“But look how rosy his complexion is!”
“That is because you have him painted like a bloody buffoon!”
“Oh, my Lord, don’t be silly! It’s clear that Royen’s ministrations have worked wonders.”
The King grunted in scorn. “That worthless fool who’s filling your empty head with lies? He should be put to the sword. One mouth less to feed.”
“Hush, my Lord; we’re at his presence. Pray do not anger him.”
For a moment King Fazen seemed on the verge of fresh abuse, but then, stifling a grumble, he turned on his heels and stormed out of the dining hall.
“Don’t mind your father,” Queen Firalda said in a conspiratorial tone to the motionless man sitting at the other end of the grand table. “He’s always been a stubborn man; but he loves you dearly, and soon he’ll come around and accept the miracle.”
The gaunt, hollow-eyed young man standing with his head respectfully lowered at the side of the Queen gently cleared his throat. “Will her Majesty be needing my services any further?”
The Queen turned to him, a bit startled, as if she’d forgotten he was there – for her eyes hardly left her still and silent fellow diner. But then she beamed at him.
“No, dear Royen; you are excused. Oh, and you can clear off my plate; I’m quite full.” And she delicately nudged the dinner plate towards the young man.
“But, Your Majesty, you’ve barely touched your food!”
“I most certainly did; gluttony is unbecoming to a lady. Besides, how goes that saying? Ah, yes! When the heart is full, the stomach knows no hunger. And my heart is positively bursting, thanks to you, my darling Royen.”
Queen Firalda had left the Cave of the Seers in a beatific state, her hands cradling the marvel of the glowing stone, whose silent wisdom she trusted completely. Fantyr, heart of her heart, would be restored to her safe and sound.
Thus when she and her escort crossed the Castle gates and saw the black banners of mourning rippling from the turrets of the Palace, and the people who had been about their business dropped on their knees at their sight till their heads touched the ground, the Queen, as surely as if a piece of glass had been shattered in her mind, knew.
She dismounted and walked to the burial chamber without listening or speaking to the sentries and ladies hanging their heads and murmuring condolences. The Prince lay atop his marble tomb for the mourners to pay their respects; he was covered with a gold-embroidered shourd and surrounded by a sea of wilting, pungent flowers. Queen Firalda noticed nothing; she merely strode to the corpse of her son, took his sword that had been placed across his chest, and holding it with its blade upturned she fell on it – or she would have, hadn’t one of the guards caught her in time.
King Fazen, informed about her act of despair-born madness, had the windows of her bedchamber walled at once, and while she was restrained, flailing and wailing and cursing everyone who wouldn’t let her die, a Scribe Healer poured a powerful sleeping draught down her throat. The Queen slept for two days and two nights, and when she finally awoke she hadn’t the least desire to end her life.
For in her sleep the glowing stone had spoken, and told her that all was not lost, and that Fantyr could be saved, reclaimed from the clutches of death by a magus who lived in the Castle. In fact it had been one of the handmaids attending her slumber, who, while the Queen briefly hovered on the brink of wakefulness, had been gossiping to the guard, her secret paramour, about a Divinator the King had ordered to be confined to the Scriptorium, and who rumours said might be Royen the Eternal.
So upon awakening, her smile and obvious joy alarming her maids as further signs of lunacy, Queen Firalda asked that the body of her son be brought to her, along with a change of his finest clothes and the most gifted seamstress of the Palace.
First, the seamstress attached Fantyr’s head to his torso by sewing the skin flaps and the underlying flesh together with thick white thread. Then the handmaids came, and after bathing the Prince with sponges dipped in rose water, they dressed him in the regalia that had been fashioned long ago, and kept in pristine condition, for his rite of coronation, the ruffled collar concealing the stitches on his throat. A slight difficulty occurred with the Prince’s eyes, which refused to stay open, but it was overcome by the industrious seamstress, who, using a gossamer filament, sewed the lids to the underside of his brows. Finally, the Queen, gently applying her own face powder, gave Fantyr’s face a lifelike rosiness. And then she called for the Scribe.
When he first stepped into her bedchamber, looking harassed and fearful, and falling to his knees he avowed that he wasn’t Royen the Eternal, Queen Firalda was a little dismayed. And yet, when obeying her instructions he placed his shaking hand on the Prince’s heart, she could swear that, for a fleeting moment, Fantyr’s pale blue eyes – so similar to the magical stone it amazed her she hadn’t noticed the likeness – twinkled with the spark of life. It might take time, she told herself, and perhaps her beloved boy might never be the same, but who could return from the dead entirely unaffected?
And so began the Queen’s passionate relationship with her son, which saddened and embarrassed her servants, exasperated the King, and terrified the sorcerous Scribe. There was no separating her from the unresponsive puppet everyone except herself saw as such. In the mornings she attended, often on her own, to his ablutions and dressing, and after they breakfasted in her bedchamber, where no one could listen to their private chat – even though Queen Firalda did most of the talking, while Fantyr responded with imperceptible nods and slight flickers of his beautiful face – they went for a long stroll around the Palace gardens, the Prince carried in a chair by four strong bearers. This was followed by an afternoon nap, in the Queen’s own grand, four-poster bed, because her poor baby tired very easily, and needed to replenish his budding vigour; these hours she’d spend lying on her side and watching Fantyr sleep (with a silk mask covering his never-closing eyes), her own eyes trained on the weak yet clear rise and fall of his chest. And once the sixth moon started to set, she had the Prince transported to the dining hall, where, after Royen performed his magic, they would have a quiet dinner. At first Queen Firalda was worried by her son’s lack of appetite, but then he’d always eaten like a bird, a trait possibly heightened by his still-frail constitution. However, she wouldn’t allow his leftover food to be consumed by anyone; she didn’t care if it was wasteful, or if there were people dying of starvation in the Castle, but she always had it thrown away; no one would fill their belly with the future King of Feerien’s meal. (And as for those desperate enough to rifle through the rubbish, well, what can one expect of animals?)
The happiest time by far, thought, came at night, when the Queen and her son would lie next to each other in the quiet haven of the bed as if they were the only people in the world. These precious nights were so reminiscent of that loveliest of times, when Fantyr was an infant, falling deeply asleep at her side moments after nursing, it was all the lovestruck mother could do not to remove her son’s nightshirt and cradle his head in the cleft of her bosom. What she did instead – for it was impossible to not touch him at all – was run her hand across his face and chest, carefully so as not to disturb his much-needed sleep, and shiver with delight at the warmth his skin gave off, as sure a sign of life as any. Oh, if only she could make him small again, enough to fit inside her womb! She’d given life to him once, and was convinced she could do it again.
But she shouldn’t be ungrateful. Fantyr was back, and besides her own adoring care he was receiving the exclusive attention of a miracle-working Immortal. And she had the magic stone, which she never parted with, its warm light like the gaze, the sweet and tender gaze of her beloved son, its silence filled with the softness of his voice.