Realm of Light - Deborah Chester [111]
“If you would save Lord Albain,” Caelan said to them, and his glance moved to encompass the men guarding the door as well, “then get these physicians out of here and do not let them return. That is not opium they are mixing.”
“I protest!” the tallest physician said. Holding the bottle, he stepped forward. “Majesty, this is an outrage. What manner of barbarian have you brought here? How dare he accuse and slander us?”
The guards stepped forward, but not fast enough. Caelan glimpsed a movement from one of the physicians and drew Exoner. As swift as thought, he sprang across the room and speared the ancient book on the end of his sword.
Flames burst forth, engulfing the book. With a scream, the physician dropped it. The fire blazed up, hot and hungry. Within seconds the book had been devoured, and all that remained was a small pile of ashes. The air stank most foully despite the open windows.
“Exoner is truth,” Caelan said, glaring at the physicians, who watched him fearfully. “You are lies. Get out!”
The guards hustled them out, and Elandra ran to the door of her father’s chamber. Flinging it open, she snapped her fingers.
“Jinja! Come forth and serve your master,” she said imperiously.
She had to call a second time before a sniffing, woebegone jinja appeared. Its green skin was tinged an unhealthy gray. Its pointed ears drooped. It could barely drag itself along. When it came to the doorway, its eyes held only misery.
“There is magic here,” Elandra said sharply to it. “Bad magic. Did you know? Why are you not protecting my father?”
The jinja did not appear to hear her at first; then it sniffed the air and blinked. Lifting its head, it sniffed again. A glower darkened its small face, and it straightened erect. Like a dog following a trail, it began to slowly zigzag back and forth across the room.
One of the guards returned, looking slightly breathless. Shame burned in his face. “Majesty, we beg—”
“Let no one enter,” she commanded in a voice like iron. “No one.”
“Yes, Majesty.”
Elandra stood in the doorway to her father’s chamber and beckoned to Caelan. “Come,” she said.
He could smell sickness and death ahead of him in the room, which was thick with gloom. If she expected a miracle, he could not give it to her, but at least Lord Albain could now die in peace, in his own time, not helped along by his enemies.
Sighing, Caelan squared his shoulders and reluctantly stepped inside.
Chapter Twenty
It was a warrior’s room. Besides the large bed, it contained a vast table weighted down by scrolls, scraps of parchment, broken pens, ink cases, books, deed boxes, strongboxes, lamps, a stirrup iron, dog collars, and a pair of daggers. The opposite wall held a beautiful collection of swords mounted in crisscrossed patterns. Starbursts of daggers adorned another wall. Albain’s banner was flung over the tall back of a tapestried chair, and his boots lay forgotten in one corner. If the man had a valet, the servant must be forbidden to touch anything.
Still, Caelan could not help but smile a little at the disorder. This was a man’s room. He liked it.
But Elandra did not want him to stand and gawk. She was already at her father’s bedside, beckoning him to join her.
Throughout Caelan’s boyhood, the sick and injured had come constantly to the house. If the infirmary was full, Caelan was forbidden to make noise in the courtyard lest he disturb the patients’ rest. His father had worked tirelessly, calmly soothing fevers and talking away fears. How often had Caelan crept from his bedchamber in the middle of the night, following the glow of lamplight and the faint sounds to peer into his father’s workroom? There Beva would sit, hunched at his table in the glow of the lamp, grinding herbs for his potions and making neat notations in his books of study.
The smell of sickness and herbs in the infirmary often crept into the rest of the house. Caelan had always hated that smell. While he felt sorry for the sufferers who came to his father for cures, he could not bring himself