"Leofric" Wulfstan stood up from where he had been crouching in the furrow, pressing unsprouted bulbs into the soft dirt. Sweeping his hair back from his face, he gazed across the field at the other man. "May I ask you a question?"
Sweat dripped from Leofric's forehead as he looked up from his own work. There was an indescribable sorrow within his eyes that even his perpetual smile couldn't chase away anymore. Before Wulfstan stood a proper man now – gone were the last youthful pouches of fat and the naïve glimmer of childhood. In its place was someone who knew the harsh realities of life and, reluctantly, accepted them. Pausing for a moment, he responded with a voice that boomed like the noise rocks made when thrown down a well, splashing with an echoing force into the distant water. "What is it, Wulfstan?"
Something about the intensity in that golden eye bore into Wulfstan's soul more than it ever had before. Their relationship had become peculiar and strained since Donngall's accident, Leofric's sorrow causing the man to withdraw from everyone. "I… ah, I don't know if you will be angry with me if I do ask it."
Heavy with exhaustion, Leofric's face finally fell out of that smile he forced nowadays. A slight frown adorned his face, ageing him by a decade, belying the toil and struggle he was enduring from suddenly becoming the man of the household. It was an expression he never showed when other people were looking; Wulfstan had only seen it before because he was always watching Leofric. "You can ask me whatever you want. When 'ave I denied you anything?"
Wulfstan knew he was right but that didn't stop his
apprehension. There was a wall between them these last few months. "Have you lost someone before?" He looked away from Leofric, unable to bear his weighty gaze, terrified that he had asked something inappropriate. "H… How does one handle one's grief, Leofric? I'm terrified of it. It's uncomfortable. So… heavy." Unconsciously, he pressed his hand to his chest, resting it above his heart.
There was a sigh, one that was dripping with an emotion Wulfstan couldn't identify, and then the sound of footsteps on dirt. Growing closer, he could hear Leofric's wobbling breathing, the odd palpitations of his heart, until the other man stopped just to the side of Wulfstan. It would take nothing to reach out and touch Leofric, but he dared not to – something felt off, even just the thought of embracing him. Prickling desire to be crushed in his arms clouded his mind for a moment, waiting for Leofric to speak.
"When I were a kid, I 'ad an older brother. 'e was playing with some others at a market I can't even remember anymore and…" Leofric stopped. "A riderless 'orse was attached to a cart. Something startled it and it ran straight at the crowd. My brother didn't 'ave time to move."
"I didn't know that."
"'Course not. Mam and Da chose to never speak of 'im after the funeral – they think it was their fault and couldn't 'andle the guilt. We never stopped moving about afterwards… this is the first place we've ever stopped and made 'ome." He leaned heavily on the shovel, shoving it further into the already loose dirt. Wulfstan looked down at Leofric now, brows creased, curious at what the man was going to say. "I didn't understand where he'd gone. It took a few years for it to sink in, for me to grow up and get what 'ad 'appened. I was inconsolable for weeks – Mam couldn't get me out of bed and Da was convinced he would 'ave to call a medicine man out."
Silence.
"I didn't 'andle anything. I was miserable until I suddenly wasn't anymore." Leofric stood back up and headed back over to the still-flat part of the field that had yet to be ploughed. "We should get back to work."
Wulfstan did as he was told, dropping back onto his haunches, the bag of onion bulbs to his side. He got back into his rhythm and, before long, his hands were doing all they needed to, shifting along on his knees, when necessary, while his eyes were trained on the back of Leofric. There was a defeated slump to his broad shoulders as his muscled arms rippled in the dim sun.
The conversation had left Wulfstan more terrified of what was to come than he had already been.
-
Wailing filled the air. Ragged, hitching, throat-tearing sobs cut through the silence of the morning. Like Ita was screaming out, begging for ears that could no longer hear to work once more. Wulfstan stared blankly out of his window, trying to block out the sound. Yet another futile task piling upon his already heavy shoulders.
He'd heard Donngall's heart stop hours before Ita had awoken and found that her husband had slipped into a permanent rest. No tears had been
shed, but he was no longer surprised. All he could feel was the crushing weight of a mountain bearing down on him, squashing him to pieces.
Sorrow of this magnitude was crippling, he realised,
Leofric's story haunting him. He knew he should go out and comfort Ita, comfort Leofric, say goodbye to Donngall's deaf ears but he couldn't move. The idea of seeing his family so miserable and grief-stricken, seeing Donngall's dead, ashen face, seeing Leofric with an expression that Wulfstan couldn't bear to imagine, was all too much.
Death was something he struggled to take in, but he could understand the anguish now. He could understand he would never see Donngall's beaming smile again. He would never hear his bellowing laughter. They would never hunt a deer again and Donngall would never scare off the entire herd with his oafishness.
Wulfstan couldn't take a single step as his knees buckled beneath him and he collapsed into a limp heap on the ground. He couldn't cry but he wished that he could because then, maybe, some of the pressure would be alleviated and he could move from the floor. Perhaps tears going unspent were what made someone feel so trapped when sorrowful, the physical weight of the water contained within him making it impossible to move. It certainly felt as if his head was filled with water, all sound muffled and echoey, his thoughts dampened.
"Wulfstan." Leofric's voice came through the door. Heavy, sodden, laced with both fallen and unshed tears alike. Wulfstan didn't want to know what expression was on his face. He closed his eyes for fear of it.
"I know."
That was all either of them could say. Leofric didn't wait to hear anything else before opening the door and padding across the room. Sniffling, he stood behind Wulfstan's collapsed form for a moment before crouching down and wrapping his arms around the limp man's back. He hauled Wulfstan up until he was sitting with his back pressed to Leofric's chest and Leofric's face soaked tears into the shoulder of Wulfstan's hemp tunic.
Finally able to move slightly, Wulfstan desperately clung to Leofric's trembling arms. He couldn't express his misery like Leofric could, whose tears fell in torrents and voice quivered as he tried to stop them, so all Wulfstan was able to do was pretend that he could. Allowing himself to indulge for a moment, he imagined their bodies merging together and felt, in his mind, how wonderfully cathartic it must be to cry out his grief. The warmth of the tears on his face, clinging heavy to his lashes. Wulfstan could do nothing but imagine until he was pulled out of it by Leofric's lips moving against his clothed shoulder.
"We should see Mam."
Wulfstan nodded and carefully, slowly, pushed himself up from the floor, determined to not shrug off Leofric's arms because he knew he needed the comfort. After a few moments, they were finally standing, though the position was awkward, Leofric's damp face pressed to Wulfstan's back. Allowing Leofric to cry uninhibited for a while longer, Wulfstan eventually turned himself so that Leofric would take a step back, his arms falling to his sides before he linked their hands together. He did the best he could to give Leofric a sympathetic look, pushing back the warping sorrow he knew was plastered across his face. "Let's go see your Mam. I'm sure she needs to see you now."
"She'll need us both."
Hand-in-hand, they left Wulfstan's room and went over to the room that Donngall and Ita shared. Leofric likely couldn't hear it yet, but Wulfstan could hear Ita's muffled sobs as she clearly attempted to get hold of herself before she was seen.
Leofric didn't knock as he pushed the already ajar door open, tugging Wulfstan in behind him. They saw Ita crumpled on the ground beside the bed, her hand grasping Donngall's cold, limp one.
Her haggard, aged face looked up at her sons, framed by hair that had not been so grey in the winter just gone. Tears were falling in sheets down her face and her voice was hoarse from weeping. "Boys…"
Nothing more had to be said before Leofric and Wulfstan tumbled into her arms and the weeping began anew.
All Wulfstan could do was press the two as close to him as he could without hurting them and stare at Donngall's slack face. Eyes as dry as a drought, lungs as empty as an alcoholic's coin purse, Wulfstan held his grief tight. He hid it in the deepest parts of him so he could look after the two people he loved the most in the world.
He hoped that one day, he could let it go properly.