Page 84 of Tending the Ache

Indrie's stomach drops. The hot springs come back at once, the misunderstanding, the kiss, the crack of his temple against the stone, the wet mortifying scramble out of the water, and the flush that rises in his cheeks is immediate.

But before he can stammer out an apology, Harrak speaks first.

"I came to apologize," Harrak says. His voice is steady, his Rengaran slow and deliberate, as though he has rehearsed it. "For what happened in the springs. I'm sorry it took me so long to come, but I did not want to alarm you further. I overstepped. I misread the situation and I made you uncomfortable and I am sorry for it."

Indrie blinks. "Harrak—"

"I should have asked more clearly. I should have made certain you understood what I was saying before I acted. That was my failing and not yours, and I take the whole of it."

The sincerity is disarming. Harrak is not performing contrition. There is no calculation in his face, no angling after forgiveness. He is a man who did a thing he regrets and has come to say so plainly and without embellishment, and the straightforwardness of it makes Indrie's throat tight.

"It was not your fault," Indrie says. "Truly. I am still learning the words and the misunderstanding was mutual. You did nothing wrong."

The relief on Harrak's face is visible. His broad shoulders drop as the tension goes out of them and the rigid nervous posture eases into something more natural. He nods once and some of the color comes back into his face.

"I'm glad," Harrak says. "And I am grateful that you did not tell the king about my transgression."

Indrie's mouth opens. Then closes.

He is suddenly, vividly aware of Ermin behind him at the supply shelf, who has gone extremely quiet in the way that means he is listening to every word.

Harrak continues, oblivious to the change in the room. "I was in the wrong regardless. But if I had known you had the king's favor, I would not have looked at you twice." He holds up a hand. "Our king can be very protective. I once knew a guardsman who made an…untoward comment about the king’s brother and he was…err…reassigned, as it were."

Indrie feels the ground shift under him. "I'm not–I am honestly not certain where I stand with the king. We haven't discussed it."

Harrak looks at him. His expression is uncomplicated, the plain clear certainty of a man who sees the world in simple terms and does not understand why other people insist on complicating it.

"The king has only two constants in his life," Harrak says. He holds up two fingers. "His brother, Morgan. And his right hand, Bohdi. He has never let anybody else in." He pauses. Holds Indrie's gaze. "Until now."

Indrie stares at him.

Harrak clasps his arm in farewell, forearm to forearm, firm and brief, and leaves. The door closes behind him.

Indrie stands in the middle of his clinic. The ground that shifted has not settled back. He is staring at a closed door with his hands at his sides and his mind gone very quiet.

He has never let anybody else in. Until now.

From behind him, Ermin says, "So when you said you weren't certain where you stand with the king…"

"Ermin."

"It does seem as though everybody else is quite certain."

"Ermin."

"I am going to reorganize the chamomile."

Indrie stands in the quiet of his clinic. The morning light falls through the windows and across the clean floor and the stocked shelves and the examination table and the door that locks and all the rest of the space that is his, and he thinks about constants. About the people a man keeps closest to him. About the ones he lets inside the walls.

He presses a hand over his sternum, above the place where his heart is doing something no medical text has ever adequately described, and breathes.

Chapter 25

Eskil

Bohdi has been gone for two days. Morgan has been busy running things while Eskil heals. And Eskil is fucking done lying around doing nothing while he rots from boredom.

He has read every document on the table in his chambers. He has read several of them twice. He has read Morgan's notes on the herring tariffs from the northern fishing village and found them so tediously thorough that he considered reopening his wound just to have something more interesting to focus on. He has sharpened his short swords, in bed, because Indrie told him to stay in bed and Eskil is not yet stupid enough to disobey a direct medical order from the man who controls his access to pain relief. He has sharpened them until they could split a hair and then sharpened them some more, and now there is nothing left to sharpen and he is going to lose his mind.