door flew open and Gavin stumbled in. He wore an unfamiliar shirt, his left hand wrapped in some filmy, garish material. The glower he gave Judah would have melted glass.
“You’re out of your mind,” he said, holding his hurt hand in his whole one.
Elly stopped in front of him. She was a full head shorter, but as she took in the silk shirt and the feminine scarf, something in the force of her made him look small. He withstood only a moment of that glare before his eyes slunk away and he collapsed into the chair where Judah normally sat. “Elly,” he said.
“Don’t,” Elly said. “Just don’t.” She picked up the bandages, sat down next to Judah, and without much gentleness, tore away the towel and pulled the knife out. Judah didn’t react; neither did Gavin. Each of them was watching the other, to see. Blood surged from the wound. Elly washed it away and smeared the holes with salve. She made two thick pads of bandages, sandwiched Judah’s hand between them, and tied a third around to hold it all together. Then she stood and went to the table; dumped half of the bread out of the breadbasket and began to refill it with slices of meat and cheese.
“Elly,” Gavin said again.
Elly held up a hand. The straightness of her fingers and the stiffness of her wrist was enough to stop him. “Theron missed lunch. I’m taking him some food.” Throwing an acid look toward both of them, she added, “Try not to grievously injure yourselves again before I get back.”
Then she left. As soon as the door shut behind her, Gavin scowled at Judah and said, “One minute I’m opening a bottle of wine, the next my hand is gushing blood. I thought I was hallucinating. What if someone had been there, Judah?”
“You shouldn’t ignore me.”
“So I’m learning.” Gavin sounded exhausted. Tearing the scarf from his hand, he tossed it into the fire, where it smoldered and stank. His wound had stopped bleeding already, because it wasn’t actually his; it would heal long before hers did. He moved to sit next to Judah, and began to wash his hand in the basin Elly had left. The water was red with Judah’s blood and by the time he was done, it was even redder. Judah didn’t offer to help as he dressed the wound, tearing the bandage off with his teeth. He did almost as good a job with one hand as Elly had with two.
“Well?” Judah said when he was done.
“Well, what?”
“Theron,” she said. “The hunt.”
Gavin leaned back and closed his eyes. Judah waited.
Eventually, eyes still closed, he said, “Second sons don’t live.” She could feel the words pushing out of him in a torrent. “That’s why I’ve been trying to get Theron down to the fields to practice a little bit. So at least he has a chance of defending himself. I know you heard me; your heart is beating hard and your skin’s gone all cold.”
He was right. Her heart was beating hard. The rush of it filled her ears and made her hand throb. “The second son commands the army.”
“They’re supposed to, but they never actually do, because they all die. Go down to the crypts and see for yourself. The dates are all there. I can show you the records. Illnesses. Injuries. Whoops, my knife slipped and landed in his throat. We tried our hardest to pull him out of the aquifer, but his fingers kept getting caught under our boots.”
The sick rush of his anger washed over her. “Hunting accidents?”
“I try to protect him,” Gavin said. “I try on the field, and I try off the field. I tell every guard and courtier I meet about my genius brother, how he’s the only one who can figure out how the old things work, what an asset he’d be if someone gave him a chance. It doesn’t do any good. Nobody cares. All anyone cares about is that Elban’s army is strong enough to hold this mess of an empire together, and Theron’s kind of cleverness won’t do that. Do you think it’s easy to sit in Elban’s study and listen to him tell me all the different ways my brother could die?” His fists clenched. The pain in their hurt hands was searing, but he spoke with crisp, precise consonants: like Elban. “A true Lord thinks only of the city. A true Lord does not let himself be distracted by mere people. People