Lady Messenger Swift

Drip…

Drip…

Warm crimson blood dripped onto the cold white marble floor.

“I must speak to His Majesty the King.”

The messenger stood but only just, doubled over with exhaustion and gasping for breath. Blood trickled from a wound in her abdomen where she had a hand clenched, trying to slow the bleeding. Based on the blood that trickled from elsewhere, there seemed to be several smaller wounds as well.

The chamberlain stood in the majestic hallway of the King’s palace, his starched black coat and pants a stark contrast to the disheveled, muddied and cloaked form before him.

“I’m sorry… His Majesty isn’t currently available. He is in a meeting…”

The messenger’s hooded head lifted to glare at the chamberlain with deep green eyes. The look said clearly as words, “I am literally bleeding out on your floor. Do you think I care about some meeting?”

The chamberlain awkwardly shifted his weight from foot to foot. There is no protocol for this…

“What is going on here?” A clear and pleasant-sounding male voice rang through the marble hallway along with approaching footsteps.

The chamberlain seemed relieved at the presence of the man who had just arrived. “Minister, this person claims to be a messenger from Kastnia and thus would have access to the royal grounds…but appeared without appointment and is insisting to see his Majesty…”

Minister Harrier, a sharp looking man in his late twenties, ran an assessing gaze over the bloodied messenger. “Let’s get you to the physician first. I will inform His Majesty and he can see you as soon as the cabinet meeting is ended. If you like, I could also deliver the message to him for you.”

The messenger gave a wry chuckle then grimaced in pain. “I’m going nowhere until I speak with His Majesty directly. I have an urgent message from—” she grimaced again as another wave of pain swept over her and she felt her legs beginning to buckle. “A message from Her Majesty Queen Margarette of Kastnia…”

Harrier’s brow furrowed. Queen Margarette, though not queen of this kingdom, was His Majesty’s sister. What could be so urgent that this person would not be delayed even for obviously needed medical attention?

The Messenger held up the royal seal of Queen Margarette with a bloodied hand.

“I Must.

‘See.

‘His Majesty.”

Harrier nodded grimly to the chamberlain. “Wait with her here. … and call Physician Spencer.”

The chamberlain nodded and Harrier swiftly left.

The messenger felt her legs give out beneath her. They had long ago been pushed to their limit. She collapsed to her knees and fell forward onto her freehand, the other clutching her wounded side.

Drip…

Drip…

She watched as the blood fell in droplets from her hand to the pristine marble and began to form a burgundy pool on its polished surface.

I’m sure I’ve caused quite a stir bursting in here in this state, she thought wryly to herself.

She felt a droplet slide down her forehead into her eyes, causing them to sting and casting the white halls in a hazy red.

She did not know how long she stayed there, but after some time there came the sound of hurried footsteps.She struggled to see clearly, but she caught sight of a man that she knew matched His Majesty’s description, flanked by the now-familiar form of Minister Harrier.

With great effort she pushed herself back to a crouch and fumbled among her strange-looking garments to produce a folded, now bloodied piece of paper seemingly out of nowhere.

She reached it out toward the figure who had approached her.

“Your Majesty… A message.. from Her Majesty Queen Margarette of…”

“ Yes, yes, child. I heard,” he said, and took the paper from her trembling fingertips.

She faintly heard, “Now get this messenger to the infirmary immediately.” A chorus of replies and movement came around her but somehow, she heard no words. It was only noise. Her trembling limbs gave way completely and the room swirled like some hazy red kaleidoscope… then faded to black.

…..

A few hours later His Majesty King Francis walked into the room where the physician was tending the patient, lying on a bed. Minister Harrier stood pacing near a table in the corner.

“Is she stable?” The King asked upon entering.

“Er… Yes, Your Majesty!” answered the Physician. “Er.. Well, She’s stopped bleeding, and I think she’ll pull through.… She’s lost a lot of blood though. She’ll need… she’ll need rest and, er, care… ” the Physician trailed off as he wrung his hands, wiping them on a cloth nervously.

His Majesty’s expression was grave. “Good. Then wake her up.”

“What!?” The physician blurted out. “But Your Majesty I…”

His Majesty raised an eyebrow at the physician, who stopped his sentence dead in the middle.

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“If she’s stable, as you said, then wake her up.”

Harrier stepped swiftly to the King. “Your Majesty, before you do that… If I may have a word.”

“Make it quick, minister,” said the king.

Harrier stepped back over to the table near where he had been pacing. It was laid out with a scattering of items. Nearly 20 tiny vials of various sizes, colors and shapes were arranged neatly in rows. There were at least two weapons and various sets of implements, some of which he could only guess the uses of. Among the more recognizable were a knife sharpening kit and a lockpick set.

“The maids removed these items from her person before the doctor began treatment.With all due respect, Your Majesty, these are not the kinds of things you see in the possession of a standard messenger…”

He lowered his tone and continued with a deeply furrowed brow. “They are the kind of things you would expect to see only on an assassin or a spy.I would highly advise you not to trust this woman…”

The King cut him off. “If you had read the letter as I have, you would understand, Minister, that the Queen has already attempted messages via ‘standard messengers’ multiple times now. And, based on the state in which the girl found us, it seems she employed this young woman for her special skill set out of complete necessity... even she nearly didn’t make it.’

“No, Harrier. I am becoming increasingly inclined to think that there are likely to be many more to distrust around me than I would ever dare to think. But this girl is not one of them. She is, in fact, one of the few I would dare trust at all right now.”

The King turned back to the Physician who was standing nervously by the messenger’s unconscious form. “Well, Spencer?”

The Physician jumped as if he had been shocked. He quickly reached into his bag and pulled out a small vial and waved it under the messenger’s nose.

She came to with a start, coughed a couple of times and grimaced in pain. “Ugh...”

Her cough loosened the scab on her side and it began to slowly trickle blood. She looked up at the physician. “You didn’t even stitch it closed?”

The physician looked stunned. He stammered, “W-Well it had stopped bleeding and scabbed over nicely…”

“It’s an open wound! Not only that, it’s in an area prone to much movement. Even with the coagulating help of the medicine I applied, there’s no way a simple scab would hold in such a place!” She scolded him with obvious exasperation.

He stumbled over to his doctor’s bag and pulled out a needle quickly and came back over. She had already begun unwrapping the bandages to get to the wound.

He started toward the wounded area with the needle but she snapped again. “Did you even disinfect that?”

The physician just froze in place as if he had become a stone.

“For crying out loud. Give it to me. I’ll do it… “

She reached for her side instinctively, then paused, realizing she was wearing none of the clothes she first arrived in.

“Where are my things?”

She looked up and saw Minister Harrier and the King standing near the table across from her. The chamberlain and a few attendants stood by the doorway.

“They’re over here… As many as we were able to recover, anyway,” said Harrier, still obviously feeling a bit uneasy.

She nodded. “Would you kindly bring me the small, blue hexagon vial?” Without waiting for an answer, she looked up around the room and asked,“Um… Does anyone have alcohol?”

Minister Harrier stepped forward with the small blue vial (which he had assumed previously was poison) and a flask pulled from his coat pocket.

“Thank you, sir,” she said, taking them from him and beginning to soak the needle and thread with the alcohol. She splashed some on one of the doctor’s many clean cloths that lay beside her and wiped up the small trickle of blood that had begun running down her side.

Taking the blue vial, she used it to wipe the now-crusted blood around the wound and closed her eyes against the pain. Whatever it was, it smelled pungently, and obviously stung.After a few moments she began stitching, slowly and steadily.

Harrier watched with quiet confused amazement. What kind of a life had this young woman lived to be so unfazed by her state, and immune to the sight of her own blood?

The King approached the messenger and sat near her bed. Upon seeing the King her expression and demeanor changed and she nodded deeply. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, for not paying the proper honor to your presence.”

The King leaned forward in his chair to meet her eyes. “Formalities are the least of my concerns right now, Messenger.”

She nodded. “Seeing as how you’ve had me wakened with smelling salts, I’m assuming you didn’t come here to simply watch me tend my own wounds,” she said. “What can I do for Your Majesty?”

He leaned forward and looked closely at her face. Seeing the seriousness in his gaze, she knew for certain he had read the message.

“You brought this,” he said, lifting the still blood-stained letter in his hand from a deep pocket in his robe. His other hand gripped into a fist. “The situation for my sister in the Southern Kingdom is… obviously quite dire...” His brow furrowed even deeper.

“Messenger, you seemed to be coming here as if by all haste, lest any moment delay you... but child, if what this says is true, then—” His voice broke with emotion, “...it is already too late.”

His eyes looked deeply into those of the messenger as if searching for some last vestige of hope there.

“It is too late… Is it not? The events she speaks of at the temple will have happened by tomorrow morning. Even if I do as she asks, it will take at least four days to reach Kastnia’s capital from here. By the time even swift horseman could reach her, that bastard could have already had his way of it all!”

“I believe we may still be of use to her, Your Majesty.” The messenger’s voice was quiet but firm as she allowed her gaze to level with the King’s. “Though what Her Majesty requested was a “Plan A”, there may yet be a chance even if the trial is indeed rigged beyond repair. It would take at least two days to…” She faltered, searching for a phrase other than stage an execution “To carry out a sentence.”

“There is a way to reach the Capitol in 2 days.”

The King laughed and raised an eyebrow at the messenger. “Two days?” He shook his head and looked down to the floor. “What nonsense.“

“Two days, Your Majesty. It would simply require the proper guidance and a few persons of…” She cast a doubtful gaze over the thin frames of Minister Harrier and the chamberlain. “... a certain strength and ability.”

The King leaned forward and gazed deeply into the eyes of the messenger. Her emerald green eyes stared back unwaveringly. His gaze remained locked on hers as he gestured to the black-suited man standing stiffly in the doorway. “Chamberlain, bring us a map!”