Arta - the last princess

Chapter-11

Osman held her fragile body in his arms. He walked down the stair toward her room.

Amal and the other maids were standing at the bottom of the stair with mouths wide open. Amal couldn't control her jealousy and ran towards Osman.

"Oh, my prince let me help you. Don't bother yourself with a lowly maid."

The angry glare that she received from Osman in return was enough for her to step back.

Khadijeh opened the room's door, the room was still messy. Osman carefully placed Arta on the bed, he stood by her side and watched her with concern.

"Your highness Tabib is here." The guard informed at the door.

"Send him in."

The doctor bowed and with Osman's hand gesture, he moved closer to examine Arta.

Tabib first examined her heartbeat by touching her wrist and body temperature then opened her eyes with his fingers.

When the doctor took her hand to examine her heartbeat Osman noticed bruises looked like fingers on her hand and he harshly threw angry glares toward Khadijeh. Khadijeh said nothing and just lowered her gaze.

The doctor stood up and bowed again "It's not anything dangerous. She just needs to eat and rest for a while. Her body is weak and tired. I'll give you a portion to feed her first so she can gain some energy to wake up."

Osman nodded serval times. Tabib took out a bottle from his bag and gave it to Khadijeh. "Feed her with this portion, she will wake up soon after."

"OK, you may leave." Osman said

Khadijeh bowed and was about to leave the room when Osman stopped her "What has happened to her hand?" Osman asked so coldly that a chill ran down Khadijeh's spine.

"I think the other girls gave her a hard time on her first day." Khadijeh said softly.

"I told you to take care of her not to leave her with those wicked girls" rays of anger were visible in his voice.

"Please forgive me your highness, I'll be more careful."

While they were arguing, Arta slowly opened her eyes but was too weak to move or say anything. She saw Osman was angry and Khadijeh was standing like a victim in front of him.

She slowly drifted back to darkness.

"Feed her the portion and report to me of her condition." With that, he turned and briefly looked at Arta again and left the room.

***

Later that day after Arta took few spoons of the portion, she opened her eyes again.

"What happened?" she saw Khadijed sitting on a chair by her side. Looking around the room she realized someone has cleaned the room and replaced the broken chair with a new one.

"You fainted; don't you remember?" Khadijeh said softly.

Arta tried to sit up by her head spines. Khadijeh urged her to lay back and pointed to the tray of food on the table. "you need to eat and regain energy."

She brought the tray closer to her and gave her the glass of water to drink. Then she gave her pieces of meat to eat. Arta accepted the food obediently. She knew that she needed her energy in order to escape the palace.

After eating the food she felt better and lay back on her bed again. Khadijeh left her and went to Osman and reported.

Arta was deep in her thought trying to remember what had happened. The last thing that she remembered was that she was in the bath hall arguing with Osman.