Chapter Seventeen
He had a fever.
Jareth knew that from the moment he awoke. Since their return from Portbury yesterday, he’d slept the rest of the day and all night, only to awaken because his eyeballs felt hot. He knew that was a sure sign of a fever.
His heart sank.
Sometimes it took time for poison to develop after a wound.
He’d had enough of them to know. When he fought for King Henry against Simon de Montfort, he’d received a sword slice to his foot, of all places, and the poison didn’t develop for four or five days.
It had been mild, thankfully, and the physic had worked hard to ensure he didn’t lose his foot.
He didn’t, and it had healed perfectly, but now he was dealing with a wound to his body that might not be so easy to clean out.
He didn’t look forward to the moment when, and if, a physic had to clean the poison out of the wound. That could be incredibly painful.
Perhaps he wasn’t healing as well as he’d hoped.
It was early morning. He could tell from the angle of the sun.
Never being one to lie around in bed, not even when he was sick or injured, Jareth struggled to sit up.
It was difficult because of the pain in his shoulder and back, and also the fact that his left arm and shoulder were still bound.
He managed to make it into a sitting position, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
He was just about to attempt to stand up when the door opened and Desdra appeared.
“Absolutely not,” she said, immediately setting down the tray in her hand. Quickly, she made her way to the bed. “You will lie back down this instant. How dare you try to cavort while I am not here.”
He smiled weakly. “I can hardly call this cavorting,” he said. “But I must attend to some business.”
“What business?”
He gave her a wry expression. “Do you need to know every single detail about my affairs?”
“When it involves you getting out of bed, I do.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you asked to court me, and that means I have a say in such matters.”
His eyes widened for a moment before he broke down into soft laughter. “God’s Bones, is that what courting means?” he said. “I had no idea.”
“It’s true.”
He sighed sharply. “Then if you must know, I feel the need to relieve myself,” he said. “Unless you want to hold my hand whilst I accomplish this, I can do it on my own.”
She wasn’t shocked in the least by his rather personal need. “Then I shall escort you to the garderobe,” she said. “I shall wait for you to finish and escort you back to bed.”
He snorted at her determination. He could see that she wasn’t going to be talked out of it. “Very well,” he said. “If you must.”
“I must.”
“You’re rather demanding, aren’t you?”
Her reply was to reach down and take him by his good arm, pulling him off the bed as he tried to stand.
He was a little woozy, but not too terribly.
She gripped his arm with both hands, holding him tightly, as they began to slowly make their way from the chamber.
The corridor outside was lit by both tapers, having burned low over the night, and streams of sunlight coming through.
“It’s misty this morning,” he said, having spied the fog through a window. “Is it always like that this time of year?”
Desdra nodded. “Mostly,” she said. “It rolls in from the sea. Sometimes it lingers for weeks at a time.”
“London can do that also,” Jareth said. “Have you ever been to London?”
“Nay,” Desdra said. “I should like to see it someday, though.”
“I will take you,” he said, looking at her with a glimmer in his eye. “I shall take you to every fine place London has to offer. I shall introduce you to the finest people.”
She smiled in return, somewhat bashfully. “Do you have your own house in London?”
He shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “I live at Westminster. But when we marry, I shall buy you any house you like.”
“We are already marrying? I thought we were just courting.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “What do you think courting is?” he said. “It is the prelude to the feast—it is still part of the feast, just not the main portion of it.”
She chuckled. “You certainly have a way with words,” she said. “So eloquent.”
“I can speak the goodest of anyone you know.”
That set her off laughing with his made-up word.
They had reached the door that led to the garderobe by that time, and she let him go in alone.
He handled himself well, as she had expected, and at least hadn’t fallen down the hole that dumped into a small channel that led to the river.
They’d had one or two drunken clients do that.
But not Jareth. He made it out of the garderobe alive and Desdra took him on a small walk around the floor, just to stretch his legs, before it was back to bed for him again.
Then, and only then, did she notice his fever.
It all happened quite innocently. She had only been holding his arm, which was wrapped in a tunic, all the way to the garderobe and back, but when he went to sit on the bed, she grasped his hands to help him.
His palms were on fire.
That made her touch his face to see if he had a fever and, indeed, he had a raging one going. There was no outward indication that he had a fever because he wasn’t pale or clammy. He looked normal.
But he wasn’t.
“How long have you had this fever?” she demanded, forcing him to lie down.
He went down easily because even the walk to the garderobe had been exhausting. “I think I woke up with it,” he said. “It is not bad. I’ve had these before. It will pass.”
Desdra wasn’t taking any chances. She rushed to the chamber door and sent a servant to fetch Orion, who was undoubtedly with Anosia, somewhere. Those two had become inseparable. Once she sent the servant for Orion, she sent another one for cold water and rags.
“Desdra?” Jareth said from the bed. “Desdra, love, you needn’t go through such trouble. This will pass, I promise. It is just a little fever. That happens when things pierce the body. It is the body’s way of reacting to it.”
“Be quiet,” she said sternly. “Any fever must be taken seriously.”
He grunted, a smile playing on his lips, knowing there would be no discouraging her.
When the water and rags came, she forced him to remove his tunic so she could bathe his skin and cool him down, something he was most agreeable to.
With her tender touch, he was actually enjoying it quite a bit, and when she came to his neck and head, she was close enough that he could steal a kiss or two from her.
He watched her flush bright red when it did it, and he laughed.
It felt good to laugh.
Jareth was quite enjoying the attention as Desdra fussed over him.
But Orion arrived and spoiled it all, sending for a physic because he thought the fever was worse than Jareth was letting on.
That nearly sent Desdra into a panic, but the physic used by The Feast arrived shortly thereafter and forced Jareth to drink a concoction of willow bark powder and a tea brewed from mold found on bread, something that had been brought back from the crusades to the Levant.
It was a medicine that helped heal injuries and fever, but it tasted like death.
That was when Jareth stopped enjoying the fact that people were fussing over him, but worse still, both the physic and Orion decided that it was the wound at Jareth’s back causing the problem and it needed to be cleaned out.
It was one of the more painful things Jareth had ever endured, and when it was over, the physic gave him a sleeping potion that put him out within a few minutes of drinking it.
A brewed flower, the physic said. Whatever it was, Jareth was snoring in little time.
And with that, his care was over for the moment.
“What do I do now?” Desdra asked softly, pulling a coverlet over Jareth. “Is there anything he needs?”
“Just let him sleep,” the old physic, a tall man named Willow, said as he put things away into his medicament bag. “We’ve done all we can for now. The next few hours should tell if it is going to get worse or better.”
Desdra nodded, standing at Jareth’s bedside with a worried look on her face. “What shall I feed him when he awakens?”
“Anything he wants.”
That seemed to settle it. Orion took one last feel of Jareth’s forehead before escorting the physic down to the entry level, where Heracles and Orpheus were on their regular shift at the entry.
Zeus was having his usual sleeping period and men were coming in and out of Aphrodite’s Feast, conducting business with their lady of choice.
It was just another normal day.
Once the physic departed, Orion headed back up to Jareth’s chamber, where he found Desdra sitting beside the bed, simply watching him.
He could see by the expression on her face how worried she was.
Truthfully, he was concerned as well. Fevers were never a good thing where wounds were concerned, and there had been pus in the wound when they cleaned it out.
Enough to see why Jareth had a fever.
Truthfully, if it got worse, Orion didn’t particularly want Desdra to be the one that had to see it first or, worse, deal with it.
He would feel better if he were the one on watch and not the woman who was clearly enamored with Jareth.
Given the fact that he now had a woman he was rather enamored with himself, he was all for sparing a lady’s feelings.
Especially if this situation was going to get worse.
“My lady?” he said, watching Desdra look up at him. “I will sit with him. Surely you have other duties to attend to.”
She shrugged. “There are some,” she said. “Ledgers must be kept up to date or the task is overwhelming. Since we have been gone, there are some figures I must catch up on.”
“Then go and do it,” he said, coming into the chamber. “I will sit with him.”
“But—”
He cut her off, but not unkindly. “Jareth would not want you to sit and stare at him,” he said, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want him to just sit and stare at you were the situation reversed.”
She looked a little sheepish. “Nay,” she said. “Probably not.”
He indicated the door. “Then go,” he said. “There is no valid reason for you to just sit here and watch him sleep. He will be out for quite some time. I will send word if anything changes, I promise.”
She stood up but didn’t move. “But you’re going to sit and just watch him.”
His smile broke through. “Because he has a fever and if it grows worse, I should be here to tend him,” he said. “I am not saying that it will become worse. Only if it does.”
Desdra nodded reluctantly, her gaze moving back to the bed where Jareth was sleeping heavily. “Very well,” she finally said. “I will go and finish up my work. But I will return.”
“I know,” he said. “But do not rush. He’s not going anywhere.”
It was a joke and she smiled, but it was forced. She was genuinely worried for his condition, but Orion was right. There wasn’t much she could do except sit at Jareth’s bedside and stare at him. Silently, she left the chamber, leaving Orion behind to monitor Jareth’s febrile condition.
There was nothing either of them could do now but wait.