As it was always the case, the hermit had been sitting on a rock, enjoying an apple when the royal entourage reached the spot. The sight of the entourage did not stop him from chewing, paying little attention to the visitors before him. The guards made way for the king and the queen, as Emoplus and Phyllis came closer to the hermit.
“Old man, do you recognize me?” Eumoplus inquired.
Still, the hermit would not stop chewing. He smiled, at the same time, nodding to convey an affirmative reply. And then, very softly he said, “At last the royal abode stands on nothing.”
“What do you mean?” Phyllis asked.
“I mean nothing,” the hermit replied.
Eumoplus beckoned to Phyllis to tell her problems to the hermit.
“I need privacy,” Phyllis said to Eumoplus.
Eumoplus was about to tell his guards to maintain distance when the hermit responded, “Not here.”
Then the hermit stepped down, beckoned to Phyllis and Eumoplus to follow him. Eumoplus instructed his men to stay there before following the hermit through the narrow passage, on horseback.
“The venom worked alright I suppose,” abruptly, the hermit said, while leading the two royal visitors to his shack.
“You are the master of this art, aren’t you?” Eumoplus responded. A cold shiver went through his spine as he threw the question at the hermit. He suppressed the urge to strike the hermit down with his sword. Perhaps, he would have done it, had Phyllis not been around.
Upon reaching the shack, “Well, you have your privacy now,” the hermit said with his arms flung around him.
“Is this how you greet you king and queen?” Eumoplus asked.
The hermit knew why the usurper had asked the question. He said, “Your majesty, I am at your service. Does it really matter, if the service is rendered willingly or unwillingly?” Therefore, I ask you to calm down. I ask you to be patient.”
Phyllis would not let the conversation end up in a spat. She wanted a solution to her problems before her husband had lost his temper. She said to the hermit, “Do not have the bleeding for months at a time, old man. You know what I mean, don’t you?”
“Yes, your highness, I do understand your problem,” very softly the hermit said to Phyllis, beckoning her to follow her into the shack. The shack was perpetually under the shadows of the surrounding rock formations. Hence, the interior was rather dark. The hermit used his flints to light a lamp, using seed oil as fuel. As soon as the darkness receded, he began working on the medicine. She watched him, as he crushed some dry herbs and medicinal plants in a bronze grinding bowl.
“What do you have in the bowl?” Phyllis asked inquisitively.
“Oh some dry leave and herbs.”
“Why do you have them dried, to begin with?”
“Water is taken out of it for preservation. The essence remains intact.”
“Where did you get the bronze bowl?”
“A friend of mine acquired it from Dacia. It’s very useful in this practice,” the hermit replied in a relaxed tone.
Stolen novel; please report.
The hermit added some water to the crushed ingredients, stirred it for a while before using a thin cloth for filtering and pouring the medicine in a glass jar, with a lid on it.
“Take a few drops of it in a cup of water with an empty stomach, first thing in the morning. You might have to come back to me for the second doze in a month.”
“For how long do I have to continue taking the medicine?”
“It depends on how fast it works on you. If you follow the prescription strictly, couple of months should be sufficient. However, sometimes it takes longer.”
Phyllis brought out a pouch from underneath her garments, tossed a bronze drachma to the hermit, and said, “I appreciate your service. My husband thinks you are a great physician. He’s going to ask you some questions. Do not, I repeat, do not get into an argument with him, old man. Provide straight answers to his questions, and we will be gone in no time.”
When Phyllis and the hermit came out, Eumoplus said to the hermit, “Tell me who I am, old man.”
“As far as I remember, you are the prince of Odrysia.”
“Oh that was months earlier. Plenty of water ran down the River Hebrus since then. I am the new monarch of Odrysia now.”
“Are you not the nephew of the late king?”
“Yes I am.” Brief moments of silence followed, while Eumoplus had been trying to read the old hermit’s thoughts. Then he asked, “Are you not going to ask what happened to Tegrios?”
“I heard from a stranger, he was killed.”
“Who told you?”
“I am afraid, I do not know the name.”
“I have news for you. He was not killed in the battlefield. He was murdered.” Eumoplus paused, waiting for a response. When the hermit seemed indifferent, he continued, “Are you not going to ask who murdered him?”
“I expect you to tell me.”
“Strange! You heard he was killed, but did not hear how he was killed, or more precisely, who killed him.”
“Kings do not have a shortage of enemies. I suppose one of them somehow got lucky.”
“You are clever,” out of frustrations Eumoplus said to the hermit. He realized, the hermit would not tell him what he wanted to hear, or perhaps he did not know.
And then it came out of the hermit, “Funny, the nephew inheriting the throne.”
“I know what you are thinking. I do not blame you for it. What could be more heinous than murdering the king, especially when the king who fathered the murderer. You heard it right. The crown prince, Ismarus did it. He felt the king had unjustly disowned him. His madness for vengeance drove him to this heinous crime. Hence, destiny opened the gate for me. Now the fugitive prince has no one but his nefarious mother and a traitor, whose purpose had always been to misguide the late king.”
Upon saying this much, the usurper paused, staring at his audience for the intended effect. Perhaps he had expected some sort of ghastly response, when he saw no signs of disgust, his friendly tone changed. Like a wolf exposing his fangs to the prey, his voice turned hoarse. His eyes glared as he resumed, “I have a feeling, you provided treatment to the fugitive prince’s mother, gave them shelter. They were here, weren’t they?”
“Your majesty, had I invited them to my shelter, you could have held me in contempt. The fact is, I did not. I did not even know who they were, until this very moment. With your narrative, you confirmed to me who they were. I had a vague idea, but that’s all. Since, they were not interested in disclosing it to me, I could not press them.”
“Do not try to be smart with me, I will slash you down, at this very moment,” Eumoplus hissed at the hermit.
“Calm down, my dear. I do not see any need for violence. We might need his service. I urge you to spare the life of the man, one day he might save yours,” Phyllis intervened.
“Phyllis, I am going to have this man apprehended in my dungeon. Once I have him rotting where he belongs, you can have his valuable service whenever you want,” Eumoplus snapped at Phyllis.
“Your highness, I will be of little use to you, away from the plants and herbs I need to treat you or anyone else,” the hermit said to Phyllis in a desperate attempt to stop Eumoplus.
“Listen you skunk, we have a garden, a thousand times larger than what you have down here,” Eumoplus almost yelled at the old hermit.
“You may have the largest garden in the world, but as far as I know, this is the only place in your kingdom where the herbs and the plants I need for my practice, are found.” Then the hermit turned to Phyllis, and continued, “Now it’s up to you, your highness. Your dear husband can have me incarcerated in his dungeon, but this will not ensure my service to you for I need freedom to serve as a physician.”
Phyllis had been watching the two. She felt the need to talk her husband out of the argument. She said to Eumoplus, “Let not the poor man bring out the worst in you. We are already late. We just might reach Seuthopolis before sunset if we start now. I am riding out of this rat hole.”
Then, with her hand, Phyllis beckoned to Eumoplus to follow her as she approached the narrow passage.