Work Text:
The hand is a voice that can sing what the voice will
not, and the hand wants to do something useful.
—Richard Siken
*
It was well past midnight when a guard knocked on the door to the king’s quarters, urgent and loud. Aglovale, who had yet to ready himself for bed, still flipping through a most tedious set of documents outlining a border dispute, bade them enter.
“Your Majesty,” said the guard, dropping into a bow. His features were unfamiliar to Aglovale; his armor was different from that of the palace guards. A city patrolman, then. “Please pardon the intrusion.”
Aglovale set down the parchment in his hand, arched an imperious brow. “What is it?”
“The Wales cathedral, Your Majesty,” said the man. “There’s—an injured man has taken refuge there.”
“And what exactly makes that a matter for the king?” asked Aglovale dryly.
“He… keeps muttering your name, Sire. Your given name. Over and over. We think—he might be Sir Siegfried, but he’s,” the guard paused, grimaced. “He’s not himself, and he’s getting worse and won’t let anyone get near enough to help.”
Aglovale rose from his seat. The movement was sudden and jarring, lacking his usual fluid grace. If the guard noticed, he said nothing of it. Rather, he silently held open the door for his king.
*
A contingent of guards waited for him at the palace entrance, prepared to escort him to the cathedral. A nod from the patrolman accompanying the king spurred the group into motion. They dutifully surrounded Aglovale, matching his quick march. Aglovale paid them little attention. His thoughts were elsewhere.
Siegfried being in Wales was not, in and of itself, unusual. The wandering knight had made passing through Wales a habit as of late. Aglovale had grown used to receiving word from the palace guards that Siegfried had been allowed past the castle gates, or receiving word from Siegfried himself—or sometimes from Percival, who had a gift for divining Siegfried’s intentions before Siegfried laid them to parchment—that he intended to visit by moon’s end. Siegfried appearing in Wales without any notice, however, was unusual; and Siegfried wandering any part of Wales other than the palace was equally strange.
Why Siegfried had ended up in the cathedral was anyone’s guess. As was how he’d gotten there. The cathedral was closer to the city limits than the palace was, certainly, but he should have been stopped before entering the city and taken to the nearest healer if he was in such a miserable state as reported. The fact that he hadn’t… It was a souring thought. Either he’d slipped past the sentries (which was irritating, not in his skill, but in the watchers’ lack of) or he’d been seen and allowed in without question or assistance. Both options were irksome.
The cathedral’s entrance came into view and the group drew to a halt. Several other guards, who had posted themselves outside of the doors, snapped to attention in the presence of their king. Aglovale dismissed them with a tilt of the head.
“Your Majesty,” said the squadron leader, stepping forward.
Aglovale nodded to him. “How confident are you in the assessment that it is Siegfried inside?”
“Quite confident, Sire,” the guard replied.
“And his condition?”
“It’s… difficult to say. He’s clearly injured; his skin’s gone gray and he doesn’t seem to be capable of much speech. All attempts to approach and reason with him have been met with, ah, hostility.”
“He’s drawn his weapon?”
“No, he doesn’t seem to have the strength to do.”
Aglovale’s limited patience was shrinking. “Then?”
“He, well, growls, Sire,” the guard said, wincing. “It’s all rather beastly, like the man is lost.”
A relapse into his dragonblood frenzy, then. Mild, by the sound of it; or perhaps Siegfried had gone through the worst of it already, on his way to Wales, and was riding out the tail end of his altered state. The frost that rested beneath Aglovale’s skin pressed its way to the surface, chilling his hands and coaxing his sword, Gottfried, awake.
“I will deal with the matter,” said Aglovale.
“Shall we accompany you, Sire?” asked the guard.
Common sense said the king should never be unguarded. Most times, Aglovale was amenable to his guards’ presence. This time, he felt it unnecessary. What risk did Siegfried pose, if he could not even lift his sword?
“No,” Aglovale said. “I will go alone.”
*
The cathedral was quiet this time of night. Dark, too.
It had been a long time since Aglovale had walked the halls of this building; longer still since he had walked them at night, unaccompanied. All of Wales held memories for Aglovale; aside from the palace, the cathedral held the most.
Aglovale had loved this place, once. He had spent many an afternoon here, years ago. As a child, he would walk through the nave and marvel at the arches that seemed taller than the sky, admire the way the curvature of the domed ceiling met the sharp, straight lines of the church walls. His brothers would chase each other through the hallways, illuminated by the colored light from the stained glass windows.
(He remembered, vividly, Percival running after Lamorak, blue shadows dashing across his face and settling on his small figure when he had stumbled on uneven stone and fallen to the floor. Lamorak had knelt in the red light and helped Percival to his feet. Aglovale had caught up to them, ever one step behind, green light coloring his pale hair, and launched into a scolding. Percival had scrubbed at his cheek with his sleeve and, unexpectedly, broken into a smile.
“You’re right,” he had said to Lamorak. “Brother really is a worrier!”
“I called him a stick-in-the-mud, but close enough,” Lamorak had replied.)
There was no colored light filtering in through the windows now, as Aglovale strode through the halls with purpose. He swept through the atrium and through the doors of the nave, halting only when he reached the main tribune.
He had been crowned here. His mother had been laid to rest here. Siegfried slumped against the altar, half-dead in the starlight, here.
No, not half-dead. On closer inspection, Aglovale noticed the difference—Siegfried was alive, fully, but injured and only half-present, only part of sound mind. Blood had seeped through his scarf and the fabric peeking out from under his armor. His pallor was ashen and his eyes had gone red. The veins around them were angry and bright, pushing up against his skin, making themselves known. Aglovale had seen him like this before, once, when Siegfried had fallen prey to the dragonblood in him. He was in better control of his faculties now than he had been then—he hadn’t attacked anyone, after all—but he still growled as Aglovale approached.
“First you mutter my name like a madman to my guards, and now you growl at me like a mangy beast? How unbecoming, Siegfried,” he said, displeasure coating his words.
“Aglovale,” Siegfried snarled.
“Yes?” he replied flatly.
Siegfried, again, “Aglovale.”
“That is my name,” said Aglovale, lips curling into a frown. “I’m weary of this exchange already, Siegfried. What possessed you to come here?”
The answer was another rumble of Aglovale’s name. Weaker, this time. Confused, too. It came to Aglovale then, the reason Siegfried had ended up here. In this haze of his, he likely entered the cathedral believing it to be the palace. The palace and cathedral were of similar architectural origin and were the grandest structures in all of Wales. It was a forgivable mistake.
Siegfried repeated Aglovale’s name. The last syllable ended on a groan. He hunched forward, on instinct, and then flinched at the pain his own movement produced. Aglovale sighed.
“Let’s get you to a healer,” said Aglovale, long suffering. At Siegfried’s responding grumble, he snapped, “I will entertain no arguments.”
*
Aglovale and his guards managed to get Siegfried to the palace’s healing wing without much difficulty. Siegfried stopped snarling at the guards who approached but they gave him a wide berth anyway. The palace healers were far less fearful; they were quick to strip Siegfried of his armor and order him onto a cot. When Siegfried growled at the command, the wing matron snapped her fingers twice and leveled him with her fiercest glare. He quelled and laid down.
The peace broke quickly. As soon as she approached his bloodied shirt, he snarled again, this time baring his teeth and lurching from the bed. Aglovale responded first, grabbing Siegfried by the shoulders and wrestling him back down.
“Enough,” he thundered. “Siegfried, if you do not stay put of your own accord, I will freeze you in place.”
It was enough to slow his struggle. Siegfried locked eyes with Aglovale, red meeting amber. Aglovale pushed on Siegfried’s shoulders once, firmly. He hesitated, but eventually laid down. The healer approached again, slower this time, projecting her movements so as to not startle Siegfried. She pushed up his tunic to survey the damage.
There wasn’t much immediately visible. Siegfried’s torso was roughly bandaged, with cloth strips that were dirtied with old blood stains and grime. Fresh blood bled into the old stains and dripped in twin rivulets down his chest. Aglovale watched as the healer swiped them away with a cloth handed to her.
When the healer made to undo the bandages, Siegfried grew restless again, shifting and gnashing his teeth. Aglovale, again, kept him still.
“Hush now,” he murmured.
He kept one hand pressed against Siegfried’s shoulder, but lifted the other and settled it on the crown of his head. In an echo of another time—a time when Aglovale had been gentle, had been the one his brothers cried to when their mother was unavailable—Aglovale slowly carded his hand through Siegfried’s hair. He started at the roots and ran his fingers down, carefully taking apart the knots and tangles. Against all odds, Siegfried settled.
The healers unwrapped the bandages without trouble. Beneath them was a collection of scars and scabs, and an ugly old wound that looked like it had been torn open. The wing matron cast her magic and glowing threads stitched the wound closed.
“That’s all that can be done right now,” said the healer to Aglovale. “In a few days, we’ll look it over again and see about recasting the spell and making the wound stay closed without the stitches.”
To Siegfried, who looked barely capable of retaining instructions, she said, “Avoid strenuous movement. Absolutely no adventuring or knight-business until you’re cleared by myself or one of my healers. Spend these next days resting. You’ll want to be cleaned, I’m sure, but you should avoid submerging the wound in water until the magic settles. Give it until morning.”
“My lady,” said a healer behind her, a young one. Nervous, by the look of it. “Should we prepare a room for Sir Siegfried?”
The matron turned to Aglovale for the answer.
“Do so,” he said.
The women bowed and left. Aglovale glanced down at Siegfried, whose right hand had come up to scratch at his stitches. With a scowl, Aglovale smacked his hand away. Like this, so utterly clueless—it was a miracle Siegfried had managed to make it to Wales mostly intact.
Why had he come here? Aglovale mused it over, watching as Siegfried lowered his hand and clenched it into a fist by his thigh. Perhaps he had come to Wales to enact on the old grudge between them, to put Aglovale out of his misery for his past crimes, or to get revenge for the way Aglovale had bested him the last time he’d encountered Siegfried in his dragonblood-fueled rage.
No. Loath as Aglovale was to admit it, Siegfried, at the core of his being, wasn’t that kind of man. Besides, that explanation discounted the fact that Siegfried had been wounded. An injured animal wouldn’t seek a fight, it would seek shelter in a space it considered safe. Which meant Siegfried, like this, acting on some baser instinct, had deemed Wales a safe enough place to lick his wounds. That he did so—well. Aglovale wasn’t of the mind to dissect that.
In fact, he didn’t want to face it all, so he made to leave. The healers would settle their ward in a room and he would inquire about Siegfried’s status in the morning.
Except—
He looked back at Siegfried and found that the man had tilted his head toward him. Siegfried was staring in his direction. His eyes, still red-irised and red-rimmed, were unfocused. The gray-tone his skin had acquired had yet to fade. Something uncomfortable, something unwanted, twisted in Aglovale’s gut.
“Fine,” he sighed. “Let’s wipe this blood off of you.”
*
The royal baths were Aglovale’s second favorite room of the palace, the first being his study. There were two pools built into the floor, both filled with water, one magicked to always run hot, and the other, cold. Aglovale sat Siegfried between them and let him decide which water to dip his legs into. Siegfried chose the warmer of the two.
Aglovale acquired a set of towels and set them next to Siegfried. He pushed up his sleeves first, then rolled up the legs of his trousers—something Siegfried had failed to do for himself—and settled down next to him.
Siegfried watched the water ripple quietly, motionless. Too quiet, too still, even for him.
“Your shirt,” Aglovale prompted.
Obediently, Siegfried’s hands went to his tunic and pulled it off. He winced at the motion; Aglovale mirrored the expression. He hadn’t considered that even taking off a shirt would be too strenuous of a movement for the wound.
Aglovale took the smallest of the towels and dipped it into the warm water.
“Turn to me,” he said.
Siegfried shifted in his direction. Aglovale took the damp towel and began to gently dab at the dried blood on Siegfried’s chest. Siegfried hissed once, catching the sound between his teeth, and then fell silent. Aglovale moved as delicately as possible, avoiding the still-glowing stitches and the angry red surrounding the wound. He focused on swiping across Siegfried’s old scars, and gently running the cloth over scabs that had managed to stay sealed. Then he moved up to Siegfried’s shoulders. His collarbones. His neck. It was slow, careful work that Aglovale had committed himself to.
It was completely unlike him. Beneath him, even. The last time he’d done something like this, he’d been a boy eager to help his mother with his brothers. That he would be sitting here, tenderly bathing a man he’d crossed blades with several times—
He pressed the towel down harder against Siegfried’s throat. Siegfried weathered it without struggle, without sound.
Aglovale yanked his hand back.
“That—” He cleared his throat. “—should be enough. Now face away from me.”
“Aglovale,” said Siegfried. His voice was low, hoarse.
“Turn,” Aglovale repeated.
Without complaint, and without saying anything more at all, Siegfried slowly turned away from him. Aglovale allowed himself a heartbeat to take in Siegfried’s bare back; broad, marred with the kind of scarring one only saw in men who fought without care for their own lives. They were healed scars, though; old, sunk so deep into flesh that they looked like they had always been a part of it. Aglovale tore his gaze away and focused on Siegfried’s hair. It was less of a gnarled mess than it had been when he’d first walked into the palace, but it was still tangled with visible knots. Miserable.
“I intend to plait your hair,” said Aglovale. “Any objections?”
Siegfried hesitated. He shook his head ‘no.’ Aglovale rose to his feet and went to dispose of the bloodied towel he’d used and acquire a hairbrush. When he returned, he knelt behind Siegfried and noted that the gray-tones were receding from Siegfried’s skin and his natural color was returning.
Aglovale worked the brush through Siegfried’s hair, mindful not to brute force the tangles or to accidentally jerk Siegfried’s head back. With every smooth stroke of the brush through his tawny locks, the tension in Siegfried’s shoulders slipped away. Eventually, Aglovale set the brush aside and used his hands to part Siegfried’s hair three ways. He braided the strands together with practiced ease.
“I used to do this for my brother,” Aglovale found himself saying. “Lamorak. My mother, too. She taught me how to plait hair. I would practice on hers. When she passed away… Lamorak, every night before bed, for a year, would come to my room and let me practice on him.”
He finished braiding. Aglovale’s words hung heavily in the air between them. In the morning, Aglovale would likely regret having spoken them. For now, he simply let them exist, a confession given not to the bishop of the Wales’ cathedral, but to someone equally capable of keeping his confidence.
Aglovale procured a ribbon—royal blue, the color of Wales—and knotted it at the base of the braid. He took a moment to examine his handiwork.
“Finished,” he murmured.
When Siegfried faced him again, Aglovale noted that his eyes had shifted back from red to gold.
*
They returned to the healing wing to find it empty.
Aglovale considered, for a moment, waiting for the wing matron or one of her assistants to come back, but he had no way of knowing how long it would take, or how long Siegfried—who looked dead on his feet, leaning against the wall for support—would last. The last thing he wanted to deal with was an unconscious Siegfried crumpled on the floor.
Then he considered settling Siegfried in one of the cots here, where the healers could keep an eye on him when they returned. He glanced at Siegfried, prepared to offer the suggestion, and paused. Siegfried, from his spot against the wall, had pressed his cheek against the stone and was looking out the window, staring off into the night, not quite there.
It felt, suddenly, cruel to leave him alone.
Aglovale resigned himself to his fate. He cleared his throat, drawing Siegfried’s attention, and motioned for him to follow.
The king’s quarters were a flight of stairs and several hallways removed from the healing wing. Siegfried managed to keep pace with Aglovale, who in turn slowed his gait considerably. The guards posted at Aglovale’s doors straightened at his approach.
“At ease,” he said.
He hesitated before pushing the left door open. Letting Siegfried into his quarters felt unsettling. Disarming. Giving Siegfried an unobstructed view into the one space Aglovale kept sacred to himself—it was a breach of privacy, a breach of the walls that Aglovale had carefully constructed and kept well-maintained. But Siegfried was still slipping in and out of awareness, and Aglovale was not heartless, so perhaps, this once, it would be alright.
Siegfried stepped inside first. Aglovale followed.
“To bed with you,” he said, nudging Siegfried forward.
The man all but collapsed onto the bed. Aglovale gave him time to situate himself, moving to his desk. He had no intention of sharing his bed with Siegfried, nor did he feel particularly inclined to sleep—he might as well continue to work through the night. If he did grow weary, well. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d closed his eyes at his desk.
When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that Siegfried had settled himself under the covers. The pale light of the moon seeped in from the window, casting a glow across Siegfried’s face. Here, and only to himself, Aglovale admitted that it was a relief to see his eyes had cleared again.
“How often does this happen?” he asked.
“Not very,” replied Siegfried.
But even once is one time too many, were the unspoken words that echoed after. Aglovale lowered his gaze to his desk, contemplating the border dispute scrolls that awaited him. How trivial arguments over land seemed now, in the face of a man whose own blood had been tainted and threatened to eat him alive.
Still, his was a problem that couldn’t be solved in one night. Aglovale stepped to the windows and untied the gold ropes holding the curtains open.
“Aglovale,” said Siegfried, softly, drowsily. “Thank you.”
“Sleep,” Aglovale replied, and drew the curtains closed.