Daniel Abraham - The King's Blood

A servant man in silks and a bronze chain waited for Dawson at the stone garden that led to Simeon’s withdrawing rooms. Dawson acknowledged the man’s bow with a nod and allowed himself to be led into the cool shadows within.

King Simeon sat beside a small fountain. He wore a shift of simple white cotton, and his hair was disordered as if from sleep. His gaze was on the falling water, silver and white where it sheeted down a bronze dragon almost lost to verdigris.

“A casual audience, is it, Your Majesty?” Dawson said, and his old friend turned. His smile was melancholy.

“Forgive me if I don’t rise,” Simeon said over the splashing water.

“You’re my king,” Dawson said. “However low you sit, it’s my duty to kneel deeper.”

“You always have loved form,” Simeon said. “Oh, stop that. Stand up, or at least come and sit by me.”

“Form is what gives the world its shape,” Dawson said, rising. “If you don’t hold to tradition, what is there? A thousand different people each with his own idea of justice, every man trying to force his ideas on the next? We’ve seen how that ends.”

“Anninfort,” Simeon said darkly. “You live in a frightening world, old friend, if the only thing between us and that is etiquette.”

“Order has always been precious and fragile. By the time the small things have washed away, the large ones are too powerful to stop. Every man in his place. Those meant to lead, lead. Those meant to follow, follow. Civilization doesn’t fall into anarchy. That’s how it should be. And it’s the world you live in too, Your Majesty.”

“So it is,” Simeon said. “So it is. And still I wish I could leave Aster a better one.”

“Change the nature of all history for one boy?”

“I would. If I could, by God I would do it. A world where not everything rests on his shoulders. Where his own people don’t plot to have him killed.” Simeon seemed to sink in on himself. His skin was greyer than Dawson remembered it, like a pale shirt gone too many times to the launderer’s yard. The king combed his fingers through his hair absently. His reflection in the fountain’s waves was only a smear of white. “I am sorry. You were right about Issandrian and Maas. I thought I could keep peace.”

“You did. Your only error was thinking you could do it without executing anyone.”

“And now…”

“Asterilhold,” Dawson said, and let the word hang in the air. It was what he’d been called here for. Simeon didn’t speak. The water clinked and muttered. Dawson felt a growing unease at the king’s continued silence. What had begun as a thoughtful pause stretched until it seemed almost reproach. Dawson looked up, prepared to defend himself or make apology.

Instead, he cried out in alarm. Simeon’s eyes were wide and blank and unseeing. His mouth was slack. The stink of piss cut through the air as rank yellow stained the king’s lap. It was like an image pulled from nightmare.

And then Simeon coughed, shook his head, looked down.

“Oh,” he said. He sounded exhausted. “Dawson? You’re here. How long was it this time?”

“A few breaths,” Dawson said. His voice was shaking. “What was it?”

Simeon stood, looking down at the urine stain on his shift, the piss running down his legs.

“A fit,” he said. “Just a small fit. I’m sorry you saw this. I thought I was done with them for today. Could you call for my man?”

Dawson trotted across the corridor and shouted for the servant. The man came with a fresh shift already in hand. There was no shock in his expression, no surprise. Dawson and the servant looked away as the king stripped off his soiled clothes and put on the fresh. When they were alone again, Dawson sat at the fountain’s edge. Everything was just the same as before, but the act of seeing it was different. He felt as if he were looking at Simeon for the first time, and what he saw—what had been there all along unnoticed and unremarked—shocked him. What had been the weight of a crown was suddenly something more sinister and profound. Simeon smiled at him knowingly.

“It was like this for my father too, near the end. Some days I’m almost fine. Others… my mind wanders. He was younger when he died. I am three years older than my father. How many men can say that?”

Dawson tried to speak, but his throat was thick. When he did manage, it was little more than a whisper.

“How long has this been going on?”

“Two years,” Simeon said. “For the most part, I’ve been able to keep it hidden. But it’s getting worse. Once was, I’d have weeks or months between them. It’s hours now.”

“What do the cunning men say?”

Simeon chuckled, and the sound was deeper than the water’s laughter. Gentler too.

“They say that all men are mortal. Even kings.” Simeon took a deep breath and leaned forward, his forearms on his knees, his hands clasped. “There is a flower that’s supposed to help. I keep drinking the tea, but I can’t see any difference. I suppose I might be failing faster without it.”

“There will be something. We can send for someone…”

His old friend didn’t answer. There was no need to. Dawson heard the impotence in his own words, and was shamed by them. All men died, always had and always would. It was only surprise that hollowed his chest.

“I wish Eleanora and I had had Aster earlier,” the king said. “I would have loved to see him as a man. With a child of his own, maybe. I remember when Barriath was born. All the jokes were that the boy had eaten you. No one knew where you were or what you were doing. You were gone from all the old places. I resented you for that. I felt left behind.”

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”

“No reason for you to be sorry. I just didn’t understand. Then Aster came, and I did. If we’d had him earlier… But then, I suppose it wouldn’t have been him, would it? No more than your Jorey is a younger imitation of Barriath. So I can’t even wish that. This is the world as it had to be to have my boy in it, and so I can’t hate it. Even if I want to.”

“I am so sorry, Your Majesty,” Dawson said.

Simeon shook his head.

“Ignore me,” he said. “I hate it when I get like this. Whine like a schoolboy. Enough. I wanted to talk to you about other things, like the audience with Ashford. What are your thoughts?”

“That you should have it,” Dawson said. “As I said before—”

“I know what you said before. You know more now than you did then. I can’t take the audience if I’m going to piss myself in the middle of it. Right now, they’re frightened of me. Of what I might do. And they’re backing away. If Ashford takes back a report that I’m half mad and dying, that song changes. The last time you brought me advice, I turned you away and came within days of handing my child to a man with plans to kill him. So far as I know you’re still in control of your own bladder. It makes you more competent than your king. So tell me. What do I do?”

Dawson stood and tried to gather his windswept mind. He felt like he’d just fought a duel. His body had the sense of expended effort and exhaustion, even though he’d done nothing more than walk across a room and call for a servant. He had the sudden, visceral memory of pelting down a street, Prince Simeon at his side. He didn’t remember when or where it had happened, but he knew the street had smelled of rain, that Simeon had worn green and he’d worn brown. He swallowed and wiped the back of his hand across his eyes.

“If the fits can be controlled, have the audience immediately,” he said. “Prepare beforehand, and keep it brief. No feasts, no private meals, no second audience. Something formal.”

“And say?”