“Do you think I acquired the fever to heat the cool of the night?” I asked sarcastically. “The illness came out of nothing, as though sent by the dark gods. Perhaps you would do well to question them on the matter.”
“A fever such as yours does not appear from nothing,” he snorted, unsatisfied with my answer. “It may have come about as a result of the wound, yet I do not believe this the case. That you were filthy when I found you I can well understand, yet you were wet to the skin as well. What caused that?”
“I was thrown into a stream,” I muttered, wishing I didn’t have to admit it. “A beast of the forest frightened my vair, and it pitched me headlong into the water. The vair was male and stupid.”
Fallan ignored my half-hearted attempt at insult and frowned in thought, looking down at his knees, then brought his gaze back up.
“This stream,” he mused. “Was it one from which your vair was willing to drink?”
I didn’t know what he was getting at, but instead of snapping an answer I stopped to think about it, remembering how the vair had stood with his head high in the air and his nostrils flaring. I’d thought at the time that he smelled an enemy, but he just might have been getting something from the water that I couldn’t detect. Fallan was watching me closely, and when I shook my head he nodded with another snort.
“Just as I suspected,” he congratulated himself. “The stream you stopped at must have been visited first by barbarians. They know of ways to foul a stream for days, and do so in the hopes of catching the unwary. Had you drunk from the stream rather than bathed in it, you would surely be dead by now. Undoubtedly you were infected through your wound-it was badly inflamed when I first looked upon it.
This should teach you that the woods are no place for a female alone.”
He was looking so damned smug and superior that I felt like loosening his teeth. He was probably right about the barbarians having gotten to the water, but I couldn’t very well call him on the part he’d missed. I had drunk the water, but if I admitted it I’d also have to come up with a reason why I wasn’t dead. It looked like the base inoculations had been good for something after all, but I could hardly cite them as the reason for my continued existence.
Fallan sat straighter in the chair again and reached for the earthenware pitcher, then poured what looked like water into a battered metal cup that also stood on the small table. The sight and sound of that water made me immediately aware of how thick and furry my tongue was, overcoming the weakness that made me want to do nothing more than just lie still. Fallan saw me struggling to sit up so I could get at the water, and moved closer to put an arm under my shoulders to hold my head up. I took the cup with both hands, still needing the mercenary’s free hand to steady it, and tried to drown myself in it all at once.
“Slowly,” Fallan cautioned, not letting the cup tilt as far as I wanted it to. “You may have the water, but you must drink it slowly.
It is far colder than it would be at an inn, for I drew it myself from a well just a few moments ago.”
The water was cold, fresh and cold and gloriously satisfying. I could feel it rolling all the way down to my stomach, tracing a cool path through the heat of my body. Even Fallan’s arm and hand felt cool through the nightshirt, and I knew the water would help my body fight off the fever. I finished all of it, down to the last sparkling drop, and didn’t pick up on Fallan’s comment until he had lowered me to the pillow again.
“I remember now,” I said, pushing more of the blanket off me. “We had to leave the inn. But if we could not remain there, where are we now?”
Fallan took the blanket I’d pushed away and resettled it over me, then got to his feet.
“We are now in a Paldovar Village,” he informed me. “I had little choice, yet perhaps it will prove to be for the best.”
He turned and walked out of the room then, but I barely noticed it.
His use of the phrase, “Paldovar Village” had triggered all sorts of informational memories from Bellna, and although she accepted the location without as much as an eye-blink, to me it was pure revelation.
Paldovar Villages were spread out all over the area and were easy to get to, but usually were never found closer to one another than twenty-five or thirty miles. Just’ as inns and woodsmen’s houses were places for travelers to stay, Paldovar Villages always had some number of empty houses which were for the use of temporary visitors, but the difference between the Villages and the other two places of rest had nothing to do with price. Inns had paid guards to insure the safety of their guests, woodsmen’s houses had the woodsman himself and the men of his family, but Paldovar Villages had nothing comparable and didn’t need it. In Paldovar Village, no one could harm anyone else!
I moved the blanket down again and squirmed around a little, trying to see all of the possibilities. I knew from Bellna’s memories that it was possible to house blood enemies next door to one another in one of those villages, and each of the parties concerned would leave just as healthy as they’d come, but no one knew how they did it. The Paldovar couldn’t be “questioned” in their own villages, but a few of them had been grabbed now and then when they left the vicinity of their village. Interest and curiosity had been intense, conscience and mercy nonexistent, but the Paldovar had proven themselves willing to die rather than speak a single word about how they managed their tricks. It had become an accepted fact on Tildor, no one who stayed in a Paldovar Village would be hurt, and no one had tried to find out why in a surprising number of years. I could finally understand why Dameron and his people were so frantic about the big secret, and why they refused to discuss it with strangers.
I had just enough time for a few brief thoughts on my current whereabouts before Fallan came back, carrying another metal cup. He was moving more carefully than he usually did, as though the cup held something spillable, and a horrible smell came in with him. I narrowed my eyes at the cup, suddenly remembering the battery acid he’d forced down my throat the night before, and he glanced up from putting the cup on the small table and grinned at my expression.
“As the fever is still with you, you will require further of this herb mixture,” he announced pleasantly. “You will continue to have it till the fever is gone.”
He was getting a big kick out of the thought of pouring that stuff down my throat again, but I wasn’t about to sit still for a sadist.
“I shall require nothing of the sort,” I answered as firmly as you can answer while flat on your back. “I have no desire for peasantish concoctions, nor do I have the need for them. Those of my family are well known for their powers of recuperation without so-called medication.”
The speech would have gone over better if I’d been on my feet, but I didn’t think it was as comical as Fallan took it. His grin turned wider as he chuckled his amusement, and his head shook back and forth as he folded his arms across his chest.
“You are indeed amusing, Missy,” he chuckled, “indeed amusing.
Despite the ‘recuperative powers’ of your family, there is little difference between peasant girl and princess. Each must be put to bed with a fever, and each must have the fever tended. Should either, in her illness, refuse to do that which is necessary, she must be made to obey. Princess or peasant, Missy, you shall obey me.”
I don’t always find it necessary to rise to a challenge, but there are times when nothing else will do. Sick or not, I growled low in my throat and tried to claw my way to a sitting position, but Fallan wasn’t asleep. He jumped for me as soon as I began moving, and forced me down flat again with no effort whatsoever. I squirmed and fought as my arms were pushed under me and held down by the weight of his body and mine, but it was wasted effort. Bellna was mewling and trying to get me to bring him closer and somehow arouse him, and that was all I needed: someone else to fight. When I ignored her she began raving, but when I saw Fallan’s hand reaching for the cup of battery acid, I did some raving of my own.
“You misbegotten lowlife!” I screamed, tossing my head back and forth. “Had I my sword in my hand your blood would be upon the ground where it belongs!”
“Then I am fortunate that you have no sword,” he murmured, carefully moving the cup closer. “Will you drink or must I do the thing myself?”’
At that point in time I would have died rather than give him the least amount of cooperation, but he didn’t need my cooperation. When it became obvious even to him that I wasn’t going to be drinking that swill on my own, he held my nose and waited until lack of air forced my mouth open, then began pouring the mixture down my throat. Amid choking and coughing I tried spitting it out again, but he was wise to that trick and held my jaw shut until I absolutely had to swallow.
He emptied that damned cup to the very last drop before letting go of me, and by then it was too late. Wrapped in nausea, flattened and battered, I didn’t even stay conscious long enough to see him leave the room.
The next time the mists rolled out it was daylight again, but a late-afternoon daylight. I moved around on the ancient linen, stretching my muscles and testing them, then decided to see what sort of shape I was in. Sitting up wasn’t impossible, but my hand still shook when I reached for the metal cup on the little table to see if there was any water in it. The cup turned out to be half full, so I drained it without spilling too much in my lap, then took a good look around at the room.
The door to the other room was to the left of the bed I sat in and it was closed, leaving no way of telling whether or not Fallan was around. Since I heard nothing, there was a chance that he might have gone out. To the right of the bed, against the wall, stood a large wooden wardrobe, as old and as scratched as the small table directly next to the bed, but as beautifully carved as the one I’d seen in Prince Havro’s lodge. The window, uncurtained and overbright with the sun’s last efforts, was directly opposite the bed, and the carved, straight-backed chair had been returned to its place in front of it.
Aside from these few things and the bed I was in, the room was totally bare.
As I looked around my mind was working, and it didn’t take long to come to a decision. I’d bee n on my way to pick-up when the fever had hit, and there was no reason not to take up where I’d left off.
Granted I wasn’t feeling any too steady, and my strength seemed to have drained out of my toenails, but I’d continued on in worse shape in my life. I threw the old blanket into a heap and swung my legs over the side of the bed, then waited a minute for the dizziness to go away. The fever was almost completely gone, the wound in my side was barely more than tender, and if I ignored the weakness I should be able to do what had to be done. When the room settled down I put my feet on the hare wooden floor and stood up, wavered a little, then decided to hold onto the bed for support. My ears were ringing faintly and Bellna was getting upset, but I still managed to walk to the foot of the bed without falling all over my own feet. Once there I took a deep breath and straightened up, then ran my fingers through my knotted hair. It wouldn’t be a snap but I would make it, and as soon as darkness fell my trail would be obscured. The next step was finding out if my clothes were anywhere around.
I had just let go of the footboard of the bed and had taken step or two toward the wardrobe on the far side of the bed when the door behind me swung open. Fallan started into the room with his usual broad stride, but stopped short and stared when he saw me standing in the middle of the room. He looked tired, as though he’d been working hard at something, and I cursed under my breath and wished he’d kept at it a little while longer.
“You are awake sooner than I-” he began, obviously surprised at seeing me, and then he realized just where he was seeing me. “And you have left the bed. With whose permission did you leave that bed?”
“With my own permission,” I answered, ignoring the growing annoyance in his eyes. “I dislike this place and shall now leave it. You, of course, may stay as long as you wish.”
“How kind and generous of you.” he nodded, folding his arms as he stared down at me. “And where, may I ask, do you think to go?”
“You may not ask,” I retorted, looking up to meet his eyes. “What destination I have in mind is none of your concern. And you need no longer waste your valuable time on me, Captain. You will receive no reward for the doing, nor even recognition. I do not return from whence I came.”
A statement which, I hoped, was a lie. I’d come from Dameron’s base and I wanted to get back there, but I was quickly running out of strength. My knees were vibrating when I turned away from Fallan toward the wardrobe, but his hand came to my shoulder before I could move toward it.
“You believe I care for you for no other reason than reward or recognition?” he asked, his tone unexpectedly quiet. “Is it not possible that I merely care for one who is in need of such care?”
“It may perhaps be possible.” I shrugged too tired to wonder why he wasn’t feeling insulted. “After my recent experiences with the men of this area, however, I prefer to disbelieve the possibility. And I prefer, as well, to continue on alone. The presence of one of the male persuasion makes me uneasy.”
“An understandable attitude,” he said, still sounding unreasonably reasonable, still holding my shoulder. “You, however, must understand a thing as well. Though I am a man and therefore suspect in your eyes, you must continue to remain with me till you are well. At that time I will see you safely to wherever you wish to go. Is it agreed?”
Oh, sure, all the way back to base. Dameron would just love that, and I’d be guaranteed first prize in any unusual souvenirs contest they might have.
“No, it is not agreed,” I said, turning back to look at him and knocking his hand from my shoulder. “I do not wish to remain here and I shall not. I do not care to have your company upon my Journey, and I shall not have it. Is it so supremely difficult for you to understand that I wish to be alone?”
I wasn’t feeling too well and was therefore in a lousy mood, but Fallan didn’t come up with the fight I was looking for. Anger flashed briefly in his eyes when I knocked his hand away, but by the time I asked my question the anger was gone.