Chapter 13. Brother

eleri awakened blearily, aware that she was being moved.  Her eyes were gummy from too many tears and not enough sleep.  Morisedd had picked her up off the floor beside Pendaran’s bed and was cradling her in his arms as a pair of monks were attending to him. 

“’m alright. You can put me down,” she murmured but Morisedd did not reply.  He had been extremely reticent over the last few days, saying hardly a word but also following her around like a sad dog when he was present.  She assumed he was with Mabane during the day, but at night he brought her food and water, made sure she had a blanket or two tucked around her when she fell asleep and now he was holding her until the monks were gone.

Pendaran was alive, but his moments of coherence were few and wracked with pain.  He was recovering, but slowly, and the monks were keeping him sedated.  She had heard mutterings that he might not be able to walk again for he appeared to lack sensation in his legs and rarely moved them.  The thought was almost too much to bear.  He was too young to be crippled and ruined.  Her beautiful Pendaran.

“Can you move him to one side, please?” Morisedd asked the monks as they finished cleansing their change and placed him back on the bed amid clean sheets and blankets.  The older of the two men smiled and gestured for the other to help him ease Pendaran’s limp form to the left side of the bed so that Murdi could lower Teleri beside him.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, shocked and yet moved by the gesture as Morisedd helped to remove her boots so that she could curl against Pendaran’s side and lie under the blankets with him.  She nearly began weeping anew as she lay her head upon his shoulder and felt his warmth.  The soporifics made him feverish, but his face was calm now and his body lay slack and untroubled beside her.

“I’ve been a horrible brother and friend to you, Teleri.  I’m sorry.”

The three of them were alone once the monks were gone.  The others had gone home to rest, largely at her insistence.  She, however, would not leave Pendaran.  Murdi dragged a chair over to the bedside and stroked her hair gently.

“I promise not to speak ill of him again.  I will even be nice to him.”

“I’d like that.”

“And I’ll help take care of him so that you can rest,” he pleaded, “I’m worried about you.”

“If I could endure his pain for him I would.  If I could have taken his injuries, I’d happily risk death not to see him like this.  And poor Mabane has lost us both.  My poor son.”

“I’ve been taking care of him,” he said, “and he is staying in with Sywno and Brigit at night.  I am going to bring him to see you tomorrow.”

“Does he know about Pen?”

“Yes.  I could not keep it from the boy, not with all the sadness.  I told him.”

Teleri clenched her eyes against sadness.  She should have been there for Mabane.

“He took it very well,” Morisedd continued, “He wanted to know if Pendaran would survive and I told him he had the best healers in Lion’s Arch helping him and that you would not leave Pen’s side until you knew he was going to be alright.”

“Did he take it well?”

“Yes.  He was glad you were here with Pen.  He said you would take good care of him.”

Teleri relaxed, lifting a hand now to stroke Pendaran’s chest beneath the sheets.  She thought of the first and only time they had made love.  Their child had been conceived during Lyssa’s highest rite.  Like Mabane.

She had never compared Pendaran to her first husband, Rhys.  They were two very different men and she loved them both for different reasons.  Pendaran was a bold and confident lover.  She was far from the first woman he had pleasured.  He had spoken of the countless paramours that had inhabited his scoundrel years.  He had loved none of them and hated more than a few.  Beyond that he had said little, growing pained and anxious when she asked him for more details.  He was still ashamed of himself and his past.

Rhys, because of his humble beginnings, had never had the luxury of pride or privilege.  His first advances had been innocent and awkward affairs for both of them and she had found him charming because of it.  They had made love like playful animals and had learned to share the secrets of one another’s bodies over time.  Rhys had been like a treasure waiting to be uncovered and the journey there had been almost as much fun as the final destination.

And the Rite of the Ninth Hour had been different.  Rhys had arranged it himself, setting aside a small fortune of his diplomat stipend to rent a sumptuous suite for them and obtain all the necessary flowers, oils and candles and the attentions of the royal priestess to usher them into the rite.  And then they had made love almost savagely, the two of them giving freely of one another until they were spent, almost too exhausted to giggle and snuggle in the after glow.

What had she expected of Pendaran?  They had known each other for only a fraction of the time she had gotten to know Rhys.  She and Rhys had been virgins, equals in their bumbling ignorance but growing together like a pair of trees in the forest.  If he were still alive, she would rejoin him in an instant.  She felt terrible upon realizing this and chided herself for it.  Who was she kidding?  Pendaran would go back to Clarissa, as well.