A Bigger Truth

[Rance]

Loud-mouthed children passing by learned to keep rude or pebbling comments to themselves, because the axe-head fell with such ferocity that if they had anything to say, it was best to swallow it.

In the sideways-slicing Glass Sun of early morning, her bare arm gleamed bronze: she lifted it up high, lone hand gripping the axe-handle only tight enough to trust her hips to do the rest of the work. The sharpened blade arced down, driven by a slight squat at the final moment to drive edge into grain. A clean snap. Two halves of a log tumbled like arrow-felled soldiers. The tip of a muddy boot rolled the halves to a larger pile while, across a broad, bare shoulder, the wood-axe waited patiently for a new victim.

Gloria Wynsee liked this work. She liked how it felt. She liked tucking her skirts into her belt and hiking up her stockings to her flaking knees. She liked sweating until her tunic sagged, sodden and black, with the proof of hard labor. Good work was loyal; good work was absolute. Tonight the hearth would roar because of the wood she chopped in the morning; tonight, they'd eat warm stew, because of the wood she chopped in the morning.

Along the crests of the foothills around them, other Myrkeners busied themselves similarly: they chopped wood, or pulled stones from the earth, or planted late seeds. Somewhere, a woman sang an off-key verse, and it rolled like smoke through the moist air.

Under the mottled shade of a beech tree, Gloria said to her companion, "She's bad," as she leaned her axe against the trunk. Then, as an added precaution: "Don't tell her I said that. We will make it a point to tell her that her voice is lovely: Oh, Menna Kheating, you sound positively angelic, and not at all like a breeding boar."

She withdrew a clay pipe from her belt, and silently asked for her companion's help at lighting it.

"You're quiet this morning," she said, "and quiet Tollesons are heavy Tollesons."

[Tolleson]

The crisp, early morning sun filtered past branches, igniting the coppery red hair of the Tolleson in question. The drifting song gained a low, but conversely, wonderfully melodic complement in the form of a gentle hum. As if this duet could repair the damage of the butchered verse. It continued for a few moments, hitching with a puff of almost laughter, as Gloria explained her opinion.

He hummed a few more notes, shifting upright from where he had leaned against the beech tree as Gloria pulled the pipe. Arriving some minutes ago without announcement he had laid a large basket at the trunk of the tree, so silently it might have gone completely unnoticed if not for the overflowing leeks, fennel, and green leaves of radishes spilling out and now briefly abandoned. Deft hands made quick work of lighting the matchstick. His right dipping the small flame close to the pipe and his left formed a cupped wall just shy of her fingers to shield the flame. Not quite a whisper his voice was a soft, conspiratorial tone adequate for as near as they were. “I’d advise you tell her she simply needs a better accompaniment, except then she might inquire with one of us.”

Lighting the pipe he lingered to make sure it caught, just a moment before shaking the match and taking a deep breath through his nose. He would be able to tell what it was she smoked, it was a habit too ingrained in him after years of doing the same.

He didn’t say much in response to being quiet, or being heavy. There wasn’t much in the way of defense. Gloria knew his sister’s face too well and his was a mirror. Though he was more freckled and dark from days in the sun whereas she sat at a desk; their eyes spoke the same language.

Instead of words he shifted aside the long, dirt speckled apron, revealing a holstered dagger at his thigh. Although it was unlikely a surprise that he carried it and Gloria might know better than most that he always did, some might have found it a curious accessory for morning errands. The apron fell back as he pulled a letter free from his trouser pocket and wielded that towards her. The blue seal was broken, it's color similar to those used more often in Thessilane, with a crest even more specifically marking it a missive from other Tollesons.

“Even as diligent as she is, I can’t imagine she’s read it yet,” his lips pulled ever so gently into a smile, indicating at least that it was not some terrible news that had arrived. And he was right. Genevieve had stacks of missives, walls of tomes, the entire town’s business and more to manage at her desk. At the very least it would be several days before she read anything that wasn’t hand delivered to her with urgency.

[Rance]

What times she had the opportunity to spend with Tennant, she rarely tried to overlook. He'd been a friend for a long time; he'd sometimes been a challenge and a challenger; once, she'd even fancied him something to chase, until she realized the red hair she found drifting into her mind's eye on dreamy, wine-blurred nights wasn't his.

Now, they'd grown older, and that meant distance — enough that while Gloria knew the knife was there, she didn't know exactly why he kept it so close so early in the morning.

She scrubbed wooddust from her palms and regarded the letter and its seal, bright as an opened blue eye. A few possibilities quickly scrambled to mind: was his melancholy, his heaviness, because of the contents held within folded parchment? Her lips pursed in a dry pinch around the stalk of the pipe. Hers wasn't an uncommon leaf: a bit of coltsfoot, to clear the morning congestion and sharpen a waking mind. With coils of smoke rolling from the corner of her mouth, she reasoned, "In your sister's case, diligence is often a vehicle for distraction."

She got close enough to him to turn the pipe in his direction, offering it.

"You stole it off her desk," Gloria said, lightly admonishing, the way siblings in conspiracy might. "She'll know. She may occasionally be absent-minded—"

Her lone hand beckoned for the letter.

"But she is rarely forgetful."

And if he gave it, Gloria — surrendering any presumption that some matters ought to be private — would read.

[Tolleson]

He took the offered pipe with one hand, deftly moving the letter wielding one into its place and pressing the paper into her palm. Despite the care with which he held the pipe, he took a long, greedy pull. Though his face didn’t show the subtle release of tension that came with his usual blend of herbs, he half smiled. Lifting a brow while one corner of his mouth turned, a dimple appeared revealing his amusement.

“In my sister’s case,” he repeated with her intonation, smoke drifting from his lips as he spoke and then blew the last bit out in a small ring. “Distraction from diligence is exactly what she needs,” his lips curled more fully into a smirk as they released the pipe and he merely held it away but near his face, letting Gloria read as the smoke ambled gently up and around them.

At her accusation he pressed his free hand against the bony ridge of his collarbone in mock incredulity.

Greetings Sister,

I sincerely hope you are doing well and getting rest. I suspect not. Daryl expressed concern that he did not receive any word from you for some time now, perhaps since there was yet snow? It is one thing to ignore my letters but quite another for your son.

He is a wonderful young man, doing well and has more admirers than I ever did at his age. If he were not such a diligent student I would be worried for the young ladies of the court. He shows an aptitude within the Physicians Fraternity. However, for the time being I must suspend my tutelage. I have instructed him to leave shortly, at least for the summer months. I have confidence he will not fall behind in his studies; on the contrary I suspect some time apart from the books would be good for him, much as it would you! Furthermore, I would not entrust Daryl to Alister, Jerith has his hands full with the children, and Marcus is too often away.

Before you combust with concern as to why I have altered the arrangements, be assured it is nothing of Daryl’s doing. Rather, it is my and my dear wife Brunhild’s sincere pleasure to announce the birth of our child, Arden. The birth was challenging but all are well, resting and recovering though we will need some time before the baby is hale enough to entertain company.

To that end, we wish to invite you and your wife to winter with us here. Daryl speaks quite fondly of you both and it is long past time we bring all of the family together. A memorial was commissioned in Ovrere. You should be there. We should go, all of us.

All my love,
Bradford

No longer feigning aghast, Tennant pulled another, nearly identical letter from the other pocket, "I assure you, I wouldn't have if I my dear brother had not asked me to deliver it to you."

[Rance]

For several moments after she read the letter, Gloria's eyes searched his face. Looking for cracks, for faint fibs or buried truths. Anything.

Words in the letter still reverberated inside her. Son. Memorial. Family.

The first question she asked was a clumsy one, and its weight was enough to force her to sit on one of the chopped logs while she sought some kind of answer between the tips of her boots. "Bradford. Your brother. They." All the other Tollesons. "They — they know about me? About us?"

Of course they know, Gloria. You helped establish the arrangements. You've just never seen it written so boldly on paper before.

A flustered heat ignited her cheeks, and it made her glow as much as it made her burn. She snapped the folded letter in the air as if using it punctuate her coming words. "He shows an aptitude. He's good at what he does. We wanted that for him. We wanted him somewhere safe. Somewhere that wasn't here. You understand," she said to Tennant, but more to herself. "But of course he can't be there if they're busy with a baby. It's difficult, taking care of babies." Her left leg started jittering, bouncing up and down and up and down under the folds of her skirt, an anxious drilling of heel to earth that could have shaken it had she any more strength.

Seeking balance, she looked at Tennant again. Later, she'd likely apologize for the battery of questions, but until then—

"Why would Genny ignore Daryl's letters?

"What is the memorial for? Are you attending, too?"

The last was just a single word, quiet enough it could have just been an escaping breath.

"Wife?"

[Tolleson]

Here was a man who had lived a number of lives before he had ever met Gloria. Lives that were not simple, easy, or honest. The whole of him was a buried truth, she may have seen half which was more than most might know. Then again, they too would believe they’d seen the truth. So how would a person ever really know? Perhaps for Gloria, it was that the content of what he shared was not his story alone; they had shared an earnestness beyond the reach of his carefree facade. In the tangled web of half truths with the frantic, fluttering tremble of a fly caught, there was a caring visible in the subtle vibration along a threadlike line of connection. Invisible to anyone else, but then Gloria held more than a few threads and some pinned directly to the heart of him. After all, she knew why he had stayed here. Why he was here now.

When Gloria looked to his face to find some deception, there was none. But of course, there wouldn’t be.

To her question about the extended Tolleson family knowing about her, his face was plain. Perhaps intentionally deadpan, as if he couldn’t quite believe she had asked. Rather, it was as if she had asked the most ridiculous question in the world. So the reply for this is silence, or recognition that she seems to have answered her own question. Of course they would know. If not for her saying as much, then for the fact that Genny was the precious, protected sister, the only daughter.

A smile spread on his face as her cheeks heated and her leg twitched, restlessly jostling her skirt.

“Indeed,” as if he knew or even had a hand in the arrangement for Daryl to study among the nobility in Meadowford. Perhaps in some way unknown to Gloria or Genny he had? “Your boy is very bright; you ought to be quite proud of him. And if it’s consolation, I’m quite sure she has never responded to any of my letters,” but then again Genny held a much different opinion of Tennant than she did their bright, and apparently adept, ward.

As for the memorial, his smile faded. There was a long pause as he considered the gravity of the question. Though it was simple enough, it shouldn’t have weighed so much. “I think I must. In Ovrere…” He took a deep breath and looked towards the tops of the trees, as if he heard a familiar bird’s call and sought it out. “I suspect it would be our brother… and our mother,” they had been from Ovrere originally, though Genny had only ever been back to visit family in Meadowford. Gloria had been to the landscape of her mind, the trees along the beach. A beach that might resemble Ovrere. This then would be something more, this would be going home.

“Wife,” he said at a normal volume, plainly, as if words could shrug.“I suppose you’ll have to ask your wife,” he replied with a tone that was nearly teasing, but gentle still. At best, it meant he simply did not know what Genny had said or left unsaid, what was assumed, or interpreted; only that it hadn't been his words. Shifting his weight, he stretched long arms above his head, seeming to break free of whatever stillness the contemplation of Ovrere had brought.

“If you go, we should travel together. And that suggestion will be better received if it comes from you,” the cadence of his voice indicated there was more. It leaned awkwardly as if to say, ‘but’. But… but… but…

“... we have some time yet,” he added after a moment, letting another linger. How odd it was to speak so disjointed. As if he ever had a lack of words or some polished way to present them. There was more. The thought leaned heavily and silently unfinished.

[Rance]

She took back her pipe from him. She knew enough of him to know that if she didn't, she'd have nothing left to smoke. Gloria cradled the clay piece in her hard-skinned palm. The red embers flared to life.

Even a Jerno tired of the Sun, so she sought out the shade beside him, and lay herself out flat in the cushioning grass. "Your letters are hard to read," Gloria said, winking at him. "You do this thing with your capital letters—" she said, while demonstrating a scribbling, wild arc with the pipe, and she laughed enough that her stomach bounced, "—and it's nothing like Genny, because you know, she's got these squat little fellows on the page that might as well be leaning on one another. She's probably asleep by the end of your first paragraph, following those big waves around..."

She fluttered her eyes closed for just a second, feigning sleep with a thunderous snore.

Then, she was up on her elbow, grinning at him. In some light, Gloria was still a girl; the lone dimple on her left cheek, the way she widened her eyes when her voice raised in volume, all habits of a clumsy kid unbroken by weight or responsibility. "You're a good brother, to write her letters. To keep writing them." She punctuated herself with a playful, light tap of her fist against his boot. A loving apology for his efforts. "I know the space between you two is littered with cracks and cobwebs, but to keep putting words to page and receive nothing is..."

Hard. Tiring. Beleaguering. Hurtful.

"Just know you're a good brother."

Regarding the proposal of a trek to Ovrere, Gloria tilted her chin as if to observe an imaginary place pooled out in front of her on the grass. But Tennant had seen that iron in her face before: the way her jaw locked, how her tongue rattled against the back of her teeth.

"I'll talk to her. To not attend a memorial would be to plant a garden of regret. If it's your home, her home, I want to go. With her. With you."

She pulled her knees up to her chest and sat up fully. Black sweat gleamed on her throat like a necklace. She drew from the pipe. And after waiting on the long, bleak crevasse in his words, she offered him the clay.

But… but… but…

Elsewhere, Gloria Wynsee was a hammer. A blunt force. But that was the magic of a Tolleson: near them, she could wait. So she leaned her broad shoulder against him, as if to say, I'm here, while off in the distance, the Kheating woman started her awful singing up again.

[Tolleson]

The smoke had been curling around them, drifting about Gloria’s head in lazy loops until her hand snataches the pipe and it’s pattern leaps. Of course, he could have kept it from her but he surrenders the stolen pipe, the tight smile on his lips curving a fraction of an inch. They were like children, grabbing and joking, smiling. In this moment they were teenagers, the energy and optimism boundless. It was always so much easier to be around Gloria; almost always at least.

“It’s called a flourish,” he protested at the assessment of his script.

With an air of feigned, pompous indignation he tilts his head up as she goes from the stump to the grass. “All the fanciest people do it,” and he was probably right. But it was fitting that his script was overly grandiose, full of airy loops and practiced intricacy. Was it simply another mask, the forgery of a hand more refined than he seemed, or yet another contradiction to reconcile? Standing in the shade of the tree with a stained apron, soil marks at his knees, and a garden’s harvest beside him, he looked nothing like a person for such letters.

She was soon on the ground beside him so he follows, lowering to a deep squat, resting elbows on his knees so he might be eye level as she props herself up. A good brother. In reply he gave her a big, kind smile; a smile so sweet and charming, so practiced, for anyone else in the world an alluring expression. And it was empty. A well honed muscle that saw practice every day, it could be genuine in how it reached his eyes but she would know. She would see that it did not shine in them the way delight or appreciation might. Such a well crafted deception, a weapon, a defense. She would know. After all these years and all that had passed between them. It was a kind reply, a thank you in a way.

As a similar defense of a different shape came over her, she returned to sitting and then leaning into him.

“Good,” he said finally, tone light. Good that she would talk to Genny on his, or rather, on his family’s behalf. He breathed deeply, his shoulder rising and taking her head with it as his eyes slid to regard her and his chin tucked ever so slightly around her forehead, hugging her to the side of him. He stayed this way for a long moment. The sun trickling through the shimmering leaves, the air nearly still, and the soft off key melody resuming somewhere in the distance. Peaceful.

“... it should be all of us,” the words came low, slow, and heavy.

All of us. Their family. How meticulously crafted and simply delivered. He said these words with a gentle nudge but a deep, shared sadness. It wasn’t an outright request. It was barely even a suggestion. No, the words were so light but so intentional, they were the same as sneaking into her room one night long ago. They slid as a quiet whisper of a window opening. They carried the promise he had made, despite the truth of what had happened. And she had taken it all upon herself. It had not been his child, but this was his friend. And from the words that had been shared today, if not their bond now, she was his sister too.

Reaching across his chest while his other arm braced against his knee, he set his hand on Gloria’s face. Fingertips brushing against her, fingers splaying out across her forehead, his palm hovering just above her mouth. Then he pushed, gently, but freeing her from the perch on his shoulder.

“Otherwise, I’ll convince Daryl to travel with me,” which would of course make Genny furious. After all, it was easy to imagine the uncouth behaviors the boy might pick up under the tutelage of Tennant.

[Rance]

Gloria Wynsee was, by all accounts, a mountainous young woman: all heft, all shoulder, a frame of honed muscle and necessary fat compressed into a body that had done desperate work to avoid the overt proofs of femininity. But when he hugged her, she was small again. Smaller. For all the space she could take up, she could as quickly reduce herself to a pinpoint. Her scalp, where tight knots of black hair were bound up away from her neck, smelled of flaked cinnamon and fruit-rind. She exhaled.

She remembered, years ago, asking to share wine with him. And how her hand shook when she poured it.

It should be all of us. Somehow, at first, the words didn't register: they drifted past her, like a weightless vapor.

When he playfully pushed her away, Gloria's dark face twisted up like a shipwright's knot: an exaggerated offense at his shoving away. "Oh, do convince him to travel with you! Then I'd be absolved of blame for teaching him how to fart proper, like a sailor; I'd just say it was your guidance." She gave a demonstrative flutter of her skirt, as if to air out a foul odor. Of course, they both knew that Daryl wouldn't dare: he was as much Genny's boy as Gloria's.

But something stirred in her, and for all she knew of his counterfeit smile, Tennant likely knew how she relied on showing the world her emotionless back whenever her face dared to break. It should be all of us. Did he hear as the words hit her armor, like an arrow against plate? The moment's humor deflated. She, very suddenly, stood up and put her lone hand against her jutted hip. She fought the words. It should be all of us. They hit her like the fists she paid for in Razasan.

Pipesmoke haloed her head and poured in two great streams from her nostrils.

...all of us.

A few nervous motions tried to take her attention away from the words. She ran her thumb inside the waistband of her skirts, hiked up her belt, and then mounted her heel against the tree. She drew up her hem. Against the dark hair of her shin were hidden two secrets: one, a sheathed boot-knife about the length of a large palm; and two, a rolled-up bit of parchment, about as wide as a thumb.

She withdrew the rolled paper. Finally, she looked to him, and held the missive out to him. Shoved it into his palm.

She was small again. Smaller.

"I trust your sister with my life. With my everything. But..." A small vein in her brow pulsed. If she tightened her jaw any more ferociously on the neck of the pipe, it would snap.

But… but… but…

She went back to chopping wood.

[Tolleson]

But… it wasn’t a sentiment that needed stating.

That moment hung silent. It stretched to long minutes. Tenant nodded slowly to himself, turned and wandered back down the path. He left the basket, laden with vegetables from his garden, which somehow found it’s way to Gloria and Genny’s house every so often before disappearing again when empty. The silent suggestion, the unspoken worry they had silently shared was an undercurrent, a buzzing thought in the back of the mind as days turned into weeks. And eventually it stirred to something more than idle machinations.

At some point the letter regarding Daryl’s return, the family reunion, and the visitation of the memorial at Ovrere did find Genny’s desk and manage to pull her attention away from the responsibilities of the reformed Inquisitory. So too did a conversation that stemmed from it regarding a small, necessary errand of great importance.

Now, Daryl sat in the chair at Genny’s desk, marveling at the meticulously cluttered surface. Every inch littered with stacks, the organization of which was a system only his guardian understood. He shook his head as he tossed a wax sealed pot of ink back and forth between his hands as if it were a ball.

“You should depart a week or so ahead of the solstice, there may be snow so do not dally,” Genevive’s voice came from an adjacent room.

“Nor take the mountain pass,” her voice became louder as she entered the room, her arms laden with scrolls. Her words stopped as she looked at the young man, narrowing her eyes, then the desk, her shoulders slumping and finally to the empty, adjacent chair which was usually reserved for appointments. Stepping past her ward while he tossed the bottle back and forth she dumped the parchment onto the seat. She turned quickly and tried to intercept the bottle but it fumbled out of her hand. It bounced up and back towards Daryl’s face and still he managed to catch it, giving her a victorious smile.

“And stop that, or you will get ink everywhere,” chiding himself, Daryl’s tone was polite even as the words were mocking. His smile softened and he held the ink pot out in offering.

Plucking the vile, she smiled kindly as if to say thank you but with an exasperation that befalls most parents eventually. It was placed gingerly into a well worn satchel that leaned against the base of the desk, some loose blank sheets and books already within. Once her hands were free they clapped together as if in prayer, but rather a nervous gesture to keep them still as she surveyed the desk and clearly thought she might have missed something.

“You can’t pack the entire desk,” Daryl offered plainly, reading her expression. And you aren’t leaving forever, was the unspoken thought that followed.

Genny nodded as if she heard both; but it was a half-hearted gesture, one of having heard something rather than understanding or possessing conviction.