A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [53]
Melaudd tried to answer, but he was shaking too hard. Dovyn broke free and threw himself down at the prince’s feet.
“I beg your forgiveness, Your Highness. I … I … I just forgot myself.”
Halaberiel left Aderyn to the priest and stepped forward.
“And how soon would you remember his highness’s judgment, then? Your Highness, do you truly expect me to strike a bargain with men like these?”
Aderyn suddenly realized that he was close to fainting, a luxury that he couldn’t afford in this dangerous pass. He staggered to a chair and sat down hard. The priest knelt beside him and tried desperately to stanch the running wound with a scarf that the scribe handed him.
“Look at this!” Addryc’s voice growled with indignation. “He’s wounded a councillor and an unarmed man! Guard! Run and fetch the chirurgeon!”
“I’ll be all right in a minute,” Aderyn gasped.
Although the white scarf was soaking with bright red blood, and his fingers stuck out at an unnatural angle, Aderyn felt no pain. His mind noted his own symptoms from a detached distance: shaking, chills, a dry mouth—oh, he was in shock, all right. He looked up and tried to concentrate on the strange tableau in front of him: Dovyn scarlet with shame at the prince’s feet; Halaberiel frozen with rage: Melaudd pale, his mouth working as if he were praying to the gods to let him wake from what had to be a nightmare.
“Your Highness,” Aderyn whispered, “please don’t make a decision in fury. My prince, that goes for you, too.”
Then he fainted dead away. He seemed to be standing in a swirling dark void, flecked with gold light like fish scales. In the midst of a rushy hiss of noise, he heard someone call his name, and Nananna came striding out of the mists. Here on the inner planes, her image was young and beautiful, her stance that of a warrior.
“What have they done to you? Does the banadar still live?”
“He does. I just fainted, that’s all. The lad who hurt me has been arrested.”
Although Aderyn tried to tell her more, he began floating away, swimming up from the bottom of a dark gold-flecked river. The rushy hiss grew louder and louder; then suddenly he broke the surface and found himself awake, lying on a feather bed. A heavyset man with a blond mustache was bandaging his splinted fingers. Aderyn smelled the clean sharp scent of bruised comfrey root packed in his wound.
“Should heal up fine,” the chirurgeon was saying over his shoulder. “A superficial slice. These things cut a lot of minor blood vessels, looks like the third hell, but nothing dangerous. Now, as for the fingers, he’s got two broken, but it’s a clean fracture.”
“Just so,” Aderyn gasped out. “I need water to restore my humors, too.”
“Aha, you’re awake, are you? They told me you were a physician of sorts.”
The chirurgeon gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder and stood up to make room for Halaberiel, who brought Aderyn water in a silver goblet. He sat down on the bed, slipped one arm under Aderyn’s shoulders, and helped him drink.
“You took the cut intended for me. I’ll never forget this. You’re a friend of the People now and forever.”
“Most welcome.” Aderyn was still too groggy to appreciate the force of that promise. “What did you and the prince determine?”
“Naught yet.” Addryc himself stepped forward. “Prince Halaberiel and I decided to take the last bit of wise advice you gave us. Lord Dovyn is shut up in a chamber under house arrest. His father gave me a personal pledge of security for him. Here, Aderyn, Melaudd is a good man, and he’s truly shattered by his son’s arrogance.”
“No doubt,” Aderyn said. “My heart aches for any father with a son like that.”
Aderyn drank several goblets of water, then lay back exhausted on the pillows. He was in Halaberiel’s luxurious chamber, he realized, and it was full of people. Over by the unglazed windows the other elves were sitting on the floor in grim silence. Two of the prince’s guard were standing in the doorway