Druise returned earlier than I expected. “Unhappy men,” he said, at my expression of surprise. “Bad company. I have heard enough.”
“What’s bothering them now?” I asked, handing him wine.
“Inspections, by the Governor’s staff,” he said.
“Surely that isn’t surprising?” I asked, sitting across from him.
“No. But just one more thing. They need work to do,” he said. “Patrols are not enough. Bored men create trouble.” He stretched his legs out. “I leave in three days.”
“Three?” Sooner than I had thought.
“Rufin says the tides are best then.”
“Druise...do you want to go?”
“Want?” Genuine surprise in his voice. “What does it matter, what I want? Soldiers do not choose their assignments.”
“But if you could?” I persisted.
“Better not to think that way,” he said. “Better to do what is required, enjoy what is good, and not worry about the future.”
“You will enjoy what there is in Casil, then, and not just food and wine?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
“Yes.” He spoke matter-of-factly. “I have old friends to see.” By choice? He put his cup down, leaning back in his chair. “And you should here, too.”
“No.”
“Why not? You would if Cillian offered.”
“But he won’t. You’re being ridiculous, Druise.”
“You think? But if he did, you would not believe you had betrayed me. From the beginning, I have known this, and even when I asked you not to kiss him in my sight, you could not. So we do not belong only to each other. Am I wrong?”
It had only been once, I thought. Only once on the lips, and that was what Druise had asked me not to do. But I had broken the promise. “No,” I said.
“Then do not worry about what we do outside this room.” He picked up his wine again. “But inside it — we have three days, amané.”
Chapter 10
15 years after the battle of the Taiva
Breakfast wasn't for a few hours, and I wouldn’t go back to sleep now. I went to my teaching room, thinking about what the daltai would do this summer, with both me and Druisius gone. Lena would take over most of his weaponry lessons, I thought, but there was no one else to teach the cithar. As only Tamm was close to leaving us, that wasn't a problem. They'd just get more voice training from Apulo, and perhaps more danta interpretation from Lena.
Lena. Her hours teaching would double, at least, and she would also take over the accounts and estate management from me, although old Anndra would assist with the latter, if she needed him. And undoubtedly, she would insist in riding patrol with the guard, more than once: Druise did, she would argue, so she should too. Like Druise, she still held her commission in Ésparias’s army, officially seconded to the Ti'ach to teach weaponry.
She should probably ask Mhairi to find someone else to work in the kitchen and house, I thought. Then Mhairi could take on more of the oversight of the daltai that was the Lady’s role, leaving Lena free to teach. I would suggest it.
I heard a light knock at the door. I turned to see Apulo. “Cillian would like a few minutes with everyone before breakfast,” Apulo told me. “He is just returned from his treatments.”
“I'll be there,” I said. I finished the outline I was working on — I would take it with me, for Cillian’s approval, as it depended heavily on Tamm, and he was not my student to direct — and went next door. Cillian was standing by the window, looking out. He turned, awkwardly, even after his massage and exercises, but his eyes creased in a smile of welcome. “Good morning,” Lena said from across the room. “And do not look at each other that way over the breakfast table.”
“Have we ever?” Cillian said mildly. “Have you and I ever, käresta? We all know our roles.”
She laughed. “I was only teasing.” She came over to give me a kiss on the cheek. “You need a shave,” she told me.
“I know. What are we meeting about?” I went to the sideboard to pour tea.
“Wait for Druise. I am going to talk to Gwenna now,” Lena said.
“No second thoughts, overnight?” I asked.
“None, except for your safety,” she said with a grin. She turned to leave.
“Käresta?” Cillian said. She stopped, turning back to his outstretched arms. They kissed. I watched, amused that she had nearly forgotten their unvarying morning ritual.
Cillian and I talked about inconsequential things until Druise and Apulo joined us. Druise put a hand on my shoulder in greeting; nothing more, with Apulo here.
“Sorley,” Cillian said, “do you need to leave tomorrow?”
“Yes,” I said. “Ruar expects me, and he was specific about dates.”
“Then we had best make today a half rest day, so that we have time to organize ourselves, now both you and Druisius will be gone. The daltai will not mind, I am sure,” he added. “Now, can we meet again, say perhaps an hour before we normally do this afternoon? Is that enough time to make arrangements?”
We agreed it would be. I gave Cillian the schedule I had worked on, asking him to review it before we met again. “I will announce breakfast,” Apulo said. A few minutes later, the gong sounded. We were on duty, as soon as we stepped outside of the room.
Breakfast was simple: porridge, tea, bread and cheese, and not formal. The only requirement for the students was to attend, washed and dressed, and eat at least something. “As I take little food in the morning,” Cillian had pointed out, “I cannot fairly ask the students for more than that.” Gwenna in particular disliked breakfast, eating no more than a spoonful or two of porridge with her tea, another way she took after her father.
“Comiádh?” one the boys said, “may I ask something?”
“You may,” Cillian said.
“At dinner last night, we were speaking of empires falling, and what happens when they do.” He spoke precisely; he had been well-taught, before being sent to us. “When I went to bed, I thought about what my grandfather has said to my father: that while we sell most of our fish and wool to Ésparias, it is always prudent to reserve some for Varsland, so that we have more than one market. Do our leaders do the same? Have other countries in reserve, for alliances if an Empire falls?”
“It is sound advice your grandfather has given your father,” Cillian said. “That is a very good question. One which I will not answer directly, but give to you as an assignment to discover yourself. I will suggest to you what to read when we meet later this morning.”
Neatly deflected, I thought, and a completely reasonable response from the Comiádh. Whose job, after all, was to introduce his students to ideas, to new thoughts and attitudes, with the hope that as the daltai left us, they took those ideas with them out into Linrathe and Sorham.
“Now,” Cillian said, gaining everyone’s attention. “Today will be a half rest day, with free time for everyone after the midday meal. The day looks fine, so if it remains so, perhaps an opportunity for líathró, if you would organize it, Tamm?”
The game, which involved kicking a ball made from a sheep’s bladder around, was a favourite among the students. It both relieved their excess energy and taught them teamwork. A similar game was played in Casil, Druise had told me.
“Of course, Comiádh,” Tamm said. He was used to this; in my last years at the Ti'ach, Perras had asked as much of me, and Cillian would have experienced the same a decade earlier.
We spent the morning teaching, and after the meal at midday, Druise went to talk to the guard, while I returned to the plans I had been working on earlier. I'd mostly completed them, and until Cillian approved what I had given him, I didn't have much more to do. I had done the accounts just a few days before. I had best go speak to Anndra, I thought, not that he needs me to. It gave me an excuse to go out into the sun and air.
I stopped to watch the game, the students happily chasing the ball around on what was usually our training ground for swordplay and
archery. Gwenna wasn't among them, I noticed; probably with Lena, preparing for travel. “Tamm,” I said, seeing the opportunity, “a word?”
“I suppose they won't kill each other if I stop watching for a moment,” he said with a grin.
“I'm not so sure. You can watch while we talk.”
“Catriona will stop them if it gets too wild,” he said. Catriona was the next-oldest student, a redhead who spoke every language we taught fluently. She was a torpari girl, from central Linrathe, and more than once I had caught Lena watching her.
“Had Turlo not said he had been true to Arey all his life,” she'd said, “I would swear she was his.”
“She could be, I suppose,” I had replied. “He did travel through Linrathe on his way north to find the route to Casil, and Arey was dead by then.”
“We'll never know,” she had said. Turlo, and his scout Galen with him, had simply disappeared a year after the Taiva. He'd been commanding the Ésparian troops on the Sterre, and had gone to look for weaknesses in the defences where the earthen dike met the Durrains. No one ever saw either of them again. Lena believed they had attempted to go east across the mountains, following the route she and Cillian had taken in exile: an almost-certainly fatal decision, in autumn.
“Tamm,” I began, “last night at dinner, your views on the constraints on us as adults were thoughtful. May I ask if you have learned that equally from all of us, or perhaps in one certain way from me?”
Surprise — or fear? — flashed in his eyes. He looked around, but there was no one in hearing distance. He did not speak for some moments. I too had learned from texts and discussions in my years at the Ti'ach that my desire for men as my bedmates was neither unnatural nor universally scorned, but it had made me no less frightened to reveal my nature in Linrathe and Sorham. The Ti'acha had made little headway in changing opinions in this area, except among the scáeli'en, and Ruar.
“Perhaps,” he said finally. “An example set by you and the Captain, I believe.”
“Beyond what we have taught you about music?” He nodded. “I’m pleased we have given you guidance,” I said. “Tamm, I’ll speak a little more freely now, and from experience. You will need to be very careful in Linrathe and Sorham. Both beatings and blackmail are possible, and not infrequent.” His head came up.
“You?”
“The beating, yes,” I said calmly. “The extortion was attempted, but I had been warned, and saw what was planned.”
“How can I know what — who — is safe?” he whispered.
“A difficult question. Easier for a musician; the scáeli'en are more accepting, and you’re more likely to find others of similar tastes among them. You’re a good enough musician to mix with them, and perhaps that is all you should do, until you are older, and more experienced.”
His eyes were turned towards the game, but I didn’t think he was seeing it. “Lord Sorley? Thank you.”
“I would have benefitted, had someone said this to me, and others I know, when we were young men,” I said. “I would save you what we went through, if I can.”
I found Anndra, and talked about pastures and sheep and drainage with him for an hour, helped by a nip of fuisce. His wife, Isa, still spent her days in the Ti'ach’s kitchen, although she mostly drowsed in a chair, waking to give instructions or to occasionally sort a pan of dried beans. Cillian went to speak to her every day. She had lived to see the frightened torpari child she had taken under her wing become Comiádh, and to hold his children, and she would die content when her time came. I wondered, not for the first time, how the difficult, complex child — and man — had managed to engender such love in so many of us.
Then I walked back through the late spring afternoon, hearing the maa-aa of lambs drifting up from the field beyond the stream, and larksong high above me. Sounds I had known all my life, but suddenly I missed the cry of gulls and the barking of seals, and the ceaseless beat of the waves. I missed Gundarstorp, and I knew deep inside me I always would.
Chapter 11
Before the children joined us for tea we had the summer’s learning mapped out, with significant roles for Tamm and, to my surprise, Catriona. Language teaching was Cillian’s specialty. “Why?” I asked.
“I want some extra time with Colm,” Cillian said. “To improve his Heræcrian, in part.”
“Heræcrian?” I said. “He is ten. Spoken or written?”
“Both. I believe he may need it, in the future.”
“Are you planning to share your reasons why, kärestan?” Lena asked.
“Consider what interests him. Anatomy. Lambing. His collection of animal skulls. He has asked Apulo quite a few questions about how massage helps me. What might that suggest to you?”
“A physician?” Druise said.
“Perhaps,” Cillian said. “We should let the interest develop or wane as he chooses, but learning Heræcrian will not be a burden to him in either case. And,” he said, “I will not object to more time spent with my son, especially as Lena will be busier than usual.”
It was Lena, usually, who rode or walked with Colm, encouraging his interest in birds and animals while giving her time out on the moors, under the wide skies, the space and silence she craved. Both would miss that, I thought, if the summer’s demands limited it.
“Has he said something to you?” I asked Druise. “You were very quick to see what Cillian was suggesting.”
“No,” Druise said. “But I wanted to be a doctor, when I was his age, or a little more. Not possible, for a boy from the subura. I collected skulls, too. Mostly rats and pigeons.”
“Why didn't I know that?” I asked. Druise just shrugged. “All that time you took care of Cillian, and you never mentioned it?”
“Gnaius knew,” Druise said. “We talked. He said, no, too late for me to learn, except as an army medic. That would have taken me away, and I did not want that.”
“Oh, Druise,” Lena said. “Surely you could have learned, and stayed at Wall’s End? Casyn would have ordered it, had you told us.”
“Soldiers do not like men who break the rules,” Druise said. “They would know. Either I did it properly, or not at all. Cillian needed me, and then...” He hesitated, rare for Druise. “I did not want to leave my family, not for as long as it would have needed.”
He had been torn, two years ago, when Gwenna had gone back to Ésparias to become a cadet. He had desperately wanted to go with her, to guard her, but Cillian and Lena had talked him out of it. She would be well-protected, they argued, but being their daughter was going to be burden enough without the presence of a personal guard. He had seen the sense, and after her first visit home, mostly stopped worrying.
“Anyhow,” he said, with his characteristic grin, “I like teaching. Maybe I am a better teacher than I would have been a doctor.”
“You were an excellent medic,” Cillian said, “training or not, but for the same reasons you are good teacher, Druisius. You knew when to encourage, and when to challenge. And when discipline was needed. I will be forever in your debt for that.”
The children came in then, Colm’s hair unkempt and with mud still on his face. “Didn't you wash?” Lena said, in fond exasperation.
“My hands are clean,” he said, showing her. “Is there cake, Mathàir? I am starving.”
“You are not,” Cillian said. “Be precise, Colm.”
He sighed. “I am very hungry,” he amended. “Tamm made us play two games. But my side won both. Where were you, Gwenna?”
“Getting ready to travel,” she said. “I’m going north with Sorley. And Druise. Tomorrow.”
“Are you?” Colm said. “Will you bring me any skulls you find?”
The kitchen girl arrived with a tray of food — bread and the spring’s first butter, as well as cakes; she knew well what an afternoon’s exercise did to young appetites. We listened to Colm tell us about the game, in between bites of bread and cake. But after a while, he stopped. “Could I go to my room?” he asked.
&nbs
p; “Go,” Lena said. He needed solitude, as both his parents did, and rarely got. After an afternoon’s boisterous play, he would want time to read, or draw, or just to think. He gave both his parents the expected kiss, smiled at his sister, and left.
“Baths?” I said to Druise. Apulo would have them heated; someone always used them, in the late afternoon.
“Yes,” he said. “Cillian?”
“Later, perhaps, with Colm.”
In the steaming hot pool Druise touched my face. “You need a shave,” he said.
“I know,” I said once more. “After the baths.”
“I will,” he offered. He was a skilled barber, careful and precise; he had shaved Cillian, for the weeks of illness and for months afterwards. Occasionally, he shaved me, a gesture I found both tender and arousing. We were not going to be separated for six weeks or more now, but we would likely have no opportunity to make love beyond tonight. I kissed him, not quite gently.
“I look forward to it,” I murmured.
Cloud hung over the Ti'ach’s valley when the stableboy brought our horses to the courtyard the next morning. The beginning of classes had been delayed a few minutes to give time for farewells. Cillian and Lena and Colm stood on the steps of the hall, watching us adjusting saddlebags and stirrups.
Gwenna gave the huntress statue in the courtyard a quick touch, then went to each of her parents in turn, for an embrace and a kiss. Cillian said something quietly to her, and she nodded. Colm allowed a kiss on his cheek, and a quick hug; he was used to Gwenna being away from the Ti'ach. She swung up on her horse, waiting for us.
Ironically, departures and homecomings allowed — no, expected — visible affection between men in Linrathe. Druise saluted Lena, as the senior captain, and laying a hand on Cillian’s extended forearm accepted the brief touch of his lips. Then it was my turn. I kissed Lena’s cheek before turning to Cillian.
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