“Is there any place for you, my Ban?”
He only could stare at her, feeling at the edge of some new understanding. It was too big to allow in without feeling all the corners and inspecting the angles. But at the center was his mother, once a girl like Elia, making choices. And having them made for her by the world. Ban thought he might need to sit down, and he tried to mask his perception with another frown.
Brona’s eyes crinkled, and she kissed his lips. “Ever serious, ever dour, just as irritable. You get that from none of us! Perhaps some old man on your father’s side. Ah, I missed your sour face, but I would like to see a smile before you go again. Come inside.”
His mother took him by the hand and led him into her home.
Lit only by calm sunlight, the cottage was full of sweet smells. Ban’s vision adjusted quickly, but before he could relax, he saw a man sitting half up out of the bed in the far corner.
The Oak Earl, undressed and rumpled here in his mother’s house.
Ban felt his entire being jolt again. He gripped Brona’s hand too hard, and she bent her mouth in disapproval. “Ban,” she chided.
“What are you doing here?” he said, low and dangerous, to the Oak Earl. Kayo was handsome and famous, strong and by reputation a good man. But here he was, spoiling this place with his casual familiarity, and he was supposed to be banished alongside Elia, fled to Aremoria.
Keeping his eyes on Ban, Kayo slowly pushed aside the blankets and stood. As he bent to get his trousers, he kept his movements deliberate, unthreatening. One leg then the other, and he fixed his trousers in place never having unlocked his gaze from Ban’s.
Brona made a snort of incredulity and pulled away from her son. “You, my boy, are gone too long and are too grown to pretend you have any place judging me.”
“Not…” Ban’s mouth was dry. He swallowed, painfully aware it was babyish hurt clogging his throat. “Not judging, Mama,” he rasped.
“Judging,” she said firmly, stressing it with a firm pat on his cheek. “Call it protecting if that makes it easier for you. Either way: don’t.”
He folded his arms over his chest, hiding the clench of his fists, and slid another glare at the Oak Earl.
Kayo ran hands over his puffed curls, forming them back from his face. “Thirsty, Ban?” he said.
Brona padded over to her hearth. “I’d just put water to boil. Sit, son.”
He obeyed woodenly.
Sunlight, cool forest breezes, and three moon moths drifted in through all the cottage’s open windows. That, as much as the hanging flowers and herbs, the crackling fire, the layers of rugs, all worked together to make this a home, warm and welcoming. Gentle floral and bitter smells pinched the air, and the benches set beside Brona’s long table were overlaid with patches of deer and dog and bear fur, softening the seat. Ban leaned his elbows on the rough table his mother used for both eating and working. He remembered being laid out across it once, some women from the village holding down his legs and arms, while Brona sewed up a bone-deep slice on his chin. The scar was still there, and Ban realized he’d touched it only when his mother smiled softly at him, placing a half-eaten loaf of oat bread out for them to share.
Kayo sat across from him, his back to the fire. He reached out and tore a piece of bread. The Oak Earl watched Ban with a suspicion and heavy regard that Ban could not believe he’d earned. There was no way Kayo knew anything of Ban’s plotting, no matter what Rory’d confessed. Ban glared back, and said again, “What are you doing here, Oak Earl?”
“Ban,” Brona warned as she shoved her feet into slippers.
Kayo chewed his bread, then flattened his hands against the table and leaned in. “What promise are you keeping to Elia Lear, Fox?”
Ban reeled back. “You read my letter? You—I trusted you with it!”
But the Oak Earl did not look at all chagrined. He said, “The lady showed it to me, and the king of Aremoria, too.”
No longer hungry, Ban did his best to hide himself behind a veneer of invulnerability. He lifted one shoulder as he’d seen Lady Regan do. “I see. So the lady will marry Morimaros?”
“Who else should she marry, Ban? What else should she do?” Kayo casually ripped more bread, and behind him Brona knelt to take her pot off the fire, hands wrapped in leather mitts. She glanced at Ban curiously as she poured them all tinctures of honeyed water. The clay cups warmed fast, and Ban sat again, clutching his and inhaling the familiar, sweet steam. He shook his head, answering Kayo with silence. His mother sat beside him, near enough their arms brushed.
Brona put her hand on Ban’s knee. “She needs to find her place, too,” she said, like a portent.
He let his hand fall atop hers. All Ban’s thoughts and feelings were awhirl, and he wished it were possible to receive word back from Morimaros, instead of only sending it. The king was so far from Innis Lear, in body and spirit. Had he lost trust in his Fox? How had he taken the note for Elia? Ban studied his water: the flakes of whatever petals or dry leaves Brona had steeped that floated atop the surface, the shiny ripples, the wavering steam. He drank, and the heat diffused down and throughout his body, relaxing him.
“She was glad to have word from you,” Kayo said. “Elia was. Though she grew anxious about it, when she told Morimaros you’d promised to aid her cause.”
“And what cause is that?” Brona asked.
Ban lied, fiercely, “To bring her home.”
His mother’s dark eyes softened, and she squeezed his knee. “You love her.”
“I—” Ban looked away from her again. “We were friends when we were young.”
“And now it is more, because you are children no longer.”
“It is not more,” he insisted. “I don’t do that. I would not. I’m not like…”
“Like me?”
“I was going to say like my father,” he said. “But if you want, yes. You as well.” Ban turned his blame toward Kayo, too. Kayo, unmarried, rich, titled, and previously so favored of the king. Worse than Errigal, Ban suddenly thought, for Errigal at least was honest with his affairs. “You returned here so fast, Oak Earl.” He could not keep the accusation from his tone, and did not want to hear it might have been Brona drawing Kayo back. Did not want to think of Elia, drawn to Aremoria for anything but protection.
“There is much to do here,” Kayo answered. “I must to the king, though he banished me. I fear for him in his daughters’ hands, for Gaela and Regan hold him in no regard.”
“Does he deserve for them to?”
Kayo frowned. It aged him past his forty years. “He was your king, Ban Errigal, no matter that he stepped down from power.”
“He was only ever a terrible old man to me, and never had, or even tried to earn, my respect. And even if he had, it would be lost now after what he did to Elia—to his family. To this island.” Though Ban struggled to argue evenly, he knew his words shook with passion and rage.
Brona said, “And like what Errigal has done to his first son?”
Yes, Ban nodded. Yes. “Where is my brother?” he asked softly, for it was all he could do now.
“Rory?” Brona leaned away. “How should I know?”
Kayo said, “We’ve only heard the news, from hunters and traders. It was everywhere when I landed on the island three days ago.”
“What? No.” Ban glanced between the two, and saw the truth of their protestations. “I sent him here. I told Rory to come here when I ushered him out of the Keep—for his own safety, of course. I said he could hide with you, Mama, that he could be secure and wait for—for me to settle our father down. If such a man could be settled at all.”
She shook her head no. “I’ve not seen him, nor has anyone in Hartfare.”