Run Toward Ruin – Chapter 5
As Darius wrestles his grandfather Oswin into his suit before dinner, Oswin’s son Neven presses him on contested accounts and a succession agreement bent past its limits, only to be cut down with contempt and thinly veiled threats. Darius glimpses the weight of what’s hidden in his grandfather’s briefcase.
5. Before Dinner
Despite his earlier argument that he wouldn’t, Oswin had fallen asleep, clutching some papers to his chest. Darius sighed as he slowly worked the papers from his gnarled grip.
They looked like letters marked with the Prince’s seal. They should have been archived. Why would Oswin have them here?
He put them aside and gently pulled Oswin’s shoulder, whispering as he did so.
“Grandfather, it is time.”
There was a grumble and a sleepy mumble and then the smacking of lips. Oswin’s breath had turned sour. Darius turned his head away and coughed. This was enough to wake the old man up.
“Why are you hanging over me, boy?”
Darius jerked back. Why had they even bothered giving him a name?
“It is time to get dressed for dinner.”
Darius helped Oswin to his feet and to the washbasin where he had poured out some warm water. Oswin was heavier to move than he looked—the foot made everything slow, made every action into a negotiation between what he wanted his body to do and what it would actually do.
Oswin stripped off his shirt to wearing only his undervest. He stood over the basin and washed himself with a cloth.
Darius picked up the shirt and waited for the trousers to follow. The room smelled of cedar oil and old paper.
Oswin loosened his trousers and dropped them down to his knees. Crouching behind him, Darius had to work them all the way to the floor and then ease Oswin’s feet from each leg. He had to do so gently as if he was trying to shoe a skittish horse, while also avoiding the drops of warm water from Oswin’s vigorous ablutions.
This was the easy part. Darius got rid of the dirty clothes and fetched the dark grey suit’s trousers.
Without the cane, because that always got in the way, Darius had to help his grandfather one leg at a time. The old man gripped him by the shoulders, painfully so as he held his balance. Thankfully his tongue as well.
After the trousers followed the shirt, braces and then the tie before Oswin could be moved to a chair to sit down.
Before Darius could get to the shoes Oswin snapped out of the final lethargy of waking up as he shifted his body up straight.
“The letters, where did you put them, boy?”
Darius pointed with his chin but he was already moving to retrieve them.
“Next to the bed.”
Oswin snatched them from Darius’ hand and shuffled them into a new order.
“Messed them up, did you boy?”
“You clutched… fell asleep with them,” said Darius.
Oswin held them tight to his chest and nodded for Darius to get on with the shoes. The left foot was easy. The right foot was not. The bandage needed to be checked and then the shoe had to be twisted on carefully. Too much force and Oswin might slap Darius on the head with the papers. Too little force and the shoe never got on.
He was also distracted by those letters. It was as if Oswin did not want him to see anything. But he already did. Not all of the letters were addressed to Oswin. And not all were signed.
There was a tentative knock at the door that Oswin ignored. The door opened only halfway and Neven Pochron, Darius’ father, leaned in.
“I’d like to have a word with you, father,” he said.
“Not now. We are getting ready for dinner,” said Oswin.
His father came in. He was already dressed, his collar done up tight. He could dress himself, not making getting ready for dinner a rotten ordeal.
“Father,” said Neven. “There’s a matter about the financial records I need to raise before the dinner.”
Oswin didn’t look up from the buttons. Neven cleared his throat and carried on.
“You will speak at dinner. Say things and I want to make sure nobody gets befuddled.”
“Why would anybody mistake the facts?” snapped Oswin.
“Because of the clauses you have added to the contracts. There are different interpretations, and even questions about their necessity.”
“Clauses clarify things.”
“Not if added after negotiations where things have already been clarified.”
“Anything specific on your mind, boy?”
“Ferran Buhl is going to contest the third-quarter accounts,” his father said. “He’ll have Roosa Seisin behind him. If you’ve kept the supporting ledgers with the agreements, then, if there are any violations… Not the way you did with—“
“Aldric Warchen had to be reminded of his obligations.”
Oswin looked up. His eyes were the pale grey of old parchment.
“We have a dinner. Your son is standing there trying very hard not to look at the door.”
Darius stopped looking at the door.
“Here,” he said, and helped his grandfather into the jacket.
Neven pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose.
“You have something else to say, Neven. Don’t be coy about it.”
“This is exactly—” Neven stopped, breathed deeply and started again, quieter. “This is exactly the problem. Every time there is a moment where we could address something before it becomes a crisis, you defer it. And then it becomes a crisis, and then it’s too late to address it properly, and then we spend three years—”
“I am aware of how long things take.”
“Are you? Because it seems you are the only one who gets to decide what’s ready to be addressed and what isn’t. What gets written down. What gets—withheld. And the rest of us are left—”
“You’re left informed of what you need to be informed of.”
Darius’ chest had gone tight. He had a very insistent urge to leave, but leaving wasn’t an option he had.
His mother opened the door and only came in partly.
“It is time already,” she said. “We must go down.”
She was dressed in a new dress for dinner. She would have looked radiant if it was not for the frown on her brow.
Neven glanced over at her and then at his father.
“You don’t trust me,” he said.
“It’s not a question of trust.”
“There is talk again,” said Neven, “that I should be taking over from you. You are no longer the man you were.”
Oswin looked at his son with undisguised contempt, his voice low and cutting. He tapped the arm of his chair for emphasis.
“You think you are ready to lead? You accepted property agreements from Roosa Seisin on her word, not reviewing the terms—which you should have done. While you are busy playing at being respectable, I am ensuring that our family’s position does not depend on the whims of weak men.”
Darius focussed on tying the laces of Oswin’s shoes.
Neven spoke above and behind him.
“There is an agreement about succession. You have bent that agreement to its limits and it is bound to break.”
“Almost said with conviction, boy. Maybe in a couple of years you could take on some of the responsibilities.”
“Why not now? Why the delay?”
“Twenty years ago, with the unexpected death of Beren Seisin, we followed the spirit of that same succession agreement. It left us with a girl to manage the estates and that nearly broke us all.”
Neven threw his hands in the air. Elena stepped up behind him and took hold of his arm and held him steady. Oswin kept at it.
“I rewrote the agreement and the Prince accepted my changes. Stop pretending you have any real authority here, Neven. You are not the head of this family. You have never been, and you never will be while I draw breath.”
Elena pulled on Neven’s arm. “We are keeping the others waiting,” she said.
It was not concern for the people downstairs that moved her. It was her concern for his father. She wanted him out of the way.
“My briefcase,” said Oswin.
Darius held the briefcase open while Oswin placed the letters back inside. It was thick with documents so that the letters had to be twisted to fit. While he did so Oswin spoke softly and directly, not looking at Neven but every word pointed.
“I have spent more than forty years in service to the Prince’s records. I know what implications the records contain.”
He handed the briefcase off to Darius who quickly had to put it aside as Oswin moved to stand up.
Oswin took his time about it — finding the grip on his stick, testing his weight, getting to his feet. Darius moved to give him room without being asked.
The old man crossed the room to where Neven stood. He stopped close enough that the height difference was obvious — Neven was taller, but Oswin did not look up to him.
“Your problem, Neven, is that you see withholding as a failure. I see it as the only tool that ever kept us from being entirely consumed.”
“We should go,” Darius said. His voice came out steady, which surprised him. Neither of them looked at him. But Oswin turned toward the door.
“Do not fool yourself with dreams of inheritance. You exist to serve the family as I direct you. Defy me and I will make certain everyone knows exactly how unfit you truly are.”
Oswin’s eyes bored into his son.
“Do you understand me, boy? Let it be.”
Neven straightened his cuffs. His jaw was set. He looked like a man who had run out of words and it was almost painful to watch. He looked like Darius felt.
Elena Pochron gently pulled her husband away. As they left the room Neven shook his head, eyes cast down.
“But he…”
“There is no point to it right now,” she said. “We must go downstairs.”
Oswin and Darius stood for a moment in the middle of the room in silence. The old man did not make a move, probably waiting for Neven and Elena to get out of the way.
Darius’ attention wandered back to the suitcase. There were more than just letters in there. There were papers with weight that had a hold on everybody. What would happen if somebody got hold of them all, and spread them around? The idea made Darius shiver.
“We’re wasting time,” said Oswin.
“If it wasn’t for… It’s not my fault,” said Darius.
Fault was the wrong word because it didn’t matter. Oswin was never at fault.
They went down the stairs, his parents already out of sight. Oswin leaned heavily on him, his breathing deep. Not laboured, with excited anticipation, as if he was drawing his lungs full for the challenge ahead.
The corridor downstairs was amber-lit, the lamps on brackets along the wall. The mosaic floor tiles clicked under Oswin’s stick in a slow, irregular rhythm.
It was a long way to the dining hall from the east wing. They walked it at Oswin’s pace, and Darius felt every minute of it.
From the other side of the house — across the main courtyard, past the garden arcade, on the south terrace—he could hear laughter. Faint, carried on warm air.
He was going to be the last one there.
Darius could hear the low swell of adult voices inside—chairs, crystal, the restrained performance of civility. His grandfather paused at the threshold.
The large oval dining table was waiting for them. As were the other families. Every seat at the table was taken. The adults of all the other families, including his parents, arranged along its length, voices low, the first courses already being served.
Darius guided Oswin to his seat at the long table, pulled the chair out, and waited while he settled.
Oswin arranged his stick against the table edge.
“I don’t want to sit next to the old woman,” he grumbled.
The old woman was Onerva Seisin. Roosa’s mother and Cora’s grandmother. Oswin had spoken loudly enough for her to hear.
“You’re older than me, Oswin,” she said with a gentle smile.
Darius looked up at the others at the table. Nobody looked up except Roosa. She was seated four places down. Her gaze moved from Oswin to Darius. She didn’t smile. She didn’t frown. She just looked, for two full seconds, and then returned to her conversation with Ferran Buhl.
“You can go, boy,” said Oswin.
Darius did go, but he could not do it fast enough. He was no longer heading to a dinner on the terrace he was late for, he was running away from the fate his father had been stuck in for a decade.
© 2026 Gerhi Janse van Vuuren