The Lord Son's Travels (47 page)

He
muttered her name, and the sobbing paused.
 
“Do you wish to rest a bit?” he asked awkwardly.
 
She shook her head.
 
The horse stumbled on the edge of a
sandhog hole and she cried out.
 
“You are in pain!” he exclaimed with surprise.
 
Her shoulders dropped.

“Please,”
she said, “I don’t want to stop, I just want to keep going away from this
place.
 
Don’t stop.”

“We
won’t stop now,” he agreed reluctantly.
 
“But soon.
 
We all must
rest.”
 
And so they continued until
night had fallen and they were feeling their way by the light of the
stars.
 
A fire would be too visible
so they laid out their blankets, careful to avoid the small mounds of the
desert spiders, and ate cold food straight from their saddlebags.
 
Brendan and the Student, knowing that
he had not slept the night before, insisted Adrien not take any watches that
night.
 
He complied, aware that his
exhaustion would overtake his best efforts to stay on alert.
 
He laid his blanket a protective
distance from Elenna’s.
 
She had
laid down as soon as they had made camp.
 
From her heavy even breathing he assumed she was asleep.
 
He watched her, lost in his thoughts
until his weariness overtook him.

When
he woke, it was still some time before the early desert dawn.
 
He was still on the time schedule of
the plantation, used to early morning rising.
 
He stretched and looked to his companions.
 
Brendan snored contently under his
blanket.
 
Elenna’s blanket was
unoccupied.
 
Adrien turned to the
Student, who regarded him with a shrug.

“She
wanted time alone,” he said.
 

“Not
here,” Adrien returned as he rose to his feet.
 
“Tis not safe for her here alone.”
 
He squinted, trying to make out her shadow in the faint
glare of the starlight.
 
About
fifty yards away he noted a black mark against the gray of the coming
twilight.
 
He strode off towards
it.
 
He found her sitting in the
sand, contemplating the stars above her head.
 
She acknowledged him with a glance.

“Time
to go?” she asked reluctantly.
 
He
shook his head.
 
Unasked he lowered
himself to the ground next to her.
 
She remained silent.

“You
did nothing wrong,” he said, gazing at the rising Lady Star in the East.
 
“He deserved to die.”

“I’ve
put you and Bren and this Student in danger,” she retorted. “If they find us
you’ll hang because of what I did.”
 
She paused.
 
“If I would
have just.. gone along with him you would be safe.”

Adrien
whirled around. Gently but firmly, he took her face between his hands.
 
“No!” he exclaimed furiously.
 
“I will not hear that!
 
Do you think I would have let that beast
live when I learned what he had done?
 
Would Bren?
 
He put us in
this position, not you, so put the blame on the right head.”
 
He let go of his grip.
 
She wiped furiously at her eyes with
the back of her wrist.

“Damn,
I am sick of crying!” she said bitterly.
 
He didn’t speak at first.
 
In silence she gazed at the growing rosiness of the eastern horizon, as
he searched for something to say.

“You
are a fighter, Elenna,” he said.
 
“You fought back and won.
 
And now we are free.”

“We
are,” she said, as if just realizing this for the first time.
    

“We’ll
be in Evendor in a few days,” he continued.
 
“With our friends, good meals, baths… and no mops.
 
I will make sure of that.
 
I will command that there be no mops
nor brooms visible to my Lady the whole of our visit.”
 
She giggled a little at that.
 
And leaned against his shoulder.

“Does
everything go back to the way it was?” she asked quietly.
 
He remained silent for a few minutes,
staring into the horizon at the first glimpses of rising sun.
 

"Not
everything,” he answered with sudden decisiveness.
 
He clasped her hand in his and kissed it.
 
Then the first rays of the sun reached
above the horizon, and he realized the men in the camp could see them.

“We
should return to camp,” he said, and noted the flash of disappointment in her
eyes.
 
He was solemn as he
 
followed her back to their camp and
ordered the others to pack up the mounts.

Chapter 43

They
reached the road, but kept away at a discreet distance, watching out for
brigands or pursuers.
 
Late that
afternoon the Student motioned the riders to stop, and pointed ahead.
 
“I can see the Range,” he declared with
pleasure.
 
This observation was
greeted with relief by the travelers.
 
The Lady of Evendor controlled all land within sight of the Range, which
was considered sacred ground.
 
Now
they could safely return to the road and travel openly.
 

The
student directed them to the west, where the road they had abandoned continued
on its path to the School.
 
By
evening they had reached a small village.
 
The Student went alone to inquire at the inn for news.
 
The Lady had sent her guards far and
wide to seek the missing royal and his party; a few men were still cloistered
at the inn.
 
They traveled the last
bit of the road quickly in anticipation of comfortable beds in a safe house.

Adrien
drew his dusty cloak about him and marched first into the common room of the
inn.
 
The few men in there looked
at him wearily over their cups as if they couldn’t quite grasp who this
stranger was or why he felt free to barge in with such a manner.
 
The innkeeper, informed by the Lady of Evendor's
guards that he should follow the directions of the new arrivals, followed
meekly behind Adrien as he brusquely issued orders.
 
First he insisted that the best chamber be prepared for the
Lady traveling with him, who was following behind slowly with Brendan’s
aid.
 
Several serving girls were
sent to her room to help her prepare for a good evening’s rest.
 
Adrien paused in his commands long
enough to offer her a few private soft words before she was led to her chamber,
now leaning heavily on one of the serving girls for help.
 
Next he insisted on food and drink for
his remaining companions in a private chamber, good pieces of parchment and ink,
and one of the guards to deliver a message.

Within
the private room, he ignored his friend’s questions and the delivered plates of
food to start writing the first of his messages.

“What
are you doing, Adrien?” Brendan demanded.
 
Adrien’s eyes flicked to him only for a moment’s consideration, then to
the Student's.
 

“Learn
for me how quickly a wagon could reach the School,” he ordered his former
overseer.
 
Mutely he slipped out to
pose his question to the innkeeper.
 

Brendan
pursed his lips.
 
“You have some
kind of plan,” he declared to his friend, and was still ignored.
 
Adrien continued his writing.

“We
can be in Evendor in two days via wagon, Lord Son,” the student confirmed at
his return.

“You
and Lord Brendan will take Elenna to the School and deliver this,” Adrien
announced.
 
He folded up the first
message and handed it to Brendan, who immediately unfolded and read it.
 

Then
Brendan turned to his friend with lips pursed.
 
“No, I will not deliver this.”
 
He held his ground, as Adrien rose to his feet to challenge
him.
 
“No, I will not have our few
troops come here to fight a useless battle.
 
Not with the war we have ahead of us.
 
And I surely will not leave you to
fight alone.”
 
The Student excused
himself politely; unheard by either man.

“I
will not leave those people,” Adrien stately flatly.
 
“I need only a few of our men; we can take the plantation
easily.
 
The freed slaves can help
free the rest of the town. Then the well.”

“Adrien,
this isn’t your land…”

“No,
it belongs to the Lord of the Southlands now,” Adrien agreed.
 
“But he’ll lose it soon enough.
 
Elenna says that well is important;
that is reason enough for me to take it from his hands.”
 
Brendan then heard the description of
their find.
 
He didn’t understand
what it was or what it meant, but it made sense to take it away from
Southland’s control if possible.
 
But that didn’t mean he would be willing to leave his friend behind
alone for the battle.
 

“But
let Elenna and I remain here with you,” he urged.
 
“She is in no condition to travel yet, and I can help
you.”
 
Adrien agreed
reluctantly.
 
He finished printing
a second message to Tarien and gave it to his friend to pass on.
 
Brendan carried the messages to the
common room, and ordered the captain of the guards to have the notes delivered
to Evendor.
 

Outside
their private room, a commotion had started when the local men realized who the
stranger was that had commandeered the inn.
 
Since the battle of Titaine, rumors had spread throughout
the afflicted lands that the wayward Allè-dônian was leading a resistance to
the invasions; his old habits of anonymity had paid off when no one was able to
produce a drawing or description of appearance.
 
The people of the town were quite shocked to find a hero in
their midst.
 
Crowds assembled in
the common room for the chance to see the famous Lord Son in person.
 
Adrien took a moment to quickly down a
fast glass of drink and a bite of bread, then continued on with his work.
 
He strode into the common room and
loudly announced his plan to free the slaves still held on the plantation and in
town.
 

The
local men were flabbergasted; they each had family members or friends that had
been captured by the traders in the past.
 
No one else had ever dared to talk about rescuing these lost souls; they
had their ideas what power was behind the men who ruled those places.
 
They jabbered amongst themselves for a
time, watching the fiercely focused eyes of the foreign royal who waited
patiently in the corner for their response.
 
He had never bothered to remove his tattered dirty cloak
since his arrival; they could see fresh bloods stains on it from some unknown
source.
 
Underneath he still wore
the clothes from his own servitude on the farm.
 
None of them ever thought they would ever see a battle; they
were simple farmers and smiths themselves, and they certainly never thought
they would follow a stranger, but within the hour they each had solemnly
promised to recruit more men to join the fight when the Allè-dônian was ready
to lead them.
 

Satisfied,
Adrien could now go upstairs.
 
To
avoid comment he had arranged for a chamber of his own, but he passed by it
without pause on the way to Elenna's chamber.
 
He assured himself she was sleeping soundly after cautiously
navigating the unfamiliar room in the darkness.
 
After he pulled off his outer layers and boots he slid under
the covers on his usual side of the bed.
 
Without waking she shifted to her favorite sleeping position of the last
few weeks; head tucked into the crook of his shoulder and arm wrapped tightly
around his chest.
 
He kissed her
softly in her hair and smiled as she murmured a greeting, and fell rapidly into
deep sleep himself.

It
took three days for a contingent of Allè-dônian soldiers to arrive from Evendor
to greet their leader.
 
Adrien used
that time to plan for the coming assault on the plantation.
 
The morning after their arrival, Elenna
joined the other men for breakfast, pretending for his sake she had not seen
Adrien since the previous evening.
 
He caught her up on the plans of the night before in the most general
terms he could use without being accused of sugarcoating his agenda.
 
Elenna was insistent she was ready to
help with his plans.
 
She didn’t
speak about the events that precipitated their escape, but of his companions,
she was the most loudly supportive of his plans to release the other
slaves.
 
He absolutely refused to
allow her to return to the plantation, and held his ground against her
resulting protests.
 
He had her
explain how best to disable the well; he didn’t want it destroyed, hoping that
one day the thing would be as useful to the free lands as it was for
Southlands.
 
Brendan worried about
the time they were losing in the bigger battle; while they had been held as
slaves other kingdoms in the East-lands had fallen to attack from Southland’s
armies; it appeared that only Allè-dôn and Roden still stood firm.
 
Adrien refused to think of that yet; he
would only talk about his current plan.

 
A message arrived from the Lady of Evendor
the day before the soldiers; it was pleasantly neutral, issuing a tepid welcome
to Adrien and his companions.
 

Adrien
greeted the soldiers and their supplies as they arrived, accepted the cheers
that rose at the sight of their missing leader.
 
He quickly set them to training the willing townsmen who
were now camped out around the town, waiting for the battle to begin.
 
Rumors came that the plantation now ran
under control of the dead overseer’s wife, who offered substantial awards for
her husband’s killer.
 
Adrien was
told this at breakfast; when he turned to Elenna her eyes gleamed briefly in
triumph.
 
This gave him even more
reason to refuse her entreaties to go with him.
 
She never discussed what had happened before he found her;
he didn’t ask during their private times together.
 
He did assign, without telling her, an Allè-dônian guard to
keep her safe from anyone interested in earning the reward.
 

The
troops marched off the next day; by the time they were all assembled, several
hundred men were ready to free their countrymen and reclaim the land.
 
Adrien and the ex-overseer rode at the
head; he was eager to help his former slave in the revolt.
 
Their leadership and overwhelming
numbers easily overcame the minimal resistance put up by the plantation.
 
As soon as the soldiers came into view,
the few remaining of the overseer’s loyal men surrendered.
 
Adrien let the townsmen take control of
the plantation and the care of the freed slaves.
 
He ordered his troops to follow him to the well.
 
It was abandoned.
 
The screeching of metal on metal had
stopped; the tower that had stood there was already destroyed.
 
Southland’s few men stationed there
were gone.
 
Adrien nodded, silently
complimenting the leadership on their good sense in leaving nothing for him to
gain.

 
The town had liberated itself during
this time, so now he could with a clean conscience return to the inn and take
up his other duties.
 
But before he
could depart, the citizens of the village insisted on hosting a celebration of
their freedom from the tyranny of the slaveholders.
 
Adrien agreed to remain in the village for a few short hours
as the featured guest of the festivities.
 
He gathered up the Allè-dônian soldiers and departed before the hanging
ceremony of the Lady of the House and her few remaining compatriots.
 
He returned to the inn with his troops;
glad to leave that desert land for the last time.