She had not come to the willow by the river three times so he had begun to worry. He waited for her from dawn until the night came but there was not a hint of her appearing.
He was not easily distressed, but he could feel the worried tension pulling taunt like strings about to break.
So Liu Xie decided to go to her house.
Surely it would not be strange that he knew where she lived, she was after all the daughter of Norwen’s ambassador. Everyone in the city knew where the ambassador’s home was.
He manifested near the gate the crowd around him paying no attention to his sudden presence as he walked briskly the few paces down towards the guarded gate, its lone guard an older fellow who seemed half asleep. Liu Xie thought to rouse him a bit and say he was there to visit Eona but thought better of it. The poor old man looked like he could use the rest, his head bowed heavily and his spear loosely held in hand.
Liu Xie went down the short path to the door proper of the squat stone manor. While it did not look as beautifully ornate as the manors of the other ambassadors around, such as the pink stone of Laal Pahaad or the marble home of the ambassador for Marmo, it was still a serviceable and sturdy dwelling. Besides, the real beauty laid inside. He hoped.
The door was a heavy solid oak one and he knocked at it with a strange tremor in his hand. Was it apprehension or excitement?
An older woman who smelled strongly of vinegar and soap opened the door, eyes wide and her mouth set into a stressed frown, “oh thank the gods the doctor-! Wait, you’re not the doctor,” she frowned even more deeply.
Liu Xie felt something sink inside, was Eona sick? “My apologies, madam, I am the assistant of the doctor and he sent me ahead,” he said. He did not like lying but in that instant it was all he could come up with.
“Oh! Oh, thank you, thank you! Tell the doctor I said thank you too!” She said with deep gratitude, grabbing his hand and shaking it so hard he worried for the stability of his body. She bid him to come inside, lifting up the heavy woolen skirt of her dress a few inches as she led him down a hall and up a flight of creaking stairs. The walls were unadorned except for small alcoves for candles or tiny torches, light leaking in through thick unglazed windows.
They got to the second floor and she led him further down the hall, stopping at one half-opened door. “The young lady is in here, I don’t know how much the doctor told you but she’s been in a bad way.”
“What happened?” He asked, trying to keep his face politely neutral, politely worried, even though he wanted to rush inside.
“Ah, well, few days ago she attended a dinner with her father at a noble’s banquet, one of the friends of the Duke you see. By the time she came home she said she had a headache and went to sleep, but since then she’s been burning up, constantly sweating, and can barely eat. The doctor’s been giving her medicine but it hardly seems to be helping.”
“Ah,” he nodded. “The doctor told me little, just to hurry here.”
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“We thank you very much,” the old woman said.
“Where is E-... where is her father?”
“Back at the capital, he had left right after the dinner. If this is about payment I can assure you we have enough coppers here to pay you!”
Liu Xie gave the woman a small smile, and the woman’s face turned pink. “Don’t worry about it, I was just curious. I’m going to go check on the patient now.”
“Thank you, again! I would attend, but I need to continue washing her clothes and bedding. The doctor said she absolutely cannot remain on anything unclean for too long!” With that, the woman hurried off.
He waited until she was gone, then rushed into the room, closing the door behind himself.
Like the rest of the manor he had seen so far, there was little in the way of decoration. A table with some jars and cups, a plate was on the ground with uneaten bread, nearby was a bucket. There was a small bookcase, but there were only a few books in it. There was also a small desk, where a mess of brush strokes close to words sat on some paper. Was she trying to learn how to write? The bed was unassuming, a frame of beechwood with the smell of hay coming from beneath a thick blue quilt, and on top of the blue quilt was the pale body of Eona, her shallow haggard breathing the only sound in the room.
Liu Xie moved close to her, his steps soft on the wooden floor as he leaned over to look down at her. Her eyes were shut tight and she was struggling to breath, her pillow was stained with old flecks of red and wet with sweat.
Something was not right.
He turned to the jars. They were small white ones, each only a little bigger than his palm. Liu Xie picked one up and sniffed it getting the scent of honey and orange flowers, then swallowed down the contents. It tasted sweet at first…
“Agh, that’s poison,” he hissed. The burning feeling went down his throat, but did not bother him much. This body was just a puppet for him to use anyway.
This was no medicine at all, someone was trying to kill Eona! His concern turned to anger and his grip tightening around the little bottle until it turned to dust in his hand.
He looked back down at her, the sunlight that came through the window fell over her pallid sweat-covered face. Her ‘illness’ was not going to clear up by itself, he knew. His hand rose to his sleeve to start pulling it down when her face moved. Her brow furrowed and her lips quivered, as though to form words but the brief activity faded as quickly as it had come. A different, more appealing way to help came to him. He sat down on the bed beside her and felt a strange shiver go through him, the same he felt when he knocked on the door; apprehension.
Why feel such now? She was too sick, she would not remember, he told himself. But some part of him wanted her to remember too.
Liu Xie carefully took one of her hands into his own, holding firmly as he wrapped the other under her back, the sweat sticking the wool of her dress to her skin.
He sank his teeth into his tongue, the sharp points sheared through the muscle, a burst of medicinal sap oozing into his mouth. He hesitated for a moment, half expecting her to open her eyes and stare back at him in shock. But she was deep in her sleep, her chest still barely rising and falling.
He pulled her close, then gently pressed his lips to hers. They were warm and soft and the feeling of her heart against his chest made him gasp very slightly. The sap from his mouth leaked slowly into hers, and he held her tighter. He suddenly did not want to let go. He wanted to keep holding her and feeling the rise and fall of her chest, the way she fit so well into his arms and lap and seemed so soft and delicate. Her stocky solid form was an illusion, she was the softest thing he had ever touched. He wanted more of her. He wanted to feel the scars on her arms and the skin over her ribs. He wanted to be selfish with her. He wanted her to wake up and put her arms around him too, to kiss him back. To talk to him with that cheery voice.
He wanted to steal her away and hold her all to himself in his own lonely realm. It was not fair he could only kiss her like this right now! He wanted her to smile and kiss back, to press herself against him. To laugh.
After a too short time he finally pulled away, holding her carefully as her breathing steadied and color began to return to her skin. Slowly he lowered her back into the bed. He still held her hands however, a lingering touch he was not willing to give up as he thought about what to do next. The maid woman did seem to expect the doctor to come today, and he doubted this was just one single murderous doctor. Eona had only fallen ‘ill’ after a dinner with a noble…