Honor-Bound [ Lore of Penrua: Book... - Chapter 76: Chapter 76

"Uachi u Rora! Have you not had your fill of me yet?"
Aun came hurrying toward them across the infirmary ward, still tying her apron strings. Uachi leaned heavily on Diarmán's shoulder. At his left hand was one of the prison guards, not that he'd been much help. He seemed to be afraid to touch Uachi. Whether this due to Uachi's wounds or due to the fact that Diarmán was snapping like a rabid dog at anything in the near vicinity was uncertain.
"Be careful," Diarmán said sharply as Aun reached them.
As one, Aun and Uachi turned their faces toward Diarmán, who shrank a little under the weight of their stares—the first hint of uncertainty in him since the whole drama had begun. Aun's stare in particular was forbidding. She said, "I certainly will," in a tone of crisp dislike.
"This is Aun," Uachi said. His voice was a rasp, his words nearly mumbled. It hurt to speak. It hurt to move his face, even to frown. "She and I are old friends. Rest assured she'll take great pleasure in hurting me some more."
At precisely the same moment, Aun and Diarmán spoke. "Shut up, unless you want me to do the hurting," said he, as she said, "Perhaps I will, you lump of a fool!"
These overlapping salty words did not seem to endear them to one another, however. Aun led the way to a bed and Diarmán helped Uachi after her, even though he could bloody well have walked on his own. Could have come all the way to the infirmary on his own, in fact. It was just a little cut to the leg.
He made no complaint, though, because he knew it would be useless. He sat down on the edge of the bed with a grunt.
Aun called some instructions to a girl who was standing ready to help her. Then, she turned her attention to Uachi. "I see you've gotten yourself a cut as long as your hand, and Mother above, Uachi, these burns. You must be in awful pain. What happened?" she asked, pulling a pair of shears out of her apron pocket.
"He decided to go kill himself, is what," Diarmán answered.
"She was asking me," Uachi snapped back. "Are you—"
"She won't get the truth of it from you! Great bloody idiot! Here, miss, give me those."
Aun frowned at Diarmán, but when she looked down at his extended hand, she seemed to soften. She passed the shears to him, handles first. "All right. We need to—" she began.
Before she could finish her instructions, Diarmán had turned the shears in his hand and whapped Uachi on his good shoulder with the handle.
"What is wrong with you?" Uachi cried. "In case you haven't noticed, I've a few problems already! You needn't add to them by hovering and shouting in my bloody ear!"
"A fat lot of good it would do me for all you'd listen to me!" Diarmán threw the shears to the floor. They fell with a clatter and skidded until they came to rest at Aun's feet. She stiffened, her expression positively stormy. She was drawing breath to say something sharp when Diarmán did something that surprised them all—even, apparently, himself.
He sobbed.
That single sound of terror and grief hung in the infirmary for an endless moment. Diarmán turned away, lifting his hand to cover his face. Uachi stared at his shoulders, shocked.
Aun, glancing from one to the other, leaned down to pick up the shears. "Two minutes," she muttered, sounding mutinous. She was shaking her head as she walked away.
"Diarmán—"
"Just imagine!" Diarmán barked. It seemed he would not permit anybody to finish a thought today. He dragged hand down his face, lifting his gaze to the ceiling, his back still to Uachi. "I watch you flitting about the palace, meeting your friends, acting the part of the lauded captain. It seemed you'd forgotten me, and no wonder—you've such a busy schedule, so much to occupy you. So I follow you a little as you go about your errands and I wonder what sort of official Northern Captain business you're up to behind that secret door. After a debate with myself, I think, well, Diarmán, you let him have tea with Her-Grace-and-Biscuits on his own, but you've gotten up to soldiery things with him before. No harm in following him in, seeing if you can't offer a bit of good counsel. Maybe remind him that you bloody well exist. And when I ply the guards with my charms, they tell me it's the bloody prison. And in that moment, I know just what you've gone to do, you—you horse's arse!"
"It's my business, Diarmán. You know why—"
Diarmán turned to him, rounded on him in a rage. Uachi had never seen him so angry. His face was splotched—pale, with blots of color on his cheeks, which were wet with tears. "Your business! Your business, going to deal with the greatest mage in the bloody empire, to hear them tell it? A fellow so powerful he must piss magic, so they've put him into a whole bloody prison all on his own? Your business, sneaking away with your grief and your anger to a fight in secret? Your business, Uachi?"
"I—"
"I came into the room to see you burning! Blood! And blades—I thought you were hurt!" He laughed sharply, utterly without humor, and gestured at Uachi. "Well. Obviously. But I thought you were dying! You're a big bloody brave brute, but you're just a man, you idiot, and you might have been killed!"
Uachi stared at Diarmán, slack-jawed.
It was the most curious thing. He felt washed clean, emptied out, as if Diarmán's anger had swept right through him and carried everything away with it: any thought, any emotion, any reaction. He sat still, even his physical pain diminished in the wake of this unexpected tirade. When he spoke, it was a whisper. It could only have been. "I had to. You know I had to, Diarmán."
"But you didn't have to alone." Diarmán wiped his sleeve over his cheek, smearing blood—the archmage's blood—over his face. He was no longer shouting, but somehow his words were twice as powerful in a whisper. "Gods below. Never sparing a thought for anybody else. Not one. I could have killed you myself, I was so angry. I was so scared."
Uachi looked away, finding it difficult to look Diarmán in the eye. After only a moment, he made himself meet his companion's gaze again. There was something here he was afraid to acknowledge. Something he knew, something he had known for some time, something—
"Yes. I love you, Uachi." Though his voice was even, a normal volume now, he still sounded impatient. Angry. Hurt. "And I know you don't love me. I know you're still grieving your woman. Perhaps you always will. You've a great, stubborn, secret heart, and I won't—I don't expect anything from you, but I thought—"
He broke off, staring at Uachi with his heart in his eyes. "The gods damn you, man. You might not love me today, but the least you can do is try to live long enough to figure out if you might tomorrow. After all we've been through together, I should think that isn't so very much to ask."
Someone cleared their throat. Diarmán looked over Uachi's shoulder and wiped his cheek again. "There," he said. "Aun, wasn't it? I'm done causing a scene. I'm terribly sorry. He's yours now, and you may hurt him as much as you wish."
"Diarmán," Uachi said.
"Normally I would stay to watch him being stripped of his clothes, but I think I've had my fill of all of this for the moment."
"Diarmán."
Uachi was certain he'd heard him, but the ruddy-headed lordling was walking away, his head low, and he did not turn back.