Visions of Power

by Jeffrey Quyle

  The square was the largest Alec had seen in his travels through the cities of the kingdom, and it was crowded with merchants’ vehicles plying and exchanging goods. During a long, slow walk around the borders of the square Leah suddenly squeezed Alec’s hand tightly. “This is the Traders Bank, where Natha told you to come tomorrow,” she said. They looked at the opulent building, which spoke of the stability and richness of the institution.

  Alec took surprising comfort in seeing the place where his savings were going to be. Twenty golds was enough for him and Leah to live on comfortably for years without any effort on his part; never in the caravan had he had more than a few coppers.

  They made it to the far side of the square, and stopped at a vendor’s stall to confirm that they were heading in the right direction for Bakers Street. As soon as they left the square and turned the corner they knew they were in the right place. The delightful aroma of baked goods wafted down the street towards them from more than two dozen shops, selling everything from simple breads to elaborate cakes and pastries.

  “I don’t think anyone would ever feel sick enough to come see a healer after they got a whiff of all this good-smelling bread,” Alec joked with Leah.

  They walked down the street looking for shops that were not occupied. By the time they had walked ten minutes they were at the end of the bakers district, after which only residences occupied the road. The homes were nice, similar to Rand and Annalea’s home, which Leah thought was good. “People with money to own homes like these will have money to pay their doctor bills,” she calculated.

  They turned around and returned to the two vacant shop fronts they had found in their inspection. They entered the neighboring shop of the larger of the two to ask about the ownership. A man who was Alec’s definition of a baker, chubby and jolly looking, wearing a white apron with flour smudged on his cheek, smiled as they came to his counter. “What treats can I serve you today?” he asked in a deep, kindly voice.

  We wondered if you knew whether the empty shop next door is available for sale?” Leah asked him as she watched him deftly apply icing to a large, elaborate cake.

  “Parna’s shop?” the cheery baker responded.

  “The shop with the green shutters that are closed,” Alec replied. “We saw it next door and thought you would know who owns it.”

  “That’s Parna’s shop, or it was Parna’s shop. It belongs to his widow now, since he passed away in the spring. She doesn’t want to run a bakery, so it sits there empty while she lives with her brother. Do you plan to open a bakery there?” he asked.

  “No, we’re not bakers. We’d like to open a shop for a healer. How much do you think Parna’s widow would want to sell the shop for?” Leah asked.

  “A healer among the bakers, eh? Well, she might give it away to get it off her hands, but Parna paid four golds and four silvers four years ago to buy it, so I wouldn’t expect it to go for less,” he answered. “There’s another shop sitting empty; it used to be a candy store, but the owner spent too much of his money on ale instead of sugar, and it closed last week.”

  “And since you know so much, how much would it cost?” Alec followed up.

  “Floyd, who loved his ale so much, won’t be ready to sell just yet, I’d imagine. He probably still thinks there’s some way for him to pay his debts and start receiving supplies again, but I don’t expect that to happen. I take it you’re not here to buy anything?” the baker finished icing the cake and began to prepare a small platter of petit fours.

  “When we have our medicine shop, you’ll be the first one we visit to buy a cake,” Leah said with a smile. “But how do we find Parna’s widow?”

  After several minutes of listening to directions from the baker, they felt confident they could find their way to a cooper’s shop not far from the wharf where Gim was keeping their belongings secret.

  They left the shop, and returned to Rand and Annalea’s home. The print shop was busy with papers being prepared for customers, so they went up to Annalea’s room to see how she was getting along.

  She was sitting upright in bed with a broad sheet of paper in front of her, reading it carefully. Upon seeing who was in the doorway she smiled, removed her glasses, dropped the paper onto the bed and welcomed them. “Angel, and Leah, good to see you, although I confess I’m guilty of working when I should be resting. You’ll forgive me won’t you, Doctor Angel?”

  “Is that your work?” Alec asked.

  “Yes, I’m helping proof the drafts for Rand, since no one will let me do anything but sit in bed until my doctor releases me to get up,” she said in a teasing tone.

  “I’m just a country healer, but I think you should be allowed out of bed tomorrow if you just get a good day’s rest today,” Alec replied with the smile, a smile that reflected his pleasure at seeing this girl alive again and ready to live a joyful life.

  The next morning Alec and Leah sat at the breakfast table nibbling on slices of melon when they were surprised to see Helen walk in the room.

  “Good morning,” she said. “I thought I’d visit my daughter today to see how she progresses, and I find she is free to leave her room today! You’re not just releasing her so you can leave this house, are you?”

  “She seems better off doing something instead of nothing, so there’s no reason to keep her in her bed,” Alec told Helen, who he was delighted to see. “We’re not ready to leave the house yet, but we may be ready soon, if we’re lucky,” he proceeded to tell her about Parna’s shop on Bakers’ Street and their plan to go investigate it.

  “When you go to the bank, ask an officer there what he thinks you should pay for such a property. They’ll have a good idea of what the market is these days,” Helen suggested.

  Shortly thereafter, Leah and Alec were at the Traders Bank, and when they explained who they were, they were invited to a back room and treated with the respect due someone who holds friendship and influence with trader Natha Millershome. A conversation about their plans led the elderly banker to suggest they pay not more than three golds, five silvers for the property, unless it had a third story, in which case they should pay up to four golds, two silvers. “Anything more is just plain giving your money away,” the banker declared, and then offered the use of the bank’s resources to draw up and record the transaction at the duke’s property court.

  Satisfied that all was acceptable, the two left the bank and walked across the square and down the Dukes Road to the area of the wharf where their belongings had been left behind.

  At the warehouse there was no response to their calls and knocks for Gim, though they tried for a long time to arouse him. Concluding that he was away and would have to be treated later, they discreetly walked down to the wharf to make sure that their raft was still hidden. When nothing appeared out of order, they remounted the stairs up the levy, and went to find Parna’s widow in the coopers’ section.

  Among the storefronts and alleys filled with barrels and kegs, they found the home they were looking for. An elderly woman, Andrea, answered the door, and turned out to be the very person they were looking for.

  “We would like to look at Parna’s bakery to see if we might buy it,” Leah told Andrea as they stood in a dingy entryway.

  “The widow looked at them shrewdly, trying to decide if they were likely buyers, or something not worth wasting time on. “It will cost you five golds to buy Parna’s shop,” she began. “I loved that man and the shop is my reminder of him.”

  “Let us look at it this afternoon, and if it suits our needs, we can work out a price, I’m sure,” Leah replied. Details were worked out for Andrea’s brother to meet them at the shop and show them its interior after lunch. As they left the cooperage, the two healers made another visit to the warehouse, but again did not bring Gim to the door, although they did note a boat tied up under the dock closest to the warehouse.

  They spent the late morning walking through the heart of the city, finding the perfume-makers sector and the glassblowers stre
et, side-by-side, which Leah pointed out expedited the easy delivery of bottles to the perfume shops.

  They ate lunch with Annalea and Rand, then walked back to the closed bakery with green shutters. A man standing at the door introduced himself as Andrea’s brother, but said little else once he opened the door to let them in. A long thorough tour showed them not only three floors, but a basement as well, where Alec could store roots and herbs in a safe, dry, cool place. Installation of interior walls would be needed to separate examining rooms from the waiting room, but neither of the buyers could find much else to dicker over.

  Together, Alec and Leah walked back with the brother to the cooperage, and started bargaining with Andrea. They pointed out the cellar had no cistern, and mentioned the wall they would have to put in and refused to budge above a price of four golds and two silvers. Without much resistance, Andrea agreed to the final price, “being tired of paying the taxes on the empty building.”

  They agreed to meet at the bank the next morning to settle the paperwork. Andrea’s eyebrows rose in surprise when she learned they would settle the contract at the prestigious Traders Bank. Alec and Leah hurried by Gim’s warehouse once again, still received no answer, and went back to the bank to request that the paperwork be ready for them tomorrow morning, a request the banker assured them was a pleasure to meet.

  After the next morning’s breakfast with Rand, while Annalea was still asleep, they went to the bank on the Square and waited for the doors to open. Alec had even brought his bag of medical supplies with him, saying he wanted to be able to take them to their new shop immediately upon purchase. By mid-morning a flurry of paperwork and legal terms had confused both the buyers and the seller while the banker sailed through the process without batting an eye, and the purchase was complete.

  Alec withdrew funds from his account and a few silvers besides to purchase supplies, then he and Leah left the bank carrying the key to the shop with them. They walked directly there, unlocked the door and stepped into their new home. They hugged one another tightly, and began talking about the healers’ practice they would open. After leaving some supplies there, they locked the shop and went next door to see their new baker neighbor, Henree.

  “You’ve bought it that quickly?” he asked in astonishment when they told him their news. “Welcome to the neighborhood,” he said. “Having a doctor sounds good, unless people think my cakes are so awful they send people to the healer!”

  Alec bought a cake to take back to Rand and Annalea’s. They gave the cake to Amiel in the kitchen, and went once again to the wharf to try to

  find Gim. He still did not answer. They noticed a second new boat tied up near the first, but nothing else had changed. “Gim must be very busy to be gone from his warehouse so much, or we’re just really bad at picking the times to come see him,” Alec observed in frustration.

  “This is like visiting a dream you’d forgotten,” Leah said, standing beside their small river raft minutes later as they began unpacking goods from it to take back to the shop. Her words voiced Alec’s thoughts as well; although they had arrived on the raft in Goldenfields less than a week ago, already that journey seemed like a distant, irrelevant past.

  Alec struggled to shoulder the heavily loaded pack of goods they had selected. With Leah occasionally reaching out a hand to steady him, he trudged up the hill and started along the Duke’s Road back to their new shop. They left their goods there and returned to the wharf to bring more belongings to their new home.

  By late afternoon that load was also at the shop, and they were on their way back to Annalea’s and Rand’s home to spend perhaps their last night there. The following morning they got an early start, determined to move all that remained on the raft to the shop, and to be able to spend the night there. As they now expected, Gim did not answer their knock at the warehouse, so they went to the wharf. As they looked out at the wide river that had been their home and highway for so long, Alec saw a swift-moving watercraft go by, powered by a dozen oars stroking regularly as it moved quickly down river. “Leah, isn’t that Areley, the doctor from the King’s court, standing on the deck of that boat?” Alec said of the profiled figure they could see talking to a hooded person whose back was to them.

  “It’s him,” Leah replied. “He must have found out enough about Walnut Creek to report back to the ingenairii at court.”

  Momentarily their thoughts dwelled again on the events and consequences of Walnut Creek, then they turned back to their present task. Two loads would be enough to carry back everything they wanted, they decided. Early morning traffic on the road was heavy, as farmers and others brought goods into the Market and to merchants, and it was afternoon by the time they returned to the wharf.

  “This will be our last chance to find Gim to take care of him,” Alec said as they waited for a response from the warehouse. When none came, he remarked, “Once we get settled in we can visit his friend at the tavern on Goldsmiths Street to find out what has happened and maybe still treat him. Plus we can try to hear some word about the folks from Walnut Creek,” a topic that had receded in importance as Alec got caught up in the idea of his own shop.

  “We’ll go by the tavern in a day or two and do that,” Leah agreed.

  With the last load from the raft sitting atop the riverbank, Alec felt a twinge of nostalgia for the raft they were abandoning. The small square of wood had brought them to a new life after the terrible sack of Walnut Creek.

  Impulsively he pulled a large staff of wood out of the raft. “This will be my new walking stick, so that I’ll have something to remember our raft by,” he told Leah, feeling sheepish about affection for a raft.

  By mid-afternoon their goods were unloaded at the shop, and they went to Henree’s next door to buy a loaf of bread for a late lunch. “Henree, where can we find a shop to buy some decent furniture at a good price?” Leah asked him as Alec tore the long loaf of bread into two pieces.

  “The used goods shops are scattered around town in many spots. If you go to the crossroads of Church Street and the Country Pike you’ll find three or four shops not far from here,” he replied.

  “Will they have a cart to deliver things for us?” she asked as they ate their bread.

  “For a customer who pays cash, I’m sure they’d carry things, especially for a pretty pregnant lady,” he replied with a smile as he turned to wait on a new customer who had just come in the shop.

  A half hour later they arrived at the intersection of the two prominent thoroughfares. To their right Church Street went straight north to the bridge that led to the Duke’s palace, on an island in the river. To their left it went straight south and up a gentle incline, rising to the city’s cathedral, which sat on a high bluff looking out over a great bend in the river, visible throughout the city.

  The first shop they entered was so dark and dirty that Leah promptly turned and walked back out within thirty seconds, with Alec obediently trailing behind her. The second shop was more promising. “We sit here on the Country Pike, and folks leaving the city or moving into the city end up offering us more furniture than we can ever afford to buy,” a pleasant gray-haired lady told them as she sat at a desk adding numbers in a ledger book. “Look around, there’s more upstairs and some out in the stables if you’d like to see it. Let me know if you’re interested in something and we’ll figure out a price for it.”

  Alec was unprepared for the sheer joy of shopping he watched descend upon Leah. It was his first exposure to the cocooning instinct in a woman, combined with Leah’s first ever opportunity to engage in wanton shopping and buying, and he soon concluded that she was taking as much pleasure from the shopping itself as from the prospect of seeing furniture in their shop and home. By the time Leah had selected five pieces for purchase, the gray-haired matron realized that her customer was on a mission, and she followed them throughout the store, haggling over prices and tagging items for delivery.

  An hour and a half later, two beds, three tables, four chairs,
two benches, three chests, and several sets of drawers were promised for delivery. Alec turned over much of his cash to have the beds, tables and chairs delivered before sunset, and agreed to bring the rest of the payment for

  delivery of the remaining furniture. The smiling shopkeeper waved as they left the store and walked back to Bakers Street.

  That night they sat in a room on the second floor eating bread from Henree and goods from elsewhere, enjoying their first night in their new home. Plans for the future were all they talked about. “We need to get cleaning supplies, curtains, rugs, supplies for the pantry,” Leah rattled off, as she remained in a frenzy of buying pleasure. Alec noted the sparkle in her eye and the joy in her voice, and thought about how wonderful it was to see her so happy. He abruptly drew himself up short when he realized he was neglecting Natalie. He was failing his self-imposed duty to protect her, he knew, but he had no idea where to find her.

  He refocused on Leah’s on-going list of items to purchase. “Before we go to the bank tomorrow, we should stop by to visit Rand and Annalea to let them know we are moved out and where we are,” Alec chimed in. “I’d like to take one more look at Annie to make sure everything has healed and she’s ready to be back on her feet. After the bank we can arrange the delivery of the remaining furniture.”

  “And then go shopping for other things,” Leah confirmed.

  The sun set as they spoke, and the room grew dark. Without candles, which Leah pledged to buy the next day, they had little to do after sundown, and following their long day of activity they fell asleep early.

  The next morning they awoke at sunrise to the heavenly aroma of the bakers’ ovens around them, all producing the morning breads and goods that would be sold throughout the day. A roll from Henree gave them something to eat as they decided to walk around the city until a reasonable time to visit the print shop. A triangular plaza on the river near the Glassmakers Row gave them a view of the Duke’s island palace, as well as the fort where a smaller eastern river joined the mighty Giffey. Soon after that they walked back along the river, across the Merchants’ Square and back up the Printers Road to Rand and Annalea’s home.