"Ah, there you are," she said. "I've figured out a solution to the problem of the farriers. We owe them three weeks' back pay, and the tax collector from the west was beset by bandits, so we're operating in arrears... but there is a small household surplus. I've reallocated it and it should be enough to cover what we owe the farriers, but there'll be no imported wine or cloth, nor honey, nor sugar in the Keep, until the tax collectors' next rounds. It will be fine, we'll survive. As to the matter of the trade tariffs from Duene, I've written a missive I'd like you to look over--"
"Lady," Merrec cut her off, then more gently, "Reynhild. Stop. You've been awake for days. You need to sleep."
"No I don't," she returned flatly. "You cannot run this house yourself. I am the only Fulcairn who is capable of doing so at present. Come here, take this letter. I need you to make sure the terms are consistent with the treaty Father signed--"
Merrec crossed the tiny room in one stride-- they'd relocated her to the servants' quarters, as all the healers urged her to give Corrac the room to himself, lest his illness infect her as well-- and took the letter from her shaking hand, but not to read it, merely to relieve her of it.
"Lady Reynhild." His voice was uncharacteristically strident. "If you continue at this pace, you will be no more capable of running the House than Lord Corrac or Baron Cullan. Stop. You need rest. I will send Elena to draw you a bath and bring you supper." And with that, he forcibly took the bundles of parchment from her desk, gathered them to himself, and left. She could not stop him for some reason. He was an old man, and she should have been able to pluck them out of his pocket before he could blink an eye, but she was tired, so tired... and her hands were stained. Red and black, black and red.
The black was the easy part. Numbers, figures, resources, correspondences. That was the easy part of running a barony. The hard part was talking to people, comforting a family who'd lost their guardsman son in a skirmish against bandits, picking up a peasant boy and cavorting with him on one's shoulders... thank the gods Corrac was so good at that...
The easy part was the black, the hard part was the red. Blood, Corrac's blood, from mopping his mouth as he coughed so hard he doubled over. At first it had been just a trickle, a pink spatter on her handkerchief, but lately it had been gobs, handfuls, red and dark tissue, bits that smelled rotten. Red stained her hands, red and black.
It was time to check in on him, she'd been away long enough.
She left the tiny servants' quarters and climbed the stairs to their chamber. Those stairs, that climb, had brought her joy every day for three years. There was no happier place for her than at the top of those stairs.
She did not gasp or wail at the sight of him anymore, as all the visitors and well-wishers did. She checked the linens--mercifully dry today; of late he had lacked the strength to pull himself out of bed even to use the pot-- and fetched the crock from the fireplace, where she'd left it to keep it warm. He couldn't eat solid food any longer, so she made a broth of sorts, honey and healing herbs and rich melted goose fat. He could keep it down, usually. She sat on the side of the bed and held it in her lap, and gently cupped his cheek. His eyes opened and he smiled at her. Once, in an alleyway at Stormpoint, she'd found a tapestry that a noble had thrown out; it was breathtakingly finely wrought, but sun had bleached it, and the wind and rain and filth and ravaged it... but she could still tell that it was finely made, and beautiful.
That was Corrac, now.
"Time for supper, my love." She smiled. She would not let him see grief, or pain, or fear, or weakness.
"Are you... certain all you have... is that... gods-awful slurry? ...I've... a mind to... eat the entire haunch... off a boar..." Each word was strained, barely audible; each breath rasped and laboured. She gently spooned the warm mixture between his lips. He tried so hard to swallow it, but half of it ran out between his slack lips, soaked into the pillow. But she gently and patiently fed him the entire crock.
"My star. Reyn. Tell me."
"Yes, love?"
"Everyone... who comes in here... of late. Father, Merrec. Finn. Dolan. They all... speak... in bright, forced voices... of when I get better. Of how I'll... pull through. They... lie. They know it. I... know it. But... not you... Why?"
She took a deep breath, forced her voice to steady.
"We made a promise. To walk through life together. I am here. I am with you. Wherever the path may lead."
A tear gleamed in his eye. "When... Mother was dying... they did the same... to her. She said it made her... twice as lonely... that no one would... walk the journey with her. But only you... walk it with me... I love you, Reyn..."
"I love you too."
Something caught her eye. A black smear, on his hand, like the ones on hers. Had he been writing letters? Surely not. She needed to bathe him again...
"Oh gods damn it. I hear Elena coming up the stairs; Merrec sent her to fuss over me. I'll be back in a moment, my darling. I'm but an arm's length away if you need me, all right?"
She stepped out into the hallway, descended the stairs, followed Elena's silhouette as it disappeared into her tiny servants' quarters. "Elena, for the love of the gods, I don't need you to--"
Elena's eyes widened as she saw her, eyes dark-ringed, hair in hopeless tangles, spattered in red and black, and her handmaid's sweet face crumpled, and she began to cry. She set her tray on the now-empty desk, wrapped her arms around her, and cried into her shoulder.
And then something in Reynhild broke.
It might have been the exhaustion, or the cold terrible feeling of powerlessness... the knowledge that she would have given anything, including her own life, without a second's deliberation, in exchange for Corrac's. The bitter certainty that, despite what the poets said, part of her wished she could go back to the time before she knew happiness or love, for the prospect of knowing it and having it taken away was a thousand thousand time worse than the dull grey void of never knowing it. She heard a sound that began as a low moan and crescendoed to a horrible hopeless wail, and realized she was making it.
She wept, and Elena wept, and they clung together and wept, and the beast that dwelled in her ribcage and feasted on her heart sank its insatiable jaws into the red and black meat of her heart, pain, unending, unrelenting, growing by the moment. She wept, deep racking sobs, until she began to dry-heave, doubled over with nothing in her empty stomach to vomit. She wept until she could barely breathe.
"It's alright, Lady. Everything will be alright," Elena whispered, stroking her hair, taking the role of the comforter in the absence of any other comfort.
"No. It won't."
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