“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 have bested her

  this time!” 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 few 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 tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  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.