Aethelwyn Tenbrook (approved)

Character information
Full Character Name: Aethelwyn Tenbrook
Furcadia Name: Aethelwyn
Desired Role: Healer
Gender: Female
Age: 32
Height: 5'5"
Build: thin, slightly underweight
Eye Color: Grey
Hair Color: Dark brown

Description:

Character Background:

She was just a child when the Valentis fell from power, her father one of those that remained loyal to the then infant Prince Drysllthen. Along with Princess Garnett, the family fled to Ygriss, displaced from their home although welcomed into the service of the Princess and later the Wenfrith family. In her new home, her instinct to tend to the ill and sympathetic soul brought her to the attention of the master physician sworn to Lord Wenfrith. without reservation, the old man took her as an apprentice for the Physician's Guild when Aethelwyn was nine.

For six years, she worked tirelessly for her master, elated at the chance to hone her natural instincts into a viable skill. She soaked up the knowledge he offered, and when she was fifteen, the Physician's Guild raised her to journeywoman, and she was invited to Pfoergarth to learn and practice under one of the elders. Three years she spent in the adjacent county, her reputation building into that of a fine and sympathetic healer, but upon her return home, rather than allow her to pursue a place in one of the noble houses, her father demanded that she wed as he had arranged to a man twenty years her senior.

Aethelwyn was as dutiful a daughter as she was a healer, and she submitted to her father's arrangement without complaint. She was fortunate in that her husband reached an arrangement with her old master for her to continue to serve as his assistant. The elderly physician's eyes were failing, and despite all remedies, arthritis was taking its toll on his body, and even her husband could not find it in himself to disrespect the wishes of the aging healer.

Four years passed, Aethelwyn's responsibility as physician growing while a marriage that had started with promise began to whither. She had yet to conceive, and none of the potions nor remedies she prescribed for herself had any effect..causing no few to question her abilities as a healer. With each small triumph of a woman she helped grow with child, her own failure deepened, each day making it clearer that it would never happen despite her husband's determined efforts. Finally the day came, for Edmund knew he was growing old and with no heirs to speak of, he needed a wife who would conceive. He declared her barren, and with his signature and the magistrate's, set her aside.

Now a woman scorned and worthless, she had naught but her skills to provide her with a place in the world. Tension was rippling through the Wenfrith household at the time, Lady Wenfrith's eldest son having returned from her homeland which worried Lord Wenfrith, the old man demanding she constantly check for poisons or that she refuse to treat whatever small ailments the young man had. To both, she did her duty as physician, and it was she who pronounced Lord Wenfrith dead after a terrible hunting accident.

Lord Valenti, or as he styled himself, Prince Drysllthen, kept her on as the household's physician even after the death of her master, the young man refusing to think that because she was barren that she made other women so. He'd seen the efficacy of her work, and it was not in the youth to send away a woman skilled and in need of a place..so it was there she lived and worked, as content as one might be until the new King called her to join his court in Valwyn.

(unfinished, update to follow)