Cethe

by Becca Abbott

  Dragging the heaviest blanket with him, he got up and, teeth chattering, went to the stove. To his surprise, it still emitted plenty of heat. But not until he was a foot or two away from it, however, did he feel its warmth. Cursing, he lit a lamp and chucked several more pieces of wood into the belly of the stove.

  The curtains, heavy velvet, eddied and billowed in the drafts making it past the windows, the brand new windows! Michael pulled a panel aside and was immediately hit in the face by an icy blast. The glass panes rattled in their frames under the wind’s assault; they were thick with frost.

  Blanket wrapped tightly around him, Michael fled his room. The corridor was warmer, but not much. He opened the bedroom door opposite his own. This room was warmer still, but unfortunately, it was also occupied. A mound of blankets on the top of the bed issued a steady cadence of snores sounding suspiciously like Jeremy. Michael backed out quietly. Jeremy, too, had been using one of the newly remodeled front bedrooms. He looked at the only other empty room on that side of the house and found it, too, had been appropriated by one of his friends.

  Michael thought sourly of spending the night downstairs, curled up on a sofa or chair. He could wake a servant and have several more blankets brought up to his icebox of a room, or… Making up his mind, he went downstairs, walking along the corridor until he came to Stefn’s rooms. He unlocked the door and opened it.

  The rooms were almost balmy. A pile of glowing embers in the sitting room fireplace radiated heat throughout the suite. In the bedroom it was cooler, but still much better than his own chamber.

  “Who’s there?” Stefn’s voice, sleepy and alarmed, rose from the bed.

  “Just me,” Michael replied. He came right to the bed and pulled back the covers. “I’m sleeping in here tonight.”

  Thereupon, he shed his blanket and climbed in. Stefn was off the other side in one mad scramble. “What are you doing here?” His voice rose.

  “Getting warm. My room is frigid.” Michael heard the sound of a match. Light bloomed; a small table lamp beside the bed. Stefn, dark hair tousled from sleep, glowered down at him.

  “Loth’s loins!” growled Michael. “Who the hell would choose to live in this benighted place?”

  “Both our families, apparently. You have one of the western rooms upstairs, don’t you?”

  “Aye.”

  “Southerners! The demon-winds always come from the northwest. ‘Tis why those rooms were usually empty.” Shaking his head at such foolishness, Stefn continued to scowl down at him. “Ask the servants for more blankets. I want my own bed.”

  Michael shook his head. “Too bad. Tonight, we share. Tomorrow I’ll get my room moved to somewhere saner.”

  “Then I’ll sleep in the sitting room,” Stefn retorted through clenched teeth.

  “Do as you please. All I want is a good night’s sleep. Your virtue is safe.” Whereupon Michael pulled the blankets over his head.

  It was blissfully warm in Stefn’s bed. Michael’s clenched muscles eased. He expected to hear Stefn leave the room, but instead, the bed rocked and, to his surprise, the younger man got back in.

  “Very well,” said Stefn, “but don’t touch me, damn it!”

  “Fine. Fine.”

  Silence settled over the room, broken only by the wind’s distant, eerie music.

  “Demon winds this early in autumn are rare,” said Stefn when, after several moments, Michael made no move to grab him. “Usually they don’t start until Icekel.”

  “It seems the cold and rain come earlier each year all over Tanyrin. I suppose we will be buried in snow by the morning.”

  “No. At least it’s not usual. Here in the highlands we have a month or two of bitter, but dry cold. The snows won’t come until after Wintermas.”

  Michael burrowed deeper into the covers. With Stefn a few inches away, it was even warmer. “Why Shia?” Stefn asked finally. “There must be many more convenient places to plot treason.”

  “Not really.” Michael yawned. “It’s remote and easily defended. And its lord was very unpopular. We wagered his overthrow would cause few to mourn, including his Church overlords. Too bad we never put any actual money on it; we were correct, it appears.”

  “If your plot succeeds, will your family reclaim the castle?”

  “That is my grandfather’s wish.” Michael thought about it a moment, then chuckled. “Of course, after a winter here, he may change his mind.”

  “I don’t know much about the king,” said Stefn. “Is he an evil man?”

  Michael sighed. “Not especially, just a weak one.”

  “Does the prince mean to kill him? Does he mean to murder his own brother?”

  “Of course not. Not unless Arami gives him no choice.” Michael yawned again. “You have a lot of questions tonight, my lord.”

  “Being left to sit alone day after day leaves a great deal of time to think,” retorted Stefn. “And I will remind you, Arranz, that this is my bed.”

  “Tsk. Is that impudence, cethe?”

  “I suppose you’ll hear whatever you please, my lord.” Stefn sniffed, turning over and presenting his back to Michael.

  “That’s correct,” Michael agreed. “And I’ll do whatever I please, too. But you know that, don’t you?”

  “You needn’t sound so smug.”

  Michael heard the scowl. “Ah, but how can I help it?” Some of his sleepiness retreated. “When I learned it was your family carrying the blood of the cethera, I resigned myself to a lifetime bound to an oaf. Instead, I get a handsome, spirited, moderately well-educated gentleman.”

  “M-moderately?” Stefn shifted back around indignantly.

  “You may have read all of Shia’s books, but they themselves only reflect a single viewpoint. At some point in your illustrious ancestors’ history, someone went through the stacks and culled anything that might conflict with the Church’s curricula. A story has many sides, as you now know.” Michael emerged from his cocoon to peer at Stefn. “When Severyn takes the throne, you should go to college.”

  “You… you would let me?” In the lamplight, the young man’s eyes seemed even larger than usual. He had the blankets pulled up to his chin.

  “When Severyn is king, there will no longer be any need for a naragi,” said Michael finally. “I can go back to being who I was and you’ll be free. Provided you swear to keep our secret, you can do whatever you like.” He lay back down. “Now go to sleep.”

  “But, what are you saying? I won’t be Bound to you forever?”

  “Oh, we’re Bound forever. Don’t get your hopes up on that account. But I don’t intend to be naragi forever. There should be no reason we would ever meet again if we didn’t desire it.”

  “Do you mean it?” whispered the earl.

  “Yes. Severyn has promised to compensate you for Shia’s loss with a small parish somewhere.” Michael grinned faintly. “And unlike the recent succession of Eldering earls, I suspect you will make something of it.”

  “Do you think that will be adequate payment for how you’ve treated me? For the murder of my family?”

  “What do you think? Knowing what you do now of your sainted father and grandfathers, is it adequate payment?”

  Quick as that, the bed was suddenly a hostile, dangerous place. Stefn pushed off the tangling blankets and stumbled out of the room. Michael saw him drop to a crouch before the sitting-room fire, his back to the bed.

  All Michael’s sleepiness vanished. He got out of bed, following Stefn. “Those things your father did to you happen to Penitents all the time, and worse,” he said. “The Church claims to be compassionate, but my mother and grandmother were plucked from the ranks of their slaves, chosen by the Celestials to be duchesses. It must have seemed like a miracle, at first.” Michael’s voice hardened. “Yet for all our love, the scars they bore from their servitude ran so deep they would never heal. Both, in their own way, were tormented by them for the rest of their lives.”

  “No h’nar suffered by my han
d.” Stefn’s voice was low. He didn’t look around.

  “And how many were raised up by it?”

  There was, of course, no answer. Michael looked at the hunched shoulders and bent head and sighed. The question was, to be honest, horribly unfair. He sighed and dropped his blanket over Stefn, then sat down on the warm hearthstones beside him.

  “I don’t remember my mother much,” he said. “She killed herself when I was three, but I do remember my grandmother. Nana could eat as much as she wanted, whenever she wanted, yet the servants were always coming upon some morsel carefully wrapped up in a handkerchief and tucked away in some niche or behind furniture. Sometimes, what she hid didn’t take kindly to sitting out, so we would find it sooner rather than later.”

  “I’m surprised you can bear to look at me.”

  The sadness in the quiet voice took Michael by surprise.

  “I don’t know anything anymore,” Stefn went on, his words barely audible. “You’ve shown me everything I believed was a lie. Maybe it’s naragi sorcery, but I’m beginning to believe you’re right to fight against the king and the Church. And maybe… ” His voice thickened. “M-maybe being your slave is Loth’s justice, too, payment for generations of Eldering crimes and my own rank cowardice.”

  Michael’s laugh was a breath, incredulous. “Coward? I don’t think so, my lord. Stubborn? Naive? Annoying? Perhaps, but cowardly?”

  “I could have done something to stop them,” Stefn seemed barely to hear. He hugged his knees to his chest . “All those h’naran prisoners they brought here. I don’t know what, but if I’d tried, I could have thought of something… ”

  “And what? Been killed by your brutish sire? From the looks of it, only Loth’s grace kept you alive!”

  Startled, Stefn lifted his head. Michael smiled briefly before turning his eyes to the fire. “I, too, have been forced to reconsider some things I believed to be true. You, for instance.”

  “Me?”

  “You are… not what I’d expected.” Michael groped for words, wondering distantly at himself. “I think, had circumstances been different, I would have liked you for a friend.”

  He couldn’t look at Stefn. It was a such a stupid, cruel thing to say when they could not be friends, when they could only be master and slave until Severyn was safely on the throne. After that, if they survived, Stefn would have few desires beyond seeing the back of him forever.

  Abruptly, Michael rose. “I’m going to bed,” he said. “Stay here, if you like, but I’ve no intention of forcing myself on you.”

  In spite of telling himself to go to sleep, Michael lay still, wide awake, as the minutes ticked by. It was not until much later, when the covers shifted and Stefn settled quietly, carefully, into his side of the bed, that Michael fell asleep.

  The winds brought bone-cracking cold that lingered as the days passed. Each morning dawned with ornate frost-flowers thick on the windows. Fires roared in all the fireplaces and the servants, most of whom had come up from the south, shivered and remarked in dismay at the icy winds even Shia’s massive walls could not keep at bay.

  From his room, Stefn saw flocks of sheep, like dark clouds, swarming across the high meadows as their herders drove them down from the hills. It was going to be a hard winter. Yet Stefn found himself looking forward to it with less than his usual dread. Something painful inside him was gone. He woke each morning to find himself happy to meet the day. The feeling was so new, so novel, he was sometimes transfixed by it.

  All the new western bedrooms were being refitted with larger stoves, thick carpets, and padded storm shutters. Exiled from his own chamber, Michael moved into Stefn’s. He even asked permission. Stefn gave it, of course. Beneath all the new courtesy and gentler manners, nothing had really changed.

  But Michael kept his word, never once forcing himself on Stefn. Stefn was relieved and grateful, but as the first week ran into the next, he was less sure. Several nights in a row he woke from erotic dreams, breathing hard and fully aroused; while the subject of them slept, unaware, within easy reach.

  It was the lethet, he told himself fiercely, but deep inside, he wondered.

  Fortunately, Stefn’s waking hours offered plenty of distractions. His status among the rebels had undergone a profound change. He took his meals with them now and often joined them for port afterwards where, eventually, he was drawn into their impassioned debates. That he could hold his own with them was a matter of secret satisfaction, but he acknowledged their arguments had more of truth in them than he liked to admit.

  The idea of disseminating the Chronicles remained a favorite discussion topic. By now, the others had read most of the volume from the secret room and, as Stefn had been, were shocked and furious at the extent of the Church’s alterations. Even Iarhlaith, whose religious faith ran deeper than his friends, was won over. “They’re worse than the demons they decry,” he declared. “To deliberately defile St. Aramis’ writings! They should be confronted openly and made to explain themselves!”

  Luckily, cooler heads prevailed. “It’s called a diversion, my dear lump,” Auron drawled. “If Locke is busily hunting around for the source of the books, he won’t be watching us.”

  There would be no copies to distribute, however, unless they could get their hands on a printing press.

  “What about Withwillow?” Michael asked finally. “Not their existing presses, of course. I was thinking more in the lines of finding some account of how to build one. Withwillow has the largest collection of libraries in Tanyrin and some of them are very old indeed.”

  His suggestion was greeted with enthusiasm.

  “Good idea.” Severyn bent a warm look on his friend. “Go back to Withwillow. See what you can find.”

  “What about the bishop? Should we bring him in on this?”

  “Why not?” Severyn replied. “If he’s sincere about wanting the truth known, he could be useful in distributing the legitimate volumes.”

  The remodeling of Castle Shia was nearly complete, but work continued in the villages. Stefn became accustomed to seeing the steady traffic of wagons roll past the castle, heavily laden with lumber, bricks or roofing tiles. Along with making much needed repairs on the homes of the parish tenants, the prince had released several hundred acres of good grazing land once kept exclusively for the late earl’s personal pleasure.

  “They’re singin’ His Highness’ praises in the villages, that’s for sure,” Marin told Stefn one night as he folded clean laundry into a dresser drawer. “Used to be, the children had to move away to find a living’. Now, I hear, they’re all moving back.”

  “I’d like to see the improvements.”

  Marin’s eyes dropped for the briefest of moments before he said with a smile, “I’m sure one o’ the lords would accompany you if you asked.”

  Stefn hadn’t seriously intended to do any such thing. He knew damn well what the villagers would think should he come riding among their homes and children. After the death of his father and brother, their fear of him would be ten times worse.

  “Perhaps later,” he said. “You haven’t seen my notebook, have you? I thought I left it around here somewhere.”

  It didn’t matter, Stefn told himself. Soon, Michael would be going back to Withwillow and had promised Stefn could come with him. If all went according to plan, this time he would have a chance to visit some of the College’s famous libraries. The pure excitement of that eclipsed nearly everything else. Not even hearing they would be stopping by Blackmarsh on the way could deflate Stefn’s high spirits.

  The night before he and Michael were to leave for Withwillow, however, he found himself politely but firmly excluded from the after-dinner gathering. With nothing else to do, he wandered through Shia’s bright new corridors, coming eventually to the north tower.

  He stood awhile at the foot of the stairs, looking up. Months had passed since he’d first confronted the true face of Michael Arranz. Not once since then had he set foot in his former sanctuary.
r />   The latch slipped open easily: oiled. Had Lothlain’s builders been up here, too? The stairwell was dark, the familiar smell of stone and damp still present. He took a candle from the sconce beside the door and lit it. At once the moonstone drank up the feeble light and gave it back. Candle in hand, he climbed the stairs. Reaching the landing at the top, he took a deep breath and opened the door. His jaw dropped.

  The top floor had been emptied of rubbish. As elsewhere in the north wing, crumbling plaster had been scraped away to reveal the moonstone beneath. Underfoot, rugs added warmth and quiet. Several shabby, but well-stuffed armchairs were gathered before a new, pot-bellied stove. The rickety old table by the window had been replaced with a desk. His books, left behind that terrible night, were neatly stacked on it.

  All three windows boasted new storm shutters. Opening one, he could see nothing outside but dark and the rain running down the glass, steady and soothing. How long had it been like this, waiting for him to find it?

  Stefn started a fire. He opened the shutters. To the east, he saw a scattering of lights: Shiaton village. All else was dark.

  One of the armchairs proved especially comfortable. He took a book, his place was still marked, and settled in. No one but Michael could have done this. Why even bother? Did he think to make up for everything that had happened with such gestures?

  Except…

  “Had circumstances been different, I would have liked you for a friend.”

  There was no reason for Arranz to see to Stefn’s comfort. No reason at all. No reason to speak on his behalf or seek out his company. No reason to go out of his way to drag an awestricken youth up a crumbling old tower in a far-away city or ride around Withwillow to stare at monuments he’d probably seen a hundred times.

  Stefn’s own kin had shown him far worse treatment and never a single kindness to even it. Yet, thanks to Arranz, here he sat, warm, comfortable and well-fed. His life had irrevocably changed and his horizons thrown open so wide it made him dizzy. Was the price Arranz demanded really that high?