Rescuing the Captive: The Ingenairii Series (6 page)

“
I don’t remember who she is, but I know she was good,” Alec answered, knowing that his faulty memory was hiding a significant, treasured story. “Yes, I think I am a good swordsman,” he answered the other question, suddenly convinced of his skills.

“
I never heard of a girl who was a good swordsman,” Bethany said.

“
I’ve heard that up in the mountains, at Black Crag, the women and the men both join the army,” Rahm replied.

“
How far is Black Crag from Vincennes?” Alec asked.

“
Many days, I think, but I don’t know for sure,” Rahm replied doubtfully.

They continued on their journey, and by mid-afternoon Rahm’s turn to feel the exhaustion of the late night battle came, and he fell asleep as well, finally leaving Alec free to speak to Bethany.

“
Your father made me promise to watch out for you,” he began in a quiet whisper. “And he told me not to turn you over to your mother.”

He watched her face darken at the mention of her mother, and she sat silently.

“
What do you want me to do with you?” he asked after her lack of response.

“
You can let me off anywhere you want. I won’t be a burden on you,” she told him.

“
You’re not a burden. You’re a girl who I want to look after. But I don’t know you at all, so I don’t know what is best for you. Why don’t you want to go to your mother?” he asked.

“
Because her boyfriend will try to use me,” Bethany said quickly. Her face was set with anger. “That’s why I lived with my dad, even though he was in the army.”

“
Is there someone else you want to live with? An aunt or a cousin?” Alec probed.

“
No, there was no one but father,” she said. “What about that place Rahm talked about, Black Crag? Could we go live there? A place that treats girls fair must be a pretty good place to live.”

“
Do you want to join the army? Are you a fighter?” Alec asked.

“
I’m not exactly a fighter, but my dad was in the army, and I was around it most of my life. There are good people there,” she replied, beginning to open up to Alec.

“
Let’s go to Vincennes, settle down to learn a little more, I’ll give you some training with a sword, and if we think it’s right, we’ll go take a look at Black Crag,” Alec decided, satisfied with the arrangements.

She looked at him quizzically, and he realized she hadn’t understood his accent. He spoke again, slowly, and repeated his plan, then added, “And you can teach me to talk more clearly.”

Chapter 4 – A Place to Practice

That night they arrived at Flora, and took a place at the inn inside the stockade, though not reserving rooms to the disappointment of Bethany and Rahm. “I want to stay with the wagon in the stables tonight,” Alec explained. He gave Bethany some coins to go shopping for blankets and pillows, and he let the youngsters eat their dinner together first in the inn’s dining room, then went to eat his own meal alone.

There were few travelers spending the night, and their party was the only one traveling south away from Krimshelm, while three small groups were on their way north, one from the seaport of Witten, and two from the great city of Vincennes. Alec ate a bowl of stew and a half loaf of bread, relieved to have a warm meal for the first time since he had left the
Ingrid
.

He took the middle shift of watching for trouble around their wagon that night, though the only trouble he saw was the massive bank of clouds that moved in at the end of his watch to blot the stars from view. When Rahm awoke him the next morning, Alec sent the two youngsters to buy tarpaulins before they left the stockade gate and took the fork in the road to their right, headed towards Vincennes. It was a wet, gloomy ride in the rain for eight continuous hours.

They arrived at the edge of the city three days later just as the sun was setting in the west. Bethany insisted that they stop at a small structure built of stone, where she knelt and bowed her head for several minutes. “I wanted to give thanks at the shrine,” she explained simply as they resumed their trip.

The trio rode through the fringe of the great urban settlement for an hour until they found an inn Alec felt comfortable about staying in. “Tomorrow night,” he promised his charges, “we’ll get rooms tomorrow night, after we have a chance to look around a little,” and they spent another night sleeping atop the wagon.

In the morning Alec let Rahm and Bethany eat breakfast at the inn, before he went to a nearby bakery whose scents evocatively reminded him of some forgotten portion of his life. He bought pastries and ate them voraciously, before asking directions to the merchants’ part of town. He drove the wagon through heavy traffic until they came to stately square near a busy riverfront.

“
Rahm, you stay with the wagon while Bethany and I go in the bank for a little bit,” he commanded as they pulled in front of an imposing building, and he took two heavy bags from the back of the wagon inside. He relied on Bethany’s ability to read and write to help with the paperwork, and soon had an imposing account established at the bank, then rode around the square and repeated the process at two other banks.

“
Why have three banks? Why not just one?” Rahm asked.

“
Different banks have branches in different cities, so we might need to use one or another to travel,” Alec explained. “And sometimes banks fail, and we don’t want to lose all our money with one bank failure.” He did not add that he wanted to avoid calling attention to the establishment of such a large account, in the event that stories of a robbery in Krimshelm were to reach the ears of authorities in Vincennes; Bethany had explained to him that her father had been driving the wagon that carried the payroll for the entire army of Krimshelm, and Alec was sure the authorities would vigorously pursue and punish the folks who had made off with the gold.

They took the wagon to a stable yard nearby, and sold it and the horses, then walked about the nearby neighborhoods until they found an area Alec judged was suitable to stay in, and found rooms to let. By evening time they were settled in a home in Vincennes, an apartment that had five rooms and a kitchen, located above a perfume shop on a secondary road.

The next morning dawned overcast and drizzling, making Alec’s search for an armory uncomfortable. He walked throughout the surrounding district of the city, asking for directions that led him to a large armory used by the local constabulary.

“
May anyone practice here?” Alec asked one officer loudly, speaking over the noisy clashing of swords.

“
Duke is the manager. You’ll have to ask Duke about that,” the man sitting on a bench responded while never taking his eyes off a hotly fought match in the center of the building, and he motioned towards a dimly lit doorway at the far end of the building.

Alec threaded in and out through the crowds of men, and a very few women to reach the designated door. “I’d like to start practicing here, and I want to teach my sister to use a sword,” Alec spoke to a woman whose back was turned to him. “May I speak to Duke?” he asked.

Her dark, shaggy head didn’t turn as she spoke. “We have a lot of serious fighters in here, and they don’t suffer fools lightly,” the woman said. “There are better places for strangers to join.”

“
I’m a serious fighter,” Alec said, instantly challenged by the dismissive tone in the woman’s gravelly voice. “Tell Duke he’ll have people wanting to come just to see me fight.” He suddenly felt convinced that whatever forgotten past he had left behind included significant experience with weapons, and he felt a certainty that left no room for doubt, as a momentary memory of swinging a sword endlessly against a swarm of gray-skinned opponents flashed through his mind.

“
Really?” the woman replied with heavy scorn as she turned to look at Alec. “To look at you isn’t that impressive, and you’ve got scars, so you must not be that good.”

Alec pulled out a gold coin and slapped it down on the desk. “I’ll pay my first month right now, and Duke doesn’t have to accept me as a member if I lose to any opponent of his choice.”

Minutes later Alec was wearing pads and standing on a practice mat, facing a very large man.

“
Duke says I can do anything I want with you, and I’ll get half a gold,” the man told Alec. “You must have been a real butthead.”

“
I wasn’t at all,” Alec protested, and then suddenly his opponent stabbed straight at him. Alec swerved his hips and twisted to let the blade pass him without contact, and simultaneously brought his own wooden blade down hard on his opponent’s wrist, producing an audible crack that caused heads to turn throughout the gymnasium. The man pulled his hand back and rubbed it vigorously, looking at Alec with a squinting reconsideration.

“
That was good,” he praised Alec. “I won’t try the stupid stuff from now on.” And with that he began a traditional attack, combining speed and strength to force Alec to slowly edge backwards on the mat as he defended himself and looked for weaknesses in the big man’s fighting style. Twice he saw a low parry that left the man’s shoulders exposed, and the third time the man began the move Alec struck reflexively, poking his right shoulder hard enough to check the man. He pulled his sword back and swung it downward at his opponent’s retreating blade, knocking it to the floor and stepping on it to end the match.

He looked at his opponent, who appeared to hold no hard feelings, and shook hands with him promptly. The woman from the office was standing nearby, watching intently. “That was a good warm up,” she said. “Robards,” she called loudly. Alec looked at the woman as a man on the far side of the armory began to walk over; her eyes had dark bags beneath them, and her skin pallor showed that she seldom went outdoors. But for all that and the hint of a double chin that was the first sign of a future robust figure, Alec recognized that she was an attractive woman.

“
How can I help you?” Robards asked the woman as he arrived.

“
This foreigner just bested Wilhelm. I’d like to see how he does against someone of your caliber,” she said. Robards looked at Alec appraisingly, then stepped to one end of the mat.

“
So you’re left-handed? That’s a bit of an advantage, isn’t it?” Robards said with a blasé, nasal voice.

“
I’ll use my right hand if you prefer,” Alec said, feeling provoked by Robards’ assumed superiority, and he flipped his sword from his left hand behind his back up high over his head to land in his right hand.

Robards stood still looking at him. “Well, we’ll see,” he said softly, and advanced confidently.

Deciding that he didn’t like the attitude Robards displayed, Alec likewise advanced, and initiated the first strike of blade against blade. Even right-handed the blade felt like a natural extension of his arm.

Alec could tell that there was a mutual and strong dislike between himself and his opponent, and he wanted desperately to put a quick and decisive end to their match. His wish seemed to become father to his actions, as he felt a sudden rush of ability that made everything else in the room suddenly seem woodenly slow, exaggeratedly large as targets, and weak as broken reeds.

He felt exhilaration sing in his heart, and simultaneously he carried out his strike against Robards, dipping his blade then striking it upward so quickly and strongly that he knocked the blade from Robards’s hand and high towards the ceiling. As the blade rose in the air, Alec’s blade dipped to the drawstring of Robards’s pants, drawing them open so that the pants fell to his knees, while Alec reached behind his back and caught the falling sword there in his left hand, and pulled it around to offer it to Robards with elaborate courtesy.

Robards looked stunned, and then his face displayed his anger and humiliation. “That’s enough,” the woman from the office said loudly. Alec looked at her, and saw that virtually every other face in the building was watching him. He felt a sense of deflation, and abruptly the world returned to its ordinary order. It had been like a minute of militant ecstasy, he reflected with wonder, remembering the way he had reacted to the ambush of the wagon back in Krimshelm, and in the forest when he had fought with the anideads. It was all the same burst of energy

“
Come to the office,” she ordered Alec, turned without waiting for his reply, and walked away.

Alec followed her, several steps behind, all eyes silently watching him as he walked.

“
What in the world did you do out there? Are you taking a potion?” she asked him as soon as they were in the privacy of her office. “Are you a changeling from the mountains? Why would you do that to Robards out there in front of the gods and everyone?”

“
You told me to fight him. I did. If Duke isn’t satisfied with what I did, I’ll go find another armory,” Alec replied, realizing that whatever he had done out on the practice mat wasn’t acceptable when so blatantly displayed. And whatever it was, it seemed to be possible to call upon it when he needed to fight with superhuman ability.

He turned and stalked out of the armory. There was another armory he had heard of in a seedier section of town, and he walked through the streets in the direction of his new destination. As he walked, a heavy rain began to fall, and he was dripping water twenty minutes later when he reached the doors of the dark brown brick building that he hoped would be more satisfactory than it appeared from the exterior. He saw shadowy figures standing in nearby doorways, watching him dodge among the rain drops.