Bedtime Story (61 page)

She must have felt me looking at her, because she glanced at me quizzically. I tried to smile, tried to be reassuring, but I don’t think either of us believed it.

I shut the van door, and the three of us walked slowly into the motel.

They traded their positions in the boat again just as the sun was rising. The magus picked up the oars as David slumped onto the bench in the stern. David watched as the old man drew the oars through the water.

“Thanks,” he said quietly.

The magus just nodded.

During his shifts with the oars, David had pulled blindly into the darkness as the magus slept. Now, with the sun rising, he was able to watch the banks of the river sliding past in the soft morning light. If the speed with which objects and landmarks disappeared behind them was any indication, they were making good time, the force of the river’s current rushing them home.

Home …

The constant scrolling of the shoreline and the motion of the boat were almost hypnotic, lulling, and David noticed now, for the first time, just how tired he was. It was not that sickly feeling of weakness and decline but an honest desire for sleep.

Bracing himself on the gunwale, he slid onto the bottom of the boat, his back against the bench.

The magus smiled. “Rest well, Dafyd,” he said.

David nodded slowly, dopily. He could feel himself slipping away, drifting quickly into sleep. His eyelids hung heavily, every blink slower than the last, and he breathed deeply of the morning air.

He jerked upright, his eyes flashing open. “Do you smell that?”

He needn’t have asked: the magus was letting the oars drag in the water as he surveyed the banks of the river around them.

“Smoke,” the magus said.

I stood on the balcony smoking while Jacqui got David ready for bed. I held the photocopied book loosely in my left hand. As she washed his face, brushed his teeth, got him into a new diaper, I stared out over the parking lot, trying to forestall the inevitability of what was going to happen next.

This was it; two lowly pages left. Not only did I not know what finishing the book would do to David, I wasn’t even sure if there were enough words left to soothe him to sleep one last time.

The glass door slid open with a rumble that shook the small balcony. “He’s all tucked in,” she said. “Are you ready?”

I nodded, and flicked my cigarette butt into the parking lot. “Yup,” I said, thinking of Gary Cooper in
High Noon
.

She touched my arm as I came through the door, enough to tell me that she was at least aware of the stakes, even if she didn’t believe in them herself.

Jacqui had moved the desk chair close to the bed, close to David. “So are you ready for this?” I asked him as I sat down. “Ready to see what happens to our brave hero at the end?”

Jacqui sat down in the easy chair near the patio door, almost behind me.

“Okay,” I said, trying to calm myself, steady my voice.

I began, and kept one eye on him as I read, watching his eyes, his hands.

After a full page, nothing had changed. I glanced over at Jacqui, who was watching from the easy chair.

Halfway down the next page, he was still clenching, eyes still flickering. And I was running out of words.

I forced myself to slow my voice even further.

There. His eyelids sinking shut, the contractions of his hands slowing. I exhaled a breath I hadn’t known I was holding.

“The end.”

My hands shook as I set the papers down on the bed next to me. I stood up slowly and kissed David gently on the forehead. “I love you, Davy,” I whispered. “Sleep well.”

I have never meant those words as much as I did right then.

I went out to the balcony thinking that I wanted to smoke, but I ended up just leaning on the railing, looking into the dark.

I didn’t hear Jacqui come out, didn’t even know she was there until she slid her arms around me from behind, embracing me, leaning her cheek against my back between my shoulder blades.

“He’s going to be all right,” she said.

“Maybe.” I couldn’t keep the doubt out of my voice.

“No, this will work out. One way or another.”

I turned around into her embrace, and, her head resting on my chest, brought my arms around her.

She had always been good at talking me through my doubts, but it had been a long time since she had done so. I craned my neck and kissed the top of her head. “I know you don’t really believe in any—”

“No,” she said, looking me in the eye. “But you do.”

I smiled.

“I mean it,” she said. “You’re a pretty smart guy, Chris. And if you believe something, there’s probably a good reason to take it seriously.”

I pulled her closer, not wanting to risk saying anything.

“We should go in,” she whispered sometime later, her voice tinged with regret. “For when David …”

Not
in case
David had a seizure, but
when
.

“Yeah,” I said, disentangling myself from her. “Do you mind if I …” I mimed a smoking gesture.

She shook her head, her hair bouncing. “I’ll be inside.”

She closed the door behind herself as I lit a cigarette. She didn’t draw the curtains, and I watched her moving through the room, checking on David and moving bags and all the minutiae of just another evening. I was struck by how beautiful she was, how genuine and unaffected. How lucky a man would be who got to spend his life with a woman like her. And how stupid he would have to be to fuck it all up.

I crushed out the cigarette butt and went inside.

They saw the camp a few moments later, the low smoky fire close to the eastern bank of the river.

The magus pulled the oars against their direction, slowing their progress as much as possible.

“It’s them?” David whispered, leaning over the gunwale. “Captain Bream and the men?”

“They made it farther than I thought they would,” the magus said quietly, watching the plume of smoke as they approached. “But I don’t understand …”

“Why would they build a fire?” David asked, thinking the same thing. “Out in the open like that? They’re heading north, so they have to be concerned with Berok scouts and patrols. Why would they—?”

“Get down, David,” the magus said, his voice flat and urgent. He himself ducked low to the boards.

David dropped below the gunwale, looking at the man questioningly.

“Archers,” he said simply.

“But I thought you had drugged them—put something in the water?”

“I did.”

David peered over the gunwale. With no one at the oars, they were drifting toward the shore. “I don’t see any archers,” he said, realizing as soon as he spoke the words just how stupid a thing it had been to say. Of course he wouldn’t see any sign of archers. Not until an arrow buried itself in his throat.

Ducking, David turned to the magus. “So what do we do?”

“Best to just let the boat drift past. If the archers open fire, we might gain some little protection from the hull.” He tapped the wood lightly with his knuckles.

David snuck another glance. The current was bringing them perilously close to the land; at any moment he expected to hear the whistle of arrows in flight.

And then the camp came into clear view. Almost without thinking, David struggled past the magus and grasped the oars.

“What are you doing?” the magus asked.

“It’s Captain Bream.”

“Get down!” the magus said.

“Do you have a weapon?” David asked, comforted only slightly by the awareness of the knife at his ankle.

“I have—”

“Right. Of course you do. You might want to be ready, just in case.”

David drew hard on one oar to turn the boat toward the camp. “We’re going ashore.”

“What?” the magus gasped. “David, it could be a trap.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, rowing toward the small beach. “Look.”

The camp had been set in a small clearing. The fire was smoky and weak. Around it, several of the guardsmen lay scattered where they had fallen, twisted heaps of uniform against the scrub brush and gravel.

“Are they dead?” David asked, glancing at the magus.

“They shouldn’t be,” the old man said. “Dafyd, you’re being headstrong.”

David had been watching the men since they had come into sight, his eyes darting between the bodies, watching for any signs of movement. “I guess we’ll find out,” he said as the boat scraped the river bottom. As soon as it stopped he leapt over the gunwale, pulling his blade into his hand.

He stood in the shallows, feet apart, watching the camp as the magus pulled the boat higher onto the beach. He could feel the blood in his veins, every sense aware, tuned to the slightest movement, the smallest warning sign. But there was nothing.

“It’s not a trap,” he said softly, not lowering his blade or relaxing his stance.

“No,” the magus agreed, still wary. “It seems safe.” He was clutching his amulet with his left hand, his right extended before him.

“You should check the men,” David said, turning to him. The magus didn’t move. “I want to be sure they’re alive. Or if they need help. I don’t want any of them to be hurt because of what Captain Bream did.”

The magus hesitated another moment, and David couldn’t read his expression, but he turned away and went to the closest man, lying next to the dying fire.

“I knew you’d come.”

The captain’s voice, rough and weak, seemed to echo through the clearing. David jumped, startled, and turned to the man slumped against a rock close to the water’s edge.

“Finish the job,” he rasped.

David was shocked by how the captain had changed. His face was pale and damp with sweat, his eyes wide and bloodshot against the white of his skin. His lips were dry, his head weaving and bobbing as if his neck were too weak to support it. His hand rested limply on the hilt of his sword across his lap, the front of his tunic stained with vomit.

“Magus. Not to be trusted,” he said, a thin rictus of a smile crossing his lips as if pleased that his suspicions had been confirmed. “Knew it from the start.”

David stopped in front of the captain, far enough away to be safe. “He’s not the one who left a boy to die on a deserted island.”

The captain head lolled. “Mercy,” he said. “Should have killed you then.”

With what seemed like the last of his strength, the captain swept his arm, gesturing around the clearing. “Poisoned. All of them. I figured it out. Too late. Tried to bring it up. Too late. Dying.”

“You’re not dying,” the magus said, stepping up beside David. “None of you is dying. It was just a tincture to make you sleep.”

“So the men will live?” David asked, not sure why he found the thought so comforting.

“They’re fine,” he said. “They’ll have sore heads when they wake up, but no worse than after a night in the tavern.”

“Betrayed,” the captain said, his voice hoarse.

“You’re one to talk about betrayal,” David snapped.

“I stayed true. To my Queen. To the very end.”

His head dipped heavily before he straightened and stared straight at David. “No. Not true. Not quite.” He smiled, a horrible expression that bared his teeth. “Let you live,” he said. “Mistake.” His hand flopped off his sword. “My men. The cost of my disloyalty.”