Krista stood still, as fear froze her in place as the watchman approached. She shivered as the icy rain drops fell on her head and trickled down under the worn rag of a tunic she wore. She clutched the bundle tighter to her trying to shield it from the storm. Krista’s teeth threatened to rattle out of her mouth, because she was so cold.
“You’re but a slip of a girl!” The watchman said somewhat disgustedly seeing his reward vanish before his eyes.
“What are you doing out in this weather girl and what have you got there?” He asked making a move to grab the bundle in her arms from her.
His outstretching hands jarred Krista out of her fearful trance. She jumped back out of reach the sudden move causing the bundle in her arms to cry out weakly.
“Hey, what is this?” The watchman exclaimed in surprise.
Seeming to notice her shabby attire for the first time the watchman came to a swift conclusion, “You’re a slave ain’t yuh?”
At those words Krista turned and fled.
“Hey stop you slave!”
His fingers narrowly missed grabbing a hold of her shoulder, as she slipped past him down a dark alleyway. She ran as fast as she could with the bundle in her arms stumbling over cans and refuse left in the alleyway in her haste.
The watchman stopped at the alleyway entrance. He wasn’t about to go in there after her, as the light from the street glinted off the red eyes of hundreds of disturbed rats. It had only been one little slave girl holding a baby. She wouldn’t have brought much at auction anyway.
Krista didn’t stop running, until she was several blocks away. Wheezing from the exertion of running through the darkened city, she looked behind her for any signs of pursuit, but there were none. She pulled back the edge of the blanket that was wrapped around the bundle in her arms. The baby’s blue eyes were closed and it had turned very pale.
“Oh, no!” Exclaimed Krista.
She had seen that look of pale stillness before. Franticly she put her hand on the baby’s chest, but she could feel no movement there and the skin was cold. Big tears welled up in her eyes and then spilled down her cheeks, as she gently rocked the still baby in her arms.
Later she got up as dawn’s first rays started to brighten up the gloomy morning and made her way towards the wharf, which was nearby. Making her way down to the shore of the river she lowered the baby into the murky waters. For a moment the baby’s face was visible and then it was gone.
She had been making her way past the guards last night intent on escaping the holding pens and the short hard life of being a slave, when out of the dark a hand had grabbed onto her feebly. Gasping in surprise she had spun towards the unseen hand to see a thin woman with dark shadows under her eyes standing there in the gloom.
“Please! Please take my baby with you!”
“ I…. I….I can’t! I wouldn’t know how to care for it!” Krista stammered out stepping away from the woman.
The woman had followed her though and pressed the bundle she held into Krista’s arms despite her protests.
“My baby is dying here, as am I. Take my baby so that he can at least die free. Won’t you please do this for me?”
The woman begged falling to her knees before Krista, as she held onto Krista’s dress. Krista wanted to refuse, as her chances of escaping were slim enough already. Having a baby along only made the likelihood of being caught all the greater. She had looked down at the bundle in her arms and a pair of blue eyes had met her own. She had tightened her hold on the bundle instinctively and met the desperate gaze of the baby’s mother and nodded.
“Oh thank you dear sweet child! Thank you!” The grateful mother had said.
Krista had stepped back into the shadows and crept along the wall leading to the last guard post holding the baby to her hoping that it wouldn’t cry out.
She’d heard the woman briefly say something before she was out of sight, “May the Creator protect you.”
Krista broke from her reflection of the night before and reached one grubby hand up to wipe the tears from her eyes.
“I wonder what his mother would say to me now?” Krista said softly to herself in sorrow.
Shaking her head she made her way up from the river’s edge to the wharf above. Lost in her sorrow she was not as careful as she should have been. The morning had progressed more quickly than she had thought. Workers and tradesmen were already busy about their business. She gasped realizing her mistake. She was noticed almost at once by one of the field masters that she worked under in the firan cane fields.
“You there! Stop slave! Get her! She escaped from the slave stockade!”
Everyone suddenly became an enemy to her. She ran trying to elude the outstretched hands of the people all around her.
She slid under a table holding produce and bounded up on the other side of it. There up ahead of her was an alley, if she could only reach it she might be able to out run her pursuers and find a hiding place until nightfall, when she could sneak out of the town under the cover of darkness. She sprang for the alleyway, but a hand grabbed her by the calf and flung her backwards. She landed in the middle of the street hard. Muddy water and refuse splashed up at her landing and soaked her in its filth.
An angry mob had gathered around her and she was cut off from any chance at escape.
She turned around on the ground trying to avoid any of her would be assailants as the field master, who had first seen her spoke up loudly, “Let’s just kill her! She’s not worth much and we’ll make such an example out of her that no other slave will even think about escaping!”
Krista curled up in a ball and screamed, as they began to kick and hit her yelling insults and curses at her as they did so.
Krista landed hard against the side of the curb waiting for the next hit hoping that she would die soon. Life was just too painful and hopeless to keep fighting to hold onto. The expected hits didn’t come though.
That was strange Krista thought slowly, as her reasoning was foggy from the hits she had taken to the head. One eye was swelled shut, but she could still partially see out her right eye. An old woman was yelling at the group, who had been beating her.
The old woman reached for something at her waist, which she then poured into the outstretched hand of the field master. He grunted something and moved off. The old woman motioned to another man, who then approached her and picked her up and slung her slim frame across his shoulder. The pain of her abused body being moved caused pains to shoot throughout her and she eagerly welcomed the comforting warmth of unconsciousness, as it surrounded her with its dreamless cloak.
There was warmth and pain, but Krista tried to focus on the warmth more than the pain. Warmness enveloped her. She couldn’t remember a time in recent memory, when she had been so warm and cozy.
She heard rustling near her and her eye popped open defensively. She was in a room dominated by a roaring fire in the hearth next to her. The floor was made of old worn boards and she lay on some sort of a pallet of blankets on top of the boards. The sound she had heard had come from the hunched figure of a woman working over a table that ran the length of the small room. There was a window across from her and it was open and through it Krista could see stars in the night sky. Feeling the need to escape she began to move her legs into a position to spring towards the open window. The pain of moving her legs was excruciating and she must have made some noise that alerted the woman over the by the table of her consciousness.
The woman turned and she briefly recognized the old woman from the street, before she crammed her one good eye shut. She heard more rustling and then steps that drew closer and closer to her. She tried not to cringe as the steps drew close to her, but she did.
Thunk!
Krista flinched hard causing more pain to herself, but it wasn’t because she had been hit. Peering through her eyelashes she saw a big bowl sitting on the floor in front of her nose, with steam rising off of it slowly into the air. The steamy smoke
drifted over to her and her stomach began to rumble telling her just how long it had been since she had eaten. Her hand started reaching out for the bowl, with a mind of its own when caution got the best of her.
Where had the old woman gotten to? The answer came from a rocking chair on the opposite side of the hearth.
“Eat the porridge dear child. Heaven knows you have need of it!” The old woman said.
Krista against her better judgment pulled the bowl closer and started eating it with her fingers ignoring the spoon that had come with it.
“Easy now, easy now, there’s more where that came from dear! No need to eat so fast! You’ll do yourself more harm than good doing that!” The old woman said hastily.
She rose from her chair and went to a table and picked up a large tankard and withdrew what looked like a ball of cloth stuffed full of leaves. She came close and got ricketly down onto her knees and offered the tankard to Krista. The bowl empty Krista pushed it aside and warily took the outstretched tankard. It was heavy. She sniffed it suspiciously, but all she could smell was an herby sugary smell.
“Drink it all. It will help ease the pain and the stiffness your feeling.” The old woman said.
Krista sipped it a little. It was good! There was actually sugar in it! Slaves were never given such luxuries!
She looked up at the old woman suspiciously wondering what her angle was. Seeming to read her mind the woman’s wise old eyes met hers.
“You are not a slave, while you reside in my home, but rather my helper, if you would care to be. I bought you to save your life. You can relax. You are safe here. My name is Sansa Denas. What might your name be young miss?”
After a long pause Krista responded somewhat hesitantly, “Krista”.
“Is that all?” Sansa asked.
Krista nodded her head slowly.
The old woman reached over and pulled the heavy blanket up over Krista’s slim shoulder.
“Rest now my dear there’ll be more time to talk in the morning.”
Krista watched as the kind old lady got painfully back up to her feet and moved away towards her rocking chair. Her eye lids got harder and harder to keep open as she watched the old woman rock by the fire. Never had she had such good food to eat before. The warmth and comfort of the cottage and pallet she lay on did the rest and she was soon asleep.
The old woman studied Krista as she slept deeply on the pallet by the fire and wondered again if she had made a mistake in buying the girl. She couldn’t afford to make more enemies than she already had.
Buying escaped slaves had a way of being looked down upon by the local towns’ people and she depended on those same people for her business. Looking again at the girl she shook her head, but of course she had made the right choice in saving the girl’s life. She would just have to face the trouble, when it came and come it would.
Krista opened her eyes slowly. That was an improvement from the day before, as both eyes opened easily. The cottage was the same as it had been the night before except it was better illuminated now by the strong late morning light that streamed into it from the open doorway. There were jars and pots littered and stacked precariously all over the long tables that dominated the one room cottage. From the ceiling hung bunches of dried wildflowers, branches with leaves, and bundles of what looked like herbs.
The aroma of the cottage was almost overwhelming in its panoply of smells, but it was also somewhat invigorating. She pushed the warm blanket back and got slowly to her knees and then to her feet. Everything hurt but it was all moving that was the good thing. She bit her lip against the pain it caused her when she moved and hobbled resolutely towards the open door of the cottage.
The sounds of woodland and meadow songbirds greeted her as she leaned against the doorpost resting for a moment. The sun was warm against her face.
The old lady was busy working over an old black kettle that was boiling happily over a little fire in the clearing in the forest that the cottage sat in. As Krista drew closer to the fire and her kindly new master she could see that the old lady was busy in the process of making soap.
“Quickly dear could you fetch those chopped up asthan blossoms on the platter over by that tree?” The old woman asked, somehow knowing she was there without ever looking up.
Krista moved gingerly towards the platter and returned as quickly as she could with it and handed it to the old woman.
“Thank you dear.” Sansa said, as she stirred the asthan blossoms into the thickening mixture in the pot.
There followed a period of time in Krista’s life unlike any she had ever experienced before. Her relationship with Sansa Denas was more that of a granddaughter to a doting grandmother than that of a slave and her master.
Sansa taught the girl all she knew of the art of being a natural healer and herbalist.
Krista grew and flourished under the benevolent and kindly Sansa and Sansa had the daughter she had never had, but always wanted.
Chapter Nine
Responsibilities
I rode at the head of the column eager to see the home of my ancestors. Thaddeus didn’t ride any more due to the pain it caused his bad leg. He rode in a carriage farther back in the column, every part of him still yearning for the freedom of his youth.
This was the third day of the journey from Kingdom Pass and still no words could come to me to describe the beauty of the land that was on display all around me. Ancient primeval forests pocketed the dips and hollows of the mountains and valleys. While vast stretches of open grassland stretched out like a patchwork quilt over the rolling terrain of the valley bottoms. The terrain was broken up here and there by rocky up thrusts, which penetrated the seas of grass like ships at full sail. The snow capped ridges of the mountains rose up to the sky to our right, as gurgling brooks ran down everywhere from the mountains spilling their cold waters into the seas of grass on their endless journey to the sea. Waterfalls could be seen in the distance, as they cascaded down from the mountains. A cool wind that felt just right blew into my face and rippled through the tall grass around me as far as the eye could see.
My eyes drank in the paradise I was riding through relishing every moment of it. Here and there isolated cottages and groups of dwellings could be seen with their cultivated fields and orchards. It was midday when my eyes saw for the first time the home of my ancestors, Thunder Ridge.
The castle was built out of the side of one mountain and lay nestled in a cul-de-sac formed by several others. Towers rose majestically from the tiered castle fortifications echoing the grandeur of the surrounding mountain peaks. A huge waterfall split down the sheer side of the cliff next to the castle on its left side. The stream that the waterfall formed spilled into a mote, which flowed around the front of the castle wall, and exited at the far end of the curved castle wall. It fell in a shorter waterfall at the end of the mote to continue downhill lazily where it swung around the village located at the base of the mountain that the castle was constructed against. The castle was built of the same golden granite as that of the wall at Kingdom Pass.
The castle and its towers were wreathed with flowering vines that bloomed white and let off a honeysuckle smell that I could already smell on the breeze. This was Thunder Ridge. Unknowingly I had stopped to gaze, with wonder upon the still distant castle. I didn’t notice my grandfather’s carriage until it drew up beside of me and stopped.
“Quite something isn’t it my boy?” Thaddeus asked smiling proudly.
I nodded my head at a loss for words.
“Beautiful and idealic as it may look Roric it has stood up to its fair share of war. Five times the village has been raised to the ground and once the castle itself was almost taken in a prolonged siege. That of course all happened before the wall at Kingdom Pass was built.” He said finishing.
We started out again and soon we were entering into the village commons. They had apparently been expecting us and knew of my existence. People, my people, were thronge
d around us as we passed through the village. The people were shouting and singing ancient songs that struck cords within my heart that had never been played before. The women and children showered us with flowers, while the men respectfully saluted us with swords and fists held aloft. I and my arena friends trailing out behind me had never witnessed such a spectacle of welcome before. I felt countless hands touch my legs reverently, as I rode by as if to feel if I was real or not. I brushed by them and heard their words of blessing and greeting like the endlessly repeating litany of a chorus.
These people were welcoming me as if I was one of their favored own. If this hadn’t felt like home before they were certainly making it feel so now. I raised my hand in welcome to these people feeling that it was too small a gesture to convey the emotion I felt for these people’s welcome of me. I was home and these people had already won a very special place in my heart by their welcome of me.
I stood bathed in moonlight on the balcony of what was to be my room from now on. The rooms were carved out of the very mountain itself and were accessed by a tower that buttressed up against the side of the mountain. From my vantage point I could look out over the whole castle and the entire valley beyond the walls.
Thaddeus had given me the option of choosing any of the luxurious quarters within the castle including his own, but I had liked these rooms far from the great hall of the castle the most. It was a new experience having four walls around me that were not a prison meant to keep me in, but rather a home.
Most of the towns’ people had long since settled in for a well earned evening of rest. They were a hard working people. There were no slaves at Thunder Ridge or in the village beyond. Smoke from their dwellings rose lazily into the cold still air of the night. Even though it was late spring and warm during the day the temperatures dropped rapidly after sundown. Yes, this is where I would stay. This was my home now.
A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind) Page 14
