by Mind Guest
hand ready to do its work, and then my hand began trembling, unequal to
lifting the full weight of the blade. My point fell to the floor, and
my breath came faster as I tried to lift the sword, tried to replace my
guard. I had fought the point up a foot or two when a steel-hard hand
grabbed my arm, and then the sword was gone from my fist.
"No," a deep voice came, and I swung my eyes around to see a face I
knew. The face had a name, Fallan, and I knew he was no friend.
"I'll kill you," I whispered, not knowing whether any sound came along
with the words. He held my sword and I reached for it, but his hand
refused to let go of my arm. He looked mad as hell, his once-bright
shirt dirtied and ringed here and there with sweat, and he wouldn't let
me take my sword back.
"Sh-she would have attacked me!" the fat man quavered, sweat running
down his bloated face and ridged neck. "Who is she, and what does she
do here?"
"She is in my charge," Fallan said hoarsely, his eyes hard as he kept
me from my weapon. "We were at-tacked by bandits and after my men and I
had driven them off I discovered that she had taken a weapon and fled.
She must surely be deranged from fear."
"Remove her at once!" the fat man squeaked, one trembling hand pointing
behind us while I fought to keep him in focus.
"She and I are both weary," Fallan began, closing his hand tighter as I tried to pull loose. "I - would have a room soa133"
"Remove her!" the fat man repeated in a scream, his face going redder
than before. "I will not have her sort my house! Away with her, and
yourself as well!"
Fallan looked ready to argue the point, but when two armed men appeared
from the kitchen area he reswallowed the words without saying anything
further. He nodded curtly, a gesture which wasn't as reassuring to the
fat man as it should have been, then he turned to me. The entire room
was spinning slowly around me, only a small distraction from the pain
in my side, and Fallan's face blurred even as I looked at it. I knew he
was no friend, knew I couldn't trust him, but it happened too fast. One
minute he was hazily before me, and the next he was bent forward and
reaching, lifting me to his shoulder without the least effort. I cried
out hoarsely and struggled, fighting to loosen his arm around my legs,
but that was the wrong thing to do. The pain in my side screamed louder
as the room whirled faster, and then the light and I spun away
together.
Chapter 8
I woke up slowly, with a great deal of effort, fighting my way up out
of the mists. There was daylight pouring through the window into the
room I lay in, hut I was too busy sorting out the dreams I'd been
having to pay much attention to it.
I remembered the fight with Clero, remembered getting wounded,
remembered being dumped in a stream, but after that, things got hazy. I
vaguely recalled riding through the woods and stopping at what must
have been an inn, but nothing that happened was at all clear and then I
remembered how I'd gotten to the room I was in. Fallan. Go old Captain
Fallan, leader of mercenaries and royal pain in the backside.
I moved one arm out from under the old blanket I was covered with,
feeling the annoyance at Fallan rise up all over again. That he had
somehow found me at the inn was obvious, as obvious as the fact that I
had left there with him. I remembered coming to just as he was carrying
me into a small wooden house. We passed a dingy lamp lit room with a
fireplace and ended up in a smaller room with a bed, where Fallan
deposited me, not too gently, on the bed and left me just long enough
to light a second lamp. He was back immediately and bending over me
with a frown, his big hands going to the wound in my left side, and I
hadn't had the strength to fight him the way I'd wanted to. He'd
muttered something under his breath, almost in a snarl, and then I was
being stripped of the wet, filthy clothes and soggy boots. The
swordbelt was gone, a faint memory saying that it had been taken back
at the inn, with the sword, so it wasn't long before Fallan had an
unobstructed view of the results of my brush with Clero. His jaw
tightened as he examined the wound more closely, then he strode out of
the room altogether. I lay still, my head pounding and all of me
burning up with the roaring fire inside me, and then Fallan was back,
depositing an armload of things on a small wooden table standing next
to the bed. The first thing he did was smear a jelly like substance on
the gash in my ribs, and then he went on to bandaging. The bandage was
wide and much too hot, but Fallan refused to let me pull it off. He
knocked my hands away as he reached for a large, metal cup, and then
the cup was at my lips and Fallan was forcing its contents down my
throat. I'd choked and struggled, more than ready to throw up from the
taste of the stuff, but Fallan hadn't leaned back till the cup was
empty. I didn't know what the cup contained, but before I knew it everything had gone black.
I moved my free arm to my face, but I really didn't have to bother. The
fever wasn't raging as high as it had been, but it was still there,
something I could feel all over my body. I ached as though I'd
exercised for hours after not having bothered for a year, and even
moving my head around on what passed there for a pillow was an effort.
I dropped my arm back onto the bed, not having the strength to hold it
up any longer, then cursed under my breath with a lot of feeling. I
hadn't noticed it sooner, but someone - probably Fallar - had put me
into an oversized nightshirt of sorts, and I felt as though I were tied
tight under the blanket. I squirmed around, trying to loosen the
nightshirt's hold, and my resentment against Fallan grew stronger with
each useless movement. I knew the man thought he was protecting my
modesty, but I'd really had more of him than I'd ever been interested
in.
"So you have awakened," a voice came, and I turned my head a little to
see Fallan standing in the doorway to my room. He'd changed his shirt
again from the bright red of a mercenary back to the anonymous dark
green, but he still wore the same black pants and boots. He looked at
me with as neutral an expression as he'd ever managed, but that didn't
go very far toward endearing him to me. Inside my head, the presence
I'd forgotten about again came to life, stirring in eagerness at
Fallan's nearness. She wanted him more than ever now, but it was her
tough luck I was in no shape to accommodate either of them. If I'd
tried, it probably would have killed me.
Fallan was holding a cheap, earthenware pitcher in his hand, and he
left the doorway to bring it over to the small wooden table next to the
bed. Once he'd put it down he turned toward me to put his hand on my
forehead, and I, annoyed, reached up and knocked it away without
thinking. The mercenary grabbed my wrist and held it above my head.
"Though your body has been injured, the sweetness of your nature
remains intact, I see," he drawle
d, keeping his eyes directly on me.
"It causes me great suffering to refuse your ladylike wishes, and yet
the state of your health demands that I accept the painful burden. You
will remain abed and under my care till you have recovered, Missy, else
shall there be harsh words between us."
He let go of my wrist and put his hand hack on my forehead, and all I
wanted to do was cut that hand off at the shoulder. I'd thought I was
all through with Fallan, finished with having to let him push me
around, but he'd barged into my life again. I was in no shape to do
anything about it then, but I tend to heal faster than most and the job
I'd had was over.
Fallan kept his hand on my forehead a good deal longer than was
necessary, then took it away with an almost-pleased nod. He walked away
from the bed toward the window, and when he came back he was carrying
an old but beautifully carved straight-backed chair which he deposited
in the spot where he's been standing. Once this was done he sat down as
though he were really tired, and stuck his legs out straight in front
of him with a sigh.
"Now," he pronounced, bringing his eyes to my face. "You have a
disturbing yet hopefully not serious wound, and a high, though lessened
fever. I believe I know how you received the wound, yet the fever
remains unaccounted for. I would know how you came to acquire it."
His tone was too dry and superior for my liking, but I was glad to see
he'd jumped to the wrong conclusion about the wound: he thought I'd
gotten it at the slave market. It would have been too much trouble to
correct him, so I pushed the neck of the nightshirt down to get it out of my way and returned the calm, dark gaze I was getting.
"Do you think I acquired the fever to heat the cool of the night?" I
asked sarcastically. "The illness came out of nothing, as though sent
by the dark gods. Perhaps you would do well to question them on the
matter."
"A fever such as yours does not appear from nothing," he snorted,
unsatisfied with my answer. "It may have come about as a result of the
wound, yet I do not believe this the case. That you were filthy when I
found you I can well understand, yet you were wet to the skin as well.
What caused that?"
"I was thrown into a stream," I muttered, wishing I didn't have to
admit it. "A beast of the forest frightened my vair, and it pitched me
headlong into the water. The vair was male and stupid."
Fallan ignored my half-hearted attempt at insult and frowned in
thought, looking down at his knees, then brought his gaze back up.
"This stream," he mused. "Was it one from which your vair was willing
to drink?"
I didn't know what he was getting at, but instead of snapping an answer
I stopped to think about it, remembering how the vair had stood with
his head high in the air and his nostrils flaring. I'd thought at the
time that he smelled an enemy, but he just might have been getting
something from the water that I couldn't detect. Fallan was watching me
closely, and when I shook my head he nodded with another snort.
"Just as I suspected," he congratulated himself. "The stream you
stopped at must have been visited first by barbarians. They know of
ways to foul a stream for days, and do so in the hopes of catching the
unwary. Had you drunk from the stream rather than bathed in it, you
would surely be dead by now. Undoubtedly you were infected through your
wound-it was badly inflamed when I first looked upon it. This should
teach you that the woods are no place for a female alone."
He was looking so damned smug and superior that I felt like loosening
his teeth. He was probably right about the barbarians having gotten to
the water, but I couldn't very well call him on the part he'd missed. I
had drunk the water, but if I admitted it I'd also have to come up with
a reason why I wasn't dead. It looked like the base inoculations had
been good for something after all, but I could hardly cite them as the
reason for my continued existence.
Fallan sat straighter in the chair again and reached for the
earthenware pitcher, then poured what looked like water into a battered
metal cup that also stood on the small table. The sight and sound of
that water made me immediately aware of how thick and furry my tongue
was, overcoming the weakness that made me want to do nothing more than
just lie still. Fallan saw me struggling to sit up so I could get at
the water, and moved closer to put an arm under my shoulders to hold my
head up. I took the cup with both hands, still needing the mercenary's
free hand to steady it, and tried to drown myself in it all at once.
"Slowly," Fallan cautioned, not letting the cup tilt as far as I wanted
it to. "You may have the water, but you must drink it slowly. It is far
colder than it would be at an inn, for I drew it myself from a well
just a few moments ago."
The water was cold, fresh and cold and gloriously satisfying. I could
feel it rolling all the way down to my stomach, tracing a cool path
through the heat of my body. Even Fallan's arm and hand felt cool
through the nightshirt, and I knew the water would help my body fight
off the fever. I finished all of it, down to the last sparkling drop,
and didn't pick up on Fallan's comment until he had lowered me to the
pillow again. "I remember now," I said, pushing more of the blanket off me. "We had
to leave the inn. But if we could not remain there, where are we now?"
Fallan took the blanket I'd pushed away and resettled it over me, then
got to his feet.
"We are now in a Paldovar Village," he informed me. "I had little
choice, yet perhaps it will prove to be for the best."
He turned and walked out of the room then, but I barely noticed it. His
use of the phrase, "Paldovar Village" had triggered all sorts of
informational memories from Bellna, and although she accepted the
location without as much as an eye-blink, to me it was pure revelation.
Paldovar Villages were spread out all over the area and were easy to
get to, but usually were never found closer to one another than twentyfive
or thirty miles. Just' as inns and woodsmen's houses were places
for travelers to stay, Paldovar Villages always had some number of
empty houses which were for the use of temporary visitors, but the
difference between the Villages and the other two places of rest had
nothing to do with price. Inns had paid guards to insure the safety of
their guests, woodsmen's houses had the woodsman himself and the men of
his family, but Paldovar Villages had nothing comparable and didn't
need it. In Paldovar Village, no one could harm anyone else!
I moved the blanket down again and squirmed around a little, trying to
see all of the possibilities. I knew from Bellna's memories that it was
possible to house blood enemies next door to one another in one of
those villages, and each of the parties concerned would leave just as
healthy as they'd come, but no one knew how they did it. The Paldovar
couldn't be "questioned" in their own villages, but a few of them had
>
been grabbed now and then when they left the vicinity of their village.
Interest and curiosity had been intense, conscience and mercy
nonexistent, but the Paldovar had proven themselves willing to die
rather than speak a single word about how they managed their tricks. It
had become an accepted fact on Tildor, no one who stayed in a Paldovar
Village would be hurt, and no one had tried to find out why in a
surprising number of years. I could finally understand why Dameron and
his people were so frantic about the big secret, and why they refused
to discuss it with strangers.
I had just enough time for a few brief thoughts on my current
whereabouts before Fallan came back, carrying another metal cup. He was
moving more carefully than he usually did, as though the cup held
something spillable, and a horrible smell came in with him. I narrowed
my eyes at the cup, suddenly remembering the battery acid he'd forced
down my throat the night before, and he glanced up from putting the cup
on the small table and grinned at my expression.
"As the fever is still with you, you will require further of this herb
mixture," he announced pleasantly. "You will continue to have it till
the fever is gone."
He was getting a big kick out of the thought of pouring that stuff down
my throat again, but I wasn't about to sit still for a sadist.
"I shall require nothing of the sort," I answered as firmly as you can
answer while flat on your back. "I have no desire for peasantish
concoctions, nor do I have the need for them. Those of my family are
well known for their powers of recuperation without so-called
medication."
The speech would have gone over better if I'd been on my feet, but I
didn't think it was as comical as Fallan took it. His grin turned wider
as he chuckled his amusement, and his head shook back and forth as he
folded his arms across his chest.
"You are indeed amusing, Missy," he chuckled, "indeed amusing. Despite the 'recuperative powers' of your family, there is little difference
between peasant girl and princess. Each must be put to bed with a
fever, and each must have the fever tended. Should either, in her
illness, refuse to do that which is necessary, she must be made to
obey. Princess or peasant, Missy, you shall obey me."
I don't always find it necessary to rise to a challenge, but there are