Distress: Day 10

Word Count: 60,009

Summary of Events:

Olwyn listened as the Queen received word that her forces in Glædricgar were experiencing severe losses because of reports that the King of Glædricgar had gotten druids to give his men exceptional strength, which the Queen intended to do for her troops in turn. A couple days later Olwyn went on her daily check to see if the glass lid was off of the Prince of Sygæðelwulf and discovered that not only was the lid gone, but so were all of his clothes, save his trousers . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Once Olwyn got to be beside the unmoving prince, however, she saw something else that nearly made her want to retch and run away.

On the left side of his chest — which was across his body from where she’d approached — was something of a grotesque tangle of flesh and blood, there was purplish bruising, black-red bloodstains, and even some other things that looked unpleasant.

It looked terrible and raw, almost like the mangled half of a rat Olwyn had seen once which had been abandoned in the stables by one of the cats kept for the reduction of rats and mice in the castle.

Remembering that mangled rat caused the bile to rise in Olwyn’s stomach, but she managed to keep herself from retching. Seeing that rat had been such a frightening and unpleasant experience for Olwyn that Uncle Elaþa had ensured that the people who tended to the stables kept all the half-eaten rats and mice — and whatever else the cats might catch — hidden away from where people like Olwyn might end up seeing them and become overwhelmed with revulsion at the idea of seeing such things.

Nervously and cautiously Olwyn went around to be on the prince’s left side, so as to get — not that she wanted it — a closer look at the wound than looking across his body.

She didn’t touch the wound, but she looked at it and observed that it seemed to be in a position as to be directly over his heart.

In the tale the warrior of Sygæðelwulf had said that he had been wounded near the heart, and there was no question this was the wound, which was incredibly foul and looked almost as if it were festering with infection.

Olwyn considered prodding it, but had a feeling that could not only make things worse, but that it also might feel incredibly unpleasant to her to touch something that looked so foul.

Seeing how foul it looked, Olwyn was determined to do something about it, although she didn’t have any medical supplies with her, so doing something wouldn’t be possible now; besides, Olwyn didn’t want to know what might happen if the Queen discovered that someone was trying to tend to a festering five-year-old wound on the prince being kept in her bedchamber.

Since it was festering Olwyn wondered if there weren’t something foreign inside the wound that would need to be removed in order for the wound to start healing properly, but she wasn’t going to go poking and prodding about in that unpleasant-looking tangle of raw flesh edges to find it until she’d done some reading up in those medical books she’d found in the library and collected up the tools that she’d need to get to work.