Walking on Water

by Matthew J. Metzger

  And sleep he did.

  He had to be forcibly roused to drink and would slip under again within moments. Even when Hauser stopped administering anything for the pain, Janez slept through it, body too weak and shattered to begin to process what had happened. As the third day rolled over them, the fever died entirely, and he had to be buried in blankets to stop the cold entering what remained and destroying him. If pneumonia set in now, Hauser was sure it would kill him.

  On the fourth day, Hauser had him removed back to his personal rooms—for the king’s sake, if nobody else’s. If he was going to die—and it was as yet all too likely—then he ought to pass in the comfort of his own bed, in Hauser’s opinion. And the king would be able to rejoin his family, only a handful of rooms away, and be comforted in turn by wife and children.

  And if Alarik didn’t receive such soon, he’d become a patient in his own right.

  Hauser didn’t presume—never had—to interfere in the king’s business. Not for Alarik, not for his father before him. But a king had to be composed and involved in his kingdom. A kingdom at war, even more so. This lurking in the sickroom to attend to a dying brother was not the privilege of a king, and Hauser knew what really lurked at the core of it.

  Had they not fought, Janez would likely not have donned uniform and gone to sea.

  Had they not fought, he’d likely have never been there in the path of cannon fire.

  Had they not fought, he would likely have been standing on the royal balcony alongside his king and brother, watching the ragged ships come in.

  But the prince had donned the coat of a lieutenant of his own accord and boarded the ships with no forceful hand at his back.

  Hauser had little personal patience for sentiments such as guilt or remorse, but his lack of patience didn’t equate to a lack of understanding. For all his reputation as a hard, hot-tempered king, Alarik was no cold-hearted bastard of a man. It would suit him better to be so, carrying the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders, but it was not the case, and those were the facts. He blamed himself, Hauser knew, and a king could not afford to carry guilt—however misplaced—that would distract him from his duties.

  And should Janez actually die, Hauser knew that part of the king would die also.

  And should he not?

  The leg would never grow back. The naval career was snuffed out. Likely, the alliance also. What woman would want a husband so hideously scarred? What kingdom would accept an alliance duty-bound to die along with its participants at the end of their lives, with no permanent join between houses? Allegiance outlived men. Enemy nations would continue to be long after the deaths of every man who had caused the original offence.

  And while, yes, Hauser had told the lie to prevent the marriage that Janez hadn’t wanted, told a lie to protect two people from lifelong misery, he had no illusions that a solution must be found. Would the king now place his son in Janez’s place? Or his daughter? Betroth a tiny child to another infant, in some faraway land? He had always resisted the idea, violently at times, yet Hauser suspected he’d left the king with no choice now.

  One misery exchanged for another. And so went the life of man.

  And so, when Hauser had Janez moved, he didn’t inform the king beforehand, and waited for him to attend—as he invariably did—after the afternoon council had been satisfied. He occupied himself with an experiment in the meantime, and lost himself in the effect of boiling mice in vinegar—dead mice, he wasn’t some sadist—only to be pulled from it when he heard the strangled cry from the next room, and the door was flung open.

  “Doktor! He is—”

  “Quite well, quite comfortable, and do not hurl about so,” Hauser said crossly, snuffing out the flame under his pans. “I have had him moved to his rooms.”

  “He still needs you. He must be moved back imm—”

  “When you cease to regard medicine and science as witchcraft and divine intervention, Your Majesty, then perhaps I will permit you to issue instruction to me regarding the care of my patients. But until then, may I suggest you keep praying to thin air, while I save lives,” Hauser interrupted heatedly. “The prince may yet live, may yet die, but that is up to him and luck now, not confinement in these rooms. And it will do you better to sleep in your bed, with your wife, and not in that infernal little chair.”

  “Until he comes to his senses, I will sit up with him.”

  “Do not be ridiculous,” Hauser said sharply. “He is unaware of your presence, and made no worse for the lack of it. You have a kingdom to run, Alarik. I find it difficult to believe the situation has not endangered this engagement that has been thrust upon him. Is his bride-to-be aware of the duties he can no longer perform?”

  Alarik’s jaw worked.

  “That is a no, then. And the war? I take it the battle was won, going by the lack of northerners with icebergs on their chests rampaging about the place?”

  “You would do well to remember your place.”

  “And you yours, Your Majesty.”

  Alarik’s lips thinned. “I have not had the time—”

  “You have had plenty of time. Your guilt is blinding you to the further damage that may be caused by this.”

  “My kingdom is second to my brother’s life!”

  “Is it?”

  The question brought the king up short, and Hauser softened. Marginally.

  “You may love your brother very much,” he said, a little more kindly, “but your kingdom is, and must be, your primary concern. It has always been before. If your brother’s life were of such utmost importance, he would never have been permitted to join the navy, stand on a ship, or be married off like an instrument of diplomacy. You would have shielded him from it all—”

  “He would have loathed me for it.”

  “But you would have done it anyway. You have always balanced your love for your family against the needs of your people, as any king must, and at this moment, your people need you more than he does.”

  Alarik was shaking his head. “You do not understand, Doktor—”

  “I understand that you carry blame for the injury.”

  Alarik paused. His eyes were too bright.

  “The enemy is at fault. Do not let them take the upper hand now.”

  The royal jaw hardened, and the king drew himself up.

  “You will issue orders to the guards, to Held, to your assistant. And they are your orders, too. If Janez—if—”

  “If the shadow comes for him,” Hauser promised, “you will be sent for the moment I am aware of it.”

  The king nodded jerkily.

  “He sleeps in his rooms. Keep the curtains closed against the light, it will only disturb him.”

  “Held is with him?”

  “Of course. He is not alone.”

  Alarik opened his mouth to speak again—and then seemed to decide against it. He turned on his heel and marched out, no doubt to the prince’s rooms, and then—one hoped—to his own.

  Hauser relit his burners and offered up a meagre prayer to a god he’d never truly believed in.

  If Janez were to die, let him die tonight. If not—release him from the grip of disease, and ease two men’s suffering, not one.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  ON THE NINTH day, Doktor opened the windows.

  The breeze was cold and refreshing, and Janez was quick to stir to its caressing fingers. His voice still murmured and crackled like the drum of crab claws on the sand—but his eyes brightened at the light streaming through the glass, as they’d not done since that terrible moment upon the cloud. A hand lifted. Grasping. He began to rise.

  “Doktor?” Held asked uncertainly, clutching that wayward hand. It was cooler than the past few days, and the returning grip a little firmer. But should he rise? Janez seemed to think so—he made that huffing sound of exasperation that Held had come to associate with disapproval of Doktor and his diktats.

  But Doktor had no diktats. He smiled and slipped under Janez’s other arm to pull
him up against the pillows. They conversed in low tones. Held heard the words for windows and chairs, and then Doktor was looking at him.

  “Hier,” he said, and Held grasped under Janez’s armpit. Between them, they lifted him from the bed, and carried him to the plush red chair, bathed in morning sun.

  He felt so—

  Light. So utterly frail and fragile between them. He felt more mer than sky. There was none of the great, warm strength that had borne down on Held in the secret spaces of beds. There was none of that easy might, that hot power, that sheer energy, that had both captivated him and swept him away, like an all-consuming and irresistible tide. Something had been lost—something taken—and Held clutched at Janez’s arm even after that broken body finally relaxed into the soft frame.

  But then Janez opened his eyes and smiled.

  Bathed in bright light, clear and alert for the first time in days, the blue was all the colours of home rolled into one. His hair burned, the red and gold a great wash all mixed together, like sand rolling down a collapsed bank, speckling and dancing in the deep. There were lines—deep lines, hollows, shadows of pain where the smile failed just yet to reach—yet Held’s heart squeezed tight inside his chest regardless.

  The feeling spilled out. “I love you,” he said, in some feeble attempt to smooth the pain away and find the missing pieces—but it was lost on him. And Held knew of no other way to make him understand.

  When Doktor brought the basin, though, and unwound the cloth from the bloody stump that was all that remained of the shattered leg, an idea occurred. A distraction, perhaps, and some way to comfort. The water jug on the side was still full, and Janez had looked so happy and hedonistic the last time…

  That red-gold hair was greasy to the touch. Janez started, only for Doktor to tut and still him. And then Janez simply closed his eyes, and Held watched the lines and shadows ease a little as he patiently combed the water through that curly hair—again and again, over and over, until the colour gleamed brighter than before, and the damp slide of the locks through Held’s fingers felt like it had that very first time they’d touched.

  And when it did, Held exchanged comb for brush, and brushed all the water away again, in long and lingering strokes, until the hair fell wispy and free, that soft sensation still so impossible to understand kissing his fingers where it lay. Janez’s hands were curled in his lap, twitching with Doktor’s attendance, but his hair kissed Held’s fingers in silent apology.

  And then Janez spoke.

  Whatever he said, it made Doktor pause. Answer yes, in a slow sort of way.

  And then smile. He patted Janez’s knee and completed the new wrapping with deft movements before rising and crossing to the great doors. Not the door to the room, no, but the doors in the walls. Clothes flew from the recesses beyond: simple whites, the warmer garments of the Winter Palace, those that had been so gentle against Held’s cheek yet so rough when he’d bunched them in his fists as they’d come together in that laughing, joyous crash.

  His heart swelled just to see them, and Doktor laid them out on the bed until they formed a bodiless skyman, stretched out and ready.

  “Held.”

  He gestured. Held went, puzzled, but understanding dawned when Doktor held out the undershirt, and pointed to Janez.

  The items were simple, and Janez was content to let Held dress him. There were no teasing plucks, no kisses. But he smiled when Held dared to brush back a loose curl, and asked for a ribbon when it only returned.

  “In a moment,” Held said and smiled when Janez tried—and failed—to mimic the sound.

  The loose undershirt was of a heavy, warm fabric, but the sleeves were loose like the shirt from the ball. The sleeveless undercoat hugged his battered torso, its deep blue colour allowing Held to pretend he’d merely imagined the vivid painting of injury around Doktor’s work on that now-wasted chest. He worked thin gloves patiently over the scored hands, and then Doktor came about to help lift Janez again, and allow the trousers to be exchanged for a fresh, crisp pair more designed for company.

  Held paused.

  The leg gaped empty. And there were two of each of the remaining items on the bed: shoes, and stockings. Janez was staring out of the window with a fierce sort of determination, as though he didn’t wish to look down. Doktor had retreated to his instruments, cleaning them a little too keenly. There was a sudden weight in the air. A silence, of a sort, despite the crash of the tides outside and the cries of skymen battering their tools upon a cloud. Held recognised the expression on Janez’s face. Not from sight, but from memory—of how muscles felt to make such an expression. He remembered it from contorting his own mouth into such an unhappy sneer of hopeless, helpless hunger.

  Janez was hurting. And not from the leg, but from somewhere inside.

  Held fisted his hands around the stockings.

  He would make it stop hurting.

  Why should Janez hurt? His touch could infect the very mind and sweep away all sense to make one senseless, yet do so with sensation itself. His tongue spoke nonsense, yet his body spoke all languages that had ever existed. He could be understood, yet never said a word Held could comprehend. He transcended language, rules, even the entire world—and he hurt, when he was shy only of divinity itself.

  There was no need for Janez to hurt.

  It had to stop. Now.

  Held found pins in the brush collection. He dropped clumsily to his knees at Janez’s foot, and rolled the spare cloth like a kelp wrap. He stuck it with the pins in much the same manner, until the fabric was snug against the bottom of the stump: hiding and protecting Doktor’s handiwork, yet returning the welcoming fit of the cloth and the way it accentuated Janez’s body, only more beautiful when it was bared. The remaining foot was lifted—and the tiny nails kissed softly with his thumbs before anybody could notice—and the stocking whisked up, the shoe buckled into place. Now, the only thing out of place was the soft fall of hair the colour of a clear sky as the light rose in the morning.

  The ribbon had to be blue.

  Held still didn’t grasp the significance of ribbon colours. Janez had insisted on the white one at the Winter Palace, but this one would be blue. He found it hidden amongst its fellows in the brush box and took his time smoothing every curl and strand into its hold, easing out the loops until they fell identically.

  Doktor had slipped from the room. Held took the moment to press his nose against the softness and inhale.

  A hand came up to grip his arm and squeeze lightly. The soft rasp of cloth between them was unpleasant, and Held hoped for healing soon. Kisses helped hurt, did they not? If he could only kiss them, perhaps they would be better.

  The door opened just as Janez let go, and Doktor returned with a long stick, held out ahead of himself as though presenting a sword. He tossed it in the air, twirled it once, and presented it to Janez, a white handle first, as though offering it.

  Janez stared.

  Then slowly reached. With his left hand, not his right. And took it.

  Placed it down, black tip to the carpet, and leaned forward. His fingers curled around the whiteness and began to shake.

  And then he stopped.

  Face downturned, his entire body leaning forward to press the stick into the floor, Janez simply stopped. His whole arm was shaking, and shoulders too. A curl freed itself from the ribbon and fell forward over shadowed eyes.

  Doktor frowned.

  “Jeder einfache Mann kann das, und du bist ein Prinz.”

  His voice was a low, grumbled croak. It whispered between them, like a tiny secret, and rustled in the air like wind.

  “Das ist dein Werk!”

  Anger.

  Janez bellowed his reply. The sudden shock of noise from so long in a quiet horror made Held jump. Doktor flinched back also—and then his face closed. He spat something back, louder and harsher than before, and turned on his heel. He slammed out of the room, speckles of whiteness shuddering free from the ceiling as the door hit home, a
nd Janez made an explosive noise that Held knew without doubt to be a curse. His hand upon the stick had never stopped shaking.

  Slowly, Held stepped around the chair and dared to kiss the other hand. He lifted it and pressed his lips to the cloth-covered knuckles as he’d seen Janez do at the Winter Palace. He watched, too, as Janez had. Watched that handsome, pained face as Janez closed his eyes—and when that churning blue was obscured, Held pulled.

  Pulled on the hand in his grasp. And pulled hard.

  Janez looked up at him, red ringing the blue, and something so terribly painful was written in the lines around his mouth. He made a cracked sound, no word at all. And Held pulled again.

  He didn’t know what Janez had said to make Doktor fetch the clothes. But the undercoat and shoe meant that Janez had to go somewhere. And wherever it was, whatever for, he must go. Skymen belonged in the sky, not in dark rooms. They belonged corralling clouds and dancing in the sun and burning everything they touched with their brilliance and madness.

  Janez belonged there.

  Not here. Not with red-rimmed eyes and a shivering lip, with vile painted colours upon his skin and quaking from the simple act of holding a stick.

  So Held pulled—and Janez rose up out of the chair.

  For a moment, he staggered. Held caught at him, and as Janez steadied, the stick a crude replacement for his leg, Held slid his arms further and clasped that now-frail chest to his shoulders.

  And held on.

  Janez’s face dropped against Held’s neck, and the chest between Held’s hands heaved for a brief moment. Then stilled. Until ever so faintly, Held felt a hand grip the back of his neck and squeeze. Held…held.

  They were still as statues, unmoving in the midst of this great upheaval. Held would hold on forever, right here, if it would only restore the smile. If it would relight the eyes, catch the hands that had pulled him from his prison. He’d have done anything. Any deal the Witch cared to name, any price she demanded him to pay, and he’d have paid it.

  The grip fell away. Janez straightened. When Held let go, that handsome face was wet, and Held used his sleeve to dry it, unsure of the source. That mustered a small smile before Janez looked down at his remaining foot and the black stick, and leaned.