by Sharon Green
I moved another step closer to the quivering fat man, the blade in my hand ready to do its work, and then my hand began to tremble, having trouble lifting the full weight of the blade. My point fell to the floor and my breath came faster as I tried to lift the sword, tried to replace my guard. I had fought the point up a foot or two when a steel-hard hand grabbed my arm, and then the sword was gone from my fist.
"No," a deep voice came, and I swung my eyes around to see a face I knew. The face had a name, Fallan, and I knew he was no friend.
"I'll kill you," I whispered, not knowing whether any sound came along with the words. He held my sword and I reached for it, but his hand refused to let go of my arm. He looked mad as hell, his once-bright shirt dirtied and ringed here and there with sweat, and he wouldn't let me take my sword back.
"Sh-she would have attacked me!" the fat man quavered, sweat running down his bloated face and ridged neck. "Who is she, and what does she do here?"
"She is in my charge," Fallan said hoarsely, his eyes hard as he kept me from my weapon. "We were attacked by bandits and after my men and I had driven them off I discovered that she had taken a weapon and fled. She must surely be deranged from fear."
"Remove her at once!" the fat man squeaked, one trembling hand pointing behind us while I fought to keep him in focus.
"She and I are both weary," Fallan began, closing his hand tighter as I tried to pull loose. "I would have a room so - "
"Remove her!" the fat man repeated in a scream, his face going redder than before. "I will not have her sort in my house! Away with her, and yourself as well!"
Fallan looked ready to argue the point, but when two armed men appeared from the kitchen area he reswallowed the words without saying anything further. He nodded curtly, a gesture which wasn't as reassuring to the fat man as it should have been, then he turned to me.
The entire room was spinning slowly around me, only a small distraction from the pain in my side, and Fallan's face blurred even as I looked at it. I knew he was no friend, knew I couldn't trust him, but it happened too fast. One minute he was hazily before me, and the next he was bent forward and reaching, lifting me to his shoulder without the least effort. I cried out hoarsely and struggled, fighting to loosen his arm around my legs, but that was the wrong thing to do. The pain in my side screamed louder as the room whirled faster, and then the light and I spun away together.
Chapter Eight
I woke up slowly, with a great deal of effort, fighting my way up out of the mists. There was daylight pouring through the window into the room I lay in, but I was too busy sorting out the dreams I'd been having to pay much attention to it.
I remembered the fight with Clero, remembered getting wounded, remembered being dumped in a stream, but after that things got hazy. I vaguely recalled riding through the woods and stopping at what must have been an inn, but nothing that happened was at all clear - and then I remembered how I'd gotten to the room I was in. Fallan. Good old Captain Fallan, leader of mercenaries and royal pain in the backside.
I moved one arm out from under the old blanket I was covered with, feeling the annoyance at Fallan rise up all over again. That he had somehow found me at the inn was obvious, as obvious as the fact that I had left there with him. I remembered coming to just as he was carrying me into a small wooden house. We passed a dingy lamp-lit room with a fireplace and ended up in a smaller room with a bed, where Fallan deposited me, none too gently, on the bed and left me just long enough to light a second lamp.
He was back immediately and bending over me with a frown, his big hands going to the wound in my left side, and I hadn't had the strength to fight him the way I'd wanted to. He'd muttered something under his breath, almost in a snarl, and then I was being stripped of the wet, filthy clothes and soggy boots.
The swordbelt was gone, a faint memory saying that it had been taken back at the inn, with the sword, so it wasn't long before Fallan had an unobstructed view of the results of my brush with Clero. His jaw tightened as he examined the wound more closely, then he strode out of the room altogether. I lay still, my head pounding and all of me burning up with the roaring fire inside me, and then Fallan was back, depositing an armload of things on a small wooden table standing next to the bed.
The first thing Fallan did was smear a jelly-like substance on the gash in my ribs, and then he went on to bandaging. The bandage was wide and much too hot, but Fallan refused to let me pull it off. He knocked my hands away as he reached for a large, metal cup, and then the cup was at my lips and Fallan was forcing its contents down my throat. I'd choked and struggled, more than ready to throw up from the taste of the stuff, but Fallan hadn't leaned back until the cup was empty. I didn't know what the cup contained, but before I knew it everything had gone black.
I moved my free arm to my face, but I really didn't have to bother. The fever wasn't raging as high as it had been but it was still there, something I could feel all over my body. I ached as though I'd exercised for hours after not having bothered for a year, and even moving my head around on what passed here for a pillow was an effort. I dropped my arm back onto the bed, not having the strength to hold it up any longer, then cursed under my breath with a lot of feeling.
I hadn't noticed it sooner, but someone - probably Fallan - had put me into an oversized nightshirt of sorts, and I felt as though I were tied tight under the blanket. I squirmed around, trying to loosen the nightshirt's hold, and my resentment against Fallan grew stronger with each useless movement. I knew the man thought he was protecting my modesty, but I'd really had more of him than I'd ever been interested in.
"So you have awakened," a voice came, and I turned my head a little to see Fallan standing in the doorway to my room. He'd changed his shirt again from the bright red of a mercenary back to the anonymous dark green, but he still wore the same black pants and boots. He looked at me with as neutral an expression as he'd ever managed, but that didn't go very far toward endearing him to me.
Inside my head, the presence I'd forgotten about again came to life, stirring in eagerness at Fallan's nearness. Bellna wanted Fallan more than ever now, but it was her tough luck I was in no shape to accommodate either of them. If I'd tried, it probably would have killed me.
Fallan was holding a cheap, earthenware pitcher in his hand, and he left the doorway to bring it over to the small wooden table next to the bed. Once he'd put it down he turned toward me to put his hand on my forehead, and I reached up and knocked the hand away without thinking. I didn't want the fool touching me, but the mercenary grabbed my wrist and held it above my head.
"Though your body has been injured, the sweetness of your nature remains intact, I see," he drawled, keeping his eyes directly on me. "It causes me great suffering to refuse your ladylike wishes, and yet the state of your health demands that I accept the painful burden. You will remain abed and under my care till you have recovered, Missy, else shall there be harsh words between us."
He let go of my wrist and put his hand back on my forehead, and all I wanted to do was cut that hand off at the shoulder. I'd thought I was all through with Fallan, finished with having to let him push me around, but he'd barged into my life again. I was in no shape to do anything about it right now, but I tend to heal faster than most and the job I'd had was over.
Fallan kept his hand on my forehead a good deal longer than was necessary, then took it away with an almost-pleased nod. He walked away from the bed toward the window, and when he came back he was carrying an old but beautifully carved straight-backed chair which he deposited in the spot where he's been standing. Once this was done he sat down as though he were really tired, then stuck his legs out straight in front of him with a sigh.
"Now," he pronounced, bringing his gaze to my face. "You have a disturbing yet hopefully not serious wound, and a high, though lessened fever. I believe I know how you received the wound, yet the fever remains unaccounted for. I would know how you came to acquire it."
His tone was too dry and supe
rior for my liking, but I was glad to see he'd jumped to the wrong conclusion about the wound: he thought I'd gotten it at the slave market. It would have been too much trouble to correct him, so I pushed the neck of the nightshirt down to get it out of my way and returned the calm, dark gaze I was getting.
"Do you think I acquired the fever to heat the cool of the night?" I asked sarcastically. "The illness came out of nothing, as though sent by the dark gods. Perhaps you would do well to question them on the matter."
"A fever such as yours does not appear from nothing." He snorted, unsatisfied with my answer. "It may have come about as a result of the wound, yet I do not believe this the case. That you were filthy when I found you I can well understand, yet you were wet to the skin as well. What caused that?"
"I - was thrown into a stream," I muttered, wishing I didn't have to admit it. "A beast of the forest frightened my vair, and it pitched me headlong into the water. The vair was male and stupid."
Fallan ignored my half-hearted attempt at insult and frowned in thought, looking down at his knees, then brought his gaze back up.
"This stream," he mused. "Was it one from which your vair was willing to drink?"
I didn't know what he was getting at, but instead of snapping an answer I stopped to think about it, remembering how the vair had stood with his head high in the air and his nostrils flaring. I'd thought at the time that he smelled an enemy, but he just might have been getting something from the water that I couldn't detect. Fallan was watching me closely, and when I shook my head he nodded with another snort.
"Just as I suspected," he congratulated himself. "The stream you stopped at must have been visited first by barbarians. They know of ways to foul a stream for days, and do so in the hopes of catching the unwary. Had you drunk from the stream rather than bathed in it, you would surely be dead by now. Undoubtedly you were infected through your wound; it was badly inflamed when I first looked upon it. This should teach you that the woods are no place for a female alone."
He was looking so damned smug and superior that I felt like loosening his teeth. He was probably right about the barbarians having gotten to the water, but I couldn't very well call him on the part he'd missed. I had drunk the water, but if I admitted it I'd also have to come up with a reason why I wasn't dead. It looked like the base inoculations had been good for something after all, but I could hardly cite them as the reason for my continued existence.
Fallan sat straighter in the chair again and reached for the earthenware pitcher, then poured what looked like water into a battered metal cup that also stood on the small table. The sight and sound of that water made me immediately aware of how thick and furry my tongue was, overcoming the weakness that made me want to do nothing more than just lie still.
Fallan saw me struggling to sit up so I could get at the water, and moved closer to put an arm under my shoulders to hold my head up. I took the cup with both hands, still needing the mercenary's free hand to steady it, and tried to drown myself in it all at once.
"Slowly," Fallan cautioned, not letting the cup tilt as far as I wanted it to. "You may have the water, but you must drink it slowly. It is far colder than it would be at an inn, for I drew it myself from a well just a few moments ago."
The water was cold, fresh and cold and gloriously satisfying. I could feel it rolling all the way down to my stomach, tracing a cool path through the heat of my body. Even Fallan's arm and hand felt cool through the nightshirt, and I knew the water would help my body fight off the fever. I finished all of it, down to the last sparkling drop, and didn't pick up on Fallan's comment until he had lowered me to the pillow again.
"I remember now," I said, pushing more of the blanket off me. "We had to leave the inn. But if we could not remain there, where are we now?"
Fallan took the blanket I'd pushed away and resettled it over me, then got to his feet.
"We are now in a Paldovar Village," he informed me. "I had little choice, yet perhaps it will prove to be for the best."
He turned and walked out of the room then, but I barely noticed. His use of the phrase, "Paldovar Village" had triggered all sorts of informational memories from Bellna, and although she accepted the location without as much as an eye-blink, to me it was pure revelation.
Paldovar Villages were spread out all over the area and were easy to get to, but usually were never found closer to one another than twenty-five or thirty miles. Just as inns and woodsmen's houses were places for travelers to stay, Paldovar Villages always had some number of empty houses which were for the use of temporary visitors, but the difference between the Villages and the other two places of rest had nothing to do with price. Inns had paid guards to insure the safety of their guests, woodsmen's houses had the woodsman himself and the men of his family, but Paldovar Villages had nothing comparable -and didn't need it. In Paldovar Villages, no one could harm anyone else!
I moved the blanket down again and squirmed around a little, trying to see all of the possibilities. I knew from Bellna's memories that it was possible to house blood enemies next door to one another in one of those villages, and each of the parties concerned would leave just as healthy as they'd come, but no one knew how they did it.
The Paldovar couldn't be "questioned" in their own villages, but a few of them had been grabbed now and then when they left the vicinity of those village. Interest and curiosity had been intense, conscience and mercy nonexistent, but the Paldovar had proven themselves willing to die rather than speak a single word about how they managed their tricks.
It had become an accepted fact on Tildor that no one who stayed in a Paldovar Village would be hurt, and no one had tried to find out why in a surprising number of years. I could finally understand why Dameron and his people were so frantic about the big secret, and why they refused to discuss it with strangers.
I had just enough time for a few brief thoughts on my current whereabouts before Fallan came back, carrying another metal cup. He was moving more carefully than he usually did, as though the cup held something spillable, and a horrible smell came in with him. I narrowed my eyes at the cup, suddenly remembering the battery acid he'd forced down my throat the night before, and he glanced up from putting the cup on the small table and grinned at my expression.
"As the fever is still with you, you will require further of this herb mixture," he announced pleasantly. "You will continue to have it till the fever is gone."
He was getting a big kick out of the thought of pouring that stuff down my throat again, but I wasn't about to sit still for a sadist.
"I shall require nothing of the sort," I answered as firmly as you can answer while flat on your back. "I have no desire for peasantish concoctions, nor do I have the need for them. Those of my family are well known for their powers of recuperation - without so-called medication."
The speech would have gone over better if I'd been on my feet, but I didn't think it was as comical as Fallan took it. His grin turned wider as he chuckled his amusement, and his head shook back and forth as he folded his arms across his chest.
"You are indeed amusing, Missy," he chuckled, "indeed amusing. Despite the 'recuperative powers' of your family, there is little difference between peasant girl and princess. Each must be put to bed with a fever, and each must have the fever tended. Should either, in her illness, refuse to do that which is necessary, she must be made to obey. Princess or peasant, Missy, you shall obey me."
I don't always find it necessary to rise to a challenge, but there are times when nothing else will do. Sick or not, I growled low in my throat and tried to claw my way to a sitting position, but Fallan wasn't asleep. He jumped for me as soon as I began to move and forced me down flat again with no effort whatsoever. I squirmed and fought as my arms were pushed under me and held down by the weight of his body and mine, but it was wasted effort. Bellna was mewling and trying to get me to bring him closer and somehow arouse him, and that was all I needed: someone else to fight. When I ignored her she began to rave, but whe
n I saw Fallan's hand reaching for the cup of battery acid, I did some raving of my own.
"You misbegotten lowlife!" I screamed, tossing my head back and forth. "Had I my sword in my hand your blood would be upon the ground where it belongs!"
"Then I am fortunate that you have no sword," he murmured, carefully moving the cup closer. "Will you drink, or must I do the thing myself?"
At that point in time I would have died rather than give him the least amount of cooperation, but he didn't need my cooperation. When it became obvious even to him that I wasn't going to be drinking that swill on my own, he held my nose and waited until lack of air forced my mouth open, then began to pour the mixture down my throat.
Amid choking and coughing I tried to spit the garbage out again, but he was wise to that trick and held my jaw shut until I absolutely had to swallow. He emptied that damned cup to the very last drop before letting go of me, and by then it was too late. Wrapped in nausea, flattened and battered, I didn't even stay conscious long enough to see him leave the room.
* * *
The next time the mists rolled out it was daylight again, but a late-afternoon daylight. I moved around on the ancient linen, stretching my muscles and testing them, then decided to see what sort of shape I was in. Sitting up wasn't impossible, but my hand still shook when I reached for the metal cup on the little table to see if there was any water in it. The cup turned out to be half full, so I drained it without spilling too much in my lap, then took a good look around at the room.
The door to the other room was to the left of the bed I sat in and it was closed, leaving no way of telling whether or not Fallan was around. Since I heard nothing, there was a chance that he might have gone out.
To the right of the bed, against the wall, stood a large wooden wardrobe, as old and as scratched as the small table directly next to the bed, but as beautifully carved as the one I'd seen in Prince Havro's lodge. The window, uncurtained and overbright with the sun's last efforts, was directly opposite the bed, and the carved, straight-backed chair had been returned to its place in front of that window. Aside from these few things and the bed I lay in, the room was totally bare.
