Earning the Love of a Princess-Chapter 300: Violet: Divine Punishment

Red fever was a scourge that had terrorised the entire continent for as long as historians could remember.

It always started with a mottled rash on the neck, palms and soles of the feet. It was followed by a raging fever that would often drive its sufferers to delirious ramblings.

Recovery was uncommon and those that did survive were often left weakened. The majority of victims would continue to be wracked by fever until they lost the power of speech and eventually died.

Most physicians and healers believed it was caused by eating spoiled meat or unclean food. The more superstitious folk, however, still whispered it was divine punishment for terrible sins.

Violet didn’t normally believe in superstition. Still, she couldn’t help asking herself the question over and over. What terrible sins had Ilse committed to deserve this?

Was falling in love with the wrong man considered a sin?

Unless my dear, Ilse is paying for your sins, the wicked little voice in her head whispered. Lord knows you’ve committed many.

She shook her head to banish the voice. She couldn’t let herself be swallowed up by such thoughts when there was still a chance Ilse would pull through. It wasn’t easy to survive red fever but Ilse was young and strong.

But she doesn’t have a lot left in her life she’d be willing to fight for, does she? That would be your fault, Violet.

She followed her father as he ran through the entry courtyard and into the house with the speed of a younger man. When the two of them reached the bedchamber, they found the rest of the family members and their three servants, all hesitantly hovering at the door.

Lord Thierre pushed past them all. Striding to Ilse’s bedside, he looked at her neck and hands, then turned around and bellowed to Roderick, their aged manservant.

"Take one of the horses to Shreve village and fetch a physician. Hurry!" he shouted.

Roderick left the room. Violet could hear his rushed footfalls as he scrambled down the stairs as far as his bowed legs could carry him.

Lord Thierre ordered Violet to open the window and let as much cold air as possible into the room. He then yelled for the two maids to drag the wooden bathtub into the room.

"You two!" he pointed to Abel and Sancia. "Take a vessel each to the well and start bringing bucketfuls of water back here. The maids can join you as soon as they return. We’ll need as much water as we can to fill the tub. If we can break Ilse’s fever with a cold bath, there’s hope."

Abel nodded wordlessly and left. Sancia however, stamped her foot in protest.

"That’s not fair! How come I have to help if I’m the youngest? Why doesn’t Violet have to help lugging heavy buckets?"

"I will help, Sancia!" Violet snarled, silently cursing the girl for her spoiled selfishness. "We’ll be relying on everyone’s help-"

"Not yours, Violet." Lady Thierre interrupted. "You’re not to run while carrying heavy things. The other two can handle that."

For once in her life, Violet would’ve been glad to help without a single word of complaint. "Mother, I’ll be fine. Please let me-"

"No. You’re not to exert yourself. Sancia will do it. Unless..." Lady Thierre glared quickly at her youngest daughter, then looked back at Violet, "...she wants to be beaten so hard that she won’t leave her bed for days. You’re to remain resting elsewhere."

Sancia gave Violet a furious look but left the room as well.

"Let me at least stay in the room, Mother. I want to be with her." Violet pleaded quietly. "I want her to know that I’m here."

Lady Thierre glanced over at Ilse’s limp form. "I doubt she’s aware of anything at the moment."

"She’ll know I’m here. I’m not leaving her!" Violet felt her voice rising. How could she explain the connection she’d had with Ilse all of their lives, to someone who didn’t have a twin of her own?

Hell, to someone who had nothing but a chunk of granite beating under her breast?

Lady Thierre finally nodded. "Alright. But you must stay on the far side of the bedchamber. You’re not to approach her or touch her, do you understand?"

- - -

Violet could only watch and pray helplessly as Ilse was picked up by her father and laid in the tub full of frigid well water.

She watched as the village physician arrived, felt her pulse and pressed some kind of dried herb under her tongue.

Still, Ilse’s fever kept burning stubbornly. She remained in the tub, head lolling limply to the side and with beads of sweat rolling down her flushed cheeks. Violet ached to wipe her face and offer a little comfort but didn’t dare to move under her mother’s hawkish eye. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

The physician continued to grind various herbs from pouches that hung from his belt, into pastes and poultices. Nothing he spooned between Ilse’s bloodless lips seemed to make much difference.

At once point, she opened her eyes briefly. Violet shrieked in delight and wanted to bolt to her side. Her mother held her back, however, as the physician peered into Ilse’s vacant eyes and waved his hand in front of them.

"I don’t know if she can see or hear us." the physician frowned. "I suspect she can’t."

"She can hear us! I know she’s there. Ilse!" Violet yelled across the room. "Can you hear me? Blink at least, to show me you can hear!"

There was a faint flutter of eyelashes, but Ilse remained quiet. Then her eyes closed again.

"Let me get closer and speak to her." Violet begged her parents. "I know she’s still in there. I can reach her."

The duke looked for a moment as if he might agree but his wife wouldn’t hear of it.

"Please, Mother." Violet begged, voice cracking.

"No. To lose one life is enough. We cannot risk losing three."

Violet shuddered in horror at her mother’s cold, calculating words. "What are you saying? Have you already given up hope for my sister?"

She looked down at Ilse in the tub. Her eyes were open again and despite the blankness in them, Violet swore she could still see a spark of her old sister fighting. She was in there, scared and trapped inside a body that wouldn’t let her speak. But she was fighting.

"If you give up on her, Mother, I’ll never forgive you. I swear I’ll hold you in enmity until my very last breath." Violet growled, her voice sounding almost like a stranger’s. "I know she can hear me and she’s scared. Let me go to her."

After a long pause, Violet moved carefully to the side of the tub and sat on the floor. No one moved to stop her as she tucked her legs under her body and curled up against the tub so that she could lean her tearstreaked cheek against Ilse’s flushed one. She stroked her sister’s forehead with gentle fingers.

It didn’t seem right to speak out loud and say what she truly wanted to say, not in a room full of people. There were some things that could be said without words, just the two of them.

Can you hear me now, Violet asked in her mind? Can you hear me when I tell you how sorry I am? I’m sorry that I fought you for a man’s attention. And you know what? He wasn’t even worth it. He turned out to be beneath the both of us!

You must forgive me, Violet chanted silently. You must, you must! And you have to fight and cling to life! You can’t leave me here alone.

Violet stayed, curled against the side of the tub, for hours. She didn’t move even when she heard the physician whisper to Lady Thierre that it would be best to summon a priest. Soon, too, she began to doze.

She wasn’t sure of the time when her father shook her awake. Violet looked around and realised there was no one else in the bedchamber. Nothing else had changed, except the sun was far lower in the sky, filling the room with long shadows.

"Get up. I’m moving Ilse out of the tub and placing her in the bed." the duke said in a strangled voice.

"Has her fever broken?" Violet asked as she rubbed her eyes.

She saw him press his lips together and shake his head, then lift Ilse out of the bath. Lord Thierre laid her carefully on top of the bed and the covered her with a blanket to her shoulders.

"If she’s still feverish, is it a good idea to cover that way...?" Violet’s question trailed off when she realised Ilse was being prepared so that the priest wouldn’t see her in nothing but a soaked chemise.

Without hesitation, she climbed onto the bed and lay next to her twin, holding her hand and tucking her head in the crook between Ilse’s neck and shoulder.

"Daughter, I don’t think you-" Lord Thierre abruptly went quiet when he saw that the only way the sisters would be separated was if he pried Violet away with his own hands.

Violet closed her eyes, strangely soothed by the pulse of Ilse’s heartbeat thrumming in her neck. It was a surreal feeling to be lying together, enveloped in quiet.

I know you won’t leave me, Ilse, Violet thought dreamily. I know it because you wouldn’t be so cruel as to make me live the rest of my life with only half a soul.