Preserving Hope (6 page)

Uncertain as to what was expected of him to start the day, Will elected to exit his room and head toward the front gate. The sun was just over the horizon, as best he could tell through the walls and thick cover of trees; he could see the drops of dew still on the leaves overhead. The five wagons, burdened with the goods produced by the residents of the community, sat in a state of readiness near the gate, as if they, too, were eager to begin their mission. Will passed the silos which held the various grains stored by the community, aiming for his target location. He slipped quietly past the Lowell house, moving to the largest building, the building with the sign reading ALIO INCREMENTUM SCHOLA.

Will’s Latin was a bit rusty, but he believed that translated to “personal growth school.” It was, in his mind, the obvious forerunner of the name Aliomenti, a contraction of the words naming a building holding something of great importance. Whatever secrets the building held would not be discovered by normal means, for a lock sealed a metal chain fastened the large double doors. Will reached inside with his Energy, but found it difficult to sense what was there. He could get in, of course, but doing so in any of the various approaches available to him would most certainly give away more about his abilities than he cared to reveal at this point. Though the community seemed sleepy, he had a hunch that his vanishing while standing in front of the Schola would be noticed.

He needed privacy before vanishing. Ah, the irony.

Will turned and began to head back to his room. The morning walk, though short, had the effect of helping to loosen his muscles. He could flood his joints with Energy to the same effect, but found that working them in this way gave him more satisfaction.

As he approached his room, he saw Eva approaching his door. “Good, you’re awake. I wasn’t sure if Arthur had explained the community’s morning ritual.”

Will shook his head.

“Our original mission, years ago, was one not chosen by our founding members. There were ten of us — five men and five women — and all of us were serfs.”

“You were slaves?” Will asked, surprised.

“Serfs, not slaves,” Eva corrected, glancing at the ground. Will’s empathic and telepathic skills, however, caught the truth; being serfs was a modified view of their history. They had, in fact, been slaves. They were property to be used up as their masters saw fit, rather than serfs who retained some distinct sense of self and had the right to buy and own property. “The baron who owned our lands watched many of his… serfs… die at an early age, and live their few days in poor health. He reasoned that if he could keep us in a less-sickly state, we could work harder. If we lived longer lives, he’d get more work out of us. It was easier to get work out of someone by extending their lives from twenty-five years to thirty, than to wait for a young child to grow strong enough to take the place of one dying so young.”

Will shivered at the cold calculation.

“So he pulled the ten of us out of servant quarters, out of mines, out of forests, out of his fields, off of the roads of his properties. He put us up in his smallest home, and charged us with figuring out why, exactly, we died so young. More critically, he wanted us to figure out how to change that, so that he could get an extra five to ten years worth of labor out of us. He left a handful of servants to handle day-to-day chores so we could focus on completing that task, rather than the daily hard labor we’d been accustomed to performing.”

Will picked up on the historical revisionism once again. The other servants were there to handle day-to-day activities, to be sure, but the serfs in the experiment were not free to do as they wished. The baron would suggest something to test, and the serfs being tested would be forced to do as he pleased. If the tests succeeded and the serfs showed improvements in their health, the baron would order those techniques administered throughout his lands.

If those techniques failed, the serfs died. And those acting as servants moved in to take their place as test subjects, and were themselves replaced by other servants. Will felt a sudden sense of horror at the human test factory, but realized he needed to go along with their revised history.

With some difficulty, he acknowledged her statement. “And I take it that you succeeded?”

Eva nodded, her face contorted in the pain of the memory. Whether it was the memory of the “research” or the memory of being a slave that drove the expression, Will did not know. “When we finished, when he’d found satisfaction with what we’d learned, he told us to report back to our old stations the next day. We didn’t. We took various supplies, coins, and horses, and fled as far away as we could. We had no interest in going back to being sla—serfs. We had tasted a small sliver of freedom, and we wouldn’t live any other way. We’ve been here since.”

“That’s why this place is hidden and has walls, isn’t it?” Will reasoned. “So that he can’t find you and take you back?”

“Initially.” Eva’s face turned cold. “He wouldn’t be able to take us anywhere now.” The threat in the tone chilled Will to the bone. There were certainly more than ten people living here, and they were heavily armed at all times, both men and women, with two exceptions. Will and Elizabeth.

“So what did you learn?” Will asked, hoping to change the subject.

“It wasn’t terribly difficult to make a large difference. We found that something as simple as washing our entire bodies daily was a good thing, for example.” She glanced at Will. “I know most of us wash in that fashion once a month or less, but trust me, you’ll be glad of the results. We walk as a community to the Halwende each morning before beginning our daily work. I’m heading to the gate now to wait for the others.”

“The Halwende?”

She gave him an odd look. “Yes. That’s the slower-moving of the two rivers surrounding this forest, the one to the east. Surely you crossed that one to get here?”

Oops. “Of course. I’ve traveled a long way, and have mixed up the names of the two rivers. I thought I remember the Halwende being the one with the more difficult waters.”

She chuckled. “No, the Ealdor is that one. I suppose if you’ve not lived nearby it might be easy to get the two rivers confused; they are rather close together, and merge together farther north. Where do you come from?”

“A town far to the west. Or at least, I think it’s to the west. I’ve been in such a deep state of mourning since losing my family that I’m not certain how far I traveled, or even which direction. But I have no expectation of returning.” They continued the slow walk toward the gate, and Will was eager to learn more about their history. “What else did you learn?”

“While bread remains a staple of our diet, we found that by consuming fresh vegetables and meat each day, we could remain strong, even after long days of exhausting labor. We wash the vegetables after we harvest them; that seems to help as well.”

Will nodded. He wasn’t much of a history expert, but had gleaned that what he’d consider basic hygiene and food preparation practices were unknown in these times. Such simple techniques could indeed have a profound effect on the overall well-being of anyone who started to follow them, especially given the starting point for most of them in this era. It had clearly done wonderful things for the health of the original ten members of the community, as they’d recruited dozens of others and built an incredibly sophisticated hidden village squirreled away inside a forest. The labor to clear the plot of land of trees alone must have been monumental. “Those seem almost too simple to work, but perhaps what is simple is best.”

She glanced at him in a calculating way. “Indeed. We find it best to build on the knowledge of others who have already gotten to where we wish to journey, to ask questions and listen carefully to the answer of those who know.” The emotional intent behind that comment was quite clear to Will. She knew that
he
knew more than he was letting on, and was challenging him to talk to her.

He could speak in code as well. “Speaking of journeys, when will we be departing on ours?”

“Once we complete our morning washing and meal, we’ll gather our final supplies for the trip and leave.”

Gradually, the crowd near the gate grew, with people greeting each other and talking about plans for that day. With the Stores now empty, the crafters would be hard at work generating more goods to sell. The farmers would be out tilling soil in the open fields; they would have fewer horses to pull the plows during the Trading mission, and as such would make slower progress than usual. The carpenters would be working on building new carts for the next Trading mission, and would make sure that at that time Will would have one of his own to drive. Will realized that meant he’d have to learn how to harness and drive a horse-drawn cart, which might prove an interesting challenge for someone accustomed to driving a motor vehicle, and whose definition of horsepower was far different than that of anyone else here.

Arthur eventually emerged from his home, scanning the crowd. Will sensed he was simply making sure everyone was present. Arthur frowned, muttered something under his breath, and then raised his voice. “Elizabeth! We’re waiting for you, girl! Get out here!”

The door to the room next to Arthur’s opened, and the girl emerged. She kept her eyes aimed at the ground as she walked toward her father, though Will detected a quick shift of her eyes in his direction as she passed. He also noticed a very brief surge of Energy as she walked by; presumably, she was trying to determine what he knew about the topic by alerting him to her own ability. Will elected to remain patient, though he found himself quietly amused. After all of the issues with his lack of Shielding at the Alliance camp, and after his own decision to hide his abilities and attempt to grow and develop with the others, he’d managed to be discovered for his Energy by two people within the first day. Perhaps one day he’d become better attuned to maintaining his Shield.

After directing a withering glare at Elizabeth, Arthur unlocked and opened the gate and led the way into the surrounding forest. They headed east, along a well-worn path in the forest, and he soon heard the sound of a river. Will noted as the river came into sight that it was roughly thirty yards across, and he hoped it wasn’t especially deep. The current moved along at a leisurely pace. This was the Halwende; Will made certain he mentally recited the name several times to ensure he wouldn’t forget it if asked about it again.

Despite the chill, the residents all waded into the frigid water, fully clothed. The waters were dark, and once submerged most removed their clothing. Bars of soap appeared, possibly stored in pockets during the walk, and the residents were soon using them to wash their bodies and clothing. Will hesitated, and then waded into the water to join the others. The cold water was shocking, yet refreshing, and though Will was fully accustomed to hot water showers, he gradually found himself enjoying the experience. Aldus, a man Will had met the day before while loading carts, offered him a bar of soap to use. Will happily accepted it, and used it to scrub away the dirt on his body. He was concerned about what might be swimming in the river, but there was nothing to be done about it.

Once scrubbed clean, the residents wrung out their clothes as best they could and dressed, then trudged out of the water into the relatively cool morning air. After the brisk chill of the water, Will didn’t notice the early morning chill to the degree he normally would. Still, it was brisk, and he was shivering by the time they arrived back at the gate amidst the lively chatter of his neighbors. The villagers headed to the center of the community, and gathered around as the bakers and chefs fired up the stone hearth ovens and the smiths started up fires needed to heat metal, and soon everyone was drying out with the heat generated by the various blazes. After returning to his room to collect his money bag, Will paid a copper coin to the bakers and chefs and was soon enjoying breakfast. He’d foregone the bread offered to him and instead downed a healthy serving of the vegetable and meat stew offered to him.

Will wandered back to his room after eating, and retrieved the paper computer from the trunk. He’d been nervous about taking it with him during the trip to the river, primarily out of concern that the device might float away or be spotted by one of the villagers. He headed toward the front gate, patting his pockets one final time to make sure that he had his money bag and the paper scroll computer. After the horses were hitched to the carts, the caravan headed out through the gate on the journey. Will sat with Eva, and deferred to her when she offered to let him drive the horses. They traveled in silence for a few hours, and then stopped to let the horses drink water. The animals wearied quickly due to the heavy loads they were hauling. Will headed into the trees, ostensibly to attend to personal matters, where he took the opportunity to check the computer for messages.

The Traders are generally trustworthy; follow your instincts. Do not fear to confide in Eva; she is the antithesis of Arthur Lowell. Practice invisibility and flying; flood your cells with Energy and imagine them invisible or weightless to achieve the desired effects.

With the brief, vague insights from the future internalized, Will climbed back into the wagon seat, where he’d ridden in relative silence the first few hours of the trip, well aware that Eva was casting glances his way. Her Energy, knowingly or not, was trying to gather information on him, but he was blocking her attempts. He wanted to focus on the new skill he’d need to master for the next Trading mission, when he’d need to be able to drive the cart with horses to the town with the rest of the caravan. He’d been running over the steps required to successfully hitch the animals to the carts. It would be an interesting experience trying to handle the task himself and look like something other than a man who’d never been near a horse in his life.