Interlude: Gunther (Continued)

OOOOO

He had sunk into a kind of stupor there on the floor by Jane's bed, when the chamber door flew open and, to his immense surprise, Gunther found himself face-to-face with Jane's formidable mother, the Lady in Waiting herself.

Pepper, who had been sponging Jane's forehead, dropped into a deep curtsy, damp cloth still in hand; and Jane's father, who had been sitting beside her bed and reading quietly to her – something he'd taken to doing during her periods of relative calm, ever since he had returned from the battlefield himself, shortly after Sir Theodore – stopped off in mid-sentence, leapt to his feet, and embraced his wife without a word.

Feeling nearly drugged with exhaustion, Gunther forced himself to his feet, using the wall for support. "My Lady," he croaked, when she stepped back from her husband's embrace and her eyes met his.

"Sir Gunther," she said, inclining her head for a moment. "I have been told that it was you who carried my child to safety – twice. I am truly in your debt."

"No," he began, shaking his head, "you do not –"

But she held up a hand to silence him, and did it with such unquestionable authority that he obeyed. "I have been gone long, and there is much to be said, I am sure. Now, however, is not the time. I need to assess my daughter's condition, and tend to her. The rest of you must leave. Pepper, I arrived with the queen and she requests your attendance upon her immediately. She is in King Cuthbert's chamber and requires your assistance with his care." Pepper curtsied again and immediately made for the door, handing the dampened cloth off to Jane's mother as she went. Then Adeline turned her attention back to the two men still in the room.

"Husband," she said softly, pressing a palm against the Chamberlain's cheek in a gesture that was so simple and yet so intimate that Gunther looked momentarily away, "you cannot know how I have missed you. We have much to discuss. But for now you must go and get some rest. You look… overwrought."

"And you," she said then, finally turning her attention back to Gunther once her husband had pressed a brief, chaste kiss to her cheek and followed Pepper from the room, "forgive me, Sir Gunther, but you look half-dead on your feet. I must insist that you go and get some sleep as well."

She turned her back on him then, her dismissal complete, and crossed to the bed, sinking down on the edge of it and leaning close over her daughter's still form, smoothing back Jane's unruly copper hair with slim, pale fingers. Gunther thought he heard her whisper something like, "oh, my sweet daughter; my poor, poor child," as she pressed the back of her hand first to Jane's forehead, then to each of her cheeks in turn; an age-old technique used by mothers everywhere to gauge the severity of a child's fever.

As far as the woman was concerned, he was already gone. No one, after all, as far as Gunther could recollect, had ever gainsaid a dismissal by the Lady in Waiting.

She truly was surprised, therefore, when he cleared his throat, indicating his continued presence in the room.

Twisting around where she sat so as to look at him, she arched an eyebrow.

"Well?"

"With all due respect, My Lady," Gunther said, "I have not left Jane yet, and I do not intend to leave her now."

Jane's mother sighed. "Your sentiment is truly admirable, Sir Gunther, but you are clearly in grave need of rest and I assure you that Jane is in very capable hands with me."

"I would not argue that, and I am grateful you are here. But –" he swallowed hard; raked a hand through his hair. "This is my fault, you see, and so… I cannot leave her. I will not leave her. I have to stay."

Adeline frowned. "I was not given to believe that Jane's condition was in any way your doing, Sir Gunther – to the contrary, I have been told that your acts regarding my daughter have been nothing short of heroic. And while I deeply appreciate your continued devotion to Jane, I think you misunderstand me. I am not asking you to leave. I am telling you to leave. I will need to assess the nature and extent of my daughter's injuries, you see. This will require my conducting a… full inspection of her person. It would not be appropriate for you to be present during such a procedure. Do you take my meaning now, young man?"

"I… oh." In spite of everything, he thought he felt a flush mounting in his cheeks as he did indeed grasp her meaning. "Yes, I believe I do. I shall turn my back for as long as necessary. But I still see no need to leave this room. I have seen, dressed, and tended to Jane's wounds myself, on the battlefield. I already know what she has endured."

Now Jane's mother stood again, facing him across the bed; and the mounting anger in both her expression and her voice told Gunther that he was fighting a losing battle.

"Now, see here – I do not question what may be necessary during the heat of battle when there are no other alternatives available. But I will not have you in here during such a delicate procedure; not now that it is entirely possible for propriety to be observed! I will call you back in due time, Sir Gunther, but right now I must demand that you leave! IMMEDIATELY!"

He was defeated. There was nothing more to be said. For the first time in three days, Gunther crossed the room to the door. Even as his hand closed on the handle, though, he could not help throwing one last, tortured look back toward Jane.

Adeline saw this, and her stern expression softened. "I will call you back, you know. You have my word. But for now… you must sleep, my boy. You must. For your own sake, and Jane's when you do return. You will be of very limited use to her if you are nearly as delirious as she is. Sleep, Sir Gunther. Please."

Then she was turning away – and he was turning the door handle – and barely a heartbeat later, the door had closed behind him and he was cut off… cut off from the woman he loved more than his life, more than his soul, and who was in very real and immediate danger of drawing her last breath at any given moment now.

She said she would call me back. She gave me her word.

Yes, but what if the summons didn't reach him in time? What if the next time he laid eyes on Jane, his Jane, she didn't merely look like a corpse, but actually was one?

"Oh God," he groaned out loud, half falling against the corridor wall and scrubbing his hands against his eyes, rubbing at them like a child. "Oh Jane, Jane please…"

Steadying himself on his feet, he began to walk.

Jane's mother had said to sleep. His body was screaming for sleep. But he didn't make for his own chambers. The truth was that he wasn't actually aware, in any meaningful sense, of where his feet were taking him. Cut off from Jane, it hardly seemed to matter where he went. He was simply… adrift.

He wound up in the chapel.

OOOOO

Perhaps it was no accident that he was drawn to the ancient building; one of the oldest on the castle grounds. It was dim and cool, quiet, deserted and peaceful. He was still determined to deny himself the sleep his body was yearning for, but at least time spent in this silent, venerable place would be a somewhat passable substitute.

His feet were dragging, the world beginning to darken around the edges as he made his way up the center aisle. At the foot of the altar's stone steps he dropped to his knees. He'd had no clear intention in mind when he'd come in here, but now, quite suddenly, it seemed perfectly obvious what he had to do. He would repeat the vigil of his knighting ritual. He would stay here, kneeling before the ancient altar, until Jane either recovered or… he shook his head. There was no 'or'. She had to recover.

She had to.

He'd never been given much to formal prayer; he'd been raised by a father who'd had no time for Christian rituals and no use for Christian morals. A complete cynic, Magnus had preferred to make regular, handsome donations to his neighborhood parish, in effect buying his – and Gunther's – way out of needing to attend services.

So Gunther was a little at a loss right now. He found his mind wandering, and then he was recalling the image of Jane kneeling here, right here in this selfsame place, on the night of her own vigil a month or so after his.

He'd watched her for hours that night from the rear of the building, as one candle after another on the altar had guttered and died. Remembering how difficult, how taxing his vigil had been, he'd kept himself ready to spring into action at a moment's notice – to sprint up the aisle and catch her if she should have appeared in danger of fainting or anything of the like. She'd never needed him, though; never so much as swayed, as far as he could see – and he knew for a fact there'd been a couple of times he'd swayed and almost fallen himself during his own ordeal.

Her strength and steadiness had impressed him… even if he might have wished, just a tiny bit, in his heart of hearts, that she would have needed him even a little – would have given him the opportunity to catch her when she fell, to prove himself to her, to play hero just for a moment, just a bit.

He had to bite back a bitter laugh, now, at the thought. He'd wanted to play hero that night, and hadn't been given the opportunity. Now he'd been given the opportunity to be Jane's hero, and he'd failed her utterly.

The irony was brutal.

Beaten, raped, flogged, stabbed, her wounds infected, on the brink of death – and her mother was thanking him! Yeah, some hero he was. Some hero indeed.

It took a while, kneeling there, for him to realize that he was actually still crying; but the flow of his tears was silent now, and slow. Everything about him was exhausted and beyond exhausted; even, apparently, his tears.

He bowed his head and tried to pray. He would never be able to say with any certainty when it was exactly that he passed out, collapsing full-length at the foot of the altar with his head coming to rest cushioned – if you wanted to call it that – on the bottommost of the cold, stone steps.

OOOOO

Some indeterminate amount of time later, he was covered.

He was vaguely, peripherally aware of the approach of soft, decidedly feminine footsteps. "Jane?" he croaked, trying to fight his way back to something resembling at least partial consciousness- he attempted to raise his head from the step, but with no success whatsoever.

"Shhh," someone whispered, and after that there were only impressions.

The rustle of a gown; a pale, sad face; a whisper of long, dark hair; a faint scent of flowers. Small, careful hands; his head being lifted, a cushion slipped beneath it, a jug of cool water held to his lips before he was eased back down. And then something beautifully soft and warm billowing down, settling gently around him.

He watched her from slitted eyes as she set the jug of water down within arm's reach, and a burning taper a little further away. Why the taper? Was it dark already? He supposed it was. When she turned back toward him, he recognized her at last.

Of course. If the Queen and the Lady in Waiting had returned, it was only natural that she should be here too. "Princess…?" he managed hoarsely. And then, "what time is it?"

"Shh," she whispered again, returning to his side and folding herself gracefully to her knees. "It is time to rest, Sir Gunther. You need more sleep. I will sit with you a while. It does not seem right to leave you here, in the dark, alone."

He made one more, mighty effort at wakefulness – it was futile. A moment later he was drifting back into the dark embrace of a sound and dreamless sleep. Even so, on some deep, fundamental level, he remained aware of – and grateful for – the fact that he was no longer alone.

The next time he opened his eyes it was still dark, the taper still burning, and she was still there.

The time after, weak light was filtering through the chapel's high windows, the taper'd burnt out, and she was gone. He managed, that time, to reach the jug of water and gulp the rest down before succumbing to sleep once more.

And the third and final time it was dark again, she was there again, and all hell was breaking loose.

OOOOO

Coming fully awake was a slow and entirely unpleasant process for Gunther; even though nearly a full twenty-four hours had passed since he'd staggered into the chapel, his body was not ready to relinquish the sleep it had craved for so long. So he fought the waking process every step of the way, but to no avail.

It was relentless. Someone was shaking, shaking, shaking him, mercilessly.

"What?" he demanded groggily, trying clumsily, instinctively, to fend the shaker off. "Whatizit, what!?" Then he became aware of the voice.

"Gunther! Sir Gunther! You must wake up! Please! Please, you must!"

"Princess!?" Yes, it was Lavinia again, no doubt of it; and she was beside herself.

And then everything clicked in his mind.

"Jane!" Suddenly he was sitting bolt upright on the chapel floor; the oversized cloak with which, hours ago, she had covered him, pooling about his waist. "Princess – it is Jane?" This last was phrased as a question, but in truth he already knew the answer. It had to be about Jane. And from the expression on Lavinia's face, it couldn't be good.

Her eyes were huge in the gloom as she nodded. "Yes, she – oh Gunther, her fever, it –" he was already climbing to his feet as she continued, "her mother sent me to fetch you. We have to hurry. She says it is burning too fiercely; it cannot sustain itself like this any longer. Something must happen, and soon. She said – the fever, she said that it either –" Lavinia swallowed hard, clearly fighting for composure. "It has to break, or else Jane has to… has to… die."

At this, he was already running.

OOOOO

Skidding through the doorway of Jane's chamber, he found the room to be in a flurry of activity. An enormous basin, nearly the size of the bed itself and a good two and a half feet deep, had been set in the middle of the floor, and Pepper and the Chamberlain were in the act of filling it with water. Lavinia, who had darted in behind him, raced over to them, grabbed up two empty jugs from the floor, and ran out the door again, presumably to go fill them.

On the bed itself lay Jane – well, "lay" was not really an accurate term. Her delirium appeared to have returned full-force. Most of the bedclothes had been kicked entirely off onto the floor, and those that remained were a rumpled heap across the foot of the bed. The only thing Jane was wearing was a simple, thin white linen shift, which was soaked to the point of near transparency, and pasted to her slim form with sweat; he could clearly see where she was bandaged beneath it… and also where she was not. Apparently, fresh heights of panic had pushed Adeline beyond her former concern for Jane's modesty.

At the moment, Adeline was kneeling practically on top of her daughter, in an apparent bid to keep her still.

And Jane was… Jane was… a sick, icy fear lanced through Gunther's chest.

Jane was practically convulsing.

Barely aware of moving, he somehow found himself beside the bed, demanding to know what was going on. Adeline glanced up at him, her pale face drawn and haggard, ravaged by grief.

"She burns too hot, Sir Gunther. We need to submerge her in the cool water; that may help to bring down her temperature and break the fever. It is our last hope. But thrashing about the way she is, I fear she will drown herself!" A pair of twin tears spilled over, and flashed down the Lady in Waiting's face. "My beautiful Jane. My only child – I fear all is lost."

Gunther didn't think, didn't hesitate, didn't skip a beat.

He simply scooped Jane up (she was impossibly, scorchingly hot in his arms), strode over to the mostly-filled tub, and stepped in, sinking down into the water, fully clothed, with Jane held hard against his chest.

She gasped and stiffened against him as the cold water closed over both of them, trying to fight free of his grasp. "No!" she shouted, her voice hoarse; barely recognizable. "Get away from me! Get away, let me go! I have to reach Gunther – Gunther! He is killing Gunther!"

"Jane." He tightened his arms further. "Jane, stop – I am right here. I am here, Jane." He didn't seem to be getting through to her at all. He held her body in his arms, but she was someplace else entirely. And wherever she was, whatever she was seeing, she was absolutely frantic.

"Nuh… no… God, no… Gunther, NO!"

Lavinia bent close to his ear. "She has been going on like this for an hour, at least," the Princess whispered. Gunther barely heard her as he wrapped his legs, now, around Jane's struggling form too. She was expending too much energy trying to fight free of him; he needed to immobilize her; but the harder he held her, the harder she fought.

Damn her ridiculous stubbornness! She never knew when to quit! She needed this energy to fight through her fever, and yet in the midst of her delirium, she was throwing it away, trying to fend off those who were only there to help her. It made him want to howl with frustration, want to shake the sense back into her.

Forever. If you leave me I will hate you forever. And you are leaving me… you have already begun. Oh God, Jane… please do not. It will kill me. Please do NOT…

The room was still full of people and noise, but all of that had ceased to matter to Gunther. It was as if he and Jane, submerged together as they were, had somehow found themselves thrown into the eye of a storm. Activity swirled all around them, but there in the center they were… isolated, somehow.

The voices, the faces, of the others in the room faded from Gunther's consciousness until he no longer really registered them at all. At that moment, there was only one person in all the world that mattered to him.

Jane. Do not leave me, Jane. Do not let this sickness carry you away. Please do not go.

Her strength was ebbing; she was struggling herself into complete exhaustion. He had a sinking feeling that one of those periods of frightening inertia was approaching… and that it could well be the last. This time she might not recover.

But there was little he could do except hold onto her through whatever came… and pray. And pray. And pray.

"Jane," he murmured, his voice croaky and hoarse with emotion, "stay with me, Jane."

She was relaxing against him at last, her breaths coming shallow now, quick and erratic. Even reclining in the basin with cold water up to his chest, he was aware of the level of heat she was putting off; a level of heat that was just wholly and fundamentally wrong.

She was positively radiating it.

"Jane."

Her brow furrowed slightly at the sound of his voice, and she shook her head where it lay against his chest. It was a slow, tired, somehow defeated gesture. "No," she whispered, barely audible – even holding her clasped against him, he had a hard time hearing her now. "Gunther, no. He just keeps dying. I cannot reach him. I will never reach him." Her voice broke, the despair in it tearing at his heart. "Oh Gunther, please please no… not again… oh please not again…"

"Shh." He scooped up a handful of water and let it pour out gently over her face, the only part of her that had not been fully drenched as of yet. Then he ran his fingers lightly over her cheeks, her forehead, wetting her down and smoothing back her tangled hair. "God, you are burning up." He readjusted her in his arms, pulling her higher against him, so that her head lay nestled right against the base of his throat. She'd gone almost completely limp now, in his arms. When next he spoke, his lips were very nearly moving against the superheated skin of her temple.

"Jane, I know you can hear me. I know you can. You were listening a moment ago; I saw it in your face. You have to hold onto my voice now. Hold onto me, Jane. I am holding onto you – I will never let you go – but I cannot do this on my own. I know you are tired, but do not drift away. You need to fight this, Jane. Fight the fever… stay with me. Please, Jane, stay with me. Please."

He thought he heard her whimper very low in her throat, a sound like a wounded animal; that was all. And that was when he finally just came out and said it; the thing he had never been able to bring himself to say to her before.

"Jane, I love you." His voice was quiet, but tinged now with true desperation. The fear of rejection no longer mattered to him. The other people in the room no longer mattered to him. Let them think what they would; they were little more than ghosts to him at this point anyway; barely real.

Only Jane was real. Only Jane had substance and solidity, lying there so helpless and hurt in his arms.

'I have loved you forever," he choked out, "for years, Jane, but I was too much of a coward to admit it. So worried about my stupid ego, in case you should reject me. I do not care anymore if you reject me. I do not care if you wake up, climb onto Dragon and fly away and I never see you again. I could live peacefully to a hundred, just knowing you were out there somewhere, alive and happy. Only do not leave me like this, Jane – not like this. God, you are ripping my heart right out of me. Jane… Jane…"

He was losing the ability even to speak coherently, his anguish and fear were so strong. Dragging in a hitching, unsteady breath, he buried his face in her hair, inhaling the scent of her; despite the sweat and the sickness, she still smelled like… Jane.

"I love you so much, so so much, you stupid, stubborn, infuriating girl," he half-groaned, half-sobbed into her damp, bedraggled hair. "You cannot do this, Jane. It is too unfair. You have to stay. I love you. Stay with me. I love you… God, Jane…

…Stay."