Inside the dining hall of Eldran's Keep, candles had been lit, illuminating one of the trestle tables. A number of people were already gathered there, and the same aproned serving girl who had brought Uachi water was busy pouring wine.

At the head of the table was a gray-bearded man wearing a plain silver circlet. He sipped his wine, then subsided into racking coughs, hunched over. The boy at his side—Uachi recognized him from the courtyard earlier; Emón, had it been?—put a hand on the old man's shoulder. "Grandfather, are you all right?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine, boy," the old man said, waving a hand. His rheumy eyes turned toward Diarmán and Uachi. "Diarmán, back so soon. What trouble have you gotten up to while you were away?"

Diarmán spared a glance for the lovely young woman he had called Mother, who sat at the opposite end of the table, gazing down at an empty plate. She did not seem to be aware of anything happening around her. "Just a little travel to refresh my mind," he said. "Grandfather, this is Uachi, a friend. Uachi, my grandfather, Emón, Lord of House Eldran."

"Ah." The old man waved a hand dismissively, once again falling into a coughing fit. After a moment, he drew a painful-sounding breath and said, "You make too much of this ruined shit any more."

"You make too little of it, Granddad," said another young man sitting near Emón.

"Leán," said Moigré in a quiet, tired voice, "Don't quarrel."

Diarmán threw a leg over the bench of the trestle table. He sat down, patting the space at his side, which just so happened to be the old man's right hand. "Uachi. Sit. These are my brothers: Leán, Declaen, Ruaraín, Gaerte, and Emón." He cast another glance toward his mother. "Padréc is the last of them. He isn't well tonight, I'm afraid. Hopefully you can meet him before we depart in the morning."

Uachi's head swam with the introduction to so many brothers. Diarmán seemed to be the eldest, with the youngest, Emón, sitting at Moigré's left hand. Again, Uachi studied her from his vantage point. She must be a stepmother, considering her youth and how little she looked like her sons. What of her husband, Diarmán's father?

The servant girl filled Uachi's glass. Since Lord Emón had already drunk of his wine, Uachi took a sip, pleased that it was not as sweet and heady as the floral mead had been. A pair of servant boys brought out roast venison with herb-seasoned vegetables. The smell of the food alone made Uachi rethink his insistence that he didn't care for a good meal.

When he looked up, his cheek full of potatoes, he caught Lord Emón's piercing gaze on him. "So, Uachi," he said, "are you a young lord from somewhere far afield? I imagine not, or Diarmán would have made a point to wave around your title. A commoner, then. Maybe a blacksmith, to judge by your shoulders."

Uachi nodded. "Perceptive, my lord," he said, grasping onto the lie.

"Don't grow attached to the lad." He held Uachi's gaze, sliding a piece of meat off his fork with his teeth. Around it, he said, "He's not averse to breaking maidens' hearts, and I think he's less careful with handsome young men."

"Granddad," said Leán, the eldest of Diarmán's brothers. "You'll upset Mother."

"She's hardly one to be prudish about unnatural relationships." The old man swallowed the meat and reached for his wine. As he drank it, his hand trembled, spilling a few drops over his chin. Up close, Uachi saw that more than wine was caught in that snowy beard.

His pale face glowing with a blush, Diarmán bit out, "Forgive my grandfather, Uachi. Perhaps we should have dined in my parlor."

"Oh, yes, you'd have liked that," Emón the elder said. He settled back into his chair. "No wonder you've not married yet. Not that it matters. Not that I'd've expected anything else from my daughter's son."

Uachi was uncharacteristically silent. He didn't much care what Emón thought of him, and he cared as little for the opinion of all these flame-haired brothers and their strange mother. All the same, he felt angry—more on Diarmán's behalf than his own. He wrestled his discomfort and bit his tongue; saying anything would make matters worse.

"Why are you being so difficult, Father?" murmured Moigré from the other end of the table. Her challenge was hardly that, it was so sleepy and soft. "Leave the poor boy alone."

"Shut up, woman," Emón growled. "You'd have him bring his friends to dine at table with us, flaunting them! You coddle him. Indulge him. It's sickening. None of these ruddy-headed sons you've borne are fit to wear the mantle of this household, least of all the eldest of the whelps! Sometimes I think it a mercy that you turned out a whore. I'm glad to let it all fall under some other man's boot heel. What does it matter to me that the bastard prefers blacksmiths? Nothing to pass on to the children he won't have. Let it fall to ruin. Piss it away."

Leán caught Diarmán's eye, looking grave, although there was color in his cheeks that suggested he was forcing down his own emotion. "Brother, he's not well. Let it pass."

But Diarmán was looking at Moigré, who was pale, gazing down at her empty plate with an expression of distant resignation. He pushed his plate away, having only picked at his meal. "Never mind it, Leán. I've not much of an appetite."

"Oh, don't let me put you off your supper with my grousing," Emón said, lifting his wrinkled, trembling hands. "You'll need the energy, I reckon. He's a strong one."

Uachi jolted to his feet. In nearly the same motion, Diarmán rose too, avoiding his eye as he extricated himself from the bench of the trestle table. He strode briskly to the end of the table and bent over to kiss his mother on the brow. She whispered something to him, clutching at his arm, but he pulled away. In the way her arm dropped from his and her head tipped forward, Uachi perceived a certain looseness, and he wondered if she were drunk.

He did not bid any of them farewell; he turned his back on lord, brothers, and mother all, giving chase to Diarmán. The young lord was in the hall by the time Uachi caught up to him. Uachi reached out to touch his shoulder, and Diarmán jerked out of his touch, rounding on him with a furious expression. "What!"

Uachi raised his hands, taking a step back. "Now, you told me not half an hour past that you don't bite," he said.

Letting out his breath in a trembling sigh, Diarmán lowered his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't know he'd treat you like that. He's never been a kind man, but he's become a bloody tyrant in his old age. He's on the threshold of death and, gods below, it's a solace."

As the two of them walked down the hall toward the stair to Uachi's bedchamber, he assessed Diarmán's expression. He looked ashamed. Uachi was not well-versed in the world of romance. His interests in other people had been fleeting, an acknowledgment of physical beauty, attractions quickly suppressed. He had briefly loved Matei, and he had long loved Ealin, but there had never been others for his heart or his hands.

But he was not a fool. He could tell that Lord Emón's barbs had been sharpened on a history of which he disapproved, and Diarmán had been free with flirtatious jokes at Uachi's expense.

"Your lovers are men," Uachi said. "Your grandfather thinks you and I—"

"I've had women," Diarmán snapped. He would not meet Uachi's gaze as they came to the top of the stairs. "I've...tried."

Uachi said nothing. He did not know what to say.

"I did not choose to be this way," Diarmán said, his tone sullen and cold. "And he's right. If he gets his way, all of this will pass right back to the bloody 'crown.' He thinks my mother unfit to rule and, damn him, he's right. It should come to me after her, Uachi, but I'm a bastard, and moreover, he thinks me unnatural. I did not choose to be this way."

An uncomfortable feeling stirred in Uachi's heart. Empathy. "I know."

Diarmán stopped walking, halfway back to Uachi's room. "Gods below know I've loneliness enough living with this family. I haven't the fortitude to pretend to be I am something I'm not. Grandfather thinks I'm an embarrassment, and normally I don't care, but— ...I didn't know he'd openly mock you at table. Rest assured, Uachi. I may not hold my tongue, but I'll keep my hands to myself. You'll be glad to know that my malady is not infectious." His lips twisted into a bitter smile, he added with false humor, "Unfortunately."

Never in his life had Uachi confessed how his own attractions differed from those of other men. It had never seemed important. He had never wanted love, never wanted a family, and—until he had met Ealin—what physical yearnings he'd had, he had taken care of alone. He had never wanted physical intimacy. Vulnerability. Weakness.

An awkward silence spun out between the two men. At last, Diarmán sighed and turned away again. To stop him, Uachi blurted, "I'm not afraid of being infected."

The tense line of Diarmán's shoulders relaxed a bit, and he made a breathy sound that might have been a laugh. "You're not afraid I'll turn your head from your pretty young wife?" He looked back, giving Uachi a self-deprecating smile. "I'm not sure whether I should be relieved or insulted."

"I'm just telling you that you are not as alone as you or your grandfather think." He hesitated. "There are others. Others like...you. I understand it. That's all."

Diarmán gave Uachi a keen look. "Mm. And do you think it's a sickness of the mind, Uachi of the North?"

"I suppose I've never bothered to wonder," he said. "What does it matter what two people do, so long as each of them knows his own mind?"

Diarmán folded his arms. He looked at Uachi for a long time; it began to feel as if the tables had turned. Uachi was now the one under scrutiny.

"I try my best to keep this from the world outside my family," Diarmán said. "I tried to keep it from my family, too. When my grandfather came upon me and the stable boy, he thrashed us both, and he threw him out that very night. He'd've thrown me out, too, if he could have. He doesn't understand. He thinks it some...some illness, or worse—some kind of pleasant pastime I choose, like...playing the harp."

"It isn't. If it weren't for your grandfather's ire and the sidelong looks of strangers, would you want to be cured of this so-called malady, Diarmán?"

Breaking eye contact, Diarmán gazed down at the floor. He seemed to be reflecting on the question, and his expression softened until at last, he shook his head. "You surprise me, Uachi. I'm half-tempted to call you a friend." That soft expression dissolved into a rather wicked smile. "To answer your question: if I were cured, I would not be able to admire that face of yours as much as it deserves."

Uachi gaped at Diarmán, taken aback by those words, which had dissolved the tension in an instant. The slighter man burst into laughter at the look on his face, and Uachi felt a rare blush creeping up over his cheeks. It wasn't at the compliment—Diarmán had been liberal with saucy words since they'd met—but rather at being caught wrong-footed.

Uachi did not much like being the butt of jokes. Diarmán's jokes weren't cruel, but still, they made him uncomfortable. He had a wife. A lover. Ealin haunted his footsteps, his past, his future. He could not forgive her what she had done, would not, but he could not so easily untangle the threads she had wrapped around his heart.

Thoughts of his lover brought the purpose of his visit here back to the forefront of Uachi's mind. "When will your brother be back?" he asked.

They began to walk again. "Not until the early hours, and that only if we're desperately fortunate. Settle in and get a good rest, Uachi."

I have had a pretty good day today, so I thought I would do a surprise update! 

How has your day been? 😊 Not too bad, I hope. May tomorrow be just as good or better.

xx Mina