One worry fretted him until he finally blurted it out to Brekke.
“When I was fevered, Brekke, did I … I mean…”
Brekke smiled and patted his hand reassuringly. “We never pay any attention to such ramblings. Generally, they’re so incoherent they make no sense whatever.”
Some note in her voice bothered him, though. “… so incoherent, they make no sense?” He had babbled his head off, then. Not that he minded about Brekke if he had said something about that dratted queen egg. But if Sharra had heard? She was from the Southern Hold. Would she be as quick to discount his ramblings about that double-blasted shard-shelled egg? He couldn’t relax. What wretched luck to fall ill when you had a secret that must be kept! He worried over that until he fell asleep, and picked right up on the same train of thought the next morning, though he forced himself to be cheerful as he listened to Ruth bathing with the firelizards.
He comes, Ruth said suddenly, sounding startled. And D’ram brings him.
“D’ram brings whom?” Jaxom asked.
“Sharra,” Brekke called from the other room, “our guests have arrived. Would you escort them from the beach?” She came quickly into Jaxom’s room, smoothing the light blanket and peering intently at his face. “Is your face clean? How are your hands?” “Who’s coming that has you in a flurry? Ruth?” He’s pleased to see me, too. Ruth’s sound of surprise was colored with delight.
Jaxom was forewarned by that remark, but he could only stare, stunned, as Lytol came striding into the room. His face was tense and pale under the flying helmet, and he hadn’t bothered to unfasten his jacket on the walk up from the beach, so perspiration beads formed on his forehead and upper Up. He stood in the doorway, just looking at his ward.
Abruptly, he turned toward the outside wall, harshly clearing his throat, stripping off helmet and gloves, unbelting his jacket, grunting in surprise when Brekke appeared at his elbow to relieve him of the gear. As she passed Jaxom’s bed on her way out of the room, she gave him such an intense look that he couldn’t fathom what she was trying to convey.
She says that he is crying, Ruth told him. And that you are not to be surprised or embarrass him. Ruth paused. She is also thinking that Lytol is healed, too? Lytol hasn’t been ill.
Jaxom didn’t have time to sort out that oblique reference because his guardian had already recovered his composure and turned.
“Hot here after Ruatha,” Jaxom said, struggling to break the silence.
“You want a bit of sun, boy,” Lytol said at the same moment.
“I’m not allowed out of bed, yet.”
“The mountain is just as you sketched it.”
They spoke again simultaneously, answering each other’s comments.
It was too much for Jaxom, who burst out laughing, waving Lytol to sit beside him on the bed. Still laughing, Jaxom grabbed Lytol’s forearm, holding it firmly, trying in that grasp to apologize for all the concern he’d caused. Abruptly he was engulfed in Lytol’s rough embrace, his back soundly thumped when the man released him. Tears sprang to Jaxom’s eyes, too, at the unexpected demonstration. Lytol had always been scrupulous in caring for his ward but the older Jaxom had grown, the more he had wondered if Lytol really liked him at all.
“I thought I had lost you.”
“I’m harder to lose than you’d think, sir.”
Jaxom couldn’t stop grinning foolishly because Lytol actually had a smile on his face: the first one Jaxom recalled.
“You’re nothing but bones and white skin,” Lytol said in his customary gruff manner.
“That’ll pass. I’m allowed to eat all I want,” Jaxom replied. “Care for something?”
“I didn’t come to eat. I came to see you. And I’ll tell you this, young Lord Jaxom, I think you’d better go back to the Mastersmith for more drafting lessons: you did not accurately place the trees along the cove shore in that sketch of yours. Though the mountain is very well done.”
“I knew I had the trees wrong, sir, one of the things I planned to check out. Only when I got back here, it went clean out of my head.”