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15
Náli lay in his bed, beneath the heaped furs and quilts, but sleep never came. He stared up at the ceiling until the first, faint rays of daylight highlighted the whorls and swoops of the granite overhead, then he stood and stoked up his own fire and made his own tea. He was fully-dressed, hair braided, seated at his desk with a second cup of tea when a rap sounded at his door and Danski let himself in.
Náli spared him a glance over his shoulder before he dipped his quill and returned to his parchment. A glance that took in the smartness of his dress, the tightness of his braid, and the hint of embarrassment lurking in his gaze. Surprise, too, when he saw Náli at his desk; he’d paused with a hand on the door, halfway into the chamber.
“Breakfast time already?” Náli asked. “I’d like some eggs, thank you. And toast and jam. Perhaps some sausage, if there is any.” He was hungry this morning, his churning thoughts in need of fuel.
Danski hesitated a beat. Then said, “Yes, my lord,” and withdrew to flag down a maid and send her to fetch his meal.
By the time a tray was placed at his elbow, Náli had set his quill aside and was massaging a cramp from his hand, surveying all that he’d written.
“What’s got you up so early this morning, my lord?” Danski asked, freshening his tea.
Náli had taken all that he could recall of the shaman’s story and committed it to paper, annotating the margins with his own thoughts and theories. He slid the papers toward Danski and dragged the tray toward himself. The dark bread was still steaming, and he broke it in half to a waft of rich, yeasty scent.
“A story?” Danski asked.
“Yes.” He popped jam-topped bread in his mouth and spoke around it in a vulgar flaunting of manners his mother would never permit in her presence. “The first bit of useful information I’ve been able to glean from that old man in the well.”
Danski, one fingertip pinning the parchment down by a corner, lifted his brows. “The old man?”
“Yes.” Náli waved with his jam knife. “Have I never…?” But no, he hadn’t ever explained to anyone besides Mattias what it was like down there. Nothing of any substance beyond “I was with the dead.”
He forked up a large, runny bite of fried egg. “You’d best go and get the others so that I can explain about last night.”
Danski evidenced doubt.
“I’m not angry anymore,” Náli assured. “Or, not very. Get them. If you please,” he tacked on at the end. And then, after Danski had nodded and moved to the door: “Oh, and try not to find yourself entangled in amusements the way Einrih did last night, hm?”
A participant in said entangling amusements, Danski’s face flushed dark as he slipped out of the room.
Náli had a little chuckle at his expense and finished his breakfast.
By the time he was polishing off the last crumb of bread – gods, he had been hungry – the door was opening and his entire Guard was trooping in, dressed and braided and polished as ever. Danski’s blush had faded, but there was a distinctly uncomfortable set to his and Darri’s and Einrih’s shoulders.
Klemens was stoic as ever.
Mattias stared right through him in a way that left Náli momentarily chilled. What if this was the thing that broke them? What if those few, stolen, not-enough moments back at Aeres were all he ever had?
Well, that wouldn’t matter if he was dead, or a ruined, gray husk of a man, aged decades ahead of his time. So he pushed the pang of unhappiness away, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and hitched up straight and lordly in his chair. The voice he employed was the one he used on the people of the Fault Lands during formal ducal functions.
“I want to talk about last night – but I’d like to say my piece before anyone throws out any chastisements or worries,” he said, forestalling Mattias’s gathered breath and intent to speak with a lifted palm. “Yes?”
“Yes, my lord,” five voices chorused, each tinged with a different tone. Mattias sounded like he’d been gargling with rocks.
“Firstly,” Náli continued, “I’d like to apologize for something I voiced indelicately last night.” He gestured to Einrih, Danski, and Darri, all of whom went wide-eyed in undisguised surprise. “No one hates the rigid structure of our arrangement more than I do. I think the vow of chastity that you all must take is ridiculous and insupportable. Your pursuits are your own business, and I didn’t mean to imply that I found them distasteful or dishonorable in any way.”
Three blank faces blinked at him.
“As to my foray into the well unaccompanied…” Here he forced himself to meet Mattias’s gaze, pained all over again by its emotionless, fixed state. “I’m well aware that I took a risk in venturing beyond the veil alone. It’s a dangerous place, in those waters; there’s been many a time when, upon crossing back over, I feared I wouldn’t make it to the surface before my lungs gave out.”
Someone made a surprised sound, but he kept his eyes on Mattias.
“It was a risk I took, however,” he continued, “because I felt certain that one or all of you would stop me if I told you what I’d planned.”
“You’ve never returned to the well so quickly after a crossing,” Klemens said – but it was more curious than disapproving. None save Mattias really did disapproving with any sort of authority.
“No,” Náli agreed. “I loathe the process so much that I put it off as long as possible. You’re all familiar with that. But the last time, and last night, the usual process was changed.”
