The Embalmer's Apprentice by Lyra

Chapter 27

Warning for some violence, and the death of a major supporting character.

And then the King died.
Up until then, it had been a decent year without any major upheavals. True, state business had pretty much ground to a complete halt, which vexed Lord Atanacalmo and made him more sardonic than usual. Lord Eärendur also found it frustrating. But for me, personally, it made very little difference. My day-to-day life went well enough. Amraphel had managed to talk, or possibly guilt, her father into paying for a tutor who descended upon our house twice a week so our daughters would learn all the things young ladies needed to know. At this young age, that meant needlework, poetry, music and dance. Palatârik did not yet require that kind of tutelage, being still very much in the toddling stage of bipedal movement, although he absolutely loved to be present during these lessons and dance his own clumsy dance while my daughters increased in grace and skill. Azruphel continued to enjoy painting, and Amraphel had treated the best of her childish drawings like proper paintings and put them in frames in our studies. There were now chairs in every room that required them. There had been no great upheavals at work. We had checked on Old Palatâr's body again in spring, a year after it had last been unwrapped, and it had been unspoiled still. The garden had yielded generous fruit, and my finances were slowly beginning to recover from the exertions of the past years. The Daytaler's Welfare Society had managed to provide medical treatment for several of its members, paid the midwife's wages for four more, and even paid for some repair works on some houses so that they hadn't collapsed in the spring rains. In short, life had reached a good balance that I would not have been unhappy to continue forever.

But in the peace of winter, three weeks before Mettarë, that balance was brutally disrupted. It was late in the evening, and my household – with the exception of the sleeping children and Târinzil, their nurse – was gathered in the room of the Heart, as was our custom. The last conversations were drawing to a close as we prepared to go to bed when we heard somebody hammering on the door. Balakhil went to answer, and came back, ill at ease, to announce that the King wanted to see me and that a patrol of guards had come to escort me there. Obviously, there was no denying them, so I bid the household a good night and donned my warm cloak and went to see the guards.
"What is this about?" I couldn't help asking.
The patrol's leader slammed his fist on his chest in a formal solute. "His Majesty insists on your presence."
Now as I said, the business of state had come to a halt because the King had, in the past year, lacked the attention span and awareness to listen to proposals or sign laws (this was not told to the common people, but I knew it from my noble contacts, friends and otherwise). I therefore asked whether the King had recovered, and the guard took a while before replying, maybe figuring out how much he was allowed to say in public.
"He is lucid," he eventually said. "But the healers say that it is a sign of the end."
I thought of Old Palatâr, using his final days to finish unfinished business, and felt a cold that had nothing to do with the winter chill. The city was empty and silent – there was no need for a whole escort of guards, really – and the world was asleep, and I wished I could have lain in my bed, too, instead of walking at the guards' brisk pace through the dark and glistening streets. I hoped that the Crown Prince hadn't once more kindled the King's mistrust against me, and wondered whether they couldn't at least have waited for the morning.

The gates at the citadel had already been locked, of course, but they were opened again for the patrol, who naturally knew the password. My mind, eager to distract itself, wondered for the first time why the citadel was locked at night when it was guarded at all times, anyway. Did the King have reason to be afraid of his subjects at night? Or maybe it was an ancient custom that had been brought over from Middle-earth, like city walls or the Heart of the House. At any rate, I felt the hairs on my neck stand up as the guards behind the wall turned the keys and threw back the heavy bolts with noisy clangs that echoed in the moat-like street, and the great white gate opened to let us through before it was securely locked and bolted again. Up the stairs and to the palace we went, and there, my escort left me in the care of another – single – guard, who led me through darkened corridors with an Elvish lamp that made every sculpture and every piece of furniture cast eerie shadows.

In contrast, the King's bedchamber was full of candles whose light could have been warm and welcoming under other circumstances, but felt unsettling as it was. The air here was humid, smelling of beeswax and incense, and too many breathing, sweating bodies in a single space. In spite of the generous size of the room, it was too small to comfortably contain all the servants and healers, courtiers and noblewomen and what appeared to be the entire royal Council. The crowded space was filled with a constant hum of conversation, even though those closer to the door briefly fell silent when I was ushered in, staring me up and down in surprise or contempt. The mutter at the back of the room reminded me of the constant buzzing noise that filled the air if you stood among Lord Saphadûl's skeps.
Lord Saphadûl himself was present, too, sitting in a window-seat with some other councillors who evidently preferred comfort to a good view of the King. I could not blame them, for the King, lying in his large bed, looked terrible. In all honesty, my first thought was that there would not be much for us embalmers to do, since he looked nearly as withered and shrunk as a dried-out corpse. Had not his eyes moved, I would truly have thought that he was dead already, and had been for the entire year. His skeletal hands were clutching the sceptre, cradling it to his chest like a child might hold a doll, and that – the sceptre, I mean – made me realise that all the people present were here to witness the passing of power from the old King to the new, either in life or in death. I understood that I had been brought here at this unholy hour of the night not to inconvenience me, but rather because it was not expected that the King would see the next morning.

Right now, however, his eyes were alert – more alert than they had appeared the last time I had looked into them – and wandering over the crowd in front of him as if searching for someone. No less than four healers, Master Sérindo included, were hovering around him and fanning his face or offering him something to drink or wiping the sweat of his creased brow or bringing fresh towels. The Queen sat by his side, as did Lord Atanacalmo, looking serious and uncommonly sad. Next to him was the lady Calamíriel of Hyarnastorni, red-eyed and resolute. Behind them, Lady Arancalimë was whispering with the Crown Princess, who was weeping openly. Quentangolë stood on the other side of the bed, his usually cheerful face looking weary and distressed. The corners of his mouth twitched up for a brief, sad smile of recognition when our eyes met. Next to him, the Crown Prince was grinding his jaw in grief or anger (quite possibly both). Lord Eärendur was in the crowd, surrounded by other men I remembered not only from the feasts at the palace, but also from the Holy Mountain and from little lord Vanimon's birth feast: faithful folk like himself, no doubt. He, too, smiled sadly when he saw me, while most of the others, if they noticed my presence at all, looked me over with expressions of scepticism: What is he doing here?
The King's roving gaze found me, and I could see his lips move although I could hear nothing. Quentangolë evidently could, because he turned in my direction and waved for me to come forward. I really would have preferred not to, because the Crown Prince was clearly not happy to see me, and if looks could kill, then I would surely have crumbled to ashes right then and there. But somehow, I withstood the fury of his gaze and the affronted huffing of the gathered councillors as I wove through the crowd to get to the King's bedside. Already, a lump had risen in my throat, making it hard to breathe. Behind my eyes, I could feel the tears building up, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to hold them back for long. My heart and thoughts heavy, I knelt beside the enormous bed.

One of the King's frail hands left the sceptre and took my own hand, if take was the right word for so feeble a touch. His hand betrayed what his alert eyes were concealing: That he was barely still with us, that the greatest part of his strength had abandoned his body and it would not be long now until his spirit followed. I did not need to be a healer to know that.
"My embalmer," the King said in a voice like a sigh, and I felt my heart swell painfully against the iron grip of sadness.
"My lord King," I said.
"Keep me well," he breathed, and I tried to think of something reassuring to say, but all that came out was, "I shall, your Majesty," as my eyes welled over and I began to weep.
I thought that he might want to say more, but he did not; instead, he sighed heavily and stared up at the ceiling. After a moment, the Crown Prince pushed against me with his foot, clearly demanding that I make room for him. I did not even feel offended – his father was dying, of course he wanted to be closer to him – so I merely kissed the bony royal hand that still rested on mine, and then shuffled out of the way. I would not have minded to leave the room altogether, in all honesty; there was no reason why I should be here, now that the King had evidently said what he had wanted to say. But the King's bed was walled in by all the councillors and nobles, and I did not dare to push through them again, and so I just stood back as far as I could and wiped my eyes and tried not to sob audibly.

The Crown Prince was speaking to his father in a gentle voice that I hadn't previously known he possessed, reassuring him that he was there, by his side, his devoted son, until the end. The King made no reply, although his eyes were still open and his chest was still rising and falling steadily. I could feel the Crown Prince's grief radiating off him, like the warning smell in the air when a thunderstorm was imminent, and I wished that the King could have said something kind in return to his son's reassurances, but he seemed to have wasted his last words on me. The Crown Prince's voice now had a pleading quality to it as he asked for his father's blessing, and the sceptre while there was still time, and although the King's breathing grew more laboured, he still did not respond, except that his free hand returned to its grip on the sceptre. It did not look as though he wanted to pass it on at all, and I could see that this troubled several of the onlookers, and seemed to delight others. The Queen was whispering in her husband's ear, but he showed no sign of recognition. Lord Atanacalmo laid his hand on his brother's shoulder and said firmly, "Let him have it, Ancalimon. He is your son and heir." This prompted a bit of a stir among the councillors, and Quentangolë looked up sharply from the book in which he had been scribbling all the while. Apparently, this was unexpected. I got the impression that some people had hoped for Lord Atanacalmo to contest the Crown Prince's claim, and even though it smacked of treason, I couldn't help but understand the sentiment. I had my issues with Lord Atanacalmo, but he would certainly be preferable to the Crown Prince as far as I was concerned. But clearly, he had decided against it.

His intercession did not have the desired effort, anyway; if anything, the King's fingers curled more tightly around the gilded wood, his eyes now wide as if he were scared. Somehow I felt that it wasn't directed at his son, but rather that he feared that in giving up the sceptre he would also give up the claim to his life, frail though it already was, and he was clearly unwilling to do that even now. The Crown Prince's shoulders had begun to tremble, and Lord Atanacalmo continued to whisper urgently to his brother, and the King continued to breathe in and out, slowly and regularly, and refused to give either sceptre or blessing. The candles flickered. The councillors talked and shifted, and someone at the back of the room was snoring, and the Crown Prince was now crying quietly, but obviously. One of his hands lay on the sceptre, and still the King did not relinquish his grip. It was a feeble grip, naturally, and the Crown Prince could have wrested the sceptre from it very easily, but of course it was the message that counted, and the message was that the King was not yielding to his son. I heard these words muttered somewhere behind me, and very much hoped that the Crown Prince hadn't heard them also, although I suppose he knew well enough that his was what it was looking like. Time seemed to have come to a standstill. The hum of conversation had all but silenced, with everybody watching intently how the drama would continue. My throat was stinging from the sobs I was trying to suppress so as not to draw attention to myself.

The candles had burned about halfway down when there was a sudden change in the King's attitude, and his right hand abandoned its grip on the sceptre and reached for the Crown Prince's head. Although it did not really have the strength to pull him close, the Crown Prince readily let himself be guided. He ended up half-sprawled across the bed, quite undignified, awkwardly propped up on his elbow to avoid crushing his father's chest. But his brow was drawn against the King's lips, and that seemed to be the blessing that he had been waiting for. The gathered crowd let out a collective sigh of either relief or disappointment. No words were spoken, neither by the watchful audience nor by the old King. Eventually, the King's other hand let go of the sceptre, too, coming to rest on top of the Crown Prince's hand, and there was another stir in the room. I chanced to look at Lord Atanacalmo, who met my gaze, opening his eyes wide in a deliberate show of exasperation. The Queen leaned forward so that her head, too, was touching with her husband's and son's: to share in the blessing, or to say goodbye.

And with that, I suppose, the passing of the sceptre had been accomplished. But it did not mean that we had leave to go home at last. We stood – or in the case of lucky people like Lord Saphadûl or the King's immediate family, sat – for what must have been another two or so hours while the King drew belaboured breath after breath. Muted conversation was taking place again, but on my side of the room, I had no-one to talk to – the only friendly face in my immediate vicinity belonged to Quentangolë, who was still taking notes – and the only thing I could do was watch and let the mutters around me wash over me. It was all very unreal, and more than once I slipped into that strange state that your mind enters just before falling asleep. I worried that I actually might fall asleep on my feet and fall over. Yet again, I wished I didn't have to be here at this time. I wasn't on the council and I wasn't part of the royal household and there was no reason why I should have to be at the King's deathbed, and I dearly wished he hadn't summoned me to tell me things that we had already agreed on long ago.

It felt like that darkest hour in the night – and I suppose it was, at least figuratively – when the King's breath quickened. He reared up suddenly, giving us all a terrible start, and rasped "No! No! I am not ready!"
But ready or not, he fell back; he drew one long, bubbling breath and released it slowly; and then he breathed no more. And in this manner Tar-Ancalimon, King of Númenórë, in the four hundredth year of his life and the one hundred and sixty-fifth year of his reign, took the Gift of Ilúvatar. (These are not my words; it is what Quentangolë later put in the official record.)
For a moment, I think we all stared in shock. At least I know I did. I suppose the others may merely have waited to see whether there was going to be another breath after all. As it became clear that there was going to be nothing more, by and by, people began to kneel. The silk robes of the nobles were rustling and the woollen clothes of the guild-masters were folding softly and we were bumping against each other and into the tapestries, and even though I was crying, I felt a burst of shrill laughter that wanted to push past the grief because it felt so absurd how we were all trying to find some space for our legs in the crowded room. I fought it down and knelt along with the others, paying respect to the departing spirit of the old King.

And, of course, to the new King. The Crown Prince had sat still by his father's bedside, cradling the sceptre in the crook of his right arm, his face lowered reverently. As the silence deepened, his left hand moved to close the dead man's staring eyes; and when he had accomplished this, he lifted his head, and then he stood. I did not dare to look up, and I had the impression that the others around me were also bowing their heads even lower.
It was Lord Atanacalmo who broke the silence. Even he had clearly been affected by his brother's death, because his voice was still firm but dull, stripped of life and laughter. Still, he spoke strongly for all to hear: "Long live the King!"
"Long live the King," we chorused dutifully.

I don't know if I spoke too loudly or if, perhaps, I had raised my head at the wrong moment, but either way, the Crown Prince's glance fell upon my upturned face. His eyes, bright with unshed tears, darkened immediately, and he let out his breath in a threatening huff, like a bull that is about to attack; and then, in front of the royal household and the healers and the entire Council, by the side of the old King's death-bed, he struck me across my face with the sceptre. I was too surprised to even cry out as the hard wood broke my nose. Suddenly, there was an absurd amount of blood and a sharp pain and I was torn between the desire to protect my face and the fear of soiling the silk carpet. I tried to compromise by burying my nose in the crook of my arm and wrapping the other arm around my head just in time to make the second blow land, hard, on my wrist rather than the back of my head.
And I would not have been surprised if the first act of the new King had been to beat me to death right then and there. But by now, the rest of the court had unfrozen. Lord Atanacalmo had somehow lunged across the large bed to restrain his nephew's arm, and the Queen was standing in front of him, her hand on his shoulders, and one was pleading and the other was shouting at him not to spill blood in the night of his father's death and not to desecrate the hallowed sceptre. Meanwhile, I was pushing backwards in a panic, and now the throng was parting readily as the former Crown Prince yelled at me to get out, OUT, OUT! and Quentangolë was beside me and gripped my arm and pulled me to my feet. There was a lot of noise – everybody seemed to be yelling at each other – and when the door slammed shut behind us, the silence of the dark corridor was a blessed relief. My face was half burning, half numb, and I could not have told you whether I was crying out of pain or out of grief.
"We can't get him out of the citadel at this time," a dark voice behind me said as we hastened along the corridor, and I realised that Quentangolë wasn't my only companion. Master Sérindo had also abandoned the King's bedside. Of course, the new King did not at this time require his service.
"I know," Quentangolë said without turning around. "Let's take him to my rooms."
I breathed into my wet and sticky sleeve and let myself be led.

A servant was waiting in Quentangolë's office, and although his eyes widened at first as we came in, he very quickly regained his composure. I was worried now that my blood would get on any of the important documents, but it turned out that Quentangolë had a narrow bedchamber behind the long shelf at the back wall of his office. They made me lie down there, and the servant brought a bowl of cold water and fetched some towels. Master Sérindo unceremoniously pushed my arm down and put wet towels on my face. The stinging didn't lessen, but I had by now realised that I had far more severe problems than just the pain. If that was how the new King began his reign, then I might as well throw myself into the sea right away. But no; I would have to fulfil my promise to his father, first. I could not even try to escape before I had done that. If I lived that long, which was questionable. What a mess. I wept harder.
"What a night," Master Sérindo sighed heavily, as if he had heard my thoughts. Then he admonished me, "You'll have to breathe evenly, Azruhâr, otherwise the bleeding won't stop."
I tried to obey, and wondered what was happening up in the royal bedchamber now. I pictured the Crown Prince – no, the new King – roaming the corridors, snorting like an angry bull, looking for me to finish the job. I hoped I hadn't left a trail of my blood that would lead him right here. I hoped Quentangolë and Master Sérindo wouldn't get into trouble. They were speaking softly, over at the window, while I stared at the white plaster of the ceiling and the servant occasionally replaced a bloodied towel with a fresh one.

Eventually, the blood flow stopped, and Master Sérindo allowed me to sit up and drink a cup of water. "It'll probably mend itself," he told me, "but I'd like to take another look at it just in case. Come to my house in the evening. For now, keep on drinking; you've lost quite a bit of blood. My bag is still upstairs, so I can't give you anything for the pain. Maybe Quenno can get you some wine at least. I need to get back up. With some luck, I haven't been missed in all that commotion."
He had already washed his hands, but some of my blood had come on his sleeves, so they'd probably figure out clear enough that he had been involved with me, but I assumed that he knew that already, and I wouldn't have known how to advise him, anyway. So I just said, "Thack gou", as he left.
"So," the servant said, giving me a lopsided smile, "will you be joining us for tonight?"
"If I ngay," I said, with some difficulty.
That was apparently funny, because Quentangolë stifled a chuckle before looking serious again. "You misunderstand, Azruhâr." And to the servant, he said, "I'm afraid tonight is not a night for merriment. The King has died at last."
The servant let out a long, slow breath, but his face did not change. "Has he. Eru rest him. Well, it was to be expected."
"It was," Quentangolë said. "We all knew it. Still, it's different now that it's happened. I expect things will change quite a bit --"
The servant yawned, stretching. "Not for me, I don't expect. The Great come and go, but the lowly have to get on with their work."
Quentangolë grimaced. "I wouldn't rely on it. You and I were both in high favour with Tar-Ancalimon. That'll probably make us unpopular with the new King."
"Tar-Alcarmaitë," the servant said experimentally. "Or whatever he'll call himself. Well, I'm sure I'll be able to charm my way into his good graces." He smiled, and even I couldn't deny that it was a lovely smile in a beautiful face. If anyone could charm the former Crown Prince, it was probably someone like him. I found the corners of my own lips drawn up against my will, in spite of the relentless ache in my face, even though I did not care much for his attitude, simply because that smile was so contagious.

Quentangolë seemed to think so, too, because he also smiled. "Yes, you probably will. I'll have to work harder for it. For now, I'll have to go back upstairs myself. I'll need to make a record of the King's last hours so it can be proclaimed in the streets tomorrow, and I suspect I'll have to edit my notes quite heavily, so I should discuss that with – the new King. And of course they'll need the Will." He tilted his head, giving us both an apologetic look. "Azruhâr, get some rest. Fortulco, behave yourself."
"I always behave," said Fortulco, pouting, and Quentangolë smirked before placing a quick kiss on the pout. I felt my face grow warm.
"If I'm getting in the way of something --" I began, as well as I could enunciate the words through the throbbing mess that was my nose.
"You heard him, he's got to return to work," Fortulco said with a disarming shrug. "Besides, we can't kick you out in the street in that state, can we?"
Quentangolë smiled again, briefly, and nodded to us both. "We'll catch up tomorrow," he told Fortulco, and then he disappeared around the bookshelf. There was the scraping of a key and the creaking of a lid, suggesting that he was opening a strong-box – presumably to take out the King's Last Will – and then the lid slammed shut, and shortly after, the door to the study did the same.

Fortulco and I sighed at the same time. "Well, you look a mess," he told me. "What happened?"
"The new King is not fond of me," I mumbled.
"Oh. Oh dear. Well, would you like to clean yourself up a bit? And something to drink? Wine? Or something more powerful?"
"Water is fine, thank you," I said, or meant to say, although it came out sounding very different. In truth, I should have liked something more powerful, but I didn't want him to feel obliged to fetch something from the kitchens or wherever else in the middle of the night.
His lips twitched. "Well, suit yourself. For my part, I'll have some brandy, if you don't mind."
"I don't mind," I said absentmindedly, taking stock of my face in Quentangolë's small mirror. My nose had swollen to more than twice its usual size and was purple in colour, as was the rest of my face where the sceptre had connected. Blood had crusted around my nostrils and all the way down to my chin, but at least the skin itself hadn't split. I dabbed the blood off as well as I could without rubbing too hard on the bruised skin. My tunic was drenched both down the chest and at the elbow, and my wrist was sporting a dark bruise and hurt viciously. The new King certainly had a strong arm. I looked, I grimly thought, like someone who had walked out of a tavern brawl, not like somebody who had witnessed the solemn occasion of the King's death.
In the mirror, I could see Fortulco behind me, pouring some golden-brown liquid into a cup. I emptied my water quickly. It did me well – and the brandy probably wouldn't – but I was in no shape to be reasonable.
"Maybe we should drink to the memory of the King," I said in my strange nasal voice.
Fortulco's eyes brightened. "We absolutely should! I'll pour you some, too."
And we drank to Tar-Ancalimon the Merciful, to the long life he had lived and to the peace we hoped he would find, and the kingdom, too.

I spent the rest of the night looking out of the window, trying to figure out what would happen now. Quentangolë did not return, and after a while Fortulco asked if it was alright if he lay down and got some sleep because the next day would doubtlessly be busy. I nodded. Of course it was alright. I doubted that I would be able to sleep even if I tried, but that didn't mean he had to stay awake as well. I wasn't exactly in the mood for talking, quite aside from the effort it took, and I had been grateful that Fortulco had not asked for a longer explanation. I suppose curiosity wasn't encouraged in palace staff. Or he knew that Quentangolë would answer his questions. I wished someone could have answered mine, most importantly, what were my chances and what could I do to improve them?
Fortulco had curled up on the bed, but I sat awake and watched through the narrow window as the sky grew gradually brighter. A pale winter morning dawned, and I could hear that the usual dawn bells had been replaced by an ominous-sounding drum that rolled for a while and then fell silent. Now all the citizenship would know that something grim had happened, and soon, the criers in the markets would let them know exactly what.

Fortulco woke when the baleful drum boomed again an hour later, twice this time, and he went to have breakfast with the other servants. He came back with an apple, a hard-boiled egg and two dried sausages that he had snuck away from the table for me. I was grateful, although chewing hurt dreadfully, and I turned away from the room so Fortulco wouldn't see that I was crying again. Not all of them were tears of pain; I also wept for the loss of the King whom I had loved, who had raised me out of despair and squalour, but had now left me to the questionable mercy of his heir. I remembered getting up yesterday morning, cheerfully enough, expecting nothing worse than a cold winter day with its usual workload, and felt a great emptiness in my chest when I thought of the future under the reign of the new King.
And then I snuck out of the palace and went down to the royal morgue, because it was just as Fortulco had said: the Great come and go, but the lowly always have to get on with their work.