All Fall Down
Authors: Christine Pope
Other Books by Christine Pope Available at Barnes & Noble
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ALL FALL DOWN
ISBN: 978-0-9883348-0-9
Copyright © 2012 by Christine Pope
Published by Dark Valentine Press
Cover art by Nadica Boskovska. Cover design and ebook formatting by
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Dark Valentine Press. Permission is given to make one backup copy for archival purposes.
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“Experience is the forge of the spirit.”—Selddish proverb
Chapter One
The slavers came for us in the night.
We should have been safe. After all, the village was located more than twenty-five miles from the invisible line that separated my homeland of Farendon from neighboring Seldd. No one had ever heard of slavers venturing so far within Farendon’s borders before—but, as they say, there is a first time for everything.
I slept restlessly. Perhaps I should have been more accustomed to sleeping in strange places, but even after several years of traveling the countryside and plying my trade, I still found getting any kind of rest the first night or two in a new village or town difficult at best and sometimes downright impossible. And Aunde, poor hamlet that it was, with barely a hundred souls to call its own and a tavern hardly worthy of the name, could only offer a physician of the Golden Palm a rough pallet laid down in front of the dying fire at that same tavern. No one else in the village had the room to accommodate me, or at least they claimed they didn’t.
The villagers mainly lived in one-room cottages and scraped out a rough living growing barley and raising sheep. Not surprisingly, the majority of them were somewhat overawed by my presence. The innkeeper possessed some worldliness, having once made the great journey to Lystare, the capital city where my order had been founded, but to the rest of them I was as alien and exotic as if I had washed ashore from the far-distant southern land of Keshiaar.
As I turned once more, trying in vain to find a comfortable position on the lumpy, straw-filled pallet, I heard shouts and the unmistakable slap of running feet on the hard-packed dirt outside. With a frown, I abandoned my useless attempts at slumber and sat up, reaching over to pull my cloak about me. The air was chill, with the first bite of autumn that promised harsher days to come, and I had gone to bed still wearing my gown and chemise. At least my current clothed state saved me the time of pulling my garments on, and I pushed the scratchy woolen blankets away and stood.
Through the darkness I saw the bobbing lights of lanterns and torches moving with impossible haste toward the tavern in which I had made my rough bed. I had barely focused on the dark shapes of the men who carried them when I heard the voice of Frin, the innkeeper, behind me.
“Slaving bastards!” he whispered fiercely. “You must hide yourself, Mistress Merys.”
Slavers?
I thought, but I did not waste time with arguments.
“Where?” I asked, even as I knelt to gather up my precious satchel, which was filled with the various instruments and herbal concoctions vital to my profession.
“Here,” he replied, and gestured for me to follow him into the kitchen. A faint outline showed against the bare boards of the floor, and he bent down to unlatch the door to a root cellar.
No sooner had I gathered up my skirts and begun to make my way down into the fusty-smelling darkness, however, than the door to the kitchen burst open, slamming against the wall with such force I was sure the hinges must have been bent.
A rough voice called out something in words I could not understand, and then three men swarmed into the small room. One barked something at Frin, who shook his head. I had no idea whether he merely could not comprehend the other man’s dialect, or whether the innkeeper was only trying to disavow my presence. One of the remaining men seemed to spot me immediately, however, for he advanced to the rough stairs of the root cellar, where I had only been able to descend a few steps before they caught up with me.
Even in the darkness I could see the man’s beard split in a grin, and he called out something to his compatriots. His left hand shot out and grasped me by the upper arm, and then he hauled me up into the kitchen.
I should have been terrified, but instead I felt strangely calm. Perhaps it was merely that—up until then, at least—my profession had always accorded me deference and respect. Perhaps I kept myself from giving in to terror by feeling somewhere, deep down, that this was merely a horrible misunderstanding. As soon as these marauders could be made to understand who and what I was, of course I would be released immediately.
I had just begun to lift my left hand toward the man who held my other arm in order to show him the rayed sun tattooed on my palm when he barked something at me and threw me to the kitchen floor. I dropped the satchel I had clutched so desperately the whole time, and even as the three invaders moved toward it, I pushed myself across the dirty wooden floor, one hand reaching to secure its precious contents before they could take it from me.
Of course, my attempt was in vain. With a laugh, one of the other two men plucked it from beneath my desperate outstretched fingers and then opened it. His laughter died away quickly enough, and he stared at me with puzzled, angry dark eyes.
“
Senth ka rendish?
” he demanded, and I shook my head.
“I fear I don’t speak your language,” I said. No doubt they had thought that a satchel which was obviously worth so much to me must carry something more valuable than a collection of dried herbs and stoppered glass bottles.
The man who had pulled me from the cellar steps said, in an accent so harsh I still had difficulty understanding him, “What is this...rubbish?”
“I am a physician,” I said, and this time I managed to open my left hand before me so the tattoo of the sunburst would be obvious to all, even in the dimly lit room. “Those are my medicines and salves.”
Although my heart pounded so heavily in my breast I was sure they could all hear it, I felt some measure of pride that I had managed to keep my tone calm. Surely once they realized who I was, they would let me go.
The one who had spoken in my own tongue spat a few words at the two others. Again the one who held my satchel laughed, and then he tossed it at me. Caught off-guard, I barely had time to grab the handle before the battered leather bag smashed into the wall behind me. Even so, I could not help feeling a wave of relief flood through my veins. Surely now they must let me go....
But that apparently was not to be. My relief was as short-lived as it had been intense, for in the next moment the man who could speak the common tongue grabbed my arm once again and pulled me toward the door.
Poor Frin, who had stood mute and appalled throughout this entire exchange, finally took a step forward.
The man who held me gave him a brief look. “You are not worth taking, old man,” he said. “But you may still live if you keep your mouth shut.”
“Don’t worry, Frin,” I said, making sure my voice remained steady. The last thing I wanted was for the elderly innkeeper to give up his life in a futile attempt to rescue me from the slavers’ grasp. “I’m certain I will be able to get this sorted out.”
And I fastened him with a determined glance, willing him to stand back and allow matters to run their course. He nodded slightly, used enough to my authority after even the few days I had spent in the village. During that time I had tended to the outbreak of tertian fever which had brought me there in the first place—as well as setting the odd bone or two and placing poultices on the various sores and weak chests to which any farming village was prey. I could only hope he would have the wit to send word that I had been captured to Lystare, where the Order of the Golden Palm had its guild house. Surely as soon as they knew of my fate they would send someone to ransom me....
Frin offered no further protest as the slavers hauled me out of the tavern’s kitchen and on into the open area that served as a meager village square. More armed men awaited us there, as well as a large wagon already filled with the younger, more able-bodied denizens of Aunde. From the wagon came the sound of weeping, but that was the only protest the captives seemed able to make.
Of course, what did I expect? For them to grasp their pitchforks and scythes and handily dispatch these invaders? Aunde’s inhabitants were simple farming folk; Farendon had not been at war for more than fifty years. They probably knew less of battle than I did, I who had traveled beyond my country’s borders into lands where men still did wage war upon one another.
Frowning, I wondered at the boldness of these men who had invaded Aunde. For years the Selddish slavers had made incursions into the borders of my land, but never as far as this. The two countries lifted their hackles at one another and growled occasionally, but the rulers of Farendon had not, at least in my lifetime, considered the loss of a few hundred peasants each year enough provocation to spill the blood of thousands more soldiers. The raids continued, and occasionally the king of Seldd sent reparations in the form of gold or grain or the exquisite linen fabrics for which his country was known, but no one seemed to care overmuch.
Except, of course, the folk who were taken into slavery.
Rough hands shoved me up into the wagon, where I took my place on the hard wooden floorboards, surrounded by my fellows in misery. The other captives seemed to roughly number half women, half men, and I saw no one older than their mid-twenties. Unlike me, many of them were still clad in their night wear, and they shivered in the cold.
Next to me sat a young girl, probably no older than sixteen. I thought I recognized her. Although she herself was healthy enough, her younger brother had had a mild case of the tertian fever.
“Elissa?” I whispered, and she looked over at me, startled, her eyes showing white-rimmed in the darkness like a frightened mare’s. Then I could see her thin shoulders relax slightly as she recognized me.
“Mistress Merys?” she asked. “Not you!”
I lifted my own shoulders in a resigned shrug, and then moved closer to her. “Here,” I said. “I was fortunate enough to have my cloak with me when I was taken. Why don’t you pull that one end around yourself, and we can try to stay warm together?”
She nodded gratefully, and then lifted one side of my cloak and wrapped herself into it. Poor thing—I could feel her shivering as she moved closer to me, and I had no doubt it had little to do with the chilly night air. I couldn’t free her, but at least I could offer her this small comfort.
The slavers called out a few words to one another in their own tongue, and then I felt the wagon slowly begin to move. Its unsprung weight bounced heavily on the rutted road below us. The boards on which I sat bit into my thighs, and I found myself wondering how far we would have to go before we could be free of the wagon’s discomfort. Although a few wild thoughts of escape crossed my mind, I knew any such attempt would be useless; the slavers numbered five, and they were all mounted. I knew I could not possibly hope to outrun them on foot, especially in the dark and in unfamiliar country.
In my own travels, I rode a sturdy little sorrel mare. I found myself missing her more and more as the weary miles pressed on. At some point in our journey Elissa nodded off, her head falling against my shoulder in the utter weariness brought on by despair. I wished I could have shared in her oblivion, but I sat wakeful as the night wore on, even as the other occupants of the wagon slowly fell into sleep one by one.
I could tell the slavers moved as quickly as the cumbersome wagon would allow them. There was no possibility of reaching the border before daylight, so I surmised they must be headed toward some sort of camp or stronghold they had set up within my own country. Fortunately for them—and unfortunately for the inhabitants of the border areas—this was a wild, rough region, scarred by low-lying ranges of hills with deep, uninhabited valleys in between. The soil was poor and for the most part not worth cultivating. Its only utility lay in its appeal to the roving bands of brigands and slavers who frequented its wastes.
Sure enough, we ground to a halt in a narrow valley dotted with scrub oaks. I could see little in the pre-dawn grayness; a fog had come up in the night, and it quenched even the torches the slavers carried. They rousted us out of the wagon and into the dubious shelter of a rocky overhang. Evidently it had been used for this same purpose in the recent past: Sour straw lay littered on the hard-packed dirt ground, and I saw scraps of fabric and bones from past meals scattered amongst the dirty twists of hay.
