“They’ve come to bid farewell to my uncle,” he snarled in response. But that wasn’t the whole of it, and he felt the weight of coming mastery hanging above his head like a suspended sword, ready to drop.
The castle was full of feasting and the booming talk of men. Mouse ran his legs off on errands for both Cook and the scrubber, and he shied away from the gazes of those earls, wishing he could find a hole to crawl into and never emerge again. Alistair, always in the thick of it all, laughed and joked and spoke of North Country policies with those who were his uncle’s allies. Leta, when obliged, sat at his side, testimony to the Earl of Aiven’s link to Gaheris.
And the Chronicler sat in the silence of his library. In that silence, he could almost hear Earl Ferox struggling to breathe.
“You are wanted in the earl’s room, my lady,” said Lady Mintha’s page, bowing in the doorway of Leta’s chamber. Leta sat by the fire, wrapped in a fur cloak, her face red with cold. Even here in seclusion, she could hear the rumble of crowded life in the castle’s great hall below. She wondered if Earl Ferox heard it in his sickroom and what he thought, if anything.
“Ferox must be near his end,” said Leta’s head lady, and she fetched a mourning veil from among Leta’s things and fixed it to Leta’s head, covering her hair and partially hiding her face. “Go now,” she said, her voice stern.
Silent as a phantom, Leta followed the page from her chambers and down the darkened hall, which was not as cold as it might be, crowded as it was with the servants and retainers of all the various earls. They waited, their backs against the walls, their arms crossed over their chests, their faces sullen because they were not with their fellows in the feasting hall down below. They were made to wait outside Ferox’s room, to wait and bring word to their lords the moment there was word to bring.
Leta passed beneath their gazes and on to the sickroom. Though a large chamber, it too was crowded. Ferox’s closest allies stood along the walls, the light of the great fire flickering on them. A host of candles burned near the head of Ferox’s bed but could cast no warmth upon his gray, strained face. Leta briefly wondered if he was already dead. Then she saw the rise and fall of his wasted chest and heard the labored scraping of his breath. He lived. Only just.
Alistair stood on the other side of the bed, his face white in the candlelight. He did not look at Leta as she entered, scarcely seemed aware of her. But Lady Mintha at his side beckoned her near. “He’s not long for this world now,” she whispered in Leta’s ear. “You must be present at the end. Here, take my place beside my son, and offer what prayers you know for Ferox’s passing.”
Leta dared steal a glance at Mintha as she spoke. She saw no sorrow there, though Earl Ferox had always been a kind and true brother to her, giving her a place of precedence in his house and at his table. No, there was no sorrow in Mintha’s gaze as she watched her younger brother struggle upon his deathbed.
Shuddering, Leta did as she was commanded and drew close to Alistair. In his expression, at least, she saw real pain. The pain of coming loss and . . . something else, she thought. Something that was akin to fear if not fear itself. She wondered if she was expected to do something to comfort him but could not think what. She hardly knew him, and she did not think a word or gesture from her would make any difference.
So she turned to Earl Ferox, his face worn so thin, his nightshirt folded back to reveal the hollows of his neck and collarbone. He sweated and shivered at once. There could be no comfort for him now save death.
What prayers did she know? She thought of all the little phrases she had been taught as a child, songs of olden days that according to the Chronicler were nothing but fanciful stories. Her heart plummeted at that thought. At a time like this, a man needed fancy to be truth. And if he could not believe it himself, he needed others to believe it for him.
She whispered softly the first of all the prayerful songs that entered her head:
“Beyond the Final Water falling,
The Songs of Spheres recalling.
When you hear my voice beyond the darkling veil,
Won’t you return to me?”
She did not realize how loud her voice was until Lady Mintha reached out and pinched her arm. Instantly, Leta clamped her mouth shut, her face burning with embarrassment and the threat of oncoming tears.
But Earl Ferox opened his eyes.
They were clouded over with pain, shimmering with regret, and blind, Leta thought, to all those gathered near. She heard a collective gasp from those around her, and Alistair started forward, kneeling down by the dying man’s side. “Uncle Ferox.” His voice was rough yet gentle. “Can you hear me?”
The earl’s throat constricted, and the muscles of his face tensed with pain. He croaked hoarsely, “Bring me . . .” His eyes closed. Was that a tear sliding down the grayness of his temple and vanishing into his thin white hair?