Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [13]
“They tell me I fell and hit my head—what a thing to happen on a coronation day, eh? But a head as hard as mine does not crack easily, whatever the physician says. I have a headache, that’s all. Anyone might.”
Dorrin looked at him closely, concerned. Despite his words, he looked the color of new cheese, and his gaze wavered. She leaned close. “My lord duke, with no intent to argue, I have seen soldiers take such a blow, who wore helmets. They needed to lie quiet; our physicians insisted on it. By your leave, I would have you obey the physician; you are not yet well.”
“It is the coronation banquet—my last, I am sure, for Mikeli is young and will long outlive me. I do not wish to miss it.” He gave her a crooked smile. “If I die now, no one will blame you. You had nothing to do with it.”
So he remembered nothing of it; that in itself could be expected with a blow to the head, but as for the rest—if that were all, he should look better than he did. Dorrin looked around; the other peers, out of courtesy or nervousness, had left a little space for her and Duke Marrakai to talk, but the Marshal-General stood not far away, watching. Dorrin caught her gaze and nodded. The Marshal-General moved nearer.
“My lords,” the Marshal-General said, her tone edged. “How may I serve you?”
“Tell Verrakai you do not blame her,” Marrakai said. “She is worried about my health, but I am as hale as any man of my years. It was but a knock on the head from falling.”
The Marshal-General looked closely at his face. This time her voice was gentler. “My lord duke, I understand her worry. Such blows are not always harmless; I believe yours did more damage than you know. Will you not retire?”
“No!” Marrakai’s voice was loud enough to turn heads. More quietly he repeated what he had told Dorrin. “And I won’t go off to bed like some errant boy who’s displeased his tutor!”
This vehemence convinced Dorrin—and, she saw, the Marshal-General as well—that his injury was still affecting him and perhaps worsening. “Marshals have healing powers, do they not?” Dorrin said to the Marshal-General.
“So, it is said, did magelords once,” the Marshal-General said, looking Dorrin in the eye. “Are you unwilling to use your powers that way?”
“Not unwilling but unskilled,” Dorrin said. “Healing was the rarest of the gifts, and there was no one to teach me. All I’ve healed so far is a well.”
“A well?”
Dorrin shook her head. “Too long a story for now. If you have the ability, Marshal-General, or know someone …”
Marrakai slumped in his chair, his head falling forward; his eyes had not quite closed, but when the Marshal-General called his name, he mumbled something they could not understand. Now the other peers crowded in, including Kirgan Marrakai.
“What did she do this time?” asked one of the barons; others shushed him.
“She did nothing,” the Marshal-General said. “It is that blow to the head. Send for the physician and any Marshal in the palace. My lord Verrakai, I ask you to lend your aid, as a Falkian would.”
“Certainly,” Dorrin said. Every instinct told her they had little time, that something was wrong inside Marrakai’s head. She had seen the same in battlefield wounds.
“Help me lift him from the chair to the floor.” The other peers shuffled back as two palace servants came forward. Together with the Marshal-General and Dorrin, they lifted Marrakai—no easy task—and laid him on the floor; someone hastily handed them a folded cloak to put under his head. “Duke Verrakai, lay your hand on his shoulder—like that, yes—and one on his chest; I will hold his head. And now I ask all Girdsmen to pray with me for the healing of this peer of your realm, while I also pray and Duke Verrakai calls on Falk.”
Dorrin felt hands on her own shoulders and glanced back to see Duke Mahieran and the king both standing there, as if guarding her back and joining her effort at the same time. Others, behind them, reached to form a human chain. She closed her eyes, calling on Falk and trying to feel what the Marshal-General was doing so she might aid.