Chapter 51

"As water is to the seas and stars to constellations and stability to earth, if there was a single emblem I would ascribe to a human, it would be imperfection.

We are broken and endeavouring to be perfect, but the coat of arms that is imperfection is our knighting, it defines that we are indeed still being, constantly growing, ever evolving as long as we are granted this breath."

~

Lady Minerva's Chambers,

The Physician's Wing of the Imperial Castle,

Kingdom of Tristendyre,

The first Phrinight of the Second month,

XXI Year of Regency

Lady Minerva watched as Aldric brought the Physician's case of emergency instruments that she had carried on her tour, as per general practice.

The child had dutifully restocked her supplies and had left the leather valise by her chamber's footpath where it was usually placed for the sakes of convenience.

After all the difficult circumstances that they had met that day, the boy's energy was completely depleted. Even so, he was ready to serve her.

The Chief Physician bid him to use Imogen's bed to rest the night.

It was decided that she could embody a Covenant of Apprenticeship with the child the following day and have him registered under her wing.

The boy seemed vulnerable to emotional affliction as a child would when scars of the past would rein the mind.

Nevertheless, his skills at assistance were impeccable; Aldric had not hesitated to easily bring the fainted Missus Xavier back to her vivid senses whilst they had been at Jehu's abandoned house.

Lady Minerva desired to hone his skills into that of her proper apprentice.

Her heart had grown so close to the young child, for he was fragile, yet eager to win favours. He endearingly reminded her of children she had lovingly nursed and hoped to nurture.

However, his horror had been so frightening, as if he had brushed shoulders with more than just the fright of a terrible experience. The Elder needed to ferret into the truth of the boy's origin.

Lady Minerva also wished to immediately gather evidences against the Regent and pay Imogen a secretive visit.

If the damsel could be retrieved, she could resume her apprenticeship with the Royal Physician and per-haps even train the little lad brought into their forum.

Of course, bringing Imogen into the light would be a difficult task, if not unconquerable.

She would need to turn the belief of the people with testimonies and corroboration that the damsel held no stake in the faking of her death, for that would be the prime notion upon sighting an executed person alive.

Further, it was potential that she would be counted a criminal, by the people, after being released into the public.

As for the evidences against the Regents, Lady Minerva needed to write to her friend of old age, Lord Cecil Urbane. She looked beneath to find the birdcage wherein Altair was resting.

The blond bird happily looked up when it sighted her face and the Chief Physician smiled, feeling young for a moment, for it was in those years of her youth when she had received frequent visits from Altair, on Cecil's behalf.

Now, Lady Minerva needed to begin sewing her words into a letter in order to bring to her old friend's notice that she desperately required the invoices.

She opened the door of the cage, allowing the bird to exit and nest in her lap whilst she composed the letter.

The woman sat at her study and drew a parchment to bear her words. Resting her chin upon her fingers, the Lady dived into the deep abyss of ponderings regarding the outcome of affairs.

It was necessary that the message reached no hands but Lord Cecil's; and especially not the Regents'. Hence, the Chief Physician reached her grasp to a clean Quill that had not been used since manufacture.

Taking a shell and placing it into the range of her comfortable stretch, the woman began squeezing a lime that had been kept by the bird's cage.

Once a great deal of the golden juice thereof was bled into the shell, her Ladyship diluted the liquid that was the colour of linseed oil with some water.

After the solution was duly composed, she began filling the virgin quill with the lime's waters as ink.

Altair purred for attention and the Lady soothed his feathers tenderly with her palm. The majestic bird was a pet that was oft too hungry for her attendance. She smiled down at it when it looked up to see her with its emerald eyes.

"Has Cecil spoilt you so much that you expect to be treated as princely?" she asked, caressing it.

The large bird chirped blithely and softly brushed its head against her midriff. The woman laughed from the mild tickles, before feeding the winged guest a few mulberries.

Betwixt the acute, ornamental nib and the scarlet feather of the quill, there was a glass ball that displayed the translucent shade of fair dawn from the lime's extract.

The parchment awaited her words and the Lady began to pen her secret message briefly:

"Please send me the evidences as urgently as your convenience permits; I was not the one to have requested such order of Threstwich and Rivenhove."

Once her important writing was laid in invisible ink, the Physician waited for her page to dry, for it was wet in the wake of her hand's script.

After the words had dried, the parchment appeared bare, like there was no message encrypted upon the face of its body.

Lady Minerva was satisfied at the art of the craft and began to plant the body of the message that would play as a decoy and lure the average reader into assuming that there was no ulterior concept therein.

Then the Physician drew a sister Quill that was brimful and fed from the mauve inkwell and she wrote:

"Dearest Cecil Urbane,

What great years have lapsed between our correspondences! I am content to hear that you are faring as finely as I am. There have been countless events that have transpired in these various times past, and a great deal we must share in conversation of experience.

At present eve, I am downcast and cannot bring forth to speak to you by the wings of this letter, but I will pay your Empire a visit at the earliest of my profession's ease. It would be a jolly vacation to see you and talk much over tea and biscuits.

I hope you are, amidst the rains, nicely warm, by the side of a hearth or reading these words in a burning candle's light. Keep yourself in favours and comfort.

Until we meet again,

Lady Minerva,

Imperial Castle of the Kingdom of Tristendyre"

When the letter to Lord Cecil Urbane had seen completion, the quills and pots of ink were set aside and her Ladyship carefully closed the parchment.

Upon her table, there was a bunch of flowers that bore the name 'limerisch' preserved in freshly harvested honey to stay eternally abloom, despite being severed from their mother plants and roots.

Now these flowers were beautiful, in the colour of plums, but their stem and leaves were fade and grey.

The petals of the blossoms were round like bubbles and translucent, edges showing purplish hues and all bound together around the core of the flower. When one would look upon it in the light of the moon's beams, there were silver dots upon it like stars in the night sky.

The flower was altogether exotic and pleasant to the eyes, but it only grew in Tristendyre's graveyards.

It was known for sprouting out of the grounds bearing coffins' remains, but a limerisch would bloom in a single place only about four years after the mortals of a loved one is buried.

Thus, in the Kingdom, it was counted to be a flower that brought healing, for it was in loving memories of the bygone ones and by the season of its blossoming, the family of the parted one would have healed from their lamenting.

Therefore, Lady Minerva, being the prefect Physician ministering in the art of medicine and healing, had always used the limerisch flower as a mascot that stood for her representation.

Drawing one of the plum-coloured blooms from the deck, she placed it upon the close of the letter.

A piece of purple wax was taken and heated until it was melted. Then she poured the liquid concisely over the limerisch lying on the letter's fold and securely placed the seal of the Chief Physician.

Now the concept behind the curious drafting of Lady Minerva's letter was so:

When lime commixed with water is used as the ink, the words so written shall fade to seem invisible to the passive human eyes.

However, when the letter so written is held by the side of burning flames, the covert words shall appear upon the page in auburn hues.

Thus, the final words of her feinted message were to bring Lord Cecil to understand that there was ulterior news to be unravelled whilst read in the heat of fire.

It had been a means they had used to oft speak to one another in the days when they had been pen-pals; exchanging furtive messages regarding dangerous chemicals of medicine.

The need for secrecy was be-cause there was chance that if the letter between these royal medics was wrenched away by some common kern betwixt their destinations, it was better such information was not taken advantage of.

Inserting the letter into a leather sheath, she looked down at Altair who had taken to play with the mulberries she had bestowed upon it.

The Lady smiled, for it appeared the bird was well fed with the various fodders she had placed in the cage before her trip to Lyrishveil.

"Would you deliver this letter to Lord Cecil?", asked she and the winged courier readily obliged.

Lady Minerva tied the letter to Altair's talons with reeds of rushes and watched as he flew to the window and waited for the Physician to unlock the lattice.

The bird was far too dear to her, being full of the smell of memories and young age.

She had cherished it as much that she placed a gentle kiss upon its crown and tenderly brushed its feathers before allowing its escape out of the confines of her chamber.

The bird nuzzled its face against her bust lovingly before it took flight into the dangerous night beyond.

~