Chapter 12: Stand

He fell asleep at midnight with his arm across my waist, and I lay awake and counted the beams.

I could not stop thinking about the silver pin.

At two in the morning I eased out from under his arm and lit the stub of a candle.

I sat on the floor with my back against the bed.

My copied pages lay on my knee.

I had translated every line of the chapel wall.

I had not yet translated the last row on Garrick's own back.

It ran along the base of his spine, small and tight, set apart from the rest by a border of tiny knots.

I had avoided it in the lamplight.

Now he lay on his front with the sheet at his waist, and the candle showed me all of it.

I knelt beside him on the mattress.

I traced the line with my eyes.

Then, because I always read aloud when a text is difficult, I began to say the words under my breath in the old tongue.

The first word was a verb.

I knew it was a verb the moment my lips shaped it.

"Stand," I whispered, "bearer, at the key's word."

The candle flame leaned sideways.

Under my eyes the grey letters turned from ash to ember, one row at a time.

The glow climbed from his waist to his shoulders.

"Garrick?" I said.

He sat up in his sleep.

His eyes were closed.

He swung his legs off the bed and stood, bare and swaying, in the middle of the room.

I put my hand to my mouth.

He was standing straight, with his arms at his sides and his head lifted.

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