“You’ll be equal to Lewis, who commands the eastern forces. If I should be absent, you would be in charge. When you’re not in charge, you’ll be responsible for the medics and the Duke’s bodyguard, and any special projects we find for you to carry out,” Ryder explained, not begging, but not ordering either.
Alec felt great pride and surprise at the proposal the colonel laid out for him. “I couldn’t easily leave to go do something far away without permission, or lots of questions being asked, could I?” he asked.
“That would make my judgment look suspect,” Ryder replied, “if I relied on you and you ran away.”
Alec took a deep breath. “Do you need my answer right now?”
“No,” Ryder said in an even voice, which Alec suspected masked deep disappointment.
“If someone like you has offered such an honor, I cannot refuse,” Alec decided. “I love the Duke and his city, and I respect you for all the great abilities I’ve seen you show. It doesn’t seem like I could honorably refuse to serve if you really want me to.”
Ryder let a smile curve his lips. “That is good news, Alec. The Duke will be pleased to know. Let the seamstress know that she needs to alter your uniform. Take a day off to set things right, and be back for a general staff meeting tomorrow morning. I’ve got a couple of projects in mind for you.
“And just so you know, Imelda watched over you day and night while you were in the infirmary. She didn’t just volunteer, she insisted that she be the one to stay with you and take care of you.” He took his leave and left the building, leaving Alec agog at the notion that he was now the second highest ranking member of the Guard in the Duke’s capitol, as well as wondering the meaning of Imelda’s devotion to him.
He looked down at the unfinished tray of food, grabbed another slice of the bread, and prepared to go. Dressed in the same, though now cleaned, clothes he had been wearing when he had been carried to the infirmary days ago, Alec picked up his sword and left the building.
Alec saw few Guard members he knew as he left the premises and the palace, indicating to him how thin-stretched the Guard was, even with the return of several members recently. He wondered if any of the city men who had stepped up to battle for the Duke during the recent coup attempt would be possible recruits, and he made a note to talk to Tarkas, the trader who had managed to round them up, if Colonel Ryder hadn’t talked to him already.
Walking through the city, Alec turned through the streets and finally reached his aromatic destination, Bakers Street, where his shop sat among a host of cake and bread bakeries. The front of his shop was draped in black; Alec presumed it had been put up by Ellen, his housekeeper, in mourning for Leah, who had died in childbirth just a few days ago.
Alec entered the front of the shop, sure that Ellen would not know he was coming home today. He heard a sound in the back of the building and Ellen’s voice came up the hallway to him. “There’s no healer here, sorry.”
“There is now,” Alec called back to her and he walked down the hallway to find her.
“Alec? Is that you?” Ellen called and a moment later he walked into the kitchen where Ellen was feeding Hannah breakfast while Leah’s baby slept in a small cradle. “What a relief to see you again!” she said, smiling at Alec as he took off his sword and laid it on the table.
“Ellison said you hadn’t woken up yet yesterday afternoon when he was last here, but he said the medics said you were doing well,” she said as she came over to stand next to him, putting a hand on his arm.
“I just awoke yesterday afternoon, and came home today. I’m glad to see you, and you,” he told Hannah, tousling her hair. “I’m sorry to have missed so much here. Thank you for taking care of everything. How have you been holding up?”
“We’re doing pretty well. Ellison stops by as often as he can, which wasn’t very often for a day or two when you all were fighting the battles at the palace and cleaning up afterwards. But we see him quite a bit more now,” she told him.
“How was Leah’s funeral? I’m sorry I missed it,” he said apologetically. “I am truly sorry,” he repeated.
“Master Alec, we knew you were on your own deathbed, and that was upsetting, not something to apologize for. We had so many people arrive to say prayers for Leah, all the people she had talked to and healed and cared for in her few months here. The shop was jammed with people coming and praying and going,” Ellen explained.
“Where is she buried? I’d like to go visit her grave to say a prayer of my own,” Alec asked, feeling the beginning of new tears of grief and remorse because he hadn’t been able to heal his friend when he had last seen her.
“She’s in the chapel graveyard out west of town, near the grove of cedar trees a couple of miles beyond the gate,” Ellen said softly.
“Is her daughter doing well?” Alec asked, bending down to look at the sleeping child,
“She is. I’ve been calling her little Leah, and she’s been a sweet child, mostly sleeping, not fussy at all. She’s happy to see her wet nurse but hasn’t been fussy about her needs.”
“Annalea and Helen will be here soon,” Alec warned Ellen, not sure how the woman would accept the adoption of the baby after caring for her for several days.
“Today? They’re coming here to take her?” Ellen asked, startled.
“I’ve asked them to meet me here today, but they don’t know why,” Alec explained. “It won’t be easy to tell Annie that she cannot bear children, but I know that if she accepts little Leah, she’ll give her a wonderful home to grow up in.”
“I’m sure that’s true. It will be a home where she’ll lack nothing,” Ellen said with a tear. “I know we’d agreed that you could make such an arrangement, but I’ve just grown so used to her that this is a shock to be happening of a sudden like this.”
“What’s happening to Leah, Mommy?” Hannah asked from the table.
Alec stood up from his crouch by the cradle, as Ellen placed her hands around Hannah’s face. “There’s a family that we think would like to have Leah for their own daughter to love dear. Would you like to go to their home and play with her when she grows a little bigger?”
“Yes, Mommy,” Hannah replied, satisfied with the answer.
Ellen kissed her cheek, “You can be like a big sister for her, can’t you?”
“Ellen, I’ve also asked some of the new ingenairii in town if they’d like to live with us here, instead of in cathedral or elsewhere. Would that be alright?” Alec asked in a change of topic. “One of them is Cassie, another healer.”
“Master Alec, this is your house, and it’s your decision to make. I think it would be nice to have some other people move in and give it some life. These past few days have been too lonely and empty with just the girls and me,” Ellen said. She hesitated as if about to say more, but then remained silent.
“I don’t know if Cassie would like to take up healing here. We haven’t talked about it yet, but I hope she’ll consider it,” Alec added, wondering what question Ellen hadn’t asked, or if she had been about to say something about plans to perhaps move out. “I hope you and Hannah will stay here for as long as you want. You know I appreciate having you here,” he added, and received a grateful smile.
“I’d like to go put on some clean clothes, Ellen. Come get me if you need me,” Alec told his former patient, and walked upstairs. “And let’s have a big cheery meal tonight to welcome Cassie and Bethany to our home.”
When he got to the doorway he stopped, and looked in at the room with two beds, where he and Leah had laid and talked. It was a habit they’d developed while floating down the Giffey River together for several weeks on a small raft, and had seemed like a natural way to continue to share their thoughts in the evenings. He took a deep breath and stepped into the room, where he no longer could smell the faint scent of Leah’s perfume.
Alec changed into new clothes and washed up at the basin, then went downstairs again, planning to sharpen his sword and check his medical supplies until
Annie and Helen arrived. As soon as he entered the kitchen he heard the front door close. He exchanged a significant look with Ellen. “I’ll go see who it is,” he said as he walked up the hallway.
Standing in the front room of the shop were two women. The younger of the two, a lovely, elfin-looking girl was Annalea, the first person Alec had miraculously healed in Goldenfields, on the first day he had arrived in the town as a refugee. With her was her mother, Helen, wife of Natha Millershome, one of the most successful and wealthiest traders in the Dominion.
“Angel! How good to see you alive!” Annie said, giving him a hug.
“Alec, we’re so glad you’re well. Natha and Tarkas said that you arose from your sickbed just yesterday,” Helen told him as they hugged. “You feel so thin, though, Alec. You need to take care of yourself!”
“I will, mother!” Alec said with a grin and they all laughed together.
“Where is your mother, Alec?” Annalea asked him.
“I was raised in an orphanage in Frame, and never had any memories of a family, except growing up there, Annie. I never knew my mother,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice, and then paused. “This pendant is all I have from my parents,” he told them displaying the T that he had been given at the orphanage the last time he was there. He saw the abashed expression in Annalea’s face, and changed the subject.
“Please come in, and excuse my manners for not inviting you in sooner,” he said, walking with them back to one of the healing rooms, where they all sat down. “Thank you for coming at my request. I felt I needed to talk to you about a difficult subject, and something made me think that perhaps God had planned for us to talk now.”
“Alec, we’re sorry about your loss,” Helen said. “Before we go any further, I just want you to know how sorry we were to hear about Leah’s death. I remember how much she enjoyed seeing our gardens and the delight she took in the flowers.”
“Thank you Helen. I’ve not really even been able to come to terms with that myself, but I feel an emptiness in the house right now,” Alec replied.
“Annie, healing you gave me incredible satisfaction when it happened. When I walked in and saw you that first time, with your mother sitting next to you tending you, I couldn’t imagine that the world should be deprived of such a lovely person,” Alec tried to begin, not know how to broach his painful subject.
“Thank you Angel,” Annie said with an indulgent smile.
“I’ve got no good way to say this Annie. Your illness was cured, but it harmed your body before it was beaten. I know you want to have a child, but I don’t think you will be able to,” Alec stuttered his way through what he knew was the most devastating thing he could tell the young woman.
“Are you sure about that Alec?” Helen asked doubtfully, “Could there be some chance?” she added as tears welled up in Annalea’s eyes.
“I wish I could tell you I see some way, but your body suffered damage from that fever and the poison that I don’t think can be overcome by any remedy I know of right now,” he said quietly as Helen hugged her silently crying daughter.
“There was never going to be a good time or a graceful way for me to tell you this. I wish I didn’t know, and wasn’t here right now, because you will make such a wonderful mother,” Alec told Annie.
He rushed along in his conversation. “When Leah died, she left her daughter as an orphan, just as I was an orphan a few years ago. Right now that baby girl is laying asleep back in the kitchen of this house. She needs a mother and a father to love her.
“Annie, will you take baby Leah and be her mother and give her love and a home and a chance to have a family, please?” Alec pleaded, tears starting to form in his own eyes as well.
There was a long silence in the room, broken only by the sounds of deep emotion, before the door slowly swung open and Ellen walked in, holding the sleeping baby girl. She walked over to Annie and held the baby out to the tearful young woman.
Annie looked up at the baby through watery eyes, but made no motion to take her. Her mother gently nudged her, then reached out herself and accepted the sleeping infant from Ellen, bringing her into a hug, then passing her to Annalea.
They all remained motionless for moments as Annie looked down at the sleeping baby that had been handed around the women. Annie began crying loudly, then pulled the baby against her chest and hugged her tightly.
“Mommy, why is Leah’s mommy crying?” Hannah asked as she stepped around the door into the crowded little room.
“She’s crying because she loves her little girl, sweetheart,” Helen tenderly told the young girl. “Will you come over to play with the baby someday?”
“Mommy already told me I could,” Hannah replied, watching Annie rock Leah gently.
“Come dear, let’s let Leah’s new mommy talk to her alone for a little while,” Ellen told Hannah and ushered her out, looking back at Alec as she did so. Alec took the look at a suggestion that he leave as well, and he walked out to the front parlor, looking out the window alone and lost in memories for several minutes before he felt a comforting hand on his shoulder.
He turned, and no one was there.
Instead, he saw Helen exit the examination room and come towards him, and he simultaneously felt a chill along his back and scalp.
Helen walked up to him. “I wish none of that had ever had to happen,” he said to her, looking into the older woman’s eyes, desperately hoping to find some approval for his decision and action.
“Alec, it may have been the right thing to do, but it was a very hard thing to hear,” she told him. “And I know it must have been painful to say. Poor Annie needs a moment to look at that little girl and open her heart to her, and to understand how to heal her own broken heart with love.
“In a minute though, you need to walk back in there and hug her too, so that she feels the comfort that love can bring,” Helen told him. “You’ve just placed a terrible weight on her.”
Alec reached out and squeezed Helen’s hand. “I’ll go see her,” he said and walked back to the room. Inside Annie’s face was hidden as she looked down at the baby in her arms.
“I don’t really know what I missed by not having a mother to raise me,” Alec began. “You probably know better than I do what you can give that little girl by being her mother, just as Helen was mother to you.”
“Mother could not have been any better than she was,” Annalea said, her face still hidden. “I always hoped to be a mother as good as she was. Now you’ve dashed that hope in one moment and restored it in another.
“Oh Angel, did it have to be this way? What was God thinking when he did this?” Annie looked up at Alec, making pleading eye contact.
Alec knelt down in front of her and put his arms around her and held her tight. “I think that God saw two people who needed each other and he used his powers to bring you and this child together so that you could share His love,” Alec said. He held her in his arms with his eyes closed, and felt the warm baby between them, and her head rested on his shoulder for a long time.
At last Alec stood up, and spoke in a husky voice. “Ellen has arranged for a wet nurse for Leah for the past week. Would you like to make arrangements to keep that one going for a while, so that you can sort things out?”
Let me ask mother,” Annie said, and she too stood, still holding the sleeping child. Together they walked to the front parlor, when Helen was patiently waiting. “Alec asked what I wanted to do about a wet nurse. He says Ellen has one currently arranged.”
“Let’s go talk to Ellen and find out what arrangements we might make with the lady,” Helen suggested. They began walking towards the kitchen, “Thank you Alec, dear,” Helen called backwards towards him.
“I’m going to go to the palace. I’d like to come see Annie and Leah tomorrow, if that’s alright,” Alec said, convinced that he ought to leave them now.
“Angel, I’ll be mad if you don’t come see me,” Annalea said. She stopped and gently handed the baby to her mother
, then ran back to Alec and hugged him wordlessly.
“Thank you again, Angel,” she whispered fiercely.
“Thank you, Annie, for always reminding me how wonderful and what a joy a person can be,” he whispered back. They separated, and Alec walked out the door, and started on his way back to the palace of the Duke of Goldenfields.
Chapter 2 – Leadership in the Guard
Alec walked to the palace. When he arrived there he stopped at the guardhouse that sat at the end of the bridge. Although Alec didn’t recognize the two Guards at the station, they recognized him. “Welcome back, captain,” they both saluted. Alec thanked them and moved on towards the Guard’s end of the island. He walked towards the armory, and entered the building.
Inside he found Ellison, training a dozen new recruits in swordsmanship. “Recruits, stand down,” Ellison ordered as he saw Alec enter the building.
“Alec! Look at you alive and well! Imelda said that you were free to go this morning, but we didn’t expect you to be so anxious to sneak away, and then double confound us by sneaking back” Ellison said as he walked over to his friend. Alec gripped his hand and felt the firm grasp of Ellison’s iron grip.
“I went back to the shop for a little while for an engagement,” Alec said with wistfulness. “It’s taken care of, so I came back to see what I should be doing.” Alec looked at the group of recruits who were still standing in place watching the two of them talk. “Are these some brand new recruits? I’m glad to see them if they are. We’re going to need a dozen classes like this going in a hurry if we’re going to serve the Duke.”
Ellison turned and looked at the class, many of who started to walk away, sheepish over having been caught staring. “We’ll need recruits better than this lot,” Ellison said loudly. “These folks don’t have a clue about how to handle a weapon,” he said, with a covert wink at Alec.
The Loss of Power: Goldenfields and Bondell Page 2
