The Caravan Road (5 page)

“She was,” the woman agreed.  “She lay down on the back of the wagon for the entire past day, just moaning.”

Alec imagined that the bumps and rattles of the wagon would have been excruciating for a person suffering appendicitis.  Turning back to the woman, he gently placed his hands on her abdomen, and began to release his Healer energy, helping her body to battle the infection that was attacking her midsection and coursing through her bloodstream.   He enhanced her white blood cell strength by directing his energy to her bone marrow, increasing the release of cells to fight the infection.

The two attendees were standing behind him, looking over his shoulder, observing his hands gently moving about on her torso.  “What are your hands doing there?  Watch what you’re doing!  We want a real doctor to come see our lady,” he heard both voices protesting his touch to the woman.

Alec released a last single jolt of his energy to dissolve the worst parts of infection within the appendix, leaving its remnants to be carried away by the woman’s bloodstream little by little, a temporary solution that would begin her healing until he had time to return to address her needs without a skeptical audience supervising and questioning his every motion.

“I am a real doctor, and I believe we’ll have to treat your lady soon, but for now she’s going to be fine,” Alec removed his hands from the merchant and turned to speak to the two servants in the room.

“My name is Alec,” he introduced himself to the woman who was standing next to Graze.

“This is my wife, Mrs. Graze,” the man spoke quickly.   “She’s sister to the Lady Grean,” he gestured towards the recumbent figure behind Alec.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Graze,” Alec spoke again.  The status of the trio was different than he had supposed, but it was of little real concern to him.  Whether they were servants, family, investors, or some combination of the three, didn’t matter to Alec, because he had made up his mind during the minutes he had spent helping them; the minutes of busy-work had allowed his subconscious to evaluate the problem of Valeriane’s situation, and reach a conclusion.  He was going to journey back to Valeriane and reassert his role as the Duke of the city.

He would leave early the following morning, he decided, to give himself the fullest amount of daylight for his journey east on his first day, and to give him the remainder of the present day to settle affairs at the clinic before he left.

“Would you like for me to help you arrange to take care of your wagon and team now?” Alec asked Mr. Graze.

“How long will the lady be here?  We will need to get back on the road as soon as she’s ready to move,” Mr. Graze responded with a question.

“You’re not going to want to try to cross the mountains without a caravan,” Alec cautioned.  “That’s an invitation to disaster.”

“We’re not going to stay here and let these folks gouge us for every penny we’ve got,” Graze shot back, as his wife placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.

“Who’s trying to gouge you?” Alec inquired.

The man was silent, as his wife looked at him expectantly.

“Have you checked on what your costs are going to be?” Alec asked.

“Alfred, have you asked?” his wife gently prodded him after another silent pause.

“Gwen, we both know how places like this one operate,” he answered, less insistently than before.

Mr. Alec, would you help us make arrangements?” the wife asked, her hand still firmly holding her husband’s arm.

“I can help you,” Alec agreed.  “Let’s go look into the arrangements,” he waved at Mr. Graze.  They left the room, an imploring glance from the wife conveying to Alec her appreciation for his apparent patience with her crotchety husband.  They stopped just outside the door as Alec spoke to one of the apprentice healers, explaining the merchant’s general condition, and promising to come back later to attend to her care himself.  Mr. Graze seemed comforted by the deference the young apprentice showed Alec, and walked beside Alec with a less defensive posture as they strolled back across the courtyard to the wagon and the patient stable hand.

“I’d thought about trying to find space for them with Jasel and Kriste, but the wagon and the oxen aren’t going to make the trip up or down the trail into the valley,” Alec told the helper.   “Do you know of any similar situations where they could stay?”

The handler was conscious of the scrutiny Graze was giving him, making the boy nervous.  “Well, my own folks’ place has some extra space in the barn,” he finally offered.  “I’d have to talk to dad about it.”

“You run along and ask him, and ask him how much he’ll charge.  These folks are going to need to wait here at least a month until the next caravan comes through,” Alec instructed.

“Do you really think we need to wait for a caravan?  We’ve already made it through the worst parts of the mountains, haven’t we?” Graze asked after the stable boy left.

Alec realized then that these travelers had no idea of the journey they were committed to.  “You’ve been traveling for about eight or nine days since you left Black Crag, right?” he asked.

Graze nodded his head. 

“The rest of the journey to Oolitan will take a caravan at least a month, probably a few days more, and after you leave the vicinity of our clinic you’ll be in the lands where there is no law; the criminal gangs in the wilderness have an arrangement with the caravan leaders to let them pass unmolested for a fee, but a single, undermanned wagon like yours wouldn’t make it through, period,” Alec said bluntly.  “That’s if the wilderness or the weather don’t swallow you up.”

Graze quailed momentarily under the barrage of Alec’s dismal forecast.  “What keeps them from coming in here and sacking your clinic if they’re so tough?” he asked defensively, his distrust of unknown people trying to reassert itself in the face of Alec’s apparent control of the situation.

“They think we’re protected by ghosts or spirits,” Alec answered.  “A few years ago a gang started operating about a day’s ride west of here, and starting spreading the news around that maybe the clinic would need their protection.  One day a small squad from the gang went out on a hunting trip, and when they came back, the entire remainder of the gang was dead.  No gang’s come closer to the clinic than three days ride since then.

“We have an arrangement with Black Crag to make sure we keep the road between here and there safe; we each take turns checking it, so there’s no problems to the east, but you haven’t begun to experience anything like what’s waiting for you out west,” Alec lectured.  “You need to wait for a caravan.”

Just then the stable boy came running back, breathless for several seconds before he could speak.  “My dad says they can put their wagon in our barn, and their oxen in our valley field.  It’s only a hundred feet below the ridge,” he explained to Alec.  “He’ll charge them a silver cent.”

“A silver?  A silver a day?  In a month’s time that’ll add up,” Graze spoke emphatically, trying to establish a bargaining position.

“No, not a cent a day,” Alec corrected.  “A cent for the month.  He has the extra space in his barn, so that’s no trouble to him.  He’s just getting some value for the grazing your oxen will do in his pasture.”  Alec knew the stable boy’s father as an honest man, and not a greedy one.

Graze’s finger stroked his chin in astonishment at the low cost.  “Where will Mrs. Graze and I stay?  What’ll that cost?” he asked after consideration of the proposal.

“I know a farm where the parents are gone for the next few weeks, and two good teenagers are tending all the chores.  If you don’t mind walking an hour up and down a hillside each way, I’ll arrange for you to have room and board there for five cents for the month,” Alec answered.  “It’ll give the kids some grownups to watch over them and a way to make a little money, and Kriste is going to be cooking meals for her brother and herself anyway.”

“And what about the Lady Grean?”  Graze was having a difficult time finding problems with the arrangements. No matter how hard he tried to find criminal intent, Alec was providing reasonable answers.

“I expect the Lady will need to remain in the clinic for a week,” Alec began.

“And what will the charge be for that?” Graze almost sneered, confident that he had finally found the venial charges he expected.

“We only offer the opportunity for free-will contributions by those who use our medical facilities,” Alec answered evenly.  Graze deflated again.  “After she recovers and is ready to leave, she can join you with Jasel and Kriste, if you think the climb out of the valley won’t be too strenuous for her.   Let’s go take the oxen to the farm, then we can take a look at the path down into the valley,” he suggested.

An hour later they were back in the clinic room, and Alec left the Grazes together to confer while he went to have a bite of lunch and catch up on his other tasks, the first of which was informing Partre that he intended to leave for several weeks.  It would be his longest absence from the clinic since Partre had joined him, but Alec had complete confidence that the majordomo would operate the facility flawlessly.  And Alec would feel comfortable knowing that there would be adults staying with Jasel and Kriste, though he had some misgivings about how Mr. Graze would treat the teenagers.

Partre raised his eyebrows at the length of Alec’s anticipated absence.  “Will you need to take some retainers with you for such a journey?” he asked.

“I want to travel alone,” Alec answered.  “I’ll travel more quickly without anyone to slow me down.”

“Where will you be going?” Partre decided to ask.

“Back to the Avonellene Empire for some business matters,” Alec answered.  “That’s all that can be said at this point.”

That evening, while the Grazes were away from the Lady Grean, eating their dinner, Alec returned to her room and applied his Healing energy to her abdomen, spending several minutes addressing the remnants of her ruptured appendix, and strengthening her body’s ability to heal itself.  As he finished his work and stepped back to look at her, the merchant’s eyes fluttered open.

“Who are you?” she asked in a deep voice.

“I’m just here to heal you.  You need to rest,” Alec spoke softly, and placed his fingertips on her wrist, releasing a slight stream of Spiritual energy to help her calmly fall asleep.

With that he left the room and returned to his office, where he dealt with several small tasks before he turned to his bed and fell asleep. 

Chapter 4
–Return to Valeriane

Alec had informed Partre that he intended to leave as early as possible, and shortly before dawn Alec was rummaging through the kitchen pantries, loading a sack of food he could consume during his journey to Black Crag.  He also carried coins in a money belt, and a canteen of water.  Beyond that he only carried a few articles of clothing, and he wore a sword, a pair of bandoliers of throwing knives, and a bow and arrow strapped to the back of his backpack.

With a whispered good bye to the guard at the courtyard gate, Alec walked rapidly away from the clinic, and as soon as he was out of sight in the darkness, he engaged his Warrior powers and broke into a loping run that allowed him to travel faster than most horses.  He called upon the Warrior energy in a level, steady stream of powers drawn from the energy realm, and let the mechanics of his body maintain the rapid pace while his mind wandered far afield, considering the challenges that were ahead of him as well as the issues he had left behind.

He regretted that he had not gone back to visit Kriste and Jasel.  He had sent a courier with a note explaining that house guests would be coming to stay with them, and he had instructed Partre to increase the visits by the clinic staff to the home to two a day, and to remove the Grazes if Jasel or Kriste expressed misgivings about their guests.  Alec’s wandering thoughts mostly focused on the mystery of Kriste’s unique psyche, a personality and spirit that seemed vaguely familiar, but which was different from any person’s soul he could remember encountering at any time in recent years.  He hoped that her nightmares were just a passing phase that would diminish quickly.

The other topic that occupied his mind as he raced along the lonely roadway was the question of how he would go about reasserting his claim to the ducal seat in Valeriane.  He would need some time to evaluate the mood of the citizens in the city, to find out how accurate Ezten’s claims about unrest were.  The first thing to determine was what had happened to his steward, who he had left in charge a decade earlier.  Charls had been in his middle years, a mature and steady man who understood and shared Alec’s values; Alec had felt comfortable leaving Charls as steward and de facto duke of Valeriane, and the people of the city had seemed comfortable with his rule as well.

There were few other travelers on the road during Alec’s first day of traveling.  When he encountered another person or group of people, Alec did one of two things: he either slowed to a normal person’s pace until he passed them, or he used his Light ingenaire abilities to bend the sunlight around himself, rendering him invisible to those he went by.

The Light ability was one he rarely used.  It was not one of his natural ingenaire powers, but one he had adopted within the energy realm back when he had needed the ability to rescue Caitlen and Bethany the guard from the Ajacii prison.  Along with his Light powers, Alec had gone into the energy realm and adopted the Stone ingenaire and Air ingenaire abilities – two types of energy that he practiced more often than the Light energies.   Those energies were the only ones that he
utilized beyond
the abilities that were his “natural” ones, the Healing and Warrior and Spiritual powers
, that he had held since his youth
.  He had learned from the story of Hellmann that the ambition to possess multiple powers, the grasping pursuit of ingenaire abilities for their own sake, was a road that led to destruction.  He had accepted the loss of powers that had been taken from him over the years, the Traveler energies and the Time energies, with regret, but had carried on a useful life without them.  He was glad to be rid of the Necromancy energy, the dark ability that had corrupted his soul as he had sunk down into a personal cesspool of insanity before the spirit of the saint John Mark had rescued him.