Scarlet From Gold (Book 3)

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “And he fought against Corsairs, and sorcerers,” the middle son added.

  “I don’t plan to see him, but if I do I’ll feel safer, I’m sure,” Marco said with a smile.

  “Why is your hand that funny color?” the youngest boy asked.

  “Sasha!” his mother scolded him for asking.

  “It’s okay,” Marco assured the mother and son. “I’ve got the same answer for that as for most everything else – I don’t know.”

  “Well it works, and probably you’d like to let it work more on putting food in your mouth. Leave him alone and let him eat, boys,” the father put an end to the conversation for a short time, before the family took part in a circle dance among the villagers. Marco was coerced into joining the circle, locking arms with the other boys in the community and moving rhythmically around a camp fire as the women of the village clapped and sang a song whose pace increased, making the dancers move faster and faster and kick more and more wildly as they progressed through the evening, until the women ratcheted up their song to such a frenetic pace that the boys ended up kicking out of time and pulling one another down to the ground in a laughing, good-humored mass.

  “Now it’s our turn to show you how to do it right,” the leader of the village girls spoke up as she stooped to help one of the boys from Marco’s host family rise. Marco started to pick himself up when a strong pair of hands grabbed him from behind and hoisted him with surprising ease. He turned and saw a stout girl who was nearly as tall as he was, who smiled at him momentarily with a shy grin, then moved into center of the village to join the other girls in forming their own dancing circle.

  “You better watch out, Reva smiled at you,” one of the other boys laughed at him as Marco drifted out of the way of the girls and joined the boys who formed the outer circle, as they began to stand together and start their own slow rhythmic clapping pattern.

  “The girl who helped me up?” Marco asked.

  “The very same. She’s desperate to have a boy like her, since she broke up with her boyfriend,” his neighbor answered. “And she seems to have picked you.”

  “She was nice to help me, but I’ll only be here the one night,” Marco protested.

  “That may be, but she’s pretty lonely they say, living in her farm house all alone while her father is away selling his goods in Forcenda. I’ll bet she comes over here and asks you to dance when the girls’ dance is done,” the boy responded.

  Reva did in fact come over after the girls’ dance. The boys provided the same overwhelming increase in the speed of their clapping rhythm to the point that the girls became a continual explosion of high-kicking skirts for several seconds just prior to when they too wound up on the ground in a disorganized, circular heap of laughter. Reva heaved herself up, and helped two other girls up as well before she came over to see Marco.

  A quartet of older men from the village began tuning flutes and mandolins. “Would you like to dance?” Reva asked Marco.

  “I’m not good, but I’ll try,” Marco agreed. He had no romantic intentions towards the girl, but he saw no reason not to join her for a friendly dance.

  They stepped out into a pair of lines facing each other, boys on one side, and girls on the other, and Marco watched as the facing pair at the end of the line started stepping towards and away from one another, before they held hands and twirled, then gave way to the next pair in the line. When the turn came for Reva and him, they carried out the same maneuver, then returned to their spots, smiling at one another.

  The dance tune changed pace, and Marco saw that the dance partners were dancing as pairs, so he and Reva held hands as he awkwardly tried to imitate the steps he saw.

  “That’s an interesting necklace,” he commented to Reva, as he noticed that she had a string of crystals, flowers, and shells hanging about her neck.

  She blushed in reaction. “It’s just a village tradition for girls to wear this,” she told him, and he looked to see that several other girls were wearing similar items as well.

  “Those materials could make you fertile,” he said without thinking, then immediately wondered what had made him say such a thing.

  Reva blushed even more deeply, and Marco realized he had embarrassed her. “But they can also relieve pain and make you healthy,” he added. He wondered where such knowledge had come from, or if it was true, but he was glad to see that the repurposed comments diminished the embarrassment Reva felt by moving the conversation to a safer topic.

  The musicians ended their music, leaving Marco and Reva standing to stare at each other for a moment. “Thank you for the dance,” Marco said after the silence grew awkward. They parted ways, as Marco went to join the other young men on one side of the fire, while the girls gathered on the other, except for those who were already moving to the dance floor in anticipation of the next tune.

  “So, are you going to have a good time tonight?” a boy standing next to Marco asked. “Is that what pilgrims do?” he sneered. “You better watch out; her ex-boyfriend is standing over there drinking ale and looking at you in a way that isn’t friendly.”

  The boy moved away, and Marco stood alone, watching the fire and wondering why a simple dance at a festival could potentially grow into a complicated mess. He tried to keep an eye on the unfriendly boyfriend without appearing obvious, but his attention was diverted when Reva suddenly broke away from her cluster of friends and approached him at a steady pace.

  “Well, pilgrim friend, aren’t you going to ask me to dance?” she said as she came to a stop in front of him. “I asked you the first time; aren’t you going to return the favor?”

  Marco felt flustered. “If that’s the way it’s supposed to work, I’m sorry – I didn’t realize. Would you like to dance?” he asked.

  And at that moment Reva’s ex-boyfriend came storming over.

  “You get away from him!” the man shouted loudly as he approached the pair. He grabbed Reba’s arm and pulled her away.

  “Eric, you let go of me and leave me alone!” Reva shouted back. “You said you wanted to go out with other girls, so go ahead.”

  “I don’t want you going around dancing with trash like this!” Eric turned and shoved his hand into Marco’s chest, making the visitor stagger backwards.

  “You leave her alone, and leave me alone!” Marco said angrily as he bumped his own chest against the chest of his larger antagonist.

  Eric staggered back a half step, looked at Marco, then shoved Reva aside and pulled a large knife off his hip. “Maybe you shouldn’t have such a pretty face,” he snarled at Marco, as he waved the knife menacingly.

  “Eric, no!” Reva shouted as she threw herself back towards the burgeoning battle.

  Eric turned towards her, his knife extended. “Stay out of this until I’m ready for you!” he shouted at her.

  Marco saw the position of the knife and he saw Reva’s plunge back towards Eric, and he realized that her momentum was going to cause her to impale herself upon the blade of Eric’s knife. He felt fear rise up in his throat, and he wanted to shout a warning, but there wasn’t time to get the words out of his mouth, let alone to knock either participant away from the disastrous collision that was about to occur.

  Before Marco could shut his eyes in horror, he felt his arm fly into action, as his hand grabbed at the hilt of his own sword. His limb and the weapon acted with a speed that was beyond comprehension as they anticipated the dangerous wound that was about to occur; his sword flickered out and pinked Eric on his wrist, forcing the hand to jerk upward as the man’s fingers released his grip on his knife.

  Marco’s sword hand retracted his own weapon back from between the other two bodies as Reva crashed into Eric, and the knife flew upwards in a spinning arc, then fell back towards the ground. Marco slammed his incredible sword back into his scabbard, then reached out and caught the knife in the air, as Reva and Eric toppled to the ground, both stunned by the blurry movement that they knew had prevented a worse collision.

 
“Did you see that?” a voice asked loudly in the silence that had descended over the village square, as the band had stopped playing and the other dancers and celebrants had stopped to witness the unfolding conflict.

  “How did he do that?” someone asked as Marco stood alone, holding the captured knife, while Reva lay atop Eric looking up at Marco, as Eric held his injured wrist in his other hand.

  “How did you do that?” Reva repeated the question in a whisper.

  “I don’t know,” Marco said softly. His eyes met hers, then looked at the knife in his hand, then looked down at the sword on his hip, then moved back to looking at Reva. He didn’t feel as if he had done anything himself. He felt as though someone or something had used his body to intervene and prevent the tragic accident from happening.

  “How in crickets is that possible? I didn’t even see your hands move,” Eric spoke from beneath Reva. The girl looked down at him, then rose from atop him.

  “How is your hand? Let me see it,” she ordered the boy.

  “Marco, come over here,” Dex’s voice called out from where a group of older men sat comfortably on benches and leaned against the walls behind them.

  Marco looked over, then opened his fingers and let the knife fall to the ground, before he turned and walked away from the dramatic scene.

  He stopped after three steps. “Don’t get drunk, and don’t ever push that girl again,” he said as he looked back at Eric, and pointed his right hand at the drunkard; he felt a vibration in his hand, and Eric seemed to flinch. Without waiting for a reply, he headed on towards where Dex and Pivot and several local men sat. He could see all pairs of eyes reflecting the light of the bonfire flames as they studied his approach.

  “That was a nice touch at the end,” Pivot told him. “Here, have a seat,” he scooted aside on the bench, making room for Marco to sit down between his two pilgrim companions.

  “Well, that was an unexpected show,” Dex said.

  “I missed it. What exactly happened?” Pivot asked from his other side.

  “It was like the sword was in control of the situation,” Marco said softly. “I just happened to be there, and the sword made my hand pull it out. I didn’t know it was going to happen; I was there and I was mad, and then all the sudden I was knocking the knife away.”

  “Uh oh,” Dex whispered.

  Marco looked where Dex was staring, and saw Reba walking towards them, Eric following timidly several steps behind.

  “Thank you,” Reba said as she came to a stop directly in front of Marco and the men on the bench. “I believe Eric will take your words to heart; he seems like a different man – your command has made a difference.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” Eric echoed from his spot directly behind her shoulder.

  “I’m not a lord,” Marco protested. “And I hope you’ll treat her the way a gentleman should treat a lady.

  “And I hope your wrist isn’t too badly injured. If you take those flowers from Reba’s necklace and boil them in a little bit of water, then add some whipped up egg yolk, and bandage it on the injury, it’s heal in no time,” Marco advised.

  “Thank you my lord,” Eric repeated.

  “We’ll go try that right now. Thank you,” Reba said. She reached out and took Eric’s good hand in hers, and the pair disappeared into the night time darkness.

  There were several moments of hushed whispering among the men.

  “Was that true?” a voice asked.

  “What?” Marco asked.

  “The flowers and the eggs and the injury?” the voice repeated.

  “Oh yes, absolutely,” Marco said. “It would work even better if they ground up one of those crystals, and powdered a shell, but I didn’t want to make it too complicated for them to fix quickly.”

  The bench was silent, as the band of musicians on the other side of the square began to play dancing music again, with the drama seeming to have ended. Marco looked, and realized that everyone on the bench was staring at him, scrutinizing him intently.

  “How do you know that?” Dex asked.

  “I’m an alchemist,” Marco answered, as the word floated into his consciousness.

  “Really? You know that? You know what your job is?” Pivot asked.

  “No,” Marco answered. “Well, yes, in a way. I don’t know, but I know that wound will heal,” Marco asserted. “I know one thing more than any other, most importantly,” he paused, “I know I have to go to Barcelon…”

  “And see the Lady Folence,” Dex finished the sentence for him. “Believe me, we know that much!

  “So there are some other facts locked away in that soul of yours, and every once in a while one of them slips out, it seems. By the time you get to Barcelon, you may have gotten everything figured out,” he told Marco.

  “And now, before you start anything else with another dance, why don’t we go find a place to sleep. Under the circumstances, you ought to come with me and sleep in the barn of my host family,” Dex advised, as he helped his father to his feet.

  Marco slept comfortably in the hayloft of the barn, though he only fell asleep after long thoughts about all that had happened in the village. The sword, the power he had over Eric, and the formula – they all were signs of something he didn’t understand, something that was even frightening to a small degree, and they were signs of something that was locked away inside of him.

  Dex woke Marco in the morning with a gentle nudge of his toe against Marco’s shoulder. “Time to awaken!” he told Marco with a bright tone and a happy smile. “Today’s the day we go to the cathedral! This is the day of your pilgrimage achievement! Wake up and thank the Lord and prepare your soul to enter his house.”

  Marco sat up as Dex moved away, and he collected his small gathering of belongings – the sword, the badly battered backpack that carried an eclectic collection of strange artifacts, things that he didn’t understand and couldn’t identify, but nonetheless felt a strong impulse to protect and maintain in his possession. Based on the strange events of the night before, he saw them in a different light; they were perhaps not simply random items acquired by his former self, the Marco who had lived on the other side of the divide in time before he had stepped onto Station Island – they were perhaps as otherworldly as the abilities he had manifested in that short burst of activity during the night time festivities.

  Marco joined Dex and Pivot in the barnyard, and they walked back to the village, whose central square was empty except for the smoking embers of the fire, a pair of wine bottles lying on their side, and Mary, Sophia, and Saul.

  “Where are the newlyweds?” Saul asked as the three men joined the others, referring to Lars and Ginger.

  “Where are newlyweds usually in the morning?” Pivot asked with a grin.

  With that unanswerable rejoinder, the small group of pilgrims left the village and followed the road down into the broad, shallow valley that was the home of the cathedral city of Compostela.

  They walked towards the east, into the light of the rising sun.

  Chapter 2 – A Cathedral Revelation

  “There’s the cathedral,” Saul stated the obvious as they all spotted the massive complex of limestone that was the center of the great pilgrimage mecca of Compostela. The walls of the city enclosed a dense urban center, nearly half of which was further enclosed by the visible walls around the cathedral grounds. The streets of the city appeared to be bustling, based on the distant signs of movement that flashed colors and reflections between the buildings.

  “It’s a glorious view,” Pivot said. “This may be the last time I’ll be a pilgrim coming along this route to see it, and it still inspires me just as much as it did the first time I saw it decades ago as a young man.”

  “It’s so beautiful! It shows you how wonderful the church is,” Mary said in a rapturous tone.

  “We’ll be there in less than an hour,” Dex commented as their roadway straightened out on its way down to the floor of the valley. There were others on the road, p
ilgrims who traveled both to and from the cathedral city, as well as merchants and traders and farmers, the traffic growing heavier as they drew nearer to the city while the sun rose in the sky.

  “Will we be checked at the city gate?” Sophia asked as they approached the city walls ten minutes later.

  “No, heavens no,” Saul said. “They don’t want to turn any paying customers away. It’s easy to get in, I imagine, but probably harder to leave, as long as you have any money left,” he smirked at his own cynical observation.

  There was no barrier to entering the city; Saul was correct in that, as they walked in amidst the other traffic. Dex moved out front and led the group forward, until he stopped at a street vendor, and bought small bundles of violets for all six travelers.

  “These are the symbol of the pilgrims in the city,” he explained, as he handed a bundle to each of his companions. His father nodded comfortably, familiar with the ancient pilgrim’s practice.

  Each member of the group held their small cluster of green leaves and purple and white blooms as they followed Dex down streets and around corners for several minutes, until they emerged in a small plaza, one side of which was taken up by a red brick wall penetrated by an ornately beautiful, carved limestone gateway to the cathedral. The gate was open, high and wide, its arched opening the home of carved stone images of miraculous events and saints.

  The sides and interior of the entry to the cathedral grounds were festooned with pillars of polished marble, and guards stood at attention in humble monks’ gowns. There were vendors with carts and blankets and tables clustered around the gate, imploring visitors to the cathedral to purchase holy water and relics and more flowers and scraps of paper to write prayer requests upon.

  Dex strode straight into the plaza and through it, entering the cathedral grounds by heading through the gate without a glance at anything else, and the others immediately followed. As soon as they were within the sanctuary of the cathedral’s domain, he turned to his father and the two men wordlessly hugged in joyous celebration of their arrival at the destination of the pilgrimage.