The Gully Snipe (The Dual World Book 1) (8 page)

“Aye, and such small miracles are always welcome!” replied Roald.

Gully said as his brother carefully made his way towards him in the dark, “Come! I have a treat for both of us tonight!”

Roald groaned as he sat down next to Gully. “Oh no, this can mean naught but someone has suffered a loss at your hands today!”

“I can tell you all about it if you like!” said Gully brightly, taking the opportunity to needle him a little.

“Nay! Stop! You know how I feel about that! So, what is it that you will make impossible for me to resist even if I suffer the guilt for days to come?”

“A little dinner before bedtime.”

“That’s all?” asked Roald suspiciously.

“It’s a Grand Glenoval cheese and a very rich plum mead.”

Roald fell back onto his elbows and looked starwards. “Oh, Bayle, how
could
you? I can’t begin to imagine from whom you stole these! Probably from the supper plate of the prince himself if I know you!” he grumbled.

“You said you didn’t want to know,” replied Gully as he poured Roald a mug of the mead.

Roald sat back up and took a bit of the cheese, “Mmmm... you’re right. I don’t.”

Gully waited as Roald tasted the cheese, smiling at the groan of pleasure that escaped Roald’s lips. “Forgive me, stars of my parents, but this is indeed something fine!” Roald sighed and added, “Not ten minutes ago I was on the top of the oratory tower, praying to my ancestors for their forgiveness and any favor they perhaps would show me. And now I enjoy a meal built on larceny! You will be my miserable downfall, Gully Snipe!”

Gully held up his mug to Roald in a toast and said, “Here’s to our ruin!”

Roald clacked his mug against the one held out to him and then drank the mead back. “And this! The plums make all the difference! Plain mead will hold nothing for me any longer!” he said.

Roald waved his mug up towards the sky and added, “My only hope is that Pelaysha interferes with our parents seeing and watching us in horror!”

He set his mug down and cut another slice of cheese and placed it on a piece of bread. He said, “I’m glad to be done with my post tonight. Until the trickster sinks behind the western horizon and the Sanctun begins, people will cause too much trouble. The rest of the Guard will stay busy tonight until Vasahle appears over Kitemount for her nighttime traversal.”

They both ate and drank in silence and Gully started to feel the effects of the alcohol, relaxing deeply. He broke the quiet between them and said, “Roald, I’m going to leave again in the morning, back to the woods.”

Roald sighed and tilted back his mug, finishing his mead in one long swallow. He poured more into his empty cup as he said, “You prom... you said you’d remain in the city for a week this time.”

“I remember,” said Gully, “but I feel the need to check the cabin and begin looking more seriously again.”

“Did... I say something to push you—”

“No, no, Roald, not at all,” insisted Gully. “Nothing of the sort. I... My father has been heavy in my thoughts today and I wish to look for him.”

Roald said nothing in reply, but quickly drank the mead he had just poured and filled his mug again with barely a pause.

“Is this the time when you will go away and then I never see you again?” asked Roald softly. “It is a day I fear will come, and dread it every time you leave.”

Gully replied, “Not if I have a say in it. I will be back, I promise you.”

“And I was hoping you would attend with me an interpretation by one of the elocutors at the oratory tower,” said Roald, disappointed. “Will I at least get to see you on your birthday in a few weeks? Will you come back to the city for that?” he asked.

Honestly, Gully had forgotten all about his own birthday. The day had never held much meaning for him. It was important to Roald, but Gully didn’t want to disappoint his brother with the indifference he felt towards it. It was easy to promise if Gully felt bound in no way by it. “Rest easy, I will be back in Lohrdanwuld for it. And this time,
you
can supply the Glenoval cheese and plum mead!”

Roald chuckled and said, “I’ll have to settle for getting you drunk on weak ale and then convincing you later that we feasted on Glenoval cheese and mead! But with the coronation of Prince Thaybrill that same week, there will be much festivity in the city. Perhaps I’ll be able to get a little time away so we can go to the Bonedown to watch some of the jugglers or troubadours.”

“You make it sound like we’re courting!” said Gully, his grin hidden in the dark.

“I...” stammered Roald, “that’s not... you know I don’t intend... now you’re making sport of me, Gully.”

Roald’s sensitivity over the way he was often would put Gully’s mood off, and tonight was no exception. He had to remind himself not to fault Roald for it, though, since he had no one other than Gully he had confided in about his nature. Still, Gully was a thief and would either waste to dust in a dank cell or hang by the neck if caught, and yet he cried no tears over it. Roald, on the other hand, broke no laws — scorn and ostracism were the most he would suffer for his “faults.” But that was partly a difference between the two of them; Gully cared little for what others thought of him, and Roald sought the approval and esteem of others.

Nonetheless, tonight was not the night to tell his brother to be a man and to stop seeking forgiveness for something beyond his control. Gully said, “I’m sorry. I’m not, really. I didn’t intend for that to be a cruel thing to say. You know well I’ve never seen you as someone to taunt carelessly.”

They sank into a silence again. Gully felt bad and truly had not intended for his comment to cut his brother. This time it was Gully’s turn to drink his mead all at once to soften his transgression. He poured again for himself and requested, “Roald, show me again the stars of your family. Show me to where good Astrehd has gone.”

Roald sat up and looked to the sky. He said firmly, “
Our
family, Bayle.
Our
family,
our
stars,
our
ancestors...”

“Our family, Roald,” repeated Gully, trying to make it up to him.

Roald moved over so that he was seated next to his brother instead of across from him. “There... directly overhead. Do you see the Trine Range constellation?”

Gully said he did, and he was honest in his answer. The Trine Range constellation, the ancestors of the royal family, was the most prominent in the sky. Some of the other noble constellations he might have been sketchier of in his knowledge, but the Trine Range was impossible to miss.

Roald’s outstretched hand and finger drifted down towards the east a little, towards the dark edge of Thayhold. “And there, do you see the Crown of Arguss? The constellation of the noble family veDaufone?”

“Yes,” said Gully.

“And next to it is the Swift Horse constellation?”

“Yes, I see it.”

“There... between the side of the Crown and the back leg of the Horse, do you see the three stars together, near the dark silhouette of Thayhold? They are faint, but you can see the three together.”

“I do. I see them,” said Gully.

“Those stars and the ones immediately around them are those of our family, Bayle.”

He added, “Every day, it is my sincerest hope that when death takes me and I leave this world, I will have brought enough honor to my family that I will be found worthy to join them in the night sky.” Roald took a bite of cheese and chewed it thoughtfully while he said, “I doubt it will be the case, but that is no excuse for me not to strive for the privilege anyway.”

Gully was about to argue the point with Roald, but Roald instead asked him, “Did your father ever show you his family stars?”

“No,” said Gully simply.

“No constellation? Any stars at all? Even just a single point of light, maybe?”

“No, he never laid claim to even a single star in the sky,” said Gully. “But then, living in the woods as we did, we did not gaze at the stars much.” Gully had known nothing of the Iisen religion until the day he came to live with Astrehd and Roald. And if having any stars above meant that his father was now up there and that he was wasting his time looking for him in the world below, then he didn’t want any stars. Fortunately, Roald did not press the matter.

A streak of light flashed across the stars for a split second as they watched, and Roald said with interest, “Did you see that? The shooting star-send? I wonder who is the lucky one tonight whose ancestors see fit to send grace and strength down below to him!”

Gully might normally have called the whole thing nonsense. The idea that good people were deemed worthy by their forebears and chosen to join them as stars in the darkened sky to in turn watch their descendants and pass judgment on them seemed like so much flap-doodle. But he had learned years ago that Roald held to it all closely, and now even closer since his mother’s passing. It gave his brother comfort and hope, and for that if nothing else, Gully was willing to concede it had a certain value.

He wondered if that was why he turned out the way he had. With no one watching him, with no fear of long term consequences, he was free to become a thief with no concern for those whom he violated with his habits. It was liberating, but in the most ignoble way.

“Have you given thought to what I said last night?”

“Hmmm?” said Gully, pulled from his thoughts.

“Have you given thought to joining the Kingdom Guard? Putting your skills to a nobler purpose?”

Gully laughed at the idea.

Roald, now peeved, said, “You may be a thief, but that’s not cause to laugh at the fact that I want to do some good in the kingdom! That I want to serve the people and make the realm a better place!”

Gully stopped laughing. “You misunderstand me entirely, Roald. I do not laugh at you. Far from it! You do indeed make this city and this kingdom a better place, and I meant it when I have said the same in the past! I laugh... at myself! I laugh at the idea of someone like me joining — the scourge of the Guard becoming one in their midst! But more seriously, I find unpalatable the idea that I would set myself to serve the very class of nobility that irks me in so many ways... our ‘betters’ that look down on people like me, and even good people like you.”

“There is a reason their families are of nobility,” began Roald, like he was schooling his brother. “Their ancestors paid the price to raise them up in a superior place in our kingdom.”

“Aye, but the nobility we have today are
not
their ancestors,” countered Gully. “What we have today are twelve families sitting on the backs of the rest of us, for no other reason than they were born on our backs, and complaining that they deserve more because they are of
noble
blood. All while having done so little to earn their vaunted position. The notion of me joining to protect and support the nobles and royals of the Iisendom is pure foolishness.”

Roald was quiet and Gully suspected that Roald heard his words as an attack on him.

Gully said, “But I grant you the truth of what you really want, my brother... to see me turn to be an honest member of the kingdom. You have only my interest at heart, and I do appreciate that you wish as such for me. And I certainly find no fault with
your
career in the Guard. You are there to improve society for your fellow man, and I respect you mightily for it. But it is not my lot in life to be able to do the same and I will remain naught but a thorn inside the boot of the Iisendom.”

Next to him, Roald was quiet in thought before he shifted slightly and said, “Do you think I’m any good, Gully?”

“You’re one of the best guards out of the lot of them! You’ll be promoted again soon, mark my words!” said Gully. “Not soon enough, in my opinion!”

Roald said with hesitation, “No. I don’t mean like that. I mean because of... how I am.”

Gully took a deep breath and tried to decide how to answer best. “I chose to become a thief, Roald, and I make that same choice each day I venture out. And you sit here and ask what I think of you because of some part of you that you never chose and never
would
choose if you could? The idea is preposterous. Through no fault of your own, you are what you are. But every choice you have made in your life, you have made well, and are to be proud of each. And any man of Iisen that would ignore that to mock you or hold you in contempt because of your attractions is a mule-hearted fool!”

Roald remained quiet, holding his mug in his hands and staring into it.

“You are a fine person, with a fine character — just and good and loyal. I daresay that you deserve a place in the sky of greater prominence than most of what the members of the Iisendom’s nobility claim for themselves.”

“Gully!” exclaimed Roald in shock.

“You asked my opinion, and I give it to you honestly.” Gully asked, “Do you think one day you’ll deny your natural urges and take a wife? Have children?”

Roald sighed and leaned back on his elbows. “’Tis something that weighs on me more and more. It would seem a dishonor to take a wife and never be able to give her the sincere affection she would be entitled to. The false pretenses of that life would hurt me as much as her. A child would be a wonderful blessing, though, one that would make my heart sing. It seems that no matter what path I take, I find myself stuck with ignominy of some kind,” he said dolefully.

“Stop that, Roald. You are perfectly incapable of dishonor, I assure you of that. Take this from someone who knows dishonor from the inside and the out! And if any dishonor does befall you, it will only be because you have not given me the boot from your apartment
and
your life for good.”

Gully felt Roald’s muscular bulk press closer to him in the darkness as he said, “You hide your association with me very well, and I have no fear on that count.”

“We make quite a pair, don’t we?” asked Gully.

“Aye,” said Roald with a chuckle, pouring the last of the mead into his brother’s mug.

“Nay, Roald, you take the last of it,” insisted Gully, pouring from his mug into Roald’s. “You hold your liquor better than I. Any more for me, and I’ll be so helpless that you’ll have to carry me downstairs to put me into your bed.”