"Perhaps the older man would be better," Bernivvigar was saying. "How old is this boy?"
"Nine? Ten?" Bannagran answered.
"Not yet a man."
"Does that matter?" asked Prydae.
"It would be better if he had already reached manhood and was able to sire a child on his own," said Bernivvigar.
Garibond managed to turn to regard the Samhaist, standing in the doorway, leaning on the jamb, rubbing his jaw, and shooting Garibond the most hateful look Prydae had ever seen in all his life.
"Accept his offer and spare the boy," Bernivvigar advised.
A moment later, Bannagran's strong hand hoisted Garibond up to his feet, and the warrior began dragging him out. He managed to look back to the side, where poor Bransen was still trying to stand up after being shoved aside by Bannagran.
"Do not think your crippled son has fully escaped me," Bernivvigar muttered to Garibond as Bannagran hauled him past. Poor Bransen spent all the day at the eastern window of the small house. He was still there when the sun disappeared behind the western horizon.
What will I do? How will I eat?
He wanted to rush out and run to the town to rescue Garibond-all the day, that had been his most pressing thought. But he couldn't rush and he couldn't run. He couldn't do anything. He couldn't even light a candle so that he didn't have to sit there helplessly in the darkness.
He wanted to stay awake, to stay alert, to be ready to do…whatever he could possibly do to help his beloved father. But eventually, Bransen's head dipped down to the windowsill.
His sleep was fitful, and he heard the approach of horses. He looked up, but they were already to the side of the window's view, splashing up the submerged walk to the front door of the cottage.
Bransen turned and tried to rise, but fell back repeatedly and was still sitting when the horses thundered away and the cottage door was pushed open.
In came Garibond, and he held up his hand to keep Bransen back. "Go to bed, boy," he said, and Bransen could tell that his every word was filled with agony.
Bransen started for his bed, while Garibond moved to the table and struck flint to metal to light a candle. Only then did Bransen see how bent over and haggard Garibond seemed; and when the man turned, candle in hand, Bransen nearly swooned, for the front of Garibond's nightshirt was drenched with blood, waist to knees.
"It is all right," the older man said. "You just go to bed."
Bransen fell onto his bed and immediately buried his face. He wanted all the world to just go away.
21
For the Boy? The rain splashed down all about him, spraying on the rocks and making the lake hiss in frothy protest. The drenching didn't bother Garibond but only because he couldn't remember a time over the last few weeks when he had felt anything but miserable. His wound had healed, or at least had scabbed over, but that was just on the outside. Bernivvigar's brutal work had left him sick inside as well, and he felt as if the festering sore were worming its way deeper into his body every day. Every morning, Garibond found pulling himself out of bed a trial.
The near-constant rain of the last days had added to his misery and had made his daily chores more difficult. The lake was up several inches, so that Garibond and Bransen had to abandon the lower house for the time being; that or watch their feet rot away from wading through ankle-deep cold water.
Garibond sat there and coughed through the morning's fishing. He didn't catch a thing, and knew that he wouldn't. The area of the lake near the island was not deep, a few feet at the most, and was not reedy; and the silver trout that normally could be hooked from the rocks of the small island wouldn't be milling about the shallows in this heavy downpour. Garibond stayed out there anyway, coughing and miserable, mostly because he couldn't find the strength in him to climb back to the house.
He knew that his situation was growing more dire. He knew that his health was fast deteriorating and, even with his stubbornness, he was beginning to recognize that he would not get through this ordeal on his own. He thought of going to Chapel Pryd to ask the monks for some magical healing. It wouldn't be easy to persuade them, and he knew it. His injury and illness were due to the order of Laird Prydae himself. Garibond wasn't a religious man in any sense of the word, and the distance he kept from the competing factions in Pryd Holding in many ways gave him a better understanding of each. Even from afar, Garibond understood the quiet war being waged between Bernivvigar and the brothers of Abelle. And the prize of victory, even more than the support of the peasants, was the sanction of Laird Prydae.
How could the brothers of Abelle help Garibond heal his current malady, given that?
Perhaps he should go instead to Castle Pryd, and beg the laird to ask the brothers for assistance.
The mere thought of it brought bile into the proud man's throat. Laird Prydae, as much as-or even more than-Bernivvigar had done this to him. Now was he to go and beg the man for mercy?
He slapped the wet rock next to him in frustration, and his hand was so cold and numb that he didn't even feel the sting. Was this numbness akin to Bransen's? he wondered.
That notion had him glancing back to the house, where Bransen was no doubt sitting on his bed with his nose deep in the Book of Jhest. That book had become Bransen's life of late, his tie to the past and…
"And what?" Garibond wondered aloud. Was Bransen finding solace within the pages of the Book of Jhest beyond anything he had ever expected of the boy? Certainly Bransen's apparent understanding of the text had been a surprise to Garibond, but what did the book-which Bransen claimed he had read cover to cover several times-now hold over him? Was he finding an escape within its pages from the misery of his tortured reality?
Garibond hoped that was the case. That was all he really wanted, after all. For himself, life had become a simple matter of survival, of getting through the days. His few joys were all tied up in Bransen's too-infrequent smiles. Garibond wanted nothing more, except for some relief from his pain. He didn't covet jewels or coins, and preferred to catch his own food over any banquet that Laird Prydae himself might set. He didn't want any companionship other than Bransen's.
As he considered these things, Garibond snorted and looked at the hissing water. Was there anything life could now offer him, to make him desire life? Responsibility for Bransen alone was keeping him going, he knew. And now, given his declining health, that, too, was beginning to worry him. What in the world would Bransen do once Garibond was gone? He couldn't fend for himself, and he had no real friends other than Garibond himself. At that moment, a crow flew past Garibond. He gritted his few remaining teeth, blinked his one good eye, and watched the black bird disappear into the film of heavy rain. A crow-a spy for Bernivvigar perhaps?
"Bah, you're just being an old fool," Garibond told himself, but he knew that he had reason to be suspicious. Bernivvigar's threat concerning Bransen had not been an idle one, Garibond understood, for Bernivvigar was not a man to make an idle threat. In the weeks since his ordeal under the Samhaist's knife, Garibond had seen Bernivvigar around the lake, often watching his house from afar, and he knew that the old wretch had never given up his desire to sacrifice Bransen.
He thought again of Callen Duwornay, or rather Ada, and her daughter who had befriended Bransen. Many times over the last few days had Garibond considered seeking her out and asking her to take in Bransen. But on every occasion, and now again, Garibond quickly dismissed the idea. How could he force this burden upon another, even one who owed her life to Bransen's parents? And how could Callen defend the boy if Bernivvigar came for him? Indeed, how could she defend herself, if the callous old Samhaist wretch discovered her true identity and that she had somehow escaped his punishment?