“Your father will let you come north?” Ravenna asked, leaning back, and Garth nodded.
“Yes, after some arguments. Mother is unhappy, and she tries to overfeed me, but don’t doubt that I’ll be there.” He looked about again. “Is Venetia here?”
Ravenna smiled and let Garth go. “No. She would not come to town…but she said she would stand at the edge of the marsh and wave to me. I will see her.”
Vorstus took Ravenna’s arm. “Come, girl. The ship’s mate is waving us aboard.”
Garth hesitated, then held out his hand. “Good luck, Vorstus.”
Vorstus gripped it. “And you, my boy. Now, come, Ravenna.” He hurried the girl towards the ship, and she turned to look at Garth one last time.
He looked lost and lonely on the rapidly emptying wharf, waving as they hurried up the gangplank.
“Maximilian,” she whispered. “We’re coming.”
Whether or not she had waved her daughter goodbye from the coast, Garth did not know, but Venetia was standing by the doorway to her hut as he and his father rode by the next morning. She waved briefly, and Joseph raised his eyebrows at his son.
“You have made a friend, it seems, son.”
But Garth, waving back, grinned at his father. His spirits were high this morning. At last they were doing something. “Perhaps she waves at you, father. Perhaps she has missed not seeing you this past year.”
Joseph harrumphed in embarrassment, and turned back to the road.
The beautiful minareted city of Ruen captivated Garth as it had a year earlier. It was as bustling and as important as he remembered, and he could not stop the broad grin as they rode through the almost choked streets towards their lodgings, with the sound of the city’s bells cascading about their ears.
Perhaps soon Maximilian would reign here in place of Cavor.
“Remembering that bright-eyed maid, Garth?” Joseph winked, and Garth smiled at his father.
“I’m sure she has no reason to remember me, father.”
Joseph laughed at the wicked light in Garth’s face, and wondered if this year the maid would have a reason to remember the physician’s apprentice.
They settled quickly into their lodgings, ate a hearty meal, then spent a pleasant evening wandering about the city streets, laughing at the tumblers and standing for over an hour listening to a particularly talented minstrel.
As the minstrel’s soaring voice lapsed into silence, Joseph wiped an eye then turned away. “It’s been many a long year since I heard a minstrel that beautiful, son.”
They began to walk slowly through the streets, heading in the general direction of their lodging house.
“Do you miss life in Ruen much, father?”
Joseph thought about that a long time. “Some aspects, yes, although your mother prefers life in Narbon.”
They were quiet for some time.
“Tell me about Maximilian,” Garth eventually said softly, his eyes on the street before him.
Joseph glanced at him. “I wondered when you’d ask me about him again. But ever since you came through Ruen last year you’ve had Maximilian on your mind. You’ve never spoken of him, but a father knows.”
He was silent a moment, remembering. “Maximilian? He was a bright lad, fun-loving, always laughing. Courageous—and that would be the death of him eventually, spurring his horse away from the main hunting party like that. He and I spent many an hour playing hoopball—yes, your old father knows how to play hoopball!—and often just talking.”
His voice wavered, and Joseph cleared his throat. “Sorry. I rarely let myself think on Maximilian. To remember his stupid loss…” He turned his head away.
Garth struggled with himself. “Father, there’s something I should tell—”
“Baxtor, you old rogue!” A hearty laugh boomed along the street and a man hurried from beneath the overhang of an ale-house. “I’ve not seen you in years!”
The moment passed, and Garth shut his mouth and watched as his father embraced an old friend.
The red-walled palace was as grandiose and as domineering as Garth remembered. Again they walked the pleasant paths through the gardens and were shown into the palace itself.
But this time the servant hurried them along a side corridor away from the Throne Room.
“Cavor’s private apartments,” Joseph murmured to Garth. “He must be sicker than I realised if he keeps to his bed.”
But Cavor was up and staring out the window as they entered. Both instantly fell to their knees, their heads bowed.
“Joseph, I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you again!” Cavor’s voice sounded cheerful and full of vitality.
“Sire, I trust your arm does not bother you too much.” Joseph raised his head, and Garth followed, looking into the king’s face.
He looked as vital as he sounded, and a wide smile beamed from his face. “And you’ve brought your son—Garth, isn’t it? Well, welcome. Come sit with me by the window.”
Joseph risked a glance at his son. Sit with the king? Rarely was anyone allowed to sit in the royal presence. But Cavor waved them towards a table placed so that it caught a gentle breeze wafting through the open window. Spring was warm this year, and Garth caught the fragrance of both garden and the street markets beyond the palace walls. It was a heady but surprisingly pleasant mixture.
They sat as Cavor himself sank into a chair. Now that they were closer, and Cavor sitting in the natural light, Garth could see that thin lines ringed his eyes and ran from his nose to the corners of his mouth.
And there were shadows lurking in his eyes, as if his sleep had been deprived recently.
“Are you well, sire?” Joseph asked carefully, and Garth saw his father shared his suspicions.
“Well enough, Joseph. Nevertheless, I am pleased to see you.”
“Your arm, sire?” Joseph murmured.
“Ah,” Cavor flicked his fingers through the air as if at some trifling matter, then his hand fell and his face darkened. “Joseph, I have lain awake through many nights waiting for your visit. I almost sent for you a month past, but…” his voice faded, and he finished on a whisper. “But that would have been giving in.”
Concerned, Joseph rose to his feet. “Sire, let me see.”
Not bothering to attempt to conceal his pain now, Cavor shrugged off his jacket. Its loose fit had concealed the fact that the king’s right arm was swathed in a massive bandage—larger than Garth remembered from the previous year. Stained with a yellow effluent, it gave off a sickening stench.
Now Garth knew why the king had sat by the window. The scent from garden and market had concealed the scent of his own decay.
“Sire!” Joseph muttered, appalled. “You should have sent for me.” His deft hands quickly unwound the bandage, and he snapped his fingers at Garth for some surgical scissors. “Hurry, boy!”
Garth was already at his father’s side with the scissors extended, and forceps to follow that. Carefully Joseph lifted the final layer of dressings, then both he and Garth stiffened in shock at what lay beneath.
Cavor had turned his head to the left so he did not have to witness their horror.
Garth took a deep breath and managed to avoid taking a step back only through a supreme effort.
Large weeping blisters littered Cavor’s biceps. Much of the flesh was raw, some hanging in thin, blackened tatters from his arm. It looked almost as if he had been burnt.
Ravenna was right, Garth thought numbly. The ink links both marks, both men. Slowly Garth raised his eyes to Cavor’s averted face. Was it only the ink that made this mark fester to match Maximilian’s? How deeply did betrayal and guilt link the two men? For the first time Garth wondered at Cavor’s involvement in Maximilian’s abduction and incarceration. He’d surely had the most to gain from the prince’s disappearance.
“Sire?” Joseph whispered. “What has the incompetent Oberon Fisk done to you this time? Has he tried…has he tried to sear the infection out?”
Cavor shook his head wearily. “No, Joseph. Weeks ago the abscess covering the mark burst, and it has looked like this ever since.”
“How do you live with the pain?” Joseph had reached into his bag and was now gently wiping cloth saturated with herbal disinfectants across the king’s arm. Garth quickly handed his father a clean cloth and stowed the stained and unclean cloth in an isolated side pocket of his father’s bag.
Cavor sighed. “I have grown used to it, Joseph.” He smiled wryly, trying to make light of his disability. “Kingship is never pain-free.” He paused. “I wish to the gods that Maximilian had grown to shoulder this burden and left me free to administer my estates and live a contented country life.”
At that last statement, Garth glanced at the king sharply again. Cavor’s voice had been tight, forced. Insincere.
Having cleaned the wound as best he could, Joseph wrapped his hands about the king’s arm. Garth could see the glimmer of distaste cross his father’s face as the evil feel of the infection flooded into his body through his hands. Garth shivered, anticipating Joseph’s request that he Touch Cavor as well.