Brightly Burning

by Mercedes Lackey

  Maybe I am getting sick.

  He gathered up his books and plodded out into the empty hall, trying to walk softly so his footsteps didn’t echo. As he exited the building and then passed the gates, he felt the relief of temporary escape, at least. He made his way through the uncrowded streets with no more than a single wistful glance at a passing Guardsman. It was chilly today, and overcast; the few ornamental plants in front of houses were evergreens, and wouldn’t be touched by frost, but back in Alderscroft, people would be waiting for the first hard frost to turn the leaves to red and gold. Here, the gray sky, gray streets, and the unfriendly houses left an overpowering impression of bleakness.

  There was no one home but the servants, who would certainly be surprised and taken aback by his return. He didn’t bother to knock, but the housekeeper heard the door open and came running.

  “Lavan!” she exclaimed, looking at him in shock, with her frilled cap slightly askew—and there was more than an edge of suspicion in her voice. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m sick,” he mumbled. “They sent me home. Here. This is for Mother.” He just didn’t feel up to making any more of an explanation, he just thrust the note at the housekeeper to give to his mother, and plodded upstairs to the sanctuary of his room, one slow step at a time.

  Unfortunately, the relief of escaping from the Sixth Form for a day didn’t bring an end to the pounding in his head. He dropped down onto his bed, his head buried in his hands, wishing for an end to the pain.

  The housekeeper tapped on his open door, and he looked up. She wiped her hands on her coarse linen apron as she examined him.

  “You might as well lie down,” she said, and looked at him again with a less critical eye. “You do look puny,” she said grudgingly. “I’ll send one of the maids up with a hot-bag and willow tea.”

  He didn’t grimace at the idea of the bitter tea; at this point he would drink down oak gall if it would help his head. Evidently the housekeeper considered his ailment serious enough to warrant the household’s attention; one of the giggly little maidservants brought him the tea almost immediately, and he drank it down gratefully. It took a bit longer for the hot-bag, a linen pillow filled with buckwheat husks and herbs which had to be put into the bread oven to absorb heat. About the time that the tea took the worst edge off the pounding in his skull, the girl brought him the hot-bag, wrapped in a towel, to put on his forehead. She closed the door after herself, leaving him alone in his room, sprawled still clothed on the coverlet—though he had taken off his boots. His mother would kill him if she caught him on the bed with his boots still on.

  With the hot-bag a comforting, warm weight on his face, he tried not to think at all, just to try and relax and wait for the pain to go away.

  The herbs in the bag gave off a pleasant scent; he didn’t know enough about them to identify them, but they were nice. The sounds of the servants going about their business came up to him, muffled by the closed door. One of the girls sang to herself as she swept, a simpleminded love song that was very popular just now. Lan would have preferred something bleaker, to match his mood, but he wasn’t about to get up to make a request.

  Down in the distant kitchen, the cook bellowed and pots and pans clattered; distant enough not to be irritating. Outside, the occasional horse or mule passing by was all he heard of the sparse traffic this time of day. Later, as suppertime neared, there would be more noise outside; sometimes even a great deal of noise if one of the neighbors got a large delivery.

  His headache responded to the heat; it lessened to a dull ache just behind his eyes and in the back of his head. As the pain faded, he wished he could sleep, but his thoughts were too restless and wouldn’t be still.

  There was more trouble ahead of him; every day was colder and shorter. How long would it be before the Sixty Formers could no longer pursue their after-school entertainments? He’d heard them speak of court tennis, of fencing lessons, of riding in the fashionable Leeside Park, before they all went off in a mob. None of those things would be comfortable or possible in a bitter rain or with snow on the ground. And then what would they do for sport?

  As if I need to think about it. They’ll go hunting for sport at school, of course.

  The subject made him feel sick all over again, and strengthened his headache.

  I hate them, I hate them, I hate them! he thought fiercely, his hands clenching in the coverlet. If they keep on coming at me, I’ll kill them, I will!

  Really? asked a dry voice in his mind. You, undersized and outnumbered, you’re no threat to them. You can’t even stop them from pushing you around. How do you propose even to impress them enough to leave you alone?

  He couldn’t; he knew he couldn’t and that frustration was as bad or worse than the anger.

  Why couldn’t they leave him alone? He was nothing to them; he was less than nothing. He wanted so badly to batter those smug faces, to pound Tyron until his fists hurt. Not a chance, not a chance in the world that it would happen. Even if he could get Tyron alone, he wouldn’t stand a chance against someone so much bigger and stronger than Lan was. Not someone who was so fit and athletic. No matter what sort of fighting Lan learned or practiced, Tyron would always be ahead of him by virtue of his inches and muscles.

  Footsteps outside his door warned him someone was coming, so when the door opened, he pulled the hot-bag off his eyes and turned his head to see who it was.

  “Your teacher seems to think that you’re ill, or becoming ill,” Nelda said, giving him the same critical glare that the housekeeper had. Today she was gowned in an amber brown with bands of her own embroidery around the hems.

  “My head hurts,” he said simply. “A lot.”

  His mother came to his bedside and tested his forehead with the inside of her wrist, then tested the hot-bag. “You’re hotter than the compress; you’ve got a fever. There is something going around they tell me,” she admitted with a slight frown. “Your teacher seems to think you should stay home for a few days and study on your own.”

  A few days? It was more of a reprieve than he had ever thought he would get! But if I look too eager, she might send me back tomorrow.

  He closed his eyes as a jolt of pain lanced across his head from left to right. He certainly didn’t have to feign that. “I’ll try, Mother,” he said truthfully. “If you think I should stay home—but if you don’t want me to, I won’t.”

  That must have been the right thing to say. “You must be sick,” she said reluctantly. “All right; I’ll have your meals brought up on a tray, and we’ll keep you home for a while. “There’s no point in spreading whatever you’ve caught to the rest of the family.” She pursed her lips as Lan looked up at her. “I’ll send to the herbalist for something better than willow tea for your head. Meanwhile, you lie back down.” He obeyed, meekly, and she felt his forehead with a surprisingly gentle expression on her face. “Lavan, you’ve been driving me to distraction since we moved to Haven, but I still love you. It’s not been easy for the rest of us here in Haven either.”

  A pang of conscience penetrated the pain in his head. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, feeling ashamed.

  “Just keep on with this school as you have been, and you won’t have a reason to feel sorry anymore,” she said, spoiling his moment of contrition, as she put the hot-bag back on his forehead.

  Just keep on with the school—if the Tyrant will let me! he thought in despair, and the headache returned with a vengeance.

  As aromas that should have been savory and only made him feel sick floated up from the kitchen, he fought down nausea and his pain.

  When footsteps came up the stairs again, he thought it was the servant with the promised tray, and took off the hot-bag to send her away. But it wasn’t; it was the maidservant all right, a vaguely pretty girl with a round face and red cheeks, but she had a bottle and spoon in one hand, and another hot-bag wrapped in a new towel dangling from the other.

  “This is from the herbalist for you,” the maid s
aid, with a sympathetic smile, holding out the bottle and spoon. “Just take a spoonful; he says it’s mortal strong.” Lan was surprised and touched by the sympathy. Evidently, now that it was clear he wasn’t making his illness up, the servants were less inclined to be critical of him.

  She left the hot-bag beside him as he took the medicine from her, leaving him alone in the darkening room. After a moment of thought, he lit his candles at his fireplace, although bending over nearly made him pass out.

  Strange. I don’t remember anyone coming in to light the fire. It hadn’t been lit when he came home, had it?

  I—I must have forgotten, my head hurt so much. When the room was full of light, he stripped and got into his nightclothes and got properly into bed, just in case the medicine was as strong as it was supposed to be. He didn’t have a great deal of faith in the promises of herbalists, but it might very well be powerful.

  His skin felt tender again, that slightly-sunburned feeling. As he stretched out under the bedclothes with the new hot-bag on his head, he was glad he’d gotten out of his clothing. The wool trews had been itchy; the soft linen felt much better. Downstairs, people were starting to arrive home, and the house hummed with conversation and activity. No one else came near him, though; he experienced the odd sensation of eavesdropping on his own family.

  As if I were a ghost.

  It was . . . interesting. The maid had left his door open, so he heard most of what was going on fairly clearly. No one seemed to notice his absence until dinner, when his mother’s brief explanation brought an expression of detached sympathy from Sam, and an exclamation of “Don’t let him get near me!” from his sister.

  But it was just about then that the herbalist’s remedy started to take effect, and Lan couldn’t have cared if they had all voted to wrap him in a plague banner and chase him out of town.

  It began with a dulling of the pain, followed by the oddest sensation of floating. The more the pain left, the more the euphoria took over. At some point, about midway through dinner downstairs, an irrestistible tug toward sleep took over where the euphoria ended. He didn’t even try to fight it.

  When he woke, it was broad daylight, and the headache was still with him, although it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been last night. The hot-bag had slipped off his head and onto the floor during the night; he opened his eyes just long enough to tell that it was, indeed, morning. He thought about taking a second dose of medicine, but his stomach rumbled and that decided him against it. He wanted something to eat first; then he’d let the medicine knock him over.

  He smelled the frying ham and bacon of breakfast cooking downstairs, and his stomach rumbled again, insistently. Should I get up and go downstairs? he wondered. But Mother wanted me to stay in bed so I wouldn’t spread this to the rest of the family. . . .

  He didn’t have to make that decision, for a bump at his door made him open his eyes again. The maid stood there with a tray; she grinned when she saw his eyes open. And now he finally remembered her name. Kelsie.

  “Good mornin’ sirrah,” she said brightly. “I brung up some supper last night, but you couldn’t have been budged with a team of horses!”

  She brought over her tray and placed it on a stool next to his bed. He sat up, and managed a weak smile. “I guess that medicine was as strong as you said.”

  “They say he’s Healer-trained, is Master Veth, so I suppose he knows his medicines.” Kelsie dismissed the herbalist and his remedies with a shrug. “I brought a bell on the tray there; you need something, you ring it and I’ll come up.”

  “Thank you,” was all he had a chance to say. She just grinned again, and was gone. Then again, given the housekeeper’s firm hand on the household reins, lingering might get her in trouble.

  On the tray was typical invalid fare: tea and buttered toast, soft-boiled eggs. No ham, no bacon, no jam or jelly. He sighed, but tackled the food anyway. Hungry as he was, it all tasted good.

  Only then did he take a second dose—slightly smaller this time—of the medicine, and it wasn’t long before he was dreaming again.

  This time he woke, it was some time in the afternoon, and his headache was measurably better, though still with him. More persistent was his hunger.

  He rang the bell, and within moments, Kelsie was at his door with another tray, brown eyes dancing merrily at him from beneath her frilled cap. “Cook’s figured you’d be ready for this,” she said, putting it down beside him.

  He eyed the contents. Bread and broth, more tea. “I am, but I could eat a whole loaf of bread, not just a couple of slices,” he said ruefully. His stomach made an audible growl, and he blushed as she laughed.

  “Well, the sayin’ is to feed a fever, and you got a fever. You eat that up, I’ll run down and tell Cook and see what she figures is good for you.” She turned in a swirl of gray-and-cream woolen skirts and linen apron, and vanished, while he made short work of the invalid’s lunch they’d given him.

  It only just took the edge off his hunger. When Kelsie labored back to his door under the weight of a heavier tray, he’d already eaten every crumb.

  “Here,” she laughed, setting down the heavier tray, then tucking a stray curl of brown hair back under her cap. “ ‘Fever, Cook,’ I told her. ‘Not stomach troubles. I should think you could hear his stomach grumbling down here.’ So she laughs, and fixes you this.” Kelsie dusted off her hands. “Now, I got sweeping to do, so I’ll hear you if you need aught else.”

  “I’ll be fine,” he replied, but she was already gone.

  This is more like it! he thought; it was real food, not invalid’s food, and not the leftovers from everyone else’s lunch, either. It was twice what he normally ate, but he devoured every bite before he finally felt satisfied.

  As he turned away from the tray, his eye fell on his book bag. He weighed the ache in his head against the promise to study.

  If I keep up, maybe I can get a bad headache again. No one would be angry at him for being sick, and Tyron and his gang of bullies couldn’t touch him here. He didn’t know what had caused the headache and fever, but it could happen again.

  And if it happens often enough, maybe they’ll think there’s something at school that’s making me sick, he thought, with a tinge of hope.

  In a sense, perhaps that was the cause. I didn’t get that headache until I got so angry. . . .

  If rage was the cause, he’d be getting headaches and fevers as long as he went to school.

  Well, the only way I’ll be able to stay home is to prove I can keep up without actually being in the classes. With a sigh, he pulled his book bag onto the bed, and took out the textbook for his first class of the day.

  Without the distraction of knowing that the Sixth Form was waiting for him at lunch, he got through the work for the first four classes in half the time it usually took him. He got out of bed a time or two to feed his fire and take care of necessary things. He was very pleased that this house had indoor facilities; it was the one improvement over the home in Alderscroft. It was still early afternoon when he finished, and heartened by his progress, he tackled the next four subjects. By the time Kelsie appeared with his supper, he was able to put his last book aside with a feeling that he had accomplished something.

  “Bringing your supper early, or Cook says you’re like to be forgot in the bustle,” the maid told him brightly. She whisked off, and Lan got up to stretch and light his candles, replacing the stubs in his candlesticks.

  Once again, the increasing traffic sounds outside and the smells and noise of cooking told him that suppertime for the family was nearing. He took a third dose of the medicine, and went back to bed, this time with the euphoria of having spent a peaceful and productive day added to the euphoria of the medicine.

  Last night he had slept dreamlessly; this night was the same. Given that he fought the Sixth Formers virtually every night in his dreams, this, too, was a welcome relief.

  His second day as a “patient” was similar to the first, although a differ
ent servant brought him meals, but his third night was different. His headache was almost gone, so he hadn’t bothered to take the medicine.

  In the middle of the night, he woke, unable to move, feeling that there was something, some heavy weight, sitting on his chest and smothering him, and something else standing at the foot of his bed, watching him with amusement. He didn’t so much think as feel—and his feeling of helpless anger made him label the presence at his feet as his worst enemy.

  Tyron!

  Terror and rage drove out any coherent thought, filling Lan’s mind with an explosion of white heat. He tried to scream, but nothing came out; tried to flail at the unseen weight, but couldn’t move so much as a finger.

  Then, suddenly, the fire in his fireplace flared up with a roar.

  The room lit up, as if the noon sun shone at midnight; a flare of heat washed over him, snapping the paralysis hold-ing him.

  The weight left his chest; he sat bolt upright as the flames died down to mere flickers and coals again. He took a shocked breath—and the headache knocked him flat on his back, spasming in pain and near-blindness.

  For a very long time he couldn’t even move, and hardly dared breathe. Where a moment before, his entire universe had been terror and rage, now it was filled with pain. A solid bar of agony ran between his temples and, from the base of his neck to his eyes, his head throbbed.

  Finally, between one breath and another, it ebbed just enough that he could grope his hand to the bedside table. He didn’t trust himself enough to reach for the spoon; he pulled the cork from the bottle and took a full mouthful, gagging down the thick, bittersweet liquid and putting the bottle back on the table before the pain washed over him again.

  Then, after what felt like a hundred, thousand years, came oblivion.

  When he woke again in mid-morning, it was the pain that woke him, but this time it was more like the level of headache that had sent him home from school. He reached for the bottle and took a measured half-dose, which relieved enough of the anguish that he could eat, drink, and take care of himself. Then he took a second half-dose, and retreated into slumber.