“Fix him and I’ll see what I can do,” the sergeant said.

  ‘He’ was a guard laid up in the castle infirmary with a leg bound in bandages out of which protruded a bone. His pained groaning grated against John’s nerves.

  “Er, I don’t think it does that,” John said.

  “You said it was a miracle medicine, didn’t you? What good will it do curing the queen if it can’t cure my man, eh?”

  Knowing little of medicine, it seemed to John the sergeant had a good point. While he was thinking of what to do, Morkal wriggled into the satchel and came out dragging first the bottle of morphine and then a crimson-red healing potion.

  John took the hint and uncorked the healing potion to pour the powdered morphine into. Morkal was the only person besides Jessica who knew how much to safely administer, but she communicated this to John by keeping a foreleg on his arm until he had poured enough.

  The sergeant scratched his scalp. “You got an interesting frog there, son.”

  “Toad, actually,” John replied, pouring the mixture down the injured man’s gullet.

  “Common healing potions ain’t gonna fix him. We’ve got plenty of those already.”

  Morkal’s healing potions, however, were made for beasts let alone men. Her potions were too strong. They could set and rebuild bone but only at the cost of excruciating pain. This was not a problem for the demon armies they were designed for, but castle guards were not demons.

  And yet, despite the shattered bone wriggling its way back inside his flesh, the groaning man stopped groaning. He was in fact a sighing man now as the morphine, binding to the magical, instantaneous properties of the healing potion, flooded his veins.

  “Stick me on a spit and call me roast pork, that works mighty well!” the sergeant said, running his hand along his subordinate’s sealing leg. “Are there any side-effects?”

  John pursed his lips. “Nnn….”

  Morkal croaked.

  “No? I think? You should ask the creator of the medicine who, if I may remind you, sir, is locked up in your dungeon.”

  The sergeant’s eyes darkened.

  “I’ll do what I can, but the dungeons are Mystiferia’s jurisdiction. If you want clemency for your alchemist friend it’ll come from the king. But I’ll talk to someone about an audience.”

  The Barleyfielders waited an hour for the sergeant to speak to various officials who all wanted to come down and see the miraculously cured guard. News of the miracle reached the queen’s ears by late afternoon and she agreed to speak with John Serf in private.

  “I’m afraid we’ve all gotta come,” John said to the queen’s attendant.

  The grey-haired woman frowned. “That will not be possible. The queen has asked to speak to you in private. You must be unaware given your… origins, but this is already a higher honor than most subjects can expect in their lifetimes.”

  “Well, this matter’s about Jessica, and Jessica’s a part of Barleyfield, so if the queen wants to talk about gettin’ this medicine then we’re all gonna be there,” John said.

  The queen’s attendant shook her head and went back inside the castle. A minute or two later she returned and said, “You may bring a delegation of ten.”

  John accepted and entered the reception chamber alongside both his parents, the Johnson-Serfs, Erik Whitehill-Serf, Eric Blackhill-Serf (but not his uncouth wife), Jenny Eriksson-Serf, and a few other equally dignified members of the community. They all—John included—gawked at the expensive silk tapestries, fine satin chairs, marble fireplaces, and glowing light orbs filling the chamber.

  As for Queen Samara, the best adjective might be ‘deflated.’ The topiary-like curls in her auburn hair sagged and her tiara tilted in the same direction as her head against her palm. Below, her emerald dress lay draped over a pale and under-nourished frame.

  John and the other serfs dropped to their knees and bowed before the queen and her assembly of attendants and guards.

  “So, these are the snake oil salesmen, hmm? Come to sell me another miracle cure? You’ve done a better job impressing my peons, I’ll give you that,” Queen Samara said, her cherry-painted lips dripping with acid.

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  John swallowed a waterfall of saliva. “No snakes were involved in the creation of this medicine, Y-Your Highness!”

  She chuckled. “Oh no? I suppose you’re going to regale me with how your secret blend is more effective than all the other charlatans’. Isn’t that right? Well, what’s in it? Be quick now and stop wasting my time.”

  “Your Highness, I rightly do not know what is in this stuff,” John said. “No one in our humble hamlet does ‘cept our resident alchemist, a lady one of your knights arrested under the charge of witchcraft. But she’s no witch, of that we promise you.”

  “She cured us of micro-demons!” Rosemary said, rising to show off her clean hands.

  The queen peeled her cheek off her hand to clap sarcastically. “Very impressive. Your panacea even cures that well known scourge, micro-demons.”

  Rosemary wrinkled her brow. “Did everyone know ‘bout it but us?”

  Queen Samara snorted. “Has this alchemist-witch also bamboozled you? How droll. This is a better farce than the playwrights put on.”

  “It ain’t no farce!” John said, hand curling into a fist. “Our neighbor’s gonna burn at the stake but all she ever did was make medicine for folks and help with the harvest and blow up an adventurer and help us make soap! Would you know it, as soon as she heard about your malady, Your Highness, she whipped up this medicine just for you! If you’re gonna put her to death then you owe it to Jessica to at least try it.”

  “I’m sorry, she did what with an adventurer?” Queen Samara asked.

  Morkal slapped his neck with her foreleg.

  “Blew… up at. Them. Told ‘em off real good! Anyhow, this medicine is proven! It helped ease the pain of your guard’s broken leg and I’m sure it’ll work just as good for you too.”

  Queen Samara took a long, deep breath and swept her arctic blue eyes down the line of awe-struck serfs.

  “Mhm… Unlike the other charlatans you all seem unaware my pain is of a more internal character,” the Queen said, tossing her auburn hair over the back of her chair. “I have what some call ‘emotional pains,’ something I doubt your miracle cure can fix.”

  To come so far only to be thwarted by the queen’s pains being emotional was almost too much to bear. For this reason, and for Jessica’s sake, John refused to bear it.

  “Try it anyway,” John said. “Maybe it’ll work on emotional pain too.”

  Queen Samara frowned. John trembled under a gaze which flayed him where he stood. After a minute of this unblinking scrutiny, she hummed.

  “I will try a small amount.”

  John knelt down before her and poured a small amount of a healing potion into an empty jar with around half as much morphine as he’d given the injured soldier. Since Morkal wasn’t slapping him he took this to mean it was an appropriate amount and gave the Potion of Internal Healing to an attendant who took it to the queen.

  The queen’s initial reaction was a choking grimace. A roll of her jaw. Tightening cheeks. But just as she was about to insult their intelligence, cleanliness, and social stature, her whole body relaxed and a smile wormed its way onto her face.

  “Oh… Oh this does work on internal pain. This works very well,” Queen Samara said, puddling into her chair.

  Everyone in the room—the Barleyfielders, the guards, the castle attendants—stood awkwardly as the queen talked aloud about how this was the best she’d felt since marrying King Capra. When it became apparent she wasn’t going to stop, John cleared his throat.

  “Your— Your Highness? Um, can we speak about releasing our hamlet’s alchemist?”

  “Hmm? Wha— oh…” the queen’s mouth turned up into a squiggly grin. “What’s her name?”

  “Jessica Moon.”

  “Mathilda,” she said, snapping her fingers lazily.

  A maid stepped forward. “Your Highness?”

  “Tell Mystiferia to release Jessica. And that I wish to see this alchemist about… about making more of this lovely, lovely medicine,” Queen Samara said, taking the maid’s rosy cheeks in-between her palms and squishing them like a puppy’s. “Will you do that for me, dear Mathilda?”

  “Y-Yes, Your Highness,” the maid said, waiting for the queen to stop squishing her.

  Queen Samara stood up, tottering for a moment before her team of attendants rushed to straighten her.

  “I’m going! To my chambers. Heehee…”

  The moment the queen left the Barleyfielders came together in a blob of celebration and cheer which had to be pushed outside by the attendants. Mathilda ordered them to wait in the courtyard while she informed Mystiferia of Jessica’s pardon. In the meantime the blob of celebration grew to the entire hamlet. It was to this crowd of jubilation Mathilda returned in a huff.

  “She’s already been taken to the execution! She’s being burned as we speak!”

  The jubilations stopped.

  “Where did they take her!?” John said.

  “The Piazza del Mare! It’s in the center of town. I’ll have some guards go and—”

  John was already sprinting for the tunnel up to Elsifeya City, a satchel of bottles jangling against his back.