Page 25 of Edge of the Wild

He glanced away, again. He didn’t want kindness, or sympathy. Didn’t want anyone to pat his head and tell him he’d done his best.

Rune’s face, slack, and pale, his eyes shadowed as if bruised, twitched in his sleep, and his head rolled on the pillow – toward Erik. His neck strained, and he murmured something unintelligible. Erik was struck with the painful sense that his nephew was seeking him out, even in his delirium.

The boy’s hand lay on the covers, fingers curling. Erik covered it with his own, surprised by the way Rune gripped him in return, strong and immediate.

“See?” Olaf said, a faint smile in his voice. “He’s strong. I have every faith that he will survive this.”

“I want to believe you.”

A rustle and a stir issued from the far side of the room. Leif sat up from the sofa there, hair rumpled, braids falling out. He rubbed at both eyes a moment, and, puffy-faced and sluggish, got to his feet and shuffled over. He looked nearly as bad-off as his brother.

“Any change?” he asked, drawing up beside Olaf.

“His fever is high, but the wound is running clear fluid,” the physician said. “I’m going to dress it again, and stitch it closed. If you’d like to assist, your grace?”

Leif nodded, and pushed up his sleeves.

Erik began to protest – Leif was too tired, surely, and untrained in medicine besides – but he watched Leif go to the table where Thyra helped him to wash his hands in hot water, and he watched Olaf gaze after him, sympathy writ clear in his gaze, and he understood that, like himself, Leifneededto be a help. Having him assist was about soothing Leif. Sometimes, he reflected, feeling as though you’d done all you could was more important than sleep.

3

In Aquitainia, kings did not travel like ordinary citizens. Erik was no spoiled Southern monarch intent on carrying along trunks full of his best jewels; there would be no troop of jugglers nor tailors in his entourage. Even so, packing and preparing for departure was an elaborate affair. The palace buzzed with activity – a great deal of it, given the feast guests were to depart as well. Servants bustled back and forth toting trunks, and armloads of clothes. Cloaks and coats were brushed and mended; beads and pendants were polished; food was packed into crates and barrels, and in the stables, horses were groomed, sleighs waxed and polished, reindeer harnesses oiled.

Oliver had always been one for packing light: a few changes of clothes and his toiletry kit in a canvas sack was all he needed. Perhaps a few extra layers, good boots and a solid coat, here, in the North.

But he’d never traveled as a king’s consort before.

Thatword. Erik hadn’t said it yet, but everyone else around them had. It sat glowing and barbed in the back of Oliver’s mind, piercing his awareness every so often, a sharp, sudden prick ofAm I his consort?He didn’t want to ask; didn’t want to examine it too closely.

But he would have to. He would have to either reject or embrace that title.

Atitle. A bastard son of a washerwoman and people were giving him atitle. The idea left him dizzy.

As did the speed with which Magnus was rifling through his possessions.

“This is really…kind of you to help…” Oliver said.

Magnus, up to his armpits in Oliver’s travel trunk, flung a pale blue silk shirt over his shoulder. It fluttered a moment and then landed on the growing pile of equally rejected Southern, summer garments.

“…but it’s really not necessary. I can…” A slipper whizzed past his head. “Magnus. Magnus,” he said, huffing a little. “Shall I open up the window and let you throw them right out into the snow? It might save you a step.”

“That it would,” Magnus said, cheerfully. “What’s will all this bloody silk?” He straightened, a white silk neckcloth pinched between two fingers as if it was something foul, nose wrinkled up comically.

“I can assure you it’s the height of fashion in Drakewell.”

Magnus glared at the offending item another moment, then shrugged and tossed it aside. “Useless. What you need” – he resumed digging – “are some good furs and wools.”

“I have some,” Oliver said. “Over there in the wardrobe.”

“Yes, but those are palace clothes. You need good traveling–”

A knock sounded at the door.

“Ah, that should be them.” Magnus turned and stepped over the pile of silk to go and answer the door.

Oliver sighed.

Three serving men trooped in, toting hampers full of cloth – of dark wools, and furs, and padded doublets, and quilted coats.

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