The Prince's Assistant

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

“Maria, get up. I’m starving.” Saph’s voice floated through my dream, jerking me awake. I peeled my eyes open, letting the early morning light burn the sleep out of them. “About time! I’ve trying to get you up for half an hour, and now that you’re up, can you please go and make me something to eat?” I frowned at him. He was in his cat form again today.

“You woke me up because you were hungry?”  He looked at me with an apologetic face and cringed slightly.

“Well, when you put it that way…yes?”

“Why didn’t you ask Marcus?” I grumbled as I sat up, stretching.  Saph jumped off the bed and onto a barrel that I used as a table occasionally.

“He’s already left.” Oh, that’s right he had said last night that he would be going into town today. I thought he meant later today not first thing in the morning, oh well.

“Ah, yeah, I’ll go get you something to eat in a minute.” I started to get out of bed when a sharp, piercing pain shot through my leg. I gasped and fell back onto the bed, my breath was knocked out of my lungs. I gasped for breath as Saph hopped onto the bed.

“Marianna! Are you all right?” Of course I wasn’t all right, my leg was acting up again. I shook my head, trying to shut out the pain. I whimpered as the pain flared to life again, tears filled my eyes. Saph curled up behind my head so that his face was right next to my ear. “Shh, it’ll be over soon, think of something else, think of something happy.” Gasping, I tried to do as he said, think of a happy moment. Then a memory hit me and I got lost in it.

 'It had been a month since the battle with the beast which we found out was a griffin. My leg was still healing, I could walk on it but I can’t walk by myself, I have to use a cane. There were sometimes where I couldn’t even put any weight on it, those were the worst times. I could sometimes feel the pitying looks that people threw my way and it irked me. I don’t want to be pitied, I’m not some feeble person who can’t take care of myself. I can still do my duties. Being Arthur’s personal servant didn’t really help anything either. The prince’s servant was supposed to be fast, light on their feet, everything that I wasn’t now. Arthur tried to help by lightening my duties and giving someone else most of the hard stuff, like heavy lifting, polishing his armor and weapons and a few other things. I didn’t mind some of it, especially the polishing, but some of it I did mind. Marcus tried not to treat me differently but occasionally he would slip up and start babying me. I didn’t mind that of course I mean who wouldn’t mind having a very nice looking man as your doctor babying them? But it would get old after a while of him doing it.

 At first, I thought that I was doing pretty well but after accidently overhearing a conversation between Arthur and his father changed my mind. It was late in the evening and I was looking for Arthur to see if he needed or wanted anything from me before he or I retired. I was walking past the throne room when I heard his voice through the cracked door.

“Merlin is fine serving me!” Arthur almost yelled at his father. King Uther shook his head and placed his hand on the table next to him.

“Son, you are a prince you can’t have a cripple as a servant! No matter how great he is, he is still a servant he will never be able to be up to par like a manservant should be! You either get a new manservant or get another person to help with the duties that Merlin should be doing.” Arthur opened his mouth to object but he didn’t seem to be able to find the words he wanted to say. It was then that I realized that I could never go back to being a fully capable person that I had been, I would always be a cripple in everyone else’s eyes.’

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the best memory I could’ve remembered. It only made the pain worse. I jerked on the bed as another wave of pain hit. I bit my lip to keep from screaming. Saph whispered encouraging words in my ear trying to help. Another memory flashed through my mind, this time it was a better one.