Withen shook his head, and took a long drink of ale. “Ah, Treesa, I hate politics, you know that-and now you want me to go fling myself into them right up to the neck -”
Vanyel put his mug down. I'm going to have to shock him into taking the seat, or he'll go, and pine away with boredom. “Father, it's either that, or move to Haven without anything to do but sit around the Court all day and trade stories with the other spavined old war-horses,” he said bluntly. “I was offering you an option that would give you something useful to do. You are going to Haven, whether or not you like it. I cannot afford to leave you here.”
Withen bristled. “So I'm a spavined old war-horse, am I?”
Vanyel didn't rise to the bait. Withen expected him to try and back down, and he couldn't, not with so much riding on his persuading Withen that he was right. “In a sense, yes; you're too old to rejoin the Guard, even as a trainer. There's nothing else there for you. But that Council seat is crying for someone competent to fill it, and you are competent, you're qualified, and you won't play politics with Valdemar's safety at stake - and that puts you ahead of half the other Councillors, so far as I can see. And you, Father, are trying to change the subject.”
Abruptly, Withen put his mug down and held up both hands in surrender. “All right, all right. I'll take the damned seat. But they'll get me as I am. No Court garb, no jewels and furbelows. Treesa can dress up all she likes, but I'm a plain man; I always have been, and I always will be.”
Vanyel's shoulders sagged with relief. “Father, you can be anything you like; you'll be a refreshing change from some of the butterfly-brains we have on the Grand Council. Trust me, you won't be alone. There are two or three-other old war-horses - no more 'spavined' than you, I might add - former Bordermen like you, who have pretty much the same attitudes. And I say, thank the gods for all of you.”
Withen glowered. “I'm only going because you've got work for me,” he said, grumbling. “Meke may think he runs Forst Reach, but Treesa's right: when there's trouble, it's me they all come to.”
All the better for Meke, Vanyel thought. Let him make his own mistakes and learn from them.
But what he said was, “Then it's time to expand your stewardship, Father. More than time. I think you will serve Valdemar as well or better than you served Forst Reach.”
He started to get up, when Withen's hand on his wrist stopped him. “Son,” his father said, earnestly. “Did you really mean that about how you'd be hurt if something happened to your mother or me?”
“Father -” Vanyel closed his eyes, and sank back into his seat, swallowing an enormous lump in his throat. “Father, I would be devastated. I would be absolutely worthless. And somehow this mage knows that, which is why it's so important for you to be somewhere safe. Valdemar needs me, and needs me undamaged. And I need you. You're my parents, and I love you.” He took a deep breath; what he was going to say was very hard, and it had cost him a lot of soul-searching. “I can't change the past, Father, but I can manage things better in the future. You've been very - good - about my relationship with Stef. If it would make you feel better, though, I'll see to it that he and I - don't see much of each other. That way you won't have - what I am - rubbed in your nose at Haven.”
Withen flushed, and looked down at the table. “That's . . . that's very good of you, son. But I don't want you to do that.”
Vanyel bit his lip with surprise. “You don't? But -”
“You're my son. I tried to see to it that you learned everything I thought was important. Honor. Honesty. That there are things more important than yourself. It seems to me you've been living up to those things.” Withen traced the grain of the table with a thick forefinger. “There's only one way you ever disappointed me and - I don't know, Van, but-it just doesn't seem that important when you stack it up against everything else you've ever done. I don't see where I'd have been any happier if you'd been like Meke. I might have been worse off. Two blockheads in one family is enough, I'd say.”
Withen looked up for a moment, then back down at his cup. “Anyway, what I'm trying to say is - is that I love you, son. I'm proud of you. That youngster Stefen is a good-hearted lad, and I'd like to think of him as one of the family. If he'll put up with us, that is. I can understand why you like him.” Withen looked up again, met Vanyel's eyes, and managed a weak grin. “Of course, I'll - admit that I'd have been a deal happier if he was a girl, but - he's not, and you're attached to him, and any fool can see he's the same about you. You've never been one to flaunt yourself -” Withen blushed, and looked away again. “I don't see you starting now. So - you and Stef stay the way you are. After all these years, I guess I'm finally getting used to the idea.”
Vanyel's eyes stung; he wiped them with the back of his hand. “Father - I -I don't know what to say -”
“If you'll forgive me, son, for how I've hurt you, I'll forgive you,” Withen replied. He shoved his seat away from the table and held out his arms. “I haven't hugged you since you were five. I'd like to catch up now.”
“Father -”
Vanyel knocked over the bench, and stumbled blindly to Withen's side of the table. “Father -” he whispered, and met Withen's awkward embrace. “Oh, Father,” he said into Withen's muscular shoulder. “If you only knew how much this means to me - I love you so much. I never wanted to hurt you.”
Withen's arms tightened around him. “I love you, too, son,” he said hesitantly. “You can't change what you are, any more than I can help what I am. But we don't have to let that get in the way any more, do we?”
“No, Father,” Vanyel replied, something deep and raw inside him healing at last. “No, we don't.”
Thirteen
Ordinarily Stef would have been fascinated by the activities in the fields - he was city-born and bred, and the farmers at their harvest-work were as alien to him as the Tayledras, and as interesting. But Vanyel had been brooding, again, and finally Stef decided to ferret out the cause.
The road was relatively clear of travelers; with the harvest just begun, no one was bringing anything in to market. That. Savil had told Stef, would happen in about a week, when the roads would be thick with carts. This was really the ideal time to travel, if you didn't mind the late-summer dust and heat.
Stef didn't mind. But he did mind the way Van kept worrying at some secret trouble until he made both their heads ache.
And it seemed that the only way to end the deadlock would be if he said or did something to break it.
“Something's bothering you,” Stefen said, when they were barely a candlemark from Haven. “It's been bothering you for the past two days.”
He urged Melody up beside Yfandes, who obligingly lagged a little. Vanyel's lips tightened, and he looked away. “You won't like it,” he said, finally.
Stef swatted at an obnoxious horsefly. “I don't like the way you've been getting all knotted up, either,” he pointed out. “Whatever it is, I wish you'd just spit it out and get it over with. You're giving me a headache.”