Chapter Four
“Aaron?” Bethan whispered, “Aaron, please wake up.”
It had been almost three days since she had rescued him from Linchester’s castle and Aaron hadn’t woken since. Bethan had managed to stop the bleeding on his shoulder to stop him losing much blood but the cut was deep and would be very painful for him when he woke up.
When he had fallen to the floor, Aaron’s head had smacked the ground so hard that it had knocked him out. Bethan had grown more and more worried each day that he wouldn’t wake and had spent every second by his bedside.
“Please, Aaron.” She repeated, “Please wake up.”
She sighed. She knew that Aaron was going to be all right and that he wouldn’t suffer any lasting damage; her only worry was that he wouldn’t wake in good time for them to rescue his parents.
She walked over to the other side of her home, where she keeps a large collection of bottles. She had spent many years mixing the perfect remedies and potions for several situations and she had been giving Aaron a small amount of a certain one each day.
The one that she had been giving him was mainly to keep hunger away (as she had no other way of feeding him while he was asleep) but also had a tiny drop of what she called liquid adrenaline, which she added to speed up the time that it would take for him to wake.
She picked up the bottle and walked back to Aaron’s bedside. She opened his mouth slightly and poured in a tiny drop. Immediately, Aaron’s eyes flew open and found hers. He gasped at the sudden awakening and she stroked his hand as she held it in her own.
The potion must have now been at the right concentration, as it hadn’t differed from what she had given him for the previous couple of days. She made a mental note of the fact that it takes a couple of days to take effect and then walked back to her store of potions to get him something to ease the pain in his arm.
“Bethan,” He croaked, “Why did you help me?”
She turned around to look at him, “Why wouldn’t I help you?” She replied, shocked.
“Because I’d been shouting at you,” He replied, “I didn’t listen when you told me not to go; you should have just left me.”
“I couldn’t,” Bethan picked up a tiny orange bottle and passed it to Aaron, “I’m not in the right position to leave a friend behind. Here, drink this.”
He looked at the bottle that she had given him with curiosity, “What is it?” He questioned.
“It’s one of my remedies,” she told him, “It will help with the pain in your arm.”
He still didn’t drink from the bottle, “Trust me about this.” She said, “I know what I’m doing.”
He closed his eyes and drank down the contents of the bottle, shivering as it went down his throat. “It’s burning my throat!” He exclaimed.
“Don’t worry,” Bethan replied, “It does that for a couple of seconds but after that you’ll barely be able to feel the pain in your arm.”
Aaron gulped as the last drop of potion trickled down his throat and took a sip of the water that she had given him for afterwards.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t give you that while you were sleeping,” she took the empty bottle from him and placed it back with the others, “it wouldn’t have worked if I had.”
“How do you know all of this stuff?” Aaron asked, “Why do you know how to make potions and heal wounds?”
“I always have,” She answered honestly, “It’s just natural instinct, it must be something that I got from my mother.”
Aaron looked at Bethan. Ever since he had met her, almost a week ago, he had thought that there was something different about her; her strength and wisdom is unheard of in people her age and yet there was something that Aaron felt was stopping him from completely trusting her.
“It’s going to be at least a week before you’ll be well enough to attempt rescuing your parents.” She warned him.
“Well, that will give us plenty of time to create a plan, won’t it?” He smiled at her.
“But I thought you thought that plans didn’t work?” She looked at him in surprise.
“Look, I’m sorry about everything that I said after we’d found out all of that information from that man from my village.” Aaron apologized, “I know that I shouldn’t have shouted at you and not listened to you, none of what we’d found out was your fault.”
“Don’t worry about it, Aaron.” She replied, “I know how very upset you were, and you had full reason to be.”
“I had to find out sometime,” He admitted, “I just don’t believe that my parents would commit treason; there has to be something strange going on.”
“So you think that they’re innocent?” Bethan questioned, looking Aaron directly in the eye.
“Of course they are,” he replied, without need to pause and think, “There must be some other reason why they were taken.” He pulled himself to sit upright and drew a deep breath while he pondered over what this reason may be.
“I guess we won’t know that until we can ask your parents in person,” she said, “All we need to think about at the moment is how are we going to get into the castle.”
“How do you get in when you’re searching for you necklace?” He asked her.
“Well, I used to know of a tunnel that led straight to the main kitchens,” she considered the thought of attempting this again, “But they blocked that up about a month ago.”
“Why?”
“Because when Linchester heard that people had been sneaking through there, he ordered it to be blocked.” She sighed, “I heard that they caught a guy attempting to break in and made sure that it would never happen again.”
Aaron rested his head in his hands, failing to think of an idea of his own as Bethan wondered about what other plans she had used.
“I did once jump the walls like you tried to,” she admitted, “I knocked out the guard that was nearby and gained entry by force.”
“Why don’t we just try that again?” Aaron suggested, “If it worked once, who says that it wouldn’t work again?”
“That was the closest that I’ve ever got to being arrested by the guards,” she replied, unsure if it would be wise to repeat the same tactics, “And besides, we’d be twice as likely to be caught if there is two of us.”
“Maybe we don’t have to do it exactly the same way,” he pointed out, “We could just find a different way to get over the walls and then only knock out any guards that we absolutely have to.”
Bethan looked to him as she considered this, “Actually,” she smiled, “I have an idea.”
Aaron returned her smile as she stood up and walked towards her collection of remedies and potions. She picked up the bottle of liquid adrenaline and turned back to face him.
“This is the remedy that I used to wake you up after you were knocked out,” she told him. “If I added a few more ingredients and tweaked it a little bit, then maybe, just maybe, I may be able to reverse what happens when you drink it.”
“Do you mean that you might be able to create something that instead of waking people up, it makes them fall asleep?” Aaron’s jaw dropped.
“I think that I might,” Bethan grinned, “We could feed a small amount to some guards and use it to get into the castle.”
“Great!” Aaron exclaimed, “How long will it take you to get it ready for use?”
“I suppose I could have it ready in a couple of days,” she replied, wondering about which ingredients she needed to collect.
Excitement flushed around his body: it would only be a couple of days before they would be equipped for rescuing his mother and father. He leapt off his bed, ready to begin helping Bethan to make the potion. He grabbed onto a nearby branch to pull himself up and immediately regretted it.
“Careful!” She warned as he fell to the ground; pain screaming from his shoulder. He watched blood trickle down his arm as a full conclusion that his wound had opened up again.
“Oh, Aaron.” Bethan sighed, passing him a cloth to stop the bleeding, “You need to be more careful with that shoulder, it needs a couple more days rest before you can start putting strain on it.”
“It’s a lot of use warning me now,” he snapped, frustrated, “The damage has already been done.”
“Stop being sarcastic, Aaron,” she teased, “I didn’t realise you’d turn into monkey man on the day that you’d woken up after nearly cutting your arm off!”
Aaron laughed, “Sorry.” He replied, “I didn’t realise that that would hurt so much.”
“Oh, you baby.” She passed him another bottle of the potion that she had given him earlier to lessen the pain, “Have another sip of this.”
He shuddered as he drank a second mouthful of the potion and she laughed at him as his eyes began to water. “You’ll get use to drinking that after a while,” she told him.
“What do you mean?” He replied anxiously, “How long am I going to have to keep drinking it for?”
“I’d say about a week or so,” she answered, rather matter-of-factly. “It’d be better if you don’t put any more strain on it until then.”
Aaron looked at her, “So we’re not going to be able to go to the castle until then?”
“I’m afraid not,” Bethan apologised, “But that will give us plenty of time to plan how what we’re going to do to make sure that everything goes alright.” He sighed. “I suppose,” he muttered and climbed back onto his bed. Bethan had made this bed from a few broken branches woven together and he was surprised at how comfortable it was. Even without a blanket, the trees around him created useful warmth and Aaron began to feel that he preferred this bed to his one at home.
His stomach turned at the thought of his home. His family had owned it for several generations and even thought it was small, he had always loved living there. It consisted of two thin mattresses stuffed with small amounts of straw and very little else as Aaron’s family had very little money at the time due to his mother falling ill and his father often needing to take care of her.
Taxes over the last few years were becoming unbearable as Lord Linchester became more and more powerful and simple peasants like the Black family had to face the consequences. Everybody in Godwick was facing the same problems and Aaron knew that the only way to stay out of trouble was just to obey Linchester’s laws and do as he was told.
Bethan was very lucky to live somewhere beyond Linchester’s reach and all she ever worried about was finding food and money for herself; she didn't need to protest against the majority of her money being taxed away.
Aaron watched her as she sat crossed legged on the floor, her mind wandering and her hands pouring different concentrations of different liquids into a small stone pot that lay by her feet. Even with the tiny amount of sunlight that escaped through into the forest, her auburn hair shone at her every movement and her eyes glistened mystically.
He had never seen anybody creating potions and remedies like she did. Even when his mother was well, all they ever ate was bread and the occasional fish; Bethan was using ingredients from around the forest that Aaron had never heard of.
He hadn’t even known this girl for a week but he already felt as though he knew her as well as if he had known her all their lives. He smiled as she tilted her head to one side and bit her lip in concentration as she mixed the tiniest drop of a green liquid into the bowl.
Thinking that Aaron was sleeping, Bethan began to sing to herself as she worked. Her voice was strong and angelic and she sang a song that he didn’t recognise nor that made any sense to him.
Silently, silently,
Whispers and tears,
Wash away nightmares,
Keep away fears.
Silently, silently,
A heartbeat so strong,
Let right be what’s right,
And wrong be what’s wrong.
Silently, silently,
As dreams lead you away,
Forget how this happened,
How night took your day.
Silently, silently,
Whispers and tears,
Wash away nightmares,
Keep away fears.
Bethan smiled as she finished her song and then blew gently into the potion that simmered in the pot besides her. The liquid bubbled for a couple of seconds and then gradually faded to a clear, water-like colour. She poured the contents of the pot into a large empty bottle that sat with her collection of potions and remedies, smiling as not a single drop was spilt.
“Just a few more days.” She whispered to herself.
