Chapter 9
§09. Jacob’s Island
From that fateful moment, a feverish malady gripped me in its sinister clutches. My temperature soared beyond the threshold of 100°F (38°C), and my wretched body could no longer abide the act of swallowing, instead purging its insides with a violent intensity. Marie, ever attentive, dampened a towel with heated liquid, and let a single droplet fall upon my parched lips, yet my fevered form perspired a chill sweat all through the night, and dehydration soon followed.
As for the spectre of death, I found myself no different from a cherished maiden. Incapacitated and forlorn, I paced the edge of the River Styx and, by some miraculous turn, recovered. It was a convalescence that took place after a fortnight of languishing in the throes of a raging fever.
Upon witnessing my reanimated form donning fresh garments, Marie's eyes widened, and she clung to me, weeping. I was taken aback by her emotional display.
"By the gods, Master! I believed you were destined for the grave!"
"Surely, that is a bit of an overstatement."
"You are ignorant of the countless days you were confined to your sickbed!"
My fevered delirium had obscured the passage of time, but a glance at Marie's countenance revealed that it was not a mere day or two. I offered her my heartfelt gratitude and inquired about the events that had transpired during my incapacitation.
Marie, with a hesitant stutter, recounted the tale of her tribulations. The royal physician, thrice, had decreed that I would not survive another day. A solicitor arrived to authenticate the will I had penned a dozen years prior and took his leave. Of my kin, only my second brother paid a visit, bearing a delicate white orchid nestled within a Chinese porcelain vessel he had unearthed from some forgotten corner.