The Briar Crown by Helen Rygh-Pedersen

Author:Helen Rygh-Pedersen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HRP Publishing
Published: 2023-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

The day after their walk in the Queen’s Garden, King Casimir deemed his son fit enough to attend his duties and Roslyn’s dissolved into almost nothing. She still administered the odd pain-relieving draught when she could see the signs of struggle written across the prince’s face or when he sent a servant to fetch one. But, being a man, and as is wont of their kind, he rarely admitted to being in pain. However, he did still insist upon the sleeping draught at night, so that was the only time she ever saw him, on her way to bed. When she arose in the mornings, he was already up, dressed and out of the room.

He was back to ignoring her again. Or was it simply that she was no longer needed? He no longer required her services, therefore no longer wished for her company? Either way, it left Roslyn at somewhat of a loss.

No one had said she could go home, but the fact that she was still in the royal apartments and not in a dungeon was a good sign, and she did not want to rock that boat.

Now that the prince needed less medicinal care, she decided to take some of the equipment back down to the apothecary. It was an arduous task, and one that required the help of a servant pushing a trolley. Roslyn herself had helped the poor stablehand who had been commandeered to do it, hoisting the trolley onto her shoulders as they pivoted down the narrow, winding staircase. How they managed not to break anything, she would never know, but she was very grateful they hadn’t. That would not have helped her relationship with Apothecary Gruber.

“What are you doing here?” His pompous drawl boomed across the cavern towards her when she entered. A wave of heads lifted from their work and tens of eyes shifted between her and the Head Apothecary uneasily. The clatter of pestles and mortars, the tinkle of glass stirrers all faded away until the only sound was the gentle bubbling of the cauldrons.

“I’ve come to return these. The prince no longer has need of them.”

Gruber sniffed and turned to the stableboy with the trolley.

“You, put them over there against the wall.” He turned to a boy wearing the blue robes of an apothecary, a yellow sash tied around his waist to signify he was an apprentice. “And you, wash those beakers, thoroughly. I doubt Miss Pleveli has had time to do it herself.”

“Oh, but I have—”

“The boy needs practice. Besides, how could you possibly have got them clean enough up there, where there are no troughs in which to wash them?”

Apothecary Gruber turned to walk away and left Roslyn standing there, taken aback. She had asked the servants to bring up a trough with boiling water and soap with which she cleaned all the instruments, but she thought it best to let that information slide. The tap of Gruber’s pernicious footsteps on the stone floor slowed and came to a halt.

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