He realized that his arm was being unstrapped.
“Alec, are you ready?” he heard Merle’s voice by his ear.
He tried to focus on what he had to be ready for. The overwhelming pain was all he knew; it confused him and distracted his focus, more than he had anticipated. There was a babble of voices talking over one another, telling him what to do.
“Alec heal yourself,” he heard Imelda say, and repeat, her voice holding a frantic edge as she tried to will him to act following her bloody, forceful activity.
He focused on the word heal. He had to concentrate.
He moaned, “Go Merle.”
His arm was moved behind his back as he tried to concentrate on healing. His fingers were in the sticky, bloody flesh where the incision had been cut. He sensed the power beyond his reach and struggled to find it. Merle’s hand was on his arm. He focused on locating his energies; he saw where his power was, and called for it.
Merle’s power entered him, and he felt his own power ignite. There was an enormous flare within him that made his whole soul quiver, and he felt the act of healing begin. Some instinctive guidance took over as Alec failed to maintain awareness, unable to focus his thoughts. Alec seemed to be at the center of an explosion, and he felt the power slip away from him, then consciousness slipped away.
Chapter 28 – The Healer is Healed
Alec awoke again. His body was lying on his stomach still. He felt more alert, with less medicine dulling his mind. He opened his eyes, and saw dim sunlight that was filtered through a heavy cloud cover. “What day is it?” he asked.
“It’s five days since you were healed,” he heard a voice say. “It’s two days until the new year begins.”
“Imelda, is that you?” he responded
“Yes, who else would get stuck sitting here day after day at the direct order of Colonel Ryder watching you sleep and changing your bedclothes while the rest of the city is dancing away the festivities?” she asked tartly.
“May I roll over?” Alec asked.
“I don’t see why not,” she said.
Alec leveraged himself and rolled over onto his back. He felt stiffness, but no pain as he moved. He saw her sitting in a chair by his bedside looking at him with a crooked smile.
“What happened when you removed the arrow?” he asked.
“You started bleeding profusely, you seemed unconscious, and I start rehearsing my explanation to the Duke to explain what went wrong. I screamed at you, and you said something to Merle, then two seconds later your hand fell away from the wound and there were two nice, neat thin white lines like the smallest of scars. You’ve been sleeping ever since,” Imelda finished.
“Would you like to stand up?” she held out her hands to him.
Alec took her hands, carefully swung his legs over the side of the bed, and with Imelda’s help, stood up.
He discovered that he was naked. He sat down again and pulled the sheet back over him.
“Inga told me you tried to play bashful with her once too,” Imelda said with a laugh. She tossed him a long shirt. “Here put this on, and come back here,” she motioned and walked into the storage room in the back of the infirmary.
Alec pulled the shirt over his head and walked back to join her in the back room. “Turn around,” she told him, “and look back here.
“I’ve seen your skinny backside every day this past week, so don’t act bashful on me,” the Guard said. “Look here,” and she pointed at the mirror on the wall, then lifted the back of his shirt high, revealing the scar above his right kidney; two white lines formed a cross. “This is all you’ve got to show for that arrow that you carried around.” She dropped the shirt. “And here’s the arrow,” she lifted a shaft off a shelf, letting Alec examine its wicked looking barbed head.
“There’s a whole stream of folks who want to see you as soon as you wake up. Some of them are going to surprise you, I imagine,” Imelda said. “If you’ll go get in bed again, I’ll start sending them in to see you, if you think you’re ready. My guess is that if you’ll stay here for today and tonight, just to rest, then tomorrow you can be discharged to go home. Actually Alec, I’d tell you to go home today, but it’ll be easier for all these folks to visit you and for me to push them out after a bit if you stay here where we can manage this circus.”
“I agree with you,” Alec said. He suspected he did need to accept a number of visitors, which would most easily be done here with Imelda to watch over him. He walked back to the bed, slightly weak and unsteady, and pulled the sheet up over him. “Imelda, could you send in some food as well? I’m absolutely starved!”
Minutes later, the door opened, and a tray of food came in, carried by Duke Toulon himself. He grinned at Alec’s confusion as he set the tray on the table. “There, does bringing that food make us even? I know when I’m hungry, bringing food counts for a lot!”
Alec stammered for an answer.
“Don’t fret over my joke Alec. Nothing I can do will repay you for the debt I owe you. I’ve heard a lot of stories in the past week, and you apparently did some unfathomable things, the kind of things that usually only are told about late at night in a bar when a man is trying to impress a girl!
“Even though I’m sure I know the answer, I haven’t asked Merle directly, so I’ll put the question to you: are you a warrior ingenaire?”
Alec nodded.
“And a healer ingenaire?” the Duke asked. Alec nodded again, but said no more. “And you’re very good at both?” the Duke asked. Alec continued to nod. “How remarkable!” the Duke said.
“Virtually nobody knows I am a warrior, and it’s to my advantage that they not find out,” Alec suggested to the Duke. “It might help us in protecting you as well.”
“Yes, I suspect that’s true,” the Duke said slowly as he thought about it, and he sat there in silence pondering for a little while.
“Do you know what the situation is around us now?” the Duke at last spoke up.
“I think we’ve got problems to the southeast of us from lacertii and to the north of us from whatever mischief is occurring in Oyster Bay,” Alec summed up.
“That’s simple, but generally accurate,” the Duke agreed. “We may not have any problems from either with the onset of winter now upon us, which will give us some time to prepare. But if we do make it through until the spring, we’ll be stretched thin.
“That’s a conversation for another time though. For now, I wanted to be the first to say thank you for saving my life and my palace. You made a number of difficult decisions and carried out impossible tasks, and I don’t think anyone could have done better. Colonel Ryder, among others, has nothing but the highest praise for you. There’re others who want to see you, so I’ll give them all a chance as well. And there may be some who you need to see. We’ll talk tomorrow,” the Duke said, and he walked out the door.
A minute later Tarkas and Natha entered together. “Alec, at last you’re awake! Thank God you’re with us,” Natha said. “So you’ve made my son a warrior, have you?” the trader said with a laugh.
“He made a good soldier when we needed one, and he deserves a medal.” Alec said, looking at Tarkas. “Your house saved the Duke’s rule over the city. And as it turns out, the Duke’s rule preserves your profits from the sale of the fountain water. I presume Tarkas told you about the Locksfort involvement in all of this, carrying the rebels in? Their payback was going to be assumption of the exclusive rights to the water from the fountain upstream.”
Natha scowled and looked dark. “They are an unscrupulous bunch, or really that Maurine is a very power-hungry woman, but I’m shocked she resorted to something like this foolish plan. They’re in it up to their eyebrows though, and they’ll pay the price.”
“How is Annalea?” Alec asked, remembering an unfinished task he wanted to attend to.
“She’s doing well,” Natha said, thrown for a slight loop by the unexpected change of topic.
“Natha, will you ask her and
Helen to visit me tomorrow afternoon at my shop? It’s very important to me,” he requested.
“If it’s important to you, I’m sure they’ll do it,” Natha promised. He glanced past Alec. “We need to be going,” he said. “I will talk to you soon though, and I’ll tell the ladies to visit you tomorrow. We’re glad to know you’re alive and healed.”
The two traders left the room, and Merle entered next. “So you are recovering nicely?” Merle asked him.
“I’ll be leaving this place first thing tomorrow morning, Merle. Thank you for the use of your powers. I would have died without them,” Alec said, and he reached out and took Merle’s hand.
“Leaving where? Leaving Goldenfields?” Merle asked in startlement.
“No, I meant I’ll be leaving the infirmary,” Alec clarified.
“Ah, I see. Do you have any idea how remarkable it felt when I felt your power take over and reshape mine? It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,” Merle told him.
“I’ve never heard about or read about or dreamed about a ingenaire who could take power from others and make something different out of it. When we have a chance someday we’ll have to go back through the records and search for any similar references,” the older ingenaire continues.
“Merle, what do you hear from Oyster Bay?” Alec asked.
“Nothing now,” Merle said with anger. “A Regency composed of two ingenairii and three nobles is overseeing the throne until they decide how to fill it. They’re not in a hurry to do anything except control the kingdom themselves. They broke the community at Ingenairii Hill, as some were accused of being involved in killing the king, and the usurpers responded by killing many ingenairii opposed to their plan. I don’t know where Aristotle is, and most of the folks I would rely on in Oyster Bay have fled.”
Alec’s heart sank. He wondered what had become of Bethany and Cassie and the others he cared for. He suspected Aristotle was safe somewhere, preparing to be two steps ahead of the opposition again.
“I’m sorry to give you such news while you’re just barely back among the living, Alec. More importantly, I’m glad to know you’re alive. We’ll get together quite soon and quite frequently, I’m sure. Now I need to leave you alone for the afternoon.”
“Farewell,” Alec called as Merle left the room.
He took advantage of the break between visitors to grab a piece of chicken off the food tray and start eating it. He heard the door open again, and put the chicken down as he turned to see who it was.
And he started choking on the food he had in his mouth. Cassie and Bethany were in the infirmary with him.
“How can this be?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”
They walked over to him and both bent over to hug him at once. Tears came to his eyes and he held his grip around them tightly, refusing to let them straighten up for a long time. At last he heard Cassie crying too, and he loosened his grip, then patted the bed, inviting them to sit with him.
“Girls! Cassie…Bethany…Cassie, I’m so glad you two are here!” he said at last. “You are here! Merle just told me the Hill had fallen apart, and I wondered where you had gone. I wondered, I wondered… I’m so glad to see you.”
“Well, we had many handsome men offer us their palaces, of course,” Bethany replied lightly, “But we felt this one had a certain, indescribable something we couldn’t resist.” She laughed, and leaned over against him.
“And then when we arrived here we learned that you’d almost killed yourself trying to heal yourself!” Cassie added.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Alec repeated. “But how did you get here?”
“We and about sixty others came here together. You’ve got much of Ingenairii Hill here in Goldenfields now, Alec, in exile, so to speak. Most of the Warriors and the Fire and a few Metal ingenairii stayed, and then a handful from other houses, but most of us are here,” Bethany explained.
“But how could that happen?” Alec asked, his hand gripping the cover tightly with tension. “How did it happen?” Alec asked. “Where’s Aristotle?”
“The King was killed. The news came to the Hill one afternoon and you could hear it reach each house as people started shrieking and crying. Hinges and I watched our waiting room empty out in seconds. Apparently these conspirators among the ingenairii and the nobles had planned to poison him to death and make it look natural, but you screwed that up for them, so they lost their heads and just killed him outright, then tried to cover up the details,” Cassie began.
“I never saw anything like it, Alec,” Bethany continued. “The news that the king was dead was so sad, and so scary. But seeing people react was very sad. So many people just stopped. We think we’re ingenairii, that we’re above the regular people in the city. We always thought we were too powerful to be affected by the king or the church,” Alec felt his stomach lurch at those words, “but no one will ever forget where they were at the moment they heard the king was dead.”
“Gildevny was a good man, I’m sorry to hear that,” Alec said quietly, remembering his audience with the king. “Please go on.”
“Questions were asked immediately as soon as the king was dead, and people started pointing to the heads of the Warrior and Fire Houses. Aristotle called an Ingenairii’ Council meeting, and trouble broke out. The usurpers didn’t like the questions, and their answers led to accusations, then barbs were traded, and ingenairii stormed out of the Council meeting. Immediately attacks began right on the Hill, and people started dying, and we all fled with not much more than the clothes on our back,” Bethany told Alec. “Friends went out looking for one another and just ran together.”
“Folks went to four or five different hiding spots, and eventually discovered one another, and decided to all come to Goldenfields for safety. We came because of Merle and you Alec. As it turns out, it wasn’t that much safer here after all, until unstoppable Alec saved the day,” the blond teased him.
“We don’t know where Aristotle is, nor Rubicon, Nathaniel or Moriah. There’re no reports of their deaths. They must have gone in a different direction from the rest of us when they fled Ingenaire’s Hill,” she continued. “The rest of the Warrior House went over to the coup leaders en masse.”
“Well, where are you all staying now, in Goldenfields?” Alec wanted to know.
“Many are staying with Merle here, but most are staying at the cathedral or at the home of Natha the trader,” Bethany told him. “I remembered he was your friend from the time you took me to his dockyards.”
“When I leave here, would the two of you stay with me?” Alec asked the girls.
They looked at one another. “Yes,” they each said softly.
Alec started to feel tired from the many visits, and abruptly yawned before he could stifle it. The girls saw the yawn and stood. “We aren’t supposed to wear you out,” they reported. Cassie looked at Bethany, “I’ll meet you outside,” she said, and she gave Alec a quick peck on the cheek, then left.
Alec and Bethany looked at each other. “I’m glad you came to see me,” he told her. “And I’m glad you’re going to stay with me in Goldenfields.”
“What does that mean Alec? Why did you ask me to stay with you? What do you expect? What should I expect?” Bethany asked with a trace of tension in her voice.
“I asked you to stay with me because since we parted in Oyster Bay, you’ve been on my mind a great deal. You are a good person and a good friend, and I enjoy your company a lot,” he answered. “And because I do not want to be alone in that house; there are too many memories, right now,” he admitted. “I am asking you to come for my sake, I admit.” He watched the corners of her mouth turn slightly down momentarily, and he winced internally with fear that she was hurt.
“But I can’t promise you more than being friends until I know something more about Noranda and how she and I will face our future. She and I…well, it seems like we never have had the chance…. Bethany, I want to know that you are safe and taken care of, and i
f you stay at my home I know that will be the case,” he stumbled to an end.
“That’s enough, Alec; I get it.” She looked at him. “You almost kissed me the night Cassie was hurt. You’ve asked me to live in your home. But you have another girl you think you love, although you don’t know when you’ll see her again. Alec, I can’t live my life waiting for you to decide if you love me or not.
“But that’s exactly what I’m living right now because of you,” she said defiantly. “And I need to know if you’re just looking for comfort or fun from me, or if you’ll change your mind and think of me with real love.”
She started to cry, and laid her head on his shoulder. The door opened and Imelda stuck her head into the room. “We need to let Alec get some rest,” she said before she realized that an awkward situation was present, and froze in embarrassment.
“Careful,” Alec told Bethany, nodding towards Imelda. “She’s the one who, you know, gave me this,” he pointed to the scar on his cheek. “Don’t make her mad.”
Imelda blushed, “Stop bringing that up!” she said with a shrill note in her voice.
Bethany stood up, and gave a hurried laugh. “I’ll see you tomorrow late afternoon, after I leave here,” Alec told Bethany. “Tell Cassie that we’ll meet at the palace gates at four o’clock.”
Bethany leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “We’ll talk more Alec. I know your heart is good, and we need to have an understanding.” She left the infirmary without turning around as she went out the door.
“Not wasting any time, are you lover boy?” Imelda said as she re-entered the room. “And thanks for bringing up the scar!”
“Listen Imelda, whatever you think of me, I did not try to hurt Inga nor did I realize that I would be accused of doing so at the time. She is a very good person, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am that we can’t be friends. That’s ‘we’ her and I, and ‘we’ you and I,” Alec said with resignation, leaning back against his pillow. “And perhaps now it’s ‘we’ for Bethany and I as well,” he added in a very quiet voice, talking to himself more that the guard.
At the Seat of Power: Goldenfields and the Dominion Page 36
