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“Eunie?  What do you need me to do?”

“I have a list of herbs I need to collect.  And we need to make a lot of straws.  That’s where you can help me.  We have to harvest the bamboo shoots, scrub them clean, boil them, and dry them in the sun.  Come with me.  I will show you where you can harvest the bamboo.  I have a little scrub brush I use to clean out the hollow tubes once I’ve cut the straws.”  

She led him into her kitchen and showed him how to clean out the shoots before she took him outside to forage for bamboo and herbs.  Once he’d cut a few shoots, she turned towards him.  

“Head to the palace.  Deliver my message.  Then you can return and help me get the medicine and straws ready.”

“All right.  I’ll be back soon!” 

She watched as he walked down the road towards the royal enclave.  Her head once again aching, she bent over the herbs in her garden and began to pick them.  She had much work to do.  And most likely little time in which to accomplish it.

—

When Jin arrived at the gates, he spoke with the guard and requested to see his friend, Jungkook.  After a few minutes, Jungkook appeared.  

“Jin!  My friend, how are you?!”

“Excellent!  I got married today.”

“What?  Old man Jin finally married off?  What girl would marry a stinky, shaggy man like you?”

“The medicine woman, Eunbyeol.”

“Ah.”  Jungkook grinned.  He wondered if Jin knew that she’d had a crush on him forever.  “Congratulations, my friend.”  He clapped a hand on Jin’s shoulder.

Jin winced.  “Listen.  I’m here on urgent business.  You can get an audience with the king, right?”

Jungkook nodded.

Jin drew his friend away from the other guards and lowered his voice.  “Do you remember the illness that caused your eomma’s death?  You were so little.  You were sick too.  With a rash and a fever.”  

Jungkook bobbed his head.  “Of course, I remember it!  My eomma died from the measles!  I don’t really remember feeling bad, but I remember some other kids got sick and didn’t make it.”  His face filled with sadness.

“That same plague has struck the village.  A woman just brought her sick toddler to see Eunie.  Please go straight to the king and warn him to quarantine the royal household.  Tell him that anyone who had it as a child is safe from catching it.”

A sober expression overtook Jungkook’s face as he bobbed his head.  “Thank you for the warning, Jin.  I guess this means I won’t be seeing you for a while.”

“No.  I’ll be helping Eunie attend to the sick.  Goodbye, Jungkook.”

After bidding his friend farewell, Jungkook entered the palace and made a beeline for the king’s chambers.  He was admitted almost instantly.

“Jungkook!  To what do we owe this visit?  How is your wife?  Everything all right?” King Yoongi asked as he and Moonflower approached his friend.

“Jina is fine, Your Royal Highness.  I’m here on urgent business of another kind,” he took a page out of Jin’s book.  “I’ve just had a visit from a friend who lives in the village.  He’s married to the resident medicine woman there.  She just attended to a little girl suffering from the red epidemic.”

“Measles?” Moonflower queried in alarm.

Jungkook nodded.  “Yes.  Jin came straight here to warn us to quarantine the royal household.”

Moonflower turned her concerned face towards Yoongi.  “Have you had the measles?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“And all your siblings?  Have they had them?” Her voice sounded oddly panicked.

“Kiran has.  But the twins have not.  They were tiny the last time there was an outbreak.  My parents quarantined them in time.  Moonflower, have you had them?”

She was silent for a moment, then in a tight voice she responded, “Yes.  They’re what caused my blindness.”

“What?” Yoongi stared at her.  He recalled that she had told him her parents had died from the same fever that had stolen her sight.  “Measles killed your parents?”

“Yes.”  She turned her face towards their guard.  “Jungkook, you had them?”

“I did.  I was a small child at the time.  But I suffered no long-lasting effects.  Except the death of my eomma.”

Her heart bent towards the young man then.  They had suffered a common loss.

“We must close the gates immediately.”  Yoongi grabbed paper and his ink pen and began to scrawl an order to the guards.  He sealed the scroll with wax and marked it with his ring before handing it to Jungkook.  “Go!  Immediately!  Take this to the captain of the guard attending to the gates.  They are all to be barred immediately.”

Jungkook jumped to do the king’s bidding.

Moonflower turned towards Yoongi.  “What if it’s already hit the palace, and we just don’t know it yet?”

Yoongi frowned in shared concern.  “I know.  Ordinarily, I would say my sisters should be all right.  It’s usually only fatal in children under five.  But both you and Jungkook lost parents to it.  And even if the adults are safe that doesn’t protect all the families with young children living within these walls.  I wonder if the medicine woman has any known remedies she uses.”

“I could make an inquiry,” Moonflower replied.

“But that would mean sending someone from within these walls.”

“No.  We’ll just wait until someone approaches the gates from the outside.  Our guards can shout a message out to them, sending them to her to find out.”

“That sounds like a good plan.  I’ll want someone to bring news of the epidemic daily also.  Of its progress through the neighboring villages.”

“Let’s write out all the instructions, and then I can take them to the head guard.”

“I’ll do it.  Why don’t you go tell all your ladies what’s going on and what to be on the lookout for?”

“All right, darling.”  Moonflower leaned up to embrace her husband’s lips with her own.  

But even the sweetness of his kiss couldn’t relieve the pressure now building in her heart.  She didn’t wish to see any of her subjects dying.  Especially not the tiny ones.  And she knew her own husband’s siblings weren’t out of danger yet.