“But perhaps that’s enough for now, eh?” Rubicon suggested, seeing the look of confusion on Alec’s face. “The police are looking for a criminal; they presume it was a case of robbery. Why don’t we pick up on your warrior training? Even if you aren’t going to join our house, I still want to teach you as much as possible. You’re one of the very best of us, and there’s no possible reason we should fail to train you to be even better.”
Alec decided that would be best, and started focusing again on the next weapon on the list that he was supposed to establish as part of his energy-reaching image. While he didn’t think that a slingshot was a particularly important weapon to learn, it was on the list, so he dutifully began the repetitive exercise.
A little while later the breakfast tray came, and with it came Nathaniel. “So I’m going to have to find someone to cook food and clean house and deliver the meals when the healer house is opened up again?” Alec asked as he watched the servant depart.
“You’ll have to find them, perhaps house them, pay them, and give them a budget to purchase food and supplies…just to start with,” Rubicon agreed.
“Good morning, Alec” Nathaniel said as he sat with the other two. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk yesterday. I saw you with Cassie, but then you were gone, and then you were back and walking with Appel.”
“Congratulations on your promotion. There can’t have ever been a better healer than you, or a better person than you for that matter,” he said. “Well, present company excepted of course,” he added with a laugh as Rubicon snorted loudly. “Are you going to continue with your warrior training?”
Alec affirmed that he would.
“Well, I’m glad of that. I think you may be as great a warrior as you are a healer, not that we need to swell your head any,” he added.
Rubicon left, and the two prepared to begin training. “Before we start, I need to go check on Cassie. Do you want to come along? We may be able to bring her up here so she gets out before it rains,” Alec suggested, looking up at the clouds moving in from the west.
Together they went down and found Cassie awake and in bed. “We thought you might like to come sit up on the balcony for a while this morning,” Alec said as they entered her room.
“That would be so nice,” Cassie said. “But I imagine you’re going to want to make me practice walking, aren’t you?” she asked, giving him a mock angry look.
“I just want what’s best for you,” Alec said. “And probably a little exercise would be good,” he agreed.
“Alright, get me up and we’ll be off,” she said, shaking her head.
They made slow progress, but Cassie did manage to make all the steps down the hallway and up the stairs, to sit at the balcony table she enjoyed. “So what is everyone going to do today?” she asked, eating one of the breakfast rolls left on the tray.
“We’re about to work on warrior lessons, then we may go to the palace to work on fencing practice, then back here,” Nathaniel said, looking at Alec.
“I went to the armory yesterday and it was much better. The crowds were gone and it was quiet,” Alec told him. “I was planning to go back today, so let’s just go as usual.”
“Well, you go ahead and practice. I just want to sit here and watch the bay,” Cassie said.
Some time later, Alec and Nathaniel decided they had practiced long enough. “Will Moriah be joining us?” Alec asked
“Yes, if I can find her to tell her we’re going. I know we both think the training has been good for us as well as generally fun. The guards we train against are nice, regular gals and guys,” Nathaniel said.
“Cassie, I think we need to take you in before the rain hits. Then let’s grab rain covers and meet at the door a few minutes after that,” Alec said to the Nathaniel on the balcony.
Alec was waiting at the door for about ten minutes when Nathaniel arrived. “I can’t find her, so we’ll just go, and she can join us tomorrow,” he reported.
The two arrived back at the armory and practiced uneventfully, viewed by no crowd at all, as the rains that fell discouraged visitors from coming to the armory.
The swordsmanship was pleasant and uneventful, and Alec chatted companionably with a few of the guards afterwards before he and Nathaniel were ready to leave. Pulling their covers tightly around them, they walked quickly through the streets towards the hill.
“If I was going to try to open a shop where I could give medical care to people in the city, would this area be a good place to have such a shop?” Alec asked Nathaniel as they passed the area he was considering.
He looked at Alec in confusion. “You mean down here instead of re-opening the Healers House?” he asked with concern.
“No, no,” Alec replied. “Of course I’ll open the Healers House. But I thought about having a place off the hill as well, where regular people could come to get a treatment for their headaches or broken bones or other ailments. It wouldn’t even have to have an ingenaire in it much of the time. The shop Leah and I have in Goldenfields doesn’t anyway,” he explained.
“If that’s the case, I suppose this would be a good area,” Nathaniel said. “But don’t you have enough to do with your training and the Healers House to set up without trying to run this too?” he asked.
“I haven’t talked to Cassie specifically about it, but I had a general idea of letting her run it most of the time if I can train her soon. She needs to have something to do, and she wants to learn healing, but she doesn’t want to go back to her village,” Alec answered.
“That might be a good idea, but you have to remember that she has only had legs for a couple of days now, and in a lot of ways she has to get used to that, and to the world itself, now that she faces it for the first time really. Give her some time,” Nathaniel advised, all of which seemed sensible to Alec.
“And Alec, I know I don’t really need to say this to you because you’re so good, but don’t break her heart. Right now she places you above God, and you need to treat her carefully. Of course, for that matter, I probably should tell you to think about your own feelings too, but you seem so strong I expect you to manage anything. You need to talk more and let your feelings out sometimes,” Nathaniel continued.
“Nathaniel, I have already told Cassie my heart is too heavy to be able to like her in a special way, but I will be careful about her. And I know you’re looking out for me, and I appreciate that so much too. I’ll talk when I need to, and you’re one of the very first I’d come to in Oyster Bay if I needed a friend to talk to,” Alec replied as they reached the gates to the ingenairii hill. “I need to go to see Aristotle now. Tell Cassie I’ll see her afterwards, and maybe we can practice walking!” he grinned, and started off on a separate trail towards Ari’s house.
He pondered Nathaniel’s words as he walked the short distance, not sure what to make of his advice.
When he arrived at the house he announced himself and was shown in. Willis came out to greet him. “It’s good to see you again, Alec,” Willis said with a smile. “What an arrival you’ve been here in our community! Aristotle will be ready to see you in just a few minutes if you’d care to wait here. I can hang up your rain cover for you if you’d like,” he added.
“That may not be necessary,” Aristotle said as he appeared through another door, with a rain cover in hand. “Alec, if you don’t mind, I thought we might take a walk up to Healers House and take a look at it, so that we can get some sense of your prospects and challenges and how to anticipate your budget needs. Is that alright with you?” he asked as he put his cover on, clearly anticipating that it was.
The two of them started walking up the hillside. “What a nuisance that it has to rain today. But it is the season, so we might as well get used to seeing clouds for the next four months,” Aristotle said. “I thought this was the best way for us to get away from Willis to have a little chat, and I think it is exciting to look through the house anyway, to see what shape it’s in.
“Congratulations on
your election yesterday. Anyone who saw or heard about how you treated Cassie’s legs should have known that you had to be elevated to Healer ingenaire immediately. Don’t worry about all that other nonsense. It reflects on other tensions, and has nothing to do with you, or practically nothing.”
“I asked Rubicon this morning what it meant that someone knew enough about me to put together my sword training with my friendship with Noranda and with my healer work to accuse me of murder,” Alec took up the topic.
“I think it means bad things overall, but not for you more so than for all of us,” Ari said as they arrived at the porch of the healer house.
He turned and looked at Alec directly. “There are evil forces afoot. You’ve heard me say that before. The great evil of the world is taking advantage of the lesser evils in men to try to prepare the battlefield in its favor. The lesser evils include the ambitions of some men and women in the Dominion who do not know or care how their plots weaken our society’s ability to battle against a worse evil they do not even understand.
“I think that the ambitious plotters in the ingenaire community are now in league to some degree with other ambitious men. They all see, as everyone sees, the king fading away, and they all want to have more power and riches in the aftermath of his demise. I think those allies will end up battling one another when the fall begins, but they either don’t realize that or don’t care, or expect to prevail when the time comes,” Ari explained.
“I know who the ingenairii are to watch. I know who some of the men are to watch. Now I know that we need to watch for them working together, which is too bad. And I don’t know who all those men are out there.
“Meanwhile, the greater evil draws nearer to attacking us.”
“And now let’s put all that horrible, gloomy thought away and enter your kingdom,” Ari said and he unlocked the door, letting Alec enter first to see the healer house.
The doors opened into a large entry hall that spanned the depth of the house, with two hallways exiting on either side. Alec and Aristotle walked through the empty rooms on the left, six in all, then returned and walked through those on the right, where the kitchen and the stairs to the cellars and the attic rooms were built. The roof of the house had evidently been maintained, and some routine maintenance carried out, because there was no evidence of structural problems.
“What are your plans here Alec?” Ari asked.
“I don’t expect to be in Oyster Bay for more than another few weeks, and then I’ll return to Goldenfields. I thought that I’d fix enough of this building to have an examination room and a storage room or two. I’d like to bring Cassie here with me, and when she learns to walk, she can be housekeeper perhaps, but I’d really like to teach her some basic medications that she could prescribe to people from a small medicine shop that I want to open down in the city to serve people there,” Alec ran on. “I’m glad there’s just one house to worry about instead of several like many of the other houses have.”
“When there were healers, they were in the greatest demand of any of our disciplines, so most of their ingenairii were out around the Dominion, serving in the duchies or kingdoms, depending on the local power structures of the times,” Ari explained. “So there was no reason to have housing for them here. They trained here and then they were mostly gone.
“But we may need to talk about your timetable for leaving. I know you want to leave to get back to attend your lady’s birth, and to watch the Duke. I agree we need to make sure that happens, and soon. But I would like for you to be able to come back here fairly often so that you can vote in the council when some of the big issues about serving the king arise, and particularly involvement in the succession. The warrior faction is going to have a puppet for the throne if they don’t have one already, and we need to be wary of allowing the power of the ingenairii to be thrown in the succession on the wrong side, with all the damage that will cause,” Ari said.
“It won’t be easy for you, because I need you in at least two places from now on. So if you thought your life was busy so far, be prepared for it to become more so!”
Ari changed the topic. “That’s all for further discussion later though. I just wanted you to be aware of it to think about and then share your thoughts.
“You may proceed to make plans to move up here with Cassie, if she is willing, once we get this cleaned up and furnished. Do you have any servants you particularly want?” Ari asked. Seeing Alec shake his head, he said, “I’ll have our head of the housekeepers provide you with one full time servant who can cook and clean, since there are only two of you to take care of. Cassie doesn’t know anything about such domestic matters I presume, so you shouldn’t expect her to have to learn those things while she’s still learning to walk and how to interact with people as an equal.
“I’ll have a cleaning crew in here tomorrow and the next day to get things ready. You need to go to the city and buy some furniture, and the supplies you want to get started with,” Ari laid out his plan.
“Wait! You told me I could go to Frame to treat the orphan girl after I passed a test. Can I do that now, while the house is being prepared?” Alec asked.
“Let’s wait until Rubicon reports that you’re ready to pass the Warrior ingenaire test. You won’t have to take the actual test of course, but I’d like you to have that training complete and those skills mastered. Do that and then you may make your journey. Is there anything else?” Ari asked.
“What about being a time ingenaire?” Alec said as they stood in the front hall. “Have you found those records that describe anything about how the time ingenairii performed their work of called upon their powers?”
“Alec, in fact we haven’t. Willis has looked through a few of the very old records, but with no luck. We’ll need to spend more time as we have it to try to find some mention of a time ingenaire. I’m not sure how often we’ve had one or when, to be frank. Now that I’ve had to think about such ability, I’d call it more of a fable than a fact, if it weren’t for what you did. I’ll be sure to let you know when something turns up, and we’ll let you do the research on it yourself.”
Thank you for looking,” Alec said sincerely. “I want to know something about what happened. I don’t know what I did, and I don’t know how to undo it. I wouldn’t know how to do it again. In the meantime, I’ll keep working on my warrior training and pick out furniture and hope to move in to our Healers House in about three or four days.”
“When you move in here, be careful about displaying your trophy,” Aristotle said with seriousness that Alec knew belied some hidden joke.
He decided to take the bait. “What trophy do you mean?”
“While we were all moving about Rubicon’s house watching you heal your young friend, someone noticed a peculiar piece of fabric in your room. Coincidentally, there is a story about a young water apprentice who is furious about having walked through town exposing herself unknowingly,” Aristotle casually said. “If she decided that your ownership of a portion of her skirt means what I think it means, she’ll blister your ears to start with, and things will get worse from there. And you really don’t want your relationship with Bethany to get off to a bad start, trust me Alec,” he said and then indicated that he was done speaking and ready to leave.
The two parted ways, Alec walking further uphill to the warriors’ homes pondering Ari’s words, while Aristotle returned downhill towards his own home.
When he arrived there, Alec hung his cloak in the hallway and went to find Cassie. She was with Nathaniel in the dining room, learning to play cards. “Where’s Moriah?” Alec asked.
Nathaniel looked at him, but Cassie answered first. “She went to visit friends at another warrior house,” Cassie said.
Alec decided to talk to Cassie alone later, and excused himself to go downstairs, where he practiced his list of weapons for his warrior image, trying to speed his training along.
The next day was a rainy one all day long. Nathaniel and Alec practiced warri
or skills in the dining room, and then Moriah took over the training after breakfast. “Do I really need to learn flails, gisarmes, halberds, and daggers?” Alec asked in exasperation as new weapons continued to be offered for training.
“You want to learn to be able to do all this, don’t you?” Moriah asked with some exasperation in her own voice.
Alec looked at her in surprise. He’d never heard such a tone from Moriah before. “Yes, I do want to learn,” he said carefully.
They continued further training without comment, and with very little conversation, as Alec sensed that Moriah’s mind was preoccupied with some other matter. Midway through their session, Alec suddenly thought of Cassie. “Moriah, let’s take a break so I can go see Cassie. I forgot to get her up.”
“You go ahead, Alec,” Moriah said. “I’ll stay here and wait for you. Don’t be long.”
When Alec raced down the stairs he found Cassie already up, with Nathaniel taking care of her. “Good morning Alec,” she said brightly when she saw him. “Nathaniel’s been down here keeping me company.”
“That’s nice of him,” Alec said, although he didn’t really like it at all for some reason. “Would you like to come upstairs with us?”
“That would be lovely, wouldn’t it Nathaniel?” Cassie said. The two men helped her up the stairs, Alec urging her to keep working on developing her balance and sense of movement.
When they got upstairs, Moriah had disappeared. “I guess my lesson is over for the day,” Alec said as nonchalantly as he could. “Would you like something to eat?” he asked Cassie, as he headed into the kitchen to find what was available for her breakfast.
Nathaniel had left too when Alec returned, and Alec felt relieved. He sensed that the rain and feeling cooped up was making everyone a little edgy, but the time he and Cassie were alone together did give him a chance to talk to her about healer house.
“Cassie, when I asked you before about moving into the healers’ house, you seemed interested in going. Are you still?” he asked her as he sat down.
At the Seat of Power: Goldenfields and the Dominion Page 16
