“They obviously didn’t know we’d sent forces out east,” Alec said. “They didn’t intend for anyone to escape from Walnut Creek to carry word of their attacks, because they wanted to avoid the kind of preparations we made. Did she say anything else?”
“She asked how you and I were getting along; she’d just heard that you had returned,” Imelda grinned. “She told me to go easy on you.”
“I meant did she say anything else about the lacertii? How many they think are out there?” Alec asked. “And what will you tell her about us?” he grinned in return.
“I’m sending my answer today; I spent all night writing to her because there was so much to tell. I’ve told her that you’re madly in love with me and I’m cruelly toying with your affections,” Imelda laughed. “No, actually I told her we are heading in the right direction now, thanks to you. I couldn’t find words to describe that battle we waged to save the Duke.”
“How are, um, she and Lewis doing?” Alec finally asked.
“Alec, without revealing things that are too personal, I believe Lewis feels that she may have over-reacted by leaving the palace, but he’s glad she’s there with him. As far as the lacertii, they don’t know what to believe, but the estimates are maybe as much as 4,000 to 5,000 of them are ready to attack us eventually,” Imelda said.
“We may need a bigger cavalry,” Alec said with a sinking feeling. “Can you ask her to try to have Lewis build stables for cavalry into their fort there? That may be a place we’ll want to establish a company of cavalry to hit the lacertii at long range and disrupt their supplies.”
“I’ll suggest it. I know she’ll love the cavalry idea; she’s from the eastern villages just like I am,” Imelda replied. “Who would have thought a month ago that you and I would be sitting here talking about Inga like friends?”
“Well, I’m glad we are,” Alec replied. “I need you and Ellison and Mortis and Tarpa, and this whole corps of young officers to change the Guard; we need to be different to meet the challenges we’re going to face. Getting rid of Elcome is going to be positive in many ways.” Alec reflected on Elcome, and wondered if the quartermaster had changed, or if Alec had just failed to really see the type of person he was.
“Listen to you talking about the young officer corps, when you’re younger than any of us,” Imelda laughed as she stood to leave. “Good luck with everything Alec. Keep springing surprises on us so that we have new things to think about.”
“And I hope your travels are successful ones. Take care and bring us back the good things we need,” Alec said as they shook hands.
Alec left the lunch and crossed the yard to the armory, where the young ingenairii were waiting for instruction in fencing.
Inside he found the full group, including Cassie, he immediately noted. Most had already put on padding, and the rest were finishing up as he put his own pads on. Alec corralled two Guard members who happened to be in the armory and asked them to help him in working on instruction, as he broke the ingenairii into three groups and each of the Guards took one group to work on footwork and technique.
Alec’s group worked well, and after half an hour the three instructors switched groups, further teaching fundamentals. After another half hour, Alec re-divided the groups by ability, and began watching them fence against one another, offering pointers all around.
Finally, as practice broke, Alec asked Cassie, Streed, and Waln to join him for another visit to the stable site. Waln had already been there much of the afternoon, helping prepare the soil and assisting the excavation.
“Streed, could you strengthen stone enough so that we could put in buttresses and do some cantilevering to hang part of the stables out in air over the river? That way we could put in a trap door to shovel and clean droppings right into the river as well as have a river door from the basement for loading things into river boats, plus of course have more room for stables; we may have more need for cavalry than I realized,” Alec explained.
“We can do all of that, it’s just a matter of taking the time to do so. If we had a metal ingenaire we could probably accomplish it differently as well, but even with stone I see no problem,” the stone apprentice replied.
“Very good. Let’s talk to Tarpa and see what she feels we might do,” Alec suggested. “Let’s get back together this afternoon, if you gentlemen can do that with Tarpa,” he said. “In the meantime, Cassie, can you and I go work on something else?”
Together Alec and Cassie walked back to Alec’s office and closed the door.
“Cassie, I can’t’ think of anything to say that will change how we parted yesterday, except that I’m sorry. I want to be your friend. I want to help you learn to use your healer powers, too, but I want to be your friend first, last and always,” Alec said.
“I know you do,” Cassie said looking down in her lap. “I know you do,” she repeated. “We can be friends, but I’m not ready to just jump into that heartbreak right now. If you will teach me to use my healer powers, we will find friendship again in time. It’s not really gone, there’s just too much disappointment right now to feel it.”
“Let’s go back to the room in the palace and work on healer training,” Alec said, deciding to accept what was given.
As they walked across the yard towards the palace doorway, Alec spotted Tarpa, and they stopped to talk about the stables, and agreed to meet with Waln and Streed. Cassie and Alec then moved to the palace and up the stairs to the third floor room they had visited the day before.
“Yesterday we brought your powers and your spirit together and they should be fused so that you can use them. Now we want to start teaching you how to use your ability to reach your powers. It may take several days to do that; you know some of the time I spent at Oyster Bay learning the steps for controlling my power, and Moriah and Nathaniel had been there much longer than me,” Alec explained.
Alec explained to Cassie about how to find the source of ingenaire energies, just as Merle had explained to him months before in another part of the Castle, and Alec made the same warning about not becoming seduced by the prospects of the energy’s abilities. “I heard many warnings about ingenaire apprentices who never arise from an experience. Their bodies just wither away without a soul within them,” he warned.
“Do you believe that Alec?” Cassie asked him.
“A couple of times I found myself following the promises the powers made until I was farther away from our world than I wanted to be. I had to let go of the power while I still had a chance. I made it out, but it taught me how seductive the energy will try to be,” he explained. As they talked further Alec called upon the same arguments and explanations that he had heard from Rubicon as well as Merle.
“Let’s work on making sure that you can find your place between the barriers and that your potential is ready to seek the powers,” Alec suggested. “Go to that place between the barriers, and I will meet you there again, just as we did yesterday,” he clumsily finished, not wanting any reminders of yesterday. “Once we’re together, try to find the way through the barriers and to a source of power but don’t go in it. Once you’re there come back to this world, and we’ll work some more.”
He lay on the floor again next to Cassie and took her hand, sure that she was as self-conscious about the physical contact as he was. Moving his own spirit, Alec found Cassie waiting for him. He stayed with her as she searched the barriers of the conscious world, trying to find a gap that would allow her to move beyond it. She searched slowly and methodically for a long time, and finally found a place where she could breach the constraints and enter the emptiness beyond. Alec stayed with her as they wandered in a spiraling pattern, seeking something to identify.
Cassie’s pattern stopped after another long stretch and then moved forward, towards what Alec recognized was a portal to the realm of the ingenairii’ energy. They stopped outside the portal, hanging above the entrance for a long time, when Alec knew Cassie was studying the opening, then she winked out of the n
ether world, and Alec knew she had regained consciousness.
He too returned and turned his head to look at her. “Cassie, I’ll need to leave soon. Would you like to try to do that again one more time today?”
When she nodded, Alec told her the test would be to see if she could find the opening in the barrier and return to the portal, just as before. Moments later they were again together between the barriers, and Alec followed her as she moved towards the gap she had used before. She took little time to find it, and little more time to return to the portal she had located last trip.
“You did that very quickly,” Alec said as they returned to consciousness. “Let’s try it one more time again, just to see how well you are able to repeat it.” Cassie accomplished the task even more easily.
“Cassie, I have to go see Tarpa and the apprentices. Let’s start again tomorrow right after fencing practice. You did very well today. How do you feel about it?” Alec asked.
“I’m glad to be doing something that’s progress. It feels good although it doesn’t do any good by itself. I’ll still just be giving out powders and salves and teas for a while more while I do healing in the mornings, won’t I?” she asked.
“For a while more, but I can’t tell you how long. Still, that’s more than many of those folks received before we set up shop here,” Alec assured her. “What you’re doing now is making life better for many people, and what you’ll do later will help them even more.”
“Feel free to stay as long as you like,” he told her as he left the room. Walking down the stairs he felt satisfied that the two of them had been able to work together again. He harbored hopes of restoring their friendship as time healed the wounds Cassie felt.
Amidst the busy excavation going on, Alec found Tarpa and the two apprentices waiting. They talked over Alec’s wish to increase the size of the stable, and Streed again assured that it would be done so that it would be safe and enduring, just more slowly than otherwise. “How long will it take?” Alec asked.
“If you seek no more changes, probably five to six weeks,” Streed finally decided.
“That will be fine,” Alec said.
“I need to start firming up portions of the excavation, if you’ll excuse me,” Waln said as he left them to climb down into the pit.
“And I need to schedule some activities of my own,” Alec said as he too turned and made his way back to his office. “What do you have for me, Mortis, anything?” he asked.
“These schedules for river shipping arrived for you,” his aide replied, holding up a folded sheaf of papers.
Alec took Tarkas’s schedules and placed them on the desk. He wanted to first put together a schedule for more of the senior Guardsmen to be involved in swordsmanship training for the ingenairii, and began to rotate five additional Guards into that project. With his plan to ship officers out to do recruiting, manpower was going to be stretched thin for the next several days he realized. And when the officers returned with more recruits, they’d just have that much more training to do, so things would stay busy.
He took up the shipping schedule and began to note when Natha would have water barges going downstream. The next shipment was due to leave Goldenfields at noon tomorrow. Taking the sheaf of papers with him, Alec went to see Colonel Ryder.
“Natha has a shipment of water barrels scheduled to leave Goldenfields midday tomorrow. The water ships are the ones that are disappearing. I thought that Ellison might enjoy taking a group of men on a river cruise with a chance to possibly battle some pirates,” Alec suggested.
Do we have the manpower available to send on a trip like that?” the commander asked. “How long would they be gone, and what else are you going to have to put off in order to manage protecting the ships?”
“I think we could cut back a person here and a person there and manage to put together a dozen or so. An uneventful trip down and back would take three weeks to a month,” Alec estimated.
“If the Locksforts are willing to launch a coup against the Duke to get their hands on the waters, I’m sure they’d be willing to use piracy,” Alec stated. “Catching their crew is one sure way to put a stop to the losses and also send a message.”
“Do you think they only have one pirate crew?” Ryder asked.
“I don’t know,” Alec admitted. “They might have more than one. If we can stop them for now with one squad, we’ll have time to train up more and be better able to protect ships in the future. Or, if we need to move our folks down river, this will be a way to do it a dozen at a time to place a force in a different location.”
“Alec, I’ll trust your judgment on this, and I think you’re at least partially right,” Ryder concurred. “I don’t think we’ve got any fighters to spare, but send a squad. Let Ellison pick his gals and guys and work everything out.”
Alec thanked the colonel for the decision and made his exit, returning to his own office to work on rosters.
It would be difficult to work out the assignments with another dozen or so members taken out of duty rotation for the next month, and that was just to protect one shipment. If his longer range plans worked, he’d be able to protect more of the fleet with less manpower, but that option remained in the uncertain future, just like almost everything else he had under consideration.
Alec wrote a note to Mortis in his absence, asking that any information received regarding supplies and the quartermaster duties be gathered in a single file and left on his desk for him to look at tomorrow. Alec left the building as murky skies overhead promised a rainy sunset.
Over the next few days a routine finally established itself for Alec. He worked on swordsmanship with officers, Bodyguards, recruits, and ingenairii. He dispatched Ellison with a squad on a shipment of fountain water bound for Oyster Bay. Mortis helped him evaluate the supplies on hand while Tarpa oversaw the raising of the stables.
There was no communications between Alec and the other ingenaire council leaders as they awaited the return of their delegation to Oyster Bay. Nor was there any news from the eastern forces along the river. New recruits began to arrive from the officers who were visiting villages and towns in the duchy, and Alec began organizing the squads of new members of the Duke’s Guards, placing those who were reputed to be exceptional horsemen into a separate squad that Inga could recruit from or take whole if she needed.
Nearly seventy new recruits were moving into the Guard’s quarters, and the barracks were far less empty than previously. Training was taking place throughout the day, and several senior Guard members were promoted to officer status to lead the new squads. As winter passed slowly by, Alec felt good about everything that was being accomplished to prepare the Guard for expected battles in the spring. He led training for medics in the evenings to meet the busy schedules of the Guard members, and emphasized treatment of battle wounds among the skills the medics prepared for.
Alec came to know the group of apprentices who were staying in his house, Brandon and Oek, the air apprentices, Kinsey a girl who was an apprentice from the spirit house, Shaiss and Alder, from the light house, and others. Apprentices from Merle’s quarters also began to join them for sword practice and at the healers shop for meals, so that over twenty apprentices and one or two full ingenairii were regularly together in Alec’s circle. Shaiss and Alec became good friends and spent time together in Alec’s spare moments, giving Alec someone he could talk to and ride horses with when there was no other agenda or purpose than escape from the pressure.
Chapter 12 – Send Out the Cavalry
Cassie’s training was the slowest of the initiatives he worked on. She made steady progress through the stages of learning to find her powers and bring them to the world. Alec saw that she maintained a reserve towards him, although Bethany told him that Cassie spoke with affection when she talked about his training with her. He made it a priority to not let anything else interrupt or take away from his time spent with her.
Then, after nearly a month of calm routine, within a week fo
ur events disrupted the regular schedule in Goldenfields.
Imelda returned with ten new riders and fifty horses. She came riding into the yard with her entourage behind her after sunset, as Alec was finishing up a training session for the medics. While closing up the supply cabinets he heard the clatter of hooves on the cobblestones outside.
Alec greeted Imelda, who was in high spirits though worn out. “We rode over a hundred miles today, just to see if we could do it with so many fresh horses to switch to every other hour. I think we’re more worn out than the horses!”
“It’s good to have you back,” Alec said standing next to her and examining the group of animals and riders in the dusk. “Why don’t you put folks in the stable building here for the night, and we’ll clean you out tomorrow so the workers can get back in.”
“It’s huge,” Imelda commented, looking at the unfinished structure, which still had an incomplete wall on the side facing the yard. “Everyone,” she called to the group, “move your animals into the building here. Frandon, you and those two go back into the city to find stables to get some feed and straw for us to use.”
“I decided we would need it to be larger to hold more animals,” Alec told here. “It’ll hold everything you’ve got here and a little more. I want us to have as much cavalry firepower as possible as soon as we can.”
“Is there something in particular you expect to use us for?” Imelda asked, looking at him.
“No, no specific need for a battle, just the expectation that you’ll be able to do a lot of work for us. I expect that in the spring we’ll send all of you out to the east to battle the lacertii,” Alec said. “You won’t mind fighting them, will you?” he grinned.
The Loss of Power: Goldenfields and Bondell Page 14
