Chapter 16: The funeral
The silence that followed her whisper was the most profound sound Alistair had ever heard. It was filled with the ragged echo of her breathing, the soft mewl of the infant in her arms, and the silent, shuddering collapse of his own terror. He kept her cold hand pressed against his forehead, kneeling on the stone floor as if the pressure of his posture could keep her anchored to the world.
“She’s not finished,” the Myrttan physician said, her voice low and urgent. She was still working, her hands and forearms stained. “The bleeding is slower, but it hasn’t stopped. She’s exhausted. Her body is forgetting the fight.” The woman shot a look at Lydia, who stood frozen with a stack of clean linens. “More light. And the ice. Now.”
Alistair rose, his legs numb. He saw the paleness of Eleanor, a translucency that made her seem already a ghost. The triumphant glint in her eye had vanished, extinguished by a wave of pure fatigue. Her head lolled slightly against the pillow, her gaze struggling to find Leo’s face.
“Don’t you dare,” Alistair whispered, though the command was aimed at God, at fate, at the weakness of flesh. He moved to the head of the bed, replacing the damp cloth on her brow with a fresh, cool one. “Eleanor. Look at me.”
Her dark eyes rolled toward him, struggling to focus. “Tired.”
“I know. Just a little longer.” He took Leo from her slackening arms, the baby’s warmth a shocking contrast to her chill. He held his son against his chest, the tiny heart beating a frantic, living rhythm against his own. He had held Jon only after the danger had passed, a prize presented to a victorious king. This felt like theft. “See? He needs you. You have to stay.”
The physician’s hands worked with a terrible, intimate certainty. Eleanor gasped, a short, sharp sound, and her body tensed. “There,” the woman muttered. “That’s it. Now we wait.”
They waited for an hour, the room holding its breath. Alistair stood sentinel with his son, a statue of a king turned nursemaid. The dawn light strengthened, turning from grey to a fragile gold that gilded the blood on the floor. Finally, the physician sat back on her heels, her shoulders slumping with a weariness that mirrored her patient’s.
“It’s clotted. The worst is past.” She looked at Alistair. “But the frailty remains. A cough, a fever, a strong emotion… it could tear something open again. For months. She needs absolute calm. She is a castle with shattered foundations.”
“Understood.” The word was a vow. He would become the quiet around her.
When Jon was finally allowed in, he crept to the bedside like someone approaching an altar. His eyes were huge, fixed on his mother’s sleeping face. “Is she…”
“She’s sleeping. The battle’s over.” Alistair gestured with his chin to the bundle in the crook of his other arm. “Meet your brother. Leo.”
Jon peered at the red, squished face. A slow, wondering smile broke through his anxiety. “He’s so small.” He glanced up at his father, a new, profound understanding dawning in his young eyes. “Was I that small?”
“Smaller.” Alistair’s voice was rough. “And louder.”
Tristan appeared in the doorway, his face etched with a night’s worth of worry. He took in the scene: the exhausted queen, the king holding his heir like a rare treasure, the blood-soaked linens being gathered discreetly. A quiet, professional assessment. He met Alistair’s gaze and gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.
“The council?” Alistair asked, his voice low.
“Told them the queen delivered a healthy prince and requires rest. Berrick looked like he’d swallowed a lemon, but he congratulated you. The rest followed his lead.” Tristan’s eyes softened as he looked at Jon touching Leo’s minute fist. “The surgeon’s knife worked. Clean cut. No unnecessary bleeding in the court.”
Alistair closed his eyes for a second. Politics. The other, endless battlefield. “Thank you.”
“It’s just arithmetic,” Tristan said, echoing Eleanor’s old words with a faint smile. He hesitated. “She really did fight, didn’t she?”
“Like a lion,” Alistair breathed, looking at her.
The days that followed were a strange, suspended time. Eleanor drifted in a haze of healing sleep and bitter tonics. When she was awake, her clarity would return in sharp, frustrating flickers. She demanded reports on Leo’s feeding, on Jon’s lessons, on any word from the eastern border. Lydia would gently remind her to rest, which only made her scowl.
Alistair moved his desk into the antechamber of her rooms. He ruled from a small, unadorned table, Tristan ferrying documents in and out. He was always within earshot. He learned the sound of her pained shifting in the bed, the rhythm of her breathing when sleep was finally deep and restorative.
One afternoon, a week after the birth, he was pretending to review a grain tariff proposal. Her voice, still thin but lucid, cut through his concentration.
“You’re hovering again.”
He looked up. She was watching him, propped on a mountain of pillows. A touch of color had returned to her cheeks. “Observing,” he corrected, setting down the parchment.
“Bring him to me.”
He didn’t need to ask who. He lifted Leo from his cradle, carefully supporting his head, and placed him in the curve of her arm. She studied her son with an intensity that was almost tactical.
“He has your nose,” she said.
“Poor thing.”
A weak laugh escaped her, followed instantly by a wince. She pressed a hand gently to her abdomen. “Don’t make me laugh. It’s treason.”
He pulled his chair closer, sitting by the bed. Sunlight pooled on the floor between them, warm and ordinary. “The physician says you’re mending. Slowly.”
“She also says I shouldn’t have another child.” Eleanor’s gaze remained on Leo, her voice matter-of-fact. “That my body’s tally is settled. Final.”
Alistair’s throat tightened. The thought of touching her again, of risking this cataclysm, sent a bolt of pure fear through him. The physical desire was there, a constant hum, but it was dwarfed by the memory of that blood on the floor. “That’s… acceptable.”
She finally looked at him. “Is it?”
He couldn’t lie, not to those dark, knowing eyes. He shook his head, a short, helpless motion. “No. But you are. Alive. That is the only acceptable thing.” He reached out, his fingers brushing the back of her hand where it rested on the baby’s swaddling. “We have Jon. We have Leo. We have a kingdom that needs your mind.” His voice dropped. “I have you. It is enough.”
It was a surrender more complete than any he’d made on a battlefield. Eleanor saw it, the weight of it. She turned her hand over to thread her fingers through his. The silence was comfortable, filled with the soft sounds of their son’s breathing.
Tristan’s knock at the outer door shattered the peace. His entrance was apologetic, but his face was all business. “Sire. My lady. A report from the Rangers at the eastern border.” He held up a small, sealed scroll. “They’ve intercepted a courier. The message is from Lord Sanna’s brother-in-law, holed up in his remaining estate.”
Alistair’s king-face slid back into place, a mask of cold focus. “And?”
“He’s not begging for mercy. He’s offering a trade. Information for his family’s safe passage into exile.” Tristan’s gaze flicked to Eleanor, who was listening intently, her strategic mind clearly re-engaging despite her body’s protests. “He says he knows who financed the Blue Mountain mustering. He says it wasn’t just Sanna’s greed. It was a test.”
“A test of what?” Alistair stood, taking the scroll.
“Of us,” Eleanor said quietly. Her eyes had gone distant, seeing the map again, the pieces moving. “The surgeon’s knife we used. Someone wanted to see if we’d still reach for the warhammer first. They were probing our weakness, our patience.” She looked at Alistair, her fatigue burned away by sudden, chilling insight. “And now they know you listen to me.”
The sunlit room felt cold. Leo squirmed in his sleep. The quiet nursery was suddenly paper-thin, a fragile shelter against a threat that had just been given a name and a purpose.
Alistair broke the seal on the scroll, his jaw tight. The game had never stopped. It had only paused, waiting for them to let their guard down. He read the first line, then looked at Eleanor, her face pale but fiercely alert against the pillows.
“Tell me,” she said. It wasn’t a request.
He began to read the traitor’s words aloud.
The healer’s hands moved with a speed that betrayed her earlier calm, pressing damp, herb-soaked cloths against Eleanor’s still body. The physician’s murmur was a rapid, technical stream—words about clots and contraction—that meant nothing and everything to Alistair. He kept hold of Eleanor’s hand, as if his grip alone could anchor her to the world.
Her breathing was a shallow, troubling thing. Each rise of her chest was a victory; each pause between was a lifetime.
“The bleeding is slowing,” the Myrttan woman announced, her voice dull with exhaustion. “The danger is not past, but the immediate crisis is.” She looked at the king, her slate eyes unforgiving. “She will be an invalid for months. A year. Perhaps always. The heart has been strained to its absolute limit.”
Alistair didn’t care about months or years. He cared about the next breath. “Will she wake?”
“If the gods are kind.”
He stayed there, on his knees, as the room was cleaned with efficient, grim quiet. The evidence of the battle was carried away in basins. The only sound left was the tiny, snuffling complaints of his son in Lydia’s arms. Leo. He’d fought his way into the world with a set of lungs that promised a formidable will.
“Your Grace,” Lydia whispered. “The prince should be fed.”
Alistair gave a stiff nod, not taking his eyes from Eleanor’s face. “Take him to the wet nurse. Have Jon brought to me.”
When the door closed, it was just the three of them: the unconscious queen, the kneeling king, and the silent physician wiping her tools.
“You should rest, sire. There is nothing more to do but wait.”
“I know how to wait,” he said, his voice gravelly. He had waited in frozen trenches before dawn assaults. He had waited for betrayals to unfold. This was a different kind of vigil.
Sunlight, now strong and clear, cut across the floor and found the edge of the bed. It painted a bright line over Eleanor’s limp fingers. Alistair watched the light warm her pale skin, centimeter by centimeter. It felt like a sign. A small, stubborn defiance against the dark.
The door creaked open. Jon stood there, dressed but hair unbrushed, his face a mirror of his father’s controlled terror. “Is she…”
“Alive.” Alistair finally released Eleanor’s hand and stood, his joints protesting. He walked to his son, placing both hands on the boy’s shoulders. They felt thin, bony. “She is very strong. But she is very tired. She will sleep for a long time.”
Jon’s lower lip trembled. He bit it. “And the baby?”
“Your brother. Leo.” Alistair guided him to a chair by the cold fireplace. “He is loud. And well.”
“Good.” Jon sat, folding in on himself. He looked at his mother, a monument in the bed. “Tristan says you punched the throne.”
A startled, rough sound escaped Alistair. It wasn’t a laugh. It was the release of a fraction of pressure. “I did.”
“Was it helpful?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Jon digested this. “Tristan also said Mother’s plan worked. The surgeon’s knife. For the mountains.” He was trying to connect logic to chaos, to find a pattern in the terror.
“It did,” Alistair said, sitting heavily beside him. “This… this is a different kind of war. There is no map.”
They sat in silence for a while, watching the sunlight crawl across the room. A maid brought broth and bread. Alistair forced Jon to eat. He took nothing himself. His hunger was for a single thing.
Near midday, Eleanor stirred. It wasn’t dramatic. A faint groan, a twitch of her fingers against the linen.
Alistair was at her side in an instant. “Eleanor?”
Her eyes opened. They were cloudy with pain and whatever herbs still swam in her blood. They found his face, blinked slowly. “Alistair.” Her voice was a dry leaf. “The room is… spinning.”
“Look at me. Just at me.” He framed her face again, a mirror of his panic hours before, but now his touch was pure steadiness. “The spinning will stop. Look at me.”
She did. Her gaze swam, then anchored on his. The confusion receded, replaced by a deep, exhausted awareness. “Leo?”
“He is perfect. And loud. Jon is here.”
Her eyes shifted, found her firstborn. A tear escaped, tracing a clean path through the pallor of her cheek. “My brave boy.”
“You did it, Mother,” Jon whispered, his own composure cracking.
“We did it,” she corrected, her eyes already drifting shut again. The effort of speech had drained her. “Don’t let them… give him that awful sweetened goat’s milk. It’s vile.” And she was asleep again, but this time it was different. This was rest, not retreat.
The physician checked her pulse, her breathing. She gave another of her infinitesimal nods. “The worst is over. Now comes the long road.”
Alistair felt the truth of it settle in his bones, a new weight to carry. He looked from his sleeping wife to his son’s hopeful face. The war room was elsewhere. The throne could wait.
His kingdom was here, in this sunlit room smelling of blood and lavender. His first command of this new campaign was a quiet one. “Jon, go to the kitchens. Bring back some of that honey cake. And tell Tristan…” He paused, considering. “Tell him the council is adjourned until the queen is bored enough to attend it.”
A real smile, small but genuine, touched Jon’s face. He nodded and darted out.
Alistair pulled his chair to the bedside once more. He took Eleanor’s hand again. He would be here when she woke. And the next time. And the time after that. He had learned to kneel. Now he would learn to wait, and to rebuild. The cold king was gone, thawed by a fight beyond any he had ever known. What remained was simply a man, watching the light move across his wife’s hand, and thinking of names that were not battle cries.