Free The Eyes of a King by Catherine Banner

evening I was growing bored. I was laying out my uniform ready for the next day when Grandmother came to the bedroom door. “Listen, Leo,” she said. “I want you to stay at home at least until the end of next week.”
    I was surprised. “I thought you said Monday or Tuesday.”
    “There is a lot of silent fever in the city. It’s too dangerous for you to go out when you are weak.”
    “Well, I’ll be all right; I’ll stay away from anyone who looks ill. I have not caught it yet, have I?”
    “I am not worried about you. It says here that they think itmight be carried by people who have been ill or exhausted, and then passed on to others.” She held up the newspaper.
    “They have said that before.”
    “Aye, but they are proving it now. In the hospitals at the border. Listen to this.”
    She sat down and opened the newspaper. “ ‘A report from the doctors at the hospital at Romeira …,’ ” she began. She read slowly. I could hear when she got to the end of a line, because she paused while she found the beginning of the next. “ ‘… states that most silent fever cases occur in soldiers who … have been in contact with those returning from the … hospital, or those diagnosed with exhaustion…. These convalescing or exhausted soldiers often have low … immunities, and so carry the disease and pass it to those … who are healthy. This is further proof of the generally … accepted theory that people who are unfit, especially those … recovering from illness, carry silent fever and pass it … directly to people they come into contact with. People with … low immunities are susceptible to the germs … which then pass remarkably easily to healthy people.’ ”
    “You should not believe everything you read in the newspaper,” I told her. “And it is pointless to worry about silent fever. It goes around and people catch it, and whether or not you are careful the chances are the same.”
    “That’s not true,” said Grandmother. “Being careful is always sensible. Exhaustion, Leo—that was what Father Dunstan said. And that is what these soldiers have, the ones who are passing on the illness.”
    It was pointless to worry about silent fever; I was not just saying it to aggravate her. No one really knew how it was passedor how to treat it. “People are only scared of it because of the symptoms,” I told her. “Because you lose your sight and fall unconscious and can’t speak. They think it’s a serious disease, because the symptoms come on fast, when in fact most people recover.”
    “There are more serious strains,” she told me. “Slow-developing silent fever, class B silent fever. Do you know about those strains, Leo?” I shrugged helplessly. “You are not going back to school,” she told me. “You need to rest for a while longer.” And I did not argue.
    By Thursday evening I was going crazy with boredom. “I’m going out,” I told Grandmother and Stirling, putting my boots on.
    “Where?” asked Stirling. “Can I come?”
    “You are not going out,” Grandmother told me.
    “I’m getting bored here in the house,” I complained. “I need some fresh air.”
    “The air is not fresh; it is full of disease. Leo, stay in the house.”
    “Can I come to church with you later, then?”
    “Stay in the house,” Grandmother said. “Please, Leo. Or go out to the yard to get some air.”
    I went down to the yard. It was in shadow, although it was only five o’clock and the sun was shining in the street. There was a warm breeze blowing down the alley, and I stood beside the gate, where it was strongest. A breeze was unusual out here, for the houses rose so high on all sides that only a southeasterly wind could get in at all. Looking around the dingy space, I thought that Maria had been right: some plants would improve it. It could be a walled garden. A courtyard.
    I paced round the walls, imagining that this was a garden. But the yard was too small. If I had a garden, I would like