Seven Brothers Blessed [ Lore of Penrua: Book IV ]

[ 8 ]

Old Lord Emón's sick room was stale and overwarm. Just stepping through the door made sweat prickle in Diarmán's armpits and at the small of his back. He wished he had not come.

"He sleeps most of the time," Aerte said in a whisper. She gestured toward a table standing near the fireplace. "Just set that over there."

Diarmán put the tray where she wanted it. Then, he took everything off of it, the clean linens, the bowl of broth, the cup of herbs, arranging them all tidily on the table. It was a useless chore.

Aerte gave him a strange look. "I can do that," she said.

"Is there anything else you need?"

She shook her head, meeting his eye with a frown. He cut his gaze away. She said, "Go sit with him. I'll bring you tea."

"Don't go to the trouble. I won't stay long." Diarmán forced a smile, tight and brief, and finally turned toward his grandfather's sick bed.

Although Diarmán was already sweltering in the room, Lord Emón lay with his blankets drawn up to his shoulders. One of his arms was crossed over his chest, the other lying at his side above the blanket. He was wearing a nightshirt, the cuffs handsomely embroidered with a black diamond pattern. Diarmán wondered if he'd ever seen his grandfather in his nightclothes before; he didn't think he had, and it was uncomfortably intimate, proving that the iron-fisted old tyrant was, after all, a simple man.

His hands were thin, nearly as white as the linen of his clothes, spotted with age and corded with veins. His beard was braided, which was a style Diarmán had never seen him wear before. Was it that, perhaps, that made his face seem so gaunt? His cheekbones were more pronounced than Diarmán remembered, his closed eyes set into hollows that revealed the shape of the skull underneath skin that was surely no thicker than paper. Though Emón's hairline was higher and a little thinner than it had been when Diarmán had first met him, he still had silver hair to his shoulders; it was tidy, falling over the pillow. He must spend most of his time lying completely still in this bed. A healthy man, tossing and turning, would rumple his hair, but somebody had brushed Emón's for him and he had not undone their work.

He looked more than old, frailer than any human had a right to be while still drawing breath. He was ancient.

"What...are you...staring at?"

Emón's voice was a thread, so soft Diarmán was lucky to hear and understand him. His eyelids lifted, his piercing gaze flickering for a moment before fixing on Diarmán, who was still standing at a distance away from him.

"...Well?" Emón asked, barely a word. He sounded breathless and tired.

"Nothing, I...I just came to see you, Grandfather. To pay my respects."

Emón gave a short laugh. "Respects," he echoed. He paused, drawing dry, unsteady breaths for a moment. "Save them...for the graveside. No sense...wasting ...your precious...time."

Diarmán snorted, shaking his head. "You must be very busy. I'm sorry to have butted into your thriving social calendar."

"I do not...know...where you got...such in—...solence from."

"'Tis our time's greatest mystery." Diarmán glanced at the chair next to Emón's bed, then over his shoulder at the door, then back at his grandfather. "Does she treat you well? Aerte?"

"She should." Emón's eyes fell closed, and for a moment he simply breathed; that act, unconscious to nearly every man, seemed to require an enormous effort from him. One of his thin breaths caught in his throat, and he broke into a fit of coughing, coughs as soft and small as an infant's.

Diarmán's fingers twitched at his side. He grimaced, watching his grandfather struggle, and before he could decide quite what to do, Aerte had appeared at his side with a cup.

"It's for him," she said when he frowned at her, pressing the cup into his hands. "I heard when you said you didn't want any."

So now Diarmán was to play nursemaid. He swallowed his sigh, approached the bed, and leaned over his grandfather, holding the cup from his fingertips. "Here. Drink this."

Emón raised his hand, batting Diarmán's away. The cup tipped, but didn't spill. Gritting his teeth, Diarmán drew back and set the tea down on the side table with a bit too much force.

"I said..." Emón drew another shaking breath and let it out in a rasp. "She should. Treat me well. She should...be my...granddaughter. Your wife."

Gods below. "Grandfather, that's—"

"Had you...not fucked...it up...you might...have children..."

"Is this truly what you wish to talk about? Now? Look at you, old man: you're dying. You can't even breathe properly, and you're wasting what precious time you have saying the same gods-damned things you've said a thousand times before?" Diarmán could feel Aerte's stare on his back, but he didn't care. He knew he was raising his voice, but he didn't care about that, either. "I know. I know all this. I'm a disappointment in every possible way. Have you any new grievances to add to the list?"

Emón gave a bitter sound of amusement.

"What I do with my life is none of your concern."

"Is it...not? You...and your brothers..."

"We're all you have, old man. All you have left. Wishes and dreams never magicked you up a husband for Mother, nor a houseful of legitimate sons. We're what you have. You needn't like it, but you cannot change it."

"You will—"

"You won't be around long enough to suffer the indignity of our succession. But no matter how much you hate us and now little provision you have made for us, we will not go from this place. When you're gone, this house is ours. The lands are ours. The seat is ours. And I promise you, Grandfather, that under our care, House Eldran will return to glory. You've ruined us—ruined yourself with your bitterness and dragged us all down with you. Your family depended on you. Your people depend on you, and they've gone, now—they've deserted us because you forced them out. You spent your final years on this earth full of spite and sourness and this is what you've earned for your trouble: in the end, you'll not be able to stop us."

"My will..."

"Does not matter. The Emperor of Penrua supports us, and because the Narrian princesses are living as his wards, Queen Coratse supports us, too. This house is ours, Grandfather. There's nothing you can do about it, unless you mean to rise up off of your deathbed and strike us down."

Emón stared at Diarmán, his eyes gleaming, his dry lips trembling. Diarmán, disgusted, shook his head. He took a couple of steps back from the bed. "That's all. Get your rest."

"Diar...mán..."

But he turned away, waving the papery whisper of his name off with a hand. He brushed past Aerte on his way to the door.

At least there was no part of him now that could be hurt by Emón's words. All the tender parts of him had been calloused over by years of abuse.

Now he could simply be angry. Angry and nothing more.