by Fran Jacobs
"You knocked me away," he said. "You kicked off your grandfather and managed to throw me aside. Sorron had to sit on your legs in the end, to keep you down, and I pinned down your shoulders with my knees. It took all my weight to keep you down. You were so strong, Candale."
"Oh. I ... I'm sorry."
"No," Gerian said, shaking his head. "You don't need to be."
My father stayed kneeling down beside me as the servants came in. I listened to them moving around in the other room, stripping my bed of the dirty sheets and blankets. I was exhausted but there was something I had to know before I could fall asleep. "Why don't you like Mayrila?" I asked.
"Because she's a witch," my father replied, as though that was enough of a reason. Then, after a brief pause, he added, "And the personal history that I have with her is difficult and full of arguments and disagreements. We don't get on, Candale, and I don't like the way that she uses her gifts."
"She saved me."
"Yes," my father said. "And I hope it wasn't at too high a price."
"You're being melodramatic," I told him.
My father laughed. "Yes," he agreed. "I probably am."
***
I woke up in my own bed. I was hungry. It had been so long since I had wanted to eat that I had forgotten what it felt like to have those hunger-pangs in my belly. I struggled upright, pushing the covers away from me and then my mother was there to assist me.
My mother, Silnia, had the same maddening black curls that I did and large eyes, though hers were blue, like my father and sister's. She had pale skin and was very beautiful. The last time I had seen her, her eyes had been red with shed tears and her hair dull and limp around her face, her dress rumpled from having been slept in. Now she looked more like herself again, her clothes were neat and her long hair was loose around her shoulders, the way she had worn it when I was a child, even though current Court fashion was for complicated styles with the hair piled up. I knew she had done it for my benefit, dressed the way she had when I was younger, to make me feel better. It worked, bringing a smile to my face at the sight of her, so pretty and glowing.
"Candale," she whispered. Her large eyes were wide, shining with emotion. "Oh, son," she breathed, "I was so worried about you. My beautiful boy."
"Not so beautiful," I said. "Like a shrivelled skeleton."
"Not for long," she said. "We shall put some weight on you, now that you're well again, now that you can keep the food down."
"Yes," I agreed. "What time is it?"
"It's late. Your father, sister and I have taken it in turns to sit by your bedside, so that someone would be with you when you woke. We had no idea when that would be."
"How long have I been unconscious?"
"Almost two weeks," Silnia replied. "It was a frustrating time for me. I didn't know when you would open your eyes again ... You have no idea how much I have wanted to hear your voice, Candale."
"I'm hungry," I told her.
Silnia laughed. "Then I shall have some food sent up for you. Wait here."
"Can't go anywhere else, Mother."
"No," she said. "That's very true."
Silnia disappeared for a few minutes, to send a servant to fetch me some food, and then she returned to me. "Will I be able to go to the Summer Dance?" I asked, as she sat back down.
"Oh, Dale." She pressed her lips together and tears shone in her eyes. "You have missed the dance," she said. "It was last week, you slept right through it! We did consider postponing it, until you were back on your feet, but we didn't know how long that was going to be, we didn't even know how long it would be until you woke! Besides, after all the preparations we had done, we didn't want to cancel it, especially as we knew that you were going to be all right. Everyone needed a break, they needed the dance and it was a chance for us all to celebrate the fact that you were healed. The last few months have been such a strain on all of us that the Summer Dance was a welcome relief and it really was such an extravagant affair. We would have only cancelled it if you had died, and you didn't so ..." She laughed as she realised she was rambling on and shook her head. "You have missed the dance, son. You have missed it."
A servant brought me a bowl of meat broth and a glass of water on a tray a few minutes later and I stared at it with dismay. It was probably the last thing I could think of that I wanted to eat. I had been living on broth for the last two months or so, unable to chew or swallow anything heavier than that, let alone keep it down. Now I had the strongest cravings for meat, for roast fowl with honey, glazed vegetables and perhaps some sweet almond biscuits to follow, only it was more broth that had been set before me. But I was starving and broth was better than nothing, after all.
I took the spoon in my hands, feeling so proud of myself that I could hold this piece of metal between my pale skeletal fingers and that I could lift it to my mouth to feed myself. It was a slow process, the broth was cold by the time I was done, and I was very tired, but I had done it myself. After three months of illness, and nearly two of being unable to do anything for myself, I had managed to eat a whole bowl of broth, alone, without any assistance. How sad that such small things could make me feel so happy. I felt the same way that I had the first time I had learnt to jump my horse, or won a fencing lesson against my tutor. And when I turned to look at my mother I found that she had the same look of pride and happiness in her eyes that she had on those other occasions, too. So if I was pathetic to be so proud of so little, at least I wasn't alone.
Silnia set the tray down on the floor while I settled myself back down on the bed. I suddenly felt very tired and it was all I could do to puff up the pillows beneath my head. "I'm so tired," I told her. "Can I sleep?"
"Yes, yes," she whispered. "Yes. Mayrila said that you would need lots of sleep, that you must take things slowly, but I'm glad to see that you're not in pain, that the dark look has gone from your eyes. You almost look like my son again, Candale. For a while there I didn't recognise you. You were a haunted, wrecked figure. You weren't my son. Now you are. Now you're my boy again." She kissed my forehead. "You sleep, Candale. Someone will be here when you wake."
So I closed my eyes, and I slept.
***
The next couple of days crawled by in a slow mix of sleep and numbness, but there was always someone in my room when I woke, no matter whether it was dark outside, or daylight. I wasn't able to stay awake for long those first few days, only an hour or so at a time, with several hours of more sleep in between, but by the third day I could stay awake for longer and I was able to hold proper conversations with my sister and my parents without falling asleep in the middle of them. Those conversations were short, as I did grow tired quickly, and were never really about very much, just mundane things, the weather, Court gossip, the food, as everyone skirted around the topic of my illness and of the woman who had healed me. But as polite and boring as those conversations were, I was grateful for it all.
By the fifth day I was awake more than I was asleep, and able to pour myself a glass of water, and drink it, without finding the jug too heavy for me to hold. I had also moved onto more solid food, although not the rich meals that I craved. I was beginning to feel frustrated at being stuck in my bed and annoyed at myself for being so weak. What made it worse was that, as my frustration at being stuck in bed had started to grow, my visitors had become less frequent. Just when I needed people to talk to, to help me relieve my boredom, people stopped coming! I could understand it, though. Now that they knew I wasn't going to die, they didn't have to worry each time they saw me that it might be their last time with me, and they were able to get on with the life that my illness had interrupted. It didn't matter to them that I was bored of lying in bed and staring up the ceiling, or turning to look at the walls.
So, on the sixth day I decided it was time that I got up.
It was perhaps mid-morning when I reached this decision. I had had hot porridge for breakfast, been able to eat two bowls and finish them both before they had begun to tur
n cold, and had spent a good hour or so talking with Aylara. She had told me about a new bard who had come and played for the Summer Dance, who was still around and composing songs. She had suggested sending him to sing and play for me, to help pass the time, but I had told her to send him to me in a week, when I might look a little more presentable and less ravaged and skeletal. Aylara had nodded and had gone on to tell me about a new dress she was having made for her, and then she had just talked about Kal.
When she had left me, I had tried to read, but I had grown bored of that and, when it looked as though no one was coming to see me that side of lunch, I decided to get up.
I lowered my legs slowly over the side of the bed, staring at them for a moment, transfixed by how pale and white they were, how shrivelled and skeletal. When I finally got to my feet, those thin legs wobbled dangerously beneath me and stars danced before my eyes. I tightened my grip on one of the posts of my bed to stabilise myself and slowly started to shuffle my way along. I wanted to go into the sitting room, just for a change of scenery, so I could sit and, perhaps, sleep on the couch, and maybe even draw. A bath would be nice, too. I was tired of being sponged down by healers who didn't care that the sponge was too wet or rough and who just ignored me when I blushed and squirmed. It would feel good to soak in a deep, hot tub and relax, to do something for myself again. But I knew I had to take it slowly, that I wasn't ready for that yet. My first step was to get myself into my sitting room.
I was out of breath by the time I reached my bedroom door and so exhausted that I just wanted to lie down again. Sweat stuck my nightshirt against my body and I was cold, shivering, but the bed was too far away from me now. The couch in the other room would be nearer. Besides, I had come this far, I was on my feet for the first time in ages, and I was determined to make it the whole way.
My fingers were shaking as I opened the door that led into the other room and slowly I stepped through.
I was instantly immersed in darkness, it was all around me, and in the middle of it all there was a figure. It was small, compact, sexless, a young child. It lifted its head at my approach and a pale face, whiter than snow, set with dark eyes, looked up at me. The eyes seemed empty, black, bottomless pits, and the feral way that they stared at me froze my heart inside my chest. Thick hair, as black as ink, wild and matted like a bush, hung around the face and shoulders, clear down to the waist of this skinny little creature. It was dressed in rags, a white shift, torn and dirty, with brown smudges of dirt and red smears of blood. Blood ran down the child's arms and legs, dirty red stains on its pale white flesh, coming from long, angry cuts, and there were purple and black bruises marking the skin like furious little rainbows.
The child took a step toward me and I took a step back. There was something wrong about the way that it moved. Not as a human would walk. It glided, as though it was made of liquid, running gracefully across the wooden floorboards as it came towards me, and its black eyes were like a serpent's eyes, dark and hollow and alien. The child had its hands stretched out, reaching for me, and I could see blood dripping from beneath the dirty, chipped fingernails of those white fingers.
I took another step backwards, my heart racing inside my chest.
My head collided with the edge of the open door. Pain shot through my skull. I cried out and the figure was gone.
Everything exploded around me and went black.
Return to Contents
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Chapter Three
RECOVERY
"Candale," Kal sighed. He lifted me up into his arms, carried me over to my blue, cushioned couch and lay me down. "What are you doing out of bed?"
"I was bored." My head was pounding and I reached up to touch it, pressing my fingers to the bump. I felt a flash of pain and I jerked my fingers back. There was blood on my fingertips.
Kal gave me a withering look. "You were bored?" he said. "Candale, you were ill. You nearly died! And only a few days after you wake following being unconscious for two weeks, you think you're ready to get up and move around? No wonder you fainted. You're only lucky that you didn't give yourself a fit as well!"
"I haven't had a fit since I fell ill," I told him.
"Yes," he said softly. "You have." I just looked at him. Kal frowned and then his eyes softened. "I thought you knew, Lara always said that you knew when you had a fit, but ..." His brow creased as he considered how best to continue with this, as though saying the wrong words might make me have a relapse. "You've had several fits, Candale, while you were ill. I suppose, thinking about it now, you were very sick and in so much pain, sometimes you weren't even aware when a person was in the room with you, so I don't know how we could have ever thought you were aware of your more violent fits. I'm sorry for assuming that."
"Were they bad?" I asked, trying to rack my brain to think of any time that I might have had a fit and then forgotten about it. But the three months of my illness seemed nothing but a wash of pain and sleep to me and I couldn't tell one day apart from the next. I certainly couldn't remember having had a seizure.
"They were fairly bad, yes," Kal said. "You would jerk around and throw off anyone who tried to hold you down. You sounded as though you were choking on your tongue and they seemed to last longer than usual. Not that I'm an expert on this, or anything, Candale. I had only witnessed you having one seizure before you fell ill and then I saw you have two more. It was Lara who told me that they were more violent than usual."
"Wasn't anyone going to tell me about this?"
"I don't see why," Kal said. "I thought you knew that you had had them." He shrugged. "Don't worry about it now, Candale. It doesn't matter. I'll go and get some water for that bump of yours, all right?" Kal disappeared for a moment and returned with a bowl of water and a blanket. He covered me up with the blanket first, and I was grateful for its warmth, and then he dabbed a wet cloth against the bleeding bump on my head. "I better get someone to check this out for you," he told me.
"Don't," I said. "Please. I'm sick of the sight of healers."
"Candale." Kal shook his head wearily. "Don't argue with me about this. I'm going to get a healer to look at you. I'm not going to take any chances."
"Fine," I sighed. "They will just order me back to bed. I'm tired of lying around."
"Do you actually think that you can do anything else?" Kal asked. "You're a wreck. You managed to walk in here and then you fainted. You can't go anywhere else, Candale. You're not strong enough yet and pushing yourself too hard will slow down your recovery."
"I didn't faint," I told him. "I saw someone in here and it frightened me a little. I backed into the door and I guess it knocked me out."
Kal laughed. He actually laughed at me! When I didn't laugh and he saw that I was serious, his laughter died, and he stood up handing me the wet piece of cloth. "Don't," he said. "All right? Just don't." He walked away from me, towards my hand-carved Kyeranian drink's cabinet and opened it. I watched him help himself to my most expensive bottle of red wine, pouring it out in to a crystal goblet.
"Don't what?" I asked finally, when it became clear to me that he wasn't going to tell me.
"Do this!" he said. He turned and looked at me and his brown eyes widened when he realised I had no idea what he was talking about. "Oh, Dale," he sighed. "Oh dear." He came and sat down opposite me, nursing his drink in his hands. "Candale, I love you. You know that. You're like a brother to me. A troublesome brother, one I have to worry about most of the time, but a brother all the same."
"Yes," I said. "I know that."
He took a sip of his wine and then lifted his eyes to meet mine. "But you're odd, Candale."
"Odd?" I struggled to sit up, pushing the blanket down around my stomach. "How in Drakan's name am I odd?"
"There was no one in this room, Candale," he said. "Only me, and I've been here most of the morning, reading." He gestured to one of my books. A history of Carnia, or something. It was hard to read the exact title from where I sat and with the book upside down.
"I was going to come in and see you when I arrived, but Aylara said I should let you sleep and get this room ready in the meanwhile so that we could all sit in here and have our lunch together. I was going to bring you out here when she returned from seeing your parents and ordering our meal in the kitchen." He gestured toward the hearth and my heavily carved, giant stone fireplace where a fire cracked and burned merrily. It wasn't a cold day, there was no need for it, they must still be afraid of me catching cold. "See? I even got the fire ready for you."
"That sounds nice," I said. It really did. Spending time with two of my favourite people, in a relaxed atmosphere, would be so great, and even though my head was pounding from my fall, I still wanted to sit out here with them and have my lunch as they had planned.
But none of that explained what he was talking about, which I pointed out to him.
"It's just that you do this sometimes, Candale," Kal said. "Sometimes you retell an event to a third person, at a ball or banquet or some such, and you talk about things that simply didn't happen. Your sister and I joke about it a lot, that you just like the attention. And you're a good storyteller, Candale. I think that you would have made a fine bard, if you weren't a prince. But I don't want you to tell me that there was someone in this room when I know full well that there wasn't. That is just a lie, Candale, and I can't see why you would lie to me."
I flinched. I felt like a scolded child. Only there had been someone in the room. I had seen a child standing there, in the darkness, but I hadn't seen Kal at all. "Kal," I began. Then I stopped. "What did happen when I came in?"
"You came in and I asked if you were all right. You looked very pale and you didn't answer me. A minute later you had fainted, striking your head on the edge of the door as you fell. You came around almost instantly, I picked you up and that was that. Here we are now."