by Guy Antibes
Sam looked out over the valley as they descended. He didn’t see any flocks, since most of the valley was cultivated or turned into orchards, creating orderly darker green patches on the vale’s floor. “All the sheep are in Worrier’s Flat.”
Harrison nodded. “Still a mystery to it all. There are two healers in Shovel Vale to visit. There is a large ex-miner population, so we will take a census of the miners and record how many have died. That fact was in the notes that the shepherd read. I left enough cover for us to use, even though our movements might end up being restricted. I’m also interested if Dantell and his wife were really merchants in the village.”
~
Shovel Vale was currently building a stone wall around the village. One side was bounded by a river and had a dock of sorts. The river couldn’t have been very deep, since Sam noticed rafts at the little wharf. The wall was a quarter-mile from the village proper. That made sense, if the village council thought the place was going to grow as a town.
“Is this bigger than the last time you were here?” Sam asked.
“Perhaps a bit, but not like Riverville. I think the residents have some wishful thinking. It takes more citizens than what you see to have enough additional residents to make a town work. Who will man the walls? Hopefully, the two healers here will provide answers.”
“And the villagers?” Sam said.
“Discreetly, when I treat them. Someone has to pay for that wall, and if someone is taxing the residents, they won’t hesitate to complain.”
They passed through the construction of a very large gate.
“This is bigger than Riverville’s,” Harrison said with a wry smile. “I think the people of Shovel Vale are comparing themselves to Oak Basin, their very successful sister village to the east.”
“Who can be better?” Sam asked.
Harrison nodded. “There have to be some high expectations of commerce coming through here,” he said. “I hope there isn’t a rogue lord rising in the village.”
“Like at Horner’s Rest?”
The healer nodded. “Maybe the wall is being built to keep the king’s men out, not to protect them inside.”
Sam noticed Harrison looking back at the workers.
“The men don’t look like they are from this village.”
Harrison grimaced. “They look just like the shepherds of Worrier’s Flat.”
Sam had to agree. All the men looked hungry, not in the physical sense, but they had the look of predators in their eyes. Men coming for gold, but finding other employment instead.
Harrison’s first choice for an inn was full, so Sam and he shared a tiny room with a bed and a cot in the second.
“I stayed here once before. You will be sleeping with friends, a lot of friends,” Harrison said. “The food is going to disappoint, so be prepared.”
At least the inn had a proper stable, and Emmy was not welcome inside. The innkeeper didn’t want Emmy scaring off the guests, who, it appeared, were mostly shepherds, as Sam thought of them. He felt less safe in Shovel Vale than in Worrier’s Rest.
“Come with me. We should stay together in town,” Harrison said. “We will play this straight up. I’m not sure what the constabulary is doing in the town, but we will check in as if all I do is assist the healers.”
Sam followed him out of the inn. The constabulary was a few minutes away. Harrison walked in and paused.
“Can I help you?” a constable with his tunic half-unbuttoned said.
“I am Harrison Dimple. I usually check in at the constabulary for any messages from the Baskin Health Ministry. I’m a visiting healer.”
“You are the one going around stirring up trouble?”
Harrison smiled. “Not me, sir. Any messages for me?”
The constable shook his head with an unfriendly grin. “Nothing here for the likes of you,” he said.
Harrison nodded. “I’ll go check on the healers in the village. Humble and Juston are still the village healers?”
“I guess. Neither has died, as far as I know.”
“Thank you. We will be leaving in the morning, as soon as I visit them,” Harrison said.
Sam almost corrected him, but he kept quiet. As they walked down the cobbled street, he had to say something. “We are leaving tomorrow morning? What about asking about Dannell, the merchant-thief?”
“That has lost its significance, Sam. Shovel Vale is too dangerous. You might have noticed that none of the men in the constabulary are really constables. This place has been taken over as thoroughly as Worrier’s Flat, perhaps even more so.”
Sam had to agree. “So you are going to check in this afternoon?”
The healer nodded. “We leave first thing in the morning and go directly to Mount Vannon. If we have the opportunity, we might backtrack to the three other villages between after we report, but there is a direct road to Mount Vannon from Shovel Vale.”
Healer Humble was located in the part of town that they rode through. Harrison knocked on the door, and Humble, a woman, answered.
“Harrison,” she said with relief. She looked around outside for others. “Come in, come in.”
“I have one patient to see. You can consult. The boy can stay out here.”
Harrison nodded, but looking confused. “Certainly.” He looked at Sam. “Keep watch.”
The two of them disappeared for a bit before inviting Sam inside.
“Where is the patient?” Sam said to the other two.
“There isn’t one. Humble wanted to make sure you weren’t connected to the men who now run Shovel Vale.” Harrison turned to Humble. “Continue.”
“The thugs are after shares to a certain mine, as far as I can tell. Ex-miners who won’t give over their certificates are being drugged to death. The stupid men think they can fool me by claiming the miners have a virulent disease, but I’ve been healing folks for three decades.”
“What about Juston?” Sam asked.
“He died yesterday. The poor man contracted the same disease. It’s some kind of herbal poison.”
Harrison nodded. “It is a combination of podica, mendica and alm’s wort. It might be enhanced with neural pollen, but we don’t know what it will do.”
“Neural pollen?”
Sam spoke up. “Sheep communicate via threads of pollen. A person can barely see it.”
Harrison looked at Sam and nodded. “It is nearly imperceptible, but with large populations of sheep, you can get enough to add to the podica and mendica poison. Addicts will develop sores on their bodies. I’ve treated them as contagious, but they might not be.”
Humble nodded. “Of course, we didn’t have this conversation.”
“No, we didn’t,” Harrison said. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning. Any cases that I can consult on in the next hour? With Juston gone, we will leave as soon as possible.”
“I had two saved for you to see, but let’s just talk about them.”
Sam left the two healers talking about symptoms and diseases that were unknown to him. In less than half-an-hour, they left and took their possessions from their rooms at the inn and rolled out of Shovel Vale without looking back.
Harrison took them on the more-traveled road that led to Mount Vannon. “I told Humble that we were heading to the next village tomorrow.”
They reached a rocky shelf that went on for a few hundred paces. Harrison turned off and located a little clearing. Sam could tell that no one had camped in the spot for some time.
“Three days to Mount Vannon,” Harrison said. “We might have to do a little hunting to supplement our supplies. There isn’t another village along the way, unless a new one started up in the last year.”
The healer set some snares around their camp while Sam started a fire and fetched water from a little spring that he heard not far from the tiny meadow. He tied Emmy to the wagon, so the dog wouldn’t scare rabbits away.
Harrison returned with an armload of wild vegetables.
“With some of our dried m
eat, we’ll probably eat better than what we might have been served at that dreadful inn tonight,” the healer said.
Sam was happy that Harrison spoke correctly. Although the stew was more like a soup, it tasted delicious. They laid out their blankets. Sam slept next to Emmy, close to the wagon. He had his sword and his wand close by.
Morning dawned misty, dreary, and cold for the middle of the summer. He woke to Emmy barking. Sam shook off sleep as fast as he could and stood ready to fight the thugs of Shovel Vale.
“Hold back!” Harrison called as he entered the clearing. “I’m armed with three dead rabbits. They aren’t very effective weapons.”
He tossed one on the other side of Sam’s bedding. Emmy grabbed the rabbit while Sam quickly folded his blankets.
“Emmy likes them raw, it seems,” the healer said. “We will cook ours. The meat will keep longer, so we can eat a cold midday meal.” He shivered. “I hope the day warms up a bit. Get the fire going again while I dress these.”
Sam worked hard on the damp fire and soon had a tiny blaze going. Harrison brought out a set of metal rods that he quickly fashioned into a spit, complete with a handle for turning. A pot of meatless soup from the previous night bubbled on the side of the fire by the time the two rabbits were finished, their juices splashing into the fire, sending up mouthwatering smells into the air.
They quickly ate. Sam was tasked to rip the remaining meat from the carcasses and put it back into the soup pot for rabbit soup they would heat up for their midday meal.
People traveled back and forth between Shovel Vale and Mount Vannon, but it seemed that no one followed them at their pace.
At a tiny crossroads about a day out from Mount Vannon, an outdoor tavern had set up shop.
Sam had worn his glasses when he saw the shadows that pollen roofing had made. He looked up at the roof. With his glasses on, he guessed the roof was made to look like a thick, translucent tarp. It wouldn’t last the summer, most likely, but it kept the inside cooler from the afternoon sun and shed any rain.
“You weren’t here the last time I came through here,” Harrison said to the man who showed them to a small table with a small bench on either side.
“With Shovel Vale and Worrier’s Flat growing, I was encouraged to set up a business here. This very spot is going to be the center of a new village. That little side road goes directly to Worrier’s Flat, but for now, only hikers and single horses can make the trek. A road big enough for wagons is set to be made in the fall.”
Sam looked around. There were shepherd types mixed in with other travelers going to and from Shovel Vale.
There were only two choices at the outside common room. Sam and Harrison passed on the rabbit stew and elected to eat lamb and potatoes. The food was better than their two-day-old rabbit soup, so they ordered servings to take with them on the road. They would be in Mount Vannon by two hours after dawn if they stayed at a campground along the way.
Sam thought of the road to Worrier’s Flat. A larger road could be built to tighten the military control between Mount Vannon, Shovel Vale, and Worrier’s Flat.
The tavern owner sold them more than enough scraps for Emmy, so they decided to push through for as long as they could before stopping for a few hours’ sleep. Sam was eager to leave the villages. He hadn’t expected the trip to be so dangerous.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
~
M OUNT VANNON WAS NEARLY BIG ENOUGH FOR A CITY, but Harrison told Sam that cities had to have some strategic importance, and Mount Vannon didn’t have any real importance other than size, and that had mostly stopped when the mines ran out.
Sam was relieved that the inn that Harrison recommended had room for them. The town didn’t appear to be as frightened as the other villages they had recently visited. After securing a gnawing bone for Emmy, so she would be happy at the inn’s stable, they sought out the constabulary in the town.
Harrison walked in and sighed with a smile. He walked up the counter. “Goodson, you are a sight for the sorest of eyes,” he said.
The constable looked up at Harrison. “Has your tour been that bad?”
“Worse. Is Chief Ralt in?”
The man behind the tall desk frowned. “Died two weeks ago.”
“This is getting serious,” Harrison said.
“What is getting serious?” Chief Constable Faddon Bentwick said as he walked out into the foyer. “Harrison, I was wondering if I’d see you again. Come on in.”
Once inside the chief constable’s office Harrison immediately asked, “Do you suspect foul play like at Riverville?”
Bentwick nodded. “Have a seat, both of you.”
The constable sat behind his desk, and the other two sat in front on padded chairs.
Bentwick picked up a thin knife. “This was shoved between Ralt’s ribs in the dark. He sent a bird to Riverville, but by the time I had chosen Bacon’s successor, word came that Ralt had been murdered. I came here right after.”
Harrison pursed his lips. “So my messages to you were never received?”
“One came. It was about drugs in Fussel’s Ford. How many did you send?”
“A lot more. Five after Fussel’s Ford. Have a seat; we have quite a story to tell. After you listen to this, you will be calling for the king’s army.”
Bentwick gripped the armrests, “What? All over drugs?”
Sam shook his head. “We found out where the sheep went, and someone is taking over at least two large villages, Worrier’s Flat and Shovel Vale and maybe even Horner’s Rest.”
“Start at the beginning,” the constable said. “I arrived two days ago and haven’t even started my investigation yet.”
Harrison gave the constable a brief account of their activities at each stay.
“You are wearing the spectacles that enable you to see pollen?” Bentwick asked.
Sam nodded. “Unless the pollen is nearly invisible, you won’t notice the difference, but I can.” He handed over his spectacles to Bentwick.
The constable had used the spying glass when Harrison started, but quickly had them off to write notes for a long report to Baskin, but he didn’t share Sam’s conclusions about the bigger picture yet.
“I will send my special birds out this afternoon,” Bentwick said. “Are you safe enough at the inn?”
“I thought Mount Vannon was safe enough, but with Ralt dead, I’m not so sure,” Harrison said.
“If you need to, you can stay in the constabulary. We have two visitor apartments in the building. I am in one, and you and the boy can take the two bedrooms in the other.”
“Perhaps tomorrow night,” Harrison said. “I have four healers in the town. I’ll spend the rest of the day checking on them. I think Sam is safe enough on the streets in the daylight.”
“I’ll leave everything to your judgment,” Bentwick said. “Leave the boy here for a bit. I’d like to ask him a few questions about details that you left out.”
Harrison smiled and nodded to the constable. Something unsaid passed between the pair of them, Sam thought. He didn’t relish spending a day in four healer waiting rooms, so he said goodbye to Harrison and sat, looking at Chief Constable Bentwick.
“How did you find out about the glasses?”
Sam told him about the restaurant and Link Cackle, the glassmaker.
“So what is your perspective about the whole thing? Harrison left off his conclusions, as you probably surmised.”
“I think that all of what we have seen is connected.”
“A figment of a teenager’s imagination?” Bentwick said.
“No, sir.” Sam laid out his thinking from Bagbox, the would-be village lord, to the theft of the sheep, to the drugs, the mining shares, and finally the creation of a fortified city run by thugs.
“I will agree about these all being part of the same problem, but why? Why the drugs? Why the sheep? As you said, there can’t be enough money to make off of ex-miners, and once they are all dead or have handed over their sha
res, the need for drugs will be over.”
“But there has to be a reason Constable Ralt was killed. How many chief constables are murdered?” Sam said.
“Not that many, and never in my experience have two been killed so close together in time or in proximity.”
“So that means that whoever is behind this isn’t from Baskin, or they would know they can’t get away with it, can they?” Sam said.
“I wouldn’t take over a whole region that way,” Bentwick said, “but I’m not the brains behind all this.”
“So we have to find out who is, don’t we?”
“We?” Bentwick said.
“Harrison, you, and I,” Sam said. “We already have a lot of knowledge about what is going on, and you have the authority. I don’t suppose you have enough men to take Worrier’s Rest and Shovel Vale back from the thugs?”
“That’s not something constables do. If forces have to fight forces, the king’s army is called in. Sometimes they use the local citizen militia. There aren’t enough at the garrison in Riverville, so I’m calling for the king’s finest to march here.”
“That will take weeks,” Sam said.
“Not weeks. There is a waterway from Baskin to Mount Vannon that includes two rivers and three canals, built when ore and ingots made their way from this city to the capital.”
“Do you have a map of the mountains?” Sam asked.
“I do.” Bentwick took out a map from a chest with long flat drawers.
Sam looked at the map. He traced his finger from the river that slid by Shovel Vale and showed where the waterway hooked up to the canal that Bentwick had talked about.
“The map doesn’t show that,” Bentwick said. “There isn’t a river there.”
“Yes, there is,” Sam looked at the map. He grabbed his spying glass from Bentwick’s desk. There was a pollen patch on the map. With the better view of pollen that Sam could see, the edges of the patch were clear to him.
