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My heart was pounding and I was ready to turn and run when Mara turned a corner and led me down a hall that seemed to have a bit more life than anywhere else in the palace. Sure enough, as we approached a room where I could see warm light spilling through the doorway into the hall, I heard music and talking.
I wasn’t at all surprised to turn the corner and find King Julius lying on a bed of sorts, a thin, young woman wearing barely anything brushing her hand across his head. Half a dozen anxious, grey men paced restlessly around the bed. Around the edges of the room were musicians and people who had to be courtiers, all of them looking drawn and restless.
“Uncle, I’ve brought my friend, Conrad,” Mara announced us as she walked into the room.
King Julius lifted his head from where it had rested on a pile of brightly colored silk pillows and turned it to stare at me. “Ah, yes,” he said in a listless voice. “The healer from the frontier.”
My throat closed up, and I nearly stumbled. King Julius knew who I was, where I was from?
I shot a look to Mara, unsure whether I should be furious with her for drawing the king’s attention to the fact that I was an outsider, possibly an enemy. But Mara merely stared back at me, lips pressed in a line, and shook her head slightly.
“You did so well with my hand at the harvest festival that I have called for you to take a look at my foot, since none of these ham-fisted palace healers seem to have the first clue what to do about it.”
I blinked, shocked to my core. The king wanted me to treat a wound that the palace healers weren’t able to treat?
I glanced questioningly to Mara. She stared back at me with that unflappable, slightly cold, way she had. I would have to ask her why all of this was happening once we were back at the college.
I turned back to the king, drew in a breath, and squared my shoulders. King Julius was very likely the most hated man in any part of what had been the former kingdom, Old Realm and frontier, and I didn’t think very much of him personally, but I’d taken a vow as a healer, and given the current situation, my life could be on the line if I didn’t do exactly what I was told.
“What seems to be the problem, your majesty?” I asked, approaching the bed where King Julius lay.
“Here, see for yourself,” the king said, sitting up and pulling back the blanket that covered him to reveal his feet.
I hesitated, uncertain whether it would have been better to sit on the foot of the king’s bed—which would have been more comfortable for me—to remain standing, or to kneel on the floor beside the bed.
I absolutely hated the idea of kneeling before King Julius in any way, so I settled on dropping into a massively uncomfortable crouch that put me at the level of the king’s feet without making it look like I was deferring to him.
A little too late, the sounds and shuffling from some of the noblemen observing the scene made me feel like they’d noticed.
I concentrated on the king, saying, “May I?” and waiting for his nod before handling his foot.
It was just a cut. It ran along the top of his foot, but was fairly deep. Almost as if he’d dropped a knife on his foot while preparing something in a kitchen. The idea of King Julius preparing his own food was preposterous, though.
What was unusual about the cut was that it was not healing on its own.
“How long ago were you injured, your majesty?” I asked, touching my fingertips to the area around the wound and finding it hot to the touch. That meant infection was setting in.
“Five days ago,” the king answered. He gave no further details, and I had a feeling it wouldn’t be a good idea to ask.
I glanced to Mara. “Do we have fresh water?” I asked, setting my healer’s kit on the side of the bed and opening it to take out iodine and the tincture I’d concocted to fight off infections. The tincture was a little something of my own devising, combining a few herbs that I felt worked better for these things than others that were more commonly used.
Mara stepped to the side and fetched a pitcher and glass without saying a word. The fact that she knew where everything was in the king’s room and that no one would question her actions made me incredibly nervous.
“What is that?” the king asked as I opened my bottle of iodine and tipped some onto a tuft of clean cotton that I kept in my kit, though it was running out quickly.
“It’s to fight the infection, your majesty,” I told him, my hands shaking subtly. “May I proceed?”
King Julius narrowed his eyes for a moment. “Is this some rustic, frontier cure?” he asked.
I gulped at the reminder that he knew who I was and where I’d come from. “I believe it is universal, your majesty.”
The king merely grunted, then waved his hand for me to proceed with daubing the orange-yellow liquid over his cut. He winced and jerked his foot back at the sting when the iodine hit his wound. Part of me wanted to tell him that his brother had been far braver when Galina and I had treated him with iodine after Edik had stabbed him the year before, but the last thing I wanted was for King Julius to know how well I knew Magnus.
Mara brought me the jug and even poured some water into the glass. I finished daubing the king’s foot with iodine, then hastily opened my infection tincture and measured out a dose into the glass of water.
“Drink this, your majesty,” I said offering the glass to him.
The king reacted as though I’d wielded a knife at him. “What sort of trickery is this?” he demanded. “Are you trying to poison me?”
