The Eyes of a King

by Catherine Banner

“I’m eight,” said Stirling. “I’m in military school too. But neither of us like it. Especially my teacher—his name’s Markey. Sergeant Markey, that is. He’s really mean. I don’t want to be a soldier when I grow up, and Leo doesn’t either. He could be a—”

  I opened the door hastily, and the girl said, with the faintest smile, “I see by your brother’s face that he thinks you have said enough.”

  She pushed the door open with her free hand and looked in with disdain. “The bathroom’s not very nice either,” Stirling said apologetically.

  “Never mind. At least there is a mirror, and a shower and a sink.”

  “Cold water, though.”

  “Ah, well.” She shifted the baby higher up her arm.

  “Would you like me to hold him for you?” asked Stirling.

  “Your brother will be wanting to get back to bed.”

  “No, no,” I told her. “I’ll just sit here.” I sat down and leaned against the wall.

  “Thank you very much,” said the girl, and she handed the baby to Stirling. “Keep your hand behind his head.” She waited a moment to check that Stirling would not drop him.

  When she shut the door, the baby began to cry. “Shh,” Stirling said, the way Maria had, and jiggled him up and down, but he went on crying. The crying grew so insistent and so mournful that Stirling called, “Is he all right?”

  “I think he’s just hungry,” Maria called back.

  “I’ve got a sweet in my pocket.”

  “Don’t give him that. He’s still on milk.”

  “Oh. All right.” Stirling went on jiggling the baby and put out his finger for him to hold. Anselm caught onto it and stopped crying long enough to draw breath, but then resumed his wailing louder than ever.

  I was beginning to feel dizzy again. And my vision was going strange. My head and the back of my neck prickled sickeningly hot and cold. I looked at the ground, concentrating on the cracks in the paving stones to keep my sight straight. “You all right, Leo?” Stirling asked. I nodded.

  I heard the bathroom door open, and the baby’s crying subsided to a discontented grizzling. “You don’t look well,” Maria said. She was talking to me. I tried to lift my head. “Your face is very white,” she said. “Oh dear. I am sorry to have kept you down here so long.”

  Stirling held out his hand and helped me up. I swayed and caught onto the wall. I held tightly to Stirling’s shoulder as we struggled to the door. Maria held it open for us.

  I could not see clearly where I was putting my feet, especially entering the dark hall suddenly after the yard. But I put one hand on the rail, and Stirling supported the other arm, and I managed to get up the stairs slowly. Maria followed us all the way, saying, “Sorry I can’t help.” And she really sounded sorry.

  When we finally got to our apartment, Stirling had to get out his keys. I attempted to support myself while he did it, but the wall seemed to be sliding away. “Here, hold on to me,” said Maria. She shifted the baby up to her elbow and held her other arm out. I tried to take it gently, but she slid it right around my waist and pulled me in to her suddenly. “I won’t let you fall,” she said. She was strong. I could not look at her face so close, but she was looking at me. I was painfully aware of her fingers, tight on my ribs, and her side, pressed right against mine, so that I could feel every breath she took.

  Eventually Stirling got the door open and I moved over to him, still leaning heavily on his shoulder. “Goodbye, Maria,” said Stirling. “Goodbye, baby Anselm.”

  “Goodbye,” she said. “Wave goodbye, Anselm.” She lifted the baby’s hand into a wave, and he gurgled at us, dribble stringing from his mouth. And then, suddenly formal, she said, “It was nice to meet you.”

  “You too,” said Stirling, and I managed a curt nod.

  “I hope you get well quickly, Leo,” she said, and went breezing up the stairs, but carefully, so as not to drop the baby.

  I slept for the rest of the day. It was evening when I woke. I could hear hushed voices from the living room and something hissing over the stove. Stirling was standing in the light from the window, leaning on the back of the sofa and talking to Grandmother. I sat up, and he heard me and turned and came to the door. “You are awake, finally,” he said, and sat down on the end of my bed. “Do you feel better now?”

  I nodded. “I don’t know why I passed out. Sorry to scare you, Stirling. I feel fine now.” It was almost true. And when I got up, I was no longer dizzy. I dressed quickly, then followed him back into the living room.

  Grandmother smiled at me from the kitchen. “I’m making you some soup,” she said.

  “You must be hungry,” said Stirling as we sat down at the table. “It’s broccoli soup, with potatoes in it and meat fat—”

  “All right!” I said. “Please don’t tell me about it.” I was still feeling sick after that morning. “I’m sure I will feel hungry once I see it,” I said.

  Stirling had the newspaper in front of him, and he bent his head now and began trying to decipher the headline. After a while, he gave up and closed it. “I saw Maria again,” he said, looking up. “I helped her carry some of her boxes up to the apartment.”

  “Oh yes?” I turned to him.

  “She’s like a princess,” Stirling said. I nodded. “She’s friendly, though,” he went on. “Very pretty. Nice baby.” It sounded as if he should be counting these out on his fingers as he said them. But he wasn’t. “She was holding on to you close, wasn’t she? This morning, when I was trying to open the door.”

  “Yes,” I said cautiously, and then added, “Quite close.”

  “You should have seen yourself. You went bright red.”

  I was alarmed. “Did I?”

  “I don’t think she noticed. She didn’t say anything about it this afternoon. She most probably thought it was just a fever.” I laughed. “Did you think she was pretty?” he asked.

  “Well, I suppose …”

  “Who?” said Grandmother, setting the bowls down on the table.

  “The girl we met today,” said Stirling. “Maria. She has moved into the top apartment. She was very kind. She helped Leo when he was feeling ill, so I could open the door.”

  Grandmother sat down and began ladling out the soup. “Someone nice in the building—that will be a change after the last few.”

  “Can we invite her round here one day?” said Stirling. “ We should invite her whole family round, to welcome them.”

  “Certainly,” said Grandmother, quite unlike her usual self. “Who else is there? Her parents?”

  “Her mother,” said Stirling. “And her baby. His name is Anselm. He is very sweet, though he cries a good deal.”

  “Her baby?” said Grandmother. “How old is this girl?”

  “Fifteen, same as Leo.”

  “And where is her husband?”

  “She doesn’t have one.”

  Grandmother raised her eyebrows. “I’m surprised she told you that so freely.”

  “But I did ask her.”

  “Stirling! You asked her if she was married?” Grandmother turned to him, frowning. “That was very rude! Do you know how rude that is, to ask someone if they are married? Especially if it turns out they are not.”

  “I didn’t know she was not. That was why I asked. Anyway, she didn’t mind.”

  “Well, perhaps not, but …”

  “Leo.” He turned to me. “She didn’t mind, did she?” I shook my head.

  “She seems a brazen sort of girl,” said Grandmother cautiously. “Not to feel ashamed at—”

  “Oh, Grandmother!” I exclaimed. “Don’t be so old-fashioned.”

  We were all surprised at that. “You are right,” said Grandmother after a moment. “You are right. Sorry, Leo. Some of the people we have had here—respectable when you look at them, certainly, but so unfriendly. And I do not know the circumstances. I think that we should invite her round sometime. I would like to meet her.”

  I had thought that I would rather be
at home than at school, but by Tuesday evening I was growing bored. I was laying out my uniform ready for the next day when Grandmother came to the bedroom door. “Listen, Leo,” she said. “I want you to stay at home at least until the end of next week.”

  I was surprised. “I thought you said Monday or Tuesday.”

  “There is a lot of silent fever in the city. It’s too dangerous for you to go out when you are weak.”

  “Well, I’ll be all right; I’ll stay away from anyone who looks ill. I have not caught it yet, have I?”

  “I am not worried about you. It says here that they think it might be carried by people who have been ill or exhausted, and then passed on to others.” She held up the newspaper.

  “They have said that before.”

  “Aye, but they are proving it now. In the hospitals at the border. Listen to this.”

  She sat down and opened the newspaper. “ ‘A report from the doctors at the hospital at Romeira …,’ ” she began. She read slowly. I could hear when she got to the end of a line, because she paused while she found the beginning of the next. “ ‘… states that most silent fever cases occur in soldiers who … have been in contact with those returning from the … hospital, or those diagnosed with exhaustion…. These convalescing or exhausted soldiers often have low … immunities, and so carry the disease and pass it to those … who are healthy. This is further proof of the generally … accepted theory that people who are unfit, especially those … recovering from illness, carry silent fever and pass it … directly to people they come into contact with. People with … low immunities are susceptible to the germs … which then pass remarkably easily to healthy people.’ ”

  “You should not believe everything you read in the newspaper,” I told her. “And it is pointless to worry about silent fever. It goes around and people catch it, and whether or not you are careful the chances are the same.”

  “That’s not true,” said Grandmother. “Being careful is always sensible. Exhaustion, Leo—that was what Father Dunstan said. And that is what these soldiers have, the ones who are passing on the illness.”

  It was pointless to worry about silent fever; I was not just saying it to aggravate her. No one really knew how it was passed or how to treat it. “People are only scared of it because of the symptoms,” I told her. “Because you lose your sight and fall unconscious and can’t speak. They think it’s a serious disease, because the symptoms come on fast, when in fact most people recover.”

  “There are more serious strains,” she told me. “Slow-developing silent fever, class B silent fever. Do you know about those strains, Leo?” I shrugged helplessly. “You are not going back to school,” she told me. “You need to rest for a while longer.” And I did not argue.

  By Thursday evening I was going crazy with boredom. “I’m going out,” I told Grandmother and Stirling, putting my boots on.

  “Where?” asked Stirling. “Can I come?”

  “You are not going out,” Grandmother told me.

  “I’m getting bored here in the house,” I complained. “I need some fresh air.”

  “The air is not fresh; it is full of disease. Leo, stay in the house.”

  “Can I come to church with you later, then?”

  “Stay in the house,” Grandmother said. “Please, Leo. Or go out to the yard to get some air.”

  I went down to the yard. It was in shadow, although it was only five o’clock and the sun was shining in the street. There was a warm breeze blowing down the alley, and I stood beside the gate, where it was strongest. A breeze was unusual out here, for the houses rose so high on all sides that only a southeasterly wind could get in at all. Looking around the dingy space, I thought that Maria had been right: some plants would improve it. It could be a walled garden. A courtyard.

  I paced round the walls, imagining that this was a garden. But the yard was too small. If I had a garden, I would like mainly grass, acres of it. If I was rich. Gentle slopes planted with trees, and a lake or a stream, like the grounds of a palace in the country. You could ride a horse across it. You can do whatever you want if you’re rich. Maybe if I trained in magic and became as famous as Aldebaran. Or more likely, if I was high up in the army. But I’d never get anywhere in the army. I paced faster.

  A noise made me start, and I turned and saw Maria coming out into the yard.

  I noticed that I was walking in a circle, and stopped where I was. “Just … er … getting some fresh air,” I said.

  “Me also,” she said, and crossed to the gate and leaned over to look down the alley into the street. “I am glad to see you well again.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “And thank you for helping me … you know, the other day.”

  “It was nothing,” she said. And then, turning to me, “You looked so tired and pale—you look quite different with some color in your face.” Of course, she looked just the same as I remembered, only perhaps even prettier.

  “Where is Anselm?” I asked her.

  “He’s asleep—for once,” she said. “Upstairs. My mother is with him.” She ran her hand through her hair. “Oh, he makes me so tired! It is a lot of work caring for a baby, and yet I get bored with it. I cannot agree with people who say that a woman’s work is nothing but bringing up children and cooking and cleaning.”

  I laughed. “Then you are in a minority for sure these days.”

  “Perhaps I am.” She smiled.

  “Of course I love him dearly,” she went on. “I don’t mean that I don’t. He is so sweet; who could not love him? But … I don’t know! Today he cried for three hours, hardly stopping for breath; I was in despair! And then my mother came through the front door and said at once, ‘He wants his blanket.’ I told her that he already had his blanket, in fact two, and she said, ‘No, Maria, his yellow blanket.’ And she went and got it, and laid it on him, and he stopped crying straightaway. And then she said something about a ‘mother’s touch.’ I’m a mother. She’s not to be believed! I tell you what—she is the one who drives me to distraction, truly, not Anselm.”

  “It must be annoying,” I said, into the silence. “If she always thinks she can bring up a child better than you.”

  “That’s exactly what she thinks,” she said. “But it’s not as if he is her baby.” I was watching her mouth as she talked.

  “No,” I said.

  “I cannot be expected to know everything that she does, but she doesn’t even give me a chance. And she has only brought up one child anyway. That does not make her an expert.”

  “Maybe that is why she is like that,” I said.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, perhaps she feels threatened by you. As if she doesn’t want you to be better than her at looking after children. I mean, not exactly that … but …”

  “No—it’s a good point.”

  “Just a thought.”

  We stood in silence. Maria twisted a loose splinter from the gate, frowning, and dropped it distractedly. “It annoys me,” she said, “the way she’s always telling me I’m wrong, or else looking disapproving, like this.” She showed me, pulling her mouth into a tight line and raising her eyebrows. I laughed, but she looked beautiful even when she did it.

  “I’m surprised if she really looks like that,” I said.

  She laughed too. “Well, perhaps not so bad, but you know what I mean by it. It’s driving me insane.”

  “I’d guess that it would.”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “I don’t know. I know nothing about that sort of thing, as no doubt Stirling will have told you.” They seemed to have been talking often since Maria had arrived.

  “Not at all,” she said. “He never has anything but the highest praise for you. Only yesterday he was saying that he missed you at school because you always looked after him.”

  “Truly?” I was pleased. “Typical Stirling.”

  “You are too hard on yourself, perhaps. His praises seem to be justified.” She caught my eye.
“I’m sorry,” she went on. “I see I have embarrassed you; I did not mean to.” I put my hand to my face, and she laughed out loud at me then. “Come on, Leo! It is not as if I asked you to marry me or something!”

  “Anyway, about your mother …” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “What would you do if you were me?”

  “If I was you. Probably …” I considered it. “I’d shout and swear. And throw things.”

  She raised her eyebrows, starting to smile at that. “Not at people,” I said hastily, and she laughed out loud. “Seriously,” I said, trying to think of what she wanted to hear. “I suppose you could … well … thank her when she offers you advice, and … keep on mentioning how helpful she is to you …”

  “So that she doesn’t find me threatening? Do you think that would work?”

  “I don’t know. You are asking the wrong person, to be honest.”

  “No—you are a good listener.” I felt guilty then, because I had been watching her, yes, but some of the time I had not been listening. “It might work.” She smiled at me. “Thanks, Leo.”

  But her smile faded, and I noticed how tired she looked. “I wish I could just leave home,” she said desperately.

  “Maybe you can, one day.”

  “Where would I get the money?” She looked, and spoke, as if she could get it right out of her pocket. But she was living on Citadel Street.

  Watching her, I wished she would smile again. I spoke before I had even thought about it. “If you get tired of being with your mother,” I said, “you can always come over to our apartment. I am there all day at the moment, and I would like to have someone to talk to. I’m not used to being at home all the time.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I might hold you to that. I get so lonely, and none of my girlfriends live near this part of town.”

  “I’d be glad if you came round. Anytime. Bring Anselm and all.”

  “Thanks,” she said again. “Though I’d sooner leave him.” And she laughed.

  She pushed herself up off the gate, where she had been leaning. “I suppose I had better get back.” I nodded. When she reached the door, she turned. “Thank you, Leo. I really need a friend.” All I could manage was another nod. She slid round the door. The way that she did it, for a stupid moment I thought she was going to blow me a kiss. Maybe that was what was so enthralling about her mouth: it looked always as if she was about to blow someone a kiss. Anyway, she did not, and the door swung shut behind her. Lucky, really. I could not have coped with that.