I DIDN’T KILL HIM.
But I keep feeling as if I did. I hated him and once wrote that I wished he were dead.
But he was my father. I am his son.
I rushed to find Milon, and he came with me immediately.
Milon closed my father’s eyes and made the sign of the cross over him. “May God welcome him!” he said hoarsely.
Then Milon told me to fetch Taddeo, the Doge’s surgeon, as quickly as I could. I did, and by then Rhys and Turold had returned, and they carried my father down to the undercroft to prepare his body for burial. Taddeo bled Lord Stephen at once, and I sat beside him all night in his small chamber. I thought. I prayed. Sometimes I held his hand. I listened to his breathing. I didn’t sleep at all.
Serle didn’t come back until early this morning. He had been with Simona.
He found me with Lord Stephen and I told him what had happened. Serle looked stunned, and afraid, and he got onto his knees.
“I’ve been here all night,” I said.
“You get some rest,” he said. “I’ll take over.”
I couldn’t rest, though. I walked out, and as soon as I knocked on the ribbed door, Sister Cika was there, and she led me at once to the spirit-garden.
“I was expecting you,” she said. “Is it your father?”
“How did you know?” I asked.
“Things you’ve said and have not said,” replied Sister Cika. “Your eyes! By thinking, by looking, by—how do you say it?—intuition. There are many ways of knowing.”
She put both my hands between hers.
I began to sob then. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks. They kept dripping into my lap. I told her everything.
“Let them flow!” Sister Cika said warmly. “Wash away your pain, and your grief.”
We sat side by side for a long time.
I remember the nunnery doves singing their sweet, gulping songs.
“If I hadn’t tried to find my mother,” I said, “Lord Stephen would never have become involved. And if I hadn’t gone up to my room…”
“No,” said Sister Cika. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“But I held his wrist.”
Somehow Sister Cika knew what I was thinking. “It’s not your fault,” she told me.
“He was my father, but he didn’t care about me. He wanted to kill me.”
“But you were one blood,” Sister Cika said gently. “Who can see his father die and not die a little?”
“It’s Lord Stephen who feels like my father,” I said. “I feel so lost.”
Sister Cika squeezed my hand softly. “Arthur,” she said, “you care and think and feel, you are awake to the world; and the more awake we are, the more we hurt when those we love lie ill, or leave us. This is how God’s children are. But He never allows us to hurt more than we can bear.”
Around us, the almond-blossom blinked and fluttered.
“I will pray for Lord Stephen. All will be well and all manner of things will be well,” said Sister Cika, almost as if she were bidding me farewell. “Take my words on your way. Living we die, but dying we live, Arthur.”
Sister Cika half-smiled at me, and she lifted her eyes.
When I got back to our tower-house, I found Taddeo bleeding Lord Stephen again to balance his fluids. He says he can do nothing more for him.
His knife wound is a clean one, but the lump where he cracked his skull is as large as my kneecap, and still oozing puce and purple. I have shaved the hair on the back of his head and am to apply a marjoram poultice twice each day. He has been asleep now for three days, and that’s even longer than Bertie.
Lord Stephen. He is my almost-father. My heart will break if he dies.