by Rachel Ford
“Do you deny you were working with Whod, then?” There was no change in Rickman’s tone, no edge to his words. But something about them gave the taxman pause.
It gave Nancy pause, too. She sighed. “No. We came into town with Whod’s men. But, look, your lordship, you have to believe us: we really were lost. Some men came along, they gave us food, they gave us shelter. They told us they were hiding from a tyrant.”
“A tyrant?” An eyebrow climbed the other man’s forehead.
She ignored it and the question. “They asked us to help them get some medicine.”
“Medicine? Ah, so that was their angle, eh? To rob the hospital?”
Nancy spread her hands. “That’s what they asked us to do. We heard what you said in town. We decided, whatever Robert’s grudge against you, this wasn’t our fight. We’d just leave town.”
“But you didn’t,” Basil pointed out. “You went into the hospital.”
“Yes,” Nancy nodded. “We did. We were going to disappear in the crowd, so Robert wouldn’t know where we went. I know it sounds strange, but that’s the truth, Lord Rickman.”
He scrutinized Nancy for a long minute, then nodded. “It does sound strange, Miss Nancy. But I do believe you. At least, I believe you weren’t involved in burning the hospital.” He frowned. “But I have a hard time believing you just wandered into the woods.”
The four friends exchanged nervous glances. “We had no idea who Whod was,” Nancy evaded.
He nodded again. “I believe that as well. But who are you, really? Where are you from? Why are you creeping around my woods?”
“We’re bards,” Alfred put in. “Traveling bards. That’s all. We wanted to see the world.”
“Bards, eh?”
“That’s right.”
“What instruments do you play?”
Alfred blinked three full times at the question. “Instrument?”
“Yes. What instrument do you play?”
“I…uh…I’m a vocalist, myself.”
“Me too,” Nancy put in.
“Same,” Freddo added.
“So no instruments, then?” Rickman asked incredulously. “Between all of you?”
The trio turned to Justin, who scowled at them. “I play the…uhh…flute,” he lied.
“Well, then play something for me, bard.”
“Me?” Justin wondered.
“You are the only one who plays an instrument in your curious ensemble.”
“Oh. Yes. Well, uh, the problem is…I lost my flute.”
“Oh. Now that’s unfortunate.”
The other man’s tone was dripping sarcasm, but Justin ignored it. “Yes. Very. That was, uh, my favorite flute.”
“Well, no matter.” Rickman turned to the other three. “I’m sure your vocalist friends can sing me something.”
The trio stared at him. Freddo was the first to speak. “You mean…sing? Out loud?”
“I am not myself a bard. But that is the generally accepted mode of song, isn’t it?”
“Yes, of course. Only…I…uh…”
“I’ve inhaled too much smoke,” Alfred said, inspiration hitting him. “My throat is…raw.” He was, he flattered himself, a passable singer, when there were enough voices to drown his. But his was not a voice suited to performance. He wouldn’t have got two syllables in, before giving himself away.
“Mine too,” Nancy and Freddo agreed in unison.
“Well.” Basil crossed his arms. “A quartet of bards, and not one among you can make music. What are the odds of that?”
“Not high, I suppose,” Alfred acknowledged.
“You must forgive us, my lord. It’s been a rough few days,” Justin said.
“Hmm.” The nobleman stood now and walked to a far cupboard. Alfred had a fleeting thought that now, perhaps, they should rush their captor, and overpower him. Here, they were four to one. Here, they likely had some chance.
Then, he remembered that those same guards who had brought them here likely remained outside. And he abandoned the scheme.
A moment later, Rickman opened the cupboard, and drew out a backpack. Alfred blinked. My backpack.
“The thing is, Miss Nancy, while I do believe some of what you told me…I think you’re not being entirely honest with me.”
“Where…how did you get that?” Alfred gaped.
“This? Ah, well that was easy. Robert is…how do I say this? Not a threat, exactly, but – if you’ll pardon my language, Miss – a huge pain in my ass. So I slip some of the men in his band a little gold now and then.” He shrugged. “And they tell me when interesting things happen.”
Now, he fixed them all in a steely gaze. “Like, when wizards show up in the camp.”
Chapter Eighteen
Alfred barked a laugh at that. He didn’t mean to. It just…happened. “Wizards?” he choked out, once he’d regained enough of his senses to speak.
Rickman wasn’t put off by this display of incredulity, though. “Yes, Mister Favero: wizards. You appeared from nowhere, dressed in strange clothing.” He reached into the backpack, and they all gasped when he withdrew the generator. “Carrying strange artifacts. Speaking in bizarre accents, claiming to be from realms that do not exist.” He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “The United States? Come now. There is no such place.”
“Your source is…well informed,” Alfred half-marveled, half-complained.
“We didn’t appear from nowhere,” Justin argued.
“My source says you did. And I believe him.”
“That’s…that’s not possible,” Nancy tried. “Your source is clearly lying to you.”
Lord Rickman smiled at her. “I have spent my entire life working with noblemen and politicians, Miss Abbot. I have encountered far better liars than you.” He shrugged. “Few as pretty.” Here, Alfred scowled at the other man, but was ignored.
“But I have gotten very good at telling when someone is lying to me. Even when they are good at it. My source was not lying. But you? You are.” He watched her curiously. “Why?”
Nancy fidgeted, and he sighed. “Well, if you won’t tell me, then perhaps your artifact will provide the answers I seek.” He began to tap buttons on the surface, and they all, of one accord, flinched with each press. He smiled at them. “So this is something of import, then? You fear what I might do with it?”
“No,” Nancy lied.
“Of course not,” Alfred put in.
Freddo shrugged, “It’s junk.”
Now, the nobleman laughed out loud. “Well, you may be good wizards – that has yet to be seen – but you are certainly terrible liars. The pack of you.”
“How did you get that backpack?” Nancy wondered.
“My source. He told me Robert was planning something, too, though he didn’t know what.” He cocked his head to one side. “I don’t understand. You know that I know what you are, Miss Nancy. If that is your name.”
“It is.”
“So why do you persist in lying?”
“We’re not lying,” Justin answered doggedly.
Rickman, though, held Nancy’s gaze. And she, in a minute, sighed. “Because you wouldn’t believe us if we told you the truth.”
He scoffed. “Try me. I do not think it can be stranger than bards who do not play music.”
She snorted. “Believe me, your lordship, it’s much stranger.”
He considered this, then nodded. “Alright. Tell me anyway. And call me Basil.”
“Wait, Nance,” Alfred said. “Don’t.”
“We can’t trust him,” Freddo put in.
“We don’t have much of a choice,” Justin argued.
“That,” Basil nodded, “is true. I’m perfectly within my rights to arrest you, after what you’ve done.”
Nancy frowned at him. “That sounds a lot like blackmail, Lord Rickman. You already said you believed that we weren’t involved with the fire.”
He considered, then shrugged. “You’re right. I do believe you. I won’t arr
est you for that. And, if you’re telling the truth about not being up to no good, I won’t arrest you at all. You have my word, Miss Nancy.”
“So basically, it’s up to your discretion, whether we are arrested or not?” Alfred scoffed.
“It always has been, Mister Favero. I am magistrate as well as lord here.” He surveyed the taxman. “But I have no desire to fill my prisons with innocent people, if that’s what you mean. If you don’t pose a threat to Cumberland, I will not be a threat to you.”
This was good enough for Nancy and Justin, though not for the two Faveros. “We’re not wizards,” she told him. “We’re…we’re from the future. From a future, anyway.”
Basil’s eyebrows raised until Alfred was sure they were going to merge with his hairline. “From…the future?”
“I told you it was strange. Stranger than wizards.”
He nodded slowly. “You did. But…that’s not possible. Traveling through time? No. It can’t be done.”
“It is,” Nancy said. “We’ve done it before.”
“Well, you and Alfred have,” Freddo pointed out. “It was our first time.”
His lordship, though, was shaking his head. “No. No, that’s not possible. You’re lying. You’ve got to be lying.”
“Geez,” Alfred scoffed, “you were ready to accept that we magically appeared in the forest. You think we’re wizards, for God’s sake. But time travel is the bridge too far for you?”
It took a while, but eventually Basil Rickman came around. The taxman saw two factors behind his reversal. The first was the comparison to magic.
Basil had no good reason to accept magical transportation but not scientific, and, in the end, he seemed to conclude that their science was but magic by another name. They did not argue the point further, for fear of pushing him back to disbelief.
The second was Nancy, and here, the taxman found himself rather annoyed with the other man. More than once, Basil declared that he “could not believe Miss Abbot capable of perpetrating such a falsehood.” With a searching glance at her, he’d shake his head, concluding, “No. No, it must be true then.”
“So you’re stuck here,” he asked at length, “now that your time artifact has malfunctioned?”
Nancy nodded. “It seems that way. I don’t have the tools I’d need to fix it, never mind the resources.”
“I’m sorry,” Basil said, and the taxman almost believed him. “It sounds as if you come from a very exciting time, Miss Nancy. You must be sorry to quit it.”
“Yes,” she acknowledged. “But you can call me Nancy, you know.”
“You must be a great wizard in your world.”
She laughed, and Alfred rolled his eyes. “No. I’m a fairly average…wizard.”
“No, she’s not,” the taxman snapped, as annoyed with Nance for her self-deprecation as with this flattering nobleman. “She’s brilliant. But she’s not a wizard. None of us are wizards. I told you that already.”
“So,” Justin piped up, “are we free to go? I mean, since we didn’t do anything wrong, and all that?”
Basil seemed almost distressed by the question, but then nodded. “Of course. But…where will you go?”
“Away from here. Away from that crazy bastard Robert.”
“Why does he hate you?” Nancy wondered, frowning. “He says you’re a tyrant, but you don’t seem like a tyrant.”
He snorted. “I’m not.”
“That is,” Alfred felt compelled to point out, “what most tyrants say.”
“It’s also the truth, in my case, Mister Favero. Whod’s philosophy is that taxation is theft.”
Here, the three taxmen grimaced of one accord. “He is a madman,” Alfred conceded.
“But it’s more than that. When my father was lord, we had taxes then too. Five percent, same as now. Only they went to the Rickman estates. The roads fell into disrepair. The schools shuttered throughout the shire.”
“Then why the hatred for you?”
Basil sighed. “Do you not wonder why he wanted you to raid the hospital’s medicine?”
“Because…he’s got a sick kid?” Alfred ventured.
“No. Because there was an apothecary, One-Eyed Theodore, in these parts, about five years ago, who treated everything from the common cold to pneumonia with an elixir meant to relieve pain. But it’s addictive. It impairs judgement, mostly it makes you lazy and relaxed.” He shook his head. “People all over this county were addicted. Robert Whod was one of the addicts. He insisted he needed it. For back pain.
“But one of the side effects, when you take it for too long…it causes paranoia and violent tendencies. We had two murders inside a fortnight, from men addicted to that damned elixir.” He glanced up apologetically. “Forgive me, Miss Nancy: that blessed elixir.
“At any rate, the apothecaries petitioned me to restrict the sale, to only those who needed it for significant pain management.”
“And,” Nancy finished for him, “that didn’t include Robert.”
“Exactly. And cutting off his access to the drug was the beginning of the end. From then on, I was a tyrant. And it didn’t matter what I did: Robert Whod and his loyalists opposed it.”
“That’s terrible. Addiction is a terrible disease. It makes people crazy.”
“It is. But it’s also entirely unnecessary. Our apothecaries have developed a cure.”
“A cure?”
“Yes. It’s an elixir that mimics the other, but it contains far less of the addictive substances. The addict takes increasingly smaller dosages, until the addiction is broken.” He shook his head. “It’s not entirely painless. There are withdrawals sometimes. But the process does what it can to limit the discomfort. It’s much easier than quitting outright. And you end up with your life back at the end.”
“Then…why don’t they take it?”
“The simplest reason in the world, Nancy: they prefer the high to sobriety.”
Chapter Nineteen
They’d talked for awhile longer, and even Alfred had to admit that Lord Rickman’s story rang truer than Robert’s. From everything he’d witnessed, it was Rickman, not Whod, who demonstrated concern for the people of Yngil-wode. Rickman built hospitals, Whod burned them, and didn’t care who was inside at the time.
Freddo seemed on the fence, unsure if either could be trusted. Justin didn’t particularly care one way or the other. “I don’t care who is lying. I don’t care who is crazier. I just want to get the hell out of here.”
Nancy, though, bought it hook, line and sinker. “It explains so much,” she confided to the taxman as they waited for dinner. Basil had invited them to break bread with him, and since they hadn’t eaten in hours, they agreed. “Why the men of that camp sit around all the time. It’s the addiction. Remember, he said it makes them lazy?”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “But, so does being lazy.”
“It’s more than that. Alfred, I think we should help.”
“How are we going to help, Nance?”
“We already tried helping,” Freddo pointed out. “And a hospital almost burned down in the process.”
“But we were helping the wrong side then.”
“We don’t need to pick a side, Nancy,” Justin cautioned. “This is someone else’s circus, and these clowns are someone else’s monkeys. Let them sort their own nuts.”
Alfred spent a full two minutes trying to untangle that mixed metaphor. Nancy was not so encumbered by the clumsy wordsmithing, though. “Come on, Justin. This is our world, now. These people – they need our help. You saw how they’re living in the forest.”
He shrugged. “They want to be. They chose it.”
“The women and kids didn’t.”
“They could just leave...”
Nancy seemed about to protest, when her eyes lit up. “Dammit Justin, that’s genius.”
“Pretty obvious, actually,” he murmured.
“No: that’s what we need to do. That’s how we help them.”
“Uh…how?”
She, though, was already on her feet. “I need to find Basil,” she decided.
She did, and a few minutes later, a very confused nobleman joined them. “We know how to solve your problem.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“With Robert.”
Justin snorted. “That’s easy. Just kill him.” Four sets of eyes stared at him, and he shrugged. “I’m kidding. Mostly.”
Nancy shook her head, as if clearing it of that thought. “No. Not kill him.”
“Well, uh, that’s good. I mean, he’s a giant pain in my ass, as I said. But I don’t want to kill him.”
She brushed this aside. “No one wants you to kill him.”
He nodded, though Alfred wasn’t sure he was entirely convinced. Justin just shrugged again.
“What you’ve got to do is take down his support structure.”
“Kill his lieutenants?” Justin ventured.
Nancy glared at the other man. “Jesus, Justin, no. No killing.”
He sighed. “I mean, it’s the most efficient way. The guy lit a hospital on fire. Someone ended up getting shot with a fire arrow. If it was me, I’d probably just kill him.”
“Well thank God you’re not in charge of anything,” Alfred snorted.
“Hey,” Freddo countered. “He’s got a point. How’d you like to be the guy who got shot earlier?”
Basil cleared his throat. “I’m interested in Nancy’s solution.”
This, at last, silenced the trio. “Robert’s wife, Gwen: she’s got a sick kid. Robert’s oblivious to it, and she’s at her wit’s end.”
“That’s terrible. The hospital is open – even now, in the state it’s in. If she brings the child in…”
Nancy nodded eagerly. “You wouldn’t arrest her, or anything like that?”
“Of course not. Look, I know where these idiots hide, Nancy. I’ve got men in their midst, remember? I could arrest them all. But…” He shrugged. “They’d fight. My men would win, but we’d end up with dead people, on both sides. And that’s not what I want.”
She smiled. “Good. Because that’s not what we’re going to do.”
The next morning, the four left the Rickman estate, following a dirt road toward Yngil-wode. Basil had given them directions on how to get back to the forest and the camp, and though it took several hours, they found themselves among Robert’s men before the morning ended.