Hugh's cold, Bloodshot eyes were like daggers piercing into the depths of Edwin's heart. Edwin wondered what remained of the heirs' once-good-looking faces, which made him refuse to take off the bandages. House Sonder was known for the size and strength of their members, but Edwin was just eight, seven at the time he pummeled him. How much damage could he have really done?
John stepped in front of Edwin, cutting off their view of each other, much to Edwin's delight.
"My boy!" John threw up his hands in excitement, "How long have you been out of bed?"
'An hour,' Hugh answered, his voice oddly ragged and wet sounding, as if he were sick or had fluid in his lungs.
His father took him in a deep hug, Hughes' arms never raised to return the embrace; instead, he looked over John's shoulder to resume eye contact with Edwin.
"Brother! Brother!" Shrieked a feminine voice at the opposite end of the bridge.
Eleanor came running from the entrance of the bridge, behind Hugh. She was holding her flowing purple dress at the waist to move more quickly without fear of tripping.
"Brother!" She screamed, "There you are, I came running the second I was told by your nurse you were up. Why didn't you come to me right away? I've been waiting months for you to finally get out of that room of yours. "
Eleanor was well out of breath by the time she reached the group; her lavish lifestyle as a young noble woman was evidently too sedentary for an active life. Edwin caught his eyes lingering on Eleanor as he took in her beauty. He quickly averted his eyes, remembering the teasing he suffered at her hands during the feast at Sonder.
'It's rude to stare,' Edwin remembered, the rebuke still turned him red from embarrassment when he remembered it.
The heir of Blychester, Hugh, had not looked away from Edwin; his hate had seemed to grow in size and strength during his long period of self-imposed isolation. This didn't surprise Edwin, as he spent more and more time in Blychester getting to know its people; he had heard much on Hughes' ability to hold grudges, among other things. No one had given him a grudge to hold onto quite as much as Edwin had.
'Sister,' Hugh greeted warmly, turning from his father to his sister, much more warmly than he had greeted his father, 'I have spent enough time dwelling on my unfortunate injuries."
Edwin could see the lie immediately; it seemed more likely to him that Hugh had finally decided to get some revenge or to plan out his revenge.
I'll have to be cautious, Edwin made a mental note, Hugh held power within the city, or more importantly, his mother, Lady Talbot, did, and she had made it plenty clear she held as much of or more of a grudge against him.
"Edwin," John called, "You're released, go about whatever you wish."
John didn't wait for a reply; he took both children under his arms and walked off towards the castle, leaving Edwin behind in silence.
Disappointment filled Edwin; he didn't know what else to have expected, but the duke's order had left him wanting. Since coming to Blychester, it was clear the duke had favored Edwin more than others. It had not occurred to him that his apparent high standing in the eyes of the duke might be due, at least in part, to the absence of his son.
Alone on the bridge, Edwin made his way back to his room. With the sun being nearly completely gone, there was not enough light to do anything else.
He turned the corner of the hallway right before his room, which held none of the chaos it had just a little while ago. His door was slightly ajar when he came up to it; he could have sworn he had closed it fully when he left the room this morning.
Rusted hinges made opening the door painfully loud.
"Well, look who it is."
Edwin nearly jumped from fear, "Arthur?"
Arthur was sitting in his bed, leaning his back against the wall with a bowl of soup in his hands. "I think," he smiled, pinching himself for good measure, "Yep, definitely me."
Edwin ran to his friend's side; his sudden good health was rattling.
'This must have been how John felt, suddenly seeing his son.' Edwin realized, 'Except my friend isn't a poor excuse for a human.'
Thwack Edwin punched Arthur in the arm.
Arthur grunted and held his right arm where Edwin had punched him, "Ouch, what was that for?"
Edwin laughed and took a seat at the foot of Arthur's bed. "That's for me having to pick up your slack."
Arthur chuckled. "Fair enough." He frowned for a moment. "Is it true?"
"Is what true." Edwin asked, unsure of the ambiguous question
Arthur looked out the small opening in the wall, which was more like an arrow slit than a window. "Is it true that we are under siege? I've only heard bits and pieces from the servant who brought me this soup."
Edwin thought back to the massive host encamped just a few miles beyond the wall. Given another day, it would be fully assembled. "It's true, their king claims to have an army of thirty thousand; I suspect their real numbers are closer to fifteen or twenty thousand."
"Twenty thousand, huh?" Arthur rolled the number on his tongue, "Against how many on our side?"
That information had not been entirely told to Edwin; he could take a guess, though, "I know our militia mustered a little over four thousand men, taking into account the duke's own retinue of knights and professional men-at-arms." he paused to do the math in his head, "Five thousand five hundred maybe?"
"Not too bad then," Arthur spoke, then drained the rest of his soup.
Numbers only played a small part in the defense of the city; any attacker would be at a disadvantage. Surrounded by a great curtain wall, the Dunvarrian would be forced into spending a great amount of time building weapons capable of breaching the walls. Stone throwers like catapults or trebuchets, siege towers, ladders, or the like. Any assault would be costly, if not ruinous, to Alexander II. Should he not attempt to storm the city, he would have to engage in a prolonged blockade of the city, which had a port to keep itself resupplied if not blocked by Dunvarrian ships that had as of yet not appeared, if they even existed.
Alexander realistically could only maintain a siege for a limited time, maybe just a few weeks. So many mouths to feed would necessitate a large amount of food in a land already lacking a large amount of food. On top of that, he would have to pay for all of his forces, which would be beyond expensive. Dunvarra was far from a wealthy kingdom; it lacked many natural resources, and the temperamental sea around it made for poor trade routes. Trade was one of the reasons Blychester was so sought after by the Dunvarrians; it was the largest port this far north on the Island.
"I got to see the king," Edwin bragged, "Lord Talbot brought me with him during his parley with the Dunvarrian king."
Arthur nearly spit, "You!" he said jealously, "I'm out for only a handful of days, and I miss all the fun stuff. So, tell me about him. What did you think of the man?"
Edwin had been impressed by the king, "Charismatic, I didn't get to see too much, but I saw a little of what made his lords follow him. Besides his charisma, one other thing stood out. He was incredibly self-assured, maybe too confident, John even believes so too."
"Well, that's... something," Arthur replied, "Maybe I'll get to see him too."
Edwin moved to his own bed; he was drained from the day's events. "Enough about kings and sieges. How do you feel?"
"As if I got kicked by a horse," Arthur winced, "Plain awful, still have no idea what happened, I was fine one moment, then all I remember was throwing up, and now I'm awake in my bed."
"Julian thinks it was bad food," Edwin added
"Could have been," Arthur admitted, "but I'm not sure I believe that."
"Then what do you think it was?" Edwin Inquired
"How should I know? I'm not an educated man like Julian, but hear me out. Have you ever known someone to get so sick that they were asleep for three days and almost died because of bad food?"
Edwin had not heard of something like that before: "Maybe it wasn't the food, maybe you caught a sickness from a palace servant or something." Edwin countered.
"You could be right," Arthur conceded, "well, what's done is done, let's get to bed, I'm sure there is much for me to catch up on."
Edwin rested his head on his bed, but sleep did not come easily that night. His mind drifted back to Hugh, the way he had been staring at him.
"It was unavoidable," he murmured under his breath.
'Rapist,' Edwin thought, 'Hugh is a monster wearing the clothing of a human. Someone else would have done him in worse than I had eventually.
As the darkness of the night diminished all light in the room, Edwin finally drifted into sleep.