Elisha Rex

by E. C. Ambrose

  Elisha pitched and struggled as the men hauled up his leg, the post wrenching his ankle.

  At the back of his throat, Elisha screamed into the gag. For all that he had known of death, he should not fear it so. Except that now, bound with barriers of his own blood, he could not feel it coming. He could not feel the men’s anger or the duke’s grief. Blind and naked as his birth, Elisha faced his death.

  The scream echoing in his throat and head almost hid the sound of the soldier’s grunt. No one breathed. All sound died save the hoarse cry that Elisha could not voice.

  A soft and distant something twanged.

  Into the silence one of the soldiers fell, his hands sliding from Elisha’s arm, almost pulling him back from the wall onto the bridge.

  A second soldier wailed and blood spattered Elisha’s back. Redness flooded his vision once more.

  “Take cover!”

  A feathered shaft protruded from the man’s chest.

  “Archers, Your Grace!” The young magus shouted. “Take cover!”

  The hands shifted at Elisha’s limbs. Rescue, by God! The answer he dared not hope from a prayer so hopeless he dare not frame it. Elisha seized the chance, in spite of his pain. In a burst of strength, he shoved to the side, trying to tumble back to the bridge. The iron post scraped and fell toward the river, tugging him in the wrong direction, the wall grinding into his stomach as he kicked.

  “I’m fine, you damned fool,” someone croaked. “The prisoner, give him a shove.”

  The remaining soldiers turned back and pushed.

  Elisha screamed into the muffling gag as he fell, the post yanking him downward like the iron-mage’s dying grasp. He slapped the surface of the water, then plunged into the river, sharp, cold, and dark, his nostrils stinging. The rope unreeled above him, the marker for his grave. What savior could reach him there? Which of his friends could even swim?

  Overhead, the splashing continued as he sank, as someone entered the water with him. Then he could not discern between the thunder in his skull and the beating of the water outside of it. In moments, the two must become one.

  Something brushed over his skin as he tossed and kicked, but the post dragged at him, his neck straining upward. When the post struck bottom, a jolt shivered through him from his bound ankle to his throbbing skull. Just deep enough.

  He twisted against his captivity, his lungs laboring, burning despite the water that trapped him. The rope tugged from above, a hopeful fisherman checking on his catch.

  Water filled him. The foul, polluted Thames clogged his ears and nose and crept around the edges of the gag. A warm touch slid down his back and the rope jerked again, this time from below as if someone took hold of it.

  Blows buffeted his body, submerged objects assailing him. Something clung about his shoulders, and he thrashed, envisioning a shroud of weeds. Heat wrapped his body: a demon of Hell come to gather him home.

  He thrashed, and his leg was suddenly free, the current shoving him as he rose, the demon still hanging on, fingers digging in, a blade pressed flat against his chest. They broke the surface, rushing downstream. Elisha snorted, shaking his head, shaking himself back into darkness for a moment. Dragging himself awake again, head and stomach churning, Elisha stared at the stars that wheeled over him as he spun below. Water overwhelmed him, shoving him back, the cold hand of Death trying to hold him down. Then his face emerged, someone gasping at his ears, grappling with his shoulders.

  Huge shadows rose up above him, cutting the stars, but he could not tell if they were real or merely the spikes of pain that cut his distorted vision. His side scraped wood, and the river pushed but could push him no further as he struck against a solid darkness that rocked beside him.

  Bands of heat remained against the churning water. With a strong arm, a knife still clutched in his grasp, his captor cradled Elisha’s head against his chest. No demon, but a savior true, warm and alive. The man’s heartbeat thudded into Elisha’s ear, joining the addled sounds within.

  “Peace, Elisha,” murmured Thomas’s voice. “I’m with you.”

  Chapter 34

  Elisha lay still, held tight against the side of the boat. Thomas’s labored breathing filled his ears.

  Blood oozed from his wounded skull. He began to tremble again, violently, the more so as he tried to control the shaking. Thomas’s arm held him close. Thomas’s other hand rose beside him, gripping a rope that looped down from the boat at their back.

  “Dear God, I thought we were too late.”

  Elisha wanted to shake his head, to make some movement to reassure him, but he shivered. In moments, the shivering took hold so fiercely that Thomas tightened his arm, Elisha’s head knocking against the king’s breast. Thomas looked around, then hauled Elisha into motion. He shifted his hand under Elisha’s arm, hanging on, as he reached for a dark shape that tipped and wallowed: a smaller boat.

  “I won’t lose you, Elisha. Take courage,” the king said as he moved. “If you have nothing else, you do have courage.” Then Elisha dangled while Thomas dragged himself into the boat one-handed. His other hand slipped and he cried out as the river tugged at Elisha’s body once more, but he caught the rope at Elisha’s chest and held him. For a moment, the king panted into the darkness, Elisha’s head pressed against the boat by the water’s current, then the boat tipped dangerously as Thomas reached to haul him in, his back and bound arms scraping over the gunwale.

  The floor rocked as Thomas settled him on his left side. Elisha’s guts rolled with the motion of the boat. The world went black.

  Light returned in shards and an oar scraped on wood as Thomas pushed them along the ship then to the freedom of the river. Night already purpled toward dawn, or did the pounding of his skull bring the colors?

  Elisha moaned, or he would have, if the foul gag did not stop his voice.

  “Deo Gratias. I thought you had died after all of that. Hold still.”

  As if Elisha were capable of moving. Something tugged at the gag, then a cool bit of metal slid against his cheek, the motion repeating until finally the rope let loose. Thomas’s hand cupped his head while he worked to free the bloodied rope, then pluck out the wad of fabric. Elisha gulped at the air. Water ran from his hair and his shivering flesh. His stomach gave a heave, and Thomas slid an arm around his chest as Elisha retched over the side of the boat. It bucked under his knees, but Thomas held him steady, and the retching subsided at last, leaving him gasping for air, his throat and nostrils scalded.

  Thomas eased him back, his hand lingering on Elisha’s cheek as he studied the blow to Elisha’s head. He glanced briefly over his shoulder, his face drawn.

  Elisha concentrated on breathing. Every inhalation caused streaks of pain from his head and arms, but it cleared his vision, such as it was. The sky maintained its violet hue.

  “Will you be all right a little longer? I need to get you warm and dry, but we’re still too close.” The king, too, shivered, his tunic clinging to his skin.

  Their eyes met, Thomas’s looking brighter than they had for a long time. “Yes,” Elisha breathed, grateful for even so feeble a voice.

  Thomas resumed rowing, his arms reaching and pulling, each puff of his breath turning misty. The enemy would find them. Elisha had spilled too much blood in the workshop and on the bridge to remain hidden for long, not once Brigit knew how to look, and she might now have the sensitivity to seek him that way. But he could not speak to break the rhythm of Thomas’s graceful movements, nor diminish the triumph of his rescue.

  “I feared that Randall’s patience would break.” Thomas spoke softly. “I wish I could have brought you a blanket or clothing. Something,” he broke off. “We had time for the arrows, but little else once I’d sent Brigit on her way. Madoc and Walter and some others came with me, to fight them off. We were supposed to have you before you hit the water. None of the others can swim.” He gave a
hard breath. “If not for that bloody rope, I’d never have found you at all.”

  Great shadows rose up from the deeper blackness of the river, waves lapping against the wooden hulls as the rigging groaned. Cautiously, Thomas guided their little boat among the larger vessels. Elisha shut his eye when he felt certain Thomas couldn’t see him. Then he would hear Thomas’s intake of breath and open it again, to assure his king he still lived. He drifted, unsure what he felt beyond the pain. Sometimes he shivered so badly that he thumped in the little boat and feared he’d tip them back into the river.

  They left most of the ships behind, small houses and mills rose up along the banks of the wide river. Thomas slowed, each stroke long and weary. Night birds rose up crying from the riverside and other creatures rustled away at their approach, the steady splash of the oars driving them onward. Smoke clogged the air and Elisha’s bruised lungs, stinging his eyes.

  A thicket of docks at the river’s left bank heralded a hamlet not yet astir. Thomas turned the bow inward and pulled up to one of the docks, their craft bumping against others. He tied off to a peg in the half-rotted wood, then stretched and moved carefully behind the seat at Elisha’s back. His hands, two pools of warmth against the gooseflesh, encouraged Elisha to bend forward. He shifted his weight and began to cut the first rope, lifting it away from the scrapes.

  Elisha’s shoulders slumped painfully, and he stifled a cry. This task inflamed his broken skin, but he grit his teeth until it was done. Thomas eased his hands, first one, then the other, into his lap as Elisha tried to straighten. His shoulders jerked and twitched, but his hands lay like two dead things. Thomas slipped the golden ring from his smallest finger and slid it onto Elisha’s. “You’ll need a talisman. I sent Pernel to prepare a place not far off, where you’ll be safe,” Thomas told him. “Can you walk?”

  Elisha managed a nod. A lie, mostly likely, but he must try.

  Thomas helped Elisha out of the boat, as one might help a child, but Elisha stiffened as the king put an arm around him to lead him onward. Thomas faced him on the dock, the rising sun giving a faint glow to his profile. “Elisha, you have been more faithful to me than any man or woman ever has. But you have grown too used to stumbling on alone, regardless of your injuries. At least in part, it is my fault for abandoning you. Please let me help you.”

  Elisha tipped up his head, wobbling at the dizziness that followed. Thomas’s hand rose, but hesitated, his brow furrowed. “Thomas,” Elisha rasped, then swallowed, trying to find his voice. “If you go back now, they will let you in. Randall will be angry, but you are still king. The longer you stay—”

  Shaking his head, Thomas parted his lips, but Elisha continued, “They will search for me, and whoever is with me, king or no, will not escape. This is what the mancers want, for the monarchy to shatter.” The long speech wore him out, and it took all his effort to remain standing, to appear stronger than he was. He could not afford to plead with Thomas to make him go, but he would beg upon his knees if he had to, even as he wanted, with all of his heart, for him to stay.

  “How long will you last if I leave you?” Thomas shouted, and Elisha flinched. “You can barely stand. Do you imagine you’re fooling me? Good Lord, Elisha, the pain in you is killing me.”

  Swaying in the wake of Thomas’s vehemence, Elisha did not know what to say, or even if he was capable of speech. Rarely had he seen Thomas so upset. In fact, the prior occasion had ended with Thomas trying to kill him. The scar that ran along Thomas’s chin and down his throat looked pink and vulnerable in the new light.

  Ruffling back his hair, Thomas gripped his skull and was silent. With his arms still raised, his fingers clenched in his hair, Thomas said, “You think that I don’t know the danger, Elisha, but I do, and I know, too, that even you cannot protect me. Not without killing yourself. I will not watch you die.”

  “Then go now,” Elisha whispered, “and you need not watch.” The cold whistled in his right ear, louder by the moment. “When I walk the Valley, some of them will walk with me.”

  “Even you, even with your death, could you stop them all? Can you stop Brigit performing whatever sorcery she has in mind?”

  Elisha hesitated, the dark town rocking in time with the throbbing of his skull. The clearing sky looked bruised and beaten, on the verge of rain. Red blotches drifted across the gray cloudbank, and Elisha failed to blink them away.

  Thomas touched him, a careful hand that stopped the world from moving. “I told you it wasn’t Rosie I watched at the ball. What did you think I meant?”

  The ball. Elisha tried to focus and remember. Thomas’s desire as he watched Rosalynn dancing . . . with Elisha himself. Elisha tried to shake his head. Pain exploded through his skull, radiating through his jaw, shooting down his spine. He collapsed, his voice once more snatched from him. Thomas swept him up and carried him through the streets. Elisha’s head rolled against him as they ran, every step lashing through him. With each pulse of pain came a moment of clarity, an image of a drawn skull, fractured, lurking beneath his skin: his own death’s head. He imagined the irreparable shattered mess of Martin’s skull. Something banged outside of him, a hollow pounding, then they passed through a brief darkness into a warmer light.

  “Clear the table!” Thomas shouted. “Pernel, more light, and blankets.”

  Strong arms carried him and lay him down, gently, he knew, but the impact jarred him so he gasped. Someone cradled his head, pillowing it with his hands until something softer and colder could be brought. Piercing light reached through his swollen right eye, his left getting a close view of a pillow, a rough table, a fire across the room, Thomas’s anxious face.

  Blankets settled over him from neck to toes, pressed down, tucked against his legs. A warm hand settled at the edge of his jaw, a different kind of strength seeping through that touch. “A razor, please,” said another voice, soft and precise, just above his ear. The spread hand pinned his chin. A sluice of liquid dripped then spilled over his head; harmless across his forehead, it struck agony down the right side, and he jerked against the hand, grabbing for its wrist, but the grip ghosted through his own flesh.

  “Yes,” the touch whispered, “you know my hand as well as your own.”

  The hand that once he healed. Mordecai. Tears seeped from Elisha’s eye into the pillow, and his grip trembled.

  “We’ll need to restrain him. There is no way to dull this pain,” said Mordecai Surgeon, as calmly as if he sat in his library.

  “I will hold him.” Thomas’s fingers gently pried away Elisha’s hand, then he gripped Elisha’s arms, drawing them out in front.

  “Rose oil, more wine, and unroll that bundle here beside me,” Mordecai instructed. “Do you know the tools by name?”

  “Not all, Master, but I’ll do it.”

  The noises of preparation echoed through the table, clattering tools, sloshing jars, the quiet, constant prayer of Thomas’s grip upon him.

  Through his left hand, Mordecai sent compassion. But his right carefully probed the wound, sending Elisha back into darkness. “What is your diagnosis?”

  “Compressed skull fracture,” Elisha sent through the contact and sobbed without sound, Mordecai’s hand and Thomas’s grip were the only steady things in his world. Despite the blankets, Elisha’s feet shivered, his left side already numb. “I’m dying.”

  “Once you told us you could not die,” said Mordecai. Another sluice of liquid, scented now with wine, cleansed the wound.

  “Not the same as cannot feel pain,” Elisha sent back, trying to jest, but Mordecai’s thumb followed the edge of his jaw.

  “Do not waste your strength to protect me,” Mordecai said. “You know what I have to do.”

  Tiny tugs at his skin translated the snip of scissors trimming his hair. “Shave the scalp, make a cruciform incision, perforate, reginate, elevate.” His body shuddered, and Thomas’s grip tightened. Briefly, P
ernel’s hands held his legs. Trephination. Mordecai would drill holes in his skull. Even a patient who lived might not be the same. “I could have such a life that every day I’d wish that I were dead.”

  “Pernel, place your hand here, good.” Mordecai’s hand lifted from his jaw and another took its place, strong, but not so steady, not so calm. “Firm grip, Your Majesty,” the surgeon said, then touched his hand lightly to the back of Elisha’s neck, radiating heat, urging him to listen, “Elisha, do not let go.”

  The cold edge of a razor touched Elisha’s skin, scraping away the stubble of his hair, drawing down an edge of pain. “I can’t see.”

  “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” whispered the king.

  “A common side effect. Usually passes.” The razor withdrew, replaced by a new edge, sharper, slicing into his scalp, and Elisha cried out, struggling against the grip that held him.

  Thomas’s strength pushed him down, held him fast. “He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.” The king’s voice cracked. “Elisha, be still.”

  A cruciform incision. Elisha sobbed into the pillow. Sabetha telling him he was like a priest who reached God not through the spirit but the flesh. His hands burned with pain as Morag spiked a dagger through to pin him down.

  “. . . yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . .”

  Mordecai lifted Elisha’s head, pushing wads of wool into his ears. The chill of a metal brace set against his head, then it jiggled a little as Mordecai guided the bit into place. The grating of metal on bone resonated through his skull, echoing from ear to ear, the squeak of the bit drilling into him. Elisha could no longer hear Thomas’s prayer, but he knew how it ended: I shall fear no evil.

  The faces of mancers loomed up in the darkness, a dozen, two dozen, gathered around their new queen, splashed with blood, clad in skins, masters of pain. They reached out, the void of their awareness tingling against him. Mordecai’s presence loomed up, a wash of equations, languages, diagrams, and images rolling through him, and the mancers faded.