His lips began to devour hers once more, but then the knock sounded again. More urgently this time. She pulled out of his embrace and stumbled from the bed. He jumped up too, and they made their way to the front door.
Eunbyeol opened it. She was shocked to see a man standing on the other side. She was seldom visited by any man other than Jin.
“Can I help you?” she queried in a clear voice.
“The queen would like a report on the progress of the plague,” responded the strange gentleman.
“Oh.” The word escaped her mouth as a puff of air. “The queen?”
He nodded. “You are the medicine woman who treated the little girl yesterday? The one suffering from measles?”
“Yes. I am. I did.”
“The queen would like me to deliver a daily report to her on the success of your remedies. I am also to enquire after them. You do have remedies, I take it?”
“Um. Well, there is nothing I can give that will get rid of the sickness. It must finish its course. But there are herbs that help the patient to recover. However, hydration is key. So I have developed a treatment to help encourage small children to imbibe nourishing and life-saving liquids.”
“Can I visit with you? You can share these facts with me so that I can report them to the queen.”
She furrowed her brow as she welcomed him into her house. “Is the royal household not under quarantine then?”
“Oh, no, ma’am, they are. I am reporting to the guards on the wall. They deliver my messages to the queen.”
“I see. Very well. Please have a seat, and I will lay out my strategy before you. I can write it down as well so that you don’t have to remember every detail.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I’m much obliged. I consider this a very important task. I have never received such royal favor before. I am a simple rice merchant. I was delivering the grain this morning when I discovered the gates were locked. Apparently, I was the first person from the outside world to approach the garrison since they locked down the royal city.”
“Well, I am most thankful for the queen’s confidence in my methods,” Eunbyeol murmured.
The man smiled at her.
Jin remarked, “You’re a rice merchant? Have you any bags with you? We are in need of some.”
Their guest’s countenance brightened. “Certainly! How much would you like?”
Hence, it was that their pantry was quite stocked with rice by the time the man left half an hour later. He carried with him a letter from the medicine woman to the queen as well as a sack of bamboo straws and several herbal tinctures in his satchel as he headed back towards the royal enclave.
Oh I like this, I like this chapter a lot