"I thought I had lost you."
"I'm harder to lose than you'd think, sir."
Jaxom couldn't stop grinning foolishly because Lytol actually had a smile on his face: the first one Jaxom recalled.
"You're nothing but bones and white skin," Lytol said in his customary gruff manner.
"That'll pass. I'm allowed to eat all I want," Jaxom replied. "Care for something?"
"I didn't come to eat. I came to see you. And I'll tell you this, young Lord Jaxom, I think you'd better go back to the Mastersmith for more drafting lessons: you did not accurately place the trees along the cove shore in that sketch of yours. Though the mountain is very well done."
"I knew I had the trees wrong, sir, one of the things I planned to check out. Only when I got back here, it went clean out of my head."
"So I understand," and Lytol gave a rusty laugh.
"Give me the news of the Hold." Jaxom was suddenly eager for those minor details that had once bored him.
They chatted away in a companionable fashion that astonished Jaxom. He'd been ill at ease with Lytol, he realized now, ever since he had inadvertently Impressed Ruth. But that strain had evaporated. If this illness of his did no other good, it had brought him and Lytol closer than Jaxom in his boyhood could ever have imagined.
Brekke entered, smiling apologetically. "I'm sorry, Lord Lytol, but Jaxom tires easily."
Lytol obediently rose, glancing anxiously at Jaxom.
"Brekke, after Lytol has come all this distance, on dragonback, he must be allowed to .. ."
"No, lad, I can return." Lytol's smile startled Brekke. "I'd rather not take a risk with him." He gave Brekke a second surprise then as he embraced Jaxom with awkward affection before striding from the room.
Brekke stared at Jaxom, who shrugged to indicate she could put her own interpretation on his guardian's behavior. She quickly left to escort the visitors back to the beach.
He was very glad to see you, Ruth said. He is smiling.
Jaxom lay back, wriggling his shoulders into the rushes to get comfortable. He closed his eyes, chuckling to himself. He had got Lytol to see his beautiful mountain.
Lytol wasn't the only one to come to see the mountain, and Jaxom. Lord Groghe arrived the next afternoon, grunting and puffing from the heat, shouting at his little queen not to get lost with all those strangers, and not to get completely soaked because he didn't want a wet shoulder on the way back.
"Heard you'd got ill of that fire-head stuff like the harper girl," Lord Groghe said, swinging into Jaxom's room with a vigor that produced instant fatigue in the convalescent.
More unnerving was Lord Groghe's scrutiny. Jaxom was certain the man counted his ribs, he had looked at them so long. "Can't you feed him up better than this, Brekke? Thought you were a top-flight healer. Boy's a rake! Can't have that. Must say you picked a beautiful place to fall ill in. Must have a look about me since I'm down here. Not that it took all that long to come. Hmmm. Yes, must have a look about." Groghe stuck his chin out at Jaxom, frowning again. "Did you? Before that sickness got hold of you?"
Jaxom realized that Lord Groghe's totally unexpected visit might have several objectives: one, to assure the Lord Holders that the Lord of Ruatha was in the land of the living, all rumor to the contrary. The second purpose made Jaxom a little uneasy when he could so clearly recall Lessa's remark about wanting "the best part of it."
When Brekke tactfully reminded the blustering and genial Lord Holder that he mustn't tire her patient, Jaxom nearly cheered.
"Don't worry, lad. I'll be back again, never fear." Lord Groghe waved cheerfully to him from the doorway. "Beautiful spot. Envy you."
"Does everyone in the North know where I am?" Jaxom asked when Brekke returned.
"D'ram brought him," she said, sighing heavily and frowning.
"D'ram ought to have known better," Sharra said, collapsing on the bench and plying a tree frond as a fan in exaggerated relief at the Lord's departure. "The man's enough to wear the healthy down, much less the convalescent."
"I would guess," Brekke continued, ignoring Sharra's remarks, "that the Lord Holders needed verification of Jaxom's recovery."
"He looked Jaxom over like a herdsman. Did you show him your teeth?"
"Don't let Lord Groghe's manner fool you, Sharra," Jaxom said. "He's got a mind as sharp as Master Robinton's. And if D'ram brought him, then F'lar and Lessa must have known he was coming. I don't think they'll like him returning-or scouting around here."
"If Lessa did permit Lord Groghe to come, she'll hear from me about it, you may be sure," Brekke replied, thinning her lips in disapproval. "He is not an easy visitor for a convalescent. You might as well know now, Jaxom, that you were ill of that fever for sixteen days…"
"What?" Jaxom sat upright in the bed, stunned.
"But… but…"
"Fire-head is a dangerous disease for an adult," Sharra said. She glanced at Brekke, who nodded, "You nearly died."
"I did?" Appalled, Jaxom put his hand to his head.
Brekke nodded again. "So, if we seem to be restricting you to a very slow recovery, you will agree that we have cause."
"I nearly died?" Jaxom couldn't absorb that news.
"So we will go slowly to ensure your health. Now, I think it's time you had something to eat," Brekke said as she left the room.
"I nearly died?" Jaxom turned to Sharra.
"I'm afraid so." She sounded more amused by his reaction than concerned. "The important thing is that you didn't die." Involuntarily she glanced toward the beach and sighed, a quick exhalation of relief. She smiled, a brief one, but Jaxom noticed that her expressive eyes were dark with remembered sorrow. "Who died of fire-head that saddens you, Sharra?"
"No one you know, Jaxom, and no one I knew very well. It's just… just that no healer likes to lose a patient."
He could tease no more from her on the subject and stopped trying to when he saw that she had felt that death so keenly.
The next morning, cursing with embarrassment at the unreliability of his legs, Jaxom was assisted to the beach by Brekke and Sharra. Ruth came charging up the sands, almost dangerous in his delight at seeing his friend. Brekke sternly ordered Ruth to stand still lest he knock Jaxom off his unsteady feet. Ruth's eyes rolled with concern and he crooned with apology as he extended his head very carefully toward Jaxom, almost afraid to muzzle him in greeting. Jaxom flung his arms about his dragon's neck, Ruth tightening his muscles to take the drag of his friend's body, almost thrumming with encouragement. Tears flowed down his cheeks which he quickly dried against his friend's soft hide. Dear Ruth. Marvelous Ruth. Unbidden came the thought to Jaxom's mind: "If I had died of fire-head…"
You did not, Ruth said. You stayed. I told you to. And you are much stronger now. You will get stronger every day and we will swim and sun and it will be good.
Ruth sounded so fierce that Jaxom had to soothe him with words and caresses until Brekke and Sharra insisted that he had better sit down before he fell. They had arranged a matting of woven streamer fronds against a landward-leaning trunk, well back from the shore, to avoid full exposure to the sun. To this couch they assisted him. Ruth stretched out so that his head rested by Jaxom's side, the jeweled eyes whirling with the lavenders of stress.
F'lar and Lessa arrived at midday, after Jaxom had had a short nap. He was surprised to find that Lessa, for all her abrasiveness on other occasions, made a soothing visitor, quiet and soft-voiced.
"We had to let Lord Groghe come in person, Jaxom, though I'm sure you didn't appreciate the visit. Rumor had you dead and Ruth, too." Lessa shrugged expressively. "Bad news needs no harper."