“You can get your things in order and stop very briefly in Frame, but we have an express ready to carry you upriver. It’ll be down at our docks awaiting you as soon as you can be there,” Ari said. “I’ll send for Appel and he’ll meet you there.”
“Very well. Rubicon,” Alec said, turning to his trainer, “thank you for all your training and patience and good advice. Please tell Nathaniel and Moriah I said goodbye and best wishes to them.”
“Alec, there’s one more thing I need to tell you,” Aristotle interrupted him. “Especially before you go back to Goldenfields.
“I received a note from Merle, about a week ago. He told me that the Duke’s folks recovered a note, written in code, and spent some time trying to decipher it. When they did, it was focused on many matters injurious to the Duke’s interest. But it mostly focused on you!
“Who ever had received it was praised for having planted false rumors and damaging your reputation, Alec,” Aristotle said, looking directly at him. “Driving you away from the Duke was considered a great success. You have brought attention to yourself, more than you realized.”
“Who knows about this?” Alec asked, in wonderment and anger, but also with a strange sense of relief to know that it had taken an organized campaign to smear his reputation. He’d dwelt with sadness on the fact that people who knew him seemed to make up the worst rumors about him.
“Merle knows, obviously, and the Duke knows, and your Colonel Ryder knows as well as whoever deciphered the code,” Aristotle answered.
“Do they know who is responsible for this? Have they caught them? Why would they want to hurt me?” the questions began to tumble out as Alec grasped what he had been told.
“We don’t know the answers to those questions. This letter was a lucky find for your colonel, and it was the first clue anyone had that there is apparently a traitor in the midst of the Guard. He found it in the Guard square, and Merle reports that they are shook over this revelation. They don’t want to believe that someone among the Guard is a traitor,” Ari answered. “As for why these enemies want to hurt you, I suspect it may be a combination of many things; you saved the Duke after a well-plotted assassination attempt, and you saved a loyal officer of the Guard, plus you pulled the Duke and Natha’s clan together, which is mutually advantageous for them. Whoever was plotting to put the Duke’s son on the throne is clearly upset with the harm you did to their plans.
“For all the bad aspects of this, take comfort from this in two ways Alec,” Ari counseled. “First, your Duke must feel some sympathy or goodwill towards you because you suffered persecution on his behalf. Second, now you know, just as Colonel Ryder knows. You can be watchful for signs of attacks against you, as well as know that you need to protect your Duke from someone within the ranks of the Guard.”
Alec thought about the many implications of the revelation. He felt questions continue to reverberate around in his head. In recent days he’d not thought too much about the unpleasant manner in which he had been cold-shouldered out of Goldenfields. Now all those memories were being dragged back to the front.
“Be careful, Alec. Forewarned is forearmed. You are part of my plans, and also of others’ plans as well. Your return to Goldenfields is all the more important, and all the more likely to draw attention towards you again,” Aristotle finished the conversation. “I want to keep hearing good things about you, and to see you again with a smile on your face.”
Alec thought some more. Perhaps the assassination attempts here in Oyster Bay were part of a larger plan against him. Perhaps it was more than just someone losing gambling money; but there couldn’t be an organized effort to hunt down a simple person like him, could there? He felt a shudder inside himself at the thought that many people sought to do him harm. Better to focus on the good folks he knew, he decided.
“Ari, if we’re saying good bye for a long time, I hope I do what you want, and I wish you good luck in all your plans. Thank you for taking care of Carrie for me, and thank you for all you’ve done for me,” Alec finished. “It’s such a complicated world, I can’t imagine how you keep it all as straight in your head as you do.” He hugged each man, and left the room, slightly dazed.
He remembered to break the news of his departure to Willis. “Willis, there has been a change of plans. I have to leave for a while, and Cassie will be in charge of the healing shop project. I’ll let her know that you’ll deliver the keys to her, and when she’s ready to visit it, she’ll contact you,” Alec told the crestfallen man. “You’ve been a good friend and adviser, Willis. Thank you.”
Alec ran to the compound of the water ingenairii, and knocked on the door of Allisma’s house. “Is Bethany available?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, she’s instructing new apprentices right now,” the servant answered.
“I need to see her. Would you please go get her?” he asked in an imperative voice.
The servant looked at him skeptically.
“Tell her Alec is here and needs to see her. Let her decide whether to come,” Alec urged.
The servant hesitated, then left, and a minute later Bethany arrived. “I wouldn’t have guessed you would be the one to pull me out of class,” she said with an initial smile. “Alec, why are you here?” she asked, her hands smoothing the front of her skirt in a nervous gesture.
“I’m leaving this morning to go back to Goldenfields, Bethany,” he said. “Aristotle has just asked me to go on an urgent mission. I came here to tell you first.”
“Oh Alec,” she started to smile and cry together, and then the smile faded. “You didn’t have to run so far so fast to get away from me! I know I’m not the one you’re looking for, I just hoped I could be the one you’d grow fond of. And maybe in time…”
“I couldn’t leave without telling you myself, and telling you that you are someone who is a very special friend,” Alec said. “Don’t think that I don’t care about you, because I do care very much.”
“Alec, when you’re gone, I know I’ll miss seeing you every day, probably more than you’ll miss me,” Bethany said in a very quiet voice. “But that’s enough of that for now. No more.”
She looked at him. “Will you ever be back here?” she asked.
Alec shrugged. “I would like to be someday, but I think that is a long time from now. I don’t know how long it will be until I have any say in the matter of what I do or where I go.”
“Would you mind if I showed up in Goldenfields someday?” she asked, with a note of hopefulness in her voice.
“I’m not sure Goldenfields could hold you, but if you come, I want to see you,” he told her.
They hugged intensely. “Good bye, Alec. Please take great care of yourself.” Alec impulsively bowed his face to hers, and pressed his lips against hers, then lifted his head. He saw the pleasure in her eyes, and knew he had done the right thing. There was a hoot from somewhere down the hall, then he released her and left the building.
Alec ran over to the healer house next. “Cassie, Hinges, I’m leaving immediately for Goldenfields at Ari’s request. I can’t begin to do everything I wanted to do to make sure you were both ready for this, but there’s no time left and you two women are capable of anything, I know. Here’s some ting I want you to have,” he told Cassie, placing his book of notes in her hands. “I started this when I was on my way to Oyster Bay. It’s a notebook about different cures and remedies and how to prepare them. Hingis can help you use it until we have you tutored to read. It will give you information you can use to be a healer.”
He told them through their tears about the shop in the city, and left briefly to pack his belongings and a crucial bag of medical supplies. He returned to them in the parlor. “Thank you Hinges for all that you have done. Take care of our girl for me please?” he said to the weeping housekeeper.
“Cassie,” he said, and enveloped her in a hug. “You have a piece of me in you, and I hope you know how special that makes me feel. I’ll pray for you nightly.”
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nbsp; “Alec,” she cried, “I’ll pray for you day and night, and I miss you already. Thank you for everything, for changing my life so much, for saving it, for giving me such a wonderful dream to live in. Come back soon, please.”
“Rely on Aristotle and Rubicon if you need anything,” he told her, and then shouldered his bags and went rapidly down the hill to the dock.
A small craft with a single mast and twelve oars was waiting for him, with Appel sitting on the pier next to the craft. “So we’re going on an adventure, eh?” his friend asked.
“It’ll be an adventure more so than I’d like, I’m afraid,” Alec told him. “All I want you to do is help keep a breeze going to take us to Goldenfields. After that, we’ll turn you around and let you ride back home. Can you do that?”
“I’ll give you all the breeze I can, which won’t be every hour of every day, but it’ll help move things along better than otherwise, I’m sure,” Appel said confidently. “Let’s be off.”
The lieutenant in charge of the craft told them his orders were to obey anything Alec told him to do. “Then let’s be on our way, raise your sail, and we’ll stop in Frame for our first quick mission.”
As they prepared to leave, Alec saw Nathaniel come running down the hillside towards them. “Alec! Alec!” he called. Alec motioned to stay dockside, and Nathaniel arrived quickly.
“We just heard!” Nathaniel puffed as he arrived. “I just wanted to wish you a safe voyage and good luck. Moriah and I will do anything we can for you Alec,” he continued. “I’m going to miss lessons with you, and everything else you brought to Rubicon’s house.” Alec shook his hand and they slapped backs in a brief farewell, and then Alec was back in the boat and they were off.
Their small shell pulled away from the dock, and Appel, sitting in the bow of the boat, conjured up a breeze that let the crew settle their oars while the boat cut a wake among the other river shipping.
They alternated taking turns with oars and sails, sometimes using natural breezes, but most often Appel’s creations.
By late in the afternoon of the next day they pulled into Frame’s public docks. “Stretch your legs everyone, and I’ll be back in two hours or less,” Alec promised. He picked up the bag of medical supplies and ran to the orphanage, where a little girl who had caught his heart was in need of a cure for her lung disease.
Alec saw the nun in charge of the orphanage and asked for the girl to be delivered to him. He quickly dosed her with an inhalation of the fine dust, he’d ground, and made the girl and the nun both promise that she’d do it again for each of the next few nights until the powder was gone. He added a touch of his healing powers just to be sure.
“Alec,” Sister Mary Alice called. “You’ve snuck in on us again. I thought you were going to give us advance notice of your return. How long can you stay?”
“No longer at all, Sister,” he replied, packing up his supplies. “I’m on an expedited journey, and only came back for this one girl for this visit.”
“Sister Magdaline will be very disappointed. She grew extremely animated when we told her you had shown up. I’d almost say she was agitated in her soul at the thought of having missed you. I’m afraid the poor woman will be positively apoplectic when she finds she’s missed you again. Can’t you stay half a day?”
“The urgency of my mission allows me no time, I’m sorry Sister,” Alec said. “I want to return and see the children as I travel back and forth from Goldenfields to Oyster Bay in the future. I must be on my way for now though. Watch over this little one and all the others, please,” he said.
“In that case, I’ll give you this gift that Maggie insisted we give to you. I’d intended to wait until she could do it herself,” the nun said, and she lifted a small paper wrapping from her pocket and handed it to him.
The former orphan looked at the paper in his hand curiously for moments, then opened the wrappings. He revealed a fine gold chain, on which was suspended a small, jewel-incrusted letter “T”.
“What is this?” he asked, searching the sister’s face.
“Maggie said it belonged to your mother,” Mary Alice replied. “I knew of no such heritage until she handed it to me. It is something she’s kept hidden from the convent since you arrived, and it’s highly irregular for such secrets to be kept. She’s thought about it a great deal, to keep it and remember it for such a long time.”
Alec closed his hand around the jeweled bauble, wondering at the thought of a link to his heritage, something so distant he’d not thought about it in years. “Thank you very much,” he said. “Please tell Sister Magdaline I very much want to know more, and I’ll be back.”
Alec gave the nun a gold coin to treat the orphans, and went back to the docks and back to the journey up the river.
Three days later they came to Three Forks, and the day after that they were in Red Water. The lieutenant called Alec aside on the dock and asked if might give the men a break. “We’ve pushed them very hard, and they’ve done admirably. I think we’re going along at a near record pace, and an overnight breather would be very well received.”
Alec considered the timing. It had only been a few days since Aristotle had received word of the battle with the lacertii. There was no chance that the Goldenfields palace could be in any danger so soon. “I agree fully, Lieutenant,” Alec told him. “Make it so.”
“Come on Appel,” Alec told his friend, “We’re going to find an inn and spend the night in a soft bed.” It would be a heavenly change from sleeping sitting upright on the hard boat benches.
The next morning everyone reassembled at the boat, and they continued their journey to Goldenfields. They resumed dodging larger ships moving downstream with the current, and drew stares of astonishment when they sailed with the benefit of a breeze stronger than any other ship could catch.
Two full days later they pulled into the Duke’s dockyard in Goldenfields at sunset. “Lieutenant, here’s two golds for your men for the fine job they did,” Alec said as he passed the coins. “Just don’t ask me to bail them out of any barroom brawls!” he smiled.
“Appel, come spend the evening at my home, at least, before you turn around and make the trip back to Oyster Bay,” Alec insisted, and they walked together through the streets of Goldenfields to the familiar sights of Baker Street.
Alec approached the door of the shop with the green shutters. He knocked on the door, and waited with Appel for a minute until the door opened, and Ellen looked out. “Saints be praised, he’s back!” she shouted, and held the door open for Alec and Appel to enter the house.
Leah came slowly into the room, carrying her pregnancy before her, and saw Alec. “Alec, you’ve really done it! You’ve come back to us!”
They hugged each other tightly for a long time, wordless in their greeting. At last they stopped, and Alec introduced Appel as his friend, an ingenaire, who he had invited to spend the night with them. The ladies were delighted to have Alec home and to be able to be hostesses to his friend. Alec and Appel were made to sit at the table while foods were served to them, and the two ate voraciously after their journey.
Alec and the women traded stories and news, while Appel listened with polite interest. Alec learned that news of the battle with the lacertii had just reached the public in the city five days before.
The expeditionary forces of Goldenfields had been constructing the fort they had intended, and had it nearly complete at the time of the battle. The lacertii horde had not been a large one, numbering around 400 to 500, but they had come upon the men in an encounter unexpected by both sides, and fought with great ferocity. The men had succeeded in defeating the lacertii, but had lost more than half their force, more than the lacertii had suffered, even though the soldiers from Goldenfields had the advantage of having the fort walls they could take shelter in.
Upon learning of the battle, the duke had shared the populace’s fears, and had gathered up all his forces in the vicinity of the city to rush them immediately towards the east.
Wagonloads of building materials and supplies had been sent to finish and strengthen the fort as well. The city was stripped of its usual force of armed men as a consequence, with only a very small number of the Duke’s Guard remaining at the palace.
“Ellison is still here, and calls upon us every evening,” Leah said with a smile. “He left not a half an hour ago. He’s a great comfort to us, and now that you’re back, I expect that he may try to take Ellen and Hannah away from us.”
“Oh listen to you!” Ellen said with a blush.
In the course of the pleasant chatter Alec learned that Hannah was doing well, the shop was doing well, the neighborhood was doing well.
Alec answered their questions, telling them he had switched and become a healer ingenaire instead of a warrior ingenaire, and told them in general terms about opening up the Healers house and seeing the palace.
“So who is this Cassie?” Leah asked in a delicate tone.
“She is a girl Alec created legs for, and then saved her life; he brought her back from the dead. She lives with him in healer house,” Appel helpfully said.
“She lives with him?” Leah repeated.
“She has a room, the housekeeper has a room, and I have a room. Now that I’m gone, she’ll run the healing shop there just as you run the shop here,” Alec explained, hoping the analogy would slow the quivering antennae he sensed, and glad that Bethany‘s name had not come up yet.
Leah seemed mollified somewhat. They continued to chit chat for another hour into the night until Alec yawned again too loudly, and then everyone agreed to go to bed.
The next morning, Alec and Leah and Appel had a full breakfast prepared by Ellen, while Hannah made a shy acquaintance with Appel, and a more boisterous re-acquaintance with Alec. Alec and Appel then walked down to the docks, where Appel was reunited with the crew of the boat that would soon head back to Oyster Bay. “We’ll leave late this afternoon, sir, after we acquire more provisions and let the crew rest a little longer,” the lieutenant reported. On that basis Alec persuaded Appel to leave his bag at the ship and to spend the day with Alec in the city.
At the Seat of Power: Goldenfields and the Dominion Page 26