Chapter 11: The King's Room

The cook let us in through the kitchen door without a word.

She was a square woman with flour to her elbows, and she had been crying.

"He asked for you three times today, Highness," she said. "Lord Osric's men said he was raving."

"Where is he?"

"Third floor, the king's chamber. Two men on the door, and the healer inside."

"Can you move the men?"

She wiped her hands on her apron.

"I can burn a pot of onions so badly they'll run out for air," she said. "Give me five minutes."

Corwin and I went up the servants' stair in the dark, with my hand in his.

I was a wolf and could have gone faster, but I wanted him beside me.

At the top of the stair, a thick sour smoke rolled up from below.

"Fire!" someone yelled from the lower hall. "The kitchen!"

The two guards at the king's door looked at each other.

One of them swore and went down the corridor at a run.

The other hesitated, and then followed.

I opened my father's door.

The room was dim and smelled of sickness and herbs.

The great bed stood against the far wall under a canopy of wolf-grey velvet.

My father lay in it, small and yellow.

I had never realized how thin his wrists were.

By the window, a pinched, fussing man in a healer's robe was measuring something into a cup.

He looked up and went white.

"Highness! You can't be..."

"Out," said Corwin, very quietly.

The healer looked at the size of him and fled.

I crossed the floor and knelt by the bed.

"Father."

His eyes opened.

They were clear, which frightened me more than anything.

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