Durwin snatched up the goblet and, slipping his arm beneath Eskevar’s head, brought it close to the invalid’s lips. He poured and the yellow liquid ran down the King’s chin and neck, staining his bedclothes.
But some of the medicine seeped into his patient’s mouth. The King gasped weakly and the hermit poured again, emptying the goblet. In a moment the gray eyelids flickered and raised, revealing two dark eyes, filmy with stupor.
“Awake, Eskevar. Your time is not yet.” The eyes stared unmoving in their milky gaze. “Oh, have I come too late?” Durwin muttered to himself.
“What is it? Durwin? What has hap-” The Queen appeared in the open doorway. She took two steps into the room, then saw her husband staring upward, motionless, “Oh!” she cried, rushing to the bed.
“He is with us still, my Lady. But for how long I cannot say.” As he spoke, Alinea clutched his arm for support, then threw herself upon the bed, burying her face deep in the bedclothes. In a moment her sobs could be heard, muffled and indistinct.
Durwin stood aside regarding the Queen and her dying King. His own heart swelled with pity and grief. “God Most High,” he prayed, “you give men life and receive it back from them when their span is done. All things grow in their season as established by your command. Surely it is to you a hateful thing when life is cut short.
“An evil malady afflicts our King and crushes him in a deadly embrace. Release him from it. Turn his steps back from their downward path, and restore him once more to his loved ones and to his realm.”
Durwin’s quiet prayer lingered in the air like a healing balm. The breeze blew softly, carrying the scent of roses from the gardens outside. It whispered softly in the stillness of the room. Then all was silent.
“Durwin-look!” Alinea exclaimed. In her hands she clasped one of Eskevar’s as she knelt at his side. The King was now gazing quietly at both of them; his eyes were moist with tears.
“Oswald!” Durwin called. The Queen’s chamberlain, hovering near the door, stepped fearfully into the room. “Fetch me the flagon upon my worktable!” The worried servant disappeared at once and was back before Durwin could add, “And hurry!”
The hermit once more administered the liquid, pulling the seal from the stoppered bottle and pouring it down the King’s throat.
This time Eskevar coughed deeply, closed his eyes as if in pain and said, in a voice barely audible, “Have I fallen so low as to be poisoned in my own bed?”
“The King complains-that is certainly a good sign.” The Queen turned an anxious visage toward the hermit. “My Lady, he is safe for the moment, but not out of danger yet.”
Durwin moved about the bed and began throwing off the coverings of wool and fur. “I have been foolish and slow-witted, however. Perhaps the King would not have sunk so far, almost beyond return, if I had been more observant. Come, my Lady, we must get him up.”
Alinea looked doubtful. “Do you think…”
“At once. He must save the strength he still possesses. He must use it to gain more. Help me to get him on his feet.”
They took the unresisting body of the King, now light as feather down, between them and raised it carefully. Supporting him by the arms, they pulled him from the bed gently and placed his bare feet upon the floor. “Ahhh!” Eskevar cried out in pain. The Queen threw a worried glance at Durwin, who only nodded as if to say, “Continue; it must be done.”
Carefully they walked him step by halting step back and forth across the room, stopping to stand before the window each time to allow him to catch his breath. On and on they walked, the King’s head lolling on his shoulders, barely conscious.
By midday Eskevar could move freely, though he still required the arm of his Queen for support. His brow was damp with sweat and his shrunken frame shaken by racking spasms of violent coughing. He swooned with exhaustion.
Durwin and Oswald carried him back to the bed as Alinea looked on, wringing her hands. “He will sleep soundly now, I think. We will wake him again in a while to eat. And he must walk again before the sun sets. I will watch him through the night.”
Durwin turned away from the bed and shook his head back and forth slowly. “How could I have let him slip so far?”
“In truth, it is not your blame. You have done all that could be asked, and even now you have saved his life.” Alinea patted Durwin’s arm gently and smiled with calm assurance.
“The god has opened my eyes in time, my Lady. That is something indeed to be thankful for. But we must not slacken our vigil again or he will be lost. He is very weak and his strength very fragile.”
“Come to the kitchen, Durwin, and refresh yourself. You, too, will be needing your strength in the hours to come, as will we all.”
Quentin twisted on the ground. A sharp pain seared through his side. One eye was swelling shut, and his mouth, tasting of blood, throbbed with a dull ache. He raised his head slowly and looked cautiously about.
Smoke from the burning town still drifted in hanging cloud’s which rolled along the ground, stinging his eyes and making his nose run. The sun was barely up, a fierce red ball burning through the black haze which filled the air and seeped down the slopes of the ravine where he lay.
A soldier nearby saw Quentin’s slight movement and jabbed him in the shoulder with the butt of his lance. Quentin put his head down again and lay still; he had seen what he wanted to see. The main force of soldiers had moved off; only a few remained to guard the prisoners-if prisoners there were, for Toli was nowhere to be seen.
Quentin tried to wiggle his fingers, but they were numb. The ropes which bound him had been tied tightly and efficiently. Both hands were thrust behind his back and lashed together; a loop passed around his neck and one around his feet. To move hands or feet tightened the noose around his neck and strangled him. But periodically Quentin wormed this way and that in an attempt to better reckon his surroundings.
It was only by the hand of the god that he was still alive. In the chaotic moment of his capture he had been instantly beaten senseless. As he lay bleeding on the ground, a scowling warrior had raised a double-bladed axe over him. Quentin had seen the blade flash on its downward arc toward his heart.
He was saved at the last heartbeat by a hand which caught the axe-man’s arm in midstroke. An argument had broken out then. Although Quentin could not understand the slurred words of the rough speech, he knew that it concerned him and his probable fate. The soldier with the axe wanted to kill him at once. The other apparently insisted upon waiting, probably for a superior’s approval. Quentin was then bound up and left to wonder what awaited him.
He did not have long to wait.
He heard the hollow sound of a horse’s hooves. There was a sudden scurrying around him, a harsh voice barked out an order, and he was jerked ungently upward to his knees by two grim warriors grasping him by the arms. The voice uttered another command, and Quentin’s head was snapped sharply back by a hand thrust into his hair. His eyes squeezed shut with the pain.
When he opened them again, he was looking into the cold, hardened eyes of a warlord of Nin.
The warlord regarded him coolly. He was wearing a strange form of battle dress made of bronze, which glowed in the rising sun with a reddened luster that matched the tint of his flesh. His arms were covered in sleeves of mail from his shoulders to his wide, heavy hands, and from knee to ankle he wore bronze leggings. He wore no helmet, and his long black hair was pulled back and bound in a long, thick braid which hung down his back. A long, curved sword hung from the pommel of the saddle, its thin blade besmeared with crimson ribbons of blood.
The warlord’s horse, wide of shoulder and heavy of flank, shook its braided mane and snorted loudly. One of the soldiers supporting Quentin began speaking. The speech was strange to Quentin’s ears; he could not think what language it might be, for he could not catch a word of it. But, he guessed, the soldier was telling his commander about how the prisoner had been captured.