The King's Blood

His reflection in the fountain’s waves was only a smear of white. “I am sorry. You were right about Issandrian and Maas. I thought I could keep peace.”
    “You did. Your only error was thinking you could do it without executing anyone.”
    “And now…”
    “Asterilhold,” Dawson said, and let the word hang in the air. It was what he’d been called here for. Simeon didn’t speak. The water clinked and muttered. Dawson felt a growing unease at the king’s continued silence. What had begun as a thoughtful pause stretched until it seemed almost reproach. Dawson looked up, prepared to defend himself or make apology.
    Instead, he cried out in alarm. Simeon’s eyes were wide and blank and unseeing. His mouth was slack. The stink of piss cut through the air as rank yellow stained the king’s lap. It was like an image pulled from nightmare.
    And then Simeon coughed, shook his head, looked down.
    “Oh,” he said. He sounded exhausted. “Dawson? You’re here. How long was it this time?”
    “A few breaths,” Dawson said. His voice was shaking. “What was it?”
    Simeon stood, looking down at the urine stain on his shift, the piss running down his legs.
    “A fit,” he said. “Just a small fit. I’m sorry you saw this. I thought I was done with them for today. Could you call for my man?”
    Dawson trotted across the corridor and shouted for the servant. The man came with a fresh shift already in hand. There was no shock in his expression, no surprise. Dawson and the servant looked away as the king stripped off his soiled clothes and put on the fresh. When they were alone again, Dawson sat at the fountain’s edge. Everything was just the same as before, but the act of seeing it was different. He felt as if he were looking at Simeon for the first time, and what he saw—what had been there all along unnoticed and unremarked—shocked him. What had been the weight of a crown was suddenly something more sinister and profound. Simeon smiled at him knowingly.
    “It was like this for my father too, near the end. Some days I’m almost fine. Others… my mind wanders. He was younger when he died. I am three years older than my father. How many men can say that?”
    Dawson tried to speak, but his throat was thick. When he did manage, it was little more than a whisper.
    “How long has this been going on?”
    “Two years,” Simeon said. “For the most part, I’ve been able to keep it hidden. But it’s getting worse. Once was, I’d have weeks or months between them. It’s hours now.”
    “What do the cunning men say?”
    Simeon chuckled, and the sound was deeper than the water’s laughter. Gentler too.
    “They say that all men are mortal. Even kings.” Simeon took a deep breath and leaned forward, his forearms on his knees, his hands clasped. “There is a flower that’s supposed to help. I keep drinking the tea, but I can’t see any difference. I suppose I might be failing faster without it.”
    “There will be something. We can send for someone…”
    His old friend didn’t answer. There was no need to. Dawson heard the impotence in his own words, and was shamed by them. All men died, always had and always would. It was only surprise that hollowed his chest.
    “I wish Eleanora and I had had Aster earlier,” the king said. “I would have loved to see him as a man. With a child of his own, maybe. I remember when Barriath was born. All the jokes were that the boy had eaten you. No one knew where you were or what you were doing. You were gone from all the old places. I resented you for that. I felt left behind.”
    “I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”
    “No reason for you to be sorry. I just didn’t understand. Then Aster came, and I did. If we’d had him earlier… But then, I suppose it wouldn’t have been him, would it? No more than your Jorey is a younger imitation of Barriath. So I can’t even wish that. This is the world as it had to be to have my boy in it, and so I can’t hate it. Even if I want to.”
    “I am so sorry, Your Majesty,” Dawson said.
    Simeon shook his head.
    “Ignore me,” he said. “I hate it when I get like this. Whine like a schoolboy. Enough. I wanted to talk to you about other things, like the audience with Ashford. What are your thoughts?”
    “That you should have it,” Dawson said. “As I said before—”
    “I know what you said before. You know more now than you did then. I can’t take the audience if I’m going to piss myself in the middle of it.