Rosalie

When the Queen received the news that her daughter had fallen ill, the messenger had to duck to avoid the goblet that was thrown at his head. She flew down the hall, making anyone she passed press themselves against the wall in fear of her wrath. Her physician jumped when she stormed into his chamber, clutching his book to his chest.

"Your Majesty?" he stammered.

"Your incompetence should cost you your head!" she snapped. "To my knowledge, you knew what the early symptoms of Liympin were."

"I do, Majesty."

"So why has my daughter fallen ill with it? Storward Manor had no trace of this disease and yet she has become bedridden mere days after you declared her in complete health!"

He stuttered, unable to provide her with an answer. The old man was supposed to be the best, he had to be in order to become the royal physician, and yet in recent times he had constantly failed her. If the physician who had used hypnosis on her daughter had agreed to become her private physician, she would have sent this bumbling fool out of her kingdom.

She stalked over to his books, picked one up and flicked through it before throwing it on the floor. "What good are all these books if you cannot diagnose Liympin? On my daughter, your princess," she said, grabbing another book and throwing it to the floor. "What good are you as my physician if you will let my daughter die!"

"I would never, Majesty!" he spluttered.

The Queen threw all the books off the shelf and knocked over his small ornamental table. "Fail me one more time and you will never fail me again," she hissed before storming out of the room.

She found her advisor and ordered him to find a messenger and hunt down the nomad physician. Once found, he was to go straight to Storward Manor, regardless of whatever he was currently occupied with. She had lost her daughter once, she was not going to lose her again.

Prince Christian played the dutiful prince, demanding that he be allowed to travel to be by her bedside while she was ill, but the Queen wouldn't have it. She suggested that perhaps travelling back home would be safest for him, as she did not think that his father would be all too happy if he fell ill by staying unnecessarily in a contaminated court, but he disagreed. He preferred to be confined to the wing that held his and his cousin's chamber.

It took two days for the nomad physician to be found and when the Queen received word that he was on his way to her daughter, she prayed that all would be well. It was well-known that Liympin could progress rapidly and become fatal in a matter of days, so she hoped her daughter did not take a turn for the worst.

When the physician arrived at Storward Manor, the doorman was wearing a cloth wrapped around his mouth. Each person he passed also had a cloth over their mouth, and when he reached the door to the chamber the princess was in, Lord Bastian was waiting for him and he too was holding a cloth to his mouth.

"There has been blood?" the physician asked, gratefully accepting the cloth the lord held out to him.

"Three pillows have been stained red," the lord said, only removing the cloth when he spoke. A servant approached them with a basin of water. "She has a high fever and the redness has spread up her arm."

The physician nodded solemnly before tying the cloth around his mouth and entering the quarantined chamber. He was surprised to see that the woman at the princess's bedside was not a maid but was in fact a well-dressed lady, one he presumed to be the companion of the princess. She was pressing a damp rag to the stricken girl's forehead but turned to look at him as he entered. Her mouth was also covered with a cloth that was tied around her head. However, she did not remove it when she spoke.

"Are you the physician?" she asked.

He peered at her. "Are you showing any symptoms?"

She shook her head and looked back at the princess. The physician went around to the other side of the bed and placed his bag of equipment on the bedside table. The last time he had tended to the princess, her complexion had been pale and one arm was bandaged. Now her complexion was pale once more, but her cheeks were flushed and when he touched her forehead it felt hot and sticky. Both her arms were bare and lying upon the covers, showing him that the rash was on the opposite arm. The marred skin on the other looked untouched by the disease, something which was curious to him. An old wound would normally be the spot that a disease such as Liympin would fester.

He covered his hands with the cloth gloves he had and picked up her affected wrist, pressing his fingers down tightly to feel for her heartbeat. "Never have I seen this progress so rapidly," he murmured.

"She felt faint while at court but told no one," the lady confessed.

"The survival rate for Liympin is not high if it progresses past the fifth day without treatment."

She looked at the princess worriedly. "She cannot die."

"Death does not pass over royalty."

The princess turned her head slightly and opened her eyes, dazedly gazing at the physician. "I always knew I would die if I lost my freedom," she murmured, her words slurring together.

"Don't speak like that," her lady protested.

The physician opened his bag and pulled out a syringe and a small bottle of liquid. He filled it halfway before picking up the arm that had the rash spreading up it. He tapped her arm several times before sliding the needle into her skin and injecting the liquid into her bloodstream. The girl shuddered as he removed the syringe and let her arm drop.

He turned to the servant who had followed him in with the basin and took it from him, allowing the man to leave the room. The lady took it from him, placed it on the bedside table on her side and dropped a new cloth into the water, letting it soak up before squeezing it out and placing it gently on girl's forehead. He watched closely as the princess shut her eyes again, waiting to see whether she would reject the concoction he had just given her.

Liympin was not a disease he was very familiar with, having only encountered a handful of people who had been stricken with it, but he was well aware of just how fatal it was. Most concoctions that were used by physicians only succeeded in prolonging a sufferer's life, mostly because detection often occurred by the time it was too late. If he had to go by how the princess looked, he would say that it appeared to have been discovered too late.

"When should the fever break?" the lady asked after a few moments of silence.

"You must understand that it may never break," he said gently.

She looked at him sharply before shaking her head. "It must break."

"What do you know of Liympin?"

That made the lady stop for a moment. "I know it had been eradicated," she said slowly, looking back at the princess, "but that it is a terrible disease. Most of its victims do not survive and the final phase is horrid."

"Then you must know that one of the first signs of entering the final phase is the expulsion of blood."

The lady looked at him then at the princess once more before she excused herself, rushing out of the room. He knew he couldn't confirm the final phase until the rash began to weep, but the knowledge that she had already stained three pillows was not good.

He left the chamber and summoned a servant to prepare a broth of specific ingredients before seeking out the lord and enquiring about how his own physician had tended to the princess. He was pleased to discover that prior to his arrival, the girl had been leeched twice. He had hope that the leeching might help the concoction flow through her blood quicker.

When the physician returned to the chamber, he was without the broth. He was disappointed that the servant had said the cook needed a little long to stew it, but that disappointment faded when he closed the door and noticed the man that was sat at the bedside of the princess.

"Who are you?" he asked as he secured the cloth back around his mouth.

The man looked towards him and stood. "I came to check on the princess."

The physician approached the bed and looked at the girl, his eyes falling on the arm that had the rash. Before he had left, the rash was spread from wrist to above the elbow but yet as he looked at it now, it didn't stretch as far. The princess opened her eyes and he touched her forehead, baffled at how her rash had changed.

"I suppose you can tell the Queen that I am cured," she announced, her voice still low. She turned her head to look at the man and reached out for his hand, grasping it lightly. Yet the man did not look fearful, like most would when a person with Liympin had touched them. In fact, if the physician didn't know better, he would have said that the man looked relieved.

"Who are you?" the physician repeated.

The man looked back at him. "I'm her guard."

"What did you give her?"

"Nothing," he replied sharply.

The physician dismissed his words and looked back at her arm, his eyes widening as the rash had grown smaller once more. "I do not believe it!"

"It seems as if your concoction has worked," the man said.

He looked between the princess and her guard, taking note once more of there being no cloth around his mouth. From what he had observed during the time he was at court, it was not at all common for a guard to sit at a royal's bedside. Not even the Queen sat at her daughter's bedside. The lady he had seen when he first arrived had sat at the bedside because she cared for the princess and was close to her. Guards were not supposed to be close to those they served.

The physician might have been old but with age came knowledge. "Do not mistake me for a fool," he chided, removing the cloth from his mouth. "My concoction did no such thing. That was not its purpose. You have given her something. What, I do not know. However, I do not believe you are her guard."

His words made the princess give a weak laugh. "You may even ask the Queen. He is a guard of my household. There are other guards of mine here, and you could even ask them whether I am fond of them all. I am sure you would receive the same answer from them all."

The guard moved away from the bed and went towards the door, only stopping when the physician spoke. "You may have saved her life, with what you gave her," he said.

Not a flicker of emotion crossed the man's face. "I did no such thing," he replied before swiftly leaving the room.

"You have cured me," the princess said, making him looking back to her. "The only one who will refute that is yourself."

He was aware that she was more familiar with the guard than she ought to be, but he knew better than to tell the Queen. After all, he wanted to discover what the man had given the princess to cure her and making the Queen suspicious of him was not the path to go.