They arrived at the palace in what had to be record time, despite the constant drizzle and the cling of mud. By then she knew precisely as much as anyone knew about the king’s condition: he had been hunting in the woods, his horse had been seen suddenly running terrified and riderless, and two of his courtiers had stumbled upon him a moment later, standing still and gazing at nothing like a man possessed. They had thought they’d seen something moving away in the bushes as they ran up to him, but no one could say what that something might have been.
They’d brought the king back to the palace, his fever already beginning, and called for the best doctors in the kingdom.
That’d been five days ago.
And all the doctors, one by one, had shaken their heads, and the young king continued to fall
