Chapter Nineteen #3
Ethyr sighed. As much as he wanted to, he knew it would cause trouble to have Mikel sleep in his bed, though it was certainly big enough for them both.
“Fine,” he acquiesced. “But we’re eating in the dining room. Once the food is brought, I don’t want anyone disturbing us, understand?”
“Yes, Your Divinity.” Gionan bowed out of his way and scurried off.
Mikel was brought to him shortly after the food. He was in a yellow silk robe, which looked laughably puny on his muscular frame, and wore a look of utter disorientation. Ethyr stood from the low table and hooked his arm around Mikel’s.
“You’re dismissed,” he told the attendants. They recognized the brusque tone as the order it was and bowed before leaving them alone.
“Sit down,” he told Mikel gently, guiding him to the table.
“They took my clothes,” Mikel said as he followed Ethyr’s urging and sat. “They said they had to be washed. That I couldn’t see the king in such filth.” He turned a wry, dazed smile to Ethyr. Ethyr smiled back.
“They do that,” he told Mikel apologetically, and sat around the corner from him. “You must be hungry, eat however much you’d like.” Mikel stared with new stupefied awe at the food laid out on the table.
“This is all for us?”
It was the usual afternoon fare: roast meats, fried meats, broiled vegetables in various sauces, a selection of cheeses, a few crisp leaves of lettuce, and two sliced loaves of bread, one dark and one light.
They’d also set out dessert for the occasion of a guest, a bowl of candied fruits and a plate of honey-soaked pastries.
“Yes,” he said. “You can eat whatever you want.”
“This is… this is a feast for a village,” Mikel said, breathless with wonder.
“I only take dark bread with my meals,” Ethyr reassured him.
“And they don’t usually include a dessert.
” Mikel’s look to him indicated that maybe that wasn’t his concern, but Ethyr then didn’t know what was.
He took the liberty of adding some food to Mikel’s plate, since he seemed too flabbergasted to take it himself.
“Eat,” Ethyr incited. He wanted Mikel at least semi-taken care of before he started interrogating him. But one thing couldn’t wait.
“Did something happen?” he asked. “Is that why you’re here? Are Tebhen and Deian okay?”
Mikel stopped from ripping into a chunk of roast. “No, they’re okay,” he said quietly. “Everyone’s okay. Things are…” He shook his head.
“Things are what?” Ethyr asked worriedly.
“Everything was weird when you left. People were acting weird. I—” He sighed and lowered the food. “I don’t know how to explain.”
Ethyr bit his lips together, looking down at his own empty plate. He reached over to take some food for himself. “Eat first,” he told Mikel. “We can talk after.”
Mikel stuffed himself with meat, white bread, wine, and sweets until Ethyr recognized the look of gorged regret on his face. He should have known better than to overwhelm Mikel with so many options, having done the same thing his first time facing such a sumptuous spread.
He rested a hand on Mikel’s arm to stop him taking more wine, knowing it wouldn’t help him in the way he hoped it would. “Can you explain now? How people were acting weird?”
Mikel sighed and leaned back on his palm.
“It’s not how, it’s why. Our parents,” in village speak that meant anyone of their parents’ generation, “started whispering to each other. Tebhen and Dei seemed angry at them for it. But when I asked, everyone was suddenly tongue-tied and close-lipped. It took a lot of nagging before my mother finally told me.”
“Told you what?” Ethyr asked impatiently.
Mikel met his exasperation with sorrow. Then he turned his eyes down, unable to meet Ethyr’s gaze as he spoke. “Tebhen and Deian are not your aunt and uncle. No one knows who your parents are, or where you come from.”
“What?” Ethyr mumbled. Then louder, “What are you talking about? That’s impossible! I had to come from somewhere!”
“You came from the forest.”
Ethyr opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. “Wh—” He closed his eyes out of sheer bewilderment.
“That’s what Ma told me. Old Jamyr—you remember him?
—he heard crying near the forest and when he went to see, he found an infant on the other side of the stone.
No one knew what to make of it, or what to do.
But Dei took to you immediately, as soon as Jamyr brought you back she held on to you and refused to let go.
Since Tebhen and Deian hadn’t had any luck with children of their own, it was decided they should raise you.
But with all the stories and horror about the forest, Ma said the village agreed to never tell anyone where you came from.
From that moment on, you were blood and kin and that’s what they’d tell everyone, including you. ”
“I…” Ethyr shook his head. He leaned an elbow on the table and pressed his forehead into his palm.
“I know it’s… shocking. I didn’t want to believe it either, but when I asked Tebhen and Deian, they said it was true. I know they wouldn’t lie about that. You know they wouldn’t.”
“But it doesn’t make sense,” Ethyr muttered. “How did I get there? Where did I come from?”
“I told you, no one knows. And I suppose they all kind of… chose to forget it had happened at all. Until that man showed up and said the gods chose you to be king. And now no one knows what to make of you.”
“But why would they lie?” Ethyr dragged his hand over his face. “Why would they lie to me? My whole life, about who I am?”
“They wanted to protect you,” Mikel said gently.
“Protect me?” Ethyr exclaimed. “Oh, they did a great job of that! Letting some stranger come and take me away! I’ve been here, alone, desperate to go home, and all this time it wasn’t even my home!”
“That’s not true,” Mikel said, harsher. “It’s still your home.”
Ethyr stood and paced the room, clenching his fists.
Too many emotions were tugging too many thoughts in too many directions for him to make use of any of them.
“I—I was—this whole time—” He stopped walking to grip his head, feeling a headache coming.
He had enough to deal with, he didn’t need family betrayal and an identity crisis added to the pot.
He turned on his heel to face Mikel. “And that’s what you came all this way for?
Just to tell me my whole life is a lie?”
“No!” Mikel stood as well. “Though… it was part of it. I thought you had a right to know. But… I came because I needed to see you. I needed proof you were okay.”
The words cut through the pandemonium in his brain with a clarity that nothing else offered.
Grief. Gratitude. He couldn’t stop the tears, sinking to his knees under their weight and staring listlessly forward as the world blurred.
Mikel’s shape moved to kneel in front of him and rough fingers wiped his cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Mikel murmured. “I should have come sooner. It was almost unbearable. But I couldn’t abandon my family either, I had to make sure they would get through the winter. You understand.”
Ethyr nodded, biting his lip to stop it quivering. He leaned into Mikel and was met with an embrace as warm as the summer days they’d spent together.
“How did you get here?” Ethyr asked, lifting the neck of his tunic to dry his face. “You walked this whole way?”
“I hitched a ride on a passing wagon sometimes.”
Ethyr sat up, looking at Mikel with disbelief. “You really walked here? How did you… how long did it take?”
“I have no idea. A few weeks, maybe? The further I went the warmer it got, so I couldn’t judge time by the weather.”
“Yeah, it’s… strange weather here.” Ethyr sniffed the last of his tears away and sank into his heels, staring at his hands in his lap. “How did you manage to get all the way here without food?”
“I sold a few things in town, it was enough for meals along the way. Then when I was south enough and out of money, I sold my cloak.”
“What?” Ethyr grabbed Mikel’s hand. “You sold your cloak? How are you going to survive going back?!”
Mikel shrugged with the annoyingly cavalier smile Ethyr was used to, and it quickened his heart. “I’ll figure something out.”
Ethyr shook his head. “I’ll have a cloak made for you. And give you enough money for the travel back. I could probably arrange for a carriage to take you a lot of the way—”
“Ethyr,” Mikel stopped him, lifting his hands. “It’s fine.”
“You came all this way for me!” he replied, so flustered it came out as anger. “The least I can do is help you return! I don’t care what you say, I’ll do it anyways, so you might as well accept.”
Mikel’s smile softened and his eyes didn’t leave Ethyr’s. “I forgot how stubborn you are.”
Ethyr scoffed. “As though you’re any better.”
Mikel grinned. It faded a moment later. “Ethyr…” He trailed off with a sigh, looking away and fidgeting with the bottom of the robe. It was unlike him to fidget.
“Yes?” Ethyr prompted when he didn’t continue for a long moment.
“I heard… in the city… people were talking…” He bit his lip, thinking for another moment before deciding to just get it out. “There was a lot of talk about how the king killed a priest.”
Icy dread stiffened Ethyr’s spine. “Did you believe them?” he asked slowly.
“Of course not. I know you could never do something like that. But how does a rumor like that get started?”
Ethyr looked away. Could he deny it? There was never any telling who was around to hear.
“Ethyr?”
It was Mikel—he had to tell him, didn’t he?
He opened his mouth. Closed it. The whirl of emotions was back, stopping up his throat.
He took Mikel’s hand again, gentler, and brought it to his face.
The man’s fingers opened reflexively, sliding into the hair at the back of Ethyr’s neck and brushing his thumb over his cheek.
The touch of calloused fingers was warm, familiar.
“You didn’t,” Mikel said softly, then, pained, “Did you?”