The Seahorse and the Spice 🪼🎩✔

20: Cold

I made a face at him and looked at him in confusion.
"Duke Barma, we have never met except this past few months when my brother's horse ran onto your estate. You speak as if we have known each other for years or more."
His face was pained as his hand slipped from my face and he turned away.
"Aye, you're right. I must have mistaken you for someone else." He said sadly.
His eyes seemed so forlorn, like he had wished I was the person he thought I was. I took his hand in mine gently and cupped my other hand over it.
"Tell me, Duke Barma, why you think that you know me? How could you have made me forget something when we've never met?"
"I made a wish on you." He said in a tired sentence as he looked away from me.
I blinked at him, for not very many people knew of my ability as well as my brothers'. Long ago, Mum taught us to always feign innocence about our abilities so people didn't think we were demons.
"I don't know what you're talking about Duke Barma." I said with a small laugh. "That's a preposterous-"
"I know that I can make a wish on you if I say it right, dammit!" he growled, coughing again and moaning, his eyes closed. "Now get out of here. I can't sleep with you hovering over me this way. When I am better, we will talk."
"Then can I ask one question?"
"Why not?" he snapped.
"That book... who is X?"
"Who the hell do you think it is? It's your brother... Now leave me in peace."
He wrapped himself in the sheets and shivered a little and finally seemed to have the draught take over again. I blinked at him and got out of the room, wondering what in the world he meant by what he said.
"Bastion!" I looked over as Xerxes walked up the stairs and ran to me. "I wanna see the duke."
"You can't. He is sick."
"He's always sick." He said with a sad frown.
"What do you mean?"
"He's just always sick... that's what Andrew said."
I nodded and I picked him up, taking him downstairs. Things were becoming very odd.

***********************

Minerva
I finished reading what was left of the book I had gotten from Duke Barma's shelf and blinked in such confusion. The story was very well written, that was for sure, but to know that the duke was the one who wrote it? I would have never thought of it.
"What are you reading?"
I gasped as Andrew looked at me with a smile. I smiled at him as well and held up the incomplete book.
"I would have never thought that your friend was a writer."
"Salem? A writer?"
"He is pretty intriguing and detailed."
"Hmm. I never thought of him as the writing type. I must go to the kitchen and tell the cook to make a light broth for him to eat. He hasn't been able to eat very much to being so sick."
"I can make him stew."
Andrew made a face at me. "Stew?"
I thought about it and for some reason I remembered making stew for my boys before, but it was in a rundown shack. I shook my head and nodded.
"Yes. I can make stew for him. Would you like some?"
"Sure."
I got up and went to the kitchen, where the cook was reading a book and she looked up, gasping.
"Oh, miss! I... I'm just-"
"Don't worry, girl, there is nothing to cook so you are not cooking." I said with a wave of my hand. "Do you have the ingredients to make stew?"
"Stew, ma'am?"
"Yes."
"Um... no ma'am. All we have are things to make rich foods."
"I'm sure you can make stew with rich food, right?"
"No, ma'am. The ingredients are best by themselves. I could go to the market to get the ingredients if you like..." the girl said, looking at me strange.
"Yes, please do. Lots of it. I need as big of a pot as you can make. We will need to dip out the soup to give to Duke Barma but the rest of us will eat as well."
"Um, begging your pardon, miss, but I can make broth for the duke if you and your sons would like something better?"
"You're quite kind but stew is what is needed. What's your name?"
"Gretchen."
"Here." I handed her some money that I knew was more than enough for what she needed. "Get what you can with this. And while you're at it, stop by and get a pastry... I'll have you take my middle child with you so that the baker doesn't run you out."
I don't know why I thought of that but I went out of the kitchen and looked around.
"Eadric!" I yelled.
I heard him coming down the stairs and he stopped on the flat part.
"Yes, Mum?"
"You will go with the cook to get ingredients for stew tonight and to get some sweets from that bakery we always go to. You will need to vouch for her buying pastries at the shop."
"But-"
"Eadric."
He sighed but went down the steps and past me to the kitchen.

****************************

I wondered if Duke Barma had anymore books that he had written himself and so went to his room to see. I used a candle to see my way in because I didn't want to disturbed his sleep. I opened the door and saw him sprawled out on the bed, the covers barely covering lower half and went to the bookshelf. I looked through the bindings but all I saw were the regular leather ones for other books. I sighed and looked through some of the other things that were on the shelf.
"What are you looking for?" I heard him say softly from the bed.
I gasped and turned, holding the candle up to see him.
He was staring at me intently and I smiled.
"I read the book that you wrote, or, halfway finished. It's very good."
He nodded a little and then turned, pulling the covers over himself up to his neck. He then turned back to me and coughed a little.
"Thank you. Which one was it?"
"Ah, I thought you had more... It was the one about Lord Piff..."
"Hmm... I collaborated on that one and then I lost my collaborator."
"Where are your others books that you've written? You are quite good at it."
After shivering for a moment he let his hand out a little.
"There are some in the trunk over by the windowsill."
"Some?" I said, walking over. "How many have you written, sir?"
"I can't remember... They are mostly poems and such. There are a few manuscripts but nothing very good I'm afraid."
I got on my knees and opened the trunk, my eyes widening. There were tons and tons of loose papers in there. Some were bunched together and held by string and there were two tied manuscripts in the corner but most of it was loose paper. I grabbed one of them and read the poem on it.
"'I have longed for you for so many nights
Sleepless, I wish for you
I wish my love was as free as when birds take flight
Sleepless, I wait for you
I see you about and I want you more than the breath I breathe
Sleepless, I crave you
Your scent makes me weak and when I see you I grieve
Sleepless, I long for you
I would relive everything if you would just come back
Sleepless, I pine for you
If you would return to my arms, love would never lack
Sleepless, I promise you.'
This is quite good-"
Duke Barma had fallen asleep and I smiled, looking through the rest of the trunk. I really wanted to see his manuscripts and so I took them.

*******************************

Sophia
How could he do this to me? How could he leave me just like that? He was standing around that Cavensold woman all night long the other day and then when I pull him to my home and into my bed, the fool walks home in the middle of the night?! He is trying to woo Lady Cavensold when she is clearly taken. Not so long ago he was flirting with me and even succeeded in bedding me and now when I return the favor he runs away and tries to seduce an engaged woman? Sophia Jacoby does not take well to competition.
Especially engaged competition with children.
I will make that witch wish she had never come across me.