Alec the Wanderer: Generations of Eredwynn #4 (17 page)

Martha gasped, “Y’all lived in a castle? Are you the King and Queen?”

Carol laughed. “Actually, I’m a princess and he’s a prince. His father is the King. These two are our Consorts; they are part of our family, too, and very special.”

Mary inquired, “Are we your Consorts, too? You said we could go with your family.”

I chuckled softly. “Sweetheart, if you two were six or eight years older, I’d consider you for a position as Consorts. I was thinking that you’d be our ‘royal Wards’, if that would be all right.”

Mary and Martha nodded happily, while my ladies giggled behind their hands. Barb leaned forward and whispered through her giggles, “Dirty old man, picking up ten year old Consorts!”

I chuckled. “I said ‘Wards’. Besides, I can’t even get the Consorts I have alone, with this situation. I don’t need, or want, any more ladies in my bed and certainly not a ten year old!”

She kissed me gently. “I was teasing you. I know you weren’t thinking anything like that. You even seemed a bit squeamish when you found out I was fifteen, and that’s well within the legal limit for a Consort.”

“That is true, but you’ve changed my mind. You can change my mind some more when we get out of these tents and back into real beds again.”

She nodded, we slung our packs and hit the road. We went way around the city of Amiens, found the road running east on the other side and trudged along.

At noon we veered off the road a ways. Carol
ported
in enough wood to cook a meal and pulled me to the side, while the sisters cut wood and built a fire.

“Alec, I hope you have a good trick for hunting because the larder’s becoming lean. I could
shield
the camp and you could
port
or
fly
to wherever. Just please hurry back, because I’ll be terrified the whole time you’re away.”

I kissed her firmly and hugged her. “All right, my love. I do know a trick or two. I’ve been a wanderer for a while and done this before. Take care of my family and I’ll be back soon.”  

I focused on a deer, as close as possible, that didn’t have a fawn. Orphans saddened me, human or animal. My vision was whipped northwest to a forest. I saw my target and scanned the area around it for people. Finding no one, I
ported
.

I popped in thirty feet away and fired a heavy
energy
bolt
, decapitating the creature before it knew I was there. I
levitated
it, field dressed it for travel and
ported
back to my family.

Still
levitating
the carcass, I called, “Carol, how would you like me to butcher this?”

She replied, “If you’ll finish skinning it and let me borrow your dagger, I’ll butcher it for us. I’ve had plenty of experience doing that on the farm. I’ll go get the others to lend a hand. I won’t insist that Barb help if she doesn’t want to. Oh, Barb has the twins and me calling Amanda, Mandy. It’s what she called her when they were little girls. She likes it, but didn’t use it in Vegas. That’s another reason to call her that; no bad memories attached.”

I smiled, nodded and went to work on the skinning. It only took a few more cuts and a strong pull and the job was done.

Carol came back over with Mandy and the twins. A slightly green Barb followed behind. Before I handed over my dagger, I gave Carol a tip.

“My love, you know this is an enchanted dagger. I want to show you what it can do, so you’ll keep any body parts you’re attached to out of the way.” I took the dangling leg of the deer and without any effort cut through it, bones and all. Her eyes went wide and she nodded her understanding. She gingerly took the handle from me and went to work.

The twins jumped right to work and took little direction, and Mandy caught on quickly and followed their example. Poor Barbara didn’t want to seem like she was lazy, but just couldn’t fight off her aversion to a dead animal carcass. She stayed back out of the way and watched.

Holding my focus on the deer to keep it floating, I went to Barb. “Hun, if you could get out our plates, skillet and whatever else you can think of, we could stack the meat on them. Don’t feel bad about not being able to help with the butchering. It’s a nasty, messy job and I don’t blame you. You also need to smile! You have such a beautiful smile.”

She forced herself to smile. “Thank you, Alec. If there’s a next time, maybe I can help. But if I get much closer than this, I’ll waste my lunch!”

When Carol had finished, and we had meat stacked everywhere, I got ready for one of my special tricks. I wrapped steaks for tonight’s dinner so we could have fresh meat at least once. I got a large container of salt that I always carried in my pack and opened it. With the complete silence that surrounded me as the girls all watched, my concentration was clear. I floated all the meat into the air, sliced tiny groves in it and pelted it with high velocity salt. I then visualized removing the water from it and released my intent. The meat shrunk rapidly and uniformly, more quickly than a butcher could dream of doing. I sorted the dried meat into four flour bags that I always kept on hand and the chore was done.

Carol, smiling and shaking her head, went out to bury the carcass. I knew that there were some things that could be done by magic that she hadn’t mastered and was still impressed to see them done.

We packed up the camp and Carol used her magical cleaning spell, the one that I was impressed with, to clean everyone thoroughly. We hit the road again with food to last us many days.

As we followed the road, we passed many small communities that treated us with suspicion and didn’t seem to want us near the villages. I couldn’t blame them, because the plague had caused fear and mistrust. The road began to track northeast and we followed, simply because we had no other way to go.

We’d camp at night, wake, and pack and continue on. Every morning I’d look for a portal home but had no luck. When our food supply ran low, I’d go hunting. One of my hunting trips, I offered to take the twins. They said that they had some knowledge of local flora and could find us something other than meat. Personally, I thought that they just wanted to see what it was like to disappear and reappear in a different place. Carol thought it was a good idea and I was sure her motives were that I become attached to our Wards, as she and the sisters had.

I gathered them to me and explained the sensation that they would feel when we
ported
. They each took a small bag for what they found and I cast for edibles. We also needed meat, but I could cast for that later. Their first jump might cause excitement when I needed quiet for the hunt. My hunts were hardly fair to the deer, but they were effective and kept my growing family fed.

I focused and my vision raced off on my mission. It found a very pretty clearing surrounded by trees. I locked it in and gathered the twins into my
port
and cast.

There were squeals of shock and delight as we arrived. I began looking around for anything that I could recognize and the girls took off. I called to them as they began their gathering. “I don’t want you to wander too far from me. We don’t know what’s around here and you should keep close. Find what you can and we’ll go hunting for meat afterward.”

They nodded their understanding and began picking greens, digging for roots and watching their distance from me. They actually seemed to know what they were doing, which was a happy surprise. I located a willow tree and decided that tea with dinner would be a nice change from plain water. It would also help with the aches and pains that we were all starting to feel. The road had always been my life, but I’d never considered myself lost. The stress from this situation was wearing on even me. The sisters didn’t complain, but I knew it was getting to them, too.

I was shoving a few handfuls of bark into my gathering bag when I heard the scream. I was instantly at attention, with my dagger out, and then kicked myself for allowing the girls to wander off unshielded. That was such a stupid rookie mistake, it proved the stress had me out of focus.

I located them on the other side of the clearing and
shielded
them quickly. They were backing away from the edge of the woods and I could see the tremor of fear in their hands. A large wolf, focused in its hunting mode, appeared at the edge of the trees, moving slowly toward the girls. I altered my vision to look for life signs, knowing that wolves rarely hunted alone.

Slinking through the grass of the clearing, well hidden and silent, were two more of the creatures. They had flanked the girls on both sides and while the one in front kept their attention, the ones on the sides were preparing to attack.

I began running across the clearing toward the girls and was within ten yards when the wolf closest to Mary lunged. It went airborne and was aiming for the girl’s throat when I caught it using
telekinesis
and held it. It was snarling and thrashing against my magic, but couldn’t break free. The one on Martha’s side saw that the odds had changed and made a break for it, but the one in front kept coming. I didn’t want to kill the creatures for doing what wild animals do, so I tossed him and his pack mate back to the trees. They quickly regained their feet and cleared the area.

I took a knee and wrapped the girls in a hug. They were sobbing on my shoulders, but soon regained a bit of their composure. Mary looked me in the eye. “They were gonna eat us, weren’t they?”

I nodded and told them gently, “They are just wild animals and they thought you were food. They didn’t know that you’re sweet young women and are under my protection.”

Martha tightened her grip on me. “You saved us again and I’m very thankful, but why is my forehead pulled to the top of my head?”

I laughed. “I put a
shield
around both of you so the wolves couldn’t get to you. That was just in case they charged before I got to you. It’s like the
shield
we have over our camp at night, just smaller.”

They nodded their acceptance of my explanation, gathered their bags and came back to me. I offered to take them back to camp before my hunting trip, but they wouldn’t hear of it. Today they were getting to spend time with me, and they were going to make the most of it.

I
ported
us to a deer, bagged and dressed it quickly, and returned us to camp. The second we arrived, the twins ran to Carol to tell all about our trip and the wolves. Carol was smiling at me as if I’d taken her own kids out on an exciting adventure.

Chapter Fifteen

A
couple days later we came to the city of Liege. The sickness had begun to take hold in this city, too, but they still had a physician trying to help. We found him by following a long line of sick and dying people. The man that was guarding the door to only let a few in at a time, allowed us in when he saw that we weren’t infected. My party waited for me just inside the door and I made my way up to the overworked, exhausted man. “Excuse me, sir, if I may have a word when you get a moment.”

The man sighed deeply and turned to me. “This is amazing! A person who wants to see me that isn’t ill. How can I help you?”

“My lady friends and I aren’t from around here and might be able to help you. We are skilled healers, but would have to work in private. I can tell that you’ll drop soon yourself if you don’t get some relief. May we help you?”

“I’ll give you the chance to help and there are rooms near the back door that you can use. I’m trusting you not to hurt my people with your secret methods. Bring in your friends and we’ll set you up in the rooms.”

I waved for everyone to come with us and followed the poor doctor back to four rooms in the back of the building. The back door was right by the farthest room, and that would be quite convenient for sending out healed patients.

Before we were sent patients, the doctor came to me. “Sir, it’s not that I don’t think that you have the best interests of my people at heart, but I don’t know you. I would like for you to allow me to sit in on a treatment session before I lie down for a bit.”

I nodded hesitantly and informed him, “I want you to know that we don’t use witchcraft. We learned these skills far from here and hadn’t even heard of such a thing until we got here. Our abilities come from ourselves and not any evil force. I was told that a lot of the folks around here believe that anything they can’t understand is evil. I believe that you know helping people is a good thing.”

The doctor nodded. “There are quite a few superstitious folk around, so if there is something odd about your treatment that they might see, you should blindfold them. I’ll examine your first patient and then, if all is well, I must rest.”

I agreed and the doctor waved to a man by the door. He sent in a young man who was feverish and had pronounced swelling under his arms. The ill man, the doctor and I went into the first room. I had the young man sit in a chair and told him, “My name is Alec. I’m going to try a technique that is used often in my homeland. I’m certain that it will make you feel better, and hopefully will cure you completely.”

The man gave a hopeful look. “God bless you, sir. I pray that your treatment will work.”

I fought off a chuckle and stood behind the man. I put my hands on his shoulders and scanned him. He was burning up and had infection spreading through him at a rate I’d never encountered before. I let my magic flow, and watched as the swelling went down, sores healed and disappeared, and his temperature returned to normal.

When I released him, the man jumped to his feet and hugged me. Then remembering that I was a stranger, he released me and shook my hand. “Sir, you saved my life! How can I ever repay you?”

I laughed. “You can repay us by letting people know that they can come for healing. Since we are using abilities that the folks here have never heard of, make sure that they know it isn’t anything evil. That would be payment enough.”

The man nodded gleefully and we ushered him out the back door. The doctor caught my eye. “Are you angels? I’ve never seen anything like that before and know you can’t be demons.”

I shook my head. “I’m just a man, and my companions are only women. Lovely women, but not angels or demons. So, do we have your blessing to heal your people? The sisters’ abilities are a bit more colorful and we’ll have to use blindfolds for them, but my wife and I can heal without them, as you saw.”

He smiled tiredly and set up four rooms for us. I figured that we’d only need three, but the extra could be used if too many came back at once. The sisters took a room, Carol took one and so did I. The twins were given the job of escorting the people into a room when we needed one and out the back door when we were done.

I signaled the man at the door to send in three people, and the girls guided them back. Everyone that came back for treatment was very cooperative and happy that someone was trying to help. The doctor laid on a cot in the corner and was asleep before we were done with our first patients. I asked the ladies to keep an eye on their magic. I assumed that I’d have to quit before the sisters, and Carol would be able to work as long as she was able, physically.

After our fifth or sixth group came through, an excited Barbara came to my room. “It finally clicked, Alec! Amanda and I can separate for healing! We haven’t been able to see if we can do other things yet, but healing’s a go!”

I set up Barb in her own room and signaled for four. I told the sisters to call if they needed any backup or if they had any problems. I went back to work myself. By dusk we were exhausted, my magic was down quite a bit and we needed to stop.

I went to the door and talked to the man there. “I don’t know how many we have waiting and don’t know how many we’ve had come through. All I know is the ladies and I need a break and will need to look for lodging. We can camp on the outskirts of town, if need be.”

The man smiled. “I would never have believed that some of the illness I saw could be healed. We have an inn in town that would have rooms and food. I don’t know how much money you have, but if I need to, I’ll pay for it from my own pocket. Truly good people are hard to find.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll gather my party and then get directions.”

“I’ll let the people out front know to return tomorrow, if you’ll be here. Then I’ll walk you to the inn myself to make sure you’re situated and have no problems.”

I assured the man that we’d be back and went to round everyone up. We gathered our belongings and tiredly headed for the door. The doorman was waiting for us and guided us to an inn that wasn’t far from the doctor’s place.

Our guide talked to the innkeeper and then asked me about money. I tossed a gold coin on the counter for the man to examine. He wasn’t familiar with the coinage, but the weight of the gold convinced him that it was worth the three rooms we’d requested, dinner and breakfast.

I thanked the man who had taken the time to get us squared away. He just smiled and nodded, then departed. We sat down to a nice meal, then made our way to the rooms. For the first time in what seemed like ages, I had my wife alone. We made love quietly, both too tired to get overly energetic. I took the boost to my magic that I’d need tomorrow, and a boost to our relationship.

…

We woke early, rousted the others and went down to breakfast. Dried venison is a very tasty and filling food, but for every meal, it gets old and boring. Having a hot porridge breakfast was nice for a change. We ate and I let the innkeeper know that we’d be back that evening. He’d heard about our work at the doctor’s and was pleased to have us return.

We set up in our treatment rooms again and began our healing of the crowd. We only had one minor problem, when a farmer refused to allow Barbara to blindfold him. I had him come to my room and sent my patient to her. We took a short break at lunch when the wife of a man we’d healed showed up with a meal for us. We were grateful and all sat for our lunch break. Finally, and a bit reluctantly, we went back to work.

After nearly three more hours had passed, the man at the door announced that there were no more people to send in. We were thrilled with the news. My magic was getting down to the level I wouldn’t be comfortable going below and the ladies were tired.

I called the doctor to me. “I believe that we’ve got things under control for the time being. I think we’ll stay at the inn for a few more days, at the very least. If people show up with the sickness, you could send them to us or send for us. As long as we’re here, we’ll be happy to help.”

The doctor shook my hand. “I still believe that you’re angels, just as I suggested before. I thank God that you were sent to us.”

I laughed. “I know I can’t change a man’s mind when he fully believes something, but the truth is very different. If you want to thank something for us being here, thank my lack of focus. We’re men and women, just like everyone else, and I hope that you’ll make sure the townsfolk know that. People sometimes do strange things when they start believing in things like angels.”

The man chuckled. “I have to agree. I’ve seen some horrible things done in the name of God. Take care of yourself, Alec, and those lovely ladies, too.”

We retired to the inn for some much needed rest. On occasion one of us would be called upon for healing, but the number of sick was becoming manageable.

At breakfast on our third day of rest, the twins were quiet. Since the twins were never quiet, it got everyone’s attention.

I asked, “What’s the matter with my beautiful Wards this morning?”

They both shrugged, then Mary answered, “It’s our birthday today. Mom and Dad would always have presents for us at breakfast. Our friends would come over and we’d have a good time. Now all of them are dead. It’s kinda hard to have a happy birthday with all of that in your head.”

I leaned over and whispered to Carol, “How comfortable are you with a
levitation
bubble and tether? I bet if you took the birthday girls up to three thousand feet, so you couldn’t be spotted, they would consider that a good birthday gift.”

She grinned and whispered back, “I could do that without any trouble at all. I could also
port
us out of town so we wouldn’t be seen. I heard that
porting
out to go flying can be fun, but we’ll keep our clothes on.”

I laughed and turned back to the table. “Carol would like to take you two out scouting with her today. Amanda and Barbara, you could go, too, if you’d like. I’ll just sleep or wander the town while you’re gone. You could find out what abilities you can manage on your own without being connected. It might not be a party with presents, but I hope you all have a good time.” 

After breakfast, the girls straightened their rooms so housekeeping wouldn’t be needed. They bundled up against the chill of the day and headed out to find a hidden place to
port
from. I walked over to the doctor’s to chat. I had something to say that he might be interested in knowing.

He was sitting at his desk with no patients. He jumped up when I walked in. “It’s very good to see you again, Alec. You and your lady friends have saved many from certain death and this town will forever be in your debt.”

I smiled. “I’m just glad we happened along and were received with kindness. Many would have run us off for even suggesting that we could do things that they hadn’t heard of before. Now that we’ve headed off the plague for this town, it’s time that we moved on. What towns do you think would accept our healing?”

“Well, the rumor mill has heard that you’re heading east. The next large town that way would be Frankfort. I don’t believe that they are having the problems that we were and I’m not sure they know the meaning of ‘open minded.’ It’s a week away if you’re on foot. Close to a week past that would be the city of Nuremberg. I’ve heard that the folks there are friendly and would be open to your healing methods.”

“Thank you for that information, sir. I believe that Nuremburg will be our destination. That is, unless my wife changes my plans. It was very nice to meet you and I hope that everything goes well for you in the future.”

“I wish you the same, but I have something to say that you’d do well to heed. I watched all of you heal, even the sisters. The healing they used and the results that you and Carol produced were incredible! To me it looked like the healing work of angels. To the church it will look like you spared lives that God had chosen to take. I fear that they will brand you as devil worshipers and burn you at the stake. Be cautious if there are any clergy around, my friend.”

I nodded somberly. “Thank you for the warning and I will take it to heart. My lady friend Amanda had warned me of that practice and we’ve tried to be careful. I just can’t find it in my heart to pass up people that are hurting. Thank you for everything and be well.”

I left the building and headed back to the inn with a feeling of foreboding. When Mandy came back from their outing, I’d have to find out what ‘clergy’ meant. Right now a clergy person could be standing beside me and I wouldn’t even know.

I located a general goods store and began restocking our traveling supplies. I picked up more salt, flour and other items that we’d need. I found a tailor that had boy’s trousers and tunics that I thought would fit the twins. Any alterations could be done by Carol. Her magical skills were invaluable to our little band and she was positively priceless to me.

At the stores and shops that I stopped in, the only problem I encountered was getting the proprietors to take payment. Everyone in town thought that my party’s healing was enough. I managed to talk them into taking gold, but only after convincing them that I’d feel better if they allowed me to pay.

With everything gathered up, I returned to the inn and packed. I left the twins new outfits out so they wouldn’t have to wear dresses on the road, and then laid down to think.

I felt that healing was something that we needed to do. The doctor’s warning worried me, because there were too many things I didn’t know. If the ‘church’ decided that we were demons or witches, would they come after us? If we tried to settle down until I found a way home, would we always have to watch our backs? How strong was this group and would they be able to bring men against us? I wasn’t afraid for us as much as I feared for anyone who helped us.