A FRIEND WHO BLEEDS (2)
Prince Jonathan was in Scanra on a diplomatic mission when the Sweating Sickness broke out in Corus again. This time, its course was milder, and most of the patients healed within a week. The only exception being page Alan. He seemed to get weaker and weaker, and not even Duke Baird was able to do anything against it. When Alex proposed that Duke Roger might be able to help, Alanna made such a scene that Alex did not dare mention it again for fear of upsetting the patient, but he did wonder why she was so opposed to letting Roger see her.
Four days after Alanna had taken sick, Duke Baird sent for Alex. This was surprising, since it was only two hours after he had left her side to get some rest himself, and Alex got dressed in a hurry and rushed over to her chambers, fearing the worst.
Duke Baird awaited him with creased eyebrows, not with the look of sadness Alex had half expected, and the young knight breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing Alanna weak, but alive and awake. Behind Baird´s back, she shot him an imploring glance. And when Baird told him, in a hushed voice, why he had summoned him, he knew what was going on.
“Of course I will stay with him.”
Duke Baird sighed. “I don´t know why the lad is so damn stubborn. I mean, I do understand young men in their teens being uncomfortable with female nurses changing their clothes, even when they´re ill, but Alan wouldn´t even accept male nurses. He insisted I call Prince Jonathan, and when we reminded him that the prince had gone abroad, he wanted none other than you to tend to him. I know you are all good friends, and I am happy to hear that you will submit to his wishes, curious as they may seem; to tell the truth, I hold some hope that the loving care of a friend will contribute as much to his recovery as my healing powers.”
If Alex stiffened a little at the mention of Jonathan, Baird did not notice it. Determinedly, he pushed all jealous thoughts aside. She was sick, and she needed him. Well, maybe not him, but someone who knew who she was, someone she could trust. And at the moment, this someone appeared to be him.
***
This was just the beginning of Alanna´s illness, which got worse and worse and took her almost to the brink of death. Her fever rose, and hallucinations haunted her; she was crouching in fear of some unnameable threat once and talking to her brother the next moment, and Alex practically camped beside her bed and shooed everyone out of the room whenever she started hallucinating, lest she give herself away.
There wasn´t much he could do, apart from being there, taking care of her physical needs, stand aside whenever Duke Baird inspected her and convince Raoul and Gary that no, he really didn´t need a break, and that there really was no need for any of them replacing him for a while. Alanna never came to, whenever she was awake she was talking to people who weren´t there, or calling people who were present the wrong names; Alex found it particularly unsettling when she seemed to think that he was Roger and wouldn´t let him near her, glaring at him and balling her hands to weak fists. The next time she awoke she called him Thom and smiled and gripped his hand tightly, refusing to let go until she fell back asleep, her facial features relaxed and still bearing traces of her smile.
Finally, after days on end of leaving Alanna´s bedside with a worried expression on his face, there came the day when Baird stood up and smiled.
“It looks like he´s getting better,” he said, and Alex suddenly felt an extreme tension fall off his shoulders. Tiredness engulfed him, the lack of sleep attacking him without warning, and he nearly stumbled. Both him and Alanna slept for the next twelve hours, and when Alex awoke he found her eyes resting on him, seeing him, for the first time in, what, ten days? He crawled out of his sleeping bag and let himself plop onto the chair next to her bed.
“Hey.”
She smiled.
“Hey. You look like you need a shave.”
Alex felt his cheeks and chin. He definitely needed a shave. And something to eat, and a bath. But those things could wait just a little longer.
“Yeah, I guess so. Whereas you look like blooming spring itself. All set for a walk in the gardens.”
She laughed, feebly, a sound he had not realized he had missed until he heard it.
“I feel like a newborn kitten. Can barely lift my arms. But I guess I´ve been worse, huh?”
Alex nodded, and told her just how much worse she had been. He did not tell her everything - the hallucinations, for instance, being something he wasn´t comfortable talking about - but he spoke about her fever and how Duke Baird had come to see her three times a day and worked his healing powers on her, and how her own Gift seemed to have been drained out by the sickness. She was happy to hear that they had summoned Thom, and that he was on his way to Corus, even though she would probably have fully recovered by the time he arrived. They talked for a while, Alanna trying to make sense to the nightmares that had haunted her during her time of illness, and then they went on to lighter topics, and Alex reproduced whatever gossip Raoul and Gary had brought with them during their visits - which wasn´t much, since the situation with Alan had been too serious to allow idle gossiping. Neither of them heard the door open, and it was only when Alanna´s glance went over his shoulder and her face lit up that Alex realized they had a visitor, and he thought he might have an inkling of who it might be.
“Jon!”
“Alan, I - “ The Prince´s eyes were focused on his squire, his voice strangled with a mixture of anxiety and relief. Not really looking at the figure occupying the chair next to the bed, he said, absent-mindedly “I will take over, no need for you to stay. Thank you.”
Thank you indeed, Alex thought sarcastically, for sarcasm was way preferable over being hurt, or bitter, or outright angry, especially when those feelings were directed at your prince. He got up and gave Jon a curt nod, preparing to leave, when Jon stopped short and took a proper glance at him, muttering, “Oh, it´s you, Alex… well, thanks. Give my thanks to Raoul and Gary as well, please.”
For what? Stopping in for half an hour every day? But Alex did not say it, merely nodded, and left.
***
Someone, probably Duke Baird, must have told the Prince though; at least Alex could hardly find another explanation for the conversation that Jon found necessary the next day.
It was unusual in itself to be summoned to Jon´s rooms; if any of their group wanted to see another, the most common thing to do would be to go look for them themselves. And it wasn´t as if Alex was hard to find; he was either in his rooms, or the Training Grounds.
“So,” Jon began after he had poured Alex and himself goblets of wine in an attempt of inducing a relaxed atmosphere, but spoiling the picture by remaining standing. “I heard you spent the last ten days at Alan´s side, taking over, er, how to call it, the role of a nurse, more or less?”
Alex swirled the wine in the glass. He did not drink though.
“Yes, that´s right.”
Why make it easy on him? Let Jon struggle a bit, let him in the dark about just how much Alex knew, for a while at least. It was too amusing to watch, and amusement was clearly lacking in Alex´s life these days.
Jon´s eyes narrowed, just a bit.
“How come Baird chose you for that purpose?”
Alex smiled.
“He didn´t. Alan did.”
Jon sighed, impatiently.
“So how come Alan chose you?”
Now Alex lifted his goblet, regarding the dark red liquid, taking a sip, all with the air of a man who has all the time in the world. Letting Jon steam was a distorted kind of joy, he was aware of that, but since it was all the joy left to him, he was prepared to take it.
“Maybe…”, he began after setting down the goblet, still uncertain on how to proceed, but then suddenly deciding that he did not give a damn, “maybe it´s because she did not trust any of the regular nurses to keep her secret.”
Jon´s knuckles around his goblet turned white, and Alex set down his own goblet on a table next to them. If it came to fighting, he didn´t want to hold a glass in his hand. Nasty mess, getting glass splinters out of your flesh.
“That is still lacking in terms of an explanation,” Jonathan hissed. Alex raised his eyebrows. His amusement over seeing Jon lose his nerve surprised himself, but it was there, a part of him that had always resented Jon, triumphing at this moment of predominance over the Prince - a man who had been brought up to think that whatever he wanted was his, and even if he had discarded something he did not want anymore he had the right to change his mind at any given time and demand it back. There was no way Alex would reveal to Jon that Alanna´s first request had been for him, the Prince, to be at her side.
Alex shrugged, deciding he did not care anymore. “To put it more precisely: she needed someone to change and wash her. Preferably someone who wouldn´t be all too surprised upon seeing her naked and realizing that page Alan was not quite who he pretended to be.”
Jon´s eyes had now turned an icy kind of blue, the coldness penetrating his voice as well as he forced out his next question: “And where would you have seen her naked before?”
Contrary to Jon, who was getting tenser by the minute, Alex seemed all relaxed. He was well aware that Jon was hoping for an answer along the lines of I stumbled upon her when she was bathing in the lake or some such sort, and he creased his brow, as if trying to recall this sort of incident.
“Mostly,” he began, gazing at a point somewhere above Jon´s head distractedly, before he let his eyes dart back to Jon´s face, “in my bed.” A faint smile appeared on his lips.
He was prepared for the blow, but it did not come, in spite of Jon´s eyes shooting daggers at him and his hands balling into fists. But he did not attack, and Alex was torn between disappointment and grudging admiration of the Prince´s self-control as the seconds ticked away and Jon still hadn´t made an attempt at blackening his eye, at the very least.
Finally, Jon took one step back as if he wasn´t trusting himself not to seize on Alex if he kept standing too close, and growled “Get out of here, you slimy little bastard!”
Alex´s smile did not fade, and with a small ironic nod he seemed to acknowledge the title of honour given to him. He had barely closed the door behind himself when he heard the shattering of glass against the doorframe.
***
She found him in the weaponry, looking for a spare bow to replace the one he had broken during the last hunt. She wasn´t looking for any weapons though; it had been her purpose to find him, alone, in a place where they couldn´t be overheard so easily.
He refused to acknowledge her presence, taking bow after bow from the wall, drawing each one, weighing them in one hand, while Alanna watched him from the door. Finally, she stepped inside, taking a light middle-sized bow from the wall and handing it to him.
“This one´s not too bad. None of them are as good as your own, but that´s not the point of a weaponry, right? It´ll replace your bow just fine until you get yourself a new one made.”
For a moment, she thought he would continue with his act of ignoring her, but eventually he pried his eyes from the wall and took the bow she was handing him, pointedly avoiding her gaze.
“Alex…” she said, hesitatingly. “Jon and I -“
“I know,” he cut her off sharply. “Anything else you wanted to say?”
She sighed. “I never knew it meant that much to you.”
He stared at her for a few moments, then his face distorted into a perverted version of his usual easy smile, a joyless wolfish grin that made Alanna want to take a step back. Alex snorted.
“Do you have any idea how conceited you sound? I guess sharing a prince´s bed does that to you. No, don´t worry, I knew from the start that this would only go on as long as Jonathan was busy tasting more delicate fruit.”
He registered with satisfaction how she flinched, how her maddeningly sympathetic expression turned into a scowl. Gripping the bow she had chosen for him tighter, he made for the door, trusting that she would move aside if he followed his course with enough determination. And she did, but before he had passed by her she said, quickly, “I thought we might be able to stay friends.”
Alex turned to face her, a move that cost him quite an effort since they were standing too close together as it was. He was fairly pleased with the factual tone of voice he mastered as he replied
“I was friends with Alan.”
Alanna held him back once more, stretching out her hand and withdrawing it at once, but the movement served its purpose, and Alex remained standing there, granting her what he hoped was an appropriately non-committal look. She gulped.
“Does it have to end that way, Alex?”
He smiled once again, and this time it was bright and cheerful and almost understanding.
“This is not the end,” he said softly, and that was the truth.