"Katherine Kurtz - Heirs 02 - King Javan's Year" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

about to be dead; long live the king. Let┬┤s just hope it┬┤s the right king.тАЩ

Chapter One

And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
-Isaiah 3:4
King Alroy was dying. The Healer Oriel had tried to persuade himself otherwise for days, but the
sweat-drenched sixteen-year-old fretting feverishly under even a single layer of limp sheeting was no
longer even conscious much of the time-though there were occasional lucid moments.
It was during one of those lucid moments, earlier in the day, that Alroy had rallied enough to ask that his
bed be moved into one of the ground-level rooms opening onto the castle gardens, where the windows
might admit a little breeze. A breeze had come, with the setting of the sun, spilling the heady perfume of
roses into the room, but there still was little enough respite from the heat, even this late at night. Summer
had arrived early this year, and with uncharacteristic harshness. These first weeks of June had seemed
more like August at its worst, the air still and stifling, heavy with humidity. Even the usually proper Oriel
was stripped down to breeches and a thin linen shirt, open at the throat, the full sleeves pushed well up
above his elbows.
A young squire offered a basin of cool water, and Oriel wrung out another cloth in it, touching the back
of one hand against his royal patient┬┤s cheek before laying the cloth across the brow. Alroy Haldane had
never been robust, and fever had burned away what little spare flesh there once had been on the boy┬┤s
slight frame, so that what remained resembled all too closely the stark planes of the effigy even now being
prepared to lie beneath Rhemuth Cathedral. The sable hair, cut short around his face, was plastered to
his skull like a glistening ebon cap.
The king moaned and stirred a little, teeth clenched as if against a chill, even though the fever burned still,
and the heat of the summer night as well. The court physicians had given him syrup of poppies earlier in
the evening, when even Oriel┬┤s feared Deryni powers had not been able to stop a particularly bad bout of
hacking that seemed actually apt to end in the king coughing up part of his lungs. He slept now, but his
breathing was labored and liquid-sounding; Oriel, like the king┬┤s human physicians, knew that the king┬┤s
illness and his life were drawing inexorably toward their close.
тАЬHe-isn┬┤t getting any better, is he, sir?тАЩ the squire whispered, turning worried eyes on the Healer as Oriel
wrung out another cold compress. The boy┬┤s name was Fulk Fitz-Arthur, and he was two years younger
than the king. His father was one of the lords of state waiting for word in the anteroom outside.
Oriel sighed and shook his head as he changed the compress, pausing then to set his fingertips to the
king┬┤s sweat-drenched temples. Though he had no doubt what he would find, he sent his Healer┬┤s senses
deep into the ailing king, reading again what he already knew, to his heart┬┤s despair-that the boy┬┤s lungs
were nearly eaten away with disease and filling with fluid. Court gossip had it that the boy┬┤s father had
perished of a similar ailment, with Healers far more skilled than Oriel helpless to save him.
Somehow that knowledge did little to ease Oriel┬┤s sense of helplessness, of failure, the cosmic injustice
that, even given the almost godlike powers that condemned him to the servitude of the lords of state, else
he suffer death the first time he used them unauthorized, those powers were not sufficient to save the boy
beneath his hands.
Alroy stirred and moaned as Oriel withdrew, the grey eyes flickering and then opening in another of those
increasingly rare lucid moments. His pupils were wide from the drugs they had given him, but he made a
gallant effort to focus on Oriel, one fragile hand shifting from under the sheet to reach toward the Healer┬┤s
wrist.
тАЬOriel, what time is it?тАЩ he whispered.
тАЬNear midnight, Sire,тАЩ the Healer replied, taking the king┬┤s hand and leaning closer to hear. тАЬYou should
go back to sleep. If you talk too much, you┬┤ll set yourself coughing again.тАЩ
тАЬI want to see my brother,тАЩ Alroy murmured. тАЬHave they called him?тАЩ
Setting his lips, Oriel gently chafed the royal hand between his own, knowing that the brother the king┬┤s