Seven Brothers Blessed [ Lore of Penrua: Book IV ]

[ 10 ]

Diarmán's mother had told him what their house had been like in the days before she'd been taken away. A proud and beautiful place, it had been, all high stone walls and beautiful gardens, tiled roofs and lush tapestries and gleaming furnishings from the farthest reaches of the world. It had been a noble house, in every sense of the word: a home sheltering people born of old bloodlines, yes, but also a proud family, wealthy and well-endowed.

No one had ever said it in words, but Diarmán had come to know it, all the same: their return from the Realm of the Fae had brought misfortune upon House Eldran. No sooner had they come into the World of Men than their household had begun to decline.

The people who had once lived and worked on Eldran lands, paying annual tithes in grain and gold, began to move their homesteads away to work under sunnier skies. With his coffers dwindling, Old Lord Emón had begun to raise taxes and levies on remaining tenants; it would have been a dangerous decision in good times, and it was disastrous in their family's current situation. Higher rents drove most of their remaining tenants further away; those who were left behind were too poor to go. Their houses began to dilapidate, and their fields would not yield.

It was said that House Eldran, as well as its lands, were cursed.

They could not be blamed for such assumptions. In just over a decade, a proud, old Narrian family had fallen completely to ruin. Walking the halls of the ancient house suggested that it had gone without attention for a lifetime rather than the matter of a few years. Dust and mold and moss, rats and spiders, crumbling stonework—something, some darkness, had fallen upon the Eldrans and their fortunes. That much could not be denied.

Diarmán had tried to intervene, but he hadn't been raised to run an estate, and Old Lord Emón shut him down at every turn. He refused to discuss matters of their household, tenants, or finances with any of his grandsons, nor even with Lady Moigré, the few times she ventured to speak of such things with him.

And so, here they were, on the brink of ruin, their patriarch dying.

"I do not know what to make of any of this," Diarmán muttered. It was the day after their arrival at House Eldran—the day after they had come to a new understanding of their relationship—and he and Uachi were stowed away in Old Lord Emón's study. He closed one ledger and opened another, but it was more of the same stuff: endless columns and rows filled with inscrutable figures in his grandfather's spidery hand. "I thought I could start with the most recent years, but I've hunted the whole place twice over and the ledgers seem to stop four years ago."

Uachi was pacing slowly along one wall of the study, frowning at the rows of dusty books. "Perhaps he grew tired of it."

"It boggles the mind that he didn't grow tired of it before he was out of his swaddling clothes, doesn't it?" Diarmán gestured at the open book before him. "A capital bore, all of this. But his lordship doesn't have the luxury of simply ignoring the finances of his estate."

"The emperor has a decrepit coin-counter to do all that scribbling for him. You should find one, too. Surely you'll be too busy to manage this."

"Doing what?" Diarmán asked, looking up hopefully. He anticipated a saucy joke, even though Uachi was not usually the sort.

Uachi turned toward him, shrugging his shoulders and spreading his hands. "How should I know? I was born an urchin, not a fine lord. I imagine you will spend your time waving lace handkerchiefs about and hopping one-legged around ballrooms."

"Hopping around—what?" Diarmán laughed, leaning on his elbows on the writing desk and giving Uachi an incredulous look.

"You know. All that dancing." Uachi rolled a hand through the air. Perhaps he was imitating a courtly bow or a dance step, or perhaps he had seen a fly. It was difficult to say.