Chapter 113: Playing Nursemaid

Illness spread through the castle as the weather changed drastically. My immune system was much stronger as Catherine du Pont than it had ever been as Katie Pullman so I was perfectly fine. Al was not so lucky.

He put up such a fuss you would have thought he was legitimately dying. It looked to me like nothing more than a cold.

"Katie," he moaned. "I'm freezing. Come keep me warm."

Sweat beaded on his forehead and he was shaking slightly. He had the chills that came with being sick. I was quite familiar with them. A quick forehead test showed that he was pretty warm but not hot enough to be truly concerning.

Getting back into the warm, cozy bed was tempting but I was slightly concerned he would sweat on me. That would be really, really gross.

He did look pretty pitiful though so it was hard to refuse him. I sighed and crawled into his arms. He buried his face in my chest and let me stroke his sweaty hair. It crossed my mind that he had probably never been taken care of when he was sick before.

He had been so young when he lost his parents and then was taken to this cold, loveless place. Having a nurse attend to you is different than being taken care of by someone who cares.

When I got sick as a kid my mom would let me lay my head in her lap and tuck me under a blanket to watch a movie of my choice. I always fell asleep during it as she gently petted my head. When I woke up, she would make me chicken noodle soup.

As much as I didn't like being covered in someone else's sweat, I couldn't deny Al the love he clearly needed right now. Everyone deserved to be taken care of when they're sick but especially people like him who had spent so much of their lives alone.

We snuggled for a while until he fell asleep. That was when I wiggled my way out of his embrace to go take a bath. I felt disgusting.

The warm water helped me relax even though I was still worried about what Sigmund and Duke Orla might be planning. When I got out I sat down by the fire and read a book about mountain plants, wanting to know as much about my soon-to-be new home as I could.

I had been on a research binge for a while whenever I had the time, which was more often now that court had ended for the season. I tried learning everything I could about this world's minerals, flora and fauna, and crops.

Based on how many mines were rumored to be in the mountains, I had no doubt that we would be able to support ourselves using that as an export alone. After doing a little research on the mining industry on this continent I learned a few things.

The Kanta Mountains were situated not far from part of the border between Annalaias and Rowenhilde. The latter had access to other mines in another part of the country but Annalaias did not.

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Before destroying the clan, they had to barter with the Kanta for raw materials. Now groups of miners were sent up to work like dogs for a few months in the summer and came home for the rest of the year because the environment was too harsh.

To sustain the lifestyle of the nobles, about one hundred miners were currently employed by the kingdom. We would have less than one hundred people total and it wasn't like everyone could be a miner.

Most of the people who would be coming to us would likely be children. Until we had enough people to sustain the industry we might need to let the Annalaias miners keep working and get a fair profit from Franz.

I would need to calculate all of that out but I was too tired for math at the moment. It had never been my favorite subject anyway.

Al moaned in his sleep and I desperately wished for some NyQuil so he wouldn't be so miserable. Medicine in this world was sorely lacking. I sincerely hoped that regular hygiene habits would be enough to prevent our people from dying. Finding books on medicinal herbs became the next item on my to-do list.

Eventually he woke up and I got someone to change the sheets and draw him a bath since his fever had finally broken. I dried his hair meticulously, not wanting a wet head to make things worse. He hummed sleepily at my touch.

"I love you," he said with a yawn.

I smiled. Al was extra cute when he acted like this. I stopped toweling his hair for a moment to wrap my arms around him from behind and rest my head on his shoulder to kiss his cheek.

"I love you too. Are you feeling any better?"

He nodded. "Mmhmm. At least I don't have the chills anymore but my head still hurts and even though I barely woke up I want to sleep again."

"You can go right back to sleep as soon as you're dry," I promised as I resumed where I had left off.

Al continued making small sleepy noises and my heart melted a little. How was he so adorable now that he was clean when earlier he was a demanding mess getting on my nerves? Feelings are fickle.

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