A Snoop Without Magic, page 7
“If I may bring my students?”
“They will be welcome,” Mareen said. “I have already taken up too much of your time. The people outside are from other villages and are visiting Yellow Springs.”
Sam looked outside to see the line growing. They all couldn’t have been from other places, but that wouldn’t matter to Harrison. He nodded to Sam. Suddenly it was four-and-a-half years earlier when the two of them had begun visiting villages in the northern mountains of Toraltia. People lined up, eager to have Harrison help them. The kitchen was full of herbs that they had collected in the local areas. But Sam did feel different. This time he wasn’t a scared, naive boy. This time he still might be a little naive, but he wasn’t afraid, and he could actually do some healing with his new capabilities.
The day started out slowly, but when the last patient left, Sam was drained. Harrison looked a bit tired, too. Desmon and Glory had helped for an hour or two, but Sam was always at Harrison’s side. The patients’ complaints weren’t much out of the ordinary, and the herbs they had collected satisfied most of the complaints.
Harrison’s ability to attract trust from patients hadn’t deteriorated since they traveled the mountain roads. Mareen was viewed as a mediocre healer without a very good personality. Harrison reminded each complainer that he would be in Yellow Springs only until spring, so he cautioned them not to get on the healer’s wrong side. He even referred a few patients to Mareen, once he knew what ailed them.
“How was your first day?” Harrison said to the three of them as they sat down to a dinner Desmon had prepared. There were no restaurants in the village, and Harrison didn’t want to talk about patients in the only tavern.
“I am sure healing is not for me,” Glory said. “I’m afraid I am much happier laying out wards than helping your patients gulp down one of your potions.”
“Learn what you can, Glory. You never know when the knowledge will come in handy. Perhaps once you get married and your children come down with something, you can take some measures on your own, or be able to diagnose their illness, so it makes sense when you bring them to a healer.”
“Married, with children?” Glory shivered. “Such a notion hasn’t crossed my mind since I left Cherryton.”
“Maybe it should,” Harrison said. “It is my biggest regret, not leaving an heir.”
“It isn’t too late,” Desmon said. “You aren’t that old.”
Harrison plucked at the hair at his temples. “It will be soon enough,” he said. “This only gets worse, and then other things begin to break down.” His comment made him laugh. “Maybe I’ll marry you, Glory Wheeler.”
Glory gave him a horrified look and took another helping of Desmon’s smashed potatoes.
Sam just sat back and relaxed. He could stand a season of good works rather than wander around in the snows of winter. Harrison had done the same thing for years.
~
The fall turned colder and windier until the snows finally came. Harrison, Glory, Desmon, and Sam had become a well-respected team of healers in Yellow Springs. When the weather was better, they had plenty of people filling up their waiting room and their sitting room, as well.
Harrison had gone out to the villages, taking one of the three in turns. Even Glory had become an able assistant, according to Harrison. Sam, Desmon, and Harrison worked on their swordsmanship in the covered space they had built in the back of the cottage, where Emmy spent most of her time.
Sam appreciated the time to learn how to use pollen bandages and could make pollen sutures. His aversion to pollen made him a very fast sewer, but Harrison complimented him on his work when he inspected Sam’s stitches wearing Sam’s spectacles.
They had just finished a grueling day when the town headman showed up. They invited her into the sitting room.
“Men from Toraltia asked about you, healer. I was told there were fourteen men in the lower village. They will be arriving in Yellow Springs tomorrow. Should you be worried?”
Harrison gave the woman a curt nod. “We will be leaving tonight. I had hoped we would be safe until spring.
There was a knock on the door. Harrison gave his assistants a warning glance. “Sam,” he said. “Put on some armor and answer the door while the rest of us prepare to fight.”
The headman nodded. “I’ll be going out the back. Emmy won’t eat me up, will she?”
Sam shook his head. “Not you.”
He quickly created his armor and grabbed his sword hanging in the kitchen and answered the door.
“Chief Bentwick and Winnie!” Sam said. “You didn’t give us word you were coming. Isn’t it a bit early?”
“I wish it was,” Faddon Bentwick said. “The western borders are about to be sealed. We have to get you into Toraltia before that happens, Harrison.”
“My work isn’t done here,” the healer said.
“It is never done, I know that. The kingdom depends on us getting you across the border as soon as possible.”
Harrison seemed deflated. “I know. I have successfully avoided returning to politics for years, but I know the time has finally come.” He sighed and looked at Sam, Desmon, and Glory looking at him. “Are you ready to give up your healing studies?”
Desmon and Glory instantly said yes. Sam wasn’t so sure, so he kept quiet. He would follow Harrison wherever he went.
“Then get ready to go tonight. Do you still have your wagon?”
Sam nodded. “And the horses have been boarded and exercised. We can be gone in an hour or two.”
With the help of Faddon’s men, who were the Toraltians the headman spoke of, they were on the road in an hour-and-a-half, heading north to the smaller pass after the headman had word it was open at present. They could be in Toraltia in three days.
At their last camp in Duar, one day from the pass, after a cold night outside, one of Faddon’s guards ran into the clearing. “Soldiers! Too many to fight!”
Faddon lurched out of his tent, buckling on a sword and blossoming with armor, he looked at Harrison. “What should we do?”
“How many?” Harrison said, looking relatively calm in the maelstrom of an impending fight.
“Thirty, maybe more.”
“We can fight,” Sam said, holding up the crossbow he had bought and modified in Yellow Springs.
Winnie stood with armor on, clutching a bow. “I’m willing,” she said.
“What better way to get into Toraltia than to give them our arms?” Harrison said. His proposal to surrender sounded so reasonable. “If they put us in prison, we will just have to break out.” He looked at Sam. “Can I trust you to do that?”
“Nothing is certain,” Sam said, “but I do have extra tools.”
Harrison nodded.
Bentwick wrung his hands. “Winnie, you go with him. Go back and take the road to Gruellia and then return to find us. The nearest suitable prison is at Apple City. If we aren’t killed out of hand, we will be taken there until the Court of Nobles decides what to do with us.”
“I’m not anxious to spend months in prison,” Desmon said. “Glory and I will head south into Wistall. I have contacts in the capital city. Perhaps we can raise troops to fight for your release.”
“Better to do that than accompany us,” Harrison said. He glanced at Bentwick. You came for me, just me, didn’t you?”
“I did,” Bentwick said without hesitation.
“Then I suggest the four of you be on your way and plan to free us in Apple City.”
“It will take me too long to marshal those forces. Who can I communicate with in Baskin?” Desmon asked.
“Lady Keeta Grate,” Harrison said. “Antina Mulch,” Sam said. “My wife, Mrs. Bentwick,” Faddon said.
“The names are locked in my memory. Farewell.” Desmon said. They helped him load the wagon and soon Glory and Desmon were lost to their sight.
“We need to leave as well,” Sam said to Winnie.
“You will be on your best behavior?” Bentwick asked.
“Always,” Sam said.
Winnie didn’t look very excited to be abandoning her father, but Sam urged her on. They were soon heading in the same direction as Desmon and Glory, but Sam stopped when he couldn’t see Harrison.
“I won’t rest unless I can see your father and Harrison treated fairly.”
Winnie gave him a wan smile. “I was going to suggest the same thing.”
Sam led Winnie up a track, and soon they had a view of the camp from a few hundred paces higher up on the slopes.
“Can you shoot that far?”
Winnie nodded her head grimly and nocked an arrow. “My father taught all his children to shoot a bow and throw a knife. I’m actually better with a knife.”
“I will place a ward on the arrow just before you shoot.”
Winnie frowned. “A ward will make a difference?”
“Will you let the killers of your father go unscathed?”
She shook her head. “The soldiers are arriving.”
They could see Harrison, Bentwick, and the soldiers raise their hands high into the air in surrender. Bentwick stepped forward and did all the talking. Bentwick, his men, and Harrison were manacled and permitted to mount. They left the camp as it was. Sam stopped counting at forty soldiers, too many to have fought and lived.
Sam took a deep breath. “I had hoped that would happen. Now it is on to Gruellia and then down to Apple City.”
They returned to the road north. Her face was impassive, but Sam felt it hid her grief because she hadn’t said more than a few words since they had left Harrison and her father.
At midday, they stopped at a tiny inn at the intersection of a few tracks, even smaller than the one they had taken.
“What is the weather looking like for the next few days?” Sam asked as they sat down for a meal of stew and bread.
“No snow, if that’s what you are asking about, but it won’t be warm. Are you headed for Gruellia?”
Sam nodded. “My young wife and I are traveling to see her uncle and her nieces and nephews. It’s a promise we made to her father.”
The innkeeper, a rustic looking sort, nodded. “You don’t look Gruellian, neither of you, but,” he shrugged, “what do I know?”
Sam paid for their meal in Duarian coinage and some extra for scraps for Emmy. The scraps cost as much as their stew, but then in this remote place, Sam guessed the innkeeper put everything in his pot. He didn’t share that thought with Winnie.
Emmy quickly gobbled up what Sam brought. “She can find things to eat as long as we don’t travel too high, and if my geography book was right, the mountains begin to dip as we get closer to Gruellia.”
Winnie nodded and sighed. “I suppose you expected me to protest you calling me your wife?”
“No. You were admirably silent.”
“I know what you did and why. Don’t get any ideas about us. I’m still unsure if I should have accompanied you. I know there has been some awkwardness between us—”
“Awkwardness doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. I remember you seeing me off at the docks of Baskin.”
Winnie flushed. “You remember?”
“I never forgot those who extended a hand in friendship.”
She gave him a wistful smile. “Simpler days.”
“Maybe for you,” Sam said. “Anything but simple for me, being pursued by Isaak Bolt while solving crimes for your father and Dickey Nail.”
“Hander Pot asked about you for the first six months you were gone, but I had nothing to tell him.”
He sensed a coldness in her tone. Should Sam have sent a letter to Winnie? He didn’t think it was his place. He sent one letter to Faddon Bentwick saying he had enrolled at the University of Tolloy and a word of thanks. He couldn’t exactly tell him to say goodbye to his daughter.
“I sent a letter to your father.”
She nodded. “He did tell me you became a student. He was pleased about that and thought you would do well. I thought you would do well, too. It seems you have.”
Sam pulled a final scrap out of a pollen sack that was getting soft and tossed it to Emmy. “Sometimes I did well and other times, not so much. I didn’t have a bad time in Polistia, but there were some rough patches.”
Winnie snorted. “Killing Viktar Kreb, the dictator, may count for a rough patch, but it is a victory for all of Mariopa.”
Sam wondered where this conversation was headed, but then Winnie said. “Let us put the past behind us for a while and concentrate on getting to Gruellia and saving my father.”
“Okay. I think we should continue to pretend to be man and wife as long as we can. It may deflect any pursuit.”
“I don’t think anyone is after us,” Winnie said. “We would have been overtaken by now.”
Sam agreed. “So let’s cover our trail a bit.”
“Have you had to cover your trail before?”
Sam nodded. “Banna Plunk’s father and I had to head west in Zogaz, and I had him dress as a woman, my mother. He didn’t like having to wear dresses.”
“I can see his point, sometimes,” Winnie said with more of a smile.
Their conversation turned to Sam’s experiences, so he gave her a more detailed account than any he had related since he had been questioned by Pilkis Sorenon at the Order of Ren.
Chapter Nine
~
T he weather nearly held, but Winnie and Sam traveled for an awful snowy and cold afternoon before they reached a Gruellian village. Sam was surprised there were any Gruellian villages. He had thought they were all tribes roaming around Gruellia in tents like the nomads in Wollia.
The inn wasn’t much different from any of the others in Duar. Emmy had a place in the stable next to their horses. The innkeeper said he would feed the dog and include that in the price of their night’s stay.
A map was posted on a wall in the tiny entry lobby. They had two more villages to pass before they could turn south back into Toraltia.
“I’d like to go south now, but it doesn’t look like that will be possible,” Winnie said, frowning.
“I’m wondering if we shouldn’t recruit some helpers while we are here.”
“Gruellians?” Winnie asked.
Sam shrugged. “People are people. Some are friendly, and some aren’t. We just have to find the kind that won’t mind invading the country to their south.”
“Are you joking?” Winnie said, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.
Sam smiled. “The last bit was a joke. I imagine whoever we enlist will return to Gruellia as soon as we have freed your father and Harrison. I doubt if we could convince Gruellians to join Harrison’s cause.”
“But you think your friend Desmon could?”
Sam chuckled. “Desmon is an accomplished spy for the Wollian government. He is the most resourceful person I know. If anyone can make something happen, it is he.”
“As a spy, really?”
Sam nodded. “He was a sailor on board The Twisted Wind and had contacts in Carolank, Port Hassan in Wollia, and even in Tolloy, our final destination. He offered to join Glory and me on our journey to Baskin. He probably has a few reasons for joining us that I don’t know about, but when he offered to head for Wistall, I’m sure it wasn’t to flee. He probably has contacts there he can use.”
“And the girl, Glory? You let him take her away? I thought she was your girlfriend.”
Sam laughed this time. “No. There is nothing between us other than being friends. I knew her in Cherryton, and she was kind to me, but that was it. I saved her from being used by Viktar Kreb as a warder and promised her I would take her back to Toraltia. That promise is out of my hands now, but I have faith that both will show up when we need them.”
“And how will they know?”
“I’ll leave that to Desmon. He has his ways, as inscrutable as they are.”
Winnie looked at Sam. “She really isn’t your girlfriend?”
Sam shook his head.
“That changes things,” she said with a tiny smile, “a little.”
Sam fixed the map in his memory for another minute before they entered the common room.
Sam had expected men in furs and long wild hair, but these Gruellians looked more like Toraltians than the people of Duar. The Gruellians ate at long tables and sat on benches. Sam couldn’t see a private table, so they sat down on the only seats available at the end of a table, nearly filled with locals.
“Can we sit here?” Sam asked.
“If the seat is empty, you can take it,” the man next to him said before turning back to the discussion he was having with three of his friends.
Winnie sat down and raised her eyebrows at Sam. “This is a new experience for me.” She looked towards all the discussion happening. “All the way here it was sleep outside or sit at a corner table. My father,” her breath caught for a moment, “wouldn’t have me mingle with the locals, but not that we were better than them—”
“He wanted privacy. We won’t get it in this place,” Sam said. “It will be even less private since we have to share a room tonight.”
Winnie laughed. “I shared quite a bit riding with my father’s men across Toraltia, only to see them captured just as we were about to cross the border.
“We have more nights to come,” Sam said.
“I heard you two are a pair. Man and wife?” the man next to Winnie said to them. He had just sat back down.
“We haven’t been together for long, but we have known each other for years,” Winnie said, playing along.
“A handsome couple. You look like a Toraltian,” the man said to Winnie.
“And it is a good thing I do, since I am. My new husband is originally from Toraltia, but he has been overseas for a while.”
“Carolank? One of the West Countries?”
“Polistia,” Sam said, fecklessly. He should have kept his mouth shut and mentally kicked himself. “But I missed Addy so much, I couldn’t stay there long.”
“A dictator has taken over Polistia. Isn’t that right?”
“He was killed just before I left. The dictatorship is over, but I don’t know what will replace it.”
