”Is this not what you’ve desired, Wendel?”
”Yes, but…” Wendel stands in the doorway to his brother’s chambers. The apothecary ministers at the bedside, sweat beading on his wrinkled brow. On the bed, Walder’s eyes stare up at the broccaided canopy. They blink regularly, but there is nothing regular about his condition.
A rough hand grasps Wendel by the shoulder and spins him around. ”If his condition hasn’t changed in 3 days it will not in the next few hours.” His father, Piotrov Duneheim is as he normally is, on the edge of patience with his son Wendel. ”I’m giving you an opportunity to do something about your brother’s malady.”
Wendel’s hand sweeps back into the room. ”His chest is wide open, father!” In the back of his mind, he can ‘hear’ his brother’s eyes blink again…I’m still alive, dear brother…
”Don’t state the obvious to me you club-wielding brute…” Piotrov stops himself and runs a hand through his well-groomed brown hair. ”There is a man in Levkarest...I’ve met with him on several occasions and each time I feared he may be dabbling in things he most assuredly should not have been…his name is Cerny Zvonek."
”And just how would you know what that, eh?” Wendel slams his fist against the frame of the doorway.
His father’s eyes bulge, his right cheek twitching with barely controlled anger. ”How dare you...you simple-minded…”
”PIOTROV!!” Wendel’s mother sweeps into the hallway, her face a picture of serenity despite the volume of anger in her voice. ”You will stop speaking to our son in that manner…this very instant.”
”Verona, I…”
She waves her husband to silence as she glides to a stop next to Wendel. His 6’ form dwarfs her diminutive stature as Verona Duneheim slips an arm through her second-born’s muscular arm. ”I won’t have it, Piotrov. We have a son lying on death’s door and you elect now to chastise Wendel when we need him so?”
A cloud of anger gathers around his father, but he holds his council and folds his arms across his chest. He looks to Wendel and simply asks the question. ”Will you do it, son?”
Wendel looks down at his mother, her amber eyes pleading up at him. ”Say you will, my son. Ezra knows this may be why you’ve no desire to be involved in family affairs…” She squeezes his bicep and smiles up at him. ”Be my powerful warrior and seek out this man for your father and I. It’s Walder’s only hope.”
”I...I think…” Wendel - as is normal for him - can’t help but do as his mother wills. Why is that? What is it about her… His mind considers something else for a moment. For years he’s longed to depart from their manor house, to see the world outside and be free of the shackles of their family. Perhaps...perhaps this just might be that opportunity.
He sets his jaw and nods. ”Of course, mother. I’ll leave for Levkarest at first light.”
