All the Queen's Men Read Online Free PDF Page A

and she didn't eat anything that night; again, she drank a lot of water. "Try to get some sleep," he said, and obediently she lay down on the blanket he had spread out for her, but he watched her breathing for a while and knew she didn't sleep. She was lying there staring into the shadows, aching for the husband who wasn't there and never would be again.
    Tucker stared at her back. She and Dallas had been circumspect in their behavior, refraining from public displays of affection, but at night they had slept next to each other, with Dallas spooned protectively around her and his big arm draped around her waist. She had slept like a baby then, utterly secure.
    Perhaps she couldn't sleep now because she was alone and could feel the chill on her back. It was a simple thing, the kind of routine married couples seemed to develop so easily: the comfort of human warmth in the night, the sound of a loved one's breathing. Perhaps it was the trust, the intimacy, that meant so much. Intimacy didn't come easily to Tucker, trust even less so, but he knew it had existed between Niema and Dallas. Dallas's death had left her bereft, and she no longer found comfort in the night.
    Tucker sighed inwardly. The sigh was for himself, because he knew what he had to do, and knew the cost.
    He got a bottle of water and silently went to her, lying down behind her on the blanket and placing the water nearby. "Shhh," he murmured when she stiffened. "Just go to sleep." He curved his body around her, giving her his heat, his strength. Pulling a second blanket over them to keep out the cold, he anchored her to him with his arm around her waist.
    He could feel the fever inside her; the heat emanating from her body wrapping around them both like a third blanket. Still, she shivered a little, and he pulled her closer. She lay on her uninjured left shoulder and held her right arm very still so as not to jar it.
    "The fever's fighting the infection," he said, keeping his voice low and soothing. "There's aspirin in the first-aid kit, if you get too uncomfortable, but unless the fever gets a lot higher I suggest letting it do its job."
    "Yes." Her voice was thin with fatigue, listless.
    He stroked her hair, his touch gentle and tried to think of some way to occupy her mind. Maybe if she could just stop
thinking
she could sleep. "I saw a solar eclipse once. I was in South America." He didn't get any more specific than that. "The weather was so hot the air felt sticky. Cold showers didn't do any good; I was sweaty again as soon as I got toweled off. Everyone wore as little clothing as possible."
    He didn't know if she was listening; he didn't much care. He kept that soothing, gently monotonous tone, his voice just barely above a whisper. If he could bore her to sleep, so much the better.
    "It had been on the radio that there would be a solar eclipse that day, but the heat was so miserable no one much cared. It was just a little village, not the type to attract any eclipse chasers. I had forgotten about it myself. It was a sunny day, so bright the light hurt my eyes, and I was wearing sunglasses. The eclipse slipped up on me. The sun was still shining, the sky was blue, but all of a sudden it was as if a cloud had passed over
    the sun. The birds all stopped singing, and the village pets hid.
    "One of the villagers looked up and said, 'Look at the sun,' and I remembered about the eclipse. I told them not to stare, that it would blind them if they looked too long. The light was eerie, if you can imagine dark sunshine. The sky turned a really deep shade of blue, and the temperature dropped at least twenty degrees. It kept getting darker and darker, but the sky was still blue. Finally the sun was completely covered, and the solar halo around the moon was . . . spectacular. On the ground we were in a strange, deep twilight, and everything was quiet, but overhead the sky glowed. The twilight lasted for a couple of minutes, and during that time the entire village stood