The Red Throne | TUQ Book Two

04 | eleven blades of sweetgrass

Five days have passed since the incident, but Anne’s condition had yet to improve. She bled continuously, and two days ago, she caught a terrible fever. Multiple physicians and doctors came to Blytherock Castle, but each of them left after saying that there was nothing that they could do. 

Edmund stood on the verandah, watching as the royal physician he had invited enter his carriage and took off. If even he could not cure Anne, then who can? He turned around and saw Anne fast asleep on the bed, and the large bed made her look so small, so vulnerable. Her skin felt so cold, and she was as pale as a sheet of paper.

         “Annie, what should I do? I have already done what I could, but you’re still unwell. Please Annie, tell me what I need to do,” he spoke, but Anne did not respond. She was barely conscious for the past few days, and today, she had not awaken at all.

Suddenly there was a loud knock on the door, and the head of Edmund’s soldiers, Sir Giles Burgess stormed in with an ecstatic look on his face. “Your Grace, we’ve found Elheim Castle!” he said, but upon seeing the Duke glaring at him for bursting into the room, he immediately quieted down.

          “What should we do now, Your Grace?” Giles asked in a lower tone, careful not to disturb the ailing Duchess.

Edmund stood up from the bedside and walked toward Giles.
              “I cannot leave at the moment. My wife’s condition is worsening day by day, and I don’t know what to do anymore,” he sighed.

          "I assume that old man Pattesley was unable to do anything, then?” the soldier asked, referring to the royal physician.

Edmund shook his head gravely. “He said that if Anne did not contract the fever, he might still be able to cure her. But now, it is almost impossible.”

Giles’s brown eyes narrowed in suspicion, and he said, “Well, he is close to the King. A loss on your behalf would be a gain for the King. But Your Grace, didn’t you once mention that your Lady Mother was good with medicine? Why don’t we go and rescue her now, and have her treat the Duchess? Besides, wouldn’t she know more about the Duchess’s sickness than old man Pattesley? It’s not as if he ever had miscarriage before.”

Edmund turned around and glanced at Anne. He had done everything that he could, and this was his last choice.         

                    “Yes... Yes, that will help,” he said, breathing heavily. He rushed to Anne and pressed a soft kiss on her cheek, whispering in her ear, “Annie, please wait for me to come back with help. Wait for me, love.”

♤

In the cold, unheated room of the dilapidated castle, Amaranthis waited. She had not eaten for days, but she would survive. Amaranthis was no ordinary person, after all. The condition she was in was far from pleasant, but she was smiling.

          “What are you smiling at, witch?” a rough, scratchy voice shouted at her. A tall and stocky middle-aged man walked towards her, and Amaranthis rolled her eyes in annoyance.

          “I met my daughter-in-law. Such a beautiful girl, albeit rather temperamental,” she sighed.

The man, Sir Humphrie Colkins, who was commissioned by the King to keep the Dowager Princess Consort locked in Elheim Castle, let out a slow, irritating laugh. “What daughter-in-law? Your son is long dead! He, your husband and your daughter are all in their graves!”

Amaranthis was forty-two years old that summer, yet she still had the appearance of a woman in her twenties. Humphrie noted that she looked the exact same as the day he first brought her here, not that he was complaining though. However, he loathed the fact that she refused all his advances, even after he offered to take her out of that damned place.