Alec looked at her. “What did you say?” he started to ask, then realized what she was doing and sat down, his back to her and his eyes closed. A moment later he heard her splash into the water, giving a quick shriek as the cold water shocked her body.
“You can look now,” Leah told him as she surfaced near the raft, feeling refreshed. “You should come in and swim too. I feel so much better now.”
Alec watched her floating lazily along with the raft as the river’s current carried them along. “I don’t know how to swim,” he admitted after moments of silence. “It does look wonderful though.”
“You don’t know how to swim?” she asked incredulously. “I thought everyone learned how to swim. I tell you what,” she said after a few seconds of reflection, “we’re going to have a lot of spare time in the next few weeks,” she laughed at the empty days stretching out before them. “I’ll teach you how to swim, and you can teach me about being a healer.”
“I’d love to learn how to swim,” Alec said. “I’m not sure I know how to teach you about healing,” he added, thinking of the unteachable powers that he relied upon.
“Show me what you can about plants to use for different cures and simple kinds of aches and pains to treat,” Leah suggested. “Show me what you can. It’ll be a way to pass the time.” She flipped and dove under the surface, her legs disappearing last, and then reappeared moments later on the other side of the raft. “Close your eyes again,” she ordered as she raised her arms onto the edge of the raft. Alec complied, and felt the platform dip to the side as she climbed back onto their small, floating home.
“All set. You can look now,” Leah said a minute later, and Alec found her running her fingers through her hair as her wet clothes stuck to her body. “Alec, thank you for saving my life back there,” she told him, her lovely face looking straight at his. “You saved me from making a bad decision, and you saved me from a bad fate. I was so scared these past few days when I thought Trevor would come home and find my condition. I know he would have killed the baby, and he probably would have killed me; he’s that type of man.”
“This is a strange way to start a new life, both for myself and for my child. I’m almost old enough to be your mother, and I owe you an unpayable debt,” she finished her confession.
Alec listened to her and felt compassion well up in his heart. “I wouldn’t say you’re old enough to be my mother,” he began to respond, “but you are too old to be my girlfriend.” He saw the look of surprise on her face and knew he had said the wrong thing. “Not that you’re too old, but you’re older than Natalie, who’s my own age,” he stammered to explain, averting his eyes in confusion.
Leah started to laugh. “Alec, don’t worry, I understand what you’re saying. Your assistant at the store, that was Natalie? She is a lovely girl for you to love,” Leah said, then realized she was talking about someone who had probably died under the lacertii’s swords. “I’m sorry you’ve lost her,” she added with heartfelt sympathy.
“She’s still alive! I saw her on the boat that floated past us,” Alec hurriedly answered. “I know that somehow we’ll find her down the river somewhere.”
“Well, good!” Leah said. “We’ll all end up at Goldenfields, I’m sure, so hold on to your hope.
“In the meantime though, thank you.”
Their conversation lapsed into silence, and each sat watching the western sunset cast beautiful colors over the end of their eventful, life-changing day.
“Alec,” Leah said suddenly, “can you steer this thing? We’re going to hit that sand bar,” she said pointing ahead down the river.
Alec grabbed for his oar and tried to steer the raft by sweeping, but saw little effect, so he switched ends and began poling against the bottom to move them back out to the center of the current. “I guess we’ll have to watch for that,” he said, sitting back down and dropping the pole as they moved past the gravelly beach and floated along.
“We’ve got the last of the bread and some roots for dinner,” Alec said a few minutes later.
“And all the water you want,” Leah said with a smile, as they began eating their meager meal under the growing darkness.
Later that night they drifted off to sleep, curled in their cloaks in the center of the raft, and slept until the middle hours of the night when they awakened to the grinding sound of the raft running onto another sand bar. Alec pushed them back into the current, and they settled down to sleep for the rest of the night.
The next morning they awoke shortly after sunrise. The scenery was the same as they’d seen the night before; a high range on their left to the east, and a lower ridge on their right to the west. They ate more of the roots and then began a swimming lesson for most of the morning, the chilly water awakening them as they splashed into the river.
For lunch they poled over to the shoreline and Alec located more roots, but also found some herbs which he thought would add nutrients Leah’s pregnancy needed, as well as some much-needed flavor. They built a fire and tried roasting the roots on a flat stone, which made little improvement in the tubers as food. They started floating again in the current, and Alec began showing Leah different plants and samples he had in his leather medicine bag. He described each plant and what its healing powers were, how it could be prepared and used, how much to rely on it and what to combine it with, along with how to find it and where to look.
That day established their routine for the next several days of idyllic travel on the headwaters of the Giffey River. On their third day out Alec noticed Leah harvesting many long water grasses along the shore during their lunch stop. “What are those for?” he asked curiously. “Wait and see,” she replied mysteriously, and she piled her materials on the raft.
That afternoon, as Alec described and reviewed more medicinal items, he watched Leah’s fingers deftly weaving the grasses into large, porous sacks. “Have you ever fished with anything like this?” she asked him when the first one was done. “We desperately need to eat something besides marsh roots or I’m going to start growing green hair,” she said.
Alec couldn’t agree with her more, so they lowered the sack into the water and watched for opportunities to catch fish. They didn’t have any luck that day, but didn’t give up either, and the next morning Leah pulled and lifted a large trout up and onto the raft in one fluid motion. Alec roasted it with the roots at lunch that day, and from then on they regularly added fish to their roots and greens for wholesome but monotonous meals.
A few days later they sat on their raft on a sunny day, watching the blue sky hold a few lazy clouds. “What’s your mother like Alec?” Leah asked. “What would she and your dad say if she knew everything you had done?
“I never knew my parents,” Alec told her. “I never even knew anything about them. Lots of kids in the orphanage had been put there by relatives, so they knew something about their families, but no one ever knew anything about mine.” He paused and reflected. “I use to think about that when I was little. I imagined my parents in all sorts of ways, but I never had anything to really know. After a while I stopped thinking about them.”
Leah looked at Alec as he spoke, while he looked up at the sky. There was a hurt in his eyes that told her he wasn’t as cavalier about his lack of family as he seemed. “I’m sure they were good folks, and I’m sorry for whatever tragedy took them away from you. I know they’d be proud to have such a good-looking son who is able to do so many things.” Alec looked at her gratefully without speaking, and they continued to float down the river in silence.
A week later Alec awoke in the early light of dawn to the sounds of the raft washing up on a gravel beach, something he’d grown used to on a regular basis. He wasn’t prepared to see such a dramatic change in the morning scenery. The river was turning right, heading towards a wide gap in the mountain ridges to the west. The eastern range was moving away, heading south out of sight. The raft needed more effort than usually to leave the beach and join the sweeping current, and Alec
spent much of the day steering them away from the outside of the large sweeping curve that extended for miles.
At noon he and Leah watched in awe as they passed the last clear-standing mountain spur, and headed into a land of gentle rolling foothills, similar to those Alec had ridden through just a fortnight before when entering the Pale Mountains with Richard’s traveling carnival. The ancient ruins of a once great city that watched the river from the side of the last mountain drew their attention.
“I wish we could go explore that, but I’m afraid of the lacertii that may lurk up there,” Alec said wistfully. Leah agreed, and they observed the still gleaming white structures from a distance as they flowed past.
Nothing further disturbed the routine of their slow float down the Giffey. Alec learned to swim and Leah learned to cure many simple ailments, while they looked forward to arriving in Goldenfields, the seat of the Duchy of Goldenfields, largest duchy in the Dominion. Alec had heard of Goldenfields wines, and had heard Aristotle speak favorably about the Duke who ruled there, but he knew nothing else of the land.
The land they watched pass by grew less hilly and lost its forested cover, so that they quickly were in the counterpart of the long monotonous prairie Alec had ridden through for many weeks. After three weeks of such travel, they came to an area where the river broadened out and its current grew sluggish. The water became shallower and many sand bars were strewn and woven in and out of the riverbed, giving Alec increased work at steering and freeing the raft. The landscape along the riverbanks changed, as plants and trees in fens and bogs grew up and blocked any view beyond.
“Alec, what’s that up ahead?” Leah asked on their second afternoon amidst the sand bars. A cluttered pile of colors and shapes rose on a large sand bar that blocked the left side of the main river channel.
“It’s hard to tell,” Alec responded after squinting ahead. “Lets find out,” and he poled the raft to the left so that they drifted onto the bar.
The sand bar held a large mound of items apparently abandoned by other travelers on the river. There were pieces of small furniture, bundles of clothing, and chests of varied items, home mementos, canned foods, and other cherished materials that people had chosen to leave behind. “Why would all of this be here?” Leah asked. “Why would someone carry these things all this way and then just drop them here?”
Alec pictured the boatload of refuges they had seen fleeing from Walnut Creek at the time of the lacerta attack. “That flatboat of people who left Walnut Creek was heavily loaded down,” he thought out loud. “And here the river’s gotten pretty shallow. Maybe they had to lighten their load to be able to float through here,” he theorized.
Rummaging through the salvage on the sand bar provided the most sumptuous evening of their adventure on the river. They piled together the softest and most luxurious clothes they found and formed a bed they could nest in like a pair of house mice in a drawer of silks. In one chest Leah found jars of food preserves. "Alec, these are Suellen’s canned peaches from the store back at Walnut Creek. You’re not going to make me eat boiled river roots again tonight with these around!” Alec saw no reason to argue; he wasn’t looking forward to another meal of the stalwart, flavorless roots and fish.
That night on the sand bar, with the stars overhead, the river running past, and the fire burning down, they lay among their soft billows of cloth, and Leah brought up for the first time the question of what they’d do when they reached the not-too-distant Duchy of Goldenfields.
“Alec, I know you’ve said that you and Ari and Natalie planned to find ingenairii and tell them about the lacertii attacking the mountain settlements,” Leah introduced the topic that had been on her mind for many days. “Natalie is ahead of us, and we don’t know where Ari is. Do you know what you want to do, or how to do it?”
Alec’s mind stumbled as he considered the question, and his words came out slowly. “I want to try to find Natalie, and we need to see if Ari can make it to Goldenfields. Ari really thought that the lacertii attacks were signs of a new evil that would come down and attack the Dominion, and we have to give that warning to the ingenairii and the king so they’ll have time to prepare to battle.”
“Barring something extraordinary, I don’t think you personally are going to have to do much to tell people about the lacertii,” Leah said rolling on her side to look at Alec. “There’s a whole boatload of people who are going to get to Goldenfields before us and tell about the attack at Walnut Grove, so the whole Dominion will hear about it. I don’t think you or I are going to tell them anything new.”
As Alec mulled over Leah’s point, she added, “And you need to be careful about talking to the ingenairii. If they think they need more information, and you tell them you were with Aristotle through both attacks and know some of the things he was concerned about, they may decide to hold onto you and pick your brains for a long time. You won’t exactly be a prisoner, but you will be where they put you and answer the questions they ask you.”
Alec's mind dwelt on the question of whether he should trust the ingenairii or not. Ari had similarly warned him not to tell about his adventure, particularly about the cave. Now, without knowing anything about the cave or Ari’s warning, Leah had given him much the same advice: be cautious of ingenairii.
“You make a lot of sense,” Alec said.
“I’m just pointing some things out we have to start thinking about. I think you can wait to see what people in Goldenfields know and believe about the lacertii attacks before you risk speaking up about it,” Leah advised. “You can look for Natalie, see what she and the others have told the officials, and wait for Aristotle.”
There was no further conversation that night as they rolled apart and fell asleep, both their minds heavy with thought about the near future, the end of their journey for the first time becoming an item to consider.
When he awoke the next morning, Alec was convinced that he should keep his secret away from the ingenairii, until he felt more comfortable with the situation in Goldenfields. He believed that Leah was right, and the boatload of Walnut Creek refugees would serve the duty of advising the Dominion about the arrival of lacertii in battle against humanity. He also wanted to wait to see Ari turn up again, as the ingenaire had done after the battle at Riverside. With Ari to talk to, Alec would be able to rely on his advice and knowledge. Finally, the decision that had become tangled in uncertainty was the decision about looking for Natalie, and remaining with Leah.
Alec’s heart felt a strong desire to rush into the strange town so that he could find the young dancer. Yet his flight from Walnut Creek had thrown him into company with Leah. They got along comfortably, and understood each other so well the woman now seemed like an easy extension of himself, at least in dealing with the trouble-free floating holiday on the river. He didn't want to just walk away from her. He wanted to make sure she could have a safe home of her own and be prepared to support herself and her baby. But he wasn’t sure how he could realistically assist her, since he was penniless and without influence.
After another breakfast of the delicious food on the sand bar, they loaded loot onto the raft and pushed off to continue towards Goldenfields. “Well, what thoughts did you have last night about our talk?” Leah asked him as they floated along.
Alec’s mind stumbled to find the best answer to the question of what to do next. “I think we need to find Natalie. Then I want to know where Ari is. After that, if Ari isn't going to join us anytime soon,” his mind skipped around the dark implications of his words, “we need to pass the information along. Ari was clear that the ingenairii and the King both needed to know about these problems.”
“The ship with Natalie and all the others from Walnut Creek will arrive days before we do. Don't you think those refugees telling their story in the town would give a pretty good idea of what happened? I think the tale will be told and retold in every washing place, every tavern and every gossip spot in the city and spread with the traders across the Dominion
,” Leah suggested. “Honestly Alec, I think that we need to be careful about telling folks we’re Walnut Creek survivors too.”
“Suppose,” she continued, “the Duke doesn't want folks to know there's an army of lacertii building on his borders. He might not want to cause a panic. He probably doesn't want to have to spend more money on his army or setting up defenses or appeasing his generals’ expectations, let alone disrupting trade and business and farming in the Duchy. And there's no telling what the ingenairii’s reaction is to all this. They probably want to learn as much as they can, especially from you,” she repeated. “I don't know anything about magicians. Until I met you I'd never heard anything but children’s stories about ingenairii and magic. We never had any in Walnut Creek. Maybe they wouldn’t do you any harm; I don't know. I am sure they'd like to talk to you and learn everything they can from you.”
“Leah, you may be right. Let me think about this some more. I want to find out what happened to Ari; that's important to me,” Alec replied after a silent pause. “What do you think we should do?” he plaintively sought reassurance.
“Let's continue to Goldenfields like we planned. It’s the Duke’s city, and it’s probably only a few days away. We can just stay quiet at first when we get there. We can listen to talk and ask questions and find out when the big boat arrived and what the escapees from Walnut Creek said. Maybe after a few days we can find Ari or Natalie. We have all these nice clothes now. We look like city folks; we can tell people you’re a doctor, and you can earn some coins for us while we figure out the next step,” Leah threw out the plans she has developed in recent days.
Alec considered Leah's strategy. Her plan sounded good. After all, Ari, Natalie and he had used a similar tact for their entry into Walnut Creek. He realized how little he really knew about how the world’s affairs ran; he'd never considered the Duke might have money concerns. He always presumed that a limitless supply of wealth made all things possible for nobility. There were wheels of tactics within wheels of strategy that made straightforward ideas perhaps less likely to be desired; dissembling as part of leadership might be more common than he expected.
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