Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [51]
Neither of those prepared Bec for the sight of that shiny-bright stone pointed toward his heart. Before it could belch fire or lightning, he leapt sideways and pled for his life.
“Don’t hurt me! Please. I swear—I swear, honest—when Cauvin’s angry, it’s better to leave him alone. Lots better. I can do anything he can … almost. I’ll find what you need: a table, chair, whatever you want. Just don’t point that thing at me!”
The old man lowered his staff, and Bec tried to live up to his promises. He emptied the cart—food from the stoneyard, blankets from Batty Dol, ink and parchment from the scriptorium—then went on a quest for wood for furniture, wood for a fire, and water for tea.
Grandfather wasn’t the first person to hole up in the abandoned estate. After gathering wind-fallen branches for the fire and filling two waterskins from a shrunken but clear-flowing stream, Bec found the remains of someone else’s weather-beaten lair stashed in what might have been a storeroom or servants’ quarters. There were enough planks for a crude worktable and a serviceable stool—if he could put together something to replace its two missing legs. Rightsized chunks of masonry would have done the job, but Cauvin had ignored Bec every time he came near the wall where he was smashing bricks, and the boy judged it wise to lie low a while longer.
He made do with stones from the stream. The final result wasn’t pretty, but he thought it would support a skinny old man. And it would have, maybe, if the old man hadn’t had a nasty wound at the top of his right leg. The old man could stand and hobble a bit with his staff for support, but he couldn’t sit upright without the wound paining him badly after a few moments. They tried padding the stool with Batty’s blankets; that only made it tippy and harder for the old man altogether. Grandfather was wheezing and shiny before Bec managed to get him back into what passed for his bed.
“You shouldn’t be out here, Grandfather,” Bec said, using his extracourteous voice—the one that sometimes worked with grown-ups when they were wrong. “You need to see a healer.”
“There’s nothing a healer can do for me, boy. I’ve taken my death wound. It’s only a matter of time ’til I’m gone. Fetch one of those planks and lay it here, across my lap.”
But that was worse than the blankets. The old man fainted clean away. Bec made strong tea with half-heated water and held the cup close to the old man’s face so the fragrant steam could work its way inside.
“Get your brother,” were the first words out of Grandfather’s mouth once his eyes were open again. He’d said them in Imperial Rankene.
Gamely, Bec replied, “Won’t do any good. He’s still angry,” in the same language.
The old man propped himself against the wall, halfway between sit-up and lie-down. “Wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t what?” Bec asked, lapsing into Wrigglie, the language he knew best despite Momma’s efforts otherwise.
“Wouldn’t, not won’t. Say, ‘It wouldn’t do any good to approach Cauvin,’” Grandfather continued in Rankene. “You haven’t done anything yet, and you don’t know for certain that no good will come of approaching your brother, so the proper form is ‘Wouldn’t do any good.’”
Bec knotted his brows and stared through his eyelashes. “If you say so. Wouldn’t. Won’t. Means the same to me.”
“Perhaps it does when you’ve got your mouth rooted in Sanctuary’s streets, but if you’re going to speak Rankene, you should do it properly. Who taught