” Neal snorted. Unimpressed that the girl would resort to threatening him with demerits. He expected such meaningless warnings from uncreative masters, not fellow students, who should have more wit than that. “They are too busy answering research and reference questions. Around the end of term, they are always swamped with students needing help writing essays and preparing for exams. They don’t have time to prowl through the library. Enforcing rules and discipline.”
“They don’t have to prowl.” The girl’s smile was cold as a howling winter wind. “I can just report you for shouting, and they’ll give you demerits. Problem solved.”
Neal opened his mouth to offer his derisive opinion of snitches but was cut off before he could begin by Josse nudging him roughly in the ribs.
As Neal massaged his ribcage and glared at Josse, Hamlin made an effort to appease the indignant girl who cared rather too much about maintaining quiet in the university library. “That won’t be necessary, miss. My friends and I are just leaving now.”
Hamlin and Josse shoved their books and notes into their satchels as the girl gave a curt nod of satisfaction and returned to her studies. Neal, however, remained in his chair. Arms defiantly folded over his chest. Indicating that he did not intend to budge even when Josse tugged at his elbow.
“I realize you’re grieving.” Hamlin pinched the bridge of his nose. “But do you really want demerits? What’s the point of creating trouble? Causing a scene?”
“I don’t care about demerits,” Neal snapped. He hadn’t cared about them this morning. Cared even less about them now. What did demerits matter? He would never accumulate enough of them to be expelled, and without expulsion, what difference did demerits make beyond the shame of earning them?
“Well, if you don’t care, we have to on your behalf.” Josse took up the fabric of Hamlin’s argument. “We wouldn’t be your friends, otherwise.”
“You lads can go,” he proclaimed in his loftiest manner. Determined to rival the girl in sheer snobbery and condescension. “I will remain here to study. I care about my exam results even if you don’t.”
“Why do you care about study and exam results?” Josse frowned. “Aren’t you going home to bury and mourn your brother?”
“Not until after the semester ends.” Neal shook his head tersely. “I’ll focus on my studies and not my own grief until then.”
“If my brother or my father died, I’d take a break from my studies.” Hamlin’s words made Neal remember that Hamlin had an older brother and a father fighting the Immortals.
“Forcing yourself to study.” Josse whistled softly. “No wonder you’re starting to crack like an egg already, Neal.”
“I’m not cracking.” Neal’s emerald eyes burned. Whether with unshed tears or with inexpressible fury, he didn’t know. “Cracking is what would happen to me if I didn’t have to study. If I was trapped in my grief all day. Had nothing to do but brood. My studies are essential for the preservation of what limited sanity I possess.”
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 11:19:24 GMT 10
Numbering Pain
Neal’s second and last class of the day was a specialized one on pulmonary diseases. One only open to the university’s most promising pupils. The ones, like Neal, enrolled in its prestigious honor program. Excellent marks–continued maintenance of the highest academic standards–being the price paid for enduring access, term after term, to such exclusive courses.
The class on pulmonary diseases was Neal’s favorite that term. That was not particularly shocking given that it was taught by his favorite professor at the university, Master Gillin. Master Gillin, a short man with gray hair and kind eyes that twinkled like blue stars, was the gentlest and wisest of instructor’s. A man born to be both teacher and healer. A man Neal was lucky enough to have as his faculty advisor.
Given his fascination with the subject and his respect for Master Gillin, Neal generally had no problem remaining attentive in his pulmonary diseases class. The class today was the exception that proved that rule. Not because Master Gillin was rambling on about anything boring, but because Neal’s mind was undisciplined. Roaming–along with his gaze–out the window to stare at a robin red-breast hopping from holly bush to holly bush or to follow the progress of another student walking along the shoveled paths of the campus green.
When the tower bell rang–ending the lesson–Neal was not astonished when Master Gillin, over the sound of chattering students snatching up satchels, asked for Neal to remain after class. Sensitive and astute as he was, Master Gillin had no doubt noticed Neal’s wavering focus. Would wish to address it in his characteristically mild manner.
Neal approached Master Gillin’s desk. Grateful that the man didn’t begin to speak to him until the classroom cleared of any potential eavesdroppers. Even Hamlin and Josse. Perhaps especially Hamlin and Josse. Those two were always determined to poke their noses in his business. Naming it friendship rather than the vilest curiosity.
“Have a ginger cake.” Master Gillin gestured at a tray of small brown cakes shaped into snowflakes and frosted with powdered sugar on his desk. “One of my dear students baked them for me as a holiday present, and I daresay I won’t be able to eat them all before they go stale.”
Neal could smell the ginger radiating from the cakes. Once that would have made him ravenous. Tempted him to eat the trayful of cakes. Now it aroused little interest in him. Eating held no meaning for him any longer except as an abstract thing others did to stay alive. Sustain their flesh in the doomed fight to avoid the grave for as long as possible. There was certainly no joy–no sweetness–to be found in eating for him. His tastebuds had perished along with Cathal apparently.
“I haven’t eaten all day, Master.” Neal shook his head. Attempted a smile that probably made him look as if he were being tortured in a dark dungeon. “I don’t think I should start with an influx of sugar.”
“You’ve had bitter news, and some sweetness might offset that. Besides, ginger is a soothing spice.” Master Gillin recited a healer’s and herbalist’s truism. Patted Neal’s arm. “Dean Harailt informed me of your brother’s passing. I was sorry to hear of it.”
“Thank you, Master.” Tonelessly, Neal offered the rote, standard gratitude to such a condolence. Hollow words that only left him feeling emptier inside. At least he had demonstrated that he had some respect and courtesy in him. That he did in fact have a conception—however faint and often ignored–of how to behave in polite society. He hoped, obscurely, that Father would have been proud if Father had been here to witness his uncharacteristic display of good manners.
“I am your faculty advisor.” Master Gillin’s palm remained on Neal’s arm. Rested there. Like a robin perched on a holly bush branch. “Meant to guide you in matters personal and emotional. Not merely academic.”
“You would guide me through my grief?” Neal was acerbic. Ironic. Without knowing why, he reached for a ginger cake. Bit into it. It was heavy and moist on his tongue. Tasted of ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon imported from the Copper Isles and Jindazhen. Sweetened and thickened with honey. It should have been delicious, and yet he wanted to vomit. Had to struggle to keep the bite of cake down, and did not take so much as a second nibble. Grabbing the cake had been a miscalculation. A mistake.
Master Gillin didn’t respond directly. He was far too subtle for that. “Your father is a great healer. I am sure he taught you the theory and practice of the Scale of Pain.”
“Any healer whose thoughts are worth a copper is familiar with the Scale of Pain, sir.” Neal snorted derisively. Referring to the custom where the healer had the patient rate the pain of their symptoms on a scale between one and ten. With one being the least painful and ten the most agonizing.
However pervasive and prevalent the practice was among healers–including his father–Neal held it in low esteem. It seemed too subjective to him. His father sternly stated that was a sign he needed to improve his bedside manner whenever Neal ventured to share such a notion with him.
Not that this discouraged Neal from expressing this idea to others. He was dauntless in his debate-seeking capacity. That was why he continued in the true spirit of academic argument and vigor that had spawned this university, “I must confess that I cling to the minority view that the Scale of Pain’s effectiveness is overrated. That in most cases the practice of it is borderline useless. Skewed because you will have the wimps who place a barely bleeding parchment cut at a nine or ten on the scale. On the other end, you will have the stoics equally determined to throw off the scale in that direction. Rating a sword in the chest or childbirth as a one or two on the scale. That just shows what a load of dung the scale is if it can be so easily knocked off balance by wimps and stoics.”
“Yes, I do remember you being staunch in that conviction.” Master Gillin patted Neal’s arm again. “I hold to the majority opinion myself. I find it helpful in treatment to know what my patient’s reality and perception of pain is.”
“How far removed from reality your patient’s perception of pain is, you mean.” Neal’s lips quirked.
“We create our reality through our perception, Neal.” Master Gillin’s was exactly the sort of theoretical word mash one would anticipate hearing at a university. “Reality is not some separate, external thing existing only outside of ourselves. Uninfluenced by us.”
“Yet there must be some objective standard of reality,” Neal insisted. Unable to drop a debate. When he argued, he was like a dog with a bone. His father had said that more than once. Sometimes with affection. Sometimes with exasperation. “Else we wouldn’t have any solid facts at all. Just a hodgepodge of unstable opinions.”
“Perhaps,” Master Gillin allowed. Paused. Then went on softly, “The Scale of Pain can be a useful way to track a patient’s progress from moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day, week to week. It may be a subjective measure, but the patient is always the one doing the rating. It tells the healer something if the patient’s perception of pain was a seven two days ago and is now a five. Consistently monitor a patient’s perception of pain, and you will discover it rarely remains at a ten. Or a seven. Or a five. It fluctuates. Climbs and falls. Ebbs and flows like a tide.”
“Oh, I didn’t think of that.” Neal realized he had seen his father doing that–diligently tracking the progress of a patient’s pain from day to day and hour to hour–without understanding what Father was doing. Seeing it as a waste of time. Not appreciating the wisdom behind what his father did. It was an awkward epiphany. He wondered if all sons had such uncomfortable realizations about their fathers occasionally being smarter than them after all or if the humiliation was unique to himself. “I suppose I could see the utility in that.”
“Good.” Master Gillin gave a slow, sad nod. “Then you might appreciate the utility of my piece of advice. My effort to steer you through your grief as it were.”
“Go on, sir.” Neal pecked and tore at the ginger cake he had no desire to eat because there didn’t seem to be anything better he could do with it. Urging the professor to continue when he hesitated. “I’m listening.”
“Grief is a deep sort of pain.” Master Gillin sighed. “It can be helpful to put a number on it–from moment to moment or day to day–as one would any other pain. To see that number does not always remain at a ten however much we might think it would if we didn’t track it.”
“I wouldn’t trust myself to put a number on my grief.” Neal’s jaw tightened. “I can’t feel any pain right now. I’m just numb. I don’t know whether that makes it a ten or a one on the scale, Master.”
“The fact that you are aware of your own numbness is good.” Master Gillin did not elaborate on what was so good about this. Instead added, “I hope you are aware, too, that you can come to me to talk at any time about anything. I will help you. Not judge you. That is what I am here to be. A mentor for my students.”
“I understand and appreciate that.” The words, Neal knew now, that Father would have wanted him to say in Dean Harailt’s study. Would have wished Neal to offer in answer to the dean’s invitation to talk to him whenever needed. Enlightenment came too late as ever, but maybe that was only proof that he was, in fact, learning at university. “Thank you, sir.”
“Very well.” Master Gillin waved a dismissive hand. “Get rid of that ginger cake if you aren’t going to eat it. You’re making a crumbly mess all over my desk.”
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 11:20:18 GMT 10
Misanthropic Philosophy
The winter wind wailed and flailed against the glass panes of the tiny, untidy dorm room where Neal was supposed to sleep. Even tucked beneath his warm blankets, he could feel the cold seeping through the cracks in the stone wall of King Gareth’s Dormitory. Hear the ivy that trellised the building banging on his window like a restless spirit–an unquiet, unburied ghost–demanding entry no matter how he burrowed his ears in his pillows.
Sleep was not going to happen for him tonight. As it hadn’t so many nights since he learned that Cathal was no longer among the living.
Neal decided that if he couldn’t sleep, he could study. During exams at the university, sleep and studying were the only activities outside of exam taking, essay writing, and the partaking of whatever sustenance was necessary to keep body and soul united that pupils engaged in. Other years, that reality had felt oppressive. Limiting. Stifling. Not at all like the free spirit that pervaded the university the rest of the term.
This term, Neal didn’t mind the oppressiveness. Welcomed it in fact. An outward reflection of the austerity he was trying to cultivate within. He was not even partaking of much sustenance this year. Viewed it as an indulgence. A waste of time that should be poured into his studies especially when food and drink never seemed appetizing any more.
He lit a bedside candle with a flash of his green Gift. Rolled out of bed. Pulled on slippers and a dressing gown to protect himself against the winter chill. Fumbled, by the flickering, emerald illumination of that lone candle, about on his desk until he found one of the texts Master Gillin had assigned on pulmonary diseases. A text Master Gillin had indicated would be very useful in preparing for tomorrow’s exam.
Tomorrow’s exam. The last exam Neal would sit this term. Then, the day after that, the scores would be released. Neal would know how he ranked in his classes. How he stacked up against his peers.
That wasn’t the thought that made his stomach pinch. His forehead beetle. Exam results had no terror for him. He knew he would do well in them. He always had, and he always would. He could ace an exam in his sleep.
No, it was the thought of what would happen after his exams were done–his semester concluded–that made him queasy. The imminence of his return to Queenscove. His reunion with his grieving parents, who would draw out his own mourning. The approaching funeral for Cathal. When they would seal Cathal’s body in the hard stone of the family crypts. Making Cathal’s death final. Unalterable. Indisputable even for a master of argument like Neal.
He couldn’t face that. His aversion to doing so the reason why he had remained at the university when his mother was so adamant he should return to Queenscove with her. The end of term exams and essays nothing more than a convenient excuse to escape and evade his own grief for as long as he could.
Slipping the text on pulmonary diseases beneath his arm, Neal snatched up his candle. Crossed to the door. Opened it. Stepped out into the torchlit hallway. At the university, there were no curfews. Students were permitted to remain awake as late as they wished. Studying in the library or in the dormitory lounges. Going out into the city to sample the gastronomic delights of the taverns that sprang up like mushrooms around the university. At liberty to enter and leave their rooms whenever they desired. Not restricted as pages up at the palace were.
Trying to be as considerate of his sleeping fellows as possible, Neal crept down the corridor on silk-slippered feet. Reached the lounge at the end of the hallway. Opened the door. Settled himself in a cushioned chair at one of the room’s many vacant tables. Flipped Master Gillin’s assigned text to a random page. Began reviewing the chart he there.
He moved through the pages. Pouring over charts and graphs. Reciting data and definitions to himself until he had every number and word memorized. A talent he had. One his older brothers had envied. That rendered sitting exams almost insultingly easy. A breeze and a borderline pleasure. An opportunity to demonstrate his intellectual superiority to anyone who doubted it.
Sometime before the dawn, he must have fallen asleep without being cognizant of it. Drifted off into dark dreams of death and failure. Head drooping into his text. Body folding into the table.
He was startled out of his slumber by the sound of the lounge door swinging open. The following gasp of the astonished maid given the thankless task of keeping King Gareth’s Dormity as clean and presentable as it could be. “Young sir, I’m sorry to disturb you! I didn’t think anyone would be in here at this hour!”
“No need to apologize.” Groggily, Neal lifted his head off the text he had unwittingly been using as a pillow. Noted that his candle had guttered out. No wonder the maid had been so surprised to see him. There would have been no light shining in the gap between door and floor to suggest the presence of a student in the lounge. “It is an outlandish hour for anyone to be here. I fell asleep here by mistake.”
“And that’s no mystery. The masters place too much pressure on you lads and lasses come exam time, that’s what I always say!” The maid clucked like a fretful mother hen concerned over the safety of her chicks as she began dusting and polishing the furniture. “And your parents are even worse! Dumping all their golden dreams and ambitions on you! Expecting you to earn perfect marks–be the best in your class!”
“My parents and masters didn’t place this pressure on me.” Neal rose. Gathered up his text. “I dumped it all on myself. A load I insisted on carrying for myself even when they offered to help with the burden.”
But could anyone truly carry the burden–the weight and pressure–of another’s grief? A question guaranteed to spark heated university debate. An intense argument Neal for once had no desire to vehemently engage in–to express his fact-supported position with fervor. He did not want to debate the merits or nature of his grief with anyobody. He wanted, as much as possible, for it to be a private sorrow. Carried within himself forever. Only to be examined and understood by himself.
“Ah.” The maid clucked her tongue again. “You are a true academic then. Longing to become one of those absent-minded masters yourself when you graduate, I see.”
“I should get some rest.” Neal hurried to the door. Determined to make a hasty exit before she could share any more shrewd guesses about what he wanted. Maids at the university were too bold and clever. Much like the students in that way. “Perhaps in my own bed this time.”
“You go do that then, young master.” The maid waved him away with a twinkle in her eyes and a flick of the old cloth she was vigorously employing in her dusting and polishing. “And good luck to you on this last day of exams.”
“Thank you.” Neal bowed to her. A strange gesture for a duke’s son to bestow upon a maid, but he had never been stuffy about ranks. A trait that had served him well at the university where members of all classes mingled and melted together. Where the hierarchy was more centered around academic achievement than birth. Merit rooted in articulated wit and not blue bloodlines. “I will do my best not to disappoint anybody. Especially myself.”
He strode down the hallway. Passing the slate boards that hung from each door. Bearing the name of each room’s occupant. Often above or below a quote the student had selected from a philosophical work by the Old Ones or a romantic poem written centuries ago by the Tusaine creators and undisputed masters of the genre. Each quote representing the student’s effort to project an idealized image of themselves out into the world. To portray themselves as cultured. Sophisticated. Clever. The sort of person who not only read but derived pleasure and value from reading great poetry and philosophy.
It was a posturing. A pretending. Neal was no less and no more a fake than anyone else in the dormitory. The slate slung on his door bore a quote etched in charcoal. A quote even he knew was pretentious from a philosopher of the Old Ones with an outlook so misanthtopic and depressing that the philosopher had been driven to suicide to escape humanity or maybe just himself.
Snorting at the cynical quote he had written on his slate, Neal entered his room. Locked the door behind him. Removed his slippers and dressing gown. Collapsed onto his bed. Closed his eyes. Slept but didn’t really rest.
That afternoon–after Hamlin and Josse bullied him into eating some bread and mutton stew in the dining hall–Neal sat his exam on pulmonary diseases. For two hours, he scribbled his answers. Had to focus on nothing except reading questions, recalling information, and writing it down to prove to Master Gillin that he had learned something in this course. Heard nothing except scratching quills and flipping exam pages.
When the bell rang across the campus–announcing the end of this last exam–it sounded too loud and harsh in Neal’s ears. Master Gillin waded between the desks. Collecting the exams. Urging his students to drink and celebrate the end of another long term. Wishing them a happy Midwinter holiday and an enjoyable break. Receiving good-natured pleasantries in return. He was a well-loved master, and the students were disposed to look on any authority figure who endorsed their wild revelry after tense weeks of exams and essays with favor.
“I enjoyed having you in my class this semester.” Master Gillin smiled gently at Neal as he took the exam Neal extended to him. “I am aware you will be burying a brother this break. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be a help or comfort to you in any way.”
“I enjoyed being in your class, sir.” Neal responded earnestly to the first sentence. Ignored the second half of Master Gillin’s remark. Didn’t want to think about burying his brother. Wondered why everyone brought that up in all their efforts to be kind to him in the midst of his mourning. As if reminders of his grief would somehow be an aid in progressing him through all the horrible stages of it.
Master Gillin nodded. Moved on to collect more exams from students who seemed to have nothing to grieve and everything to celebrate. Pupils who, as far as Neal could see, had never lost anything. But that was the tricky thing about grief. It was sneaky. Pervasive. Didn’t show on the surface. Only on the broken interior of a battered soul. Perhaps they all carried their sorrows and losses. Invisible to each other. Alone and isolated in their mourning.
“Josse and I are planning on going tavern-hopping with some of our friends.” Hamlin jostled Neal’s shoulder as they joined the river of students streaming toward the door. Josse falling into step beside them in this channel of chattering pupils bursting with irrepressible energy that would take them to a hundred raucous taverns this evening. Propel them through a long night of drinking to see the sunrise of the day when their exam results would be released. “You can join us if you would like.”
Neal hesitated. He did not want to seem entirely joyless by refusing the opportunity to drink and savor the end of term with his friends. Yet, he couldn’t imagine himself able to feign jocularity through an exuberant night of untamed, unabashed revelry. The sort of revelry only unleashed after the essays and exams of a long, stressful term were finished. He would be an anchor to their celebrations. Drowning their delight with his unshakeable moroseness. Destroying their merriment with his crushing bleakness.
Josse detected his pause. Hastened to toss his two coppers worth into the conversation. “You don’t have to come, of course. We all understand if you don’t want to go out drinking.”
Josse, Neal thought, sounded almost as if he were half-hoping that Neal would indeed refuse the invitation to go tavern-hopping. Hamlin and Josse would have felt obliged to extend the offer for him to join them. To ensure that he didn’t feel excluded from their company during his period of mourning. Yet, while he was mourning, his presence was so black. Darkening everything.
If he went drinking with his friends, his gloom would only drag them into the abyss with him. Spoil the otherwise blissfully hedonistic atmosphere. An atmosphere in which nobody would wish to think of death. To heed its eternal, overshadowing existence among them. Its power to snuff any of them out like a candle in an instance. A heartbeat. A single breath. All of them were mere moments away from dying, and nobody liked to remember that while tipping back tankards of ale.
Deciding that he would remain in solitude at the university for his own good and that of his friends who should not be weighed down by his sorrows, Neal shook his head in feigned regret. Offered a feeble excuse to explain his absence. As if justification were required. “I can’t, boys. Not tonight. Got a ton of packing to do. Haven’t even started throwing anything into my trunks. Was too busy prepping for exams and writing essays. And you won’t believe how Father will scold if I’m not all packed up and ready to go when he arrives to take me home.”
Hamlin and Josse nodded. Made sympathetic noises. Pretended to accept this lie he spun for them. This lie they all wanted to believe was the truth. Acted as if they didn’t have their own packing to start and finish. As if they hadn’t been up to their ears in exams and essays. Same as Neal. That was, Neal supposed, the nature of friendship. Pretending to believe the lies they created for one another. Forging a collective delusion. Living an elaborate fable together.
When they reached the campus green, Neal and his friends parted. Hamlin and Josse striding toward the gate that led out of the university into the vibrant streets of Corus. Neal taking the path back to the quadrangle of dormitories that housed the male students.
Female students resided in their own quadrangle of dormitories on the opposite side of campus. Male and female students alike were forbidden from visiting the dormitories of the opposite sex under penalty of ten demerits if caught by a master or servant. A not entirely successful stab at discouraging nocturnal dalliances and improprities among the student body.
University students had their burning passions–stoked by copious amounts of beer and romantic poetry–that must be sated after all. The prospect of earning demerits sometimes even added to the thrill of a liaison. At least that was the ardently expressed view of many a university student emerging from tangled bedsheets after a night spent divertingly in a bed not their own.
Neal climbed the stairs to his floor. Unlocked his door. Stared around his messy room. Began throwing clothes and books into his trunks at random. Could not be bothered with organizing his belongings in any semblance of a coherent manner. That demanded a higher level of caring about trivialities than he currently possessed.
The next day he received an official scroll–signed by his masters and Dean Harailt to confirm its authenticity–listing his grades and rankings in his classes. He, Hamlin, and Josse lay sprawled on the carpet of Hamlin’s dorm room, peeking over one another’s shoulders to compare their marks. At the university, pupils were perpetually assessing and monitoring their performance relative to others. Eager to know exactly who ranked where in the academic pecking order.
“You ranked top five in all your classes.” Josse kicked Neal’s ankle lightly. A teasing, boyish kick. “Now I know why your nose was buried in a book all term.”
“You didn’t fare too poorly yourself.” Neal returned the kick with one of his own. “You rank top ten and above in everything. You should be proud.”
“My father will say otherwise.” Josse emitted a long-suffering sigh. “He’ll wonder aloud why he bothers to fund my education in Corus when I’m not the best at anything.”
“Not everybody can be the best at anything.” Neal shrugged. Suddenly grateful that his parents never pressured him to be the best. Just wanted him to do as well as he could. Wherever that might rank him relative to his peers. “Besides, you can always tell your father that you’d drink up all his money at Port Legann taverns if he didn’t pay for your education. So it’s better his coin goes to your university fees because at least he gets something out of it.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him that.” Josse rolled his eyes. “If I want him to beat me.”
The three of them said their farewells not long after that. Clapping one another on the back. Exchanging wishes for a happy Midwinter. Neal pretending that there was foggiest possibility that he might enjoy the holiday instead of finding it a torment that only added to his grief. His aching sense of Cathal’s absence at a time that had always been dedicated to family.
Neal retreated to his dorm room. Plopped down on one of his trunks. Listened to the sounds of his classmates shouting goodbyes and festive well-wishes as they passed each other in the corridor and staircase. Heard the scrapings of moving trunks. All the noises that announced an emptyting dormitory at the end of another semester.
Waited for his father to arrive. To collect him. His mother’s terminology. As if Neal were a package that might go astray if not guarded on his journey. Pulled a book out of a second trunk to pass the time until Father came.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 11:21:44 GMT 10
The Seven Stars
He was so immersed in his reading that it was a surprise to him when there was a soft knocking on his door. Father’s knock. Neal would recognize that particular sound–that unique knock–anywhere.
“Come in,” he called. Stowing the book back in its trunk. “The door is unlocked.”
“Son.” Father entered. Dressed in mourning black. Held out his arms in an invitation for an embrace.
“Father.” Neal stood. Wrapped his arms around his father. Relieved to feel the pulse in his father’s neck. The pulse of life. That testified to a warm, still-beating heart.
“How are things with you?” Father’s fingers combed through Neal’s hair. As if he were a toddler. Not a university student.
Neal twisted away before his father could humiliate him with more childish displays of affection. Whipped out the scroll bearing his grades and rankings with a flourish. “Quite well, Father. I ranked top five in all my classes. Contrary to popular opinion, I am not, in fact, a moron. At least not in the view of my esteemed masters.”
Father accepted the scroll. Studied it. Smiled. Ruffled Neal’s hair again as if Neal hadn’t objected to that sort of gesture a mere moment ago. Replied sincerely to Neal’s sarcasm. “I am proud of you. How hard you have worked despite everything.”
Despite everything. An allusion to Cathal’s death. Silence descended between Neal and his father. Neal tried to drink in his father’s pride. Soak in it as if it were a bath. Avoid seeping in the sorrow of Cathal’s loss that seemed to bleed into everything. Darkening it. Tainting it with grief. Replacing joy with bitterness.
Father’s fingers drifted beneath Neal’s chin. Lifted it until their eyes met. Added mildly, “That wasn’t what I was asking, however.”
“I know what you were asking.” Neal’s lips thinned mulishly. He still did not want to talk about Cathal. Not with Father. Not with Master Gillin. Not with Dean Harailt. “I didn’t wish to answer the one you were asking. So I answered another one.”
“Very well.” Father released Neal’s chin. “As long as you understand that wasn’t what I was asking. Don’t think that the first thing I was worried about after everything that has happened was your grades and class rankings. That I cared more about your academics than about your feelings. About you.”
Neal flushed. Sputtered. “Of course I don’t think that. I’d be stupid if I thought that, and I’m not stupid as my teachers will attest. Without me even having to bribe them because I truly am that brilliant.”
“I made us reservations at the Seven Stars.” Father changed the subject. Referring to a tavern frequented by university students and masters. A place where only those who had never entered would imagine it was necessary to make a reservation. “I thought we could dine there before we left for Queenscove.”
“You what?” Neal squawked. The Seven Stars not being a place where a university student wanted to be seen with a parent.
“I know you like the place.” Father plainly did not comprehend why Neal was so appalled. “I’ve heard you praise it before. By name.”
“That doesn’t mean I want to be seen in public with you there.” Neal marveled that his otherwise very intelligent father could be so obtuse about this issue.
“There’s no need to be impudent, Neal.” Father frowned. “I’ve already made the reservations. Come along.”
Neal considered pointing out that he could no more refrain from impudence for any length of time than he could cease breathing. Decided against it since Father was already frowning. Trailed his father out of his room into the hallway. Locked his door despite the emptiness of the dormitory and the consequent unlikelihood of him being burgled while he dined with his father.
As Neal tucked his key into the pocket of his breeches, Father glanced at the cynical quote written on his slate. Arched an eyebrow. “You couldn’t find a less depressing quote to decorate your door with, Neal?”
“What should I have adorned my door with, Father?” Neal’s eyebrow lifted in an unconscious mimicry of his father’s expression. “A sweet quote about buttercups and rainbows?”
Father offered no answer beyond a sigh. Neal took advantage of that relative silence to press his argument. “Buttercups and rainbows aren’t intellectual. Bleak is. The bleaker the better. That’s our motto when it comes to decor in this dormitory.”
The Seven Stars was not far from the quadrangle where the King Gareth dormitory was situated. To appeal to the nearby university students and masters, the food was hot and hearty. The alcoholic beverages intoxicating and foam-flecked. The prices reasonable by ludicriously inflated Corus standards.
A barmaid–Estrilda if Neal recalled her name correctly–greeted them as they entered. Brought them over to a wooden corner table with two chairs. Poured them each a flagon of beer. In the Seven Stars, there was never anything to drink but the strong, brown house brew.
“You must’ve done well on your exams,” Estrilda commented as she finished filling their flagons. “If your father is bringing you here to celebrate.”
Neal made a non-committal grunt. Feeling himself flush to his forehead. He would never again, he thought, be able to show his face in the Seven Stars. Not without remembering the intense embarrassment of this moment. A pity because the Seven Stars did serve some delicious pies. Of both the dinner and dessert variety.
He placed an order for a steak-and-onion pie. Knew the meat would be tender, the onions bathed in a thick gravy, and the buttery crust cooked to golden, flaky perfection. Eating it would be a decadent experience. One likely to increase his odds of suffering heart failure when he was older. But there was no guarantee that he would live to be an old man, anyway. Cathal was proof of that. Might as well eat indulgently. Not worrying about health or clogging the arteries.
Father apparently felt differently. Ordered a roast chicken with vegetable dish that would add much less fat to the arteries.
Once Estrilda had flounced off to deliver their orders to the kitchen, Neal revived his complaint about their presence at the Seven Stars. This time attacking from a different angle. “How can we be here, Father? Aren’t we supposed to be in mourning?”
Was he–the lad notoriously lacking in manners–lecturing his father on propriety? Was that yet another sign of his deplorable deficiency in decorum, or was it instead proof that the world was ending?
“We are in mourning.” Father sipped at his beer. Gazing at Neal calmly over the rim of his tankard. “That doesn’t mean we can’t eat and drink.”
“No.” Neal scowled. “But it doesn’t mean we have to eat and drink in taverns either.”
“Nor does it mean we must avoid them like the Sweating Sickness.” Father took another serene sip of his beer. His unflappability vexing Neal, who did not understand how he could be so impervious to the heartbreaks and losses of life. Could not seem as angry and adrift as Neal was himself. “Even though we are mourning your brother, we are at liberty to visit the occasional tavern for a drink and a meal. There is no crime and no disrespect in that.”
“Do you even care that Cathal is dead?” snapped Neal. Blood pounding like a drum in his ears. He had to resist the overwhelming temptation to flip over the table. Flagons of beer and all. “How can you just sit here and sip your beer as if he isn’t gone from us forever? Doesn’t it bother you that he’ll never eat or drink anything again?”
“Oh, son. Of course it does.” Father put down his tankard. Reached across the table. Clasped Neal’s forearm gently. “I grieve Cathal and will never forget him. Yet, we can’t stop eating and drinking because he is no longer with us. We must continue to live and know that he wouldn’t begrudge us our visits to taverns or our happiness together.”
“That’s easier said than done, Father,” Neal muttered mutinously.
“I didn’t say it was easy, Neal. Just that it is what we must do.” A trace of sterness entered Father’s voice. The healer pronouncing to an obstinate patient what must be done to achieve a complete recovery from a deep wound.
“Then you should be angry with me.” Neal shook his head. Hating the tears that swelled in his eyes. He would not bawl like a baby in the middle of a crowded Corus tavern. His pride could not be permitted to forsake him like that. Especially not so close to the university. If any of his classmates saw him, his reputation among his peers would go up in flames like a Beltane bonfire. “Because I can’t do that.”
“I will not be mad at you for anything related to your grief.” Father’s face and tone softened. The sterness vanishing as if it had never been. Wiped out like a life claimed by centaur arrows. He patted Neal’s forearm. “That’s a promise.”
Estrilda was wending her way toward them. Bearing a steaming steak-and-onion pie and a piping hot platter of roast chicken with vegetables on a tray.
Father noticed her approach. Smiled slightly. Remarked with a wry edge, “Ah, our dinner arrives. Let’s get something solid in our stomachs to offset all this beer.”
“A tankard of beer is not a lot for a university student.” Neal never could resist quibbling over details.
That was probably what his father wanted to accomplish. Draw him into a debate over inconsequential details that mattered to nobody. Distract him from his grief. Neal allowed himself to be thus diverted. So he could attempt to enjoy a night and a meal for the first time since Cathal died. After all, it would be a shame not to savor a good steak-and-onion pie when his father was paying for it.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 11:22:48 GMT 10
Brotherly Taunts and Memories
It felt strange to return to Queenscove. To ride along the icy road to the castle. Passing hills where he had gone sledding with his siblings long ago when they were all so much younger. Recalling how it had felt to clutch a rope between his gloved fingers, Cathal’s arms wrapped like a garand about his waist, as he steered the wooden sled through the snow.
Their speed accelerating with the downward slope of the hill. Their faces flushed red as a robin’s breast. Their joyful laughter and wild shouting ringing like silver bells across the wintry landscape. Rising to the arching bowl of the gray sky above. Echoing into eternity.
So many moments and memories that he had thought lost to him–faded into irrelevance in the mists of time and his forgetful mind–were restored to him with a strength that threatened to tear his heart asunder.
The yard–white in winter–that surrounded the shoveled stone pathway leading to the stately staircase that climbed to the castle’s grand pillared entrance hall. The yard where Neal had built snow forts with his brothers.
Waging war against them. Rolling snowballs to hurl from behind cold battlements at the foes who had the same hot blood flowing hot through their veins as he did. Yelping and cursing whenever a snowball launched by one of his brothers struck his face. Smashing hard against his cheek or his ear. Leaving flakes dotted across his eyelashes like sugar sprinkled over sweet cakes.
The yard where he and Cathal had created a snowman together once. Using a button stolen from their mother’s sewing kit for the nose. Two black coals raided from the kitchen for the eyes. Pebbles dug from the snow-mantled garden for the smiling mouth. Old, tattered scarves, hats, and gloves for the clothing. To keep the snowman warm. As if a snowman would want to be warm in winter. As if warmth wouldn’t melt a snowman.
They had been so innocent then. So full of energy and folly. Now Cathal was dead. Gone as a melted snowman in spring.
A series of cliched thoughts and images, Neal knew as he followed his father up the steps into the cavernous entrance hall, but what remained in the wake of death except cliches? And didn’t cliches reach that derided, eye roll inducing, and hackneyed status because the emotions and ideas they expressed were so popular as to become banal? So true as to become trite?
It was only logical for him to grieve in cliches, he decided as he was reunited with his mother and surviving siblings. Filling a million miles away from them even as he exchanged greetings and condolences with them through numb lips.
There was Jessamine–called Jessa–wearing a dress of mourning black. A small shadow of Mother’s grief.
There was Mariead. Three years older than him. Granted a leave of mourning from the City of the Gods convent where she was pledged as a novice. Attending the funeral of a family member one of the few permitted reasons for temporarily departing the enclosure sacred to the Goddess of her austere order.
There was Tiernan. Two years younger than Neal. An acolyte with the Mithran monks. Robed in the sternness and solemnity that was the natural and inevitable consequence of a life devoted to contemplative prayer in chapel and quiet study in cloisters. To pious rituals and services throughout the day and night designed to worship and honor the golden god of the sun. Of bloody warfare. Of elusive, ever-fleeting justice.
There was Graeme, too. The eldest. Towering over the rest. Returned from the fight against the Immortals. Grave as he prepared to bury a younger brother. Rigid as ever in the unceasing, unstinting commitment to duty he radiated like heat from a blacksmith’s fire.
Mother’s arms were too tight–too tethering as if she sought to bind her to him and the world–as she embraced Neal. Patting his cheeks. Exclaiming over how happy she was to see him.
A son not lost to her. Trapped against her heaving bosom. Unable to escape. Or even to breathe.
“You’re suffocating me,” he groused. Extracting himself from her stifling hug. Twisting away from her. Ignoring the lifted eyebrow from his father that suggested there were politer and more sensitive ways he could have responded to his mother’s overbearing affection.
Turning on his heel. Retreating toward the door through which he had just come with Father. Announcing tersely, “I’m going for a walk along the cove.”
“But you’ve just arrived. You haven’t even warmed yourself by a hearth.” Mother looked shocked. Reproachful. Apparently he was not supposed to flee from his family the instant he laid eyes upon them. He rarely reacted as expected. As everyone else would under the same circumstances. He was not a predictable creature, but an independent one. Born to carve his own winding paths through life for reasons even he did not always understand. Another fashion in which he failed as a son.
“I’ll be back soon, Mother.” He grunted by way of consolation. Trying to atone for the impulse inside him that made him rebuff comfort from her. From everybody who offered it to him. “Just want to stretch my legs and breathe in some fresh salt air after my journey.”
That sounded admirably sane and normal, didn’t it? Weren’t vacuous people always yattering on about stretching their legs after long journeys and extolling the myriad benefits of fresh air?
“I’ll join you,” Jessa piped up. “I’ve been cooped up inside for too long during these winter days.”
“Bundle up then.” Mother shifted the target of her fussing from Neal to Jessa. As seamless in this transition as only a fretful parent could be. “We don’t want you catching your death cold.”
Neal opened his mouth to embark on a detailed analysis of just how improbable that would be with a healer of his moderate training and talent present. It not exactly requiring the Crown’s chief healer to fend off frostbite. Before he could speak a word, however, he was cut off by Jessa answering their mother.
With poise and humor. Elegance and wit no doubt taught to every girl trained to be a graceful lady of the court. Floating up the marble stairwell that led to the private family rooms. One of which was Jessa’s generously apportioned bedchamber complete with the impressive array of cloaks in a rainbow of colors hanging in her closet. “Don’t worry, Mother. I have no desire to become an icicle.”
Thinking of his sister’s collection of cloaks–so massive that surely she never found enough occasions on which to don them all–Neal couldn’t resist a brotherly taunt. A bold sally at normalcy amidst the wreckage of their lives and grief. “If you spend more than five minutes anguishing over which cloak to wear, I’ll leave without you.”
He was under no obligation to be chivalrous. He was no knight or even one in training, after all. That was his understanding of chivalry. That it was something practiced only by knights and would-be knights. Something that somehow seemed to degrade women as much as it was intended to abase the men who bowed and scraped before them.
“I have only one black cloak.” Jessa shot him a withering glance. One that told him his joke had fallen flat. Had only been another painful reminder that they were in mourning. “It won’t take me any time at all to decide what cloak to wear.”
Before he could stumble out any sort of feeble reply, she disappeared up the stairs. Vanishing into her bedchamber. Emerging a moment later with a black cloak wrapped about her shoulders. She descended the steps. Rejoining them in the entrance hall. Accepted the arm Neal silently proffered her. Linking her elbow through hers.
Arm in arm, they strode through the door. Walked along garden paths that would have been blooming in any other season. Past the chapel with its statues and stained glass windows where they would hold Cathal’s funeral. Where they would consign his body to the crypts until the end of time.
Down steep limestone steps hewn from one of the cliffs that encircled the cove for which Queenscove was named. Into the oval inlet carved by centuries of relentless waves pounding against limestone and chalk cliffs. Eroding a narrow, restricted entrance. Ocean claiming what had once been rocky land.
The cries of seabirds whirling overhead echoed against the cliffs embracing the cove like a mother clinging to a child. Neal remembered being a child. Shouting just to hear his voice reverberate against the surrounding stone.
Perhaps Jessa was lost in the undertow of her own recollections. For she murmured, “I used to come to this cove all the time with Cathal. He was the one who taught me how to swim. Who held me in the water as I learned to kick my legs and cup my hands.”
“He wasn’t so kind to me.” Neal snorted. Remembering how Cathal had shoved him under water and held him there. Made him worry that he would drown beneath the waves that always bended in an arc shape because of the narrow, restricted entrance. Made his nostrils burn. His lungs strain. His tongue taste salt and seaweed. “He used to dunk me under water and trap me there. There were so many times I thought I was on the cusp of dying because of him.”
“Brothers are always squabbling and bullying.” Jessa emitted a sound that was probably meant to be a giggle but that sounded more like a sniffle. “It’s what they do best.”
“We live to please,” Neal remarked dryly. Then shared his own wry memory with her. Pointing at the tallest rock that hovered over the cove. “I remember Cathal and I would scramble up that and jump over the edge into the ocean.”
“Father hated that you two did that.” Jessa gave him a lopsided grin. Her green eyes damp with unshed tears. “He feared you’d snap your necks or your spine one day.”
Father had been afraid of that, Neal remembered now. One could be the greatest healer in Tortall, one of the most powerful in the world, and still live in fear of a child suffering an injury or contracting an illness one couldn’t cure. Perhaps, being cognizant of the precise limitations of one’s power, became even more fearful of that.
Still, despite his fear, Father had never forbidden Neal or Cathal from climbing that cliff. Jumping off its ledge into foam-flecked ocean far below. Father, Neal reflected with the wisdom of hindsight, must have known that it was an order impossible for rambunctious boys to obey.
Father was mostly fair in the orders he issued. Not demanding anything that went against the natures of his children. Balancing their various needs for adventure,exploration, for excitement, and independence with his own instinctual urge to ensure their safety. To protect his offspring from every potential harm.
Another reason to love his father, Neal supposed. Not that he would ever speak such an embarrassing sentiment to Father. His love would remain entirely internal and unvoiced.
“Neither of us ever did break our necks or spines,” Neal commented. Didn’t say that death had come for Cathal in a different, unpredictable way. Perhaps it always did. The ultimate unseen and unanticipated enemy that could never be defeated but only be held at bay indefinitely.
Conversations were comprised as much from what went unsaid as what was spoken aloud. Neal knew that. Jessa likely did as well since that seemed something in which one wishing to be a lady would be schooled.
The wind blowing off the cove was bone-chilling. By silent, mutual consent, Neal and his sister turned around. Began their return to Queenscove castle.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 11:23:38 GMT 10
Grief’s Ghost
Sleep never claimed Neal the night before Cathal’s funeral. Instead, insomnia was his master. Driving him–as if with an invisible lash–out of his bed. Into the dark castle corridors. Using the green light of his Gift for illumination because the orange torches spaced at even intervals along the hallways had mostly flickered out as the night wore on.
He lurked about Queenscove castle like an unburied, unquiet spirit. A spirit that could never rest in the Black God’s peaceful, all-embracing sleep. In return, grief haunted Neal as he wandered aimlessly through otherwise empty chambers and corridors of the place that, more than any other in the wide world, was his home.
Queenscove castle had been Cathal’s home too. That was why everywhere Neal’s eyes fell reminded him in some way of his dead brother. The brother they would bury tomorrow.
Every corner, every crevice, contained a memory of Cathal. The large, arching windows that stared out at the gardens and the crashing waves of the Emerald Ocean. The windows where he and Cathal had stood on many cold winter mornings. Breathing on the glass. Sketching pictures in the mist their warm breath had made. Fantastical images. Drawn from their wild, boyish imaginations.
The iron railing on the winding, spiral staircase they had laughed as they slid down. Deaf to their mother’s warnings that they would break every bone in their bodies one day if they kept on being so careless. The dusty wardrobe in a spare room that had been one of Cathal’s favorite places to conceal himself during their childhood games of hide-and-seek. The hallway down which they had gleefully raced each other after escaping the watchful gazes of their unamused nursemaids.
The memories came to Neal though he didn’t court them. Came to him as he wandered through a maze of familiar rooms and hallways until the muscles in his legs ached. Compelling him to retreat to his bedchamber. Collapse onto his mattress. Tug his blankets up to his chin. Curl in on himself like an unborn baby wrapped in a mother’s womb.
He didn’t sleep. Just lay in his bed until the first fingers of dawn tentatively reached through his tightly-pulled window curtains. The day of Cathal’s funeral dawned gray with a bleak sleet. The sort of weather that made it seem like the entire world were weeping. Mourning the loss of Cathal.
Neal counted himself fortunate that his mother had selected and left out for him the evening before the black clothes that he should don for his brother’s funeral. That he didn’t need to decide what he should wear for the grim occasion he did not want to attend. That he didn’t need to think. Could just mindlessly slip his arms into tunic sleeves and yank the breeches up his numb legs.
His legs–like his entire body–were still numb when he entered the family chapel behind his parents. Beside his surviving brothers and sisters. Before the other mourners. At the front of a morbid parade to the grave.
There were many mourners, Neal thought as he glanced over his shoulder. Saw them settling like crows on branches into the pews behind him. Knights who had served beside Cathal on the battlefield. Friends he had known since page training. Aunts. Uncles. Great-aunts. Great-uncles. Cousins. Second and third cousins. The Queenscoves were related to half the noble families in the realm by marriage or blood, and it felt only a minor exaggeration to claim that half Tortall’s nobility had braved winter snow and ice to assemble in Cathal’s honor.
Neal sat in the front pew. Immediately below the altar. Nobody wanted to sit at the front of a funeral service. It didn’t feel like an honor–a mark of status–but like a branding iron. A branding iron of grief and the shame of those left behind when a loved one passed from the world. Into the indifferent care of the implacable Black God.
Neal wished he could hover in the rear of the chapel. Fading into the background of these horrible proceedings in the same way he would hunch in the last row of a crowded lecture hall when he hadn’t completed an assigned reading. Praying to any listening and benevolently disposed diety that he would not be called on. That he would not be singled out in any way.
The cowled priest of the Black God ordered them to rise. Neal stood with the rest of the congregation. Head bowed. Mind a million miles away.
The Black God’s priest swirled a censer about. Striding along the nave. Infusing the whole chapel from its marble floors to its domed ceiling–depicting a radiant Mithros climbing in the sky for a glorious, blood-red dawn–with the cloying scent of myrrh. The smell of death. As if the atmosphere of grief didn’t pervade the chapel enough.
The Black God’s priest mounted the altar again. Led them all in the traditional litany of chants and prayers for a departed soul. A warrior slain in battle. Neal tonelessly joined in the recitation. The words held no meaning for him. His lips moved without any awareness of what he was saying. Partaking in the ritual without thinking. Without caring.
He was not like Mariead and Tiernan, who prayed with fervor. Entreating the Black God for mercy with folded hands and closed eyes. With devotion etched into every line of their features. He didn’t have it in him to be devout. To trust in the grace of the gods. Not before Cathal had died. Certainly not after. He was much too cynical to believe in the benevolence of anyone or anything.
The Black God’s preist had begun his homily. Started to describe Cathal in the vaguest of terms. Terms that didn’t even seem to fit Cathal. A loving brother when Neal remembered taunts and clouts on the ear. An obedient son when Neal recalled defiance that had sometimes made Mother despair. A devoted servant of Mithros when Cathal had squirmed beside Neal a hundred times at the dawn and dusk services Mother dragged them to as little boys. A valiant knight when Neal had been able to spook him with whispered ghost stories on All Hallow’s Eve.
The Black God’s priest had plainly never known Cathal. Could have been memorializing a complete stranger. Yet Mother was still crying. First into her handkerchief. Then into Jessa’s shoulder as Jessa patted her on the back. Tears streaming down her own cheeks.
Neal couldn’t stand it any more. Couldn’t bear to listen to the priest babble on as he eulogized a man who was not Cathal. Couldn’t stomach the sound of his mother and Jessa sobbing. Felt bile blaze up his throat.
He had to flee before he was sick all over the chapel floor. He rose. Drawing astonished gasps and glances from the mourners behind him. Pushing past Graeme. Graeme, who had been stoic as the stone statues to Mithros and the Goddess that lined the chapel’s niches and alcoves. Graeme, who now gave a sharp, scandalized intake of breath. Who hissed, “Neal!”
His brother’s harsh disapproval didn’t stop him. Only his mother or father’s disapprobation could have stayed him now. Mother was too busy crying her eyes out into Jessa’s doubtlessly damp shoulder to notice what he did. He could’ve burned the chapel to ashes about their ears, and she wouldn’t emerge from her fog of grief long enough to condemn his act of arson. Father was more alert, but it was Graeme’s arm on which he rested a stilling palm. Indicating that Graeme should allow Neal to pass without further hindrance.
Neal took advantage of this to press past Graeme. To flee up the nave. Out of the chapel. Away from the reproachful, judgmental glares and murmurs his hasty departure provoked from the pews full of mourners.
He heard footsteps slapping the marble floor behind him as he ran. Flicked a glance over his shoulder. Saw Dom–who had always been his closest cousin–darting after him. Not to stop him. Not to prevent himself from embarrassing himself and disgracing the family further. To accompany him. To be his partner in crime. So Neal wouldn’t have to be alone in his grief. In his insanity. However temporary or otherwise it might be.
Neal was certain that as long as he lived–as senile as old age might make him—he would never forget that joined him in running out of that chapel. Who crouched beside him when he hunched over a snow-caked bush. Who clapped him bracingly on the back as he threw up all over its barren branches.
Never forget and never stop being grateful for the cousin who was like a brother to him when another brother had died.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 11:26:24 GMT 10
A Truer Eulogy
“I didn’t eat any breakfast.” Neal gazed down at the pool of sick he had made with an academic detachment. Now that it was outside of himself–apart from himself–it was something to be studied. To be analyzed for the physical, foul-smelling manifestation of his grief that it was. “I don’t know how I managed to produce so much vomit. Truly impressive.”
“You should’ve eaten breakfast.” Dom hadn’t stopped patting Neal bracingly on the back. The repeated gesture of support was starting to become annoying. Making it harder for Neal to maintain a pretense of strength and composure.
“Why?” Neal felt another flash of irritation at Dom for attempting to slot into the role of mollycoddling mother. A role Neal’s mother usually had the pride to refuse to play. “Because it would’ve added more raw material from which to create my tasteful vomiting display.”
“Because it would’ve given you strength on a day where you need every ounce of it.” Dom tugged at Neal’s arms. Encouraging him to rise. “Let’s go on a little walk around the garden. Get you away from the vile odor of your own sick for a bit. Inhale some fresh air fragrant with evergreen instead.”
Neal was indeed beginning to feel queasy as he stared down at the puddle of vomit that had poured out of him. Boiling like magma up his throat. His stomach churning like a stormy sea seemed to be a warning that more misery could follow if he did not take his cousin’s advice.
Thus, Neal allowed himself to be cajoled to his feet. Urged into making a slow promenade around the snow-covered garden outside the chapel. Passing beneath the prickly boughs of evergreens. Breathing in their stomach-soothing scent as Dom had promised.
Pausing beneath a substantial oak. An oak with skeletal limbs that stretched emptily to the sky. Naked and vulnerable to the harsh, cold winter winds without the panoply of leaves that were its crimson-orange glory in the fall.
Something about the stately oak–even in its diminished winter state–demanded attention. Memorialization.
Dom apparently thought so too for he commented in a voice like the whisper of bird feet across snow. “I remember Graeme and Cathal used to love to climb that tree as high as they could. Then they’d jump down. Attempting as many flips and twists as they could on the descent.”
“Mother would scold whenever she caught them at it.” The fist around Neal’s heart was beginning to unclench. This seemed a more fitting tribute to Cathal than any trite pieties that had flowed like pearl prayer beads from the cowled priest’s lips. A truer eulogy. A better representation of who Cathal had been when vibrantly alive in the world. Determined and eager to leave a mark on it with his unflinching courage. “She was always afraid they would break their bones when Father wasn’t around to heal them.”
“We weren’t so worried about that, were we?” Dom’s crooked grin was more reminiscent than apologetic. “We did rather enjoy egging them on, didn’t we? Promising to serve as judges of who climbed higher and jumped with more style.”
“Graeme often climbed the higher, but Cathal had the edge in the style of his jumps. He could always cram in more twists and flips than Graeme.” Neal swallowed a Cathal-sized lump that had swelled in his throat. “Those two competed in everything. Neither ever wanting to concede that the other could be better in anything.”
“Cathal was more agile,” Dom responded as they reached the end of the chapel garden and turned around to return to the door from which Neal had fled from his brother’s funeral. The brother whose agility Dom was now describing as if it were something that could be remembered forever. Not forgotten. Clung onto in the mind and heart. “It gave him the advantage in fencing, but not in horseback riding. And the two were evenly matched in archery.”
“I was always worse than either of them at yard skills.” Neal wondered if that explained everything about who he was. The weaker little brother who could never follow in the footsteps of his two bigger, stronger brothers. The third son. Not the heir and not the spare. Until now. When the spare was dead and about to be buried. Sealed in a stone crypt for eternity. “So I became the scholar of the bunch. The best at school work and academic pursuits.”
“And–” Dom’s tone was irreverent, a sign that he could not keep from teasing Neal even on the day they were consigning Cathal to the grave forever– “in true Meathead form, you fancied that made you a genius.”
They had completed their circuit of the garden. Arriving back at the doors into the chapel. The doors Neal had no intent of opening.
Someone else opened the doors. From the inside. Neal expected a flood of mourners to emerge. Weeping into their handkerchiefs. Making banal remarks about how sorry they were that Cathal was dead. Hollow words that could never reanimate the dead nor ease the burden of loss weighing upon the living.
It was only his father who stepped out of the chapel, however. Whose sad green eyes sought them out. Drifting from one to the other as he quietly spoke their names. “Neal. Dom. We are about to bury Cathal if you wish to attend.”
“Whatever Neal decides.” Dom’s blue gaze flicked to Neal. “That’s what I’ll do.”
“I don’t know what I want to do.” Neal tore at his hair. A gesture of utmost anguish and confusion. The scholar confronted with the dreaded unanswerable question. The unsolvable mystery. “I don’t wish to attend my brother’s burial. Who does? But I don’t want to not be there either.”
“Shh.” Father reached out. Pulled Neal to his chest. Calming and solid. Like a substantial oak standing battered but tall even in winter. “I understand what you mean.”
“How can you?” Neal sputtered. An instinctive argument against illogic. “What I said made no sense, Father. It was the deranged ravings of a lunatic. Entirely disconnected from reason. Divorced from reality. Devoid of any semblance of coherence.”
“You are too hard on yourself.” Father pressed a kiss into Neal’s forehead. “Besides, I am used to understanding the senseless after years of raising you.”
The kiss on the forehead cleared Neal’s clouded mind enough that he asked, “Do you want me to attend the burial?”
As if he was the sort of obedient, obliging son whose first priority was pleasing his parents. As if he were one to worry about their disapproval or embarrassment when creating a public scene or embarrassment. As if he had ever been that sort of son or ever had the faintest hope of being a child carved in that image. Chiseled by propriety and etiquette into a shape agreeable to his parents and society as a whole. All rough edges ruthlessly cut away. Smoothed into nothingness. Until no abrasiveness remained. No rough edges to leave splinters in the skin.
“I want you to do what you wish, Neal.” Father sighed. “The choice is yours. I will not make it for you. I will respect whatever you decide.”
Neal bit his lip. Tasting blood. Whatever he had wanted to hear, it hadn’t been that.
It would’ve been easier, if his father had given a command. Rendered some definitive ruling. Instead of leaving the choice in Neal’s hands. Of course nothing about this day would be easy. He should’ve known that if nothing else. Everything about it was meant to be difficult. The better to impress itself on his memory. Etch itself into his heart. Becoming a deeper, more haunting ghost of grief.
“Do you–” Neal grappled for words– “think I’ll regret not going to Cathal’s burial?”
“I can’t know what you will regret, son.” Father clasped Neal’s shoulders gently. “You may live to regret any choice you make here. There is no easy decision. I only believe you will regret it less if it is a choice you make for yourself. Not one I force upon you.”
No easy decisions. An echo of Neal’s thoughts from a moment ago.
“I already disgraced myself and the whole family by fleeing Cathal’s funeral.” Neal blinked rapidly to prevent tears from dribbling down his cheeks. “I can’t imagine the scandal it would create if I missed his burial as well. Everyone at court will be gossiping about how I snubbed him until next Midwinter at least.”
“You did not disgrace yourself or this family when you left Cathal’s funeral in your grief.” Father cupped Neal’s chin in an unwavering palm. “I will correct anyone I hear harboring that misconception. Understand?”
Neal stared at his father as if he were a trick question on an end-of-term examination. A question for which he had studied intensely but still might answer incorrectly.
Father looked firm. Compassionate but firm. Not to be trifled with by an impertinent son.
“Yes, Father,” Neal mumbled by way of concession though he had no notion how his father could honestly claim that he had not disgraced the family and himself by running out of Cathal’s funeral like a madman. Parents were apparently meant to be beyond his comprehension. Unfathomable and eternal mysteries.
He went on in a little less of a mumble, “I will attend Cathal’s burial.”
“Good.” His father squeezed his shoulders. Then ushered him into the chapel. Adding to Dom, “Thank you for accompanying my son out of the chapel. For not leaving him alone in his grief.”
“No need to thank me, nuncle.” Nuncle. Dom was the only person Neal knew who used that ridiculous, archaic contraction. “It never occurred to me to leave him.”
“Nuncle.” Neal elbowed Dom in the ribs. Repeating the word mockingly. “King Jasson’s era just sent an urgent courier. Begging to have their antiquated phrasings back.”
“You’re just jealous.” Dom assumed a lofty manner. “You have yet to coin such a distinctive bit of language yourself. Great scholar though you claim to be.”
“The use of nuncle predates your birth by centuries.” Neal snorted. “You can’t claim any credit for it, cousin.”
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Post by devilinthedetails on Feb 21, 2023 1:13:07 GMT 10
Only Effigies
Neal and Dom followed Father across the chapel illuminated by spears of gray winter sunlight filtering through the stained glass windows. Their footsteps echoing too loudly–almost profanely–in the sacred space. Descended into the cold, dark crypts beneath the chapel where Cathal would be buried like a thousand of their ancestors before them.
On this day of Cathal’s funeral, the crypts were lit feverishly by torches burning in sconces along the lichen-lined rock walls. Torches that could not blaze away the fetid gloom of the crypts.
Ghosts seemed to shimmer in the air as he, Dom, and Father passed the first tombs. Dating back to before the founding of the Conte dynasty. Before the establishment of the Conte lineage in the ranks of the nobility in fact. The Queenscoves were a Book of Gold family. The Contes a mere Book of Silver one however ambitious. However quick to rise to the throne and never yield it.
The tombs in this level of the crypts were so old the paint on the effigies of their occupants–who must long since have been reduced to dust–had faded. Had never been repainted. Had been allowed to endure as an image of impermanence. A colorless illustration of loss that had once been a vibrant and beautiful tribute to a living being whose name was starting to disappear from the grave.
As he, Dom, and his father continued their downward journey, they went forward in time. Changes in the style of the effigies marking their progress through history.
The first and most vicious outbreak of the Sweating Sickness announced by effigies that no longer depicted the dead as if they were alive and dressed in splendor. That rather showed death and the ravages of the grave with brutal honesty.
These effigies were ghoulish creations. Products of a harrowing age when there had been a broad belief that the end of the world was imminent. That the Black God would sound the last trumpet call of doom soon.
Those apocalyptic predictions had not come to pass, but the dire warnings of the effigies remained. Bodies devoured by worms and crawling with hungry maggots. Rotting flesh in varying stages of advanced decomposition. Skulls with hollow eye sockets that could gape into nothing. Ribcages empty of all skin. Bone parted from flesh forever.
The masons who had carved these effigies must have witnessed much death and suffering to illustrate it with such clinical accuracy, and the designers seemed to take a perverse delight in torment, Neal thought as they neared the place where Cathal would be buried. Sealed in his stone-cold tomb.
Father stepped forward to stand beside Mother. Clutching his hand tightly in hers. Giving her what strength he could.
Neal felt his legs freeze. Unable to approach the slab where Cathal’s rested. Awaiting final prayers before being enclosed in its tomb. Trapped underground for eternity. An unspooling of time so long it was impossible to fathom. That attempting to do so turned Neal’s mind into wobbly pudding. Pudding more unappetizing than what was served at the Royal University.
Dom halted beside Neal. Squeezed his shoulder in a silent gesture of support.
As the cowled priest of the Black God began to lead them in a ritual litany–a humble invocation intended to induce the Black God to bestow mercy on the departed soul for whom they prayed–Neal wondered what the effigies of all those present and breathing would say about their era when they had all left the Mortal Realms. What their descendents would think of them when they were only effigies.
Cathal’s effigy was not ready, of course. His death had been sudden. Unexpected. And effigies could take years to carve.
Mother and Father had commissioned such an effigy, Neal knew. Had been shown the preliminary sketches by his mother not long after his homecoming. The effigy was meant to depict Cathal as a brave knight in shining armor. His helm thrust back so that his handsome face was visible for all who came to his tomb to admire. To mourn a warrior slain in his blooming prime.
For now, that effigy was only a vision borrowed from the future. A prophecy awaiting fulfillment. In the meantime, Cathal’s tomb would be marked with a simple stone. Into the stone were etched the stark words that failed to encapsulate a life even as abbreviated as Cathal’s had been:
Cathal of Queenscove Second son of Duke Baird and his wife Wilina
Beneath that, the dates of Cathal’s birth and death were recorded. The brackets that defined the beginning and ending of Cathal’s life. A life that seemed truly cut short but maybe that was how every life was viewed by those who grieved its passing. Perhaps even if the Black God was generous in granting a man a century of life, there would still be mourners wailing it was over too soon.
Tears welled in Neal’s eyes as he stared at his brother’s name. Hewn in stone. Cathal.
He had passed the effigies of at least a dozen Cathals on his descent through the crypts. It was a family name. Inherited like hot blood through the generations. Yet none of these other Cathals had made him cry. None of these other Cathals had been his brother in blood and bone.
The Black God’s priest had concluded his prayers while Neal was woolgathering. His head in gray clouds of grief.
The priest invited them all to step forward. To grab a handful of dark soil from an offertory bowl. Utter the traditional benediction as they poured dirt over Cathal’s coffin.
On numb knees, Neal stumbled forward to obey when Dom nudged him in the ribs. His fingers trembling, he snatched a fistful of dirt from the bowl. Stood over Cathal’s coffin. Let the soil slip through his fingers like lost time falling into oblivion as he murmured the customary blessing through lips cold as the crypts. “Dirt to dirt. Dust to dust. May you find eternal rest in the Black God’s peaceful embrace. So mote it be.”
Privately, Neal was convinced there was nothing merciful about the Black God’s remorseless, suffocating embrace. Still, he made the Sign against Evil on his chest more out of habit than sincere devotion. Especially since evil had struck and done its malign will despite any efforts to ward it off by prayer.
He couldn’t watch the mourners continue to Cathal’s coffin in fistfuls of dirt. Not when every handful of dropped seemed to render him deader than ever in Neal’s reeling mind.
His gaze drifted to his grandfather’s grave. Another Graeme of Queenscove. The one for whom Neal’s eldest brother was named. This Graeme lay with serenely folded hands as if in stately slumber. Arrayed below him in two tidy rows were his five children shown as adults.
His sons at his right hand. Daughters at his left. Neal’s father in front of a brother who had died–the Black God not being merciful–unnamed in infancy. Across from Father was Neal’s least favorite aunt Onora. Behind Aunt Onora was another sister who had died as a baby. Then came Dom’s mother who had married into the Masbolle line.
It could have been seen as an expression of love–of paternal fondness that transcended the grave–that Neal’s grandfather had his children incorporated into his effigy. Studying the postures of the children, Neal doubted this was the case, however. The inclusion of the children appeared more a monument to his grandfather’s pride. The grown offspring–even those who had not survived infancy in a world beyond artistic fancy–mere testaments to their sire’s virility.
This chilling impression was reinforced by the posture of the children. They were all kneeling. Palms clasped with imploring expressions painted on their faces. As if in prayer. Perhaps worshiping their father or begging his blessing. Maybe praying to the Black God. Interceding on behalf of their father’s soul. Reminding any onlookers to do the same.
“He must’ve had an ego the size of a giant,” Neal muttered to Dom. “Having his grown children kneeling before him. Even those who perished in infancy.”
“It was massive.” Dom nodded in grim agreement. “At least according to Mother.”
Father rarely spoke of his own father. Neal wondered if this effigy answered that mystery. Explained everything as only art could.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Feb 21, 2023 1:13:39 GMT 10
A Stifling Reception
Back at the castle, the parlor was filled with relatives and family friends all eager to trip over themselves and their tongues in their quest to offer condolences to Neal. To his parents. To his surviving siblings who no longer included Cathal. Using distancing, numbing words like loss. Repeating a litany of apologies that felt hollow as grief once all one’s tears had been cried. Swiped away with a sleeve or stifled into a soft pillowcase.
He didn’t answer any of the endless stream of sorries that could never bring Cathal back to life. Common courtesy was a strain for him–a drain on his considerable cognitive resources–at the best of times. He was not renowned for his civility or impeccable manners.
Enmeshed in his mourning, politeness became impossible. Unfathomable as flying to the moon by flapping his arms. Something his snide self was ill-equipped to offer. When uncles clapped his shoulders in bracing gestures of masculine solidarity, he stiffened like a poker. Perfumed aunts found him jerking out of their hugs.
He did not want to be comforted. Consoled. Coddled. Embraced. He wanted to hurt and bleed. To be allowed to grieve in as ugly and painful a fashion as possible. To not be judged or stared at like a specimen for analysis in a university laboratory when he did. He imagined–because his mind was a wild beast forever outside of his control–shedding his tears into a vial for clinical examination. Labeling the vial with neat words written in black ink: Salt-tinged byproducts of mourning.
The assortment of relatives and family friends thinned out rapidly as it became apparent to even the most obtuse of their number that they were about as welcome as pouring rain on a wedding day. Only Dom remained by his side. The rest drifted off to engage other attendees in conversation or to sample dishes from the groaning tables of food the cooks had prepared for the sad occasion. A collection of Cathal’s favorite foods and flavors with no expense spared.
The warm smells of spices should have been enough to entice Neal. To make his mouth water. To draw him over to the tables to gather even a small plate of food. Instead, the smells churned in his stomach as nausea climbed a caustic path up his throat. Searing him. He knew the serving of Cathal’s favorite foods was meant as a tribute. An honor. A final expression of love for the departed.
His heart did not feel like being rational, however. It felt like being petty. Like never wanting to see anyone eat Cathal’s favorite foods because Cathal was no longer around to enjoy them. It felt like being tyrannical. Like inflicting a tiny fraction of the hopeless sorrow and anger it was feeling onto the many people at the funeral who didn’t seem to care deeply enough about Cathal’s death. Like being jaded judge, jury, and executioner. Like ripping out the bleeding hearts of those who had not been broken by Cathal’s death as he had.
He glared, wishing his eyes were swords, at the guests devouring Cathal’s favorite foods. Pecking at their porcelain platters like vultures stripping and scavenging flesh from a battlefield corpse.
He could see Mariead and Tiernan holding court at one couch. Expostulating to a crowd that mostly consisted–as far as Neal could discern–of old widows on the subject of how Cathal’s death was the Black God’s will and must be accepted. How peace could only be found in acceptance of that fact. All the futile and fatalistic truisms spouted by the devout during times of trouble. To avoid being shaken and shattered by the doubts of the less faithful.
Jessa hovered by Mother’s elbow. Coaxing her to eat a venison tartlet. Each chew and swallow seemed to be a valiant struggle for Mother.
Father and Graeme had disappeared somewhere. Their absence making Neal long to abscond as well. Prompting him to contemplate how he could make his own escape from a parlor that felt more smothering with each passing moment. Every beat of his heavy heart.
The very air was becoming difficult to breathe. Poisoned by the memories of Cathal as mourners started swapping stories of his life and dramatic exploits. Stories that tightened Neal’s chest. Made his stomach heave as if he were aboard ship during a storm.
“I need to visit the necessary,” he grunted to Dom. The only person likely to notice his departure. “I’m going to be sick.”
“I’m coming with you.” Dom jauntily linked his elbow through Neal’s as if he were a gentleman escorting a fair damsel to a ball. Neal wondered irritably if his cousin planned to stick to him like mildew for the rest of his life. “To make sure you don’t drown yourself.”
“I’m not going to drown myself in a privy. That’s too melodramatic. Even for me.” Neal wrinkled his nose in disgust as they left the parlor and headed down the hallway to the nearest privy. “There are plenty of more pleasant liquids I could drown myself in if I so desired.”
“It’s the dead of winter,” Dom pointed out archly. “Bodies of water to drown yourself in are in short supply with the lakes and rivers frozen.”
“I live by the Emerald Ocean.” Neal rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t freeze. I could drown myself in it during any season should the urge strike me.”
They had reached the privy. Neal nodded at the door under which seeped the stench of accumulated human excrement. “If I may enter? Or did you intend to accompany me in there as well? Did you plan to hang around me like a fly on dung?”
“Go on.” Dom waved a dismissive hand. “I do note for the record that you are the dung in your elegant metaphor.”
“It was a simile. Not a metaphor.” Neal tossed over his shoulder as he ventured into the foul darkness of the privy that seemed to represent his own black soul and mood.
Closing the door behind him. Shutting out his cousin’s banter. Bending over the shoot that emptied into the icy moat. Retching until his innards felt wrung-out as a towel on washing day. Wiping his mouth with the cuff of his sleeve. Not caring that Mother and Mariead would scold the behavior as vile and uncouth if they could witness it. Grateful that he was alone in the nasty-smelling privy.
Unable to bear the stench–which his own vomit had contributed a stomach-twisting element to–any longer, he stepped out of the privy. Joining Dom in the corridor.
As they made their way back to the parlor, they passed the open door of the library’s first floor. Neal never could resist the lure of books and parchment. He slipped inside. Dom behind him.
The shelves enveloped him as he entered. Far more comforting than any aunt’s too-tight embrace. Anthologies of poetry–romantic and heartbreaking–from Tusaine and Tyra where people seemed to think and feel in eloquent verse. A music and rhythm to their words that Tortallans could never rival.
Thick tomes of history and philosophy. Dense as the material with which they dealt. Volumes of military history and strategy built by Neal’s grandfather. A commander in King Jasson’s armies as so many nobles were during that era of bloody conquest and brutal expansion.
These violent books were offset by a more recent collection of tomes on healing acquired by Father that looked more thumbed-through. Less dusty and sneeze-inducing. Neal had read many of these volumes. Sat in a sunlit, cushioned window-seat, absorbing the wisdom etched into the pages. Could remember helping his father catalog and curate the collection last summer between semesters at the university.
He thought he could hear the echoes of him and Father discussing the merits of classifying a particular book in a certain section before he realized that the voices in his ears weren’t from the past. They were from the present. Debating an issue behind another row of bookcases.
“It wasn’t appropriate.” Graeme’s words were hard as mountain granite. “You aren’t firm enough with him, Father.”
Neal had to bite back a gasp. Stuffing his fist into his mouth. He couldn’t recall ever hearing dutiful Graeme tell their father he was wrong. No wonder Father and Graeme were having this argument in the library. Away from the prying ears of nosy guests. Not away from Neal’s ears though, and they should have guessed that at some point in the reception, Neal would beat a retreat to the library that was his sanctuary and solace.
“I’m his father.” Father’s tone was level. Unwavering in its gentle conviction. “I will decide how firm or otherwise to be.”
“He ran out of the funeral.” Graeme’s reply was heated. Hot enough to burn books and the wooden shelves that held them. Yet Neal felt as if ice had been pumped into his veins as he realized that his father and oldest brother were arguing about him. That he was the bone of contention between them. “It was a disgrace. An embarrassment to the family. An insult to Cathal’s memory. I would’ve stopped him, but you let him go. Let him do whatever he wants as you always do.”
“Your brother’s honest expression of grief was not an embarrassment to the family.” Father sounded weary. Besieged by his own son and heir. “Nor was it an insult to Cathal’s memory. It was an act of love.”
“You’re making excuses for him as you always do.” Graeme was obstinate. Refusing to yield even an inch now that the lines of battle had been drawn. “You’re too soft with him. Coddling him so he will never become the strong man he needs to be with Immortals plaguing the realm again. Coddling him in a way you never coddled me.”
“He has a healer’s heart, Graeme.” Father sighed. “Healer’s hearts are prone to being overwhelmed by sorrow. The hearts of warriors often do not understand that, and yet the realm–especially in these days when the Immortals have returned–needs healers as much as it does warriors.”
“I know you see yourself reflected in him like he is some mirror of you. That he’s your favorite because he’s the only one of your children who ever had any interest in becoming a healer.” Graeme’s bitterness dizzied Neal. His mind spinning with the revelation that Graeme–brave knight of the realm and steady heir of Queenscove–could possibly believe that Neal the impertinent would be Father’s favorite. Would be anyone’s favorite.
Neal had to swallow another gasp as Graeme went on. Reciting a yarn that was new to Neal but seemed to have become frayed by repetition with Graeme, “Your father never wanted you to become a healer. Beat you whenever you experimented with brewing your herbal remedies or casting your magical cures. Threatened to disown you when you wanted to train as a healer in the City of the Gods rather than as a knight at the palace. So you had to wait until you earned your shield to study healing magic, and you always felt the waste of those years you had to train as a knight instead of a healer. Because to you they made you less than the healer you could have been. Rendered you a mere shadow of the healer you should have been. But Neal isn’t you, and if you spoil him, you will ruin him. Like overripe fruit allowed to rot on the vine.”
“Your jealousy blinds you.” There was a snap in Father’s voice for the first time. Controlled and moderated as he continued, indulging in a healing analogy as he so often did because he lived and breathed healing. Healing was entwined with his very soul. Carved into his bleeding and beating heart. “A healer has compassion for all his patients and wills the best outcome for each of them. Yet he does not treat every one of them the same because he knows that the cure for a man with a failing heart is not the same as the cure for a man with an aching stomach. It is the same for a father. He loves all his children but he does not guide and discipline them in the same way. He guides and disciplines each child according to their nature, which he understands because he is their father.”
“A lot of words to say that you intend to keep spoiling him.” Graeme snorted.
“We will not debate this any further.” Father’s patience finally seemed to have reached the breaking point. “Especially not at your brother’s funeral reception.”
“Yes, Father.” Graeme was suddenly subdued. Cowed when Neal had thought that not even an onrushing army could scare him. “I will defer to your judgment. Your wisdom.”
“Then we will return to the reception.” Father sounded brisk. Not entirely appeased by this concession. “Your mother will be wondering where we have disappeared, and we ought not to distress her further.”
Two sets of footsteps leaving the library. Fading down the corridor. Returning to the reception.
Once he was certain his father and oldest brother were out of earshot, Neal gaped at Dom. “Can you believe that Graeme harbors the delusion that I’m my father’s favorite? Me? The most insolent child to ever draw breath in Tortall?”
“Well, your father hasn’t strangled you yet despite the fact that you are self-admittedly the most insolent child to ever draw breath in Tortall,” Dom pointed out sagely. “So I’d say that’s a solid indication that you are his favorite child.”
“Is Graeme’s delusion a contagious affliction?” Neal was drowning in a sea of disbelief and denial.
“I always thought you were your father’s favorite. I’m surprised it took you this long to figure it out and that you needed to have the answer handed to you on a silver platter.” Dom nudged Neal. “Then again, you were born a Meathead and will remain a Meathead until the day that you die.”
“So you think that Graeme’s right about me being my father’s favorite.” Neal couldn’t find room for such an idea in his mind. Changed the subject to another overheard confusion. “Do you reckon Graeme was telling the truth about Grandfather?”
“I doubt he would’ve lied to your father to his face about his past.” Dom hesitated. Then added, “And Mother has told me stories about Grandfather beating your father. Beating all his children. Tales designed to frighten me into good behavior no doubt.”
Dom seemed to be trying to keep his tone light. As if they were speaking of pleasant rather than painful things.
Neal wasn’t tricked by the deception. Felt his stomach churning again. “I feel as if I might be sick again, Dom. As if I need to lie down.”
“Off to your bed then.” Dom squeezed Neal’s shoulder then. “I’ll make your excuses and explanations at the reception.”
Neal knew he should have thanked his cousin, but he was too tired and nauseous to do that. It was all he could do to stumble out of the library and make his way up a winding staircase to his bedchamber, where he collapsed beneath his covers like a turtle ducking into its shell. Hiding from the world.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Mar 6, 2023 1:19:06 GMT 10
Lemon and Ginger
Neal had been too worn out to bother locking the door to his bedchamber when he entered. A fact he regretted when there was a soft rap on his bedroom door followed by his father swiftly slipping inside before Neal could shout at the knocker to go away. To leave him alone in his misery.
“What–” he inquired waspishly as his father crossed the carpet to claim a seat on Neal’s bed– “is the point of knocking if you are just going to barge in anyway?”
“To alert you to the fact that I am–to borrow your melodramatic phrasing–about to barge in.” Father leaned over. Lit a candle on Neal’s bedside table. Neal hadn’t troubled with lighting any candles when he came up to his room. Wanted it to be dark. Black as his mood. Father was ruining his bleak aesthetic. Probably thought it was unhealthy for Neal to wallow in darkness. A sign that he needed more light in his life. “Dom said you had taken ill.”
“I had a bout of nausea.” Neal felt as if he could still feel the flaming path of vomit burning up his throat. Wondered if he would always feel it. Always remember it as the vile acid of death and grief. “Had to upchuck in the necessary.”
“That’s what Dom said.” Father patted Neal’s back. Held out a steaming mug. “I brewed you a remedy.”
Neal took a tentative sniff of his father’s concoction. The soft smell of chamomile was cut through by the sharp aroma of mint, the tart promise of lemon, and the spicy scent of ginger.
“Leaves of mint.” He analyzed the remedy before he drank it. “Lemon juice and peel. Powdered ginger. All to soothe the stomach. Infused chamomile tea to coax the patient to sleepiness.”
“Very good.” Father smiled slightly. “Drink now.”
“Any five-year-old trained in the basic use of herbs could guess the ingredients.” Neal snorted. Then took an obedient first sip. Added to his recitation of the remedy’s contents. “And honey too if my tongue is any judge.”
“My secret ingredient.” Father’s smile grew as Neal finished swallowing the remedy. Set the empty mug on the nightstand. “To make it go down sweeter.”
“I understand why you gave me something to calm my stomach.” Neal fiddled with his blanket. Tugging at a loose thread. Seeking to unravel it as his life had been unraveled since Cathal’s death. “But why induce sleepiness?”
“Because–” Father cupped Neal’s cheek– “there are black bags the size of ravines under your eyes.”
“They’re under your eyes too, Father,” Neal pointed out. Striving to be matter-of-fact when really he was worried. Father looked as if he hadn’t slept a night through since Cathal died. Which meant he probably hadn’t.
“You are my son.” Father’s palm remained around Neal’s cheek. Gentle and firm. “It is my responsibility to tend to you. At least until I am in my dotage. Then I suppose the roles might be reversed.”
If Father didn’t die before that. If Neal didn’t. Not that Neal wished to think about death. It just seemed to be lurking in his mind–haunting him like an unquiet spirit–now that Cathal was gone from the world forever. Everything else seemed irrelevant in comparison to death. Trivialities. Mere diversions from the cruel destiny that awaited them all. The stone cold grave. The marble hard finality of the tomb.
To distract himself he summoned one of Father’s ghosts instead. His curiosity demanding satisfaction. Satiation. “Is it true your father didn’t want you to become a healer? Beat you whenever you practiced your healing? Threatened to disown you when you wanted to train as a healer in the City of the Gods rather than as a knight at the palace?”
“Why–” Father’s forehead furrowed– “would you ask such questions, Neal?”
“Because.” Neal offered a vague shrug. Not preparing to lie to his father. Father was a clever, canny man. Far better, Neal had discovered in a lifetime of shrewd observation, to drop a hint and let Father draw his own conclusions. Reach his own seeming truths. “Certain things Dom said today made me wonder.”
“Hmm.” Father cast a considering glance over Neal. Arched an eyebrow. “Certain things overheard in a library no doubt had you wondering as well.”
“I wasn’t eavesdropping.” Neal flared up. The defensive instinct of a young man who had been scolded too many times for eavesdropping on conversations he wasn’t meant to overhear. The symptom of an eager mind that hungered and thirsted for information. “I was just returning from the privy where I had been sick when I decided that the books in the library would make more congenial company than the vultures attending the funeral reception. So, I slipped into the library. Having no way of knowing that you and Graeme had chosen to make it your battleground for your argument about how spoiled I am.”
“I’m not angry at you, son.” Father sighed. Pinched the bridge of his nose. “The answers to all your questions about my father are yes, I’m afraid.”
Neal gaped at his father. Marveling that his father had kept this knowledge hidden from him all the years of his life. That he might never have learned this important secret if he hadn’t happened to overhear Father and Graeme’s disagreement in the library. It was a disconcerting notion. One that left him feeling dizzy and disoriented. Uncertain which way was up or down. Which direction was left or right. Unmoored in the vast, teeming ocean that was reality as he struggled to understand it. “Did you hate your father for how he treated you? How he abused you?”
“It was a different time.” Father spoke after a moment’s pause. “Warriors were valued. Healers were not.”
“A foolish time.” Neal huffed. “An era so imbecilic that it apparently couldn’t grasp the simple fact that warriors need healers if they hope to live long. If they plan to be patched up so as to be able to charge boldly back into glorious battle.”
“It was seen as a weakness to seek out the aid of healers too much.” Father’s tone was neutral. Level. Devoid of judgment in a manner Neal could never manage to be. Neal was driven to analyze and draw conclusions. Reach scathing verdicts of innocence or guilt. “An even greater weakness to be a healer. Compassion wasn’t viewed as a virtue. It was held in scorn rather than esteem.”
“All praise to Mithros that we emerged from such a dark age then,” Neal remarked wryly.
Ignoring this snide commentary, Father went on, “Expectations of fathers were different then. Of sons too. My father tried to bring me up as best he could given the age in which we lived. Tried to be what was regarded as a good father for the time he inhabited. None of us can choose the years in which we are born.”
“But we can shape the years in which we live. And what you are saying isn’t any sort of answer. Or explanation. Or excuse. Or whatever you mean it to be.” Neal glowered. He hated when his questions didn’t receive answers. Especially when he remembered Graeme’s words about Father coddling him. He didn’t want Father coddling him. Protecting him with a shield of ignorance and non-answers. He yearned for the bitter truth at any cost. “It doesn’t tell me whether you hated your father. Which is what I asked. Not for a dissertation on the idiotic social customs of King Jasson’s era.”
“Of course I didn’t hate my father.” Father blinked at Neal as if Neal’s vindictiveness was unfathomable. Incomprehensible. Not the first time Neal’s intensity seemed to unsettle his father. “He was the seed from which I sprang. Does the fruit hate the tree from which it grows?”
“If the tree makes a habit of beating the fruit regularly with a branch for the crime of being a fruit, probably.” Neal was unimpressed by his father’s analogy. Folded his arms across his chest. Asserted baldly, “If you treated me like that, I’d hate you. Never forget or forgive you.”
Forgetting was impossible for someone with a memory as keen as his. Forgiveness too. He was not made for either.
“Yours is a far more passionate soul than mine, I know.” Father clasped Neal’s shoulder.
“Is that why you told Graeme what your father did to you but never shared the truth with me?” Neal twisted out of his father’s grasp. Irked that he had been kept in the dark. Ignorant of important facts that had been given to Graeme.
“There are things I have told Graeme that I haven’t shared with you.” Father’s words felt like a reiteration of Neal’s grievance. “And things I have told you that I haven’t shared with Graeme. A father’s relationship with each of his children is unique because each of his children is their own person.”
“That’s not particularly appeasing, Father.” Neal couldn’t resist a petulant pout.
“Don’t be too jealous of Graeme.” Father tousled Neal’s hair. “As firstborn, he has duties and responsibilities you aren’t burdened with.”
Father had been a firstborn and an heir once too, Neal reflected. Wondering if that was something Father and Graeme discussed. Another thing Father didn’t share with Neal.
“I’m well-aware of that. That’s why he takes everything so seriously. Can’t appreciate the little ironies that are the spice of life.” Neal’s lips quirked. His sharply honed sense of irony in all its various forms and foibles was the only way he knew how to cope with the world’s many inevitable disappointments and disasters. Without irony, he would’ve descended into utter insanity long ago.
Unexpectedly, he yawned. Evidently the chamomile tea was starting to take effect. Inducing drowsiness.
Falling back against his pillows, he asked his father, “Will you spell me into a sleep? A deep, dreamless one?”
A deep, dreamless sleep. That was what Neal was just now realizing that he craved more than anything. An insight inspired by the chamomile tea, doubtlessly.
“Yes.” Father tucked Neal in. Ensuring the thick blankets were pulled up to his chin. As if he were an innocent little boy instead of a cynical university student. “Once you are warm and comfortable.”
“Would you have tucked Graeme in?” Neal wrinkled his nose. Finding the gesture more difficult to manage than he should have. Another sign of his mounting exhaustion.
“If I were going to spell him to sleep, yes.” Father kissed Neal’s forehead. Then pressed tender fingers to his temples.
Neal felt tendrils of magic–emerald as his own–swirling into him. Dancing in his head before black oblivion claimed him. Wrapping him in a deep, dreamless sleep. Without the torment of nightmares or memories.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Mar 12, 2023 9:23:22 GMT 10
Pride and Promises
Neal was jolted out of his deep, dreamless sleep by sharp shakes of his shoulder. With a protesting grunt he hoped effectively conveyed his displeasure about being abruptly awakened, he opened his eyes groggily.
Beheld his only surviving elder brother sitting on his bedside. Clutching Neal’s shoulder. Poised on the cusp of another strong shake. Demanding. Impatient.
Rolling out of Graeme’s grasp, Neal glared up at his intruding older sibling. Muttered, “Why didn’t Father lock my door when he left?”
A rhetorical question Graeme chose to answer with the hint of a smirk. “Be grateful he didn’t, or I would’ve taken an ax to your door.”
“Warriors.” Neal punctuated this commentary with a reproachful cluck of his tongue. “Your only solution to every problem is brute force. You lack creativity and panache. If you can’t cut through an obstacle with your ax, you’re stumped. Flummoxed.”
“So don’t be an obstacle, little brother,” Graeme suggested wryly. Then added, “I wanted to speak with you.”
“What about?” Neal rubbed dry, crusty sleep from his tired eyes. Struggled to find alertness within himself. “Must be urgent if you’d consider chopping down my door.”
“It is urgent. Everything is urgent since the Immortals returned.” There was a tart terseness to Graeme’s tone. “That’s what I need to tell you before I go back to war. That’s what I need you to understand.”
“I understand that Immortals are a threat.” Neal’s forehead furrowed. If Cathal’s unexpected and untimely death had taught him anything, it was that Immortals were dangerous. Not to be underestimated by anyone who wished to remain among the living.
“Good.” Graeme’s gaze was unwavering as it fixed on Neal’s. “Because with Cathal gone, you’ll be the oldest Queenscove son after me. If I die before I marry and have children, you’ll be Father’s heir.”
“You aren’t going to die.” Neal swallowed. Wishing he had a glass of water to wash down his fear. His suffocating coffin of panic. Responsible Graeme was a reliable rock in his life. He couldn’t imagine losing him. Couldn’t fathom what it would be like to bury another brother in the cold Queenscove crypts. “At least not for awhile. Not until you are gray and hunched with age.”
“Few knights die of old age.” Graeme sighed as he recited a grim truism Neal heard often in healing circles. “Especially in troubled times such as these when we must ride into battle against enemies we haven’t faced in hundreds of years. Foes we know so little about fighting. Defeating.”
“We might not have to fight all the Immortals.” Neal had to debate the point. Question it. Because he had a scholar’s mind more than a healer’s heart no matter what his father thought. “Surely some will be open to the prospect of peace. Willing to negotiate a truce. Amenable to becoming allies.”
“Perhaps.” Graeme sounded skeptical. As if he suspected Neal’s head was floating in the clouds again. “For now, though, the Immortals are an unknown quantity that can’t be trusted, and we would be wise to remember that there was a reason the world’s mightiest mages united to bar them from the Human Realms centuries ago. That reason likely wasn’t that they were all so peaceful and amenable to truces.”
“The mages might have just been jealous that the Immortals possessed powers they did not understand.” Neal had spent enough time studying magic at the university to recognize how envious mages could be of those who wielded a stronger Gift than them. Had seen how scholars could be driven by a similar desire to excel anyone who threatened to outshine them in research or academic achievement. Universities were cut-throat places. Just not in the same manner as battlefields and practice courts.
“All the more reason for mages like you and warriors like me to be wary of them.” Graeme was grave. Grabbing Neal’s shoulder again. As if to ensure that he had Neal’s complete attention for his next words. “Anything could happen to me at any time on the battlefield. Which is why–although you’ll never hear it from Father, someone has to tell you this–our family needs you to grow up. Be more mature. More steady and responsible. Less dramatic and emotional. Fill the role that is expected of you. Do what is proper. Be brave and strong when chaos ensues.”
“That’s who you were born to be.” Neal shook his head. That sort of responsibility and gravitas felt like his oldest brother’s birthright and burden. A birthright and burden he had no desire to usurp. “That’s not who I was born to be.”
“You are a son of Queenscove.” Graeme’s lips thinned. As if he were unimpressed by the excuses Neal was generating. “The eldest son of Queenscove if anything happens to me before I produce an heir of my own. That’s who you were born to be. You just need to finally grow up. Figure out how to master yourself, and you will be a man to make our house proud.”
For once in his life as a perpetual arguer, Neal bit his tongue. Wondered if it was true that Father coddled him too much. Spoiled him. Indulged his fits of passion. Instead of pushing him to control himself. To be more mature and responsible. More like Graeme. The firstborn to make any house–any parents–proud as strutting peacocks.
His silence afforded Graeme the opportunity to press onward. “Promise me that if I die fighting the Immortals, you’ll do your duty as heir to Queenscove. That you’ll be more responsible. Braver and stronger. Not running away from anything, no matter how scary or unpleasant. The way you fled from Cathal’s funeral. The heir of Queenscove can’t be a cringing coward. We owe it to our people to be better than that.”
“You aren’t going to die fighting the Immortals.” Neal folded his arms. Unwilling to concede the possibility that Graeme could be lost to the same war as Cathal. Another casualty to be laid to rest in the family crypts.
“Promise me anyway.” Graeme’s grip was so tight it hurt Neal’s shoulder. His voice so harsh Neal had to resist the urge to flinch. Knowing that it would just be added to Graeme’s long list of ways in which Neal was a weakling. Ruled too much by drama and not enough by duty. “Swear that you’ll do your duty as heir to Queenscove should I fall in the fight against the Immortals.”
“I promise.” Neal heard the catch in his own throat. The betraying lack of conviction.
Wasn’t surprised when his brother only became more adamantine. More insistent to extract a solemn and sacred vow from him. “Swear it by Mithros. God of warriors and truth.”
“I swear it by Mithros.” Neal sketched the Sign against Evil on his chest. Hoping to satisfy his brother. Hoping that he would never have cause to find out if he could keep this oath. Hoping that he would never discover whether he had perjured himself. Whether he was forsworn. If he could perjure himself swearing by a deity he was not certain existed. “May Mithros strike me down if I lie.”
Not that Mithros, according to the powers of the pantheon Neal had been made to memorize as a child (though surely his mind could have been filled with more useful facts), was the one who controlled death. It was supposed to be the Black God who dictated when a particular life should end. Though the Immortals seemed to be doing a fine job of assuming those rights, so perhaps Mithros could appropriate them as well.
Mithros and the Black God were brothers after all. Mithros the older, radiant one. Jealously guarding his golden glory. Maintaining his shining luster. Polishing it like armor. The Black God the younger, stranger one. Enigmatic. His mysteries only to be penetrated by a select few. The dark sheep who could never be embraced by the flock. Welcomed into the fold. An eternal exile within his own family.
Neal may not have understood much about divinity, but he could have written books about the prickly pride and the petty jealousies of brotherhood. A brotherhood that bound him to Graeme, and the Black God to Mithros. If the Black God and Mithros even existed of course. Something Neal was reluctant to treat as a given until he came face-to-face with Mithros or the Black God. And those who came face-to-face with the Black God were said to die for it. Nobody could gaze upon the cowled visage of the god of death and live. That was what the priests of the Black God soberly intoned on the subject anyway, and Neal had no compelling evidence on the contrary.
The invocation of Mithros seemed to placate Graeme. At least enough that he released Neal’s aching shoulder though he still admonished Neal, “Never forget your promise. Abide by your oath.”
“I’ll never forget. I’ll be true as steel to my word.” Neal would never know if it was a younger brother’s bitterness or reverence that made him continue, “Not that I could ever be as good an heir as you. I’ve never been able to live up to you. To the example you’ve set. No matter how hard I tried.”
“Just keep your word.” Graeme rose from the bed. Brisk. Moving onto his next duty. His obligation here completed. “Try as hard as you can. That will have to be enough. That’s the only advice I have. The only way I’ve sought to live.”
Neal’s mouth rode away from him again. Dragging him on a wild journey to some unknown and perilous destination. “Father is proud of you. And I always thought you were his favorite. Not me.”
Because how could the perfect heir Graeme not be the favorite? How could the perfect heir be so blind as to fail to see that he was the favorite? How could his perception be so warped? Like bent metal or broken glass.
“You overheard Father and me talking in the library.” Graeme’s manner hovered somewhere between the abashed and the accusing. The flush on his cheeks could have been shame or anger. Why could Neal not read his brother the way he could so many tomes?
“Well, it was the library.” Neal felt his own cheeks color defensively. As if he were serving as his own advocate in a court of law. On trial for snoopiness. “You really should have expected that I would be there. Where else would I find comfort? Certainly not around a bunch of annoying relatives.”
“Perhaps I should’ve.” Graeme’s jaw twitched. He hesitated. Then remarked almost apologetically, “I didn’t intend for you to overhear what I said to Father. I meant to speak in confidence.”
Neal shrugged. Accepting the closest thing to an apology his brother could offer. “It was useful for me to overhear. I learned things about Father I never would’ve known otherwise.”
Things about Graeme as well. Though he didn’t share the notion allowed. He was learning tact as well. The hard way. The way that felt like a punch to the unshielded heart.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Mar 26, 2023 2:02:34 GMT 10
Final Farewell
The day after that–before many of their family friends and more distant relations departed into the snowy roads and wintry winds–Graeme left. Beckoned away by his knightly duties. Summoned back to the battle against the Immortals as if by a trumpet call only he could hear.
They parted in the entrance hall where their family said all their formal farewells. Graeme bent to kiss Jessa on each cheek. Telling her, “Look after Mother.”
She returned the pecks on his cheeks. Promised, “I will if you look out for yourself on the battlefield.”
He didn’t respond to that. Having moved on to wrapping Mariead into a one-armed hug (though novice priestesses, strictly speaking, weren’t supposed to be embraced by any men unless required by some sacred rite) and rumpling Tiernan’s hair with the presumption only an eldest brother could muster. “Pray for me, both of you.”
“I always do.” There was sadness in Mariead’s smile, Neal thought. Born to notice such bittersweet things. He had a soul that ached and cried to observe such tragic ironies. “Always will.”
“Acolytes of the Black God–” Tiernan drew himself up with the hauteur of a dark-robed, solemnly professed priest of the Black God– “are bound to pray for him to have mercy on all souls.”
Souls in need of mercy and prayers. Neal wondered if that was how his brother saw everyone. If every one of them was reduced to that dust in his view.
Graeme turned to Neal. Clasped his shoulders in a grip almost tight enough to bruise. “Remember your oath. Remain true to it. Do not dishonor yourself.”
“I will.” Neal vowed in a strangely choking voice. Making himself doubly forsworn if he failed to abide by his word, he supposed. Or maybe it was triply forsworn. It was hard to keep track with promises tripping off his tongue to answer Graeme’s somber demands.
In the coming weeks and months, he would find himself wishing that Graeme had left a bruise or a scar on him during that final farewell. Some mark on his skin by which he could remember his brother. Yet there was nothing but the fading recollection of Graeme’s touch. Quickly dimming in his mind’s eye no matter how clever and keen he liked to believe he was. He was not one of those scholars with a perfect memory. If they even existed outside of ivory tower myth and legend. If they were not a twisted bit of lore concocted to incite the jealousy of generations of struggling students.
That was the future, though, and he couldn’t know what the future held for him as he stood in the present. Watching as Graeme knelt before their parents. A gallant, graceful gesture. One Neal never would have been capable of making.
Were all heirs taught to kneel that way? He could imagine the Crown Prince Roald offering a similar gesture of reverence to the monarchs. Couldn’t imagine anyone wasting time teaching such elegant and elaborate manners to second or third sons who were expected to be more rough-around-the-edges. Unpolished gems.
Graeme took Mother’s hand. Lifted it to his lips. Kissed her fingers tenderly. Chastely. The image of chivalry humbling itself before beauty. Deferring to its dictates and caprices. “I love you, Mother. I will protect you and all the women of Tortall from these monsters.”
“Come home to me.” Mother cupped his cheeks between her palms. “My brave, proud knight.”
She was the only one of them Graeme said he loved during that last goodbye. For months after Graeme died, Neal would remember that. Reflect on it from every angle with all the academic detachment he could muster as only a scholar could do. Wonder if that fact had been noted by anyone else in his family. If it haunted anybody else’s soul as it did his, or if this was another area where he was too sensitive. Too dramatic.
Even to Father, Graeme did not offer love so much as an apology. Though perhaps that was all the love a son could truly offer a father. An apology for the inevitable inadequacies. For falling short of expectations.
“I am sorry for my disrespect, Father.” A reference to the heated conversation in the library. Though apart from Father and Graeme, only Neal would know that. “For arguing with you and questioning your good judgment. For angering you.”
“I was not so very angry with you, my son.” Father lifted Graeme to his feet. Not the sort of man who liked looking down on his children. Especially when reconciling with them.
“You forgive me then?” Graeme seemed to need to hear an absolution.
“Before you even asked.” Father smiled wryly. Pressed a kiss into Graeme’s crinkled forehead. “I love you, and that love conquers any other emotion I could ever feel toward you.”
“I may have your blessing?” Graeme appeared to want the assurance of that as well before he rode off to war against the Immortals.
“Gladly.” Father’s fingers coiled through Graeme’s hair. A traditional posture of benediction. Though Graeme should, properly, have been kneeling to receive it. He wasn’t any more. Was still standing before Father. Where Father had raised him. “May the bright, beautiful Goddess be your light and guide on every path. May Mithros be your strong sword and shield in every battle. May the Black God in his mercy grant you long and prosperous life.”
With that final blessing, a silent Graeme took his leave. Rode off to fight and die for Tortall without looking back. Knights did not look back at the families they left behind when they went off to fight and die for their country. There was a dishonor, a cowardice, in looking back. Or perhaps merely an impossibility. As if glancing behind them prevented them from riding forward to the battles they needed to fight.
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Post by devilinthedetails on May 1, 2023 5:40:52 GMT 10
Gifts and Long Faces
Two days later, Neal again stood in the entrance hall. This time saying farewell to Dom who was preparing to depart with his parents and siblings.
“Take care, cousin.” Dom nudged Neal’s shoulder with his own. Teasing and taunting to the last. “Try not to wear too long a face all the time.”
“Impossible for me to do,” Neal retorted loftily. “Long faces run in my family.”
Horse faces and horse blood in their veins. The Queenscove line was famous for both.
“Horse faces.” Dom grinned. Recognizing the jest. “Yes, the Queenscoves are positively plagued with them. Most unfortunate but then you can’t have wealth and beauty, I suppose. That wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the world.”
“Better not let your mother hear you talking about Queenscove horse faces.” Neal flicked a meaningful glance over at his redoubtable aunt. His redoubtable aunt who had a terrible tendency of doting on Dom. Spoiling him because he was her youngest son. Dom really had no right to tease him for being his father’s favorite when he was so plainly the golden apple of his mother’s eye. Could plainly do no wrong in her sight. “She’ll box your ears.”
“My mother–praise the Goddess–did not inherit the classic Queenscove horse face.” Dom clapped Neal on the back. Hard enough for his teeth to click together. Something Dom had no doubt intended. A final effort to jolt him out of his grief into good humor. “She was able, therefore, to pass her fair looks onto me.”
After all their guests were gone, what remained of their family–with Cathal in the crypts and Graeme off at war–gathered in the parlor to try to wring some semblance of joy out of what was left of a very bleak Midwinter.
Wrapped in thick blankets, they sat around the fire in the hearth that sparked crimson and orange. Servants brought in steaming mugs of hot cider for them to sip and tiny plates of candied walnuts for them to nibble.
The hot cider was mulled with cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. The spices of the Copper Isles. Their smell and flavor evoking the damp jungles from which they came. Jungles filled with exotic animals Neal had never seen outside illuminated books and manuscripts, which were always prone to illustrator invention and exaggeration.
Before the cackling flames, they sang traditional Midwinter carols. Songs of light to chase away the deep darkness of the longest night of the year. Celebrations of warmth to ward off the cold.
After they had sung until their voices were hoarse, they stopped. They hadn’t been able to sing away their sorrows. The merriness of their carols insufficient to mask their grief. Though Neal thought they had managed to put a brave face on their mourning. To offer up a fine imitation of Midwinter joy.
For a time, there was silence in the parlor apart from the popping of the fire. Then Mother declared in a voice that tried very hard to be valiantly upbeat that it was time to exchange presents.
Presents. As if it were any other Midwinter. Rather than the one they had buried Cathal.
Mother and Father gave Jessa a volume of Tyran romantic sonnets of which Neal felt instantly jealous. As he did whenever someone received a new book in his presence. Especially a book that could invoke passion. Stir the burning embers of desire.
He made a mental note to steal and read through the volume of poetry before he returned to university. Covert theft being the only means by which he could enjoy any of Jessa’s books. His younger sister maintaining a staunch policy of not lending out her reading materials to others for fear of the books being returned to her tainted by food smears and dirty finger stains.
For Tiernan, there was a new necklace of orange tourmaline prayer beads. Polished orange tourmaline prayer beads that sparkled in the firelight. Smooth, shiny orange tourmaline beads that would be perfect for counting prayers in the sunlit chapel with its golden sun disk at the Mithran monastery where Tiernan was acolyte.
Mariead received a statuette of the Goddess in her Wave-Walker aspect. Her lips painted coral red. Her eyes green as seaweed. Emerald as the ocean from which she emerged. White foam clinging to the curves of her body. A beautiful and pious piece of art to adorn the walls of Mariead’s convent cell. A possession Mariead would be allowed to keep because of its religious nature.
Neal felt a strange whirlwind of emotions when his parents presented him with his own gift. A book on guiding patients through the recovery and aftermath of stroke complete with detailed illustrations by one of the most revered healers ever to graduate from Carthak’s esteemed university.
Excitement at receiving such a marvelous tome to add to his personal collection of books that he hoarded with all the glee of a miser counting a treasure trove of hidden coins. Guilt at having any room in his heart for happiness–however fleeting–when Cathal was dead. Shame at being so selfish that he hadn’t spared so much as a thought about purchasing Midwinter gifts for his parents.
Out of this tornado of conflicting emotions, it was this last sentiment of shame that found speech. Tumbling clumsily out of him as he mumbled to his mother and father, “I’m sorry I didn’t think to get either of you anything.”
He was a scholar. Was there anything more shameful than not thinking? Than being sloppy and careless in his thought?
He would have gotten his parents something if he had thought about it. Visited the many thronging markets and bustling shops of Corus to find gifts that would bring them joy. Make their eyes sparkle and dance. But it had not occurred to him that his parents would wish to make merry at Midwinter when Cathal was dead. Nor had he been able to muster the energy to even contemplate venturing out of the university dormitories, classrooms, and libraries to indulge in holiday shopping as the semester drew to a close.
If it had been any other year, he would have enjoyed going out into the city with his friends as Midwinter approached. Admiring the evergreen garlands and holly boughs that would be strung throughout the city. Skating on the Olorun. Gazing at the displays in the windows. Searching through the market stalls for presents. Warming themselves with ale and steak pie in taverns afterward.
Of course, he would have been buying his parents presents with spending money they had given to him, but it would have been the thought that counted. The proof that he did love them. Did think about what would bring them joy at what was supposed to be the most festive time of the year. The greatest holiday on the Tortallan calendar.
Only he hadn’t thought they would want to be happy this year. That they would be able to even approximate festiveness.
“If I had thought,” he finished. Face flushed. “I would have bought you both something.”
“Don’t worry about it, dear,” Mother assured him briskly. Speaking for her and Father. “You didn’t have to get us anything. Your father and I weren’t expecting anything from you.”
“You didn’t have to get me anything either.” Neal still felt too guilty to be grateful or gracious. “I wasn’t expecting anything either.”
“Your father and I wanted to get you something.” Mother looked as if she were struggling to remain strong. Not to weep. “We wanted you to have as happy a Midwinter as you could under the circumstances.”
Under the circumstances being that Cathal was dead. Would never sing another carol with them or share another Midwinter present.
“If you are happy with your gift,” Mother continued. Voice quavering. “Then your father and I are very happy. Your happiness is a present enough for us.”
“I’m overjoyed with my new book.” Neal tried to play the role of dutiful, delighted son. Of someone whose Midwinter revelry hadn’t been disturbed by burying his brother. Kissed his mother on the cheek. “I’ll finish reading it within the day, I promise.”
That was true at least. No book could long last without being devoured once it was added to his collection when he had such a voracious appetite for reading. All the best lies had that seasoning of truth that rendered them so much easier to swallow.
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