They chose a table next to the fireplace, and Alec silently examined Caitlen with his health vision as she sat on her bench, her eyes closed. She was extremely fatigued, Alec could tell, the result of two days of unexpected flight from her palace prison, with little sleep. Her feet were blistered and suffering from frostbite despite Alec’s efforts to boost her body temperature. The boots she wore were inappropriate for the travel she subjected them to; he would check to see if there was a cobbler in the village who could provide better footwear for her. While they were shopping, he thought he might see if he could use his limited funds to buy a bow and arrows.
Alec knelt quietly beside Caitlen and placed his hand under her skirts, making her shriek as her eyes flew open. “What are you doing now? Stop it!” she commanded, and tried to kick her foot free from Alec’s grasp.
“Stop,” he told her commandingly, and he pulled her shoe from her foot, then gently traced his fingers around her feet, healing the blisters, reducing the swelling, and removing the frostbite sting.
Just then the cook bustled through the kitchen door with two plates of food, only to stop in silent amazement at the site of his blue-skinned customer openly fondling his woman’s foot.
“Bring the food,” Alec ordered, without removing his hands from Caitlen. Instead he let them run up her calves, reducing the aches.
“That feels so good, but go no farther,” Caitlen said. “Thank you,” she added to the cook who placed the food before her. “He’s very affectionate,” she added, placing her hand on top of Alec’s head in a proprietary manner.
“I’ve never seen one of the Jags before, my lady,” the cook said.
“Well, this one is mine,” she playfully stroked her hand along Alec’s cheek and under his chin raising his face to look up at her and the cook. “You’ll have to go down the river to find one of your own!
“Get up now and let’s eat. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us to get to Valeriane,” she added, her hand pulling Alec’s head upward. “You can fondle my other foot after breakfast.”
The cook left them with a weak grin, uncertain of how to react to the strange tableau.
“He’ll certainly remember that scene,” Alec complimented Caitlen as they started to eat.
“Yes he will,” she agreed. “And I was serious about letting you fondle my other foot. Just be careful about how far those hands roam up my leg.”
“We’ll have to get a good pair of boots for you,” Alec replied. “I’m amazed you came this far in these little court fripperies.”
“I want to be free. I want to get to Black Crag. I’m not going to be stopped by a pair of shoes,” Caitlen replied with determination as Alec finished wolfing down his bread and returned to the floor to heal her other foot. There was a sound at the kitchen door, as a young girl, one of the cook’s assistants, peaked out to observe the blue-skinned man fondling the woman’s feet. She giggled and pulled her head back inside the kitchen.
Alec and Caitlen left the tavern and went in search of a cobbler’s shop in the small village, with no luck, then returned to the road to continue their journey.
A long time later, Caitlen spoke up, the first words that had passed between them since they had returned to the road. “Thank you for treating my feet, Alec,” Caitlen told Alec as they began to climb a hill. “In the future, would you please ask me before you start to touch me like that? I’m not used to letting people put their hands on me,” she explained.
“Yes,” Alec agreed after a moment of silent surprise. He’d never thought someone would be put-off by his healing touch. After a minute of silent reflection he decided to ask a question. “Do you think we’ll visit any villages today big enough to have a cobbler? I’d like to put some sturdier footwear on you.”
“I don’t know,” Caitlen answered reflectively. “I’ve traveled this road a number of times, but I was always in a court carriage, and we never paid attention to the little villages along the way.”
How typical of the nobility from court, Alec thought to himself. “We’ll just ask at each one we come to,” Alec commented. “That way we’ll find one if there is one, and we can get something sturdier for your feet.”
“I remember when I worked in a carnival, traveling from city to city,” Alec began to tell Caitlen.
“What is a carnival?” she spoke the word haltingly.
“A carnival is a group of entertainers, who travel from city to city, carrying all their possessions with them. We had clowns and dancers and performers and animal trainers,” Alec explained. “We would sell tickets in a city for a few days, and then travel to the next city.”
“That sounds fascinating!” Caitlen’s eyes sparkled. “You were able to see all the different cities? What did you do – did you perform, throw swords?”
“It was interesting to see the cities, except that we were always busy working, and didn’t get to see much of the city. I was busy because I had to clean up, fetch, run errands, tend the animals, and do anything else that was needed,” Alec answered.
“One of our girls was a dancer, Natalie, who ran away from a luxurious home. She had never traveled in such a humble fashion before, I’m sure,” Alec related. “I think it opened her eyes. She was a good sport, never complained or let anyone know it was any different from the way she was raised.”
“Is she the girl you said you love, the one you want to go back to?” Caitlen asked.
“I do love her in a way, but she is not Bethany,” Alec replied.
“Bethany? Your sister in our land?” Caitlen asked, finally turning to look at Alec’s face.
“There is a girl named Bethany in my own land, who is an ingenaire like me, who is the girl I love. It’s just a coincidence that they have the same name,” Alec explained, just slightly denying the intrigue he had felt at hearing his adopted sister’s name.
“And this Bethany is an ingenaire,” she still didn’t quite pronounce the word correctly, “like you? A woman with powers to fight and heal?”
“No, her powers are related to water – she can conjure it out of air, make streams change their course, hold back the waves, or affect other actions of water,” Alec told her. “She’s a powerful and accomplished ingenaire. We were apprentices together for a few months,” he began to recollect the adventures he had encountered while on Ingenairii Hill in Oyster Bay.
“I was brand new, and she would torment me by dumping buckets of water on me when I wasn’t prepared,” he remembered out loud.
“That doesn’t sound like something a nice person would do,” Caitlen commented.
“Most new apprentices went through something like that,” Alec explained.
“The first night I almost kissed her we were sitting alone on a small sandy beach by a pond,” he rambled on.
“Alec,” Caitlen interrupted abruptly, and then paused, as Alec waited for her comment.
“Alec,” she began again, “when we are around other people, maybe you should let me do the talking.”
“Why?” Alec asked, puzzled, still focused on his memories.
“It’s your accent. It gives you away; it’s like no other accent I’ve ever heard,” she explained delicately. “You’ve made yourself blue to create a disguise, but when you open your mouth and talk, you completely blow the illusion that you’re a regular …Jagine.”
Alec wondered why she had decided to interrupt hi in the middle of a story to tell him such a thing. He understood her point, but wanted to argue. “It will look wrong for the woman of a pair to be in charge. That doesn’t happen in this society from what I’ve seen.”
They were climbing a hill, and Caitlen was breathing heavily as she walked. “Well, in fact there are several cases where the woman does the talking,” she replied eventually, in a low, hesitant voice. “It would pass muster.
“Our society may be different from yours,” she told him. “Women cannot do many things in society, but we are allowed to control who we are, affectionate with. Among the nobility, the wo
man usually sets the tone in a relationship; I gather you’ve not had one since you arrived here?”
Alec accepted her explanation, no longer wanting to argue. “No, no relationships! Touching your hip to heal you was as intimate as I’ve gotten; not that it was intimate in any way!”
As they crested the hill, they saw a sizable village in the next valley, straddling a stream that had a substantial bridge. The size of the settlement was large enough that Alec had hopes of finding a cobbler to take care of Caitlen’s need for boots. “Let’s stop,” he suggested, wanting to give her a touch of warmth and treat her feet now, before they got to the nearby town.
“I’ll treat your feet here,” he added as she stopped. “May I touch you?” he asked, remembering her peculiar sense of personal space.
“I’d really appreciate a touch of the warmth you give, but wait until we’re in the village and treat my feet then. I can walk down the hill without any treatment,” she told him.
Alec obliged her, and side-by-side they walked down the meandering road on the west side of the hill. As they entered the town, they spotted a tavern, and a wordless glance between them diverted them to the building. They settled into a small table in a crowded room where others were enjoying their mid-day meal, and Caitlen ordered pork chops and potatoes, along with two cups of wine that Alec raised his eyebrows over. The drinks came quickly, and they sat drinking and waiting for their food. “You can treat my feet now,” Caitlen told Alec unexpectedly.
Alec looked around the room at the many other people who were seated nearby. “Is this really a good time to do this?” he asked.
“It will help make us stand out in people’s memories,” Caitlen said. “Besides, you were going to do it anyway before we went looking for a cobbler, weren’t you?” she asked.
“Yes,” Alec drew out his response as he slid to the floor and began to treat her feet. They were again swollen and blistered, and Alec again thought about the fortitude of the girl he was traveling with.
A pair of boots, their owner’s torso and face hidden from Alec’s view by the table above him, stopped next to their table, and the toes of one boot poked at Alec. “Why don’t you give my feet some special treatment too?” a gruff voice asked. “Then I’ll take care of your lady for you, if she wants a real man.”
Alec removed his hands from Caitlen’s feet and backed out from under the table, then stood up. A bearded man, whose build was that of an immense barrel atop two sturdy legs, was sneering down at him, with a hand placed knowingly on Caitlen’s shoulder. The man was clearly intent on provoking a fight, clearly expecting to beat Alec, and clearly expecting to receive Caitlen’s affection as his reward.
The room was quiet, and Alec could see that virtually all eyes were on them. No one was obviously positioned to be a henchman for the bearded man, so Alec concluded that a swift display of ability against the one man would be enough to dissuade anyone else from additional efforts.
Alec engaged his warrior powers, kneed the man in the groin, hit him in the back of the neck as the man doubled over, then again raised his knee into the man’s doubled-over face, making solid contact with his nose and upper lip, and drawing a spray of blood from each. As Alec took a step backwards, the man feebly placed his hands to his face, then slowly dropped to his knees and collapsed unconscious on the floor.
As people raised their eyes from the stunningly disabled bully, they discovered that Alec had already drawn his sword in his left hand and held a throwing knife in his right. Even Caitlen looked at Alec with widened eyes at the shocking speed with which he had dispatched the man who had been about to attack them.
“Is that what you wanted?” he asked angrily in a low taunt voice, feeling used and betrayed into having to fight. “Did you just want to make a scene to provoke a fight?”
“No, Alec,” she replied, shocked by the violence she had just seen, and hurt by the disgust she heard in his voice. “I didn’t think that would happen.”
“You ‘didn’t think that would happen,’” Alec mimicked as he put his weapons away. “You didn’t think at all,” he told her angrily, and sat down. Just then a reluctant serving girl brought two plates of food to their table and silently left.
Alec sat and started to tear into his food, eating his pork chops with savage ripping bites, while Caitlen’s food sat untouched, and pools of moisture brimmed in her eyes. A pair of men came to grab the arms of the unconscious man next to the table. Alec looked at them and nodded, allowing them to haul the body away from the puddle of blood the split nose had deposited on the floor.
“Eat your food,” Alec told Caitlen as he finished his meal. “I’ll go settle up our bill, then we need to go find the cobbler’s shop.” Without waiting he left the table and barged into the kitchen to find his waitress and pay her. He was sure there would be no objection to his presence in the kitchen, not after the little display of violence he had shown in the public room.
“How much?” he asked the girl, who was intently whispering to the cook’s assistance.
“Nothing sir,” she replied. “There’s no charge for your meal.”
Alec looked at her closely, scanning her health from head to toe. Other than slight far-sightedness, she had no health problems. He reached out one hand to her face, and sent a stream of his powers into her head, reshaping the lens to perfect her ability to focus on objects close at hand. “Thank you,” he told her. “Who else should I give thanks to for the blessing of this meal?” he asked gently,
“Cook, sir, he said to let you eat for free, and Margot agreed,” the girl motioned to her companions in the kitchen.
Alec looked at each of them, then touched each with his healing powers, curing bunions from the cook and removing a parasite from the other server. “Where is the cobbler’s shop?” he asked. “My lady needs new boots,” he said with a straight face, his good humor starting to return. Exercising his healing powers seemed to purge him of his disappointment in Caitlen’s actions.
The cook volubly provided detailed directions to the cobbler shop, as well as descriptions of the cobbler and his family, until Alec managed to edge away and return to the dining room, leaving a few coins on the counter. Caitlen sat alone, no one willing to bother her, while she sat with her head bowed, her plate of food untouched.
“Let’s go get some boots for you,” Alec spoke to her as he stood next to her. His feelings were still jumping around, and he now felt sorry for the girl; she had been in the palace as an active member of the princess’s court just a few days ago, and now she was making an arduous journey through the wintery countryside to act as a decoy, drawing the dangerous forces of the Conglomerate guards after her.
He held a hand out for her to help her rise. She looked up at him, and he smiled a gentle smile. With a tentative smile in return, she took his hand and stood, then walked out the door with him. The cold air outdoors immediately made them both bundle up tightly as they walked through the streets and made the turns Alec had been directed to make. Just moments later they hurried through a door that had a boot nailed to it, and stood in a room that was redolent of leather.
“How may I help you?” a wizened old woman spoke from behind a work bench, her words addressed to Caitlen.
The girl looked at Alec momentarily, then faced the woman. “I’d like to see about a new pair of boots, good ones for walking through the snow,” she explained.
“Come over here in the light,” the woman directed. “Sit down, and let me have a look at you,” she directed, and proceeded to bring a pair of boots from a box over to test on Caitlen’s feet.
In a matter of minutes she was lightly tapping a hammer to adjust the heel of the boots to prepare them for Caitlen. “You’re such a pretty girl, and you have such nice clothes. Are you going down to Vincennes? Going to go dance in the balls at the palace to break the boys’ hearts? Would you like for me to prepare some fancy slippers as well, with jewels on them?” she asked in a jolly voice.
Caitlen smiled at
the notion. “Maybe when the spring season comes, and all the festival balls are held,” she agreed gently.
“What’s your favorite dance? The waltz, so nice and slow and elegant? The varsovienne, the one that wears a girl out with all that frenzy? Or since you’ve got your Jag, do you drag him onto the floor for a lass uns tanzen?” The woman’s voice ended with an earthy laugh and a glance at Alec, who stood quietly by the door.
“Would you give your Jag to the Princess for an evening if she asked?” the old lady didn’t wait for answers to her first questions. “You’d probably like to get him out of the way sometime, wouldn’t you, when one of the nice young handsome men of the court saw your pretty face”
“The princess would never take a Jagine,” Caitlen answered. “And I couldn’t lend him out. He’s very sensitive,” she said, glancing at Alec and blushing.
“You’re a good partner to be so thoughtful,” the older lady said confidentially. “Isn’t she a good partner?” she raised her voice and directed her question to Alec.
“The best I’ve had,” Alec responded, partly statement and partly question, as he looked at Caitlen.
“We need to get going,” Caitlen replied, standing up, an odd, mocking smile on her face. “Pay the lady and we’ll be off.” Alec dutifully handed over several small copper coins, leaving very little more in his pouch, and they left the shop.
“Enjoy your lass uns tanzen!” the woman gave another coarse laugh as they left.
They walked silently through the streets of the town and returned to the highway, turned west, and resumed their journey.
“What was that all about, that conversation with the cobbler lady?” Alec asked at length. “And what were you trying to prove in the tavern, by the way?”
“I apologize,” Caitlen said immediately. “I know I handled this all wrong. It’s mostly my fault.
“What do you know about the Jags, the blue-skinned men?” she asked Alec.
“I know that Nichols is the only one I’ve met. He had a high level of agyria, but I managed to fix it by flushing the silver out of his system,” Alec replied, wondering irreverently if Nichols had peed blue gray the next day. “And then I forced my own skin to copy the condition.”
Rescuing the Captive: The Ingenairii Series Page 13
