*****
The doctor stared at the closed door for a moment and then turned back to the patient lying still in the bed and Thaddeus, who was sitting in a chair beside the bed.
“Thaddeus, I didn’t want to tell the General, but I am growing concerned. Two weeks is a long time.”
“I know,” Thaddeus said softly, as he stared at his grandson lying so still on the bed.
Roric’s chest was barely moving as he breathed shallowly.
“Thaddeus, I know something like this happened to you when you were a young man. What brought you out of it?”
A slow tear slid down Thaddeus’s old weathered cheek, “My wife. She brought me out of it.”
“Is there anything strong and focal in Roric’s life that would inspire him to keep living?” the doctor asked.
“I don’t know! I’ve sat here racking my brain about it! I thought bringing him home to Thunder Ridge would help. He loves it here. He could be and do almost anything he wanted, too. Everyone adores him. He has the little girl he brought back with him from the forests to raise. I don’t know what to do to motivate him to come back to us, Orlanin.”
“Thaddeus, isn’t there a woman in his life? Someone he cares for a great deal, like you did for your wife?”
“No, I ….” Thaddeus paused mid sentence as if pondering something, “Where’s Zarsha?” Thaddeus asked abruptly.
The nurse that accompanied the old doctor everywhere he went spoke up from a corner of the room, “I saw her playing in the butterfly garden near the eastern tower earlier, Sir.”
Thaddeus shoved his chair back, rose to his feet abruptly and headed around the bed for the door. He thumped the doctor on the back harder than he should have as he left the room.
The old doctor, after recovering from the hard smack, met the nurse’s eyes and they shared a smile, as they listened to the rapid tap of Thaddeus’s cane departing down the hall.
Thaddeus was breathing hard by the time he reached the butterfly garden near the east tower.
“Haven’t walked so fast in years,” Thaddeus wheezed out to himself, as he leaned against a stone wall, briefly trying to get his breathing under control.
He looked out over the profusion of flowers in the garden in search of Zarsha. There she was.
She was such a beautiful child, with such a sweet temperament to match. Her arrival at Thunder Ridge had been an unexpected joy for him. He had spent many of his afternoons listening to her imaginative stories and then had told her many fanciful ones of his own making. He made his way over to her, his leg throbbing painfully.
She was standing waist deep in the middle of a patch of purple Hatacha flowers. She had her finger held up in front of her face and he could see that a beautiful Naortian Butterfly had chosen to land on her finger.
Thaddeus sat down on a garden bench, not wanting to interrupt the girl’s fascination with the beautiful creature that was expressively flexing its wings in front of Zarsha’s nose. The butterfly suddenly flew off in search of another flower. The girl watched it go, her lips parted in a sweet smile.
“Zarsha dear? Could you come over here please? I have something I need to ask you,” Thaddeus said.
The little girl whirled around, her face all lit up at the sound of his voice. She ran to him with the grace of a young deer through the wild profusion of blooms, scattering butterflies to the wind, as she came bounding up to him.
The smile at seeing him abruptly faded as she saw his face, “Did something happen to daddy?”
“No, no! He’s the same honey, just sleeping!” Thaddeus said, before patting the seat beside him.
The little girl sat down beside him, her expression openly curious.
“Zarsha?”
Thaddeus paused, not quite sure how to put the question to the little girl in the best way, “Have you seen how the baker’s daughter and the young guard over by the armory carry on over each other?”
The girl nodded her head with a disgusted look on her face.
Thaddeus couldn’t help but smile at the face she made, but then the seriousness of the matter took over again. “Did your daddy ever act like that with a girl?”
The little girl nodded her head emphatically and hope began to spring forth in Thaddeus’s heart, “Do you know what her name is?”
“Krista. I don’t know what her last name is though. She’s very nice!” Zarsha replied in the exuberance of a free spirited little girl.
“Do you know where she is Zarsha?”
A sad look came over the girl’s face, “No, she ran away.”
Thaddeus, rather puzzled by this asked, “Why did she run away?”
“She didn’t want to be daddy’s slave,” the little girl said matter-of-factly.
After Thaddeus got over his initial shock, a smile creased up at the corners of his mouth. So his quiet and reserved grandson with a heart of gold had a slave girl.
“Do you know what, Thaddeus?” Zarsha asked, leaning in toward him secretively like she was sharing a closely guarded secret.
“No, what?” he said as he leaned toward her, playing along.
“I don’t think she really wanted to leave daddy.”
“You don’t say.”
“I do say!” the little girl declared, as she nodded her head sagely.
“How did your daddy react after she left?” Thaddeus asked inquisitively.
Zarsha made a mean angry face, which was comical to behold on the little girl’s face.
Thaddeus got the picture though. “Zarsha, I need you to tell me everything you know about the slave girl you call Krista. Don’t leave anything out.”
Thaddeus spent well over an hour listening to the little girl talk. After she was done with her story he took her to the kitchens for a late morning treat. Leaving her in the adoring care of the kitchen staff, he made his way to his office and summoned his clerk.
The clerk left the office in a hurry soon thereafter. Within the hour, twelve darkly clad, capable looking men quietly slipped into the office to stand across the desk from Thaddeus.
“Good! You’re all here. I have a mission for you that supersedes everything else on the agenda! I need you to find this woman!” Thaddeus said, as he rose and handed over a surprisingly good facial sketch that Zarsha had drawn for him with some charcoal.
“This is some more information about her. She has likely set up shop as an herbalist healer in a small town somewhere. It is doubtful that she is in Attorgron or Zoarinian territory, but leave no stone unturned. Gentlemen, you have all served me well in the past, please do not fail me now! Find her at all costs and report back to me at once. You can pick up travel expense money from my clerk on the way out. Find her and I will make wealthy men out of you all!”
One of the men looked up from the sketch of the beautiful young woman with the prominent exotic facial scar and asked knowingly, “Does this woman have anything to do with your grandson?”
“She has everything to do with him!” Thaddeus responded emphatically.
“Then we do this for him. We will accept no payment for finding her.”
The dark clad men filtered out of the room as quietly as they had come in. Thaddeus wasn’t done yet though. He stood up from the desk and headed for his hothouse.
He had picked up a passion for exotic tropical flowers during his trips to the Attorgron forests and for many years he had nurtured many of his favorite flowers in a special greenhouse that he had built just for them. He stormed into the humid interior of the hothouse, his cane rapping sharply on the tiled floor.
“Carlan! Carlan! Where are you man?”
His head gardener appeared from around a large Sataka flower bush. Carlan bore a puzzled expression and was clearly startled by his master’s urgency.
“Yes Sir?”
“Oh, there you are. You are going to need a large pot. I don’t care what you do with the weeds around it, but you are going to pot up this one right here,
with all possible care!” Thaddeus said, indicating a small tropical bush that was covered in huge blue flowers that were pepper streaked with a crimson red radiating out from their centers, with hints of peach along the ruffles of the petals.
It was commonly referred to as a fire flower and it matched the description of Krista’s shoulder tattoo and the scented perfume that she liked to wear.
“If it dies, Carlan, I will personally feed you to the cannibals myself on my next expedition to the forests to replace it! Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Sir!” Carlan said, looking clearly shaken by the threat.
“You will personally oversee the flowers transport to my grandson’s room!”
“Yes, Sir!”
Thaddeus left the petrified gardener and headed back towards his grandson’s room.
The next several days passed uneventfully. Thaddeus prattled on and on about anything he could think to say about what little he knew of Krista. As he sat by Roric’s bedside, he carried on entire conversations with himself, that stretched into hours. He even had Zarsha come in and talk about Krista.
During the entire time, the exotic flower bush commanded a corner of the room where it could get its share of warm sunlight. It released the heady aroma produced from its spectacular flowers into the room’s atmosphere as a reward for the diligent care given to it around the clock by Carlan.
Thaddeus thought he might have seen Roric’s finger move a couple of times and his breathing seemed to be deeper and less thready than it had been, but that was as far as any improvement in his grandson’s condition went. Thaddeus fought hard not to grow disheartened as time slid by with the absence of any meaningful response from his grandson.
The morning of the fifth day since he had sent his agents out, a servant burst through the door of Roric’s room and startled Thaddeus awake in his chair by the bed.
“What is the meaning of bursting in here like this?” Thaddeus blustered out tiredly.
“I’m sorry Sir, but I thought you would want to read this immediately!”
The servant held up a tiny piece of paper and Thaddeus recognized it as that of a message sent by the use of a carrier pigeon. He leaped up, forgetting his bad leg, and grimaced as he snatched the paper away from the servant. He squinted as he hurriedly read the message scrolled in tiny print on the little paper.
“They’ve found her Roric!” Thaddeus said excitedly.
He glanced over and saw twitches of movement occurring all over his grandson’s face.
Thaddeus crafted his next words carefully, “They’ve found where Krista is living, Roric. She’s set up a small shop in a little town. Here, I’ll leave the note on this table beside your bed. You’ll want to read all the details for yourself of course.”
Thaddeus laid the small page on the edge of the table near the bed. “It’s right here on the table beside you Roric. It will tell you where she is so you can go bring her home, here to Thunder Ridge.”
A Warrior's Redemption Page 66
