Cethe (33 page)

cold.

Dragging the heaviest blanket with him, he got up and, teeth chattering, went to the stove. To his surprise, it stil 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 bel y of the stove.

The curtains, heavy velvet, eddied and bil owed in the drafts making it past the windows, the brand new windows! Michael

pul ed 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 stil , 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 stil 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 pul ed 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 smal table lamp beside the bed.

Stefn, dark hair tousled from sleep, glowered down at him.

“Loth’s loins!” growled Michael. “Who the hel 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 usual y 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’l get my room moved to somewhere saner.”

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

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

head.

It was blissful y 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 wel ,” 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.

“Usual y they don’t start until Icekel.”

“It seems the cold and rain come earlier each year al over Tanyrin. I suppose we wil 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 final y.

“There must be many more convenient places to plot treason.”

“Not real y.” 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, wil 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 especial y, just a weak one.”

“Does the prince mean to kil 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 wil remind you, Arranz, that this

is my bed.”

“Tsk. Is that impudence, cethe?”

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

“That’s correct,” Michael agreed. “And I’l 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

wel -educated gentleman.”

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

“You may have read al of Shia’s books, but they themselves only reflect a single viewpoint. At some point in your il ustrious

ancestors’ history, someone went through the stacks and cul ed 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 col ege.”

“You… you would let me?” In the lamplight, the young man’s eyes seemed even larger than usual. He had the blankets pul ed

up to his chin.

“When Severyn is king, there wil no longer be any need for a naragi,” said Michael final y. “I can go back to being who I was

and you’l 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 smal parish somewhere.” Michael grinned faintly. “And

unlike the recent succession of Eldering earls, I suspect you wil make something of it.”

“Do you think that wil 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.

Al Michael’s sleepiness vanished. He got out of bed, fol owing Stefn. “Those things your father did to you happen to Penitents

al 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 al 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 hand.” 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 kil ed 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 careful y

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 . “Al 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 kil ed 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 tel ing himself to go to sleep, Michael lay stil , wide awake, as the minutes ticked by. It was not until much later,

when the covers shifted and Stefn settled quietly, careful y, into his side of the bed, that Michael fel 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 al 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 wal s 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 hil s. 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.

Al 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 al the new courtesy and

gentler manners, nothing had real y 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 ful y 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, eventual y, 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