Leah wakes up in the morning to Meredith knocking at her door and telling her that she has to come down for breakfast. “Don’t expect to be served breakfast in bed; you’re not an invalid, or a Lady,” she calls through the door.
Leah dresses herself hastily in something similar to what she wore the night before, but a different shade of brown, and slightly warmer. Meredith leads the way, and Leah tries to memorise it. The stone passages are decorated with tapestries, the doorways with carved wood lintels, and she takes note of the most distinctive ones.
The serving woman from the night before is there during the breakfast course. Leah avoids eye contact, and so does the woman. Fare is basic, but generous; porridge with dried fruits and ground almonds. Tasting it, she thinks there might be lemon zest. To her shock and delight, there is coffee – watered down a bit, but black and delicious.
For the first few minutes the group is quiet, talking only about the food and the weather. Finally Kain tentatively asks if she has remembered anything. Leah says no, and they begin to grill her on details.
“Do you remember going to Seffon’s castle?”
“Do you remember the contract to serve Valerin?”
“Do you remember the Gael’s Gree campaign?”
“Do you remember the caravan job?”
“Do you remember the cursed forests?”
“Do you remember when we first met?”
“Do you remember your homeland?”
The questions come from all sides, in increasingly desperate tones, and Leah feels distress bubble up in her chest from where she had been keeping it pushed down; she had half-hoped last night that she would wake up in her bed at home, but instead had found herself still stuck in this other world. At first she had hoped that it was just the new stage of the dream, but this was all getting a little too mundane to pass for a dream. Still, she doesn’t question it out loud. Best not to tell them I have memories of a different life; that would bother them too much, she thinks. Also I might get burned for being a witch.
The questioning doesn’t stop, though, so she finally speaks up. “Please stop asking me if I remember things. It’s stressful.” People listen and obey, though sadly. As compromise, and to help herself survive in this world, Leah adds: “How about instead, you tell me stories about my life, to see if I remember anything?”
Her apparent comrades look between each other, and Meredith elects to go first, telling of how they met her early on in their team’s history.
“You were a jouster, a pretend-knight in a travelling group that entertained at faires,” the redhead says. “You did choreographed combat, and usually played the villain of the piece. It was a sort of combination of athletic and theatrical performance. The four of us visited the faire by coincidence, while we were trying to make a name for ourselves as a team, and we thought you fought well.”
“I thought you were a better performer than a fighter,” Iris says with a grin. “But when you’re travelling it’s good to have someone entertaining to keep your spirits up.”
“What, you don’t like my stories?” Vivitha asks, mock-hurt.
“Moving on,” Meredith says, rolling her eyes. “We decided to catch you after the show and offer you work. You didn’t seem very motivated by the idea of adventuring, and were comfortable where you were, but finally you were moved by the romanticism behind it, I think – doing good for others, exploring the nations of the Gulf, that sappy stuff. You said you were an actual fighter at times as well, not just a pretend one. So you agreed to join the team, once your contract with the travelling group had expired; but when we looked at your contract, we found that it was full of unfair clauses and secret rules, which you…” Meredith shrugs. “Well, you weren’t exactly literate, so you hadn’t noticed. You were, in essence, an indentured performer. We argued with your manager until we successfully bullied him out of abiding by the unjust contract, and you were free to travel with us. And that’s been our life for the past…three years? Just a little under.”
Leah is shocked to learn she is apparently illiterate. “I couldn’t read? At all? Is that…common?” Can I now? If I read something now will they get suspicious?
The group seems uncomfortable, and finally Iris breaks. “Gods avow, people, she was alright with us saying it before, why are we being delicate now? Leah’s never been the brightest flame.”
Leah takes note of this, and remembers some previous comments. “Oh,” she says, and immediately Vivitha and Kain gang up on Iris in telling her how rude she was. The serving woman is listening, and seems upset by this conversation. Leah notices out of the corner of her eye, and cuts in. “I’m not insulted, if that’s how I was when you met me then it’s okay for you to say it.”
“Even so,” Meredith says, with a scolding tone. “You shouldn’t be teasing her after her experience. We should be supporting her, and helping her get back to fighting-fit.”
“What experience, exactly? I was captured, right?” Leah asks. The casual chatter of the group very suddenly dries up, shoulders tensing all around, and she catches on quickly. “Anyway. Do we have a name? Our team?”
Meredith looks up in confusion. “No?”
“Oh.”
“Why should we?”
“I just thought maybe we – ”
“See, you’re getting better! I knew it!” Iris declares, taking her hand and squeezing it. “We were discussing, just a few days before you were taken, how we ought to have a proper title for our team, so people wouldn’t just refer to us as ‘the five.’”
Meredith mutters something about ‘the five’ being a perfectly acceptable group name, and Leah rushes to agree, that the five was exactly the sort of thing she was wondering about.
With breakfast over, Meredith takes Leah aside while the others go out into the courtyard for practice. Leah follows her nervously, wondering if the grilling is going to recommence. Instead, Meredith takes the time to reassure her, talking with authority but also kindness. “I know that you need time to recover, but it’s important you do so soon. You have responsibilities that cannot be left unattended; Seffon is still in power in his region, and you technically are the reason why the five are in Valerin right now at all.”
“Why? What responsibilities?” Leah asks, quietly.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Meredith rocks her head from side to side, apparently thinking how to phrase it. “We’ve all got different skills, in the group, and you’re our defensive fighter. That’s sort of your reputation; defender, stoic, strong…”
“Dumb,” Leah puts in, and Meredith winces but does not contradict.
“You’re a classic choice for a personal guard, and often the five end up going along wherever you’re hired – you or Kain, I guess; a thief with a conscience is a rare asset. Anyway. For now, the Valerids have hired you as the guard of Lady Jeno Auzzo, for the duration of her family’s stay in Valerin. We were only supposed to attack Seffon after the Auzzos had left, but circumstances forced us to make an attack four days ago, during which you were captured. Your being held for three days has left the political situation very delicate, and the sooner you can prove you are still yourself, the sooner the tension in the city will dissipate.”
Leah drinks this in, memorising it. “Okay, how can I do that?”
Meredith gestures to the training court. “Keep up appearances. If anyone asks about your captivity, tell them you were unconscious for the whole thing.”
“Is that the truth?”
“You tell me.” Meredith gives her a piercing glance. “If you feel the need to rest people will understand, but it will also give them time to talk and come up with their own theories.”
“So we need to come up with our own theories?”
“We need to come up with answers.”
“Is that possible? I mean, without asking Seffon for an explanation of what he did to me?”
Meredith is silent. “Wellen may know something. He is certainly the only person in Valerin with knowledge of magic.”
Leah makes a mental note to see if she can find a definition of magic somewhere. Are we talking about herbs and potions, telescopes and bacteria, or dragons and witches? “Okay,” she finally says. “I’ll at least sit in on this practice, for the first hour, even if I think I’ll pass on actually participating. After that I’ll look for this Wellen person.”
This seems to satisfy Meredith, who cheerfully leads her out through the passage the rest of the five had taken – cheerfully, but now Leah can spot the hints of facade, of trying to make passersby believe that everything is back to normal. If only. She mimics the confident attitude of the redhead, hoping it doesn’t come across as plastic and forced.
The training ground is to the north of the main courtyard, with gardens of various sorts to the south, and an open space in the middle. Leah sits on a bench towards the northern tip, soaking in the morning sun as the spring air slowly warms, and watches the five train.
Vivitha is on the edge of the field, firing at targets from behind cover, some being carried like tower shields by nervous stable-hands to provide a challenge. She squints as she aims, expression cold and focused, but breaking into a wide grin anytime she gets an exceptionally good shot. Kain and Iris are duelling with short-swords, wearing only minimal armour, aiming more to disarm than to wound as far as Leah can tell while observing. Meredith is practicing switching from two hands to one hand with a sword, fighting primarily left-handed though occasionally trying to lead with the right, struggling through it when she does.
“I use a spear,” Leah says, when Iris comes to sit beside her and take some water.
Iris looks delighted. “That’s right. Well, short-spear technically, but close enough. Did you remember that?” She asks this hopefully.
“I remember there being one when I was riding my horse…Beeswax? When we were coming back to…Valerin,” Leah says, remembering the feeling of the shield bouncing against her hip, the spear rattling in its holder.
“Yes,” Iris says, fixing her hair tie.
“And a small knife.”
“Dagger,” Iris corrects.
Leah nods. “A shield?”
Iris laughs. “Your personal battering ram, yes.” Leah asks for clarification, and Iris describes happily how Leah will raise the round wooden shield to her shoulder and rush their enemies, clearing a path and bowling over any who don’t duck out of the way, slashing the tendons of any who trip trying to avoid her.
Leah thinks she sounds pretty badass, but says nothing.
Iris goes back to the field. She and Meredith spar for a change of pace, and Kain switches over to some knot-work. Curious about this markedly non-violent practice, Leah sits with her to see what she is doing. The bronzed rogue shows her some knots for trapping game, and Leah takes a spare piece of line and fiddles with it while she watches, without thinking. After a minute she looks at her hands and sees a complicated knot.
I didn’t learn this in Guides. Looks tidy, though, not like a random thing. She leans over and nudges Kain's shoulder. “It’s not as nice as some of yours,” she says, showing off the knot, and Kain’s eyes light up. “Oh? Is it something special?”
“It’s a knot I use for fishing hooks,” she says, smiling and taking the knot from Leah’s hands. “I’d been trying to teach you that one, in the days before the…well.” Kain thumps her on the head in a friendly way. “Glad to see you were actually paying attention.”
Far from being glad, Leah takes the string back and stares at it. How could I know this knot, if I’ve never lived this life before? Is it something I could have learned somewhere else? When was the last time dad took me fishing…Christ, must have been at least a decade.
Kain misinterprets Leah’s quiet distress. “Other things will come back to you eventually. For now, it’s best you rest some more,” she says reassuringly.
“Right. Meredith said someone called Wellen might be able to help?” Leah says, and Kain points the way.
After asking directions a few times, she eventually makes it to Wellen’s home on foot, about half an hour out of the estate, on the southern riverside edge of the mainland city. It stands out from the rest of the buildings by its eclectic garden, and the free-standing metal spires surrounding it on wood pillars. Lightning rods? A fence? Decoration? Leah can’t figure it out. She approaches the door, then notices a man kneeling over the garden, and walks up to him instead, clearing her throat. “Hello?”
The man stands and turns, brown eyes lighting with recognition in a round brown face. He’s an older man, tight curls gone salt-and-pepper, bookish and friendly-looking. “Leah! You’re looking well, better than any of us hoped.” He reaches out a hand to shake, and Leah gives hers. “Why are you here on foot? You should have ridden in.”
Leah shrugs in response; she isn’t sure she’d recognise Beeswax if she saw her again. “Good to be back, Wellen,” she says it casually, but with a bit of uncertainty; the man does not correct her on the name, and she is relieved to have gotten it right. “I was hoping we could talk?”
Wellen leads her into the house, the front room of which immediately answers her magic question: there are herbs drying in the rafters, books on the shelves, a large iron cauldron on the hearth, and bits of animal bones scattered around the counters. Magic must mean botany and biology, something between a medicine-man and a dark-ages scientist. I wonder what his standing is? Is he wise man, shaman, wizard, crazy old coot, shunned genius?
He clears a space at the table for them to sit, and offers her water. “I’d be interested to hear your explanation of what happened since you entered Seffon’s keep. If it’s not too difficult to talk about, of course; I understand if you need time to readjust.”
Leah hesitates. “That’s why I’m here. I seem to have…lost my memory. I can’t remember anything from before the rescue.”
He readily accepts this. “A common side-effect of compulsion magic, I’m not terribly surprised. Although, losing so much…” He rubs his chin in thought.
She wonders if this is like roofies, and suddenly gets worried. “Compulsion? I don’t really know…” She frowns, taking a sip of the water. “Start from the beginning. What is Seffon known for? Why is he our enemy, and what might he have wanted with me?”
“Child, I’m sure he wouldn’t have kept you alive for three days if he was eventually going to kill you.” Wellen says it reassuringly, but it just makes Leah more worried. “What is more likely is that he was trying to put a mind-influencing spell on you; one that the rescue mission interrupted before completion, hence your current disoriented state.”
Leah looks around the workshop for familiar drugs; marijuana, perhaps, or mushrooms, or a syringe. She sees nothing familiar, though the plants look common enough, grasses and twigs and such.
Wellen is curious to see her curiosity. “What are you looking for?”
“I’m just trying to see if anything is familiar here, to get an idea for…” The level of technology I’m dealing with in this world, she thinks to herself, but can’t find a way to phrase it that doesn’t sound suspect or infantilising.
“Oh? You’ve always held…rather a bit of disdain for my work, in the past.”
“Did I? Why?”
Wellen evades the question, brushing it away with a hand. “I suppose you thought it was a lot of nose-in-a-book nonsense.” He veers off into discussing possible treatments for her condition, and Leah leaves at noon with a cloth bag full of herbs and powdered salamander, and instructions to brew it as a tea; she knows she will not, but wonders how to avoid the fate. I’ll just not tell anyone he gave it to me, and get rid of it somehow.