Alymere made a new vow then: no one else would die in this room. He would have it walled up when he became the man of house.
He looked at Bors, seeing for the first time the tears streaking the knight's face, and every certainty he had ever had failed him. He threw himself into Bors' arms, and for a moment they hugged fiercely, bonded by grief. "What happened?" Alymere asked, extricating himself from the big man's grip. "I see no dressings, no wounds. Is it sickness?"
"No, lad. Poison. Tis a dark day when a faithless whoreson can bring down a good man thus." He shook his head.
"Poison?" Alymere's mind raced.
"Aye. The poor bastard's dying from the inside out, lad. His body has been failing him ever since he swallowed that damned water from the chalice." That word again. Alymere felt his blood run cold as it coiled like a serpent through his brain: chalicechalicechalicechalicechalice…
"Every hour another part of him loses its grip on life. Never thought he'd last this long, but the old man's always been one stubborn cur, so why should that change just because he's dying?"
Alymere had no answer for that.
"All he would say was that he wanted to die here, that he wanted to be buried beside his brother. The poison ate away at him 'til he couldn't stand on his own two feet, 'til his eyes lost their focus and his body turned gaunt because he couldn't keep a damned thing down. It's only ever been a matter of time, as much as we wanted to deny it. No medicine touched his fever, no herbs quieted the pain in his head or settled his stomach. In truth it would have been a mercy had he died days ago, lad, but he's hung on stubbornly, wanting to come home. No doubt to finally make his peace with you."
"We made our peace a long time ago, Bors. There are no secrets between us."
"Then perhaps he just wanted to see you one last time."
"I don't understand how this could happen," Alymere said. "I thought he came to Camelot to urge Arthur to dispatch knights north to help secure the border? Was he poisoned there?"
"No lad. We rode out weeks ago. It's been a bitter spring, make no bones about it. Those faithless northerners are hard: they paint themselves up and fight like demons, they'd sacrifice their own grandmothers if they thought it'd give them the upper hand, and no matter how hard you beat them, they just don't know when they should lie down. Bitter weather and treacherous conditions only added to the hell of it. I've lost too many friends these last weeks, but in many ways this is the worst of it. It's one thing for a man to die with his sword in his hand, fighting for what he believes in, it's another for him to toast supposed peace with his killers and drink in their bloody poison."
Alymere began to put together a vague picture of events. The how: poison; the where: at a parlay brokering peace between the northmen and the knights; the who: well, the victim was laid out of the bed before him, and the killer, as far as he knew, was still out there fighting; the when: more than a few days ago, less than a week, meaning right around the time he was pronouncing his ill-fated judgement on Craven's suit; but the why of it, that he could not divine from either his uncle's body or Sir Bors' brief description of what had transpired.
He was not even sure it mattered.
"Come here, boy," Sir Lowick's voice was empty of strength, like wood charcoaled in a spent fire. It was so quiet it barely registered as a sound at all. Alymere could scarcely believe it had come from his uncle's mouth.
Lowick had raised a hand. His eyes were open, but his stare was glassy.
"Go to him," Bors said, steering Alymere gently toward the bedside and backing away. Alymere knelt and took his uncle's hand. It felt like the fragile body of a bird nestled between his fingers; so thin, and the skin so slack around it, that Alymere feared simply squeezing too tightly would shatter his uncle's hand.
He brought it to his lips and kissed it, then lowered his head, pressing the delicate bones against the scarred tissue of his forehead. He didn't move until he felt the warm wet track of tears on his cheek. Alymere breathed in deeply, willing himself to be strong.
"I will leave you alone," Bors said softly, and closed the heavy door behind him.
"I can't see you, boy."
"I am here, uncle," Alymere said, soothing him. "You should rest. I will be here when you wake."
"No, I'll rest soon enough." Lowick's eyes roved wildly, unable to focus on anything. The veins at his throat fluttered weakly. "First, I need to make my peace with my maker. There are things I need to unburden from my soul before I meet Him. And then, God willing, I need to make my peace with you. I owe you that much. After that, I can go." His grip tightened feebly, and a hacking cough wracked his body, leaving blood flecks on his lips. He lacked the strength to wipe them away, so Alymere tended to him, cleaning away the blood with the cuff of his shirt. "I need you to do something for me, boy," the knight said at last. "I need you to bring the priest here. Will you do that for me? Can I count on you?"
"Of course, uncle," Alymere said at once, immediately hating himself for the sense of relief the request sent flooding through his system. It wasn't until he reached the door, his hand on the iron handle, that he felt anything other than relief that he would be spared the bedside vigil for however many hours more.
"Twice in these last months I have watched over you, thinking you not long for this world, and here it's me that leaves it first. That, at least, is how it should be."
He turned to look back at his uncle, and in that moment was overcome by almost childish resentment that this man he had come to love was leaving him, and rather than spend the last few hours he had in this life with his nephew, Lowick had sent him away.
Why should he want to make his peace with some unknowable God before he made peace with his own flesh and blood?
He wanted desperately not to think ill of the dying man, but it hurt.
Alymere made the sign of the cross over his chest.
"You were always a good boy, Alymere. I am proud of you," Sir Lowick said, but Alymere had already closed the door.
Bors leaned against the balustrade, face grave. He looked as though he needed to hit something. Alymere could identify with the feeling. "What did he say?"
"Nothing," Alymere said, biting down the bitterness in his voice. He couldn't help himself. "Save that he wanted me to fetch him a priest so that he might confess his sins, I suppose. So much for hanging on to see me one last time; he was only worried about his soul."
"Do not be too harsh on him, lad. Dying is never easy, no matter how laboured its step as it creeps towards us. It is understandable that he would seek to put his house in order."
"Then why leave me to last?"
"Whatever needs be said, I have absolute faith will be said. Lowick is one man who will not go to his rest until he is good and ready, and on his own terms, that much I know," but it wasn't what Alymere wanted or needed to hear.
Alymere pushed away from the big man and half-walked, half-ran back to his room, his bare feet slapping too loudly in the silence. Bors let him go.
Gwen had gone. He was glad of that. He didn't think he could have taken her sympathy, no matter how well intended it was.
He wasn't dressed for a long ride. He couldn't think straight. He cast about the room, looking at the sum of his life, pitiful as it was, before gathering his travelling cloak, boots, and a woollen over-shirt, and dressing properly. Then, at the last moment, Alymere stopped beside the bed and stooped, reaching under the wooden frame until he found the familiar skin binding of the Devil's Bible beneath his fingers.
He stuffed it inside his shirt, keeping it close to his chest, and left the room.
Sir Bors de Ganis stood at the head of the stairs like a giant guarding the threshold. "Take Marchante, lad. There isn't a faster horse in your uncle's stable, and no matter my confidence he will live long enough, why make it harder on him?"