“Ahah!” the scribe cried out triumphantly from underneath the bed. He had shimmied under it in a last ditch attempt to find a hiding spot that he was certain must exist in the cleric’s room. “She was clever, but I was quite intrigued by all the places important documents not meant for prying eyes would be stashed when I was still in training. My mentor was a lovely woman who seemed to quite enjoy inventing new places and ways of hiding things.” There was the sound of wood squeaking and then a small clack of something metal turning and hitting wood. “A classic mechanism, nothing fancy, but it gets the job done if you think that people aren’t going to find your spot in the first place.” He clambered out from underneath the bed, a wound scroll of paper in his hands.

“Where was it hidden?” I asked with genuine curiosity. The first place I had thought to look when we got in the room had been under the bed and I had seen absolutely nothing of note, not even a clump of dust or stray bit of rubbish.

“Let me show you,” he replied with excitement.

Pulling the bed away from the corner it had been pushed in to, the scribe politely motioned for me to move from where I stood so he could maneuver both the bed and the accompanying nightstand far enough from the wall to allow us both to step into the space they had occupied. Wordlessly he motioned to the exposed floor and challenged me to try to find where the hiding space was located. On first glance, the stonework floor all looked perfectly normal with all of the rectangular stones appearing to be reasonably the same color and level with the rest. I bent at the waist and traced the seams between the stones with my fingers hoping to find something slightly amiss, perhaps a crack that was a bit wider than the others. Finding none, I turned my attention to searching for anything at all that could be considered marginally out of place and came up empty handed. Even knowing something was there, it was so well hidden that it eluded me. Seeing that I was stumped, the scribe bent down and pointed to a slight spot on one of the stones that appeared to be just a natural color variation that many of the other stones had as well. With a push of his finger the spot depressed slightly into the stone and the same metallic click rang out, popping up the entire stone from it’s nestled spot in the floor.

“That seems more than just a simple hiding spot,” I scoffed. “I couldn’t see how it was any different at all.”

“You didn’t do the one thing that would give it away.” He pressed the stone back into place, then pressed his hand onto it, causing a soft, but notable squeaky sound of wood rubbing on wood. “It’s just a wooden box set in a wooden frame with a spring mechanism.”

I was rather worried if that was considered a fairly simple hiding spot for Church dealings, both from the perspective that there could be things hidden all over the castle from all the years that Church members had resided in and passed through and also it was unnerving that it was a common practice for them. What exactly did they need to hide so often that there was a whole culture of how to keep things secret from each other? Everything I had read and been taught by them so far had preached trusting that the Church knew what was best and to accept their guidance for your life, but this told me that they couldn’t even trust each other.

“Is that it?” I asked as I pointed towards the parchment in his hand. I had felt on edge ever since setting foot in the room, if the cleric ever found out that I had and especially that I had then searched through everything, I didn’t want to try to imagine the unique and cruel punishments she would concoct for me. The sooner we verified we had what we needed and got out, the better.

“Too dark under there for me to have looked, so let’s check now.” He untied the small strip of fabric that kept the document secured and unrolled it slowly, eyes scanning it over line by line. “It does seem to be some sort of decree by the Church that mentions your family.”

“Let’s go find somewhere to sit and go over it then,” I suggested, itching to get out of the room.

“My study then, we’ll want to have me make a copy of the document so that we can put this one back. It’s important not to give away that we’ve found her hiding spot, she’ll pick a harder one next time.”

Next time. My blood ran cold thinking of my aunts’ return. I was certain it would happen, I only hoped that it was far enough away for me to be able to prepare and hopefully prevent them from even gaining access to castle. I didn’t want to entertain the idea that she would end up back in this room with the status quo, I couldn’t imagine going back to what she called the path of the martyr. While it was happening I could numb myself to the terrible existence and muddle through, now that I had some sleep and time to think on my own, I felt sick for what I had experienced and utterly terrified of it happening again.

In the scribe’s chambers, he immediately sat at his ink stained desk and got to work, retrieving a piece of blank parchment from a large stack that started from the floor and reached nearly to the top of the desk and picking a quill from a collection kept in a jar on the desk. His eyes flitted back and forth between the original and the document he was crafting, ensuring that all words and punctuation was the same. I had no clue about how long the process would take and felt antsy about finally knowing how exactly my aunt was able to put a stranglehold on my kingship, but I only got a few paces in across the floor before my legs began to wobble with exhaustion and pain began to radiate from the depths of my bones. I frowned at the idea that the magic hadn’t been a permanent fix, though I wouldn’t complain too much since it had given me a couple hours of relief. I plopped down into a chair set up next to a set of shelves completely filled with various documents stacked and itemized by their purpose and gently massaged the top of my thighs, wincing at how tattered the muscles felt beneath my fingertips.

The scribe had been very talkative up until this point, seemingly excited to have found someone who shared a love of written word, but he had gone completely silent and totally focused on the task at hand. The stark change in conversation level highlighted just how tired I did feel despite having woken up from my nap not so long ago, at some point between our search in the cleric’s room and returning to the study exhaustion had welled up inside me. I tried to entertain myself by thumbing through some of the documents on the shelf and felt my eyelids drooping more and more, my body crying out to catch up on rest. The content of the documents did not help, most of them were various deeds held by my family and long standing agreements between my father and local merchants, important things to keep recorded, but not exactly the historical recordings or fantastical tales of knights rescuing fair princesses that I tended to enjoy. I think even at my most awake and alert I would have found myself fading if this was the only reading material I had available to me.

“My lord.” A hand shook me awake and a document that had been still clutched in my sleeping hand slipped to the floor. “Sorry to wake you, but the copy has been made and I’ve given it a good thorough read through as well.”

“Wonderful.” Groggily, I rubbed my eyes and tried to orient myself, despite having fallen asleep sitting up I felt like I had slept incredibly deeply. My body felt disconnected and like I was swimming through jelly, the kind of feeling that makes you have to stop and deeply consider if you are actually awake or still dreaming. “Shall we go over what’s in the document then?”

“Yes of course,” he replied, though he sounded hesitant.

“Is there something wrong?” My vision had started to clear and the world felt like it was sharpening around me, the improvement in consciousness made me realize that he was looking at me with concern.

“Wrong? No, not necessarily,” he said with a slight shake of his head, “I had just never seen someone so deeply asleep that I thought they might be dead. Your chest was barely rising and it took quite a few shakes to get you to wake up, I had almost thought the worst. It sounds silly now that I say it aloud, of course you’d be exhausted after all you’ve been through. Even I down in my little hovel here I’ve heard of the terrible routine you had been forced into, I’m sure your body must be desperate for sleep.”

“That must be it,” I agreed with a nod, “I’m sure a couple days worth of a good night’s sleep and I’ll be right as rain again.”

“Perhaps some food to help fuel your recovery would be a good idea as well, I’m a bit peckish myself, might I suggest we call for a meal while we go over it?”

I agreed to his idea and waited for him to rummage around his study for the small bronze bell that would call a servant. It was strange for someone other than a family member to possess such a bell, it spoke to the importance of a royal scribe. It also spoke a lot about his personality that it took him a bit to even find it. Once found, having been tucked away into the back of one of the desk drawers, he cracked his door and run the bell for a few seconds, paused to listen for any approaching footsteps, then run the bell again. It could be a bit of a cat and mouse situation for a servant to find you if you were not in a room they typically expected you to be. After a few minutes, a girl finally appeared, her mousy brown hair done up in two pigtail braids, she looked remarkably like my nursemaid.

“The heir apparent and I would like a nice hearty meal drawn up and brought to us when convenient,” the scribe requested.

The girl nodded, but peered past him, eyes on me, wide and inquisitive, a flush appeared on her cheeks that expanded to fill her face. I could recall that my nursemaid had commented a few times that she had a daughter around my age, but that she had been living outside the castle with her aunt since my father was not always keen on having extra children living in the castle who did not have a specific task assigned to them. There were plenty of children in the castle, but most of them were trades of sorts to pay off debts, they would work for a while until it was decided that the parents’ obligation had been fulfilled. The nursemaid must have finally weaseled a way for her daughter to work alongside her.

“I-I’m sorry for staring,” she finally said. “I just have never met the king before.”

“You still haven’t,” I said with a light chuckle, “I have not been crowned quite yet.”

“Umm yes of course.” Her face was a bright crimson. “How silly of me to say that.”

“Think nothing of it.” I was amused by her reaction, I was used to servants who had been around me since I was born and were almost immune to the idea that I was technically future ruler of the kingdom they resided in. They had deference of course, but they didn’t have the same awe that peasants outside the castle did. “I assume your mother is my nursemaid?”

She nodded her head vigorously. “She has told me so much about you.”

“Mostly good I hope.”

I had an urge to rise and make the girl’s day by walking over to her and greeting her face to face and stood from my chair, then promptly tumbled to the floor, my legs refusing to bear any of my weight. Pain exploded from my legs, sharp and soul shattering, like several knives were being driven into my hips. Despite my inclination to hold it in, I let out a loud scream and scrambled to try to rise again, but my legs felt like dead weight and wouldn’t respond to my frantic attempts to get them under me. Icy fear clutched my heart as the pain suddenly vanished and instead of relief, terror blossomed in my chest as I realized both my legs from the hips down were completely numb.