“We concluded that it was part of the plot against you. The young doctor’s report on the boats seems to add to that.”
“Did you see anyone, Alec?” Natha asked.
“No. We never saw anyone down there. We always looked around to make sure no one saw where we had hidden our materials, because they were all we had,” Alec replied.
“Came down the river. Interesting,” the ingenaire muttered.
Alec was stricken with fear by that comment from that person, but tried not to show it as the conversation moved on.
“The bodies of the assassins we did recover have no distinguishing marks. We can’t tell anything from them. That’s the report, other than to say we’re sorry we failed to protect you my lord, and we are thankful Guardsman Inga did so well to preserve our honor,” the officer concluded.
“What’s the Walnut Creek angle?” the Duke immediately asked.
Alec felt stricken again. He was sure he was going to be pinned down as a hidden survivor of the attack by the lacertii. He looked up and saw the ingenaire turn his face away from studying him.
“It appears,” Lord Kelvin began, “that there’s no clear, direct connection, although potential connections can be inferred.”
“Your interest in supporting the army in preparing for a potential war with the lacertii is not approved of in some circles, for instance. Anything that requires an increase in property taxes has the landowners upset, and there is also an expectation that you will increase taxes on the gambling dens and spirits and ale producers.”
“You think that some are prepared to kill me just to avoid a tax increase?” the Duke asked incredulously.
A silent pause filled the room.
The Duke repeated the question.
“Well, that’s the only potential tie to the Walnut Creek events we can imagine, and it’s just speculation,” Rastall replied. “There are other matters at stake as well that we have considered, such as the matters of successions.”
“Both ducal and royal, I presume you mean,” the Duke snapped. “It’s a terrible thing that a man must distrust his own son. Yet it is true that I know Airmed is hungry for power. How is Elgin?”
“He remains at school in Oyster Bay, and we have a guard there with him. There’s been no communication with him regarding your health,” Rastall said.
“Make sure to send a pigeon to him tonight assuring him of my safety,” the Duke said to Kelvin, who nodded assent.
“Alright, what is the state of the city right now?” the Duke subtly changed the subject.
“Commodity prices have been rising the past two weeks based first on the Walnut Creek news, and then more predominantly on your health. This afternoon they began to recede after your appearance in court,” Natha spoke up.
“The prince’s reputation has never been high, but it did suffer even more from his behavior this week,” Rastall added a different angle of consideration.
“The church is very supportive of your reign, in part because they feel they’ve been credited for their role in your recovery,” Kelvin said.
“What role did they play?” the Duke asked with surprise.
All heads turned to Alec. “They provided an ancient healing power, chanting prayer through your night of greatest need, and have probably been praying for you ever since,” he spoke up.
The Duke raised an eyebrow. “And Merle, how are the ingenairii feeling?”
The ingenaire spoke up. “The Walnut Creek item is perhaps of most interest to our community because of certain ancient tales and prophecies it recalls, but in any case our local ingenairii favor and support you in any cause, battle, or succession.”
“Ingenaire,” Ryder unexpectedly addressed him. “Given all that has happened, I would like to know who it was that you had me smuggle out of the city the day the Duke was attacked?”
Merle appeared nonplussed by the question. “He is the most important man alive right now, or perhaps the second most important. He showed up as a complete surprise to me, but his presence elsewhere is more important than anything else I can imagine right now. He had nothing at all to do with the attempt on the Duke; it was a complete coincidence that he arrived and left on that day,” the ingenaire explained and then fell silent, indicating he had said all he would tell them.
“What forces does Airmed have at his disposal?” The Duke asked with another change of topic, accepting Merle’s answer as final.
“We count his fighting men at about four hundred. He has almost as many as the Guard has,” Colonel Ryder reported.
“Though not as good, I know. What is the mood and the disposition of the Army?” the Duke directed his question to the Army officer.
“There is no loyalty to the Prince anywhere in the Army. Unfortunately, there are few army personnel in the area. Altogether, we have 8,000 men in uniform, though many serve more as local constabulary in the far reaches of the Duchy. Ours is the largest force in the kingdom,” he added for no reason Alec could understand.
“Call five hundred good men back to Goldenfields. Can we arrange for their arrival to coincide with the conscription of Airmed’s men to travel up the river towards Walnut Creek? I think we ought to send some forces in that direction, and if we can increase the force with such ‘volunteers’ we’ll serve the duchy’s need doubly well,” the Duke responded.
“Airmed presumably will keep his men around the capitol for at least another three or four days until the situation around your health is absolutely clear. We can use pigeons to bring the northern and eastern garrisons back in that time,” the officer agreed. “I’d recommend that we bring back at least 800 so that any such force remains overwhelmingly in our favor.”
The Duke nodded his assent. “And what of the King’s condition? Is that part of the issue at hand?” The Duke next asked.
“Well, it may be a contributor to other matters,” Rastall answered. “There continues to be no heir named, and little likelihood of one, given the King’s age. The factions at court have expanded their powers, given the vacuum around the throne currently. The ingenairii and the merchants and the nobility are fairly free to do a great deal right now without fear of the King stopping them. So the Prince may have been emboldened by the lack of control and discipline in the palace.”
“Kelvin, what is the state of our treasury? Will we need new revenues to fund this diversionary expedition up the river?” the Duke asked. Alec noted that he now appeared to be tiring from the length of the meeting.
“Actually, your funds have done well the past few days. As commodity prices increased, so did our revenues from trades made. We also sold some of your grain from the warehouses at good prices in the market, in an effort to try to keep prices down. You have profited nicely from those sales, and may purchase the same quantity of grain back at lower prices soon if you so choose, although I don’t see any need for more before the harvest comes in. It looks as though the farmers have had a good year.”
“If you do make purchases,” Kelvin added with a significant look, “the farmers’ cooperatives would seem to be good partners to purchase from. Too many of the landed nobility did little to show support for you in the past couple of days, although that may just be a case of only the younger members present in the city, and the fact that such youths enjoy the prince’s company at social events more than they understand and enjoy the benefits of good government.”
“All right, I’ve had about enough for tonight,” the Duke prepared to close the meeting. “One last issue; our young miracle worker here. Is he completely safe? What do we owe him?”
Alec snapped his head up at the Duke’s last set of questions. He’d failed to follow all the issues that the men had discussed around him, and been caught by surprise by references to himself.
“Prince Airmed had one face-to-face confrontation with your healer, but it was late at night. The young man gave better than he got by the way, I judge,” Colonel Ryder reported. “Since then we’ve kept him under wraps as much as p
ossible. I judge he can safely return to his life, especially if we successfully sweep the prince’s corps away soon.”
“No public recognition of his role is appropriate, it seems, but I think that some private ceremony is due,” the Duke decided. “Alec approach me and kneel.”
Alec felt completely out of his element, but did as ordered.
“You are named in camera as a member of the River Order, and next in line to receive the lands of the Boston Palace until otherwise declared,” the Duke said. Three or four members of the group gasped at the last statement.
“Thank you all, everyone is dismissed to carry out their duties as assigned. We’ll meet again at noon tomorrow, and hold another public audience tomorrow evening. I expect I shall be able to walk into that one, won’t I, doctor?”
“I think you shall, if you keep off your feet as much as possible until then,” Alec replied. “Let me give you some medicine for tonight, and then we’ll get you and our other patient to sleep,” he added, looking at Inga who had remained silent throughout the entire meeting.
The guests filed out of the infirmary, except for Colonel Ryder. As he left, Natha called to Alec, “I’ll tell Leah that you may be home in another couple of days. If you need anything else, let me know.”
As the last adviser left, the two guards for the infirmary returned and took up their stations inside the doorway.
Alec went back to prepare what he guessed would be the final doses he would need for Duke Toulon. As he mixed and ground and selected, he pondered all that he had just heard. Serious things were taking place in Goldenfields, and more were about to happen as well. He realized for the first time why the events in Riverside and Walnut Creek were not automatically at the top of the topics the Duchy and the Kingdom would deal with. Alec returned to the healing room, where the Duke and Colonel were discussing the proposed expedition up the river towards Walnut Creek.
“I’ll send out wagoneers tomorrow to establish the first supply depot. In the meantime we’ll acquire more rations and materiel for a second depot to be established further up the river near the sand bars,” Colonel Ryder was saying. “The garrison men the army should bring back for the expedition will include the Third and Fourth regiments, and the Border Legion as well. Those messages will be sent by pigeon immediately. We’ll have the right men to deal with the goons we’re conscripting, and I’ll send Captain Lewis from our Guard to help sort out the conscripts who we can salvage and use, versus those who are expendable. I’d recommend Major Abraham be placed in charge of the expeditionary forces.”
“I think your advice sounds good as far as it goes, but let’s plan on making something productive out of this. Send some engineers to make a permanent road beyond the further villages, and put the conscripts to work constructing it. Also set a goal of at least two weeks hard march beyond the sand bars. Begin planning to build locks there to give us easier navigation to the east. And establish a garrison at the end of the road and at the canal. We can open up some new territory in the east and offer new estates to the younger sons of some of the loyal nobility. If we open up new lands and improve transportation with a highway and locks, we should make the traders and the nobility feel better about this use of their taxes.”
Alec used the end of the sentence to slip in and begin undressing the Duke to treat the various wounds that still needed treatment. While he worked, Colonel Ryder spoke. “We might want to have an ingenaire or two along on this trip, specifically one who is capable of throwing some flame or otherwise serving in an offensive capacity for us.”
“I’ll talk to Merle about some such possibility. What was that business about you smuggling someone out for him?”
“The same day you were injured, Merle came to me and pressed me to help him move someone,” Ryder said. “The person was apparently injured or wounded. It was a man; I had Ellison give me a report after he took him through the tunnel and put him in the fast boat Merle had purchased for him. Ellison said he picked the man up from the innermost recesses of the ingenairii’s suite, and that the man had a beard and spoke not at all except to say ‘thank you.’ I believe Merle that he had nothing to do with your injuries, and it speaks volumes that Merle put so much into it when so much else was going on.”
Alec dosed the Duke with sleep lotion, determined that his patient get a good night’s sleep. The colonel bid goodnight and left the infirmary.
Alec turned to treating Inga. “You have a healthy system,” he told her. “You’re recuperating quickly. I will treat you again tonight to feel like I’m doing something, but I expect you can be up and moving tomorrow quite a bit.” He began examining her wounds, and settled in to treat each of them in the most particular way possible. He started rubbing a healing lotion into those he most feared might leave scars on her torso.
Inga looked over at the Duke. He appeared to be sleeping. She turned back to Alec. “If my husband saw you rubbing me like that you’d have a foot of steel through your gut!” she grinned.
Alec turned bright red with embarrassment, but said nothing. He moved to rub the lotion into a different wound.
“What would you do if a blade faced you, Alec?” Inga asked.
“I’d run or die, I imagine,” he answered. “I’ve got almost no experience with battle,” he said barely able to remember the details of the events at Riverside.
“Tomorrow, since you said I will be able to move, you and I will do some training with the blade. A young, wealthy man like you needs to be able to protect himself. Now that the Duke has raised you so high, you are a potential target.”
“What exactly did the Duke do?” Alec asked.
“He recognized you as a good man destined for great things in his duchy, among other things. He named you to the River Order, which means that you are entitled to be called a noble, and to attend any convocation of the nobility, and to have a room in the palace here on the island. He also made you next in line to receive Boston Palace, which is a very nice estate on the northern border of Goldenfields, with fertile lands along the river up north. It currently belongs to his son, Airmed, so if anything happens to him, you will own several thousand acres,” she explained.
“And given the plans they made here tonight to shear off the prince’s fighters, I don’t know that I’d wager a great deal on his longevity. Airmed has long been a disappointment, a severe disappointment, to his father. I don’t want it to sound unnatural, but I don’t think the Duke will shed tears if his son leaves the realm, so to speak.”
“Do I have to take that?” she asked, nodding her head as she recognized the sleeping potion dose Alec was bringing to her. Alec grinned and nodded, and she grumbled but accepted it with no battle.
Soon, with both patients asleep, Alec crawled into bed too, and quickly fell asleep.
Chapter 20 – The Chapel by the River
Alec awoke to discover both of his patients were already awake and eating breakfast on trays sitting beside their beds. He groggily got out of bed and went to his medication room to collect his wits. Wits collected and slightly groomed, a few seconds later he stepped back into the infirmary room and found his own breakfast tray entering the room as well. He could get used to some elements of this life, he thought to himself; before arriving at Goldenfields he been always been the servant, never the served.
He realized that Inga and the Duke were discussing his planned weapons training. “My first training with the Guard was nothing but a focus on how to handle a weapon, and we spent weeks learning how to construct and repair each of our own weapons. I still have the sword I built to pass that test, and it’s very serviceable, but I prefer the Stronghold blades,” Inga was telling the Duke.
Alec ate his breakfast without any comment on the reminiscences of his two patients talking about their favorite and toughest teachers and training sessions. He was looking forward to this session of training to help him learn how to handle a blade. Kelvin and Ryder entered the infirmary to talk with the Duke, and Inga and Alec withdr
ew to the Guard courtyard.
“I’m not as sore as I expected to be,” Inga informed him as she led him to a building on the left. “Let’s go to the armory and take a look at what to start the morning with.”
Inside the armory was a large room with thinly padded floor squares, on one of which three Guards were practicing their fencing skills. Inga was greeted warmly as she preceded Alec into a room in the rear of the armory. On one wall were a variety of blades hanging from racks, organized by weight and length. Inga made Alec hold several, but only told him to swing two. Finally she picked one for him, then turned him to the other side of the room, where she selected a heavy, padded jacket and other equipment for him to wear. She picked a sword for herself, and the two of them walked back out to one of the practice squares in the main room.
“You’ve got to limit your movements with those stitches in your muscles” Alec warned. “If you damage those you won’t like the consequences.”
“I was going to go easy on you anyway,” Inga said with a grin. “Now, let’s get started.”
Two hours later, Alec was exhausted; his left arm would barely raise up to his shoulder. Inga expressed surprise when Alec swung with his left arm, but had approved of his sinister practice. “You’ll get to practice against right-handed blades all the time, but when the time comes that you need to swing serious steel against an opponent, they’ll not be comfortable facing a left-handed swordsman. Plus, I’d like to practice against someone who comes from the left side.”
“You’ve got some of the basic ideas down already. Let’s call it enough for today. I’m pretty sore for not doing much, I imagine you are too, and we can work on your footwork more tomorrow morning.”
They cleaned their equipment and put it away. Inga went to her own quarters to clean up, while Alec returned to the infirmary, the cadence of training movements running through his brain. He saw Colonel Ryder leaving as he approached.
“DR, may I ask another favor?” Alec asked as he hurried over to intercept him. “I’d appreciate a chance to leave the palace again today, if I may.”
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