Scarlet From Gold (Book 3) (8 page)

“I’m sore, but I’ll be fine,” Marco said, still astonished by the thought that the people he had rescued were people from his past.  “Do I know any of those people?” he asked in a hushed voice.

“No, my lord, really, nobody in Barcelon knows you very well.  You’re a newcomer to the region, and already a celebrity.  And you say you have no memories, only this geas you suffer from?  How extraordinary!” Gustaf stood.  “I’ll go inform the others that you’re awake.   Can I bring you anything?  Some wine?”

Marco smiled at the notion of a morning drink of wine for a moment, then thought about his wound.  “No, but if I could have a small glass of brandy, to put on my wound,” he explained as he saw the smile on Gustaf’s face.

“You are an unusual one,” Gustaf shook his head with a smile.  “Let me go see what the innkeeper has available.  Would you like anything to eat?”

Moments later Gustaf was gone, and minutes after that, Marco’s small room was crowded with members of the court of Barcelon, all determined to see the man who had saved them, and who happened to also be the mysterious new addition to their ranks of nobility of Barcelon.

Marco sat in bed, self-conscious of sitting without a shirt on as several ladies stared closely at the tattoos on his chest and shoulder, along with the men who were their companions on the pilgrimage.  “My lord, allow me to introduce,” Gustaf proceeded to confuse Marco with a long line of names and titles.

“We’re all most honored to make your acquaintance, especially after such dire circumstances last night when your extraordinary heroics saved us,” the Duke of Priorato, a florid, barrel-chested man, spoke for the group.  “We’ve decided to extend our stay here for an extra day to recover from the trauma,” he explained.  “We hope you’ll be able to join us for dinner this evening.  We’ve instructed the innkeeper to prepare his best foods for a meal in your honor.”

Though he knew nothing about the nobles who were around him, Marco suspected that they would have ordered the inn’s best foods under any conditions, but he gravely nodded his head to show appreciation.  “I’ll rest and tend to my wounds today, and will join you this evening,” he told them.  “Thank you for your invitation.”

The nobles all filed out of the room, leaving Gustaf as the last to leave.  “My lord,” Marco called to the Baronet.

“Yes, my lord?” Gustaf grinned back from the door.

“There was a cook last night, a girl.  Is she alright?” Marco asked, remembering the girl whose timely blow had helped save him.

“I don’t know, but I’ll check with the innkeeper,” Gustaf replied with a blank expression that told Marco that the man hadn’t given a thought to the welfare of the staff of the inn after the attack.

Marco sighed in relief as the man left, then he picked up the bottle of brandy and began to dab it on his shoulder wound, taking deep breaths between each burning application.  He looked at the tray that held his breakfast of bread, jam, and butter, and wished that he had the full use of both arms to easily spread the condiments across the bread.

Just then there was a timid knock at the door.  “Come in,” Marco called.

The door opened, and the cook from the evening before opened the door and leaned in the room.  “You sent for me, my lord?” she asked cautiously as she examined the scene in the room.

“No, I didn’t send for you,” Marco said apologetically.  It was clear from her tousled hair and the wrap she wore around her body that she had been called from her bed to come see him.  “I’m sorry to have awoken you.  I just asked if you were alright after everything that happened last night.”

“Yes, my lord, thanks to you,” she answered.  “Do you need help with your bread and jam?” she asked, recognizing the predicament that Marco was in.

Marco looked down at the arm in the sling.  “Yes,” he sighed, “if you don’t mind.”

“The other nobles are most impressed to see you here, my lord,” the girl told him as she took a seat on a stool next to the bedside and picked up a slice of bread.  “They talked about you more than they talked about the robbery, I thought.”

“Was anyone else hurt?” Marco asked.

“Just one of the servants for the nobles.  He’s resting in another room, my lord,” the girl told him.

“You don’t have to call me ‘my lord’,” Marco told her.  “My name is Marco.  What’s your name?”

“Kaitelyn, my lord,” she dutifully answered as she spread jam on the slice of bread.

“Well Kaitelyn, thank you for your help here – and last night,” he told her.  “Please tell your father I appreciate his hospitality, and I hope I’ll be able to leave the inn in a day or two,” he told her, assuming that the girl was the daughter of the innkeeper.

The look of confusion on her face told him that he had said something wrong.

“The innkeeper is not my father, my lord Marco,” she replied as she stood up.  “He is my master, and I’ll be sure to pass along your thanks to him, though I’m sure that it’s you he owes thanks to.”  And with that she fled the room.

Marco sat in his bed, holding his uneaten bread in his hand, as he wondered what he had done or said wrong, and wondering how far from the truth his assumption had strayed.  Moments later there was another knock at the door, and a heavyset man came into the room, standing at the doorway.

“What did that dratted girl do my lord?” he asked in a worried tone.  “I’ll whip her for a month if she’s done anything to upset you.  I saw her come out of here all pale and weepy, and I knew she was mucking up something, and with you being a hero and all, she shouldn’t deny you anything.

“What can I do for you, my lord?” he asked.

“Nothing, really.  The girl didn’t upset me.  I must have said something that upset her.  Is she close to her family?” Marco asked carefully.

The man paused.  “Ah, is that what it was?  My lord, I’ll fetch the girl right now and have her speak properly to you,” the innkeeper said, and before Marco could protest or defend the girl, the man was gone, and his voice bellowing Kaitelyn’s name traveled down the hall behind him.

Marco felt even more confused by the inexplicable reactions of the two inn staff members.  With a groan, he turned himself and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, throwing his covers off so that he could get up and get dressed and go discover what the mystery of the girl was.  Achingly he stood, and as he did, there was a sound at the door, and Kaitelyn burst into the room, crying.

She saw Marco standing by his bed and screamed, as Marco hastily groped with his one available hand to find the bedcovers and hastily pull them in front of himself.

”Stop, stop, stop!” Marco shouted until Kaitelyn stopped her screaming and stared at him in wide-eyed astonishment.

Marco sat back down on the bed. He closed his eyes, as the room subsided into silence, except for the sound of the girl’s heaving sobs.

“What is your story?” Marco asked.

“You mentioned my father,” Kaitelyn answered.

“I was born in a village in a small valley south of here.  I was an only child, and I had a happy life.  Even though we were poor, my mother was kind to me and my father wasn’t bad.

“But when I was about ten, my mother died,” Kaitelyn told Marco.  “She caught an illness, and within a week she went from being healthy, being the rock that my life was built on, to lying dead in our small home.

“My father said it was time to walk away from everything and start over, so he sold all that we owned – the house and the livestock, and he took me and we started walking.  And after two long weeks of walking, we came to this inn one night.  My father paid for a room for us, and sent me to bed,” she told Marco.  “I fell asleep, and when I woke up the next morning he wasn’t in the room.  So I sat and waited all morning, and then I finally went downstairs to the innkeeper’s desk.

“He is the same innkeeper now.  He watched me come down the stairs, and when I asked him where my father was, he told me that my father had left.  He sold me to the innkeeper, and then kept on walking away,” the girl finished her tale with the shocking, abrupt conclusion.

“You father sold you?  You’re a slave here?” Marco asked incredulously.

“I’m called an indentured servant.  I’ve been here for ten years now, and in two more years I’ll be free,” she told Marco, her voice steadier now.  “My father sold me for a good deal of money, and I’ve been working here ever since.  The innkeeper is a fair master.  He and his wife probably did me a favor, really, giving me a place to live and food to eat, and never taking advantage of me.

“But they don’t love me, and neither did my father,” Kaitelyn added.  “No one’s really done a kind thing for me since my mother died, or least they hadn’t until you saved me last night.

“Is there anything else you need, my lord?” she asked in a more formal tone, clearly ready for the interview to end.

“Please tell me if there’s anything I can do for you,” Marco replied, feeling guilty for inadvertently forcing the girl to have to explain her painful status.

“Can you make a boy love me?” Kaitelyn asked bitterly.  “Unless you can do that, then no, there’s nothing.  Good day, my lord,” she said, and then left the room.

Marco stood up and struggled through the process of getting himself dressed with only one good hand, then left the room and entered the hall outside, where he followed the sounds of a boisterous public room and walked back to the dining room where he had fought the battle the previous night.

“Look who walks among us!” Baronet Gustaf spotted Marco first, and he was quickly and courteously escorted to a table by the fireplace, and surrounded by the assembled nobility of Barcelon, eager to see their hero and eager for any novelty that would disrupt the boredom of the small country inn.

Marco listened with astonishment to the stories they told him about himself and his adventures in Barcelon.   He had a beautiful fiancée awaiting him at his castle at Sant Jeroni, he learned, and he was a masterful, skill alchemist as well as an extraordinary swordsman.  He also was suspected of being able to change form into a sea creature; there were reports that he swam through the waters of the seas and the harbor, and some members of the noble party told of having seen him cut off his own hand in a horrific battle in the palace, the hand that had troubled him with its occasional, inexplicable manifestations of great power.

The nobility grew intoxicated with the joy of telling Marco stories about himself, sharing all the gossip that his mysterious appearance and heroic rise in Barcelon had engendered, as well as the rumors about his inexplicable disappearance.  “Your lady love Mirra and your steward have been to the palace this spring, beseeching Duke Siplin to help find you,” Countess Alella told him.  “She is such an extraordinary beauty.”

“How did I get from Barcelon last fall to Station Island to here?” Marco asked aloud.

“There are only two clues, my lord,” the Viscount of Tarragona answered.  “Your lady reports that she received a letter at the start of winter that came from the Lion City, where she says you used to live.  She will not tell anyone what the letter reveals, but says that you wrote it to her from there.”

“Then, just a few weeks ago, the Duke Siplin received a letter from his cousin, Lady Fostina of Canalport, who reported that you and a set of companions had passed through that city while going into the wilderness to hunt for an invincible monster, the Echidna,” the Duchess of Priorato added.

“Did I do it?” Marco asked in astonishment.

“Who knows, my lord,” the duchess replied.  “You’re alive, it appears, so perhaps so.”

“It’s incomprehensible that you should have lost your memory so.  Will it ever come back?” Gustaf wondered.

“When I finish carrying out the duty of my geas,” Marco spoke absently.

“What geas is it?  Where did it come from?” one of the nobles asked.

“It came from Lethe, I believe, but I don’t know why,” Marco answered.

“Lethe?  Are you sure?” one of the companions of Earl Alella asked.

“I had a vision that said so,” Marco answered, fearing that he was suddenly treading on dangerous ground.

“Lethe is one of the great rivers,” the man said, then paused dramatically, “of the underworld.”

The room went silent, and the Duchess of Priorato involuntarily pulled her body away from Marco, increasing the space between them.

“Are you saying that I died?  Did the Echidna kill me?” Marco asked.

“If you were dead, I hardly think you’d be subject to wounds from ordinary weapons,” Gustaf said quickly, drawing nods of agreement from the others who wanted to believe that there was nothing too unnatural about Marco.

The conversation turned to less awkward topics, and continued until dinner time, when Marco was worn and ready to return to his room for the evening.

“I’ll send the girl up with a platter of food for you, my lord,” the innkeeper told Marco as he gingerly walked back to his room.

Marco had no more than settled into his bed when Kaitelyn thumped the door before backing in, holding a tray of food and drink.  “The master says to treat you well,” she told Marco with more strength in her voice than she had used before; Marco took it as a sign that she had come to peace with the conversation they had shared earlier.

“Would you prefer wine or ale to drink, my lord?” she asked.

“Please call me Marco, and I’d like juice or water if you have it,” he replied.

“Marco,” she said, as though testing the word.  “Those people in the dining room, they say you’re a nobleman in Barcelon.  Why do you want to be called Marco?” she asked as she obliged him by pouring water into a mug, then handing it to him.

As she began to feed him it became evident that she had listened to a great deal of the conversation that had taken place in the common room.  “So, why do you think you drank from a river in the underworld?” she asked him.

He looked at her, wondering how much to tell her.  He was tired and sore, and didn’t want to get caught in a long conversation, he decided.  He wouldn’t tell her the story of Ophiuchus stepping out of the tapestry at the cathedral.

“I had a vision that made me think of the name,” Marco answered, then ate the bite of food that she extended towards his mouth on a fork.