The doctor placed a gentle hand against his forehead. Kind brown eyes looked down into his single gray one, then the hand moved to his side and took hold of the thing sticking into him. The doctor did not move it, as Ager had been afraid he would do, but he retreated and talked to the other two again. A second later he was back. Ager heard him say, “This will hurt like nothing you’ve ever felt before.”
“I’ve had a fucking ax in my back,” Ager tried to say, but could make only a hissing sound. “Nothing can hurt more that.”
Then Kumul was leaning over him. The giant gave a lopsided smile and held Ager by the shoulders, pinning him down. He felt the young one doing the same with his knees.
And then agony. The surgeon was right. It did hurt more than anything he had ever felt before. He screamed. His body arched into the air. He screamed again. A great, swallowing abyss opened beneath him and he fell away from the earth.
The surgeon Trion left the room shaking his head. “I don’t know, Kumul. I just don’t know.”
“He saved my life,” Lynan told Kumul.
“He saved both our lives,” Kumul replied, not lifting his gaze from the crookback. “You were lucky tonight.” Lynan said nothing. “You must not do this again.”
“Do what?”
Kumul turned to face him. “You know my meaning,” he said, anger creeping into his voice.
“I’ve been leaving the palace—”
“Sneaking out of the palace,” Kumul corrected him.
“—sneaking out of the palace most nights for over a year now. Nothing like this has happened before.”
“You know I put up with these expeditions because I think you deserve some leeway—you’re a young man now—but I warned you to stop last month.”
“For no reason.”
“No reason!” Kumul barked, then glanced anxiously at Ager, guilty about raising his voice. “You know as well as I do the reason.” He grabbed Lynan by the shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. “Your mother the queen is dying. Her ghost may stay with her for another week, or another month, or even another year, but it may just as easily flee her body tonight. Things are starting to happen in Kendra. Forces are aligning themselves for the succession, including the Twenty Houses.”
“The Twenty Houses have no reason to hate me,” Lynan said weakly, knowing the lie even as he spoke it. “My mother is Usharna, Queen of Kendra. I am one of them.”
“And your father was a commoner made general, and his mother was a Chett slave. The Twenty Houses have every reason to want to see you put out of the way before the queen dies.”
Lynan turned away, not wanting to hear. Kumul sighed heavily and leaned over Ager to check his bandages.
“He is still bleeding a little. And that fire is dying. I will get more wood.”
“I hope this wound doesn’t weep for two years like his last one,” Lynan said. As soon as he had spoken the words, he regretted them. He had not meant to sound so callous. But it was too late. Kumul stared angrily at him.
“Have the courtesy to watch him for me while I’m gone,” he ordered, and left.
Unreasonably angry himself, Lynan tried standing on his royal dignity, but alone and with no one to be arrogant with, he slipped back to reality. What did he think he was doing? Kumul deserved better than that from him. And who did he think he was fooling? He had all the royal dignity of a midden, unlike his older half-siblings, all true bloods and sired from Usharna’s first two noble-born husbands. Kumul was right: he had the form but not the substance of the court’s respect. His own mother, the queen herself, did her best to ignore him. He knew, too, that this was why he so desperately wanted to know more about his father, whose blood apparently flowed thicker through his veins than his mother’s. But General Elynd Chisal was not even a memory for him. He was made up of tales and anecdotes, history lessons and hearsay. “Kendra’s greatest soldier,” Ager had said of him.
Lynan remembered the crookback then with a strange mixture of gratitude and unexpected affection. He checked Ager’s breathing—shallow but blessedly regular—and laid the palm of his hand on the man’s forehead to test his fever. He heard someone come in the room, and turned, expecting to see Kumul.
“That was quick…” he began, but stopped when he saw a small, slightly built young man with a mop of hair on his round head that did not seem to know which way to sit.
“Olio!”
“Good evening, b—b—brother,” said Olio, and hesitantly approached the bed. “Is this the one?”
“The one?”
“I met Kumul rushing down the p-p-passageway. I asked him where he was going and he shouted something about a wounded m-m-man.” Olio looked with real concern at the hapless Ager. Of all Lynan’s siblings, Olio was the only one who had ever had time for him, and his gentle nature made it easy for Lynan to like him despite his noble father. Even when he was a child, it had been only Olio among the royal family who seemed to acknowledge him as a member.
“Yes. He saved my… I mean… Kumul’s life tonight.” Lynan did not want the whole court to know he had been out of the palace. The last thing he needed was to be kept under close supervision by a nervous Royal Guard. Being tagged by its constable was bad enough.
Olio’s eyes widened in surprise. “And he is wounded b-b-badly?”
Lynan nodded. “Trion seemed doubtful he would live,” he said, but added quickly, “I think he will.”
“He is a friend of yours?”
“No. Yes. I mean, I hope so.” He groaned inside.
Olio simply nodded, as if he understood exactly what Lynan was trying to say, and of what he was trying not to say. Olio was eerily empathic like that. “Then I will p-p-pray for him.” He turned to leave.
“You would pray for him if he was your worst enemy,” Lynan said without sarcasm.
Olio inclined his head as if he was seriously considering the remark. “P-p-probably,” he admitted. “And b-b-by the way, I would change your clothing if I were you.”
Lynan looked down at himself. His clothes were covered in dried blood.
Before Olio reached the door, Kumul returned, followed by a male servant carrying a basket filled with firewood. They both bowed briefly to Olio, who waved an informal dismissal and moved out of their way.
As the servant started stacking the firewood by the hearth, Kumul mumbled to Lynan, “Prepare yourself.”
“What are you muttering—?”
Lynan never got to finish his question. He heard the sound of heavy feet coming from the corridor and Dejanus appeared, dressed in the full regalia of the queen’s own Life Guard, his mace of office held erect in one hand. He was an even bigger man than Kumul, and filled the doorway. He saw Lynan and offered one of the quizzical smiles he was famous for, then stepped aside. Behind him, standing with what seemed impatient frustration, was Usharna, the queen herself.
She was fully dressed for office, with a heavy linen gown bejeweled with emeralds and rubies, and a black velvet cloak sweeping behind her that shone in the firelight like still water under a full moon. Around her neck hung the four Keys of Power, the ultimate symbols of royal authority in the kingdom of Grenda Lear and all its subject realms. Their weight seemed to drag her head down, and the muscles of her neck and shoulders were taut with the strain of carrying them. Already small in size, the tangible burden of office, together with her illness, made her appear like a frail clay doll. Her white hair was pulled up on top of her head and kept down with a gold tiara decorated with an engraving of her family crest, the black silhouette of a kestrel against a gold field. Fine hands like china nested together under her heart, and her pale brown eyes tiredly surveyed those before her.
“Your Majesty!” Lynan called out in surprise. All in the room bowed stiffly from the waist.