The Eyes of a King (25 page)

“Oh—my head,” he moaned. “I am getting worse! I am getting worse! Why can’t I just die now?”

“It’s all right, Stirling,” Grandmother said. “You are not going to die. You are going to get better. The worst will soon be over. It’s all right.”

“But my head—”

“Calm down; you are hurting it more by crying. Concentrate on breathing. That’s it. Breathe in….” He took a rattling gasp. “Breathe out. Slowly.” He clutched at his head again, and again she removed his hand.

“Shh,” she whispered over and over again as if to lull him into sleep. His sobbing breaths went on, but they grew slower, and he grew calmer and shut his eyes. After perhaps half an hour had passed, Grandmother turned carefully to me. “Go back to sleep, Leo,” she mouthed. I tried to shake my head, but she turned to Stirling before she could see, and I found myself trailing into the living room and falling heavily onto the sofa.

I
did not think that I had fallen back to sleep, except I woke. I dragged myself up off the sofa; it felt as if I was waking from death. Then I remembered why I was there: because Stirling was sick. I could hear him crying in the other room. I stumbled through the door. Grandmother was still sitting on his bed. “Leo, stay with your brother for a minute,” she whispered. “I am going down to the bathroom.” I sat on the bed, rubbing my eyes. Stirling caught my hand, his own palm feverish and dry.

“All right, Stirling,” I said sleepily.

“I’ll only be a moment.” She hurried out.

“Leo!” Someone was shaking me by the shoulder. “Wake up.” It was Grandmother. “Leo, you will be late for school.”

I sat up. “What is it?”

I was lying slumped half on Stirling’s bed and half on the floor. I must have fallen asleep.

“Hurry. You will be late for school.”

I stood up. “School?”

“Yes, it is already a quarter to eight, and you haven’t got the water yet.”

“Cannot you do it?”

“No, I can’t carry it.”

“Neither can I,” I said stupidly, but I had to get it.

It was ridiculous even to think of going to school, but I was so tired I hardly realized I was going until I got there. Sergeant Markey met me in the front yard. “You are fifteen minutes late, North.” Why did he have to say everything at such a high volume?

“Yes,” I said, taking a step back.

“Go and wait outside the colonel’s office.” I wandered off in the direction of the school. “Hurry, North! We don’t have all bloody day!” I walked even more slowly. “North, come back here!” he shouted. “I expect an apology for your lateness.”

“I’ll apologize to the colonel when I see him,” I called over my shoulder, and walked into the school.

Sergeant Markey was on duty, so Sergeant Markey was the one who would punish me. I had forgotten, of course. “Why were you so late, North?” he demanded.

“Er … my brother’s ill…. I did not get much sleep …,” I muttered.

“That is no excuse.” I did not answer. “That is no excuse at all,” he said.

“I didn’t say it was a damn excuse; you asked me why I was late, so I told—”

He hit me, and I fell backward hard against the corridor
wall. “You need to learn some respect, North!” he told me, his hand still raised from striking the side of my face. “Some serious respect.”

“Like hell I do,” I said. And I turned and walked out.

“North!” he said. “North, come back here this instant! My God, you’ll be sorry when you get back!” I marched out into the yard, and the door cut off his shouts. I was not going back.

I put my hand up to my stinging face once I was out of sight of the yard. That would come up with an ugly red mark. I swore out loud at him, not caring who heard it. At that moment there was no one I hated more than Sergeant Markey. I stalked down the street, fuming, and was halfway home before I realized it. Grandmother would ask questions. Still, it could not be helped.

I met Maria on the stairs. “What are you doing here, Leo?” she asked, jogging the baby up and down. “I thought you were at school. And what happened to your face?” Anselm began to wail.

“Bloody Sergeant Markey,” I said loudly, over the noise.

“What—he hit you?”

I nodded. I was still breathing fast with anger. “I walked out,” I told her.

“Out of school? Will you not get into trouble?”

I shrugged. “They expelled a boy the other year for walking out of class.”

“That’s serious, then. Why did you do it?”

“What do you mean, why did I do it? Should I just stand there and take it?” I was raising my voice.

“Shh,” she told Anselm, rocking him. And then to me: “Don’t be aggressive. I didn’t say you should stand there and take it. I just asked why you walked out.”

“I felt like it.”

She looked worried. “Are you set on ruining your whole life, Leo?”

“This is coming from who? Righteousness herself, evidently, with a baby at fifteen.”

The concern froze on her face. “Leo, that is unfair!” I looked at the floor. “That is what you think I am, is it? Some sort of slut? Is that what you think of me?”

“No …,” I began. “Maria—”

“I am glad to know you have such a high opinion of me.”

“I’m sorry. I did not mean that.” She turned and walked out the door. It slammed shut behind her.

I marched up the stairs. “Leo, what are you doing here?” Grandmother demanded when I edged around the bedroom door. “And was that you I heard shouting and stamping about in the corridor? I hope to goodness it was not.” I did not reply but trailed over to my bed and sat down heavily. “Leo, what are you doing here?” she said again. Stirling was asleep, his face to the wall. “Leo! Answer me!”

I did not answer, but she went on hissing questions at me. “I left school!” I shouted eventually. “I left school because of that bastard Markey. I wish all his descendants would follow him to hell.” I said several other things before she cut me off.

“Leo!”
she exclaimed. “Do not dare to use that language! And what do you mean, you left school? Why? Why did you leave school?” I shut my eyes, but she went on. It turned into another argument.

“Oh, Leo!” she exclaimed then. “Why are you such a trouble to me? Count yourself fortunate that you are not ill like poor Stirling. Why can you not look at your blessings, instead of being so bad-tempered and—”

“Bad-tempered? Bad-tempered?” I stood up. The thud of my boot against the floor woke Stirling, and he turned, gasping with fright.

“What’s going on? Grandmother?”

“It’s all right, Stirling. I am here.”

“What’s going on?” He clasped at his neck. “My throat hurts.”

“You call me bad-tempered?” I continued. “Well, I—”

“Leo, shut your mouth!” Grandmother told me sharply. “No one wants to listen to you. You are not important. Stirling is important now, because he is sick. I don’t have time to mind you like a baby.”

I marched to the door. “I do not need to be patronized like this!”

“Oh—my head!” Stirling moaned, his voice hoarse. “Grandmother? Grandmother!”

“It’s all right, Stirling,” she said. “Shh.”

I walked back out the door as Stirling began crying with pain again. I felt guilty. At that moment, I cared more about my own anger than about him.

I tried to go to the hills, to look for the Bloodflower herb. But every time I stepped out the front door, I thought I was falling. Eventually I went back, let myself into the apartment quietly, and sat at the table and listened to Stirling crying. While he was crying, I knew he was alive. He didn’t stop until six o’clock.

“L
eo, I need to talk to you,” Grandmother said the next evening. I had not gone to school that day either, but she hadn’t tried to make me. We were sitting with Stirling, who shifted fretfully in his sleep, his face red and puffy with fever.

“What about?” I asked.

“Duty. You know, everyone has a duty of some sort. For example, my duty is to look after you and Stirling. Or Maria’s duty is to look after baby Anselm. Or Father Dunstan’s duty is to—”

“I understand you.”

“Some people have duties that they do not necessarily like but still have to fulfill. You, Leo—you have a duty to go to school, not to get into trouble, and not to get expelled. You have a duty to me, and to Stirling, to help us when we need you to. Do you understand? People can’t just stop fulfilling their duties, can they? Because there would be chaos. So I want you back in school tomorrow with no complaining. All right?” I did not argue.

There was a silence. “Do you think that Stirling is better?” I asked then.

“No. I fear he is worse.” We watched him. He turned over and muttered something, clutching out his hand. “Leo—I’m so afraid he will die!” she said suddenly.

“Shh,” I said. “He will hear you.”

“I could not live if we lost little Stirling.”

“We will not,” I said. “In a year’s time we will look back at this, and it will be no more than a memory. It won’t be real anymore; not like it is now.”

“You are right,” she said. But she was crying. “I cannot bear seeing him in so much pain; I am powerless to help him. He calls out to me to help him, and I can’t.”

“He knows it.”

“But think—” It came out as an uncontrolled wail. She took a breath and continued. “Think of how much pain he must be suffering. Crying out for help all the time he is awake.”

“Pain like this is soon forgotten. Many people have had silent fever.”

“True.” She sighed and dabbed at her eyes. “I’m only worrying because I am so tired.”

“I can sit with him tonight, Grandmother,” I said. “You should get some sleep.”

But Stirling screamed the whole night through, and neither of us got any sleep as it turned out. “It’s a mercy that he will soon be unable to speak,” I grumbled the next morning, thinking of the next stage of the illness.

“Leo!” Grandmother exclaimed, and I remembered that it was Stirling I was talking about.

“I did not mean it,” I told her in horror. “I did not mean it at all.”

I did not go to school. She seemed too tired even to mention it.

That afternoon Stirling lost his voice. “It is perfectly normal,” said Father Dunstan. “They say the disease does something to the vocal cords. Your voice will come back, Stirling.”

I sat with him while Grandmother was in the kitchen cooking dinner. He stared at me, the tears slipping down his cheeks, and his eyes making constant tiny anxious movements. “What is wrong, Stirling?” I asked him. “What are you crying about?” He opened and closed his mouth, but the only sound was the hissing of his breath. “Does your head hurt?” He nodded. “And your throat?” He nodded again and gave a silent sob. “Crying will make it worse,” I told him.

He lay down on the pillows, but he went on crying. “Do you
feel sick?” He nodded. “What else?” He put his hand to his chest. “Your chest hurts? Your heart? Your lungs? Do you find it difficult to breathe?” He nodded again.

The silence pressed in on my brain. I had hated Stirling’s constant shrieking, but it was better than this. If I was not by his side, I would not know even if he was dead. “Let me read to you,” I said. “Then you won’t be frightened.”

I fetched the black book. With every step I took across the room, I was praying there would be more writing. I saw my own hands shaking as I opened it.

There was another section, a few pages. “Shall I read it?” I said. Stirling did not respond, but he was watching me, still crying. I began, trying to keep my voice steady. This story was not about Aldebaran. It had returned to the girl—that girl Stirling had said was an English relative of ours. Those days when we had read the book before—they already seemed years ago. I rubbed my aching eyes and began to read.