Part 11

Four days. Four bloody days.

Momoshiro glared at the attendant assigned to him, now a young man who could run back and forth at Momoshiro's rather irate will. His fever had broken, but the physicians still declared he was too sick to go out riding or travel to far from his room. Momoshiro attempted to argue, but in truth he was still weak. He couldn't walk under his own power for more than an hour, and he was barely holding down thick broth and water.

He was currently situated in the window seat of his room, numerous blankets tucked around him and his back supported by a swatch of pillows. He cupped a mug of a thick medicinal tea that the physicians said he was finally ready for, but if he had his strength back the cup would have been smashed between his fingers by now.

Four days. Four bloody days!

What was Kaidoh thinking? Did he think Momoshiro had forgotten him? Four days was certainly not as 'quick as he could'! He itched to just jump on Duncan and ride at break neck speed back to his lover, pick him up in his arms, and never let him go. But he couldn't… and he had a sneaking suspicion that court magician had something to do with it.

But why would the court magician not want him to go retrieve Kaidoh? What was the problem? He'd negotiated peace between their countries even without marrying Lady Anne, so why would there be a need to keep Momoshiro sick? Nothing made sense.

He heard the door to his chambers creak open, and his brows puckered. He told his attendant to leave him be. He turned, a snarl ready on the tip of his tongue, but swallowed it when he saw who was really standing in the entrance to his room.

"Comfortable, Prince Momoshiro?" the Court Magician Fuji purred in a voice that was more ice than anything human.

Momoshiro glared at the magician, but decided that keeping a civil tongue was wiser than a snap that could come with hidden and very real consequences. "Enough," he replied, not taking his eyes off the magician.

"His Highness sent me to see if there was anything I could do for your condition," Fuji explained.

What, like make it worse? Momoshiro snipped in his head. But he kept that to himself. "The physicians say it's just a bad fever. I'll be better soon."

Fuji shrugged his shoulders, coming further into the room. Momoshiro resisted shrinking back from the man as he came within touching distance. "His Highness was concerned this was actually a bad reaction to the binding spell."

No, really? "I'm sure it wasn't," Momoshiro turned aside Fuji's concern. "Our own court magician has performed spells around and on me several times and there have been no ill effects. I probably caught something on the road."

"From those little forest men, I would bet," Fuji remarked.

"I doubt that," Momoshiro said. "They were clean and friendly. I doubt it was anything from their home or themselves."

"Are you so sure?" Fuji asked. "Perhaps I should check…" He moved forward, as if to touch Momoshiro's forehead.

"You will do no such thing," Momoshiro snarled, reaching up and slapping the hand away before he knew what he was doing. "You've done enough. Thank you for your concern, Master Fuji, but I think the physicians have my condition under control."

For a moment, Fuji's eyes split open and Momoshiro couldn't help but shiver at the cold blue depths that peered at him. Slowly, the magician's hand withdrew and he bowed.

"As you wish, Prince Momoshiro," he purred, suddenly warm, and Momoshiro's blood ran cold.

Without another word, Fuji turned on his heel and left the room. The room seemed to lighten with the magician's presence suddenly gone, and Momoshiro breathed a little easier. He looked down at the cup of tea in his hands and grimaced. He wasn't going to let the magician win.

Steeling himself with courage and his love of Kaidoh, he brought the mug to his lips and downed the infusion, the taste of grass stuck in his mouth the rest of the day.

"He's not coming."

"We don't know that. There has to be a reason. He's probably caught up in political problems, since he's refused to marry the Lady Anne, I suspect."

"It doesn't matter. It's been four days. He isn't coming."

"We have to give him more time. He said he loved him, he'll come."

"He signed it with 'love'. He never said he loved him. Face it, Choutarou, he's not coming!"

Oishi sighed, shutting the door the library. The arguments had been running like that since yesterday. Their house had become divided – those who thought Momoshiro might still come, and those that believed Momoshiro had lied. Oishi wanted to believe that Momoshiro would come, but four days was a long time to wait when the Capital was only half a day off. He desperately wanted to believe that Momoshiro was wrapped up in some political debates or sick, but his head said that was unlikely. What if he had gone ahead with the marriage? How would Kaidoh feel?

At the thought of his adopted son, Oishi fought back tears and leaned forward at the desk, resting his forehead on his hands. Kaidoh still had not awakened. Nothing about his countenance had changed at all. Choutarou and Eiji sat with him during the day, sometimes reading him stories at night or telling him of their day. But it did no good. Kaidoh didn't even show that he heard them somewhere in the depths of his sleep.

Yagyuu and Inui had finally given up on looking in their library. There was nothing there on this sort of condition. Still, both men were in the library across from Oishi at the window, looking through several books again, though with little enthusiasm. Oishi was certain they had poured over the books with such intense scrutiny as to set the pages on fire, but it made them feel as if they were trying to solve the problem instead of sitting around arguing like the rest of the household.

Oishi looked up at the sound of a book being slapped shut, Yagyuu rubbing the bridge of his noise and sagging in his chair, a clear sign of his defeat.

"Go take a break Yagyuu," Oishi murmured.

Yagyuu looked over at Oishi with a look of pure contempt, but Oishi ignored it. Yagyuu continued to glare at him, and when Oishi refused to break eye contact the man finally sighed and rose from his chair.

"I'm leaving," he announced.

Inui raised a brow. "I thought you wanted to go over those biology books once more."

"They don't have what we need," Yagyuu spat in uncharacteristic annoyance.

Inui slapped his own book shut. "Then what do you suggest we do?" he demanded in the way Oishi knew meant Inui was at the end of his last shred of nerves.

"You will stay here," Yagyuu snapped. "I am going to go to the Capital."

"You're what?" Oishi demanded.

Yagyuu turned his gaze on Oishi. "I'm going to the Capital. I have some favors I can pull to get me into the royal library. I'm sure they'll have what I need."

"The Capital?" Oishi repeated. "Yagyuu…."

"It's for Kaidoh," Yagyuu snapped. "I'll be fine. I go for trade day anyways, I know it better than any of you."

Oishi went silent, watching Yagyuu seriously. "See if you can't find out where Momoshiro is while you're there."

"Oishi!" Inui protested.

Oishi raised a hand to silence Inui. "It's for Kaidoh," he said slowly. "And it's our best chance of figuring this out."

Inui seemed to want to attempt to argue, but closed his mouth with a click and finally nodded.

Oishi turned back to Yagyuu. "Hurry and go. Try not to let the others know."

Yagyuu nodded and left the library, leaving the two men in a tense silence, Kaidoh's presence above their heads weighing heavily on their shoulders.

"How as he?"

Eiji looked at Oishi as he entered their room, slipping out of his night robe and crawling beneath the covers to Oishi's side. Eiji had been upstairs reading to Kaidoh, and from the look on the redhead's face it had not gone well. Oishi wrapped his arm around Eiji and the man snuggled against him, pressing his face to Oishi's chest.

"Still sleeping," Eiji mumbled.

Oishi rubbed Eiji's back. "What did you read to him tonight?"

"One of his old favorites," Eiji replied. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. I found it at the bottom of a box of old books he had."

Oishi tried to give Eiji a smile, but found it hard to fake one, even for the redhead. He squeezed his shoulder instead. "I'm sure he appreciated it."

"I wish things like fairy tales would come true," Eiji sniffed.

"Why?" Oishi asked.

"Because if they did, we'd just have to drag that Prince down here to kiss him and he'd wake up," Eiji burrowed deeper into Oishi's side.

Oishi sighed, turning to wrap both arms around Eiji and hold him tight. "I wish it were that simple too."

Eiji just nodded and snuggled closer, and they both took comfort in each others pain while upstairs Kaidoh continued to sleep.

Yagyuu breathed in the heavy scent of books. It was thick within the royal library, but that was only natural. The library itself was huge, scaling two stories and almost every inch of the walls covered in books. The only sections not covered were two large bay windows and a great fireplace, a painting of Queen Ryuzaki - who had originally ordered the library built nearly four hundred years ago – hanging above the hearth.

The library was empty at the moment, the fireplace still, and the only light coming from the large windows. Yagyuu sent a vague and mild thanks to his informant, a castle worker that snuck him inside. He had roughly six hours to find the books most relevant to his adoptive son's situation before his informant said he had to leave, and he had best be as thorough as possible since he had no idea if he could return anytime soon. His rather questionable past made him a less than favored figure within the capital's wall – at least within the nobilities' sections.

Turning his mind to the task at hand, he climbed to the second level of the library and made for the rear left section where the medical text were kept according to his informant. He spied several books his personal library was already in possession of, so focused on the much larger volumes that had been more recently produced than his own copies.

He gathered four in his arms and slipped to a back corner of the room that gave him a view of the entrance as well as keeping him out of a view, allowing him time to hide should someone unexpected come in the library. He glanced out one of the bay windows, noting the position of the sun, and then set to scouring the books.

He could only pray there might be an answer here.

"Sire, I can retrieve whatever it is you wish to read," panted Momoshiro's new attendant (the old one retired, being unable to put up with Momoshiro's surly temper and random items being thrown at him).

Momoshiro turned and leveled a dead serious gaze at the young man, who gulped and crashed to a halt as if he'd hit a brick wall. Momoshiro clutched his hands together in twin fists, his lips tight.

"I don't care what the magician or the physicians or anyone else told you," he growled. "I want to go to the library and sit and read for a few hours. I want out of my room and that ridiculously tiny garden. Do you have a problem with that?"

The attendant gulped and shook his head, his blue eyes wide in fear. Momoshiro snorted and turned back around, marching towards the double doors that led into the Royal Library. There was no sound of the pattering of small booted feet following him, and when he glanced back the page was no longer visible. Momoshiro didn't give a damn.

It had been five days now, and he was lucky that he had the strength to make it to the library under his own power. The medicinal teas had helped – though he hated to admit it – and he was sincerely glad he had not let that magician touch him. He was on the way to recovery, faster than the medics expected at this point, and he intended to keep his streak going. He would be well in two days, and then he would be riding straight for Kaidoh and damn the consequences.

He thrust the library door open and strode though, slamming it shut behind him with a sort of wicked glee. He paused to make sure no one else was in the library before making for the far right hand wall where the novels were kept. Queen Ryuzaki built the library for two purposes: to store critical information on the Kingdom and its Allies and Enemies, as well as to store those writings that gave her pleasure and let her escape the life of being Queen for a few hours each day. Even after her death, her granddaughter, Queen Ryuzaki Sakuno, continued adding to the library, and it became tradition for each monarch to give some sort of published work to the library during his or her reign. As it was, the upper levels contained numerous medical, magical, and other scholarly texts while the bottom level held novels, grouped according to their content and then by author name. Momoshiro had been exploiting this vast collection over the past four days, sending his attendants running for more and more books since all he could do for any length of time was sit up and read.

He selected a rather hefty volume from the shelf, noting it was a collection of fairy tales gathered from around the known world. Figuring it was better than nothing, he made for one of the plush chairs near the fireplace and made himself comfortable reading the tale of 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves', yet listening for the approach of angry medics, as he assumed his attendant would no doubt inform them of his rebellion.

"Is this what you have been doing all this time?"

Momoshiro jumped, the book flapping to the ground. He spun in his chair, eyes widened as he caught sight of the man standing at the top of the staircase to the next level, his arms crossed and looking down his nose at Momoshiro with the hair of the highest of the nobility.

"Yagyuu?" he blubbered.

The man descended the stairs, striding before Momoshiro before the Prince could make a move of his own. For the first time, Momoshiro knew what Yagyuu's livid face looked like. Akin to the King's, it struck fear in Momoshiro's heart and sent ice through his veins, and he was entirely certain he would have been dead if looks could have killed.

"Well, I'm glad I at least got one answer while I was here," Yagyuu hissed, sending a pain through Momoshiro as it made him think of Kaidoh.

"What do you mean?" Momoshiro demanded, recovering himself.

"What do you think I mean?" Yagyuu snapped.

"Well, I don't know, else I wouldn't be asking!" Momoshiro spluttered back.

Yagyuu's face was livid. "This is how you show your love for my son? By sitting around reading novels?"

Momoshiro's eyes widened. How had…? Did Kaidoh tell them? Well, it was no matter now. They knew. His shock turned to righteous anger and he glowered back at Yagyuu. "For your information, Yagyuu, I've been sick with a fever for the past five days! I'm lucky I could make it to this library under my own power and medic not tackling me!"

Yagyuu continued to glare at him, but didn't immediately reply. His eyes looked Momoshiro up and down, as if taking in his paler than usual coloring, the angry redness to his eyes, the little bags beneath his eyes from nights of sleeplessness thanks to thinking of Kaidoh, worrying over him, and the fever making it to hot to be comfortable.

"Well… I suppose you would have come sooner barring that, and if you had known," Yagyuu relented.

"Known? Known what?" Momoshiro demanded.

Yagyuu regarded Momoshiro very seriously. "Soon after you left, we found Kaidoh in the woods, asleep. He's been sleeping ever since. Nothing we do wakes him up."

Momoshiro's eyes bugged out in horror. Kaidoh had been sleeping for five days? No one did that! "What's wrong with him?" Momoshiro demanded, grabbing at Yagyuu's collar.

Yagyuu calmly disengaged Momoshiro's fist, brushing his front. "I don't know. Nothing in our library or this one mentions anything that could possibly be Kaidoh's ailment."

"Are you going back now?" Momoshiro asked, very near hyperventilating.

Yagyuu nodded. "My informant should be coming to fetch me shortly and get me out of here."

"Well, he'll be having two people to smuggle out instead of one."

Yagyuu's brows furrowed. "I only have one horse ready."

"And I have Duncan," Momoshiro snorted. "He has to get you down to the stables and out for your horse, right?"

"I'm not a fool," Yagyuu snarled. "My horse is stabled at an inn outside the nobility quarter."

"Fine then. I'll just rent a beast then," Momoshiro countered. One way or another, he was going to go see Kaidoh!

Yagyuu opened his mouth to argue, but there came a soft knock on the door in a swift pattern of two-three-one-two. He kept his glare on Momoshiro, and then finally nodded.

"Keep up," he said, turning on his heel and heading for the door.

Momoshiro would… or he'd die trying.

"What do you mean Prince Momoshiro is missing?" Fuji snarled at the quivering guard standing before him.

"We can't find him, Sir," the guard gulped. "His attendant came to fetch him from the library for his supper, and he wasn't there. The medics and guards have scoured all the places he would be hiding, and he hasn't been found, and we have no reports from the city saying he's at any of the taverns or whore houses either."

"Well, search harder," Fuji snarled.

The guard squeaked and fled, leaving Fuji to slam the door to the King's private quarters, dressed only in his lounging robe, and pace the room. How? How had this happened? He went to the window, biting at his thumb as he stared out at the castle grounds. There was nothing much to see, certainly not a rogue Prince. In fact, he was pretty damned sure he knew where the Prince was headed.

There were several outcomes to the situation. The most problematic was Momoshiro bringing Kaidoh back to seek medical treatment, as he had a right to do. There was the possibility of his sister seeing Kaidoh and recognizing her child, which then presented a whole more slew of problems he didn't want to deal with. There was the hope he would stay with the bastard and not want to come back. But that was unlikely. The Prince was a determined man, and wouldn't sit quietly by while his lover was 'sick'.

He needed time. He needed time to plan for what might happen. He glared out at the sky, his eyes brightening to icy blue for a moment, and he could feel the approach of a coming storm. He needed a few days, just a few. Then he would know what to do.

"Fuji?"

Fuji turned from the window, his eyes dimming to their usual sparkling ocean blue. He padded across the carpet and into Tezuka's arms.

"I've been waiting," he purred.

Tezuka pressed a kiss to Fuji's lips, hands cupping Fuji's hips. "Sorry," he murmured.

Fuji chuckled, and decided he could let the problem of Momoshiro and the bastard slip away for a few hours, and focus on his royal lover instead.

But tomorrow - oh tomorrow he would ensure that that bratty Prince and that bastard never made it back.

R&R please ! 3 - OB