Mercedes Lackey - Magic's Price

Three

“Are you going to be all right?” Vanyel asked in an undertone. Then he thought savagely in the next instant, Of course he isn't going to be all right, you fool. The King was as pale as paper, thin to transparency, with pain-lines permanently etched about his mouth and eyes. Under any other circumstances, Vanyel would have ordered him back to his bed; beads of sweat stood out all over his forehead with the effort of walking as far as the Audience Chamber, and Vanyel didn't have to exert his Empathy to know how much pain his joints were causing him. Vanyel would have traded away years of his life to give the King a few moments' respite from that agony. But he allowed none of this to show as he settled the colorless wraith that was King Randale into the heavily-padded shelter of his throne.

“I'll be fine,” Randale replied, managing a strained smile. “Really, Van, you worry too much.” But he couldn't restrain a gasp of pain as he slipped a little and hit his arm against the side of the throne.

Vanyel cursed his own clumsiness, and did his best not to clutch at Randale's fragile arms, as he caught Randale before he could fall and lowered the King carefully the rest of the way down into his seat. Another bruise the size of my hand, and he doesn't need ten more where my fingers were.

“Really, Van,” Randale repeated with patently false cheer, once he'd been settled as comfortably as possible. “You worry too much.” Vanyel stepped back a pace, ready to aid in any way he could, but sensing the King's irritability at his own weakness and helplessness. He also doesn't need to be reminded of how little he can do anymore.

The slight noise of the chamber's side door opening and shutting caught Randale's attention. He craned his head around a little to see who it was, as young Stefen entered the Audience Chamber, put down a stool, and began setting up near the throne.

“Is that a new Bard?” he asked with more real interest than he'd shown in anything all day. “I don't remember seeing that youngster in Court, and I'd surely remember that head of hair! He looks like a forest fire at sunset.”

:Should I tell him, 'Fandes?:

:No,: came the immediate reply. :It would be cruel to raise his hopes. Stefen is either going to be able to help him, or not. And if not, better that the King simply enjoy the music, as best he can.:

Vanyel sighed. Yfandes could be coldly pragmatic at the oddest times. “Breda sent him over,” Van temporized. “She says he's very good, and you can probably use him with this particular lot of hardheads.”

“Gifted, hmm?” Randale looked genuinely interested.

“Quite remarkably, according to Breda.” Vanyel coughed. “I gather she caught something in the wind about the Lake District lot, and sent him over specially. I understand he's to concentrate on something soothing.”

Randale actually chuckled. “Breda is a very wise woman. Remind me to thank her.”

At that moment, the delegation from the Lake District arrived, a knot of brightly-clad figures beside the door, who waited impatiently for the Seneschal to announce them. Vanyel stepped back to his place behind the throne and to Randale's left, while Shavri stepped forward to her position as King's Own at his right.

Please, he sent up a silent plea, just let him get through this audience.

Shavri nodded to the young Journeyman Bard, and Stefen began to play as the delegation formed themselves into a line and approached the throne.

Stefen fought down the urge to stare at the King, and concentrated on his tuning instead. Each brief glance at Randale that he stole appalled him more than the one before it. Only the thin gold band holding his lank hair back, and the deference everyone gave this man, convinced him that the man on - or rather, in - the throne was Valdemar's King. There were two other Heralds on the dais, one on either side of the throne; a dusky woman, and a man Stefen couldn't see because the woman was in his line-of-sight. Either one of them was a more kingly figure than Randale.

He'd known that Randale was sick, of course - that was no secret, and hadn't been for as long as Stefen had been in Haven. But he hadn't known just how sick Randale was; after all, apprentice and Journeymen Bards hardly were of sufficient rank to join the Court, especially not bastards like Medren and gutter rats like himself. The Bards didn't gossip about the King, at least not where their students could hear them. And Stef had never believed more than a quarter of what the townsfolk and nobly-born students would tell the presumptive Bards. He'd imagined that Randale would look ill; thin and pale, perhaps, since his illness was obviously serious. He'd never thought that the King could actually be dying.

Randale looked like a ghost; from colorless hair to skeletal features to corpse-pale complexion, if Stef had come upon this man in a darkened hallway, he'd have believed all the tales of spirits haunting the Palace. That the King wore Heraldic Whites didn't help matters; they only emphasized his pallor.

Stefen was stunned. He couldn't have imagined that the King was in that bad a state. It didn't seem possible; Kings weren't supposed to die in the ways ordinary mortals did. When Kings were ill, the Healers were supposed to take heroic measures, and cure them. Kings weren't supposed to have pain so much a part of their lives that every movement was hesitant, tremulous.

Kings were supposed to be able to command miracles.

Except this one can't. This one can't even command his own body to leave him in peace. . . .

There was something so heroic about this man, this King - sitting there despite the fact that he obviously belonged in bed, doing his job in spite of the fact that he was suffering - Stefen wanted to do something for him, to protect him. For the first time in his life, Stefen found himself wanting to help someone for no reason other than that the person needed the help.

And for a moment he was confused.

But I am getting something out of this, he reminded himself. Notice at Court. Maybe even the King's favor, if I really do well. Come on, Stef, you know what's at stake here; settle down and do your work. If he needs your help, that's all the more reason that he'll be grateful when he gets it.

There was a stir among the group of people beside the door, and they began to sort themselves out and move toward the throne. Stefen looked back to the three on the dais for instructions, and the dark-haired woman with the sorrowful eyes nodded at him purposefully.

Taking that as a signal, he began to play, dividing his power as he'd been instructed. The greater part went to King Randale. Once that was established, the remainder went toward the approaching delegates, soothing their fears, their suspicions - and they were suspicious, he could read that in their attitudes, just as he'd been taught. Bards weren't Thoughtsensers, but the kind of instruction they had in reading movement and expression sometimes made it seem that they were. It was plain to Stef that this lot thought Randale had been playing some kind of political game with them, calculatedly insulting them by making them wait for their audience.

Look, you fools, he thought at them, surprising himself with his anger at their attitude. See what he's going through? He wasn't putting you off, the man's in agony; every moment he spends with you he's paying for in pain.

He tried to put some of that behind his music, and it worked. He saw the mistrust in their hard, closed faces fade; watched the expressions turn to shock and bewilderment, then faint shame.

He allowed himself a moment of triumph before turning his attention back to the King.