In Which Searle Is Stuck on a More Complex Puzzle

May 26, 1178

Under otherwise ideal circumstances, Searle's wife and sister-in-law were not the most natural of companions. They were both clever women, rather quiet women, but they were clever and quiet in different ways. Unlike Ren, whose social reservations sprang more from a reluctance to waste her voiced thoughts on anyone who wouldn't appreciate them, Searle suspected that Ramona was at least a little shy--not surprising, as she'd grown up with a rather boisterous triplet sister. But Ramona was like Lettie in terms of her cerebral, theoretical nature; Ren's smarts tended to be focused on more immediate, practical things like logistics and politics. They didn't dislike each other so far as Searle knew, but they certainly didn't seek each other out.

Under less than ideal circumstances, however...

Well. Sometimes, people didn't really need to speak.

"How?"

If the eyes had their way, Ietrin's question was directed at the empty hearth. How many times had they watched their uncle light fires in this room? Searle had to turn around. "Suicide, it seems."

"Would he have really done that to the children?"

Searle sighed. He loved his brother, but Ietrin could be so frustratingly naive. "If he didn't love them quite enough. Really, Ietrin, you'd think you'd understand the concept of parental abandonment by now."

"But he did love them enough, and you know it. And he loved us enough too." A gangly hand grazed Searle's shoulder and steered him around. "You're angry with him, aren't you? He was the closest thing we had to a father."

"But he wasn't our father." Not that it made much of a difference in the long run. "And why should I be angry? I'm simply being rational. It's not as if he'd been the same since Aunt Eldona passed. If you ask me, he's been planning this since she died; he was just waiting for a point at which he could commit the act guiltlessly."

Frowning, Ietrin cocked his head to the side. "Guiltlessly?"

"Well, he couldn't have guessed how long his parents would live, and with both Ovrean and Tarien out of the country I can't imagine he would have wanted his children raised by Vulcran and that sanctimonious bitch of a wife of his; to ensure that they'd be in good hands, he had to wait until Riona was grown and about to be married so that her husband could provide a stable home for the rest of them."

"A stable home? With Uncle Haldred and Aunt Cladelia?"

Searle sniffed. "Perhaps he just grew sick of waiting. Besides, for all Primus's grandparents might be a little volatile, his father is a decent fellow."

"A decent fellow with his own motherless hoard, yes."

"Riona and Primus can look after them."

"Riona and Primus are children." Ietrin wiped back a tear, causing Searle to stiffen. Crying brought him enough discomfort even if it was his own brother. "Searle, I don't think you can puzzle this out."

Ren glanced over from the couch, giving him a reprieve from the sight of his brother's watering eyes. Ren's own were dry, but inscrutable; if only for the sake of his sanity, he'd assume that she agreed with him. "Don't be absurd. He must have had some reasoning for what he did."

His brother just stood there, rocking back and forth slightly as Ramona looked on with a nervous frown and Ren took to staring at her lap. "Well, you can think what you think, and I'll feel what I feel. Will you write to Mother, or should I?"

Searle closed his eyes. He'd never written a letter to their mother in his life, whereas Ietrin wrote her at least once a week. But no doubt she'd grown tired of those letters and most of them were filed away unread. If it was written in Searle's hand, then it was a rarity, an urgency--something to be heeded. If people were puzzles, then even his mother could be solved; why was his uncle such a struggle?

"I'll write to her. Perhaps you ought to head to Valcria to be with our cousins; you always were better with the little ones than I was."

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