A Templar's Apprentice (17 page)

We came in sight of the walls at sundown and camped in a thicket below the road. “Sleep while ye can, Tormod,” he said. “I will wait for Ahram; then we'll go on to the preceptory.”

Thoughts of Ahram didn't make me feel better, nor did the idea that we would go to Ponferrada when clearly we could not. I fished my plaid from the sack, needing its comfort and warmth, and by an old stump I hunkered down. I must have slept then, for I awoke to a heart beating painfully. The darkness around me was absolute. I listened for the animals native to the woods, but it was unusually quiet, not the chirp of a cicada, not the cry of an owl.

A snap of underbrush brought me to my feet, my dagger extended. I nearly embedded it in the back of the Templar before realizing he was standing in front of me with his sword held at the ready.

“Peace, Alexander.” The voice was strong and I recognized it immediately.

“Ahram,” the Templar said with relief, his sword dropping to his side. “What has happened?”

“Y
our ship has been taken. Your sergeant and a monk have been detained, but this is not the place to speak. Ponferrada is overrun with the armies of King Philippe.”

The Templar seemed surprised. I was shocked by his reaction. He had held the carving. I assumed that he'd had the same vision as mine.

He scrubbed fiercely at his beard, then his scalp. “Think. Why is it that I canno' think?”

I don't know why it struck me then, but I suddenly knew without a doubt what was ailing him. The carving. When I handled it on the ship, it drew strength and energy from me. He'd carried it constantly, and I had seen his drawn look many a night as I was drowsily moving toward sleep. If I had been drained by just a few of the visions, and he was receiving them day and night, how much more affected was he? I resolved to speak of it at the first opportunity.

In the darkness I could barely see, but I keenly felt the lifeblood of men behind the Arab leader. Two, clearly guards by their solid flank of him, waited silently as he
spoke. I noticed what I hadn't in our previous encounter. His English was fluent, if slightly accented.

“Come, let us be away from here.”

Ahram and his men led the way. The night was black as pitch, but they moved with unerring accuracy. I was, for my part, so bone-weary that it was all I could do to put one foot ahead of the other and pray for our travel's end.

The hum of the Templar and Ahram's steady conversation played at the edge of my hearing. My foot throbbed. Rest was sparse today. I could do little more than concentrate on keeping my legs strong beneath me. And yet even that was more than I could manage.

I do not know what it was that caused me to stumble, probably nothing more than the drag of my foot, but suddenly, I was on my face in the dirt and the others had to quickly adjust their stride to keep from tromping on me. What was worse, I could not seem to rise.

The Templar was beside me at once. “Tormod, are ye all right?”

“Aye.” I wanted to get up then, I truly did, but there seemed no path between my mind and my body.

“Ahram,” he said. “Help me.”

Between them I was somehow righted, but when I tried to shift my weight to the leg, I crumpled again.

“Why did ye not tell me it was this bad,” said the Templar. I felt like a bairn being taken to task and straightened, trying to ignore the fiery jags shooting through me.

“I'm fine. I just canno' seem to get my legs to work. Give me a moment an' I'll be all right.”

“No. Ye can go no farther,” he said, scanning the area for danger.

“But ye canno' afford to stop,” I protested. “Ye have to go on. Leave me here. I'll rest a bit an' catch up to ye.”

He looked at me as if I'd grown several heads and could not tell which one was speaking. “Are ye daft? There's no way ye would ever find yer way alone.”

I could not have felt worse, or at least that's what I thought at the time, but I was wrong. Staring at the face of the Templar, I realized that I was exceedingly hot. And the dark seemed to close in on me quickly. I shook my head, but it did me no good. The ground was coming up to meet me, and I could do nothing about it.

A few moments later I woke, with my body folded like a potato sack over the shoulder of one of the Arab men. My ribs felt like they'd been beaten, and my back was stretched. “Stop!” I cried. “Put me down!” My face was aflame and my nose full of the spicy smell of his body.

“We canno' do it, Tormod. We have to get ye to the next preceptory. Ye need a healer. The injury is weeping and red. If we don't care for it soon, it will not go well for ye.”

“I can walk,” I insisted. “'Tis true. Just let me show ye.”

He moved close and said, “I'm sorry, Tormod. Ye're far from the safety o' home. I have to protect ye the best way I know.”

I heard and felt his exhaustion and I held my tongue, wishing that I had never complained, never been a burden to this man already so taxed. I vowed that I would be better, do more to help, and cause him no worries.

It was hard, I tell you. Mine was not an easy transport. Even though my foot didn't hurt as much, hanging the way I was made my head feel light. I was lucky that the distance was not as much as it might have been. But better still, not long after the first man traded me to the second, I asked if I could not sit at his back with my legs and arms wrapped around.

It was strange. Though the man bore no resemblance to my da, I had a quick flash thought of doing just this, riding his back when I was a bairn. My throat quickened and my eyes filmed. As luck would have it, we came on the preceptory just when I most needed saving from my thoughts of the past.

It seemed less a preceptory than a fair-sized croft. I
slid my legs from their cramped position around the waist of the man carrying me, and the sudden drag forced him to let me down. I rued the decision straight off, as hot jabs of pain rippled through my foot. Slowly I limped to the Templar's side. He quickly put his arm around my waist to support me. “Just a bit more. I know ye can make it.”

As we passed through the last of the trees, I had never felt so keenly that I'd come home. The face of the guard was not familiar, but the strong red cross on the white of his vestments brought a relief that had been long away.

We straggled up the road bedraggled and so dead on our feet that the last few steps were a pure trial. “Can ye stand?” the Templar asked of me.

“Aye,” I said, and fought through the sudden wash of disorientation caused by my effort. The Templar approached the guard at the door of the manor house and spoke several words, some of which I recognized as his name.

A tall, broad-shouldered, older knight crossed the courtyard before us, eyeing our party with ill-concealed wariness. He had a strong profile and sharp gray eyes that seemed to miss nothing. Though he didn't speak, I felt power issue from him, as if he glowed with something vital, something unearthly, holy even. I could do nothing but gawk.

The Templar stepped forward. “Grand Master.” His relief was obvious. “I feared never to cross yer path. There is much we must discuss.” The man greeted the Templar, clasping forearms. “Well met, Alexander. I am ever your servant.” His voice was like thunder before the rain. Deep, rumbling, purposeful.

There was something in their position, mayhap the posture or the light.

A rush of sound rose in my ears, the furor of a crowd bent on destruction. Against the purple of an evening sky, the billow of white robes glimmered. The red glow of a spark kindled dark wood. Smoke lifted and curled. And gray eyes flashed with anger and conviction.

I crumpled to the ground, as an all-encompassing blackness took me beyond the night, beyond the preceptory, and beyond the pain, to a peace that filled my entire being.

A
horrid smell filled my mouth and nose. I twisted away, trying to breathe, but it followed me wherever I moved. I
shoved at it, fighting to keep from retching up whatever remained in my stomach.

“Here, here, lad. I mean ye no harm. I just need ye to wake.”

I woke, but the vision that had caused me to reel hung before my mind's eye. “The Templar, Alexander, where is he? I need to see him straightaway!”

“A fellow Scot, are ye?” the healer crouched before me exclaimed. “Well, whatever ye need to speak o' will have to bide, lad. He's closed up with the Grand Master. I don't expect ye'll hear from him again tonight. And still, there is this wound we must be tending.”

My insides felt a jumble. I had fainted, and the Templar had left me. Just gone off about his business as if I didn't count, or he didn't care. I had a lump the size of a stone in my throat.

“Be ye all right, lad?” The voice of the man was not familiar, but his brogue was. And this settled me a bit. I looked around for the first time. I lay on a pallet of thick straw in a room that smelled strongly of herbs. It was dim, lit only by a small oil lamp set far from me. A small man dressed in the brown linen of a monk had his back to me, and before I could reckon what he was about, he peeled the boot, and rabbit skin I had cushioned it with, clear off my foot.

“Yow, that hurts like the devil! What are ye about, man?” I tried to jerk my foot away from him.

“I know it hurts, lad. I'll be gentle with ye in just a moment, but it has to come off. Ye need tending. 'Tis raw an' swollen from yer travel.” His voice had a rough lilt to it, and I responded to his authority. It was clear he was a healer, if not from his manner, then from his place of trade. I was in a stillroom. I'd seen one before in our village. All about me hung herbs and plants drying in the warmth of the room. Lined up tidily on a large, plain table were jars of various sizes, sifting screens, a mortar and pestle, and a variety of clear vials with odd-colored liquids in them.

“Bless the good Lord's bones!” he exclaimed. “Ye've sorely tended this bit. There's a story here, to be sure. An' ye but a lad, traveling far afield on foot.” He spoke quickly and so much so that I would have been hard-pressed to get a word in edgewise, but I was not of a mind to speak of my journey.

“There now,” he said. “That's the last o' it. Let's take a look at that foot, then.” He moved to the other side of me, and I saw his face for the first time. It was a good face, strong and caring. Carefully he prodded and turned me, so as best to see by the light in the room. It took much not to flinch, but oddly enough no pain did I feel with his efforts. Instead I felt a very strange tingling
from my ankle, down my foot, and into the area that was most damaged.

I looked up into his face then and gasped. His eyes were not focused. They were in the vague far-off place I knew when I was in the visions. Without knowing how or why, I let myself drift in the same manner, not looking at the man, but seeing what it was he saw. I was shocked by it.

Just as I recognized the flow of sap in a tree, I saw in my mind's eye the inner workings of my body. I saw and felt the rush of the energy he directed deep into the wound. I was astounded. Though I could not credit the fact, it was plain that he was healing the bit where my toes used to be.

His work took no more than a few moments, and I felt myself shift back into my own world as my other sense drifted away. He cleaned the area with some soap that smelled much like the plants that surrounded us. “'Tis a miracle,” I whispered reverently.

“Aye,” he said, not bothering to deny what he had been doing. “A gift given by God, not o' myself, ye know. I
see
that ye have the abilities.”

“I have the vision,” I said. Save the Templar, it was the first time I'd spoken to any about it.

“Aye. Ye have that, too. But ye also have the healing. 'Tis just beneath the surface, waiting for ye to learn how
to use it.” He cleaned away the bandages and the matted rabbit fur and straightened up his work area.

“I felt ye watching with yer other senses. Ye need only to be trained or to experiment. In time yer healing powers will be as strong as mine.”

I didn't know what to say.
A healing gift? Mine?

“I know from yer words that ye come o' Scotia, but I cannot place the accent. I am from Arbroath, myself.”

I was reminded that I must watch my words. Still, he was obviously one of us. “I am from the fishing village o' Leith. Tormod MacLeod is my name. My mam is o' the Highlands and my da o' the Lowlands. 'Tis why I speak oddly.”

“There's no oddly about it,” he said. “'Tis a Scot ye are, and pleased I am to hear again the lilt o' my home. I am Bertrand Beaton. Tell me, lad, what brings ye so far from home in such a state?”

“I am to be an apprentice. I travel now with a knight o' the Order toward the land o' the most holy.” Not the truth, but I couldn't readily tell him more. He patted my knee. “'Tis fine, lad. 'Tis none o' my affair. Just curiosity.”

I let out a breath of relief and changed the subject. “How do ye know how to heal that way?”

He moved to the table to finish grinding herbs he had obviously been working at before I arrived. “Much o' it just came to me as a child. I was forever out on the
shores, mending the sea creatures that washed up with an injury. We lived a ways from the rest of the world, ye know. My da was a fisher and so was I. The village was a good day's travel away.” He dusted off the pestle, poured the ground leaves into a vial, and corked it.

“Then, one day, a Knight Templar appeared at our croft. He spoke to my da about me joining the Order. I didn't know then that there were others with the ability I had. Many I met later, through my training.” He cleaned the work bowl and stowed it away beneath the table, then brushed his hands together and looked around his workroom. “The rest is history. I was brought to Balantrodoch and my training began. I have been all over the world and healed many o' our brethren since then. I am here now. Who knows where tomorrow, but 'tis a good life. To know that I'm doing what I love an' making whatever contribution I might is gratifying.”