Loppe, sponging him down, said, "Did you get what you wanted?"
"Yes, I'm still alive," Nicholas said.
Loppe said, "You'll die, if you don't quiet down. You'll die before you are thirty."
"Twenty," Nicholas said. "She used to say twenty. No, I shan't. I'm as strong as you are."
The sponge lifted, dry and hot, from his body. After a moment, Loppe soaked it again. He said, "What else did you hear?"
"I heard you lying most convincingly. Thank you," Nicholas said.
"But you must go on with it?" Loppe said.
"Jason did," Nicholas said. He heard Loppe snort his contempt, and almost smiled. he said, "Where have we got to? I have sown my own seed, and reaped a battle."
The sponge stopped. Loppe said, "Do you want to get better?"
Nicholas opened his eyes. Loppe looked angry. Loppe said, "Even me. You don't even trust me, do you?"
The room faded, and came reluctantly back again. Perhaps he would die before he was thirty. Even in the Abruzzi, he had not felt like this. Nicholas said, "What more do you want? No one confides everything, least of all menials."
Loppe said, "I trust you." His eyes, root-dark ringed with clearest white, looked as stern as Godscalc's.
"Don't," said Nicholas.
Spring of the Ram by Dorothy Dunnett