The Eyes of a King (19 page)

Grandmother came to the bedroom door not long after. “That was Maria,” she said, in an undertone, so as not to wake Stirling. “She is a very nice girl, you know. Very nice indeed.”

“She is.”

“She was offering to help us. And she has had silent fever; would you have guessed? Lots of people recover from it, after all; it has done her no harm.” I nodded.

“Some people would be afraid of bringing a baby near here,” Grandmother continued. “But then, I suppose Maria is a sensible girl, and knows what is dangerous and what is not. She said that having silent fever yourself means that your children are born immune. She saw a trained doctor when she had it, and he told her so.”

“This strain is not catching anyway,” I said. “At least, I don’t think so. What did the newspaper say?”

The article about the soldier was still open on the table, and she scanned it again now. We had both read it several times already. It did not make much sense to either of us, but it was all we had to go by except for what Father Dunstan had told us.

“You had better hurry or you’ll be late for school,” said Grandmother, looking up. “You have had no breakfast. And you ate nothing yesterday either.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Go and get yourself something to eat.”

I swallowed a dry piece of bread, cut a couple of slices for my lunch and grabbed an apple, and stuffed them into my jacket pocket. “I’ll see you this evening,” I said. “Don’t worry if I’m late.”

Once I shut the door, I wished that I had said goodbye to Stirling. But he would still be there when I got back.

I never walked to school alone, and noticing it made me worry. Every step reminded me that Stirling was ill, and by the time I reached the gates, I was almost too afraid to go in. You have to be strong to go to school. I wanted to turn back. But I didn’t.

“We saw you at the weekend, North,” Seth Blackwood told me when I walked into the classroom. Usually everyone treated me with cold indifference.

“I know. I spoke to you.”

“I didn’t know you had a girlfriend,” said Isaac.

“A girlfriend? Well …,” I began distractedly.

“Damn pretty girl too,” Isaac announced to the rest of the platoon.

“She …,” I began again. But they were not listening, and I was too weary to explain.

About halfway through the morning, another whisper started. I had only just noticed it when Seth Blackwood called across to me again: “North, is it true your brother has silent fever?”

I swallowed and said, “Yes.”

He swore quietly, more pity in his tone than anything else. “What are you doing in school?” someone else said. “You could pass it on.”

“It’s slow-developing silent fever. That’s not catching.”

“How do you know?”

I didn’t trouble to answer. Wherever I looked that day, someone had stopped working and turned to watch me. I wished that they would not, because it made me feel suffocated.
I was so afraid for Stirling, so afraid that he would die, and always people were watching me. I was used to being invisible.

I got home late again that afternoon. I made myself push the door open quickly, or I would not have done it at all; I thought suddenly that Stirling was gone. But I saw at once that the bedroom door was open, and Maria was sitting beside the bed, talking to him. I hurried in, my heartbeat slowing again.

“Leo!” said Stirling, smiling and turning toward me, though he was not looking directly at me. “Where have you been?”

“The hills,” I said. I had walked farther this time, but I had still not searched as far from the edge of the city as I would have liked. There was a long distance to go yet.

“I missed you,” said Stirling. “I wish you would not go there.”

“I have to. What if someone else found the Bloodflower, and it was somewhere I could have been looking myself? Near to the city. It’s possible.”

“You are looking for the Bloodflower?” said Maria. She watched me in silence. “But do you not think that everywhere you search, someone else will have searched first?”

I sat down on the end of Stirling’s bed, kicking off my boots. “You look terrible,” said Maria. I laughed shortly. “No.” She smiled. “I mean terribly tired.”

“Do I?” I stood up and looked in the mirror. It was true. “I will get used to this in time,” I said. “I have walked a few miles today, that’s all.”

“Stirling seems good, though,” said Maria. “ We both think he will get better by himself anyway.”

“Yes,” said Stirling. “You do not need to find that plant.”

“Well, when you get well by yourself, I can sell it and buy us a house on the edge of the city, better than Sergeant Markey’s even.” They laughed at that.

“Where is Grandmother?” I asked.

“She went down to take a shower,” said Maria. “Which is good; she needs to do something other than sit here worrying.”

“She could go to church this evening,” I said.

“If you can persuade her to leave Stirling.”

I managed to get her to go, with Stirling’s help. She could see that he was better, at least today, and it would take me two minutes at most to run to the church to get her. I was sitting on Stirling’s bed after she and Maria had gone when he said suddenly, “Leo, where are you?” I had forgotten that he could not see.

“I don’t know,” I said. I wondered afterward why I said it, but at the time I could not help it.

“What?” There was real fear in his voice, and it brought me back. “Leo?”

I put my hand in his. “I am here. I am here, Stirling.”

“I can’t see. You scared me. What did you mean? I thought I was dying.”

“No, you are safe.”

He clung on to my hands. “Keep talking,” he said into the silence, “so that I know you are there.”

“I’ll stay here.”

“Keep talking. I get afraid, otherwise, in the dark all alone.” There was panic rising in his voice. “Keep talking. I don’t like the silence.”

But suddenly I could not. “It’s hard to talk when you are commanded to,” I told him.

“Say anything. Tell me a story. Like when we were small.”

I tried. But I must have forgotten how, because they kept sticking after the first line. I had not the imagination I used to have. “I can’t make up stories anymore,” I told him eventually. “I’m sorry.” I rubbed my head. It was aching again. “I suppose I could read to you.”

There was no newspaper; Grandmother had not gone to get it and I had forgotten to. “What about
The Golden Reign
?” I said. “That is all we have. Or the Bible, which I’ll guess you know by heart anyway.”

“No, I don’t.” He did not notice the intended joke. “Read me
The Golden Reign.
”

I let his hand go and he left it stretched out, as if he wanted to keep the smallest possible distance between us. “I am still here,” I said. “I’m just going to get it. I’m walking over to my bed; it is under my bed.” I walked heavily so that he could hear that I had not left the room. “I’ll be back in a second.” I bent down to get it, wondering if the pages of dry information would really draw his mind away from the fear.
The Golden Reign
was a history book, except for a couple of chapters. “It’s not that interesting, though, Stirling,” I said. Then I thought of the other book—the one that I had found, with the strange writing.

“Stirling?” I said. “Why don’t I read you that other thing I told you about—the story that appeared in the book I found?”

“Yes,” he said after a moment. “That is a good idea. I want to hear that too.”

“Perhaps you will be able to make something of what it says.”

“I hope so. Yes, read me that.”

I got the book out of the windowsill chest and went and sat
back down on Stirling’s bed. But when I opened it, I saw at once. “There’s more writing in it!” I told him.

“Really? Lots more writing?”

“A few pages. And there is a gap before it. The writer leaves gaps between the writing. I don’t know why.”

“Will you read it?” said Stirling. “Start from the beginning.”

“All right.” I turned to the first page and began. Stirling lay still, listening carefully, his hand on my knee.

Somehow reading it out loud made it seem less real, as if it truly was just a fairy story after all. But when I paused after the first section, Stirling said, “That was about the Liberation, wasn’t it? I told you they didn’t kill the prince.”

The story was working as a distraction; he had forgotten his fright and was becoming involved with it. “I know this makes sense,” he said, seemingly frustrated, after I had read the second section. “I know it makes sense, but I can’t work it out. My brain won’t work.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s because you are ill. Just listen.”

It took a surprisingly short amount of time to finish reading the rest, to say how long I had spent thinking about it. “The man must be Aldebaran,” said Stirling when I had finished. “He sounds like he is trained in magic, and they said the country was England—lots of times they said it. I think he really is Aldebaran.”

“I think so too.”

“But why was he writing to Talitha?” said Stirling.

“I don’t know. Perhaps she tricked him. She tricked some people. She was on both sides—openly working for the king and secretly leading the revolution. It was only after Lucien took power that everyone knew.”

Stirling frowned. “But Aldebaran is a very great man.”

“Talitha is powerful too—maybe more so.”

He seemed to be thinking. I was impatient to read on, but I waited. “So that’s what happened with Great-uncle Harold,” said Stirling. “He went to England and had a wife and children there.”

I nodded. Grandmother rarely talked about him. Even less than she talked about Aldebaran. “That must be what happened,” I said. “All I knew was that he disappeared for years and then came back.”

“Then we have relatives there,” said Stirling. “Think of that! English relatives.”

“I suppose we do,” I said. “That is the strange thing. If the man is Aldebaran, then this is a story about our family. Who would write a story about our family?”

“When did this happen?” said Stirling.

“Ten years ago. The date in the letter is just before the Liberation.”

“And when did Great-uncle Harold die?”

“I don’t know. Long before I was born.”

“And when was Aldebaran exiled?”

“When I was a baby.”

“This story is too confusing,” said Stirling. “It must be true.”

I laughed. He laughed too, and when he did, he started coughing like an old man. The sound of it frightened me. “Stirling,” I said. “Stirling, are you all right?”

He nodded and tried to smile. “Read on,” he told me.

The next section startled me. The butler was lighting the fire and preparing to tell the old man a story. It was the same as what I had dreamed the night before. I hesitated and thought
of telling Stirling that. And then I changed my mind. I did not want to frighten him just when he seemed to have grown calmer.

“The butler
must
be Aldebaran,” said Stirling. “The things he said about the secret service. Don’t stop, Leo. We might find out.”

There were more blank pages and then the writing began again. I turned them over and read on.

“I
could tell you a thousand stories about my life,” began the butler. “For the first few years it was ordinary enough. My parents were farmers on Holy Island, off the west coast of Malonia. I grew up working on the land. There were three of us—me, the eldest; my sister, Margaret, who is five years younger than me; and then our baby brother, Harold. In the daytime I would be out in the fields; in the evenings Margaret and I would sit in front of the fire with the baby, singing to him and telling him stories. I was just another boy, a farmer’s son, except for one thing: I was born with powers.”

“With what?” said Raymond. “And where is Malonia?”

“Just listen,” said the butler. “There is no time to argue.”

Raymond, startled by the butler’s tone, fell silent again. “I was discovered by the great Sheratan when I was thirteen years old,” the butler continued. “And from then on my life has never been ordinary. Sheratan took me as his apprentice. I became a tough man, trained with torture and exertion. I was very skilled by the end. And when I was still young, I was offered a place in the secret service.”

There was a silence. “All this is true,” the butler said then. “I have not always told you the truth, sir, but all this I tell you now is true.”

“What did you say this fellow did?” demanded Raymond. “This man who trained you. And what do you mean by powers?”

The butler folded his arms. “Sheratan was a great one—that is what we call them in my country. And by powers I mean the ability to perform superhuman feats. Great willpower; great strength of mind. We call it magic, although that does not mean the same thing in my country as it does in yours. We call it magic for want of a better word.”

Raymond stared at the butler, then began to laugh. “Is this a joke of yours?” he said. “Making me swear not to tell a soul and then spinning some ridiculous story? I must say, you took me in for a minute.”

“Sir, what I am telling you is the truth.”

Raymond went on laughing. “But, Field—”