The Caravan Road (12 page)

“Walk slower,” Carla whispered, as Charls’s anticipation drove him forward, eager to find the cure that would restore Alec’s health.  Charls felt both an unrelenting faith in Alec’s ability to re-seize control of the duchy if healthy, and a determination to demonstrate his own ability to carry out some action to undermine the usurper, a man he despised for his shallowness and destructive treatment of Valeriane.

Together they strolled into the northwestern corner of the palace garden, the spot best sheltered from winter elements, and Charls’s slow pace allowed him to closely scrutinize the beds of plants that lined the crushed stone path that their feet quietly crunched upon as they walked.  “Here it is,” he said triumphantly.

“There’s someone coming!” Carla replied urgently, as she spotted a gardener striding towards them.

“This is not the most colorful portion of the garden,” the man said as he reached them, a kindly tone in his voice and an appreciative gleam in his eye as he examined Carla and her motherly companion.

“My mother was saying that this plant reminders her of a herb her mother planted in their garden back in her own youth,” Carla spoke up quickly.  “Could you dig up a portion of it for us to take home?” she smiled a winsome smile again, feeling less of the churning fear in her stomach from trying to charm this elderly gardener than she had felt from dealing with the guard who had let them into the palace.

“Let me get a shovel for you,” the gardener said.  “You have a seat on the bench and I’ll be right back,” and he left them to go to the shed where the dead guard’s body lay hastily hidden.

“We need to go,” Charls hissed as soon as he realized where the gardener was headed.  He bent and grabbed a handful of the foliage of the agrimonia, then began walking hastily out of the garden, with Carla following close behind.  They moved as rapidly as they could, Charls encumbered by wearing the unfamiliar dress, and were just leaving the garden when they heard the gardener hail them.

“I’ve got the shovel!  Where are you going?” he called from the spot of the agrimonia.

Carla turned, and concluded that flight was futile.  “We were just going to find a bathroom.  We didn’t think you’d return so quickly.”

The gardener already had his shovel in the ground, and a piece of burlap laid upon the walk.  “If you need a restroom, there’s one back this way,” he pointed back towards the front gate.

“If you’re already ready to give us the herb, we can take it and wait until we get home,” Carla left Charls in place and jogged back to the gardener, where she accepted the small burlap ball with a green patch of agrimonia growing from the top.

“Let me walk you to the gate and see you out,” the gardener offered kindly, and minutes later the two visitors gave heartfelt waves of thanks as they walked away from the palace.

“Go ahead and give it to him,” Carla told Charls minutes later as they stood in the attic, looking at Alec’s unconscious body.

“I don’t know how to give it to him.  I thought you would give it to him while I change clothes,” Charls replied.

“Should we just put some in his mouth?  What did he tell you about it?” Carla asked, turning away from Alec to face Charls.

“Maybe it’s supposed to be brewed like a tea,” his muffled voice replied as he raised his dress up over his head.  “Or it could be something you just place over the injury.”

“We’ve got enough here to do all three,” Carla said, looking at the clump the gardener had given them in addition to the handful of wilting leaves Charls had grabbed.  “I’ll go down to the kitchen and start brewing some leaves as tea while you try putting them on his wound,” she told Charls, then raised the trap door and went back down into the house.

Charls removed Alec’s shirt and tore the leaves of the agrimonia into small pieces, which he pressed against the wound in Alec’s chest.  He heard distant noises coming from downstairs, and paused to listen for Carla’s energetic footsteps, but heard nothing, so he cautiously turned Alec on his side and began to apply more of the torn leaves to the entry wound in the back, where the deadly arrow had so powerfully penetrated Alec’s flesh.

That finished, Charls torn more of the leaves into tiny pieces, which he balled up between the palms of his hand, then used his fingers to press the marble-sized collection inside Alec’s cheek. 

Time had passed, Charls realized, more than enough time to steep a pot of tea.  Checking Alec, and satisfied that he was safe to leave alone, Charls went downstairs, and stopped in fearful astonishment.  The first floor of the house was a shambles, and Carla’s mother sat on the floor, bruised, sobbing deep, choking sobs.  She looked up at the sound of his approach.

“Mr. Charls!  I didn’t know you were still in the house,” she said between crying breaths. 

“What happened?  Where’s Carla?” he asked as he knelt by the older lady, a woman close to his own age, he realized as he tried to comfort her.

“They took her.  Soldiers came bursting through the door a half hour ago.  They started tearing the place apart, and knocked me over.  When Carla came out of the kitchen to see what was happening, they pounced on her and took her away in a flash,” the mother related.

Charls felt his stomach twist in fear for the girl.  He exhaled deeply, as he sat on his haunches and tried to analyze what he could do to help her.

“I’ll go help her,” he said at length, as he tried to formulate a plan, and to evaluate the chances for success.  “Here, let’s get you in the kitchen,” he said as he helped raise her to her feet.  Once in the kitchen he helped her sit down at the table, then found the tea Carla had been steeping.  The water was dark for the lengthy time it had brewed, and Charls found it was bitter in the extreme as a result.  He poured a cup for Carla’s mother, then added a large lump of sugar, and presented the cup to his hostess.

“You sip this; it’ll make you feel a little better.  I’m going to go to the palace and try to get in to find Carla,” he told her, bring a spark of hope to her eyes.  “Please take some of this tea up to
Duke
Alec.  He’s still unconscious, so you’ll have to drip it into his mouth drop by drop.  Try to give him at least a cup,” Charls guessed at what he hoped was a suitable dose.

“I put a pinch of herb in his cheek, so you may want to take that out,” Charls added as he rose.  “I’ll go get ready to return to the palace.  You’ll go take care of the duke right away, won’t you?” he asked.  “We’re going to need his help, the sooner, the better.”

He went upstairs again to the room where Alec slumbered on.  To Charls’s hopeful eye, he appeared to have more color in his face, and seemed to breathe easier.  Gathering up the costume he had worn earlier to the palace, Charls went back downstairs and shrugged his way back into the dress he had hidden in, then restored the shawl over his head, and tucked the knife back inside the folds of the dress.  Satisfied that he was as prepared as he could arrange himself to be for his seemingly suicidal mission, Charls went out the door for the
second
time in three days, and slowly made the journey back to the palace.

As Charls left, Alec’s body was absorbing the benefits of Drayton’s agrimonia.  The small patches on his wounds were strengthening the disrupted flesh, healing the cells and helping the fight against infection.  The wad of leafy material in his cheek was osmosing molecules of its vibrant capacity into his cheek and tongue, then flowing with the bloodstream through his body, bringing healthfulness to the organs they contacted.

When Carla’s mother soon arrived and rolled him onto his back, she placed a spoon upon his lips and let a few drops of the strong tea flow downward into his throat.  She waited to make sure that he didn’t cough or choke, then placed a few more drops of the moisture into his mouth.  Seconds later she did it again, and then again, repetitively, patiently spooning the dark greenish brown brew into him.

After half an hour she decided to take a break, to sit up straight and stretch her back.  She placed the spoon and cup on the floor next to her and drew her hands around to the small of her back as she arched forward to ease her muscles, then gasped in shock as she felt Alec’s hand reach over and rest upon the top of her thigh.  She looked down and saw his eyes open to look up at her, and saw with relief that they had a clear, comprehending appearance.

“What happened?”  he asked simply.

“You were shot with an arrow when you left the palace three days ago.  Carla and her friend brought you here, and you’ve been asleep ever since.  They’re both gone – the soldiers took her this morning, and Charls went to try to save her, dressed like a woman!  The tea made you feel better; it made me feel better too, took away the aches from the bruises,” she started to ramble, unable to speak her thoughts coherently as worries about Carla overwhelmed her mind.

Alec blinked.  “The soldiers have Carla and Charls?” he struggled to remember who he had been with.  It had been three days and he’d lain injured all that time.

“Charls left just minutes ago; they took Carla about an hour ago,” she confirmed.

Alec closed his eyes and evaluated his ability to call upon his ingenaire powers.  The ability was intact, and relatively strong.  He focused on healing his body, finding the streak of damaged tissue that passed all the way through his chest, and treating it, repairing and reconnecting the flesh.  He was fortunate, he realized, that the arrow hadn’t gone a fraction of an inch off to the side, or it would have nicked an artery and he would have bled to death.

His body healed within a minute, Alec stood up and flexed his muscles.  “I’ll go find your daughter,” he told his caregiver as he looked around for his weapons.  A pile in a corner of the attic, a low corner he had to kneel down into, held his sword and bandolier, which he quickly belted onto his body.

“Your daughter is a spirited girl, isn’t she?” he asked the mother, hoping to alleviate some of the anxiety and fear he knew she held.

“She has been a spitfire.  Her father loved her for the way she’d take on a battle, unless she was battling him!” the mother gave a small chuckle and let a solitary tear escape from the corner of her eye.

“She’ll be back here soon, and I imagine she’ll still be a spitfire,” Alec told her kindly as they descended from the attic.  He shook his head at the unnecessary damage the soldiers had done to the ground floor, turning over furniture and slashing the curtains; it made no sense, but he’d been in enough violent situations to know that those who carried out the violence seldom did have sense.

Minutes later he was cloaked in his bent light pattern, invisible as he entered the main palace gate.  He’d passed many patrols in the streets, and noted the absence of civilians on the road.  The city was in hiding, hiding from the guards of the duke, something that made him shake his head in regret, especially when he saw dead bodies lying untended in several alleys; there had been great violence recently.

His first goal was to reach the prison cells again, where he hoped to find his two friends.  The palace halls were unusually silent and empty, he noted as he dodged through them.  The populace of the palace was apparently busy somewhere else, probably in patrolling the streets of the city, he concluded, engaged in the brutal suppression of the citizens.

The prison was empty, completely empty, he learned in fear minutes later when he went down into the lowest level of the palace.  All the cell doors were open, and no guards were present in the unlit level.  Alec ceased shielding himself from view, and instead used the Light ingenaire energy to gather together such light as managed to filter down the stairwell, giving him the ability to dimly illuminate the dungeon.  He saw with shock that the prisoners had been killed and left behind, but neither Charls nor Carla were among them, he found with relief.

Happy that his friends weren’t among the dead in the prison, Alec was at a loss as to where to look for them next.  He climbed back up out of the bottom of the palace and began to stride through the halls, dropping his invisibility cloak at times when no one else was present, and then extending his Spiritual powers, trying to find any emotional signature that would tell of the presence of those who needed his help.  He was making a conscious effort not to try to use more than one power at a time; he had put himself and his friends at risk by wearing himself down just days ago through overuse of his powers.  Over the course of this adventure in Valeriane he had put a greater strain on his ingenaire capacity than he had in decades, not since the early days of Caitlen’s rule.

As he left the functional portions of the palace and approached the ceremonial parts, he at last detected the presence of people who were both fearful and angry.  He slipped into a small guard break room and took a bow and two quivers of arrows, then headed towards the hearing room where he expected to find his goals.

Invisible, Alec reached the doors and evaluated what to do.  A pair of guardsmen stood at attention, blocking his entry.  Alec heard a growling roar from inside the room, and felt compelled to act quickly.   He released his Light powers and suddenly appeared visible to the guards, standing just six feet in front of them.  “I am Alec, the rightful Duke of Valeriane, come to retake my seat.   Kneel and acknowledge fealty to me, or prepare to defend yourselves,” he told the guards as soon as he appeared.

Both guards stood in stunned silence, then one went to a knee while the other pulled his sword free and began to attack Alec.  With a single swipe of his weapon, Alec killed the one who had refused to yield.  “You made a wise choice,” he told the other man, holding out his hand to help the man rise.