“It was like this for my father too, near the end. Some days I’m almost fine. Others… my mind wanders. He was younger when he died. I am three years older than my father. How many men can say that?”
Dawson tried to speak, but his throat was thick. When he did manage, it was little more than a whisper.
“How long has this been going on?”
“Two years,” Simeon said. “For the most part, I’ve been able to keep it hidden. But it’s getting worse. Once was, I’d have weeks or months between them. It’s hours now.”
“What do the cunning men say?”
Simeon chuckled, and the sound was deeper than the water’s laughter. Gentler too.
“They say that all men are mortal. Even kings.” Simeon took a deep breath and leaned forward, his forearms on his knees, his hands clasped. “There is a flower that’s supposed to help. I keep drinking the tea, but I can’t see any difference. I suppose I might be failing faster without it.”
“There will be something. We can send for someone…”
His old friend didn’t answer. There was no need to. Dawson heard the impotence in his own words, and was shamed by them. All men died, always had and always would. It was only surprise that hollowed his chest.
“I wish Eleanora and I had had Aster earlier,” the king said. “I would have loved to see him as a man. With a child of his own, maybe. I remember when Barriath was born. All the jokes were that the boy had eaten you. No one knew where you were or what you were doing. You were gone from all the old places. I resented you for that. I felt left behind.”
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”
“No reason for you to be sorry. I just didn’t understand. Then Aster came, and I did. If we’d had him earlier… But then, I suppose it wouldn’t have been him, would it? No more than your Jorey is a younger imitation of Barriath. So I can’t even wish that. This is the world as it had to be to have my boy in it, and so I can’t hate it. Even if I want to.”
“I am so sorry, Your Majesty,” Dawson said.
Simeon shook his head.
“Ignore me,” he said. “I hate it when I get like this. Whine like a schoolboy. Enough. I wanted to talk to you about other things, like the audience with Ashford. What are your thoughts?”
“That you should have it,” Dawson said. “As I said before—”
“I know what you said before. You know more now than you did then. I can’t take the audience if I’m going to piss myself in the middle of it. Right now, they’re frightened of me. Of what I might do. And they’re backing away. If Ashford takes back a report that I’m half mad and dying, that song changes. The last time you brought me advice, I turned you away and came within days of handing my child to a man with plans to kill him. So far as I know you’re still in control of your own bladder. It makes you more competent than your king. So tell me. What do I do?”
Dawson stood and tried to gather his windswept mind. He felt like he’d just fought a duel. His body had the sense of expended effort and exhaustion, even though he’d done nothing more than walk across a room and call for a servant. He had the sudden, visceral memory of pelting down a street, Prince Simeon at his side. He didn’t remember when or where it had happened, but he knew the street had smelled of rain, that Simeon had worn green and he’d worn brown. He swallowed and wiped the back of his hand across his eyes.
“If the fits can be controlled, have the audience immediately,” he said. “Prepare beforehand, and keep it brief. No feasts, no private meals, no second audience. Something formal.”
“And say?”
“That you’ll give Asterilhold the time to clean its own court, but that you expect a full accounting and the heads of those who supported Maas. It’s the only option you have. We can’t fight a war. Not with you in this condition.”
Simeon nodded slowly. His spine seemed more bent now than when Dawson had first arrived, but it might only have been that he saw now what habit had hidden before.
“And if they can’t be controlled?”
“Appoint someone else. An ambassador or warden. If you want someone particular, name him Warden of the White Tower. There hasn’t been one since Odderd Faskellin died. Or else… Ah, God.”
Dawson sat again.
“Or else?” the king prompted.
“If you’re failing fast enough, postpone it and let the regent address it once you’re dead.”
Simeon’s breath was sharp as a man struck.
“That’s where we are, aren’t we?” Dawson said.