And there was his golden brother Rory, laughing with the carefree certainty of his own invincibility.
This plan of Ban’s now, three years later, would do all it needed to do: ruin Errigal and tear into the island’s foundations, work toward Morimaros’s goals and prove to Elia she’d done no wrong. But most of all, it would hurt Rory, stripping away his easy confidence. Ban was a wizard revealing the truth of the world to show Rory that people are terrible sometimes and unfair, that one does not always deserve what one receives, and that there are consequences to living carelessly.
That, Ban was willing teach his brother.
The snap of leather warned Ban that his father approached, clumping up the stairs as if already upset. That would work in Ban’s favor. He crumpled the letter in his hand and put both fists over his head, elbows jutting at the window casement.
“Ban!” Errigal snapped. “What is this?”
Ban straightened, his eyes down anxiously, and hurried to tuck the false letter away, in a pocket close to his heart.
The earl was alone, dressed in casual linen and wool, a sword belt strapping his tunic down, sheathing a plain soldier’s blade. Errigal put his fist against the pommel and glowered. “Why did you put that up so quickly, son?”
“It’s nothing,” Ban said, giving a tight shake of his head. His lip throbbed where he’d cut it wrestling Rory.
“Oh ho? Then why seek to hide it from me?” Errigal came forward, large hand outstretched. “If it is nothing, then nothing shall I see.”
Ban grimaced to hide the thrill of battle rising again in his veins. “It is only a note from my brother, and I’ve not finished reading it. What I’ve read so far makes me think it’s not fit for you to see.”
“Give it to me, boy, or I’ll take great offense.” Errigal thrust his hand out again.
“I think it would give offense either way.”
“Let me have it.”
With seeming reluctance, Ban withdrew the letter. Eyes cast down, he added, “I hope—I truly believe, Father—that Rory wrote this only to test my virtue. He hasn’t known me since he left our cousins, with me still in Aremoria last year, and only hears what men in the king’s retinue say about me: that I am a bastard and therefore not trustworthy.”
Errigal made a growling noise of frustration and snatched the letter. He so violently unfolded it that the edge pulled and tore. Ban crossed his arms over his chest and knocked back against the wall, easily pretending anxiety. This was the moment this would tell him if Errigal was as terrible and easy to turn as Lear.
As his father’s mouth moved along with the words he read and his large eyes narrowed, as his lips paled under his beard, Ban suddenly realized there was a sick thread of disappointment wound through his spine. Some part of him had hoped Errigal was better. That the earl could not believe so easily his own son would betray him. It was that same cursed piece of Ban that had yet to stop yearning for approval from his father. Ban clenched his teeth.
“This reverence for age keeps the best of us out of power,” Errigal read in a broad, disbelieving voice. “We don’t receive our fortunes until we are too old to enjoy them. Because we wait for our fathers to—” The earl’s hand twitched. “We must speak of this together, for you would have half of his revenue forever, and live beloved of your brother.”
Silence fell, but for the cool wind bringing the far-distant clangs of smithies and a howl out of the great forest. Errigal slammed the side of his fist to the wooden wall. “Conspiracy,” he whispered, staring past Ban out the window. “Is this—Can this be my son Rory? Has he the heart to write this … I would not think so.”
Ban put his mouth into a careful frown, though he wanted to hit Errigal, to knock him down and step on his throat, to show him exactly how much this hurt.
Errigal glanced sharp and hot at Ban. “When did you get this? Who brought it?”
“I found it in my room.” Still he did not latch his gaze onto his father’s, knowing his fury would shine through.
“Is it his hand? Your brother’s hand?”
Ban shook his head. “Were the subject good, I would swear it’s Rory’s writing, but being what it is … I cannot say yes. It does not seem written in his words, even.”
“It is by his hand.”
The words sounded like death blows, dull and hard and promising raw blood to come.
The earl crumpled the letter. All his blunt teeth were bared. “And a feast prepared for this ungrateful whelp! Ah! Find him, so I can disabuse him of this notion his father is too old and weak to govern.”
Ban held his hands out to stall Errigal, and let him see the anger now. Errigal could read it as he liked. “Wait. At least until you can hear from his own mouth what he intended with this letter! We do not know if he wrote it, we do not know if he meant it—maybe he is testing me, as I said.”
“Ban!” Errigal ground out the name through clenched wide teeth.
“Father.” Ban put hands to Errigal’s broad shoulders. “Don’t do as Lear did. If you go violently against Rory and it’s merely a mistake, that is a gap in your honor, not his. Look at the chaos Innis Lear is experiencing already, with Kay Oak banished and the princess, too. Connley and Astore are ready at each other’s necks. We need Rory to be innocent of this.”
The earl’s jaw worked, his hairy brows dipping in uncertain anger. “All this is a disaster, you are right about that. If my own son … ah. He cannot be such a monster.”
“He cannot,” Ban murmured, only half in guilt.
The two leaned together at the window, both breathing hard, though for different causes.
“Ah, Ban.” Errigal sagged, and Ban dropped to the floor, kneeling. “Child against father—it is not natural. It is against the stars, and yet the stars warned us. These eclipses, these signs of division, of friend against friend, loves lost, what can we do? Heaven and earth, I love that fine, wretched boy. He must be as good as you, as loyal. Look at his stars! He was born under such good stars.” The earl thumped his head back against the wall and shut his eyes. “Discover the truth, Ban. Discover it.”
“I shall, Father,” Ban said, pressing his forehead to his father’s fist. He let his mouth twist and his eyes burn where the earl could not see.
Stars. Always the stars of birth. The blindness of old men, the weakness of their faith. Easy weapons to turn against them now that Ban understood power better.
Hurrying down stone stairs worn in the middle from generations of soldiers’ boots, Ban made his way to the kitchens where he knew Rory to be already, flirting with the cooks and maids as they prepared the feast.
Ban paused just outside the bend into the sweltering kitchen, catching his breath. He heard his brother’s voice trail brightly up the stairs from the larder instead. A young woman pressed past Ban, carrying a full platter of steaming bread. She smiled at him, but Ban’s attention was all for the story his brother told.
“… and though battered and bruised, Ban the Fox had clutched in his hand the underwear of the commander of the Diotan forces!”
The triumphant words spread into a shout of laughter and cheers from surely a dozen throats. Ban stepped down, steadying the sword at his belt. A cluster of young people—retainers in Errigal sky blue, two servant boys in their aprons, and even some young women covered in flour and smiling under sweat-curled hair—surrounded Rory, all of them crushed into the space around the long butter table, ducking their heads around the jars of butter and cream hung on hooks to keep free of rats and insects.
“You were supposed to be telling stories of your own exploits,” Ban said softly, affection warming his belly beside stinging guilt.
“Ban! Ha! Worms!” Rory held out his arm. “You tell them a story about me, then.”