by Lucia Ashta
“You’re safe with me. I promise. My friend over there was attacked by riders.”
While I pointed toward Marcelo’s limp form, the door inched open another sliver.
“I need to do something to help him. Please.”
The sigh that came from the other side of the door was loud enough for me to hear it. Then, the scuffing of a chair dragged across the floor. More sounds of furniture moving followed. He’d barricaded the door.
When the door finally opened, a boy of no more than eight or nine looked out at me.
“Ya can never be too careful. Travelers be dangerous.”
I strained my ears to understand him. His speech was fast and sloppy, that of someone who had never received the tutelage of governesses as I had.
“Yes, I know that very well. Thank you very much for opening the door.”
“Ya,” he said, and a mop of brown, scraggly hair bounced as he nodded.
The interior of the house was dark and dank, dirty and messy. It didn’t look like anyone was keeping house.
“Are you here alone?”
I watched as he puffed up his scraggy chest and prepared to tell me a lie. But his chest quickly deflated, along with his spirit. “Ya, I’m all alone here.”
I didn’t know what a boy younger than me could do to help Marcelo. Yet there wasn’t enough time to find someplace else. It had already taken me too long to find this one.
“My friend is badly hurt. I don’t know what to do to help him,” I said.
“Can we get him inside? Me ma used to nurse people. Her medicines are all here.”
Unencumbered by fears now, the boy had exited the house and was moving toward Marcelo.
He gave a low whistle. “We need to move him. Ya can’t hang him upside down like this fa long. He’s dripping blood. We need to get him off the horse. Hold on,” he said and ran off.
By the time he returned with the wheelbarrow, I’d directed Marcelo’s horse to lower himself to the ground again. Just like before, he did so gracefully, taking care not to jostle his rider.
A look of surprise swept across the boy’s face, but just as quickly, it was gone.
“Let’s move him,” he said while he positioned the wheelbarrow by the kneeling horse. The height was perfect.
I untied Marcelo’s feet and hands. Then the boy pulled while I pushed, and we got Marcelo’s body into the wheelbarrow.
The boy was already leading the pushcart toward the house when I leaned over to Marcelo’s horse.
“Thank you,” I said again. I heard the horse begin to stand back up as I ran toward the house. I followed the boy in.
The house was worse off than it had looked from the outside. It needed a good wipe down and a sweeping. The boy had left the wheelbarrow with Marcelo in it next to the dining table. He was busy clearing crusty dishes from it. I walked over to help, following his lead and piling the dishes on a side table.
Once clear, the boy looked at me. “Ready?”
I looked at the cart. I looked at the table. “The table’s too high. We won’t be able to lift him up, just the two of us. Why not the floor?”
“Nah. Floor’s cold.”
He and I looked around.
“We could push together a few chairs. They’re the right height,” I said.
“Aye. Ya’re right.”
We unfurled Marcelo from the contortion the wheelbarrow forced on him, then pulled and shoved until we stretched him out onto the chairs. He hadn’t moved since Winston knocked him out.
The boy rushed off to procure the medicines we needed. I heard him jostling glass bottles in the next room. Then he came running out. He placed three bottles of different sizes on the table and then returned for more.
When he was finished, he lined up five bottles of dark tinctures and potions. I didn’t know how to use a single one.
“Please tell me you know how to use these.”
“Aye. I do.”
A rush of premature relief swept through me. “Oh, thank goodness.”
“I helped me ma a lot. She told me I had to know how to take care of meself. Looks like me ma was right.”
A look of sadness threatened to descend upon him before he quickly tucked it away. “There’s a bucket of clean water over there. Bring it to me.”
It went like that. Me following Carl’s orders—I finally asked his name—while I watched him in admiration. Meticulously, he cleaned Marcelo’s wounds. There were many of them, and he took his time with each one.
First, he wiped the caked and fresh blood away with water. Then, he poured some kind of tincture on the wounds. He didn’t tell me what things were as he used them. He was too focused to bother with conversation, other than to tell me that it was lucky Marcelo was still asleep. These tinctures stung, he told me with the look of a boy who’d tumbled and fallen plenty in his short life.
While Marcelo’s wounds absorbed the medicines, Carl looked around the house. “If ya’re going to be on the road with him, ya’ll need to bandage the cuts so they don’t go bad. But I don’t think I have any clean cloths in the house.”
I didn’t imagine he did. Nothing in the house looked clean.
I looked down at my dress. It wasn’t that clean either, but it would have to do. I tore the underskirt into strips, and Carl disinfected them by soaking them in the medicine he’d poured on Marcelo’s open wounds.
“I don’t have any more food here. We’ll need to keep on even though it would be better for him not to travel. I don’t see how it can be helped.”
“We will need to keep going?”
“Ya. Take me with you.”
I couldn’t imagine taking on any more responsibility than I had. Already, it was more than I could handle.
But before he even said please, the look in his eyes had convinced me. I couldn’t leave him there, alone, unfed, and unclean.
Again, I was backed into a space of no choice. I had to do the right thing.
“All right. Come with us. But only until I find a safe place for you.”
Carl looked crestfallen, tired of having so little control over the outcome of his life.
“It’s not that I don’t want you along,” I continued. “It’s just that the men who did this to him are still after us. You’ll be in danger if you stay with us. I need to leave you someplace safe, away from these men. Do you understand?”
“I guess.”
“Do you have water for the horses?”
“Ya. There’s a well at the edge of the corrals, and watering troughs there too.”
“All right. I’ll go water the horses. You prepare to leave as soon as possible.”
The sun was already sinking lower in the sky as I stepped out of the house, and by the time I came back, Carl was ready. He’d put on a battered coat and worn shoes and packed a kit of his mother’s medicines in a basket, the glass bottles padded with worn linen he tore into pieces.
“Before we leave, I wanna show you something. I put ointment on his chest to ward the fever since he isn’t awake to drink any medicine. And look.” He lifted Marcelo’s shirt. “Y’ever seen scars like these before?”
I stared, wide-eyed, at a criss-cross weaving of scar tissue across an otherwise normal chest. “No,” I said, stunned.
What traumas marked Marcelo’s past? It shook me to realize I had no idea.
We struggled to figure out a better way to transport Marcelo, but discovered none. We had no carriage or even a wagon. In the end, we strapped Marcelo back onto his horse just as I’d done before. Then we set off toward the next town over. According to Carl, it was less than an hour away. If we were lucky, we would manage to avoid all people and bandits and make it just before sundown.
A Gentle Stop on a Long Road
Luck was on our side after all, just not in the way we’d imagined it would be. Not far from Carl’s abandoned farmstead, a horse and buggy drew near us.
Carl and I exchanged alarmed looks. We were a defenseless young woman and boy, with an inju
red man who could do nothing to protect us, along with the tangible wealth of ten horses. We were at the mercy of whoever crossed our path.
It was useless to turn off the road and hide. We’d spotted the oncomer too late. If we ran, he would just follow us and make a bad situation potentially worse.
We continued forward, trying to remain calm. My horse sensed my nerves and reacted to how I felt by blowing hot air from his nostrils. It reminded me to hold it together.
I focused on keeping my breathing even and slow, but I was careful not to focus on it too much. I didn’t want to rouse the air.
The buggy reached us. Its driver pulled his horse to a stop.
“Where you kids going with all those horses?” the man asked us. He was big and burly, with a bushy beard and thick hair ruffled by the journey. Though Carl and I wore coats, the man wore shirtsleeves rolled up to expose brawny muscles.
“We were traveling with my friend when some men attacked us. My friend hasn’t woken up since. He was hurt pretty badly.”
The man looked toward Marcelo. He didn’t have to inspect him closely to see that what I said was plausible. Marcelo’s head and face were one bandage after another, and the skin that showed in between was already brutally discolored.
“And where are ya headed?”
“My friend and I,” I said while pointing to Marcelo’s body, “are headed to Irele. And Carl’s with us until we find him someplace safe to stay.”
“I see. Well, the next town over’s only about half an hour away. That’s where I come from. I’ll head back with you, and we’ll figure how to help you there.”
He eyed us. “My missus is handy with the medicines. And I suppose we can find you a bed to sleep in and a place to put up the horses for the night.”
I felt the whoosh of relief sweep through Carl as readily as it did through me.
“That would be wonderful, sir. I’d be very grateful to you. We really need the help.”
“Yes, I see that.” The man stepped down from his buggy and went over to Marcelo. “You kids fix him up like this?”
“I did. Me ma taught me how.”
“You did a good job, son. But you can’t keep this man like this. We need to move him to my cart.”
He began to untie Marcelo’s hands and feet, while I hoped he was as nice as he seemed. There wasn’t much I could do to help Marcelo if it were otherwise. I stayed on my horse and watched the man sling Marcelo over his shoulder with ease. He deposited Marcelo in his cart with more gentleness than I could have hoped for, and we were off again.
The man turned his horse back, and we journeyed toward his home.
It turned out that the man and his wife were kind. They put Marcelo, Carl, and me all up for the night in their home above the family bakery; the man carried Marcelo up the stairs across his back.
We slept on blankets on the floor in front of the hearth, and I was grateful for the meager accommodations. They didn’t have room for the horses, but a neighbor did.
The missus treated Marcelo’s wounds and put fresh bandages on them. She said she thought there was a good chance he would make it, as long as the fever didn’t set in.
Once the strain of the day was finally over and it was time to rest, I fell into a dreamless sleep, and I didn’t stir until the smells of fresh baked bread wafted up through the fireplace.
I couldn’t find the man and his wife once I got up. Carl was still sleeping, and Marcelo hadn’t shifted at all in the night. So I laced my shoes and went down the stairs into the back of the bakery.
By the time Carl woke, the husband and his wife had offered to keep Carl with them. The woman was barren, frustrating their desire for a son. Carl was young enough that he could easily become a part of their family and help in the bakery. Once he cleaned up, they were sure Carl would be able to do his part in the family business.
I raided Marcelo’s pockets until I found a pouch that bore the Count of Norland’s crest outlined in cracked fragments of red wax. I had seen the seal so many times before; I didn’t have to piece it together to be sure.
I gave to the family generously, for their kindness and to help support Carl for a little while, and though they were surprised at first, they accepted it. Times were difficult for those of lesser means.
When I made my way out of town early that morning, my horse and Marcelo’s pulled the man’s buggy, and eight horses trailed behind it. It was an uncommon sight for certain, a young girl sitting in the driver’s seat with an unconscious man in a cart.
I hoped no one would notice the oddity as I pointed the entourage northeast. The family didn’t know exactly where Irele was, but they were certain it connected to this road.
I squinted my eyes against the rising sun and settled in. It was going to be a long ride.
Hope Flies toward Irele
Three days had passed since I said my farewells to Carl, and already I was overcome with worry. I had been fortunate enough to find inconspicuous lodging for my unconscious companion and myself for two nights—something that I hadn’t known if I’d be able to do—and now I hoped to arrive in Irele before nightfall.
Still, my mind was ill at ease. Marcelo had finally begun to move, although now I almost wished he hadn’t. His eyes remained fixedly closed—they had not opened once—while he moaned and writhed in discomfort.
The fever had set in.
Carl’s new mother’s warning echoed through my mind, though I tried to shoo it away: “He’ll likely survive as long as his body doesn’t fall into fever.” Well, his body had. I didn’t even have to touch him to know that he was burning up from the inside. Sweat coated his face, soaked his hairline, and beaded up on his forehead and upper lip, where it was visible even among the stubble that shadowed his face.
Marcelo didn’t respond when I spoke to him. He seemed only to react to the pain that held him captive. I had attempted to spoon feed him water multiple times, but I couldn’t get him to open his parched, cracked lips.
He lay in the cart, where I had made him as comfortable as possible. But he rejected all my efforts to help him.
As the fever sucked him further into its depths, I had begun to wonder whether I would lose him. The thought brought forth a deep sense of loss—I cried for the possible death of a man I had never called a friend, but now suspected had become one just the same.
All the while, the horses continued their progress toward the northeast. I hoped beyond all hope that we would arrive in Irele soon.
But I wasn’t sure. I’d consulted few people, not wanting to bring attention to my situation, but no one had known exactly where Irele was. Several had heard of it, but they only knew it was to the northeast somewhere. Like the baker, they could give me no more direction than to follow this road and hope I would run into it soon.
I rode while time stretched and distorted. There was nothing to distract me from Marcelo’s maddening groans. The clop-clop-clop of horses that I normally enjoyed proved grating. I could do nothing more to help Marcelo. I had already tended to his wounds that day with medicine from the baker’s wife, and that was all I knew to do. The danger was now greater from the fever than from the swollen and discolored wounds that marred his face and head.
I moved slowly toward Irele.
The sun was high overhead. Sweat trickled down the curve of my back beneath my buttoned coat. My hair was once more knotted and matted despite Marcelo’s gift of the comb, which I hadn’t used since Winston attacked us.
My face was sunburned, but I didn’t care as I stared at the sun, wary of its eventual setting. I had to reach Irele before sundown today. If not, I felt in my heart that Marcelo would not make it. Any delay now would seal Marcelo’s fate, and he would die.
The faintest breeze swirled up the mountain, urging me along as it went. And on this breeze, hope flew.
I shielded my eyes to see better, to make sure it was not a mirage brought on by my desperation. There, so far away that it was only a silhouette, was what looked like a fortr
ess. It stood, even in miniature, strong and impenetrable, and I knew then that this was Albacus and Mordecai’s stronghold.
I was approaching Irele. I would get Marcelo to Albacus and Mordecai’s estate before nightfall. Marcelo’s chances of survival strengthened, just by the proximity to Irele and the miracle for which I hoped.
“We’re close,” I told my horse and Marcelo’s. “We’re going to the fortress on that mountain side. Now ride as fast as you can. The magician’s life depends on it.”
I didn’t have to shake their reins. They knew what to do like I did. The horses took off at a constrained gallop, because the cart would not stand up to more.
I looked back. Marcelo was strapped in. I had wrapped cloth scraps around his wrists and ankles so the ties that bound him to the cart would not tear at his flesh as they rubbed against him. I left little berth for movement, minimizing Marcelo’s bouncing as much as I could. Now I was relieved that I had.
The horses raced along, Marcelo at their mercy. And it was because of mercy that they rode as fiercely as they did. The discomfort the fever caused was far worse and far more worrying than the eventual soreness his body would suffer from the speed of travel.
He had a chance now, greater than he’d had since Winston first cocked his fist back while aiming it at a handsome face. Now, I willed that Albacus and Mordecai, or at least one of them, were home. If they were not, it would have all been in vain.
Marcelo would die in Irele.
An Unexpected Fairy Tale Ending
By the time the road began to weave its way upward, the horses were tired. They had ridden hard and valiantly, doing their part to save Marcelo’s life.
I was exhausted even before we began the day’s trek.
But we couldn’t stop.
Not now.
Not when the fortress was finally within sight. “I know you’re tired,” I told my horse and Marcelo’s, the ones in the lead. “But we must keep going. We’re almost there.”
The horses blew out hot breath, gathered what strength they had, and tilted their heads into the rising incline.
But as I looked up I realized we weren’t almost there, not really.