Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [53]
Change and upheavals in the outside world had such small effect on the monastery that a letter written by a Master from a monastery in 4000 PC would read similar to one penned by a Master from the same monastery centuries later.
Rhys arrived in the office to find three people in the room with the Master—a middle-aged man and woman, who looked distressed and uncomfortable; and a young man, wearing the robes of a cleric of Kiri-Jolith, who was smiling, at ease. Rhys paused in the doorway. He had the impression that there was something familiar about these people, that he knew them. Rhys waited in silence for the Master to notice him.
The Master’s long gray hair fell over his shoulders. His face was wrinkled as a winter apple, with high cheek bones, strong jaw and prominent nose. His eyes were dark and penetrating. He was a Master of Discipline and there was not a monk in the monastery, including Rhys, who could best him in combat.
The Master was listening patiently to the middle-aged man, who was talking so fast that Rhys could not make out the jumble of words. The woman stood silently by, nodding her head in agreement, and sometimes casting an anxious glance at the young man. The older man’s voice and way of speaking was also familiar to Rhys. Finally, the Master glanced his way and Rhys bowed. The Master’s eyes flickered in response. He continued to give his full attention to his visitors.
At last the elder man paused for breath. The woman dabbed at her eyes. The young man yawned and looked bored. The Master turned to Rhys.
“Honored One,” Rhys said, bowing deeply to the Master. He bowed again to the strangers. “Fellow travelers.”
“These are your parents,” said the Master without preamble, answering the question Rhys had not asked. “And this is your younger brother, Lleu.”
hys turned his calm gaze upon them. “Father, Mother,” he said politely. “Lleu.” He bowed again.
His father’s name was Petar, his mother’s Brandwyn. His brother, Lleu, was a little child when he left home.
His father’s face flushed red in anger. “After fifteen years, is that all you have to say to your own parents?”
“Hush, Petar,” soothed his mother, resting her hand on her husband’s arm. “What should Rhys say? We are strangers to him.”
She smiled tenuously at Rhys. She was not angry, like his father, only weary from the journey, and distraught over whatever troubles had brought her all this distance to seek out a son she barely remembered, a son she had never understood.
Bran, her first born, had been her darling. Little Lleu, her pet. Rhys was the middle child who never quite fit in. He was the quiet child, the child who was “different.” He even looked different, with his dark eyes and black hair and slender, wiry body; a stark contrast to his blonde, big-boned brothers.
His father glanced at Rhys from beneath lowering brows. Rhys met his gaze steadily and his father lowered his eyes. Petar Mason, who was gray-haired now, but who had been a tow-head in his youth, had never been comfortable around Rhys. Although Petar adored his wife, perhaps there was some lingering doubt inside him, maybe not even recognized, that this middle son, who was so very different from the other two, was not actually his progeny. Rhys was obviously his mother’s son, for he took after her side of the family. His uncles were all dark, wiry men. He had nothing in him of his father. For all that, his mother found it difficult to love the child, who rarely spoke, never laughed.
Rhys held no animosity toward his parents. He understood. He’d always understood. He waited in patient silence for them to explain the reason for their visit. The Master also waited in silence, for he had said all that was necessary. Rhys’s mother looked anxiously at his father, who was flustered, unnerved. The silence grew uncomfortable, at least for the visitors. The monks sometimes went