Chapter 240: The Physician’s Price
Chapter 239: The Point of No Return
The Queen’s eye twitched.
A crack in the polished surface of her composure. She regarded Duke Valenridge with a gaze that had frozen lesser men where they stood, but the Duke did not flinch. He simply waited, his pale green eyes steady, his posture relaxed.
"Your Grace," the Queen said, her voice cool, "do you know what a physician is?"
Duke Valenridge tilted his head.
"Do you know what propriety is, Your Majesty?"
The Queen’s smile faltered, thinning at the edges, becoming something sharper, more brittle.
"Are you daring to speak to me in such a manner?" she asked.
The Duke’s expression did not change.
"I speak to people exactly as they speak to me," he said. "Your Majesty knows precisely what I mean by that."
The Queen stared at him.
Her smile held, but it was shaking now—a delicate tremor at the corners of her lips that betrayed the fury simmering beneath. The silence stretched between them, and Baron Redwick found himself holding his breath without quite meaning to.
"A physician must do his job," the Queen said at last, "regardless of who the patient is. Surely, Your Grace, you understand that."
Duke Valenridge nodded slowly.
"That is true," he said. "But that is not something they practice here in the capital, is it? From what I know, treatment is usually separated by sex."
He paused.
"And given that, it would be more appropriate for a female physician to examine the Princess. Rather than stalling and exchanging words with both myself and Baron Redwick, would it not be better if you simply called a physician who can actually work on Her Highness? Especially since she is your daughter, whom you dearly care for?"
He let the words settle.
"Even though the mark on her face suggests otherwise?"
The Queen went quiet.
The silence in the chamber was quite deafening. Even the maids seemed to have stopped breathing, pressing themselves further into the corners as though they might disappear entirely.
"You would do well to know your place, Your Grace," the Queen said.
The Duke did not look away.
"Not until you do what is right," he said.
He stepped forward, closing the distance between them by a single pace. His voice dropped, low and steady.
"Call an appropriate physician, Your Majesty. Before everyone at court learns the secret you so wish to hide."
Baron Redwick stood frozen, his hands clasped behind his back, his spectacles catching the light. He felt as though he were caught between two wild animals, each waiting for the other to strike.
He had seen Duke Valenridge speak boldly before. He had witnessed the man’s disregard for convention, his willingness to say what others would not. But this—
This was something else entirely.
The Duke was not backing down. Neither was the Queen. They stood at an impasse, two forces pressing against one another, and Baron Redwick could not predict which would break first.
He was quite scared for the Duke, he admitted to himself. Annoying as the man could be, reckless as he often was, this was a different order of danger. The Queen was not someone one challenged lightly. She was not someone one challenged at all.
And yet.
The Duke was fighting for Princess Lyria.
Baron Redwick thought of her pale face, her trembling hands, the way she had walked away from him with tears in her eyes. He thought of the exhaustion she had tried so hard to conceal, the fever that had finally claimed her, the maids who had done nothing to help.
He was angry at himself for not noticing how unwell she truly was. He had seen that she was not herself—he had remarked upon it—but he had not pressed. He had not insisted. He had let her smile and deflect and walk away.
And now she lay unconscious in her bed, burning with fever, while the Queen argued about propriety.
The Duke was being reckless. Baron Redwick was beginning to see that this was a usual trait in the man. But reckless as he was, he was also right.
And Baron Redwick could not help but support him.
He stepped forward.
"Your Majesty," he said, bowing politely, "forgive my interruption. But I find myself curious."
The Queen turned her gaze upon him.
"Yes?"
"May I ask why you are so adamant that a male physician attend to the Princess?"
The Queen’s smile returned, thin and cold.
"Because he is the one available."
Duke Valenridge scoffed.
"Surely," he said, "given the number of people who work in this palace, this cannot be the only physician available."
He crossed his arms.
"Where is your physician, Your Majesty? The female one. The one you use for your own needs."
The Queen stared at him.
He stared back.
"Stop stalling," he said. "Call a female physician."
The silence stretched.
Then the Queen turned to the male physician, who had been standing quietly, his face pale, his eyes wide.
"Is there a female physician available?" she asked.
The physician swallowed.
"There is one, Your Majesty," he said. "She is the only one available at present."
He hesitated.
"But she has the highest mortality rate among them..."
Duke Valenridge did not let him finish.
"I do not care," he said. "Summon her."
The physician turned to the Queen.
She stared at the Duke for a long moment, her expression unreadable.
Then she smiled.
It was an icy smile, devoid of warmth, devoid of anything but the coldest calculation.
"Summon her," she said.
The physician bowed and hurried from the room.
The Queen turned back to Duke Valenridge.
"Very well, Your Grace," she said. "You shall have your female physician."
She paused.
"But if anything happens to my daughter—if she worsens, if she does not recover, if any harm befalls her—I shall hold not only you responsible, but Baron Redwick as well."
Duke Valenridge bowed.
It was a shallow bow, barely more than an inclination of his head, filled with mockery.
"With pleasure, Your Majesty," he said.
