"For if, look you, he were my
brother, I would
desire the duke to use his good
pleasure, and put
him to
execution; for discipline ought to be used."
--Henry V; III.vi.
Alan of Pirates' Swoop had never been in the dungeons before. As he walked down the passage, he shivered, and not only at the cold dry air. Alan realized that he had no idea why he had come, or what he hoped to do. What could he do, what could he say that would not seem like gloating, like lording it over Thom that he, the younger son, the mediocre one, the least promising of Mother's children -- hadn't he heard Grandmother damn him with the faint praise of 'a steady plodder' when compared to his sister's 'brilliant spirit'? -- had done right when the favored elder had done wrong? Was it only to ease his own self, then, that he came? Was it that he wanted to be able to say that he had been compassionate, that he had cared, that he had cried for his brother? Stupid, stupid, thoughtless, and vain! Was King Jonathan so distantly dead that he could forget his demanded duty and give sympathy to his murderer? But Thom was his brother; since Father's death, Thom was the titular head of his own family. You couldn't ignore family, not now, particularly, with Aly so far away and Mother so hard to speak to.
Alan knew that he must be magnifying the issues, trying to complicate things that ought to be straightforward. Did he think of himself as some sort of tragically undone victim of the gods, that the two losses, the one of his overlord, the other of his brother, tore him to pieces? But no, he had always wanted to have it both ways. That was the key to it all. He had always wanted to assure himself a place on each side of the fence. He remembered with shame that dreadful day in Sir Myles's class, in his second year as a page. They had been talking about something -- he didn't remember what -- no, he told himself firmly, he did remember, but he didn't like to remember; he pretended he didn't remember -- about the concessions made to the merchants over tariffs between fiefs, and Sir Myles had yelled at him. "Pick an opinion and live with its consequences!" He had said. Sir Myles had been perfectly justified of course, Alan reminded himself as he felt his forehead and cheeks start to warm just in the memory of it. That was why he didn't like to think about it -- the shame came from knowing that Sir Myles, that his grandfather, not to mention all of those other pages, saw him revealed as an opportunist who couldn't stand to be wrong.
It was the same thing, now. He knew that they accused Mother of being cold; of being an unnatural mother because she had refused to intercede for Thom, had refused even to see him. He didn't want to be called unfraternal. He wasn't unfraternal. He did love his brother. He had loved his brother. If he had not loved his brother -- don't think about that, he told himself. Don't think about that -- It would be a waste of everything not to love his brother now. But his mind would not gloss to the conclusion so easily. If you had not loved your brother, if you had not trusted your brother, it told him, you would not have been so slow to battle him down that night when he was possessed by a fiend. If you had not so loved your brother, your king would not be dead. He had been trying to block the thought out ever since the trial.
Several voices were quick to battle it down. He had told all of this to Master Abelard, who had absolved him of guilt. It was a great honor to receive spiritual counsel from the Archpriest of Mithros, this voice told him, and surely Master Abelard knows more about such things than you do. Another voice, strangely like the training master's chimed in. Your business is to fight for Tortall and defend the Crown; when a priest tells you to do something, you do it -- you don't want to offend the Gods. Go to Temple, pray, make the proper sacrifice and ask Mithros's blessing, but don't go burrowing into theology where it doesn't concern you. Surely it was enough if both Sir Padgraig and Master Abelard could tell him that he had done nothing wrong. It must be enough. And it could not be wrong to pity Thom, and to wish that he had not become what he had; it could not be wrong to go to him, so that he would not be all alone.
"What's your business?"
Alan presented his token. Roald had been kind enough to grant his request and he carried the Conte signet as proof of his right of entry. "I… the king permitted…" he stammered. Why was he so incapable of normal interaction? "See… Thom of Pirate's Swoop…" But not with King Jonathan, then he could talk: those evenings, when he had been kept ostensibly to serve as the king talked and taught his son; those awe-filled moments when he stood by, listening as Tortall was governed; and when King Jonathan had said, "what think you, Alan?" he had not had difficulty answering. He swallowed away the pain in his throat and shut his eyes tight against the tears.
"All right. But I won't let y' alone wit' him. No telling what he might do." Alan nodded automatically, putting the ring back into a safe pouch.
The guard opened the door for him, but held himself back as Alan went forward into the cell. They would have some privacy of talk, it seemed. At least the cell was not dirty, Alan thought. The rushes over the floor were fresh, and the stone walls dry enough. And Thom, too, wore good enough garments, of poor cloth and long use certainly, but neither befouled nor ragged. He did not look up as Alan approached the corner where he sat.
"Thom… I…" Eyes flicked up and around, but the body did not move. "Thom, it's me -- Alan." He had said it stupidly. Of course Thom knew who he was! He knelt, clumsy on the straw, and put an arm around his brother.
A hand reached to take his other hand. "I didn't think you would come."
"Mother--"
"I expect she was the first to argue against me in Council." Again, there was that eerie, unnatural calmness in Thom's voice.
"She doesn't know what to think, Thom. She can't think to do anything else." It was a hollow and useless comfort.
"I understand. I made my bed, and I can lie in it. That's the way of the world. There!" Thom turned suddenly to face him. "Isn't that what I'm supposed to say? Don't I make a properly penitent traitor? 'I pray Mithros forgive me and I welcome my death as my deserving.'" He parroted the last phrase with horrible mockery.
"I… I don't…"
Thom shook his head. "Don't listen to me, Brother. You're going to be a knight, a faithful vassal: don't let me pervert you."
"Pervert me? How…"
Thom closed his eyes. "I am… not going to see you again," he said very slowly after a moment. "Alan." He was more urgent now. "Alan. If I can't put away the pretense now, what can I do?"
"What pretense?"
A hand waved vaguely. "All of it. The pretense of living. The gradations of speaking, of irony, of saying what ought to be said, or what ought not to be said, simply because it ought not to be said. I'm not going to see you again… Alan…" He convulsed. "Don't leave me!"
"Of course I'm not--"
"I don't want to die!" There was nothing that Alan could say to that. "Oh, I'm not stupid, Alan, I can see the justice; I can see the rightness; but I'm a man. I'm a young man. I can't just be… gone." Thom, Brother, why didn't you think of this? What about the king? He didn't deserve to die either. "Aly has children: they'll never know me. You'll have children: I'll never see them. Grandmother… Grandfather… if I see them again, it will be on my execution day." He wrenched out of Alan's hold and got up on his knees to face his brother. "I cannot reconcile myself to death, Alan."
"I don't think," Alan said hesitantly, "that anyone is really embittered towards you. King Roald forgives." Which was all mostly a lie: Mother at least pretended to be embittered, and at least half the court. Whether Roald genuinely bore no grudge he had no idea. "And the gods surely recognize that it was accident, and not malice."
"No," said Thom. Alan stared at him. "Can you really tell me that I will be executed justly and yet the Black God will welcome me to the Blessed Fields?"
That unspoken alternative in Thom's voice was too horrible to contemplate. Too, too awful. It had to be that dying would absolve the mistake. The gods could not be so cruel to make it otherwise. "But, Thom," Alan said finally. "What could you think would happen? How could you have done it?"
There was silence, and Alan wished he could have kept his question back. Thom looked away for the first time. "I'm the older brother," he said at last. "I know I'm supposed to set the example, all the more, after Father died. And all I can give you, in the end, is a bad example, I suppose. A warning.
"You can't understand, Alan, nor Mother, nor anyone what it means to be finding things -- really discovering things -- and doing things that no one has done before. Three quarters of the advanced students at University don't understand it. And once you've done it, once you've made something that no one else has ever made, you can't go back to just using old spells and old ways. You don't understand," he said, seeing, Alan presumed, his brother's face. "How else can I tell you? It's using my mind and my Gift. To use what the gods gave me to the greatest possible extent: I had to believe -- have to believe -- that could never lead me astray. I have to trust in the best power of my reason and my ability. There's nothing else."
"But what you were…"
"It had nothing to do with that." Thom waved away the objection impatiently. "It was a mistake, an unforeseen consequence. Yes, I fucked it up, somehow." Alan said nothing. He had never heard his brother swear, and the obscenity hung between them. "But I can't believe I'm going to die for it. Alan, I can't die; I can't even imagine dying." Thom's voice was pleading now, as though he, Alan, Little Brother, could do something.
Thom didn't understand, Alan thought. He didn't see that there were some things that men were not made to meddle in, that some things were the provenance of the gods for a very good reason. He couldn't comprehend that he had done anything wrong. But at the same time, Alan felt horribly sad. If Thom didn't understand, who was he to try to break his illusion? "Oh, Thom." He hugged his brother hard.
Thom winced away with a gasp. "What is it?" Alan asked. "Are you hurt?"
His brother made a negating motion. "Just a bruise. They--" he hazarded a nod toward the guard silent at the back of the room "-- thought they'd help me along to the Black God." He took his breath in quickly, doubling over, and Alan knew that this pain was not from any physical harm.
"I can… I can heal that," Alan said, hesitating. "I'm not very good," he added. "You know, but I can probably do a bruise or two."
Thom swallowed and nodded, silent. It was harder than Alan had thought it would be, to collect his thoughts enough to focus his Gift to do the healing. "It would have been better if I had been able to do that, perhaps," Thom said softly, watching the blackness slowly retreat to nothing. "But then I wouldn't have learned all the things I did, so…" he trailed off.
Alan shook his head before he could stop himself. How can you say it was worth it? He wanted to ask. King Jonathan is dead. DEAD. You're going to die. How can that be worth some dangerous magical spell that it would be better not to know anyway?
"No, I'm sure you're right, Alan," Thom said, as if reading his mind in spite of his silence. "It isn't a worthwhile trade, not a sensible, good one. Except for me. For me, it was worth it, and perhaps that itself is enough a crime to hang me. But what am I doing?" he exclaiomed, suddenly angry. "Playing the martyr, or the penitent. It's all false, but I don't know how to be true!"
"What do you mean?" The biggest bruises were almost gone.
"Alan. Believe me: I did not plot to murder King Jonathan. And I can see how despicable I must be for what I've done. I can see it. But I--" Thom put his face in his hands for a moment. "I think about death, and I'm so frightened; I can't desire it, although I know I should, and I can't even imagine anyone coming to terms with it."
"No," said Alan. "I've seen death; I've seen people die--" Lord Geoffrey doubled over in the snow; Marcus of Wellam, his eyes wide and blank and limbs horrible disjointed; King Jonathan falling… Don't think about those things! Alan pulled himself back. "And death is terrible," he said, aware that this was not the right thing to say to a condemned man.
"There have always been expectations," Thom said. "There are things one is supposed to say, and things one is supposed to do, and then, there are things that one isn't supposed to say, and so one is actually supposed to say them, simply because they aren't what's supposed to be said. And that: it's the way it must be, the way it should be. But at some point, you become aware of all of these layers, and you wonder what you really would say, or do, if none of them were there, and then you can't say anything because you're so fixed on all of this analysis that it all becomes meaningless. Maybe if I had been able to say the right things, and speak, and plead, I wouldn't be here, about to die."
"It wouldn't have helped," Alan said, feeling guilty for breaking this illusion, too. "It had nothing to do with… with saying the right things."
"And even there," Thom said angrily, "even that last thing. It's the sort of excuse you would expect someone in my position to give, isn't it? How do I know that's what I really mean, or really think, and not just an opinion that I know is standard? But maybe it really is what I mean, and I'm only rejecting it because I think that one ought to reject that sort of "standard" opinion. Sometimes," Thom said, "I think it doesn't matter at all, and I only do this to distract myself from what I know is coming." He reached to hug his brother again.
Alan did not know what to say. "I'm so sorry, Thom."
"Tell Aly that I love her, will you, Alan?"
"Of course I will."
"And tell Grandmother that I love her, and I give my love to Svava, and that… that I'm not sorry to be dying for what I've done." Alan was sure his confusion showed on his face. Hadn't Thom just said that he wasn't… "It will make her happy, at least," Thom said. "You see, I can be noble and honorable and say the right things, after all. But tell Grandfather the truth; he'll understand, I think."
Alan nodded. He would not forget this. He did not think that he could possibly forget it.
"And, Alan? Pray for me, if you can."
Alan nodded. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. A few breaths later, he tried again. Still nothing. "I…" Breathe. "I… shall I… ask for… ask for… for a…" Breathe. "…A… a priest to come?" Thom had never been very religious. "It might make it… easier."
Thom nodded, eyes wide. "And if I'm going to die, why shouldn't I die as peacefully as I may?" Alan heard him say, half to himself.
They stood up, Alan helping his older brother to his feet.
"Goodbye."
"Goodbye, Alan. I love you, and I'm so proud to be your brother." Thom's embrace was shockingly weak. Alan compensated by holding his brother tighter.
"Oh, and Alan?"
He wasn't sure if he could speak without tears. "Yes?"
"Tell Mother that I love her and I'm sorry for what I've done."
So… should I up the rating for inconsistency of tone and too much sentimentality?
Small revisions: 31-7-06
