“You’re going to be thirty-three,” Tass said, lounging on the cushions with her left leg across Lerran’s right. Rays of sunlight—at last breaching those dark, barren clouds—lit up the dust that hung between their bed and the window. Lerran’s wife murmured in his ear. “The Prince of Sheld’s birthday… will there be a feast?”
Lerran let out his breath, and felt her head sink as his shoulders lowered. He shook his head.
She craned her neck to see his motion, her soft grey eyes meeting his. They were like little watery gems, but smooth as skin. “What, no feast? Why not?”
“How about a meal, just my siblings and you?” Lerran asked.
“How very somber…”
“Tass,” Lerran mumbled. He closed his eyes. The sun was too bright and he felt too dull. She sat up, holding herself up with one hand on the bed, smooth skin pressing against his ribs. His skin felt dryer every day, and he had wrinkles in the creases of his armpits where there had been none five years ago.
Tass looked at him and tried a smile, but he only returned it weakly.
“We’ve lost so much,” Lerran said quietly. “My brother, my uncle, my father.”
Tass pushed away from him, to fold her legs beneath herself and regard him with the seriousness of the words he had said. “Some would say the last was a gain not a loss,” she said carefully.
“Some would.” Lerran scratched his scruffy chin. “But he’s still my father, and this big house still feels empty. I’d like to just have a small meal amongst ourselves.”
Tass nodded. “Good, as long as that’s what you want.” She smiled, clearly about something else. “I’ll go make your coffee.”
“Wait,” Lerran said and rose up to his knees next to her. With his palm on the back of her neck, they gently kissed. Then he laid back and watched her change into her clothes for the day.
He didn’t receive the day’s important letter until well after lunch. Isar escorted Erril into his office just as Lerran was finishing up a review of the smuggling operations to Eastpoint from the last Moon. A guard had been killed, so there were coins to be reimbursed to the magistrate they owned.
Erril and he had not interacted often since the spy had been recruited to the crime family proper. The small, wiry man had grown bushy sideburns over the last couple months, and sat on the edge of his seat as he waited for Lerran to unfold the document and scan it. Lerran set it down and smiled. “Good,” he said, as he lifted his mug.
“Can we make it?” Erril asked, quietly.
Lerran glanced at the letter again. The 21st of the 4th Moon. The Matriarchs of Noress-That-Was had agreed to meet in Squora as Lerran suggested. They were willing to discuss the terms of Lo Mallago’s surrender. “We can certainly make it,” Lerran said. “Though, I may have to leave Sheld on my birthday.”
Erril nodded. “The gold you’ll be making if this works… that’s a gift for the ages, sir.”
“Where’s my rum?” Lerran asked. He dragged open his top desk drawer with a dull wooden scrape and poured for himself, for Isar, and for Erril. Lerran took a sip, and slammed his mug down. Then, he slowly folded up the letter and joked, “So much for a feast…”