“No!”
said Rafel, hands clenching. “I couldn’t care less about being a bloody hero. Reckon I’ve heard enough about heroes to last me the rest of my life!”
And that were a deliberate, personal stab. Sick with the thought of losing his boy, hurt by the jibe, he shoved out from behind the desk.
“You need to pin your ears back, Meister Roughtongue, and lissen close to what I say,” he said, jabbing a pointed finger into his son’s fancy weskit. “Them fools Pintte and Baden got good Olken killed once already. And now they be tryin’ to get more good men killed goin’ over them mountains. You got knucklebones in your noggin, Rafe, if you reckon what they be plannin’ won’t end in blood and tears. And if—”
“You don’t know that!” Rafel shouted, knocking his hand away. “You’re just
guessing
.”
“Mayhap I am,” he retorted. “Mayhap I were guessin’ when I warned ’em not to fuddle with Dragonteeth Reef, too. But I weren’t wrong about that, eh?”
“No,” said Rafe tightly. “But that doesn’t make you right about everything else. And Goose—”
“Oh, aye, Goose,” he said, scornful. “Call y’self his best friend, do you? Well, if that’s true you’d talk him out of this madness, ’stead of eggin’ him on. Did you say you’d go with him?”
“And if I did?” said Rafel, his breathing harsh and hard. “So what if I did?”
“Then you’d best turn round and tell him you made a mistake. ’Cause you ain’t goin’ with him, Rafe. You ain’t settin’ a toe out of this City.”
Rafe shook his head. “That ain’t up to you, Da, ’cause I ain’t a criminal and this ain’t Justice Hall. You don’t get to lay the law down on me. I can walk out that door and you don’t get to say otherwise. If I want to, I can join that expedition
and you don’t get to say I can’t
.”
“No?” he said, his voice soft with anger and fear. “Best you think again, Rafe. There ain’t a man or woman goin’ over them mountains without the Council gives ’em leave. Now, things might be fratched a bit between me and them just this ticktock, but if you reckon they’ll let you go when I say I want you here? Then, sprat, you be a sinkin’ bloody fool.”
Rafe’s eyes were bright with tears. “You’d do that?” he whispered, his voice close to breaking. “You’d shame me like that before the Council? Before the City?”
Shaking, trying to hide it, he nodded. “Rafel, I’d do a bloody sight more than that to keep you safe.
You’re my son
.”
“Aye,” said Rafe, stepping back. “That I am. More’s the sinkin’ bloody pity.”
The door slammed loudly, finally, behind him.
Adrift on the library’s handwoven rug, Asher listened to his pounding heart. Told himself this were nowt, it were nowt.
Fathers and sons fratch, that’s the way things be. He’ll get over this. He will. It’s for his own good. He knows that. He’ll come back to me, by and by
.
And all around him, the silence stretched on.
Dathne found her son in the hushed, glimlit stable yard, fussing over his precious Firedragon. Kneeling in the stallion’s straw, he looked up from rubbing liniment into the horse’s strained fetlock, pain and anger glowering in his eyes.
“If you’ve come to defend him, Mama, don’t. I ain’t in the mood to hear him defended.”
She ran her hand along the top of the stable’s closed half-door. “You know, Rafe, it was both of us decided to tamper with your magic. Both of us who thought it best you didn’t know. You can’t be angry with your father, and not be angry with me.”
“Don’t worry, Mama,” he said, soothing the horse as it flinched. “I’m angry with you, too.”
She might’ve smiled, if she hadn’t been so close to weeping. “Were we wrong, to keep it from you? Really? With you stealing spells from Arlin Garrick? Sneaking into your father’s library and fuddling with private things?
Dangerous
things? Should we have trusted you with all that power when it turns out we couldn’t trust you to do as you were told? To believe us when we said it was so important for you to be careful?”
He flushed. “I was a
sprat,
Mama. Every sprat gets up to mischief.”
“Mischief, yes,” she agreed. “Dancing leaves and cracking stones, that’s mischief. Slopping water in your bath. But Rafel—”
“I know!” he said, goaded. “I shouldn’t have done those other things. I knew they were wrong when I did them, and I did them anyway, and I’m sorry. Nowt bad happened, but still. I’m
sorry
.”
The chestnut stallion swished its tail, head tossing, not liking raised voices. Rafel soothed the animal again, then reached into his grooming box for a fresh bandage to wrap around its injured leg.
“Did you really tell Goose you’d go with him over the mountains?” she asked. “Or was that something you said because you’re angry with your father—and you wanted to hurt him?”
Stung, he looked up again. “You think I’d do that?”
“I don’t know,” she said, after a moment. “You might. You’ve been so—so
gnarly
since Westwailing Harbour.”
“You saying I ain’t got the right to be fratched?”
“Oh, Rafel.” She had to blink back tears. “I’m saying what’s done can’t be undone. I’m saying your father and I love you very, very much, and if we’ve made mistakes it’s
because
we love you, not because we want to hurt you. If it’s a crime for parents to protect their child, then we’re guilty, no argument, and you must sentence us as you see fit.”
Rafel pinned his stallion’s bandage in place, then stood. Stroked his hand down the horse’s long, gleaming neck. Glanced up, frowning, as rain began to drum on the tiled stable roof.
“I did tell Goose I’d go with him,” he said, not looking at her. “But on my way home I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
“Why d’you think?” he said roughly. “ ’Cause I knew what me going would do to Da.”
She considered him. Five minutes ago, surely, he’d been her little boy. Smiles and giggles and kisses at bedtime. Now here he stood before her, a man, with a man’s anger and a man’s pride. His father’s pride—and his courage.
He’s his father’s son. And isn’t that the problem?
“Not me, Rafe?” she said at last. “You didn’t worry what your leaving would do to me?”
“Mama—” Pushing past the horse, he reached for her across the stable door. “Of course I don’t want to fret you. But you’re the strongest person I know. You’re
Jervale’s Heir
. And Da—what happened in Westwailing—he’s not—he’s not as strong as he used to be, Mama. He ain’t been for years. And—and—”
She framed his dear, sweet face with her hands. Kissed him on both cheeks. Leaned her forehead to his. Smiled as his hands came to rest on her shoulders. “I know.”
“He just fratched me all over again,” Rafel muttered. “He didn’t give me a chance to explain. When I said Goose was going with Pintte and Baden, he jumped on me with both feet. And I—I—”
She kissed him again. “It’s all right, Rafe. I know what he’s like.”
“And now I’ve got to go back on my word to Goose.” He sounded so
young
. There were tears in his voice. “What kind of a friend does that make me?”
“Rafe, he’ll understand. He’d never expect you to choose him over your family. Would you blame him if he had to put his father ahead of you?”
Turning away, he smeared his sleeve over his face. “No. Course I wouldn’t.”
“Well, then.”
“It’s just—” His face twisted. “I’m scared for him, Mama. This expedition—”
“I know.” She managed a small smile, for his sake. “We’ll just have to say our prayers hard, won’t we, that your father’s wrong for once. Now, are you coming in? It’s nigh on supper and you know how I hate it when you’re late to the table.”
That provoked a snort of amusement. “I’ll be in soon, I promise.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” she said. “And Rafe—” She had to wait a moment. “Make peace with your father.”
He sighed. “Mama—”
“Please, Rafel. For me?”
“I will,” he said eventually. “For you. But in my own time—and in my own way.”
She wanted more, but couldn’t ask for it. Some of this was Asher’s fault, after all. And hers. So she smiled at her son, and blew him a final kiss, and left him to fuss with his precious stallion.
Most all of Dorana City and half the rest of Lur, it seemed, turned out to farewell Fernel Pintte and Sarle Baden’s expedition. Dathne took Deenie and Charis to stand with her on the steps of Justice Hall, a goodly vantage point to see Barlsman Jaffee and a whole flock of lesser clerics bless the expedition members who were set to gather in the Market Square before riding off towards the Black Woods, and the mountains. Rafel was out there somewhere too, on his lonesome. Saying a private goodbye to his best friend Goose.
Asher kept company with Pellen, ailing in his feather bed. It was his second visit since coming home from the coast. During the first, his friend had taken poorly again and he’d gone home so frighted it was hard to eat or sleep. Whatever Kerril had done in the meantime, it seemed to have helped.
For now.
“I suppose,” said Pellen, his face sallow and deeply lined, his voice pale and breathless, “the Council could’ve chosen worse than Rubin Stott to take over from Pintte as mayor. Pour me some water, would you?”
Asher half filled a glass from the pitcher on the bedside table, and watched as Pellen tried not to spill it, drinking. “Seein’ as how you hired on Stott to be your deputy, reckon you ain’t wrong.” He took the emptied glass back, pretending not to notice the tremor in Pellen’s fingers. “And seein’ as how they had to nigh twist his arm off at the elbow afore he’d do it, I’d say they chose right. Any man as wants power be ezackly the wrong man to have it.”
“Agreed,” said Pellen, then coughed tearingly into his kerchief. When he took the linen away from his lips, Asher saw fresh blood on it. Couldn’t quite hide his horror, or dismay.
“Pellen—”
“Now, now,” said Pellen, gently chiding. “You can put away that long face. Kerril’s potions keep me brisk enough.”
“Aye, but can they cure you?”
“No,” Pellen said at last, staring at the bloodstained linen. “No, I’m sorry to say they can’t do that.”
He had to clear his throat. “You told Charis?”
“No. Not yet,” Pellen admitted. “Cowardly of me but in this, I’ll gladly cling to cowardice. You and Dathne—you’ll stand for her, once I’m gone?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions,” he snapped. Anger kept the grief at bay. “Course we bloody will.”
“Forgive me,” said Pellen. “I get anxious. She’s a clever lass, but young to be left alone in these uncertain times.”
Uncertain times
. Aye, well, that were one way of puttin’ it.
M’self, I’d call ’em bloody awful
.
Pellen was staring at him closely, his dark eyes clouded a little and sunk deeply in their sockets, purplish shadows beneath them. He looked a mortal sick man. Surely Charis had guessed. Which meant father and daughter were keepin’ secrets from each other. But if that got ’em through each painful day, who was he to look sideways? Turned out that as a da, he weren’t no sinkin’ great shakes.
“This isn’t your fault, you know, Asher,” Pellen said quietly. “No more than Westwailing was. You did your best to stop Pintte and the others. If they choose to ignore you, the blame belongs to them. There’s not a man alive or dead who’s fought harder for this kingdom. You
mustn’t
reproach yourself.”
Pellen were a good friend, trying to make him feel better, but nothing could do that. Dread was in him, hollowing his heart.
His good friend’s thin face turned brooding. “You still think the expedition is doomed?”
“Don’t matter a fly’s fart what I think, Pellen,” he said, shrugging. “Ain’t nobody interested in what I got to say.”
“Asher…” Pellen shifted against his pillows. “He still won’t speak to you?”
Rafel
. A week since their fight, and his son was yet to say a kind word to him. It wasn’t just Goose, of course. It were Westwailing and his magic, too. Everything between them a tangled, gnarly mess.
He shook his head. “No.”
“I’m sorry,” said Pellen. “Children. How empty our lives would be without them… and how much less painful.”
Pellen’s easy sympathy made his eyes burn. “I don’t care,” he said, knowing it was a lie, knowing Pellen knew it too. “He can hate me till the day he dies, so long as he lives long enough to die an ole man. I
couldn’t
let him go, Pellen. It be true I can’t prove the expedition’s headin’ for disaster, but—” His clenched fist struck his chest, which hurt with every breath. “I feel it. In my bloody bones, I
feel
it. So how could I let him go? If I gave in… if I said him likin’ me were more important than him
livin’?
Be faster and kinder to cut his throat m’self.”
He heard his voice break, and was shamed. He had no business weighin’ Pellen down with his troubles. His friend were
dyin’;
he didn’t need more strife in his dish.
“Asher,” said Pellen, and reached out his hand. “Don’t. Rafel’s angry, I know, but anger doesn’t last forever.”
He looked at the thin fingers resting on his arm. “Not for some folk, mayhap. But my family? We ain’t of the mood as forgives and forgets. Look at Zeth. Hates me as much today as he did the day our da died. As he did the day our ma died. The day she bloody birthed me, ’cause he didn’t reckon they needed another mouth to feed.”