“What are you making?”
Sylvain did not raise his head as he often did when he heard my voice.
“I do not know, it is only a way to pass the time. Perhaps it will be a new leash for some animal in need of taming.”
The walk home from the castle had been long. Duir’s threat haunted me and upon seeing Sylvain, I wisely decided not to mention his threat. Now I yearned for dinner, drink, and hoped our earlier argument would not be resumed. I sat next to him. “I’ve been to see Duir. He has seen and fallen in love with the velvet, and so my hands will make his vest and it will be magnificent!” At the last word, I saw Sylvain flinch.
“I don’t doubt it.” He gathered his leatherwork to him and made ready to stand.
I grabbed his hand. “I have other news, good news, and it shall be most happy for you and I!”
“I am beginning to wonder if you can tell the difference any longer between news that bodes well for you or for me.” He yanked his hand from me, straightened himself up, and walked past me into the shop.
Left in the growing twilight, I wondered if somehow he were right. I could smell the orange blossoms from the tree growing behind the shop. I could see the sky turning from shell pink to purple. I could hear the distant cry of a bird, but the only thing I felt was an incredible burn in my fingers to touch the velvet.
“Sylvain!” I found him not in the shop but in the kitchen, sitting before a plate of stew and a large mug of ale. “Why must you say such things? How can you think I no longer know what is good and what isn’t?”
Sylvain’s blind eyes reflected in the shadows of twilight, giving the eerie impression that he could suddenly see.
“I do not know. I only know about the truth, and in the truth I see trouble forming and somehow it is linked to the velvet you hold nearer your heart than sage advice. I say be done with it, deny Duir and cast the material from this place.”
I laughed in spite of the chill I felt. “Deny Duir? The King? You are mad Sylvain. This material has won you a place in court!” I went about getting my own bowl of stew and mug.
“What do you mean by this?”
“Duir has agreed to my request to have you come to court and assist me in the making of the garment. He wishes me to work there, where no one will be able to see the vest before his coronation.”
“Why should it matter who sees it, Virago? It is not woven of gold, it is not priceless. This is exactly how obsession begins.” He halted to take a drink. After he swallowed, stared at me, his eyes unblinking. “It begins with confusion.”
“You misunderstand me, Brother. Duir is so enamored, he has made the promise that no one beneath him shall wear the velvet until the laws of sumptuary are altered. He has not even given permission for me to make wedding vests for Auberon and the rest. He wishes to be the first to wear such finery and for the coronation to be when anyone in his kingdom sees such a rarity.”
Sylvain made a disgusted grunt and pushed his near full bowl from him.
“Listen,” I continued, my voice rushed in the hopes of winning his confidence. “If it is obsession, let us use it to profit. Duir has long chided you as a cripple and does not know of your own talents with tailoring. Come with me to court. Help me. He has promised to pay you my equal monies!”
“I care not for money!” Sylvain shouted and slammed a fist on the table. “It is not my concern to wallow in the court of a King who values materials above people. I will not follow you to his side.”
“Sylvain, I only—”
“Have you forgotten the horrors inflicted upon me by not only Duir but the men he holds closest to him? The dungeons are familiar to me, Brother. Endless hallways, the cries of those held behind bars of cold iron, the stench of blood, and worst of all, the haunting fear I endured while locked beneath the castle. My voice could never rise above the screams of those held there.”
A pained expression remained on his face. “You do not know the embarrassment and pain I have endured at the hands of Duir and those of the men who now serve as his council.” He swiped at his face with his sleeves.
“We were all children! Children are cruel before they are kind. Surely you know this!” I pleaded, but knew it was in vain.
“You were not there the day it happened, Virago,” Sylvain’s voice trembled. “You were home in bed, sick with fever. You did not hear the way Duir and the rest blamed me for following after them without their knowing. I can hear Duir’s voice clearly telling Father and Killian the lie. I heard it so often it made me ill with rage.”
“And you have always thought I stood by silent.” Regret, when it came to my position at court was something familiar to me when it came to my relationship with Sylvain. “You hate me for being in Duir’s court.”
Sylvain sighed. “I do not hate, but I rage, Virago. I rage and am sorry for it. My seething only serves to empower the memories by which I am haunted.”
Powerless to undo the past, but wanting to comfort him, I went to him. “Come to court. Show them all the fine man you are and always have been!”
Sylvain laughed. “I am no longer a child incapable of escaping the dungeons, or Father’s obligations to the throne. I am in no need of Duir’s approval, nor do I
