To Love, Once Again

Chapter 29

It's getting late. Sera and Lois finish up their simple supper of cheese, bread, and soup, courtesy of the kitchens.

The bare room feels warm, giving Sera a small taste of home. The thumping noise of pestle meeting mortar reverberates in the room. Lois was back to her previous task of pounding goldenrod to process into a dye. Hands propped under her chin, Sera watches Lois like a child watching their mother work.  Lois was a workaholic, her hands constantly busy with something. There wasn't anything else to do. Lois would tut at her when she tried to lift a finger to help.

"Hmm... Looks like I'm running out of water"

Lois looks at the yellow-brown mixture in the mortar before her, dry and clumped. Water was a necessary catalyst to loosen and extract the juice from the hard fibrous strands. their drinking water, hand washing water, and water needed for mixing medication all came from the same large pitcher. A maidservant or cook would stop by several times a day to replace the pitcher in their room. After their dinner, the pitcher was empty. The two had drunk it all, wetting their lips as they spoke to each other like old friends.

"Hup!" Knees crack as Lois gets up.

Standing, one hand holding the poultice on her rib, Sera pushes back her chair. "I can get a new pitcher Lois."

"No child, you're still injured, remember? I'll just find someone and have them send one up."

Lois' steps are light, her cane barely making a sound as she slips out the door. She's quite spry for an elderly woman.

Slowly, Sera sits back down, going back to nursing a cup of water like it's alcohol.

From behind her seat at the rickety table, the door clicks open. It's a sound she's heard multiple times throughout the day with maids, footmen, soldiers, and knights stopping by. Lois was extremely popular in the castle, since she was the only form of healer they had, and only for a limited time to boot.

She didn't bother turning around. The servants, maids especially, that came by this afternoon all completely ignored Sera's presence in the room. They acted as if they couldn't see her. It wasn't this bad when she cleaned the windows, or in the morning when she had her breakfast with Lucien. Yes, there was the occasional rude maid or footman who came to lord themselves over her.  But those were the ones who'd always hated and protested against having an outsider queen. It was members of the 'Anti-Queen' faction.  They believed that summoning a person, using extremely precious magic because of the outdated belief in a old prophecy, was ludicrous. So imagine their joy when Sera "disappeared".

Luckily for Sera, this was not, and has never been the general consensus within the castle.

Most treated her with respect during her stint as Queen. As a window cleaner and now the King's Maid, some would smile and nod at her when she spoke to them.

However, in Lois' temporary healing room, it was the silent treatment. It couldn't be that Dorne bought out the whole castle against her.

The ones she knew better, Fawn, Portia, Vic....Maybe they would ignore her too now.

She kept her back facing the door.

"Lois will be back soon, come back later." Sera calls out, finger circling round and round on the rim of her glass.

A small pitter-patter, like the sound a small animal's light weight on the floor might make. The cat's back, Sera thinks.

Something tugs at her skirts. She looks down, into a pair of large teary eyes. "Mama?"

It's her baby!

Sera swoops in for a hug, and sticky, pudgy fingers reach for her face. Of course, they're too small to cup her whole cheek, so he can only pinch her cheeks. He gives her a sloppy kiss on her cheek.

Rubbing her cheek to his, "Hi, baby" Sera whispers.

A very welcome surprise he was. She'd wished for family, and here he was.

But wait, how did he get here?

"How did you get here baby?"

"I was sad, and then, then, Bea said Mama's here" He talks with a slight lisp, slurring his words together like children do.

Sera was asleep when she was brought here, but she guessed from the looks of it she was in one of the empty west wing storage rooms, temporarily repurposed for Lois.

"It's a long trip from the cottage to here. Did you get here by yourself?" She slips off the chair and gets to her knees to be closer to her son. He glues himself to her waist like a barnacle. His hair is soft and a shiny, deep red, like embers, and they smell of the flowers that surround the cottage.

"Noooo, Mama, Bea!" Giggling, he points to the door behind them.

Bea stands in the doorway, a cloak over her head.

"M'lady! The prince has been begging to meet you. Earlier this morning, I sent you a note, but then I heard of what happened..I'm so glad you're alright!"

Ahh, Bea was the one who sent her the note. She'd lost the note, fell out somewhere in the scuffle. Sera never had a chance to read its contents.

Bea was a good servant. A good friend.

"Nothing worrying, Bea. Thank you for bringing him here" She strokes her son's head.

"M'lady, since I heard the King decree you'll be on bedrest for the rest of the day today...I took the chance of making it so that there will be no maid or guard for the little prince tonight."

Her tone raises a pitch higher "But! King Lucien must not know about this. The King has not seen his son after your departure. I don't know what he'll do if he finds out the prince is here"

Got it. Make sure that Lucien doesn't find out. A hard task to do, when he was good at popping out from dark corners and appearing before her like some kind of bogeyman.

She'd focus on the good news, "Which means....he can stay with me for tonight?"

What wonderful news! Sera was planning on sneaking out tonight after her duties were finished to see how her son was doing. This was so much better!

"Yes m'lady."

"Can baby stay with Mama?" Her baby's face lights up at the news.

Giving him a big, warm hug, "Yes, you can stay with Mama."

Bea sets down a small bag next to them.

"I'm so sorry, m'lady, I can't stay long. I'll come back tomorrow morning before breakfast time to take him back"

Sera's heart feels full of warmth, to have people like Bea here.

"Thank you, Bea"

"Mama, huug!"

She awkwardly holds her son, the way Bea showed her before, and sees Bea out the door. He's a big little boy, her rib giving a small twinge of pain feeling his weight, which she ignores.

"Bye-bye!" He waves both plump arms out of sync. Bea gives a small wave and a smile, pulls her brown hood down lower, and walks out into the empty hall.