The Blossoming Willow

Chapter 4: The Purchase

Knock, knock, knock.

"Hey, uh, Mary, you feelin' all right in there?" Joe's voice called through the door.

Mary lay on her stomach on her pallet. She couldn't tell whether she was unwilling to move or physically unable to. She hadn't slept at all last night; she had been in too much pain. Matilda had given her another ten lashes after she had gotten in last night.

"Go away, Joe," she said miserably.

She could hear a muffled conversation between Joe and Arthur and then her door opened.

"Mary, we're worried about you. You didn't come down this morning... Jhic! What happened?" Joe exclaimed at the sight of the purple and red rivulets on her back.

"I'll get some fresh water," Arthur offered.

"It wasn't the prince again, was it?" Joe asked, kneeling down beside her.

"I don't want to talk about it," she murmured, turning her head away.

Arthur stopped in the doorway. "Let's get her cleaned up, then she can tell us when she's ready."

Several minutes later, her friends were subjecting her to another briny sponge bath. Arthur was being as gentle as he could, but it still stung like anything!

"What's he going to think when he comes for me? I'm never going to be able to hide this... This is so humiliating..." she sobbed.

"When who is going to come for you, Mary?" Joe asked.

"The king."

The two men shared confused looks.

"What king?" Joe asked.

"She's probably delirious from blood loss," Arthur said sadly. "I can't believe Matilda left her untreated!" He muttered a few colorful phrases under his breath.

Joe looked at his friend skeptically. "Blood loss? C'mon, Arthur, ten lashes ain't enough to bleed out from." He turned back to Mary. "You ever gonna tell us what you did, Mary? We're your friends. We wanna help."

Mary, still lying on her stomach, turned her head towards him.

"I went on an errand after curfew and got caught coming back," she told him.

"You went on an errand? What kind of errand?" Joe asked.

"You don't mean you left the palace grounds, do you?" Arthur asked at the same time.

"I had to see someone in town," she explained.

Her friends started exclaiming again at that.

"Fate, Mary!" Arthur swore. "No wonder the bitch cut into you. What were you thinking?"

"Yeah, seriously, Mary! You're a slave!" Joe argued. "You know the rules around leaving the palace. Who could'a been important enough to risk a beating for?"

"My brother."

Joe and Arthur shared another look, this time with a gesture implying that she really was loopy. Before they could say anything else, they were interrupted by the door swinging open. Matilda stood there with another, better dressed female servant by her side. The housekeeper surveyed the scene with her usual frigid look.

"Well, there she is," she told the woman with her.

The other woman inhaled in surprise at Mary's current state.

"Dornello! Shee!" Matilda snapped at Joe and Arthur, "I don't believe it's either of your days' off."

The two men hurriedly stood at attention, their eyes downcast. "No, ma'am," they muttered.