Arrow's Fall (17 page)

She could also see that Kris was watching him, and looking just as concerned.

He pushed his food around without eating much. Kris finally seemed to come to some conclusion, visibly steeled himself, and walked over to sit down next to him.

Kris said something to him, which he answered with a shake of his head. Then he stood up—and Kris had to catch him as he started to crumple.

Kris had decided he’d had enough. He couldn’t stand watching his dearest friend fret himself to pieces—and he’d come to some unhappy conclusions over the past couple of weeks. He’d gone over to sit next to Dirk before the Herald was aware that he was even in the common room, and spoke his piece before Dirk had a chance to escape.

“I was wrong; I was wrong to put so much trust in my uncle, wrong to have doubted you, and wrong to have said anything about your private life. I apologize. Are you going to forgive me, or will I have to throw myself from the battlements in despair?”

Dirk had started a little when Kris first began speaking in his ear, but hadn’t moved away. He’d listened with a mixture of relief and bemusement, then shook his head with a weak smile at Kris’ last sally. Then he stood up—

And the room faded from before his eyes, as he felt his legs give under him.

Half a dozen instructors and field Heralds made a rush for him as Kris caught him. They lowered him back down into his seat, as he protested weakly that he was all right.

“I—” he coughed, rackingly. “I just was dizzy a minute—” he bent over in a fit of coughs, unable to continue, hardly able to catch his breath.

“Like Hell!” replied Teren, one hand on his forehead, “You’re on fire, man. You’re for the Healers, and I don’t want to hear any nonsense out of you about it.”

Before he could regain enough breath to object, Teren draped one of his arms over his own shoulders, while a very worried Kris did the same on Dirk’s other side. The rest surrounded the three of them, allowing no opportunity to escape, and escorted them out the door.

By the time they’d reached their goal, his breath was rattling in his chest and there was little doubt of what ailed him. The Healers isolated him and ran everyone else off, and there was very little that anyone could do about it.

Talia had turned ashen when he’d collapsed, and had left her dinner uneaten, waiting for Kris’ return.

Kris finally reappeared, to be engulfed by everyone who’d been present, demanding to know what the Healers had said.

“They tell me he has pneumonia, and it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better,” he replied, his voice carrying easily across from the doorway to the bench where Talia sat. “And they won’t let anyone see him for at least a day or two.”

Talia made a little noise like a strangled sob, stood quickly, and pushed blindly away from the table. The knot of people surrounding Kris had blocked the door nearest her; she stumbled against benches twice as she fled to the door opposite and to her room. She ran all the way down the corridors of the Collegium and through the double doors leading to the Herald’s Wing. She hurled herself up the darkened spiral staircase of the tower that held her room, pushed the door open and flung herself down on the couch in the outer room of her suite, sobbing with a lost despair she hadn’t felt since that awful moment in the Waystation. . . .

She hadn’t closed the door behind her in her flight, and wasn’t in much shape to pay attention to sounds around her. She only realized that she was not alone when she heard someone settle beside her, and somehow knew it was Keren and Sherrill.

She tried to get herself back under control, but Keren’s first words, spoken in a tone of such deep and unmistakable love that Talia hardly believed her ears, completely undid her.

“Little centaur, dearheart, what cause tha’ greeting?”

Keren had slipped into the dialect of her home, something she only did on the rarest of occasions, and then mostly with her twin or her lifemate—moments of profound intimacy.

That broke down the last of her reserve, and she turned with gratitude into Keren’s arms and wept bitterly on her ready shoulder.

“Everything’s gone wrong!” she sobbed, “Elspeth isn’t talking to me anymore, and I
know
there’s something going on—something she doesn’t want either Selenay or me to know about—but I can’t find out
what!
And Dirk— and Kris—we fought, and now they won’t talk to me either and—and—now Dirk’s sick, and I can’t
bear
it! Oh, gods, I’m a total failure!”

Keren, wisely, said nothing, and let the hysterical words and tears wear themselves out. Sherrill meanwhile went quietly about the room, closing the door and fighting candles against the growing darkness. That done, she seated herself at Keren’s feet to wait.

“For tha’ problem of Elspeth I can think of no solution,” Keren said thoughtfully when Talia was in a better state to listen. “But if there was anything truly wrong, her Gwena would surely seek out Rolan—and thee would know.”

“I hadn’t even thought of that.” Talia looked up into Keren’s eyes from where she rested on her shoulder, crestfallen at her own stupidity.

“Why should thee? She’s never given thee anxiety before.” Keren almost-smiled.

“I’m not thinking very clearly. No, that’s not true. I’m not thinking
at all.
It’s wrong of me, but—Keren, I don’t know how much longer I can bear this trouble with Dirk without flying to pieces. Keren, I want to be with him so much sometimes I think it would be easier to die!”

Keren sighed. “Lifebond, then, is it? And with Dirk— gods, what a tangle! Well, that explains
his
madness, for certain. Lady only knows what cracked notion the lad has in his head, and ‘tis sure the thing’s got him all turned round about.”

“We know how it can be—an agony.” Sherrill rose from her place, sat next to Talia, and slipped her arm around Talia’s waist, joining Keren in supporting her. “It’s hellish, being pulled inside out by something that can’t be denied and won’t be turned to anything else. Is anyone trying to help you get this straightened out?”

At Talia’s nod, Keren pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I can’t think of anything at all to help thee, little centaur. First it’s a matter of getting Dirk and Kris speaking, then getting Dirk’s mind made up about thee. Hopefully the first is done already. But the second—my best guess is that he’s gotten confused somewhere, and has been chasing his own tail. Time, dearling. That’s all it will take. Time.”

“If I can just hold out a little longer—” Talia relaxed herself with an effort while Keren and Sherrill held her in a circle of love and comfort for long moments.

“You know we understand, dearling,” Sherrill said at last for both of them. “Who better? Now, let’s change the subject. We’re determined to make you smile again.”

With that she and Keren took turns telling her the most hilarious stories that they could think of—mostly of some of the goings-on at the Collegium during her absence. No few of them were libelous; all of them were at least undignified. Talia wished profoundly that she had been present to witness the grave and aloof Kyril picking himself out of the fish pond with a strand of waterweed behind his ear. Between the two of them, they soon had her laughing again, and had drained at least some of the tension from her.

Finally, Keren nodded to her lifemate and gave Talia a comforting hug. “I think you’re cheered enough to survive the night, dear one,” the older woman said. “Yes?”

“I think so,” Talia replied.

“Then let tomorrow take care of tomorrow, and have a good long sleep,” Keren advised, and she and Sherrill departed as quietly as they had come.

Talia wandered back into her bedroom to shed her uniform. She dressed for bed, then changed her mind and wrapped a robe about herself and settled down on her couch with a book. She must have dozed off without meaning to, because the next thing she knew, Kris was standing beside her and touching her arm lightly to wake her, and the candles were burned down to stubs in their holders.

He was hardly what she expected to see. “Kris!” she exclaimed joyfully, then fear took the place of joy. “Is Dirk—worse?” she asked, feeling the color drain from her face.

“No, little bird, he’s no worse. I’ve just come from there. He’s asleep, and the Healers say he’ll be all right in a week or two. And we’re friends again. I thought you’d want to know—and I wanted to make up with you, too.”

“Oh, Kris—I—I’ve never been so miserable in my life,” she confessed. “I was so
angry
with you, that I swore I wasn’t going to speak to you until you came to me and apologized, but my pride isn’t worth wrecking our friendship over.”

His expression softened a little, and she realized he’d been tensed against her answer. “I’ve never been so miserable either, little bird. And I’ve never felt like quite so much of an idiot.”

“You aren’t an idiot. Your uncle is—”

“My uncle is—not what I thought,” he interrupted. “I have to apologize to you, like I apologized to Dirk. I was wrong about my uncle. I’m not certain what his problem is, but he
is
trying to undermine you. And he’s trying to wean me away from you. I’ve extracted information from the unwary often enough that I ought to have recognized it when he was doing it to me—but I didn’t until just recently. He became a little too eager, and failed to cover his trail.” Kris’ expression was troubled. “I
hope
that what he did to Dirk was unintentional, but I’m afraid I can’t be certain anymore. I wish I
knew
what his game is. At the moment if I were to hazard a guess, it would be this: he wants the postion he had as Seienay’s closest advisor, and he wants me slightly disaffected from the Heralds so that my family loyalty is just a trifle stronger than my loyalty to the Circle. You were right; I was wrong.”

“I—I’m almost sorry to hear you say that.” A little breeze from the open window behind her made the candles flicker and stirred locks of his hair as she assessed his rueful expression. “What happened to change your mind?”

“Mostly that he tried too hard after the squabble; as I said, he tried to pump me for information about you, and made one too many slighting remarks about Dirk. You were right, that he has a grudge against you, though why, I have no idea. And I think he used that incident with the scrolls as a chance to get at you through Dirk . . . and as a chance to come between
me
and Dirk. I can only hope he didn’t manufacture it, too.”

She almost said angrily that the dropped scroll was no accident, that Orthallen
had
manufactured the incident, but decided to hold her tongue. He was in a receptive mood, but the quickest way to close his mind would be to make further accusations. “I have to admit I’m of two minds about this. I’m glad you’re coming around to my way of thinking, but I’m sorry to have changed your faith in your uncle.”

“Don’t be, it isn’t you that has problems, it’s him.”

“Well, this is the first time anything has gone right in weeks. Kris, I’m glad we’re friends again.”

He dropped easily to the floor beside her couch. “So am I. I’ve missed talking to you. But as for things not going right ... I don’t know about that.” He grinned ironically. “That advice you gave me on how to deal with Nessa certainly worked.”

“I meant to ask you about that,” she said, grateful for the way they dropped back into easy conversation, and dad of his company. “I noticed she seems to be pursuing Skif these days.”

He sighed, and drooped like a mime displaying dejection. “Once she had her way with me, she was off to other conquests. Oh, the perfidy of women! When will I ever learn? My heart is forever broken!”

“That’s the first time I ever heard that forever’ equaled the time it takes to boil an egg,” she replied wryly.

“Oh, less, I assure you. I had a chance to drop Skif a word on the subject of the fair Nessa. Now
he
happens to be very appreciative of Nerissa’s quite real charms. So now that he knows the means of keeping her attention— which is to play hard-to-get—she may very well find herself in the position of hunter-turned-hunted.”

“Like the old man said about that handfasted couple in Fivetree ... do you remember?”

Kris screwed his face up into a fair imitation of the old man’s age-twisted countenance. “Lor’ help you, Herald!” he croaked. “Chased ‘er? ‘Deed he did, in very deed. Chased ‘er till
she
caught
him!
”

Talia smiled wistfully. “We had some good times out there, didn’t we?”

“There’ll be more. Don’t worry, little bird. I’ll get this tangle straightened as soon as the Healers will let me near to talk to Dirk. You know, this illness may be a blessing in disguise; he won’t be able to avoid me or find something that urgently needs his attention, and hopefully he’ll believe the things I tell him.”

He stood to leave, and Talia gently touched his hand in thanks.

“Take heart, little bird. Things will get better. I can always slip Dirk lovepotions with his medicines!” He winked, and ran lightly down the staircase.

She laughed, feeling much eased, and rose; laving her book down on the table beside the couch. She went slowly about the room and extinguished her lights, and then went to bed with a happier heart and mind.

* * * *

By the next morning Talia felt far more optimistic— and far readier to tackle her problems face on. And since Dirk was out of reach, the logical problem to tackle was Elspeth.