servitude
When he was a child (always assuming that he is now a child no longer; and now he can assume nothing else, now childhood seems to lie at a distance unthinkable and he feels as grey as rock in the hills), he had betimes begged leave of Gabranth's page to armour Gabranth in his stead. The page, who was no boy but an aging soldier, confounded by advances in the machines of battle and his joints too stiff to ride out to war, could hardly have refused the young lord's request even had it not relieved him of a troublesome task on cold mornings, and on such occasions he took his coffee at leisure in the servants' kitchen, while House Solidor's youngest heir played at servitude. He had stood on a stool -- it would have served Gabranth little to have to stoop -- behind Gabranth's shoulder, before a tall mirror at one corner of the man's rooms, and attended gravely to the fastening of buckles and the fitting of greaves over Gabranth's padded clothing, pleased by his guardian's patient amusement. The armour was well-made, and easily lifted and positioned even by his small hands. They talked all the while of nothing of consequence, or of nothing at all, and it was a pleasant entertainment -- a luxury of proximity even in the years long past when Gabranth could suitably bear his young lord upon his shoulders. The last time he can remember when he indulged in the game was also the first time Gabranth donned the armor of a Judge Magister, and he has only since come to understand why Gabranth was so subdued on that occasion.
He is grateful for the practice now. The fastenings of Gabranth's plate are arcane even under the best of circumstances, but doubly so with Larsa's hands agued as the old page's, the armour itself dented, bent and cracked, his vision blurred with tears that even in private he is too well-trained to shed; but he can find and work them from memory, and memory will serve. He follows its courses with his hands, paying no mind to the shuddering of the fortress, nor to the sounds that echo from out upon the rampart. Removing the broken helmet was perhaps the most delicate task, and with that he has succeeded, in spite of the agonized initial seconds wherein he thought he had somehow cut Gabranth on the twisted edges, before realizing the blood was only what had been spilled before. He didn't see that there was so much blood before --
But the worser shock still waits, and when he unstraps the shoulder-guards and pries Gabranth's breastplate from his breast he chokes on an involuntary, gasping sob. He did not realize... What he sees is ruin: concave where should be convex, damage unspeakable and no doubt irreparable. Where his fingers brush Gabranth's chest he feels sick softness and the heat of blood even through his clothing, and Gabranth stirs even in his unconsciousness with a thick sound that makes Larsa jerk his hand away. It had perhaps been his folly to think he had saved his guardian -- but Vayne, as so often, it seemed, had already won the game before Larsa had but scarce known it was being played.
No. He cannot think of Vayne. Gabranth lies before him, and Gabranth is dying, and if he can do naught else he can make Gabranth comfortable as he can.
He lifts Gabranth's arms one and then the other, slipping the gauntlet from off the left glove, then the right, and laying them back at his sides in an extremity of care. Manipulating his legs is harder: they, unlike the armour itself, are too heavy for his hands, and sweat is already standing on his forehead as he works. Still, he manages to unfasten the guards from about Gabranth's knees with his hands crushed and hobbled behind them, and once that is done he is able to slip the greaves from his thighs and lower legs. Though it is hard to tell through the leather just what has been truly broken, it is clear that little has gone unpunished, and he struggles in a private agony to keep from drawing another sound of pain from Gabranth's lips.
When all the plate lies tossed in a nearby heap he sits shaking, trying to think what else may be done; he hardly dares try to make bandages, not knowing how deep the damage nor of what kind, and has little enough from which to make them in any case. At last he dredges through the haze of panic to sit at Gabranth's head, lifting it gently to rest upon his knees. As he strokes Gabranth's bloodied hair back from his face, the man's eyelids flutter, and he makes a meaningless quelling sound that does not stop Gabranth waking.
He rasps deeply in his chest when he speaks; the sound comes as a terrible grating, stones in a sepulchre. Larsa's eyes wince shut. "You are... safe?" He nods, and Gabranth sighs with such terrible thickness that it is almost a rattle. "Is it over?"
"Almost," he says, although he has no way of knowing. His voice is all a-shake as his hands, the wretched traitor. Gabranth reaches up for him, rather vaguely, and he catches the hand in a gentle grip and draws it to his cheek. "...Please, rest. You mustn't speak now."
Gabranth sighs again, or perhaps the sound is of him clearing some wetness from his throat; in either case it does not bear thinking on. "If not now, then never, I fear. I would -- " He interrupts himself to make a heavy grinding sound, then turn his head away and cough. Larsa tells himself he does not see the trail of blood from Gabranth's mouth when he looks back again. "...I would already say more than I may be able."
"There will be time," Larsa says, trying so hard to lie; trying so hard to smile, and feeling how frozen and terrible it must sit his mouth. Gabranth does smile, and much better, only small and tired.
"For you, perhaps." He coughs again -- and flinches his eyes shut when he does, strangling through his clenched teeth a groan; damping it, Larsa suspects, for his sake. The effort spares him little. "My lord... I am sorry."
"Gabranth, no -- " Larsa begins, too loud and breakingly -- panicking despite himself, sure that this is again what Gabranth had spoke upon his knees after the disastrous conclusion at the Pharos, spoken of his failure and wept as Larsa had never seen, and he cannot bear any such thing again, not now -- But Gabranth's gloved fingers fumble to his lips, and press there, and they are either weak or gentle, or both. He closes his eyes, and lets himself be stilled.
"I am sorry -- " This cough is stifled before it can be given voice, no more but a hitch of Gabranth's chest, a puff at his mouth. " -- to abandon you, at so ill a time as this. Believe me: I had not meant to wound your heart." He tries again to speak at that, but Gabranth's fingers still keep his peace; it is difficult to imagine what words might come anyway. He holds the hand to his mouth instead, trying to bring to bear through only mute pressure all his protest, all his denial. "And as well for all my other failings, come to that. I have ever sought... to aid you; I cannot beg forgiveness, but I would not fail also to tender my regrets."
"No," Larsa whispers, this time, into Gabranth's hand before drawing it back to his cheek. He can scarcely clear his voice enough to speak, but he struggles for all his life is worth. The strength comes back to the words, but slowly -- so slowly. "You need tender me nothing. If anything you have done demands forgiveness, then it is forgiven. Without question nor pause."
Gabranth smiles with half his mouth... and not, Larsa senses, with any true belief. Or perhaps he is beyond such argument, now, lying broken with his eyes half-slitted, perhaps already fading into darkness again -- perhaps this time for good and all. "You will grow into a fine man," he says, however, rather than pursue the matter any further; the backs of his fingers brush over Larsa's cheek, leather sliding on skin. "I think I regret most that I shall not be there to see him."
And this, at last, is more than he can stand. He closes his eyes, and they spill over, stealing his vision from him now entire, and where one wet trail touches Gabranth's glove he wonders if it will leave a stain. "Sweet Gabranth," he whispers, no longer bothering with self-mastery, and bends to press his mouth to Gabranth's lips, all unmindful of the blood. He has done this so many times he knows not how many: courtly kisses, formal gestures, the chaste reward of especial fealty or the sealing of a mutual understanding. But he bears nothing of rite nor rote in this. He would be no master here, no lord, no gentry, on his knees in this gruesome engine of war, his ostensible servant dying across his lap. He would follow no pretty niceties of social grace in such a position. The very thought strikes him as obscene.
By the time he withdraws, Gabranth's consciousness seems to have faded again; his heart gives an awful lurch for bare stricken seconds, but then he hears the susurrus of Gabranth's badly grating breath through his lips, and is able to be still. Only gone a little ways, then, and perhaps it is best that he has. His pain must be unbearable.
He wishes he could have said more -- anything more, anything right or soothing, which might have convinced Gabranth of his good faith, and of his own blamelessness. Try as he might, however, he can think of nothing, and surely could think of nothing at the time. Perhaps he is only a child after all: green and frightened, without the strength that was demanded of him, unable to save father, or brother, or protector, all alike. But if he tells himself so, it is only an excuse. His time of childish concerns, it seems, is ended.
He never was the orator that was his father or his brother, anyway. Vayne always used to say he says too much of what he means.
"Be at peace," Larsa whispers to no one; and he sits and waits, now dry of eye, to see if the sky will fall.