Rescuing the Captive: The Ingenairii Series (2 page)

Alec swung his dinghy around again and began to paddle towards the boat that was a visible target. He felt a slight breeze blowing against his face, the first evidence of wind he’d noticed, and the surface of the sea began to grow less smooth as the swells rose high enough to hint at foam along their crests. The breeze and the waves increased the resistance the boat faced as Alec aimed for his target, and he felt his arms growing heavy with fatigue as he continued to try to reach the sanctuary of the larger vessel.

“
Ahoy! Ahoy the ship!” he called out loudly, hoping to draw attention to himself. The work he had done had brought him noticeably closer to the vessel, and the wind was blowing tatters of the fog away, so that now Alec could see the hull of the vessel he was aiming for. It had a second, shorter mast towards the rear of the boat, and heavy bundles along the sides of the boat, fishing nets not presently catching any fish. Shadowy figures were visible moving about on the deck.

A muffled oath was briefly shouted out from another ship off to Alec’s left, while the third boat’s bell rang again behind him. He was nearly surrounded by shipping he realized. There could be an entire fleet around him. He resumed paddling forward towards the fishing boat he could see, and felt relief when three men stood at the side of the boat and pointed at him. Alec paused to wave, then resumed paddling awkwardly until he was next the hull, looking up the wooden side at the men who towered a dozen feet above him.

“
How do I come aboard?” he asked. In response a rope ladder was flipped over the railing and splashed in the water beside him. Grabbing the rungs, Alec pulled himself upward to the railing, where he stopped to look back down at the dinghy he had arrived in. He swiveled again, and when he rose up the last rungs, his eyes looked at a deck full of men, approximately twenty or more, whose eyes were all focused on him.

“
Grib waldd ueshnaw?” he heard one man say. Alec raised his leg over the railing and climbed onto the wooden deck, perplexed by the gibberish.

“
Thank you for saving me,” he said loudly.

“
Grib waldd ueshnaw? Sprek waldd nuenstand?” a man nearby faced him and spoke, making evident his efforts to enunciate clearly.

“
I don’t understand,” Alec replied. “Does anyone speak my language?”

“
Gish lish waldd rebond droep,” another man said. He stood on Alec’s left side, and he gestured towards someone on the right. A man came out of a small cluster and took Alec by the arm, pulling him in a firm but non-hostile fashion towards the front of the boat, where his life aboard the ship was about to commence.

Chapter 2 – Arrival at Krimshelm

Three months later, a languid morning breeze carried the
Ingrid
into her home harbor, the bustling city of Krimshelm. She carried a happy crew, who were returning home and looking forward to satisfying profits from the abundant cargo they had processed at sea during their weeks of continual toil. She carried a hold full of crates of cod and other cargo goods that had been caught, processed, or traded for. And she carried Alec, a confused misfit.

He had no memory of time before he awoke in his row boat. He only knew that he called himself Alec, and he knew that he woke up some mornings with a glimpse of a memory of a dream that reflected whatever reality he had previously known. He knew that the language he had awoken with, whatever it was, had no place in his present world.

He now tentatively held a working vocabulary of a few hundred words in the local language, Avonellene, many of which were particular names of spars and lines and oars and other parts and operations related to the sailing of the
Ingrid;
they would have little relevance on shore, he knew. The words he spoke, he pronounced with a heavy accent that lay beneath the rough dialect of the sailing class, sure to be indecipherable to many of the people on shore, although he understood much more than he spoke.

Alec was accepted by most of his shipmates, who claimed they were a more open-minded collection of people than their countrymen on shore; foreigners were distrusted and generally looked down upon in the Avonellene Empire culture of Krimshelm. But Alec didn’t complain during his weeks of being given the dirty and unpleasant jobs on board the ship, he worked hard, and he was grateful for the instruction his shipmates provided as they initiated him into the workings of the ship’s routine during his first few days.

The oars were run into their locks along the ship’s railings as the
Ingrid
grew becalmed inside the protection of the harbor, and she gracefully glided towards her spot on the pier, where longshoremen were gathering to attend to her.

Alec knew that the safety and security of his routine life among the small, disciplined crew of the ship was at an end. Following the off-loading of the cargo, Alec stood in line with the other hands and received his hatful of coins in payment for the voyage. “You’re getting a full share Alec, because you worked so hard, and I know no one will complain,” the purser told him as he counted the coins into Alec’s cap. “The captain will be happy to take you again when he goes back out to sea. You come back and let us know when you want to sail again,” the purser spoke slowly and loudly, believing that Alec’s foreign accent was an indication of stupidity and or deafness.

The purser was being overly kind in his belief that Alec would be invited back on the ship. Alec’s left-handedness had made him a clumsy performer of many of the tasks he was supposed to carry out, and in addition he had fallen over board three times, causing the ship to come to a stop so that he could be rescued. Alec had discovered that he was a good swimmer He had also discovered that the officers didn’t appreciate the time wasted in the rescue effort, reducing the productivity of the ship; especially when it came from a foreigner. He knew that he wouldn’t be invited back.

“
Don’t spend all that money at once. Use some sense,” the purser advised as the next man jostled behind Alec, eager to collect his money so that he could rush to the shore and spend all his money at once.

Alec walked off the ship without a bag of clothes and belongings, although every other crewman did; he was departing just as empty-handed as he had arrived. He stepped off the plank and onto the stone pier, where he was immediately surrounded by a horde of eager women and men who offered him loud, nearly desperate enticements, willing to help him spend all his money at once. Alec’s ear wasn’t able to decipher the majority of the words he heard, although some of the offers were graphically demonstrated as well, and Alec clung to his pants pockets and their contents, as he had been instructed onboard. Eventually he shouldered his way to a less crowded area, and then wandered through the mostly empty fish market, feeling relief to have left the jostling crowd behind. Though the ship had been crowded, the men in the crowd were few and well-known, while the sea had been vast and empty; the panderers and businesswomen on the dock had been strangers, whose cold, narrow eyes had weighed him and judged him and found him wanting in a way that left him despondent.

He reached the far side of the market, and stopped to view the city of Krimshelm. Most of the city streets climbed the sloping hills that rose above the harbor, while some provided penetrating straight lines that allowed Alec’s eyes to scan a further distance into the commercial heart of the city, while other roads meandered randomly or switched back and forth deliberately, obscuring their travelers and neighborhoods.

Alec stood and looked. He could go anywhere he wanted, for he had nowhere he was committed to go. Now even more so than at any time while he had been on board the
Ingrid
, he had to face the fact that he had no memory, no home, no loved ones, nor even anyone else who spoke the same language he spoke. He had spent weeks on board a ship at sea, living a strenuous but simple life, contemplating the mystery of his existence. Happily, he found that he was at ease with his lack of a past – his absence of memories, relationships and connections; while he didn’t find love waiting for him here in the harbor, neither did he find hatred or the burden of responsibility. He felt that for the time being he was satisfied with literally and figuratively drifting through life.

Alec did not know how long to expect his ship earnings to last, or what he would do next when they ran out. On a whim, he decided to climb one of the straight streets, and then, as he walked he was temp-ted by a rich-smelling drink that he saw patrons sipping at tables outside an elegant restaurant. He stopped and took a seat at an empty table by the edge of the street.

A waiter promptly arrived at his table, looking at Alec’s threadbare clothing disdainfully. “May I help you sir?” he asked as he stood at a slight distance.

Alec pondered how to ask for the unknown drink. He saw nothing in the waiter’s expression to make him think the man would helpfully answer his questions. “I want that,” he pointed at the cups on a nearby table where three women were chatting and drinking the beverage whose aroma had lured him in.

“
You want a cup of coffee?” the waiter asked to confirm, if anything seeming even more disdainful of the accent Alec spoke with.

“
Coffee? Is that what smells so rich?” he asked, and then confirmed that was what he wanted.

While the other tables at the outside café were anchored by couples and trios chatting amiably, Alec sat alone at his small round table, a heavy wooden structure that wobbled slightly on the uneven paving stones, and waited for the arrival of his cup.

The waiter walked by, and a cup was on his tabletop. It was hot. He picked it up and felt the warmth beginning to sting his fingertips. It was very hot, he realized, and he took only a tiny, slurping sip that made the three women look at him in disapproval, then he quickly put the scalding cup down. His expression from the bitter brew was such a frightful grimace that one of the women hid her mouth as she momentarily laughed out loud.

He wanted to spit, but knew that it wasn’t the way to behave in such surroundings. Wanting to leave his coffee behind, Alec pulled out his money and placed much of it on the table. “How much to pay?” he asked the waiter.

The man looked at him slightly more favorably, and precisely picked three coins from the table top, then left Alec alone with his disappointing purchase. With nothing else to do, Alec, shoved his money back in his pocket, and sat at the table while he watched the flow of commerce moving up and down the hillside street.

Four burly men carried a sedan chair up the hill. They all wore matching livery, light blue and yellow, and were clearly practiced at their job, as they held the chair level and maintained a smooth ride while toiling along the road. A handful of other men in the same colors walked nearby, and Alec looked at the chair’s open window to see who ranked such protection; the occupant was a girl, a strikingly pretty girl who stared back at Alec’s scrutiny with momentary curiosity, then gently smiled at him as her passage carried her past his seat. She had a dark olive complexion, and black hair that fell straight to her shoulders, but Alec was close enough to the street side to see that her eyes were startlingly green. There was a flickering trace of a strange feeling in his consciousness, and then
Aahh
seemed to verbalize within his head.

As he shook his head, the chair moved on, and Alec’s waiter sidled back over to his table, friendlier now. “You’re lucky today – you got a smile from her! You ought to go to the casino and take advantage of that luck,” he said with a conspirator’s grin as he passed by.

Alec did not respond to the waiter, as his eyes happened to see a furtive movement in an alleyway just behind where the girl in the sedan chair had passed. There were three or more men loitering in the alley, watching the traffic on the road pass by. They had not attacked the sedan chair, though Alec didn’t know if that was because they were outnumbered by the retainers that travelled with the chair, or whether they had some other target in mind. Alec felt his heart start to race, and his glance moved around the scene, and he realized there were archers atop two buildings, and they too were ignoring the sedan, waiting for some other prey, in positions that some hidden part of Alec recognized as a set-up for an ambush.

Alec looked up and down the street for the intended target, and saw that a score of soldiers were marching in front of and behind a slow moving wagon. Six horses were pacing in front of the large-wheeled, high sided affair as the driver liberally applied the brakes on the downhill slope of the road, giving the horses an easy task as they stepped slowly along the paving stones. The soldiers’ wagon had passed the sedan chair allowing the soldiers in the back to discreetly tip their caps at the woman inside. Alec’s angle of vision didn’t allow him to see how the girl reacted, and seconds later the point was irrelevant.

With a shouted order that anticipated trouble, the chair’s carriers broke into a sprinting pace, and for a split second Alec imagined that the girl must be suffering a terrible jostling from the rough new tempo. He diverted his attention from the chair back to the wagon though as he saw soldiers start to fall to the ground in front of the wagon. The archers atop the buildings were raining arrows down in a heavy shower, and the loitering men in the alley were leading an eruption of men who were attacking the soldiers behind the wagon.

Alec realized there was a smaller person sitting on the bench next to the driver, and the screams and shouts in the air were frightening the child, who was grabbing hold of the driver. In a single fluid motion that he didn’t realize he possessed the ability to perform, Alec pushed his chair back and stepped up onto his table then leapt far out into the street among the melee participants.