It was a simple matter to find work and shelter at the Duke's court. Viola began humbly enough, given a boot scraper and put to work cleaning the footwear of the various noblemen who were fond of riding and hunting in all weathers.
"I can offer no complaint. I seeked work and by heaven I found it in spades." She said to herself ruefully as she sat on her haunches in the entryway and carefully scraped boot after boot.
She had seen Duke Orsino from a distance and admired what she saw. Tall, athletic, handsome and with an easy yet intelligent charm. Yet her lowly position granted her no discourse with him directly.
This state of affairs would change abruptly one day. It poured with rain but that in no wise stopped the intrepid Duke and court from the hunt. Viola had just laid down a ragged old cloth to accommodate the twelve odd pairs of muddy boots that were soon to be in her charge. She'd found this bit of foresight had made cleanup a great deal easier.
Still she gave the storm a baleful look out the window and thought they would do well to leave the hart to a solitary wetting. Still men would be men. She felt a tightening in her throat as she thought of Sebastian. This would have been his wet and unwise course as well.
Suddenly, the door burst open. Curio entered with a panicked expression, the Duke leaning heavily against his arm, ghost pale and moaning in pain. They were both soaked to the skin.
"His Grace's horse startled at the lightning and threw him. Fetch the doctor!"
He said this to Viola as she was closest at hand and she took off running.
"Doctor! Doctor!" Viola cried at the top of her voice as she reached the surgery. The doctor had been lulled to sleep by the rain. He woke up to her cries and groggily rose. Viola already had her arms full of gauze dressings, a sling and various liniments and painkillers as well as the doctor's bag.
"Ah, excellent! You can assist me, boy. A second pair of hands is never amiss. You do seem to know what you are about here."
"My erstwhile brother was of a similar gallant, sometimes reckless bent as the Duke. It becomes a sis…sibling therefore to know his way about the infirmary." Viola explained as they set off.
They attended upon the Duke in his chambers. Curio and Valentine were already there and had taken off the Duke's wet things and dried him as best they could while having a care not to further disturb any injuries.
Viola felt the blood rush to her cheeks at what her assumed gender and station suddenly allowed her to witness. But maidenly embarrassment was quickly banished as she was pressed into service, mainly handing the doctor what he required for the examination.
Still she hoped the examination would not take long so the Duke could be properly covered with a warm blanket.. A fire had been lit but it was slow to heat the large room and he shivered dreadfully. Beads of sweat stood out on his brow, a possible harbinger of a fever. Viola's other job was to wipe them away so they didn't drip into his eyes. She was grateful for this second office. For her heart was suddenly so full of tenderness, if some hadn't been allowed expression through the gentle gesture of wiping his face, it might have simply burst.
She had felt a similar tenderness towards an injured Sebastian. Similar yet still very different. It is different when the man is not your brother. Viola tried not to think about it too deeply. Neither the import of the situation at hand nor her assumed identity would render such thoughts fruitful.
The doctor found no injury save a badly broken arm. Viola bade the Duke bite on a piece of leather and offered her hand to hold as the doctor set the bone.
Viola winced as the grip became vice like but she wouldn't cry out. Her pain was but a fraction of his and he didn't utter a syllable as the bone was set and the doctor set about applying a plaster.
As the doctor worked, Duke Orsino released Viola's hand, tipped his head back to catch the tears that had formed due to the pain.
And what was the first thing this great and noble man said? "Boy, I've not hurt thine hand, have I?"
"Good my lord, no!" Viola managed, choking back tears. She slipped her hand into her pocket because there was a slight bruise and she didn't want to distress him further. The doctor was finished so Viola pulled the blankets up over the duke and arranged his pillows nicely.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. "Thanks for thy pains, boy." Valentine looked down with a sympathetic expression. "Get thee to bed. I'll take the first watch over His Grace."
Viola nodded, suddenly too exhausted to protest. She went to her little room, threw herself on the bed without bothering to unwind her bindings and wept till she was asleep.
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It was not long after this that Duke Orsino asked after the youth who had so faithfully attended him that night. Viola in the guise of Cesario was therefore quickly summoned to the Duke's bedside.
"My… my lord." She sat in a chair at his bedside.
"What is thy name, boy?"
"Cesario, if it please your lordship."
"Cesario… how came you to my household?"
"His lordship Curio took pity upon my state and put me to work scraping the court's boots."
"And how came you to my chambers?"
"That same Curio came in through the very entrance where I was to perform my office. Your lordship came in with him. He bade me assist and I obeyed. When I fetched the doctor he bade me assist again and again I obeyed."
Orsino leaned back against the pillows, closing his eyes.
Viola frowned a little. The Duke Orsino's face had an unhealthy flushed to it and Viola feared the fever she had foreseen had come upon the Duke after all. She impulsively leaned forward and felt his forehead. It burned under her hand.
He gave a small sigh and seemed to relish the soft, cool touch. "That is the physic for a sick man, better than what the doctor gave."
"The doctor left my lord medicine? Is this it, not taken?" She produced an untouched bottle from the bedside table and looked at him reprovingly. There was a spoon provided and she poured out a dose and held it out expectantly.
Grudgingly the duke took the medicine, coughed and grimaced.
Just then the doctor entered the room. "This young Cesario seems the purveyor of miracles for the Duke to so readily obey doctor's orders."
The Duke chuckled. "Truly it was a mean use of his talents leaving him to scrape the boots." He smiled at Viola and her heart fluttered. "How like you to be my attendant, Cesario? Your temperament and demeanor seems to me more suited to the sickbed than Curio and Valentine."
"Nothing should please me better, my lord."
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And so it came to pass that Viola in the guise of Cesario rose from boot cleaner to the Duke's sickroom attendant. They talked or she read or sang when he was too fatigued. Until the fever broke she bathed his face and chided him about the doctor's medicine.
It was during this time that she learned of the Duke's hopeless love for the Countess Olivia, residing on her own lands not too far from the his own.
That last, fateful hunt had been for her sake. The Duke had sworn that before the week was out he would fell and deliver a hart to her.
"A hart for a heart one might say." he put it rather poetically after a very prosaic dose of the medicine.
The hunt itself had been successful. It had been the Duke's attempt to deliver up the hart to Olivia when things went wrong. The lady had been unimpressed with the gift and indifferent to the accident that then occurred just outside her gates.
"It would seem the cause is a hopeless one if such gestures and events stir her not." Viola kept the worst of her thoughts as secret from the Duke as her true form. How can you win the heart of the heartless, hart or not?"
"Not hopeless. I haven't found the key yet but I shall." He yawned. "Read to me for a while, Cesario."
Viola picked up the book and as Cesario smiled through her tears.