jeriendhal | Flyboys, Part Fifteen

“We’d lost our our hotel room...” he repeated softly, but no one was listening now. A steam cart had been found, and carried the boys and the Sharpears back to the manor. Rolas didn’t really recall the journey, only its end, when he was helped into an overstuffed chair in their mother’s (late mother’s) sitting room, and a drink was pressed into his hands.

The family doctor was there, saying something... oh, explaining that Lady Sharpears had not suffered at all, having never wakened after suffering her attack in the night. Which was a flat lie. Both the boys had seen poor Artineth’s late wife, in the months after she had fallen from a similar attack. So perhaps it was a mercy that their mother had only lasted a week afterward, instead of suffering months of half-conscious dementia, spoon feedings and bedsores.

Rolas just wished everyone would stop staring at him. There was a fair parade of house servants and tenant farmers coming through the room now, to pay their respects and assure their allegiance to their young lord. They all had the same look on their faces, staring at him, as if he had the magical solution of What to Do Now in his pocket, and need only whip it out like a magician pulling coins from a child’s ear.

“Brother, a private word,” Rulfen said, approaching him and looking quite serious indeed.

“Yes, of course,” Rolas said, voice low. Anything to get away from the crowd. He stood up and ducked out with Rulfen, following him through a disguised door into a disused service corridor. He sighed in relief once they were safely out of the way of prying eyes. “Thank you, Rulf. I don’t think I could take another minute in there without screaming. What do you want?”

“I need to know your intentions, Rolas,” Rulfen said. “What do you going to do?”

“Going to do?” Rolas asked. “As soon as we can clear everyone out of here, I’m going back to our house, get very drunk, and cry my eyes out.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Rolas demanded. “Dammit, Artie has been crying ever since we heard the news, why can’t I?” No great surprise there, Artineth and their mother were barely a year apart in age, having grown up on the manor grounds together. Unlike some of the more upper crust families, the Greycoats had never seen the need to separate their children from the children of the servants, at least during their formative years.

“Artie isn’t Lord Greycoat. He isn’t the one that’s sitting in his chair feeling sorry for himself while the servants stand around wondering what to do.”

“Rulf, you’re not being fair! What are you made of, stone?”

“Of course not! I feel the same way you do, but feeling sorry for ourselves isn’t going to bring Mother back. The Constable was right, the whole manor has been without direction for a week, while Mother lay dying and we were off racing carts.” Rulfen snuffed, and then suddenly slammed his fist against the wall.

“Rulf, please! I don’t think I could stand it if you hurt yourself now!” Rolas cried out.

His brother took in a deep breath. “Quite right, quite right. I need, we both need, to be calm right now. Strong, for them.” He waved at the door and the waiting servants beyond.

“I don’t think I can do it, Rulf,” Rolas said, his eyes pleading. “Rulf, you know I don’t have the mind for running the manor. My head’s always been in the clouds, dreaming of flight, but your the one with the practical brain to make such things happen. You should be Lord Greycoat, not me.”

“Maybe you’re right, Rolas, but I’m not and you are. You’ve got to be the one to lead from now on.” Rulfen smiled, a wry twist of his lips. “Mind though, if the position of Grand Vizier is open, I’d be more than willing to take it.”

“Consider yourself hired,” Rolas said, grateful for the moment of humor. “Will you require a hunchbacked minion and a secret alchemical lab for your studies in the Black Arts?”

Rulfen appeared to take the offer seriously for a moment. “Not at this time. What is your desire, oh Great One?”

Rolas sighed. “Advise me. What should I be doing?”

“Giving orders,” Rulfen said. “It doesn’t matter what orders right now. Just give the servants something to do, so they aren’t standing about feeling useless. Everything has been frozen for a week, there must be some business piled up that needs tending to.”

“Quite,” Rolas sighed again. “We’ve got Mother’s funeral to plan too, that should keep everyone running for at least three days.”

“And then the wedding,” Rulfen added.

Rolas blinked in surprise. “Wedding, what wedding? Do you mean you’ve received a proposal from Bel?”

“I”m not talking about Bel and I, I’m talking about Bel and you,” Rulfen said. Rolas could only gape as he went on. “Look, she’s about our age, intelligent, strong willed, and pretty as well. And if she doesn’t get the idea in a week or so of going to the Priestess to forward an offer of bonding to you, I’ll certainly suggest it to her.”

“You’re out of your mind!”

“Do you have a better suggestion for a new Lady Greycoat right now?”

“By the Goddess, Mother’s body isn’t even cold yet! How can you be talking about marriage?!”

“Well, you’re going to have to marry somebody if you want to start popping out heirs, unless you seriously want to fulfill Mother’s nightmare of having the lands broken apart by solicitors.”

“But Rulfen... brother...” Rolas said, “I thought you were in love with her.”

Rulfen ducked his head down briefly, then raised it to meet his brother’s eyes. “I am, quite desperately, as are you if I’ve been interpreting the daggers you’ve been staring in my direction right.”

“Then why...?”

Rulfen took hold of his shoulders. “I want the best for her. But I also want the best for the manor, and the farmers in the fields, and the workers we’ll be hiring back East. And that means the best for you. I can think of no better woman for the brother I love to marry than her, Rolas.”

“But.. but that isn’t fair to you, Rulfen.”

Rulfen smiled, an expression that his brother knew was a pleasant lie. “She’s hardly the only woman in the world, Rolas. I’ll find someone else, someday.”

“Of course,” Rolas said, agreeing to the lie. He cleared his throat. “So. Give orders you said?”

Rulfen bowed obsequiously. “Yes, Great One.”

“Right,” Rulas said, going up to the door and puling it open. He wasn’t surprised to find a gaggle of servants waiting in the hallway for them. “You there! Has anyone eaten this evening?”

“No, milord,” a serving girl answered, ducking her head.

“Well, surely the cook has cold meats somewhere. Tell him to make sandwiches. There’s much to be done and it shouldn't be done on an empty stomach.”

“Yes, Lord,” the girl answered, and scurried off.

“As for the rest of you, have anyone notified the Priestess yet?”

“No, Lord,” another servant answered. “We hadn’t... that is, thing’s ha’ been so confused today...”

“I understand. Find her though, she should be informed. Prayers must be said over my mother’s body. Go.”

“Yes, Lord!”

He walked back towards the study, Rulfen two paces behind him. There would be more servants waiting there, and there was much to do.

TBC