24 #2
“It’s lovely,” he said, barely looking at it.
“I’ve been working so hard to get the colors of the sunrise,” said Iahir’s mother. “And these, the gulls?”
“You’ve quite mastered it,” said Iahir.
“They are asking me to stay as the official painter of the court,” she said.
“I am thinking about it, but I am worried that if I am commissioned too many works by His Majesty, then I will not have any time to work on my own paintings. He will want me only to paint the royal family. He will want portraits of himself and the rest of the royal pack.”
“Yes,” said Iahir. “I suppose he would. But you are the only one of us who can understand his barks, as you are always pointing out. I thought you were his official translator.”
“That was so long ago,” said his mother. “But you have been gone a long time. I suppose, back then, he was barking.”
“He doesn’t bark anymore?” said Iahir.
“You know this as well as anyone else.” His mother was frustrated. “You can see him yourself. You must have greeted him on your way in. No one enters the castle without seeing His Majesty.”
“Well, the gate was shut,” said Iahir. “We had to come in the back way.”
“We?” His mother turned and sighted Gathren. Her eyes widened. “Well, who is this?”
Iahir came to her, hand on her back, pulling her in against him. “This is Gathren. I’m in love with her. Gathren, my mother.”
“How nice,” said his mother, smiling. “She’s very beautiful.”
Iahir smiled too. “She is.”
“But I don’t understand about the gate,” said his mother. “How could you not have seen His Majesty? If you had seen him, you would never have said that thing about barking.”
Iahir looked at his shoes. “I am sorry, Mother. You know I would like to see him. You know we all would. We all would like you to see the same things we see.”
“Oh, that is just ridiculous,” said his mother, her nostrils flaring. “Of course we all see the same things.”
“Is he not a dog anymore?” said Iahir quietly. “I do remember when he was a bear.”
His mother glared at him. “More of this. You think I’m making it up.”
“I know you are not making it up,” said Iahir. “It is not a choice.”
“You know he is not a dog,” said his mother, her eyes swimming with sudden tears. “You know it.”
“What is he, then?” said Iahir.
“You have seen him,” said his mother.
“You said the royal ‘pack,’” said Iahir. “I assumed… perhaps he’s a wolf.”
“Get out,” said his mother. “Do not come back until you promise to take me seriously and treat me with respect, you ungrateful boy.”
Iahir regarded his mother for another moment and then turned on his heel. He turned Gathren as well. Hand on her back, he guided her to come along. They walked out.
Gathren was not sure what to say about what she’d just seen. They walked down the hallway together, and she tried to gather her thoughts into something coherent.
Iahir looked down at her. “You’re going to say I could have prepared you better, but the truth is, it’s hard to say what you get with her.
She has fantasy worlds she sifts through.
Sometimes she is in that one, with the animal kings and queens, sometimes she is in another one with the gods and goddesses.
Sometimes she knows she is my mother. Other times, she can be other people.
She has a number of altering personas. Not all of them are female.
She can be violent sometimes. It’s… I would have prepared you, truly, but I did not know what we’d walk in on. ”
Gathren put a hand on his arm. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for trusting me to see.”
Iahir let out a ragged breath, and she knew she’d said the right thing, that this meant something, that he’d even let her know of it.
“How long?” she said.
“Oh, always,” said Iahir. “I think she used to have more lucid periods, before she gave birth to me and my brother. It was after she went into labor, which was particularly prolonged and difficult—my brother was breach—that she seemed to disconnect entirely.”
“Always?” said Gathren. She was thinking that if a woman was so very obviously not in her right head, how did anyone think that someone should get children on her?
“She was the right pedigree to marry,” said Iahir. “And my father…” He shook his head. “My father is devoted to her.”
Gathren furrowed her brow. His father was devoted to that woman? This was not at all as she had imagined. But what sort of devotion could it be, truly, if she had never really been in her right mind?
“You needn’t worry about him,” said Iahir.
“We will not see him. He is always in his laboratory, doing all manner of ghastly experiments. He thinks of nothing else, and he is entirely occupied in that way. He would not be pleased to see you, but it will likely be days before he even knows I’m home. He pays me no mind.”
She swallowed, thinking of all the things that people said at court, about how Iahir was trying to get his father’s attention. “The experiments, are they… for her?”
“You have put that together remarkably quickly,” said Iahir, turning down the corners of his lips.
“Yes, quite. When my brother began to have breaks with reality, my father seized on that, saying he would cure my brother and then cure my mother, but what he did was entirely destroy my brother’s mind.
And me… well, I refuse to go down there now, into the laboratory.
When I was young, I didn’t have a choice, but now… ”
Gathren let out a breath, shaking her head, understanding so much of what he had said to her about his family now.
There was only one thing that really didn’t make sense.
Why had he concealed it?