Blood & Bond

by Laura VanArendonk Baugh

  “Suri,” Jarrick soothed. “He’s not right—we’ve known he isn’t right in his thoughts...”

  “He wasn’t like that tonight,” she protested. “He wasn’t. He was just—just—I haven’t even a word for it.”

  Luca lowered himself onto an upholstered couch. The room seemed unreal to him, a bit distant, as if all of this were happening around him but he were not a part of it.

  “Luca? Are you... Would you like something to drink?” Sara pushed herself from the chair.

  “I’m fine. It’s just—it’s odd to be here again.”

  “You’re not fine,” Jarrick responded darkly. “How could you be fine? None of us are fine, not tonight, not here in this—this house.” He clenched his clasped hands. “None of us are fine.”

  There was a soft rap at the closed door. “Mistress?”

  “Marcus! Please come in.”

  He did, carrying a tray with two bottles and fine glasses. Behind him came two servants bearing wide serving tables with short legs. “I’ve brought the supper, my lords, my lady,” Marcus explained unnecessarily. “And drinks.”

  Luca’s throat seemed to close. “I don’t...” he tried, but his voice seemed a whisper.

  But Jarrick was already accepting a glass from the steward. He took a swift drink, even before Sara and Luca were served, and he blinked in astonishment. “Marcus! This is the Nariya!”

  “I beg your forgiveness, young master. I thought it would be suitable for your private celebration. I will bring something else if you prefer.”

  “Marcus, you know Father will be furious.”

  “The master said it should be served with supper,” Marcus replied.

  Jarrick smiled. “Good enough, Marcus.”

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  Aromas wafted through the air from the tables the servants were arranging behind Jarrick’s seat. Luca sniffed, wishing the complex scents could appeal to him. He felt no hunger, only a pained hollow ache in his stomach which no food could appease.

  But then Marcus was offering him a plate. He glanced up, startled, and saw that Jarrick and Sara already held plates in their laps. Luca started to decline and then inhaled. “This is her pork...”

  Sara was pleased at his surprise. “I made a list of what I remembered you liked... I couldn’t decide which to choose, so in the end I tossed dice.” She laughed at her own absurdity.

  A wave of heat washed through Luca. She had arranged a favorite meal for him, and he had not expected that. He had always thought of this as their mother’s pork, though he knew now it was a popular dish. The garlic and rosemary and olive oil blended perfectly with the tender young white pork, and it tasted of home and summer and laughter on the terrace.

  He took the plate and ate a mouthful as Sara watched. It was food, merely food, and yet... It was everything.

  She seemed to expect him to say something. “The rosemary in Davan and Alham was almost always dried,” he managed. “It’s better fresh.”

  “Then you’ll have it every day.” She stopped herself. “You will stay, won’t you?”

  Jarrick looked away. Luca hesitated, stared down at his plate, opened his mouth, but no words came. He shifted his eyes to the carved table beside Sara. “How can I?” he asked softly. “How can I stay, when the master of the house does not even—‍”

  “Leave him,” Jarrick cut in sharply. “You make your own decisions.”

  Luca blinked at Jarrick, surprised at this mutiny, and glanced back at his plate. He could not think—not here, not in the very location.

  Jarrick seemed to understand. “You don’t have to decide tonight,” he muttered gruffly. “But you’re welcome, if you want. Sara has the only private sitting room, but my bed’s wide enough, and—‍”

  “Thanks,” Luca answered quickly, fighting a rush of panic. “I’ll think about it.” But his pulse quickened, and he did not know what to think. They had not mentioned his old room; what had been done with it?

  “So,” Sara began, her eyes casting about. “I suppose—how did Jarrick find—how was your journey from Alham?”

  Jarrick ducked his head, and Luca smiled faintly. She had tried, anyway. “It was somewhat awkward. By law, not until the border...” He faltered.

  “We were glad to reach Abbar,” Jarrick supplied. “I know so much has changed. I told Luca you were engaged to be married, but I don’t know if we had a chance to speak at all of Stefan.”

  “Oh. You know him, I think—the Drawnes’ middle son? He’s really—I’m very pleased, Luca, and I’m so glad you’re here. Our wedding will be next month.”

  “Stefan Drawne?” Luca repeated, trying to recall a face. “Isn’t he fairly, well—‍”

  “Not at all! He’s a little shy, maybe, until one knows him. I’ll have to introduce you anew, Luca, so you two can be friends.”

  Jarrick had chosen well; Sara was glad to speak of her betrothed and leave uncomfortable topics well alone. They ate two servings each, along with the vegetables and crusty light bread Marcus had brought, and then the steward served honeyed fruit to end the meal. Luca savored it, a little embarrassed at his enjoyment. It was a wholly different life.

  One of the candles guttered, and Luca glanced involuntarily toward the popping wick. It was growing late, and the tentative spell which held them would end soon. He did not know what he would do then.

  Sara seemed to read his anxious thoughts. “Would you stay here tonight? I know my couches aren’t large, but one of them should accommodate you for a night. There are pillows here, and I can have blankets brought for you. Then tomorrow...” Her voice trailed and died.

  “You can’t expect him to sleep in a girl’s sitting room,” Jarrick chided gently. “Luca won’t want frills and ruffles. My own room hardly deserves the term, Luca, as I spend as much time away as in it, but it has a wide bed and it’s at the rear of the house, away from the noise of the main rooms.”

  Luca smiled. It wasn’t the noise they spoke of at all. “I don’t know about tomorrow, but the couch will be fine. Thank you.”

  “You’re sure?”

  He did not want to share a bed with his brother, not in a place where he should have his own. Sara’s sitting room was at least a neutral ground, an obviously temporary setting instead of a grating reminder that he had no place of his own. And he did not want company this night. “It will be fine, thank you.”

  Sara and a maid brought blankets and additional pillows, layering one of the couches in thick swathes of fabric. Sara hesitated as she turned back to Luca, and then she reached for his arms and leaned to kiss him on the cheek. “Goodnight. Sleep well.”

  Luca’s throat closed suddenly, and before he could speak she was moving toward her own bedchamber, closing the door behind her. But whatever wrong he had done her had been forgiven.

  Jarrick’s hand rested on his shoulder, startling him. “Don’t think about the morning,” he advised. “We’ll find something then. I told you, he’s not always himself.”

  He did not seem affected tonight, Luca thought before he could stop himself. He knew me. I know he knew me.

  Jarrick’s eyes met his. “Tomorrow,” he said firmly. “Get some sleep.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  THE ROOM WAS NOT QUITE dark, as two windows on one wall admitted light from the swollen moon. Luca lay on the couch, musing that the makeshift bed with its half-dozen blankets and surplus pillows was far more luxurious than his pallet in Davan or sleeping beneath Renner’s cart or even his low bed in Shianan’s quarters. He thought of the room he’d shared with the litter bearers in Furmelle and Falten Isen’s comfortable bed in his mountain retreat. He did not think of the tearing moment when his father had turned away, declaring him dead.

  But he had worried too long the night and day before, and he had little strength for another night of it. Sleep came as moonlight crept across the floor, marking the hours.

  He woke blearily with an impression of light, though he could not say why. The wind
ows still admitted a cool moonlight, but it should not have been enough to disturb him. He wondered if he was awake or merely dreaming. Then he thought he saw a flicker of yellow-orange light, a seeming reflection of flame on the wall beyond the open door to the corridor, gone before he could fully recognize it. Hadn’t Jarrick closed the door behind him?

  Luca closed his eyes sleepily. But some sense honed under Ande prodded him awake and he opened his eyes again, feeling the presence of another. He gradually discerned a figure in the doorway. It was a dark shadow, nothing more, only faintly backlit by weak light from behind the wall. He blinked, trying to make his tired eyes focus. Who was there?

  The shape was familiar, etched into his mind over a dozen sweeping emotions. Father. He could not hear his own voice. He shifted on the couch, wanting to wake and yet afraid to disturb the dream. “Father,” he whispered.

  The figure vanished.

  “Father,” breathed Luca, suddenly afraid. He pulled himself upright and shoved blankets aside. A dream? He stood, cold in the sudden chill, and stared at the closed door.

  It had been only a dream. He had wanted to see his father, and so he had. He stared unhappily at the door and then felt fading sleep pushed further by surprise. The door was not closed fully.

  He crossed the room in two strides and opened the door. The corridor was empty, without even a hint of light at the end to mark a retreating candle. He paused, embarrassed by his suspicion and his hope, and shifted. His bare toes brushed a little mound of cooling wax.

  Luca dropped to one knee and pressed his thumbnail into the puddle, finding it soft and warm in the center. Someone had stood in the corridor, tipping a candle behind the wall to shield its light, watching him. And someone had fled when Luca recognized him.

  Shock iced through him, chilling his bowels. His father had come to stare as he slept, but he would not see Luca awake. He had refused...

  Hot rage pounded over the shock, and Luca stood abruptly, swaying unsteadily. He owed no filial duty, he owed nothing to such a man. He stalked to the couch and jerked clothing over his limbs. He would not stay in the house of such a man, not even until the morning.

  He drew on his boots and started down the corridor, leaving the door open behind him. He reached the front door before recalling his cloak was with Cole. He hesitated, wondering where the slave had been housed, and then started forward again. He did not want to wander through the dark rooms. Cole could come in the morning, and Luca would hardly feel the cold, shielded by the heat of his fury.

  He unlatched the gate and went out into the street, silvered by moonlight. He would need no torch to light his way, and a torch would only alert any late thieves to his passage, anyway. He would be safer in the dark. He stalked through the empty streets, fuming.

  How could he have come to where Luca slept, have come that far, and refused to speak with him? How could he turn away his own son, deny his own son? How could he tell his son to his face that he was dead?

  There was a faint gleam of frost over the paving stones, unusual for Wakari winter. It recalled walking through midnight streets with Shianan and of seeing his brother Jarrick try to kill his master. He clenched his jaw angrily. His family had done nothing right, nothing at all.

  His gut twisted with the memory. There wasn’t much he could actually recall. He remembered tensing as the archer spun toward him and seeing the arrow jerk in his direction. He had recoiled, trying impossibly to escape, and then something ripped past him as he fell. The edge of the bridge had scraped his ribs and then there was a sickening drop and a sudden, shockingly painful cold—

  He clenched his fists. He had nearly died for Jarrick’s stupidity, just as he had suffered a living death for his father’s pride and betrayal. He wanted nothing to do with them.

  The city gates were closed, but the postern was open with a sleepy guard standing a nominal watch, barely nodding as Luca passed. Luca folded his chilled fingers beneath his arms and set a furious pace down the road.

  It was an hour before he began to regret leaving his cloak. The winter air, even moderated by the seacoast, bit at his exposed skin. But he shivered and pressed on. He could not return in the middle of the night, even if he had the desire.

  It was another hour before he recalled that Isen’s gate would also be locked for the night.

  He was numb despite his panting as he hurried up the mountain, finally chilled through. He pulled the cord at the gate and heard the bell within. A moment passed without response. He glanced at the sinking moon and the thin line in the east, promising dawn. When did Marla rise? Would she hear him? He rang again, and again.

  The shutter slid back and Marla’s sleepy face peered suspiciously out. Her eyes widened as she recognized him. “My lord!”

  The bolts slid back with a solid metallic thunk and she pulled the gate back. “Come in! What are you doing here? Are you well?” She held a blanket around her shoulders, but as she saw his hunched and shivering posture she spun it off and draped it around him. “Come inside, and I’ll warm something for you.”

  Luca followed her inside, where she stirred the banked kitchen fire. “I’ll have some tea ready in a few moments,” she promised, “and some soup... What happened? Why—‍” She caught herself. “I’m sorry, my lord.”

  Luca leaned close to the fire as she set water to boil. “No,” he breathed. “Well you might ask.” He stretched his numb fingers close to the coals. “My father—he...” His throat closed, and he could not speak it.

  Marla paused and looked at him. “I’m sorry.”

  Luca dropped to the floor, propping his cold feet before the flames and resting his elbows on his knees. “Don’t be. It was foolish of me to go back. I should have learned the first time.” He flexed his fingers. “I owe him nothing, not even the courtesy of spending a night beneath his roof.”

  “I’m sorry.” She put a small pot of cold soup beside the kettle and folded herself to the floor. “But you must have stayed a part of the night.”

  “He said I was dead. I am an impostor of myself, he says. And yet he came to spy on me while I slept, but when I saw him... He fled.” He swallowed and closed his eyes.

  Warm fingers worked slow, gentle circles at the base of his neck. Luca shook his head, his eyes still closed. “I don’t think you can rub this away.”

  “I don’t expect to. But it’s what I can do. You needn’t carry it all over your shoulders.”

  “I didn’t choose it,” snapped Luca. “Do you think I asked to be sold into slavery? Do you think I wanted my own father to chain me for the traders? Did I ask for my family to deny my very existence?”

  “Your brother and sister did not seem to deny you.”

  “My father ran from me!” He felt her jump at the sound of his voice. “He would not even speak to me. Don’t you think I’m justified in a little resentment?”

  Her voice was guarded. “Yes. But this is not a little resentment.”

  He gave a grim chuckle. “I suppose not. I’d be happy to hear he died of his viante-eating. If I have died, it’s only fair that he die too, right? And what would—‍”

  “I asked once if you would have the scars on your back healed,” she interrupted, her hands stilling on his shoulders. “You chose to help them heal.”

  “What does that have—‍”

  “You have that same choice again,” she said sharply. “What scars are you willing to heal?”

  “That has nothing to do with this!”

  “It is everything to do with this!” Her fingers clenched on his rigid shoulders. “What is done is done. Someone wronged you—you may dwell on it a thousand years and it will not alter a thing. It will not relieve you.” Her voice wavered. “A master may choose your actions, but you choose your thoughts. If you let someone else dictate your feelings, you are more a slave now than ever.”

  “Are you saying I should not mind that my own father would be rid of me?”

  “I’m saying you, not he, should choose your way. Y
ou dislike his actions, and rightly so—why let them determine your new life?” She hesitated. “And you’re not thinking at all, not now.”

  “To the contrary, I’m thinking very clearly.”

  “Then why can’t you see that your father fears you more than you fear him?”

  Luca spun out of her hands and stared at her. “You have no—that man destroyed me. He would not even speak to me.”

  “He cannot speak to you,” she answered with deliberate enunciation. “He cannot bring himself to face you now. He has to deny it. You said yourself he ran away. Why do you think he came while you slept? Why would he come at all, except that—‍”

  “No!” snapped Luca. “No, don’t defend him!”

  “I’m not defending him. I’m defending a man who in desperation called his sister a whore.”

  The words struck Luca like a blow, and for an instant he couldn’t move. Then wrath took him, but before he could spurt his indignant rebuttal she had turned for the door. He stared after her. “Marla!”

  “I am not your slave, my lord,” she replied without looking at him. “I have set tea and soup for you, and I am returning now to bed.”

  A kind of panic took him and he leaned as if to reach after her. “Marla.”

  She heard the plaintive note and hesitated. “My lord?”

  “Marla, I—stay, please. Don’t—not you, too.” His anger faded, leaving him hollow on his knees as his head sagged wearily. “Stay, please.”

  She came, her shift whispering as she crossed the floor. “I’m sorry,” she offered. “That was harsh. But you... you weren’t the man who came here.”

  “I don’t know what I am,” he confessed. “I am not Luca Roald, he says. I am not a slave, I am not a merchant’s son, I am not—‍”

  “I don’t care what you are not,” she interrupted gently. “And you needn’t decide what you are this very night.” She glanced toward the fire, where the kettle was beginning to steam. “Sit a moment.”

  He watched her pour hot water over the dried leaves, wondering at her words. Had his father hidden in the dark for fear of facing him? Even if that were so—and Luca did not find it easy to believe that his father hid in fear—didn’t that still leave him with no place in the old house? Where could he go?