“Please wait a moment. I’ll gather the items needed for the treatment.”
‘I need to pull myself together. If anything goes wrong, it could mean the end for both Grandfather and me.’
Speaking in a barely audible voice, pretending to pack our belongings so that only Grandfather could hear me.
“Don’t insist on knowing the treatment method, and never tell me how to make the medicine directly. It’s complicated and difficult, and they say you have to do it yourself. They also say that you can’t take the medicine all at once and that you have to take it little by little for a long time.”
I didn’t explicitly mention that we needed to stall for time to extend our lifeline a bit longer, but Grandfather seemed to understand my intention as he nodded his head with a stern expression.
Since he used the word ‘Your Highness’ by mistake, I wasn’t surprised at all by the fact that the carriage was heading towards the imperial palace.
The stern-looking old man introduced himself to us inside the carriage before reaching the palace.
He was Simon, working as the personal physician to His Highness the Crown Prince, and he mentioned that the noble person he was referring to was His Highness the Crown Prince. Therefore, he urged us not to lose our manners in diagnosing and treating him.
Grandfather and I nodded with tense expressions.
Though I haven’t lived a particularly long life, it was my first time personally entering a palace. And not just any palace, but the palace where the Emperor lived. While I had imagined how large the interior of the palace might be after seeing the outer walls, it surpassed my imagination by far. We had to spend quite some time inside the carriage even after passing through the castle gate.
Perhaps it was because of the darkening sky, but I, feeling on edge due to my precarious state of health, didn’t even think about properly looking around as we followed Simon, the personal physician.
Inside the room Simon led us to, a small, frail child was lying on a large bed, whimpering as if submerged in deep water, pleading for help.
If I hadn’t heard beforehand from Simon, I might have thought that the child lying there was Prince Ian, aged six, not Daniel, aged four.
His small frame, smaller than his peers’, looked even more fragile as he lay sprawled on the wide bed. His white, sweat-soaked face seemed like it could collapse at any moment.
Until I entered the room, I had been preoccupied with trying to stay alive at all costs. My mind, which had been desperately thinking of ways to survive, stiffened like a wooden door soaked with moisture, making a creaking sound.
All other thoughts vanished, leaving only the wish that the small, frail-looking child in front of me wouldn’t suffer any longer.
With his eyes closed, the child reached out his hand towards me. It was a gesture akin to that of a drowning person begging to be saved, pleading for someone to help.
Quickly, I approached the child and kneeled by his bedside, taking his hand in mine. It wouldn’t alleviate any pain just by holding it, but I grasped his hand tightly as if praying.
Though the child didn’t open his mouth, the voice of his cries for help echoed in my ears like an auditory hallucination.
I brushed away the strands of hair clinging to his sweaty forehead with my cold hands. Then, as if making a promise to himself, He said, “I’ll protect you…”
At his words, the child opened his eyes and stared at me. His light blue eyes, reminiscent of a vast lake, held my gaze as if I were ensnared in a trance.
“Jane…”
Whether he had ever spoken my name to this child didn’t matter.
I watched in amazement as his blue eyes, like dropping red ink, suddenly turned red.
As I hesitated, Simmon, who had been standing behind me, let out a deep sigh. The prince’s eyes turning red was the reason they had to secretly call for an apothecary.
Despite the efforts of the healers they had summoned—drawing his blood, pricking him with needles, cutting his hair, even wearing a mask resembling a bird’s head and imitating bird cries to drive away the illness—none could cure the illness or even determine what it was.
Ian suffered, as if he were boiling in a cauldron, and writhed in pain as if his entire body were supported by crutches.
Each healer had listed various diseases they knew of. Plague, smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, even cholera. One healer even mentioned teething fever.
But no one could explain the sudden change of his eyes from a lake-like blue to a blood-red.
“He has a fever, but there’s no rash. His whites of the eyes are congested, but not severely. There are no symptoms of jaundice either. I checked for other injuries or marks from bugs or snakes on his body, but found none. There are no signs of discoloration or bleeding inside his mouth either. It doesn’t seem to be caused by trauma or poisoning.”
Grandfather listened quietly to the symptoms I relayed to him and then asked calmly.
“Are there any other specific symptoms?”
The question wasn’t directed at me. It was directed at Simmons, the personal physician who introduced himself.
Grandfather was a very capable pharmacist.
He was knowledgeable not only about basic diseases but also about diseases unique to certain regions. He even studied diseases that were difficult to distinguish from curses cast by witches or prophecies. He had studied diseases and patients so intensely that sometimes he seemed mad, which was why Grandfather and I couldn’t settle in one place and traveled through various countries.
The diseases that the environment created, the herbs that grew only in that region, and the treatment methods devised by the wisdom of the people living there made Grandfather wander endlessly.
So, when it came to rare diseases, no one could match Grandfather’s knowledge. His reaction eased my mind.
It was apparent that there was a disease he suspected, and if the disease could be suspected, he would know the treatment method as well. I let out the breath I had been holding. The fact that Grandfather could relieve the child suffering from pain gave me some comfort.
Without saying anything, Simmon, with his flowing and full white beard, waited patiently, unable to respond.
“Even if it’s difficult to say, you must tell me. It’s necessary for me to diagnose accurately.”
“I’m not sure how to explain this… but… His Highness seemed to foresee the future. If he said someone would fall down the stairs, someone always did, and if he said someone would come, someone would really come. If he said it would rain even though the weather was fine, it inevitably rained.”
I looked at Simmon with eyes full of disbelief. I had heard of fortune-tellers who predicted the future and saints who received divine revelations, but it was hard to believe that this little boy had the gift of foresight.
“You were also told to visit a blind apothecary on 17th Street. I found it hard to believe His Highness’s words. I summoned skilled healers to examine him, but none of them could even guess what His Highness’s illness was. But seeing how the blind apothecary, whom His Highness mentioned, quickly grasped the disease… it seems like His Highness really does know the future.”
He gestured with his chin towards me and added:
“I didn’t even know this little one’s name, but His Highness didn’t hesitate to call you ‘Jane.'”
Grandfather nodded and spoke calmly:
“It was inevitable. This is not an ordinary illness. It is both a blessing and a curse. And those who can recognize these symptoms are no longer present in the current Kalovanian Empire.”
“What do you mean? Please explain so I can understand.”
“In simple terms, His Highness’s condition is a divine illness.”
“Ah!”
I covered my mouth with both hands to stifle the scream that was about to burst out. A divine illness! Even if the Crown Prince could foresee the future, describing it as a ‘divine illness’!
A chill ran down my spine.
To diagnose it as a ‘divine illness’ under the current circumstances, it felt like a sword with a serrated edge was aimed at my neck. It seemed that Grandfather and I were destined to be buried side by side somewhere in the palace.
As expected, Simon spoke with a tone tinged with anger:
“How dare…”
Grandfather shrugged and said:
“I suppose my wording was not to your liking. It’s also known as the ‘Prophet’s Pain’ or the ‘Prophet’s Fever.'”
Ah, really! Although the word had been somewhat softened into different words, Simon’s distorted face remained unchanged. My heart shrunk in the same proportion.
Simon continued, his voice dismissive:
“It’s not that remarkable. Prophets appear everywhere. Especially in the Kingdom of Stephen, which was once called the Divine Kingdom, many such people were born from ancient times. I believe His Majesty’s grandmother is from there. So it’s not at all strange that His Highness the Crown Prince should suffer from a divine illness.”
It was true that there were many prophets in the Kingdom of Stephen. There was a story that the transformation from a small country to a respectable kingdom was not due to the soldiers who fought on the battlefield, but because it was a country loved by the gods.
