The Lifesaving Power: Goldenfields and Stronghold (13 page)

Chapter 14 – A Haircut for Noranda

Alec nudged his horse to follow Noranda, ignoring the curses they received from the crowd as they cavalierly pushed themselves in the direction they wanted. The horse behind him kept up, although Alec felt stretched trying to guide his own horse and pull the extra. Alec strained to hear the sounds of pursuit, but so far they seemed to be on their own. For over an hour they travelled through streets in a complex pattern of turns that left Alec completely disoriented. As the sun set he lost his ability to evn rely on it.

Fortunately, the darkness also reduced the crowds in the street, and it became easier to follow Noranda. At last he was able to pull up next to her. “Are you doing alright with Brandeis?” he asked.

“
He’s heavier than I expected. I used to watch folks taking turns carrying him back from drunken bouts in the taverns, and he didn’t seem so heavy for them,” she said with a wan smile.

“
Do you know where we’re going?” Alec asked next. His leg hurt and he was exhausted.

“
Do you have any money?” Noranda answered his question with a question.

“
No, I’ve been in prison. Wait! Yes, I have some,” he belatedly remembered the secret money pockets in his belt, which had evaded detection when he’d been taken into custody by the guards. He began to fumble his belt loose to get at the gold and silver.

“
Enough for a room and stables at an inn?” she asked.

He nodded affirmatively, as he grabbed a handful and closed the belt back up.

“
Then, we’re here,” Noranda told him, as she pulled her reins abruptly and turned her horse down a dark alley that proved to lead to a stable yard. “This should be far enough away from the Locksfort compound and Brandeis’ carousing for us to avoid recognition.” she explained. Alec let gravity pull him down from his saddle, then grabbed hold of Brandeis as Noranda let him slide down from their saddle.

An old man who was the stable tender for the night came out of a wooden side door. “How may we help you?” he asked.

“
We need stables for the horses,” Noranda answered, “and a room for ourselves.”

“
That’ll be two silvers for the stalls, plus two coppers for feed. They’ll take care of your provisions inside,” the man responded. Alec laid Brandeis carefully down, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his coins, paying for the horses.

“
Our friend had too much to drink,” he said in explanation, inspired by Noranda’s earlier comment.

The stablehand smiled as Alec and Noranda hoisted Brandeis between them and hauled him towards the tavern entrance. “He’ll really be alright, won’t he? You’ll be okay too, right?” she asked as they paused at the door.

Alec nodded his head, pushed the door open, and they stepped into a busy public parlor. Patrons filled most tables, and a few servants watched over them as a girl sang off-key in one corner, and a small fire burned in the stone hearth. Next to the fire a table was unused, and to the consternation and amusement of many, Noranda and Alec dragged Brandeis over and wedged him between the table and the wall, while they sat down across from him.

“
It’s warm here,” Noranda commented.

“
That’s why no one else wants to sit by the fire in the summer time,” Alec absent-mindedly replied as he looked around the room.

After ten minutes, an older woman stopped by their table. “How can I help you young folks?”

“
Our friend had too much to drink,” Noranda spoke up. “Can we get a room for the night?”

“
I just serve the food and drink. Horman over there,” she gestured to a desk, “is the manager of the inn. Do you want anything for supper?”

“
Stew and juice for me,” Alec said after Noranda ordered. “I’ll go get a room,” he told Noranda, and got up to visit the inn manager.

After paying in advance for a room, Alec returned to the table with his friends, and sat in silence, feeling exhausted. Noranda sat silent as well, thinking about the circumstances they had fallen into.

“
Alec, is Brandeis going to be okay?” she asked again after their food was served.

“
Yes, he just needs rest, and some medication to help him build up his blood,” Alec replied, “and some healing energy when I feel I have some,” he added to himself.

There were no further comments as they ate silently. “Let’s go up to our room,” Alec suggested, and they propped up the still unconscious Brandeis between them, to a few catcalls from the drinking customers of the tavern. Up two flights of stairs they came to a small room with a narrow mattress. Placing Brandeis on the mattress, Alec bolted the door shut and pushed a chair against it as extra security.

He and Noranda laid down on the floor, separated by a small distance. Alec felt Noranda’s hand gently touch his and squeeze his fingers, seeking reassurance. “You were amazing when you were fighting in the compound. That’s not natural, is it? Is that something else you got when you were in the cave back in the Pale Mountains?”

“
You’re the only other person who really knows what it was like in the mountains, well, you and Ari,” Alec said sleepily. “My healing powers were a special gift from God when I visited John Mark’s cave. I do have ingenaire warrior powers sometimes now too, but they are something I was born with. Those powers were what I used back at your family’s compound.

“
Everything is going to work out. I just used too much energy today, trying to fight and then heal those injuries,” Alec said further. “We need to rest and hide and think for a couple of days, to come up with a plan.”

“
I remember lying on the floor with you that night in Riverside,” Noranda said a minute later, as Alec was falling asleep. “We talked about food.”

Alec felt his mind stumble to remember that night, and memories came flooding unexpectedly out. “We were in the mountains, and we talked about Stronghold. Now we’re in Stronghold and we’re talking about the mountains!”

“

Alec raised his free right hand and wiped a tear from his eye. “We’ll come up with a plan tomorrow. If this was Riverside, I’d say we were going to go meet Ari, but since it’s not, we’ll just have to do something else!” With that, he could no longer stay awake, and moments later, Noranda heard his slow, steady breathing.

The next morning Alec sensed Noranda stirring, and opened his eyes sleepily. He glimpsed Noranda sitting up next to him and he sat up abruptly.

“
Oh! Alec!” she said, hurriedly crossing her arms in front of herself. She had taken off her blouse, and only wore an undergarment.

“
What are you doing?” he asked.

“
Give me your shirt,” she replied.

“
What? Why? What am I going to wear?” he answered in complete confusion.

“
Turn around and give me your shirt,” she told him in an authoritative voice. “Then give me your pants.”

“
What are you doing?” his voice rose slightly.

“
One of us needs to go out and find out what is happening and what we can do. I’m the obvious one to go; you need to stay here and take care of Brandeis and yourself,” she explained.

“
I don’t think that wearing my clothes is going to make you that indistinguishable,” he rebutted her plan as he pulled his shirt over his head.

“
You’re going to cut my hair off before I go,” Noranda explained fully revealing her plan with a sigh.

Alec turned and stared into her eyes, oblivious to their respective states of dress. “Really?” he exclaimed.

“
Turn around. Yes, really,” she told him.

Alec handed his shirt over and stood up. “You’re not looking are you?” he asked as he unbuckled his pants.

“
Trust me,” Noranda answered. Alec laughed long and loud. “It wasn’t that funny,” she told him as she felt his arm bump into her back.

“
I just remembered the first time I told you I had my healer vision and could see through people, and you covered yourself up,” he explained with a chuckle as she took his pants.

“
Well, I didn’t know what you meant,” the girl scolded him in a defensive tone. “Nice skivvies,” she added over the sound of rustling cloth.

“
Hey, what am I going to wear?C he reached his hand behind him and futilely smacked at empty space.

“
Get Brandeis’s pants, then cut my hair,” Noranda replied. Two minutes later the unconscious Brandeis was pantless, his pants were loosely pulled up around Alec’s waist, and Alec’s pants were just as loose around Noranda as he carefully sawed away long clumps of hair with his stolen sword blade.

“
Ouch!” she said repeatedly, among other things.

Finally Alec had enough. “I didn’t take the sharpest blade back there in the dungeon. Just about three more cuts and you’ll be done,” he told her as he looked at the pile of tresses he had cut.

“
That’s it,” he said a minute later as he stepped away.

“
Well? How does it look?” Noranda said impatiently, staring at him as he stared at her.

“
Boys really don’t care how their hair looks,” he answered diplomatically. He hadn’t cut a straight line or even a level one anywhere.

“
Oh that’s just great!” she said in a slightly shrill tone.

“
Here,” Alec said, reaching for his belt and pulling a few coins from its hidden pockets. “Go to a barber shop and have it fixed while you’re out.

“
Can we go get some breakfast? I’m hungry,” he wanted to change the topic, and he was truly hungry.

“
What about Brandeis?” Noranda asked.

“
He didn’t wake up when up when I took his pants off him, so he should sleep a while more,” Alec said. He picked up Noranda’s blouse and looked at it momentarily, then pulled Brandeis’s dark shirt off him and slipped it over his own head, wishing it was cleaner.

“
Do you know what you’ll do?” he asked a few minutes later as they purchased rolls at a street stand a block away from the inn.

“
I’ll go by the compound, find a barber, get a haircut, then stand near the entry to see if I can catch someone I think I can trust,” she told him.

“
It sounds, like a good plan, but you’ll need to be careful, the guards will become suspicious if you loiter near the gate.” Alec cautioned.

“
Let me give you a shopping list of things we need,” Alec said, “you can visit the markets while you’re out as well.” He borrowed a slip of paper and a pencil from the vendor, and wrote down several herbs and ingredients he needed for Brandeis and himself, as well as some useful implements and tools he wanted to have.

“
Why do you want to have six throwing knives?” Noranda asked as she looked at the various items on the list.

“
For safety. Also, get a bandolier with those. Go to a pawn shop to get those and the extra swords. The res will be in the markets and food shops,” he answered.

“
Alec, I won’t be able to carry all this stuff. Plus it will take all day shopping, when I want to stay around the compound gate,” she protested. “And I’ll need more money.”

Alec realized she was right. “That’s true. Don’t get the swords. You can wear the bandolier and the knives, and everything else is small,” he conceded. “Let’s go back to the room and I’ll give you money. You can pay the innkeeper for the next night’s room and pay the stables for the horses’ keep as well.”

Alec bought some small snacks and fruit to take back to the room, gave Noranda her funds, and watched her leave. He lay back down on the floor, still drowsy, and fell asleep. He slept for several hours until he felt a nudge. Opening his eyes, he saw Brandeis sitting on the bed looking at him.

“
That must have been some wild night, last night Alec,” Brandeis said in a shaky voice. “But it couldn’t have been any wilder than the dream I had about Noranda coming to life, all of us going to prison, and being killed by a bunch of guards. So tell me what really happened, and why are you wearing my clothes?”

Alec looked at Brandeis and tried to use his healing vision, without success. Before he could answer though the door opened abruptly, and Noranda walked in, wearing a bandolier over Alec’s clothes and carrying bags of supplies.

“
Who’s this?” Brandeis asked without recognition.

“
Who’s this?” Noranda replied as she placed the bags on the ground and handed the bandolier to Alec.

“
Noranda? What happened to your hair? I didn’t recognize you! But if you are alive, then we must have been in prison, and I must have been killed by the guards,” he rapidly tried to work through the inexplicable circumstances as he looked down and saw the dull red scar on his belly. He looked back up at Noranda, then at Alec.

Alec handed him an apple. “Everything is pretty much as you think, except you didn’t die,” he said with a smile.

“
Your hair looks very nice, Noranda. Did you think to buy any clothes for any of us to wear?” Alec asked.

“
You didn’t ask. You wouldn’t believe what it’s like to be a boy. Well, you would, but it is so different!” she told him. She bent over and hugged Brandeis, who hesitated, then hugged back.

Alec took pity on Brandeis. “I healed you after the ambush in the courtyard yesterday. Then Noranda led us through the streets of Stronghold and brought us here to this inn, where ever this is. This morning she cut her hair, took my clothes, and went out in disguise to do a number of things.”