Honor-Bound [ Lore of Penrua: Book III ]

26

Uachi and Diarmán had been traveling together for weeks, although neither of them was keeping close track of the days. They had become easy enough companions, well-used to the long days of riding and the nights of too little rest. They passed most of their days and nights in silence. When they talked, it was of practical things: the journey; their provisions; the weather; their quarry.

It was a cool morning; the pale gray sky promised rain, which put Uachi in a poor mood from the moment he woke.

"Were you a woman, they'd tell you to smile more often," Diarmán said after they had ridden for some miles in silence. He had plucked a twig from a tree and was twirling it in his fingers, the leaves whirling this way and that. "It makes a countenance more pleasing."

"Were I a woman told by strangers how to compose my own face, I'd quickly give the men around me more important concerns."

Diarmán chuckled, bestowing a sly grin upon Uachi. "Is that so?"

"Aye. They wouldn't care much what I did with my mouth once I had bloodied theirs."

"Do you bloody many mouths, Uachi of the North?"

"When I need to."

"Some would argue there's no excuse for violence."

"There've always been idiots in this world of ours."

Diarmán tipped his head back, his face toward the sky as he laughed. The twig he carried twirled, the leaves whispering against one another as they spun. "Your mother must have salted you and hung you up to cure."

It was Uachi's turn to give a short laugh. "She did not have much energy for sweetening me, that much is true."

"Did she work?"

"Aye. Until she died."

"And your father? Didn't he ease her burdens?"

"He did, as a laborer. Until he died."

Diarmán nodded, turning his attention back to the horizon. "Perhaps someday I shall visit the Holy City, and you can show me where you spent your urchinhood."

"If we survive this goddess-damned journey and you've the desire to travel that far north, I consent. More likely we'll both die of the festering sores on our haunches before this is done."

"Don't go and die on me before I've had my moment at court."

"I said I would accompany you and I will, but I can't say watching you grovel at Her Highness's holy toes is the greatest incentive I have to stay alive, Diarmán."

"There will be very little groveling, of that you can be certain." Diarmán's expression darkened.

"And what, precisely, will you tell her to secure your family's fortunes? I'm not a fool—not too great a fool, anyway. From all that your grandfather said while we were at supper that first night, you're not legitimate in the eyes of your realm. Not a legitimate lord. Not a legitimate heir. Is that right?"

"In the eyes of my realm," Diarmán muttered. He gave a dry, humorless laugh, darting a bitter look Uachi's way. "In my realm, I would be a prince. But you've the measure of it. I and my brothers are a brood of Faelán bastards. I am certain that were Coratse to have her way, she would have smothered us in our cots; 'tis lucky our grandfather didn't have the chance, if I'm honest."

"Does he have so little affection for you?"

"Perhaps he loved my mother, once." There was a long silence. "He doesn't now. Not any more. Her children are naught but a burden to him, and an embarrassment. Sometimes I think he cannot wait to die, just to spite us all. Some scrap of mercy in him kept him from turning us out, but we'll be turned out all the same when he carks it and hands it all over to the Bitch Pretender to dispense with as she pleases. I can't see the reason in it. We might not make him proud, but we're still his blood. Isn't it a man's desire to see his family secure, his lineage live on? Isn't that the point of being on this burning earth?"