and bright and not too warm. Shandy Dunstan lifted his master, gritting his teeth to repress his alarm. "Those stupid Sidhe have left it too long," he muttered under his breath, probably thinking FitzRoy couldn't hear him.
But there was nothing wrong with Harry's hearing, though the rest of him was failing. They looked down at a body weighing nearly nothing, and the movement was enough to set off a new spasm of coughing. Dunstan looked around in alarm. He had sent Mistress Bethany to procure fresh kerchiefs, but if she heard FitzRoy coughing she might come back too soon and make Dunstan leave him alone.
Which, at the moment, was what Harry would rather have had.
A nearly transparent hand wearily raised an already stained kerchief to FitzRoy's mouth. He wiped his lips and whispered, "Let me lie, Dunstan. You say the sun will do me good, but you know and I know that nothing will do me good. I only wish I knew how Denno was."
To FitzRoy's intense surprise, Dunstan grinned. He had not really smiled in over a month. "Just don't order me not to take you out, Your Grace, and you're likely to find out."
"What?" FitzRoy mumbled, not sure he had heard aright.
"Yes, and there's a nice visitor wanting to see you, only she can't come in the palace."
"I don't . . ." There was a pause while FitzRoy coughed again. This time Dunstan took the bloody kerchief from his hand and put a clean cloth into it. "I don't think I really want to see even Mary," he added when he could speak again.
"Not your wife. It's a Lady Aeron that's looking for you, but she's a little too big to get entrance into St. James's through a door, so we have to