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Master Qifrey passed away this morning. There will be a private graveside funeral at the atelier in three days and a memorial held in Kalhn for acquaintances in two weeks.
It goes without saying that we are all invited to the graveside.
Bring food.
~ Richeh
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It was just like Qifrey to leave on a morning as cheery as this. It had been raining for so many days, but as morning broke so did the blue sky through the clouds. He watched the sunrise from the bed, the golds and the powder blues and the pale reds all melting together.
‘Olly,’ he had said. ‘I would like a tree planted over my grave.’
That was the first sign.
‘A silverwood, I know. Though I don’t get why.’
‘A silverwood only grows where it feels safe. Perhaps…’
‘Mm?’
Qifrey lost himself in the shifting clouds, reflected in his pale blue eye. A beam of sun had broken through the morning mist, illuminating the golden-green downs.
‘I like children, Olly. If you ever sell the atelier, sell it to a family, or a professor like me.’
‘I’m never sellin’ the atelier, Qif.’
‘But you’ll die too, someday.’
‘I trust the girls.’
Qifrey broke his gaze from the window and rolled to face Olruggio. Oh, how gaunt he had become. He had always been thin, but the sickness had made its mark, settling in his bones and pulling his aged skin taut over his cheekbones.
‘…do ye want me to write to them?’
Qifrey closed his eyes. He didn’t answer at first, giving Olruggio a fright.
‘Qif? Qifrey?’
‘…I would appreciate that.’
Olruggio wrote a short note and sent it on its way. It would more than likely not reach them in time. When he finished and stood from his desk, back creaking, he heard Qifrey rustling in the bed.
‘Ye want t’go somewhere?’
‘The kitchen. We should have a big breakfast this morning, if the girls are coming over. Can’t have them seeing me as thin as this, can we?’
His voice had the cheeky lilt that Olly had been missing for weeks.
‘Right, then.’
Olruggio guided him down the stairs, one miserly step at a time. Before the illness, they had been using Qifrey’s old bedroom specifically to avoid the stairs. When he became bedridden he had asked to move into the old workroom, which had large, east-facing windows and a daybed.
‘I need sun in the morning, Olruggio, like a tree.’
His laugh had been radiant. It had taken twenty years for him to start making plant jokes, and he had evidently spent all the years before then cultivating his arboreal humor.
He made breakfast, with some help.
Eggs sunny-side-up, crispy bacon, toast from a loaf of bread he had made weeks before. It was stale.
They sat next to each other. Olruggio tried to enjoy the meal, he really did, but his eyes stayed glued to Qifrey, both in love and fear.
After breakfast Qifrey picked up his cloak, an old grey one. His hands shook and he struggled to clasp it. Olly helped him, and they went for a walk in the garden arm-in-arm. The clouds had all but left the sky, the damp morning blooming into a balmy summer day.
‘I’m tired.’
He laid down on the couch, his cloak still around his shoulders.
‘I know.’
Olly sat on the cushions beside him, hands stroking through his hair.
He fell asleep like that, his heart and stomach full.
Olruggio didn’t move, didn’t cease his movements, not even when the first of the apprentices came up the stairs from the windowway.
‘How is he?’
‘He felt good enough to get up today. Made breakfast. Even went for a walk.’
Richeh looked at him from behind the couch. Olruggio's eyes had never left Qifrey, hadn’t even glanced up when she entered.
‘Master Olly.’
‘Mm?’
His attention never strayed.
‘Have you eaten dinner yet?’