I think about it.Vek. “You’re right.” He hasn’t been overtly melancholy, but Eidhin is never overtly anything. And while it’s hardly surprising, he has felt …more grave, I suppose, since the Iudicium. Before, he would at least allow a grin now and then. Restrained when they came, but all the more bright for their rarity.
Perhaps because he emotes so little, Eidhin has always seemed a rock against the waves of grief and depression. But now, talking to his father, I wonder whether I have perhaps been paying too much attention to my own burdens, and not enough to my friend’s.
“He feels a sense of responsibility because he chose not to be in the Iudicium. Even though it was for the right reasons. Honourable reasons,” I say eventually.
“The hardest thing in the world, Catenicus. To regret what was right.” Baine sighs. “He sounds so much like his brother.”
I blink. “Brother?”
Baine pauses. Assesses me, then nods slowly. A thoughtful motion. More one of realisation within himself, than an acknowledgement of my surprise. “Cathair.” He says the name as though it might break. “Older than Eidhin by a few minutes. Returned to dust when the Republic attacked. Four years ago, now.”
My heart wrenches, for my friend and for the old, unhealed grief in Baine’s voice. “I didn’t know.”
“Do not take it as a slight. The fact that Eidhin has confided as much as he has in you …” Baine smiles sadly. Shakes his head. “We lost Cathair and then I was given a choice by the Hierarchy. I believe you know much of the rest.” He studies me with sad eyes. “My son has told you why he no longer speaks to me?”
I exhale. Nod. “He believes you betrayedddram cyfraith. He says you preached your entire life about knowing the line you will not cross. And then in the end, you crossed yours.” I don’t put any accusation into the words.
Baine thinks sombrely.
“We do not stop learning when we get older,” he eventually tells me. “‘Know your line.’ It is good advice for a son. For a man, even. But for a father?” He leans forward. “To protect our sons, Catenicus, there is no line we will not cross.”
There is something about the way he says it. Sadness and fierce, unrelenting conviction. Though my father never said anything similar, I see him in that moment. I see the desperation and the determination.
I understand my friend’s pain, perhaps even more than I did before. But from what I know, what I have heard here, it is hard to fault Baine his decisions.
After that, we speak a little more about what may happen should Eidhin agree to stop fighting. Baine has several suggestions for ways to sneak him out of the city—including the sewers, which is how he got in tonight, apparently—and also where he might go after that to stay safe. He warns me, time and again, not to mention his involvement in any of it. Knowing Eidhin, I don’t argue.
Finally, though, as the late hours turn to early, we stand. Our conversation and bargaining done, our ideas spent.
I hold out my hand. “I hope we can speak again, after tomorrow.”
His smile is tight at the unsaid remainder as he clasps my wrist. He knows the information he’s given me will almost certainly spell defeat for the invasion, and that means there’s a good chance he won’t survive it. “I cannot change how fate weighs my son’s life, Catenicus. But I have at least tried to put my thumb on the scale. And if it means Caten does not fall to Redivius, then all the better. No matter my own destiny.”
We start walking to the door. “He is that bad?”
“He is a pitiless and calculating man. But then, so are most leaders in such times. Civil war is always about personal gain, no matter what the mob thinks as they die.” He pauses. Examines me. “A shame you do not have a command of your own, Catenicus. Men speak your name often. Many would follow if you declared yourself a contender. The Republic could use a leader trying to unite, rather than conquer.”
I snort, assuming he is joking, and it only fades to a more vague amusement when I realise he’s genuinely having the thought. “I am happy as I am, thank you.”
“The happy are never great, Catenicus. I know you are not Military, but your family is. You were Domitor and would have the support of Governance and Religion. Find a few skilled generals and a legion or two, and it is not as foolish as you think.” He claps me on the back. Understanding the impossibility of it, even as he’s being serious. “Perhaps not soon, but in a few years. Do not dismiss it out of hand. I do not know what shape the Republic will take when all of this is done, but it will need leaders made of better stuff than our current ones.”
We pass through the atrium—deserted, Kadmos presumably abed—and reach the entryway. Baine raises the hood of his cloak and steps out into the darkness of the empty street. The pulsing light of the Aurora Columnae touches the low clouds in the distance behind him.
“Catenicus.” I pause as I move to shut the door. “Eidhin trusts you, in away I did not think he would ever be able to again. I protected my son, with what I did—but I broke him, too. And as much as I wish to lay the blame at the feet of the Republic, it was not their duty to keep him whole. It was mine.” He swallows. The admission hard. “That trust is a delicate thing, now, no matter how it might seem to you. As fragile as glass. If you break it, you break him all over again. Maybe forever, this time. I know I already ask the impossible, but I ask for one more miracle. Help himwithoutbetraying him. Save my son without destroying his desire to be saved.”
He holds my gaze for a long moment. Nods.
Vanishes into the small hours of Caten’s glowering darkness.
LXVII
WE WALK IN SILENCE. ME STILL DAMP AND SHIVERINGin the clammy winter morning’s air, Lir thoughtful as we’re shepherded by spears and glowering men up the green hill, away from the lake. No trace of Fornax in its mirrored surface. The druid keeps giving me sidelong glances. Curious. Uneasy.
My one comfort as we shuffle along is the bright pulse in my head. Close by, in the trees.
My father is watching.
We crest the hill and come to a halt. Several horses stand tethered in the makeshift camp. Gallchobhar, who went on ahead, has already taken a seat on a fallen tree and is watching past us, back down into the still valley.
