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Pheris dug the fingers of his good hand into his hair, pulling in frustration. The notations on the page in front of him swam, and he jerked his bad arm across his eyes. His sleeve came away spotted with moisture. In his current state, the sight was enraging; he slammed his bad wrist onto the table before swiping his arm over the surface, sending book, letter, and inkwell to the floor. Panic struck as he watched the inkwell shatter. He pushed off the bench, knees painfully hitting the floor as he scrambled to grab Dite’s letter from the danger of the black stain spreading across the flagstones. The book wasn’t so lucky, ink soaking into the cover before he could pick it up.
Heavy footsteps thudded down the hall outside, and Teleus ran into the room. “Pheris? Are you alright? I heard you—hey, easy, lad,” he said, crouching down to catch Pheris’ wrist before he could throw the book into the captain’s face. His fist hit the floor, narrowly avoiding a shard of glass as Teleus swept the piece out of the way, seeing Pheris’ hand balling before he lifted it.
“Easy,” Teleus said again, awkward and gruff. He took Pheris’ hand and carefully unballed the often useless fingers, checking him for cuts. Pheris’ bad leg throbbed, but so did his good leg, with a sharper pain than he was used to. When Teleus pulled him upright and back into the bench, he hissed and picked a shard of inkwell out of Pheris’ knee. “Easy. Mind if I take a look at this?”
Pheris shrugged, staring at the letter clutched in his good hand. He’d thought he’d saved it, but there was a thick splotch of ink at the top where Dite had begun his letter, and it dribbled down into the first paragraph, marring several sentences. He dropped the letter onto the table again, rocking gently from side to side while Teleus rolled up his pants leg to inspect the damage. A splash of medical vinegar to clean the wound and a quick bandage later, and Teleus was sweeping up glass, laying a cloth over the ink, and lifting the book, wincing at the way it dripped, several blackened pages already curling.
Pheris winced himself, looking away from Teleus. He sighed and squinted at he cover of the book, then down at the letter on the table. “Hmm. Having some difficulty understanding Dite’s letter?”
He made a face, scrubbing his hand over his cheeks. He felt himself leaving a streak of ink over his skin and scrubbed at it harder. Teleus clicked his tongue and took another cloth, damp from the wash basin, and wiped the streak clean from Pheris’ face before it dried. “Easy,” he said again, as if Pheris were a spooked horse. “I think, maybe, it might have been a mistake to try to learn something new on your own, when we’ve been having a…difficult few weeks? Lots of stress?”
Pheris glared at him with another shrug. Teleus sighed, grabbing another cloth to clean as much ink off the book as he could. “…wait here a moment. Don’t go anywhere, Pheris. I mean it. I’ll be right back.” He pressed a hand briefly to Pheris’ shoulder before stepping back out of the room. Pheris listened to him retreating down the hall and glared at the ink-stained cloth on the floor, watching it turn slowly from grey to black.
He must have let his mind drift, because he didn’t notice Teleus’ return until the hand fell onto his shoulder again, startling him. Teleus’ hands were clean of ink now, the book nowhere to be seen. “Come with me,” he said, and Pheris stood, clutching the letter and following him.
Pheris froze several corridors down when he realized just where Teleus was leading him. Teleus didn’t notice the pause for several steps before he looked back. “It’s alright.”
He shook his head, because it wasn’t alright. Petrus had said, rest, no visitors, no excitement . He’d been there when Relius was carried, half-delirious, into the palace after his return, had snuck in a couple of times to check the rise and fall of his chest as he slept, but nothing else. Even the king and queen had only visited a few times in the past weeks. He wasn’t to be disturbed, because if he was he might not get better. Relius needed to get better.
Teleus walked back to Pheris’ side and rested his hand back on his shoulder, steering him forward. “It’s alright, Pheris. He’s going half mad with boredom, anyway. I think this’ll be good for both of you.” Pheris resisted the first step, but Teleus kept nudging, and Pheris walked on, heart pounding in his chest.
Relius was sitting upright in bed, propped up by at least half a dozen pillows, when Teleus opened the door and ushered Pheris into his room. He looked…wrong. Weaker and older and smaller and frail in the middle of the huge bed, hair still growing back unevenly where clumps had been torn out, one eye milky and useless, paler than Pheris thought anyone could be and still be alive. But he smiled weakly when Pheris appeared, extending a mangled hand and patting his bed. “There you are, Pheris. I’ve been missing you.”
Pheris hesitated, his cheeks flushing. Teleus moved around him to Relius’ bedside, easily brushing back fringe to kiss Relius’ forehead before resting a small stack of books on the night table. “Anything else?”
“My flute, if you don’t mind.”
“Your breathing isn’t steady enough to be playing yet.”
“You flatter me, captain; even if my lungs were up to scratch, my hands won’t be.”
Teleus hummed, but after a moment he crossed the room and plucked a leather case from a shelf and returned it to Relius’ bed. “I’ll leave you two alone. Don’t wear yourself out too much.”
Pheris couldn’t bring himself to look away from Relius as Teleus slipped out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Relius looked back to him and smiled again. “Come on, now. We know you’re the biter here. No need to be so cautious.”
He wasn’t. He wrinkled his nose and shook his head.
“Come over here then.”
He tucked the letter under his arm and clapped his hands together, missing his slate. Or the king, who was learning Pheris’ signs better than anyone else in court. The signs hadn’t begun to spread until after Relius’ disappearance; he could not speak to Relius and something in his stomach twisted about it. Relius slid a hand under the stack of books and pulled out a slate. Pheris swayed toward it longingly before sighing and approaching the bed, sitting in the large armchair pulled up beside it. He put the letter down and took the slate and an offered piece of chalk before carefully scrawled out you should be resting.
“Surely I don’t look that bad?” Relius teased, raising his eyebrows.
But he did, and Pheris told him so with a solemn nod. Relius clicked his tongue. “It’s alright, Pheris. I’m not dying.”
Petrus said you might.
“Petrus said that three weeks ago. Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”
He’d been so pale when they carried him through the doors, bloated and white like a corpse left out in the rain. Already dead, just hadn’t stopped talking yet. Not that the noises coming out of him could be called talking. The image hadn’t left him since. He’d had nightmares nearly every night since Relius’ miraculous return. He dropped his gaze to the bedspread, rolling the chalk through his fingers for a moment before underlining the words on his slate.
Relius sighed and rested his hand over Pheris’. “It’s alright. I’m alright, lad.”
Petrus said if you do not rest, you will get worse.
“I am resting. I am sleeping for ages and ages every day, and I don’t leave bed except to use the washroom. It’s quite exhausting, actually, being bedridden, especially now that I’m awake more. I’m not going to die on you now, Pheris, I promise. Not for this.” Relius rubbed his fingers over Pheris’ wrist and Pheris let out a quiet sound and lowered his head briefly into Relius’ chest. Relius chuckled and ran his hand over Pheris’ hair. “There, there, now. It’s alright.”
They stayed like that for several moments. Pheris did not cry again. He’d been crying nearly constantly in private for weeks; he wasn’t sure he had any proper tears left. But the reassuring thump-thump of Relius’ heart against his forehead made him feel better than he had in recent memory, and he felt less overwhelmed when he pulled away to meet Relius’ pale face again. A lack of iron, he remembered Petrus saying.
“Now. Teleus said something about a new avenue of study for you. May I?” Relius picked up the letter and, at Pheris’ nod, scanned over its contents. “Hmm, Dite recommended you books for musical study. Because you asked?” Pheris nodded again. “But you’re having trouble with it?”
He hesitated before wiping his slate clean. I cannot understand it.
“It can be difficult at first. Understanding written music can be a little like learning new math and a new language all at once. There is a lot of math in it, however.”
Dite said. That is why I do not understand why I cannot understand it.
Relius nodded and picked up the first book on the stack, pushing it and the leather flute case toward him. “That’s because music isn’t a two-dimensional math, my boy. To be understood, it needs to be heard, just like your triangles and spirals in the beehive have to be seen. Let me teach you. An hour or so each day. Please, Pheris, you’d be doing me a terrible favor,” he added when Pheris hesitated yet again. “I’m very bored lying here and I have missed you fiercely.”
Pheris finally smiled a little, shyly. I missed you too.
Relius unlatched the case and withdrew the flute, holding it gingerly out to Pheris. “There you go, then. We’ll start by learning scales.”