Chapter 9 SnakeIn
I’m young. I’m used to adults interfering, but most of the grownups dislike the Magi’s meddling in our personal relationships. They think that if two of us love each other, why is it the Magi’s place to discourage it? I was sad, though, when the Magi took two of my siblings away and we never saw them again. My mother still grieves. – Prince Eater #34
Three Hundred Sixty Years Earlier — SnakeIn
King Indulf and the elderly Beathas Most Revered rode at the head of Indulf’s soldiers determined to rid the land of the criminals thriving in SnakeIn and annex the city’s scientific advances for themselves. Privately, Indulf admitted to his younger brother and his closest advisers that he also wanted to put an end to his disgraced suns-brother, Malcolm, continually causing trouble as First Contingent of the city’s governing body the Contingent. When Indulf called up to demand that the city surrender, both the Contingent and the Armed Watch leaned between the battlements and laughed heartily.
“Do not ride or walk across the drawbridge, Indulf, or it will destroy you,” First Contingent Malcolm shouted.
Indulf snorted and started to raise one arm, but Beathas put one hand out and said, “Let him finish speaking. Otherwise, you’ll look weak, too afraid to hear him out.”
The king pulled his arm close to his chest before lowering it so that no one would mistake his gesture for a command. He tipped his chin up and looked at the First Contingent.
“You are my flesh and blood, Indulf,” Malcolm shouted more loudly. “We were carried in our mother’s womb together and born at the same time. The late King Noah was father to us both. I beg you not to attack the city.”
King Indulf snorted in amusement. Beside him, the corners of Beathas’ mouth turned up and she dipped her forehead to Indulf. When he acknowledged her approval, she straightened in her saddle and kicked the sides of her horse roughly to torment it forward. Indulf grinned affectionately at her show of audacity despite her grandmotherly appearance, and then pushed his mount to ride after her. He caught up easily, and the pair rode onto the drawbridge as equals. Halfway across it, the planks of the bridge snapped upward, bent around them, and sealed shut. Their horses screeched. The king and the mage yelled, swore, and bellowed until the planks closed tightly enough to silence them.
The Kings Soldiers charged to their rescue as soon as the first planks of the drawbridge folded upward. Those with crossbows shot over the parapet or between the iron bars of windows and the portcullis. Sizzling arcs of Holy Lightning charred their bolts to ash. Some soldiers abandoned their horses to dive into the river slithering around the circumference of SnakeIn, intending to swim to the far bank and scale the walls. The river churned violently, simmered, and then boiled fish, soldiers, and crustaceans alive.
What remained of the Kings Soldiers surrounded late King Indulf’s younger brother, and on his authority, boldly retreated to Hilltown as rapidly as their horses could gallop.
Present Day — SnakeIn
As the renegade city came into view, Alec’s anxiety soared. The ominous stone walls wore centuries of grime. The iron gate was slammed to keep out the night, and Armed Watchers huddled in twos and threes, talking, laughing, and surreptitiously imbibing. To the left of the forbidding portcullis, flames encircled a metal cage displaying the ancient, withered body of King Indulf preserved for eternity in a tar-like substance produced from the sticky sap of the aurrato candelabra tree. To the right was a matching cage containing the similarly withered body of Beathas Most Revered.
He was surprised when SnakeIn’s Armed Watch not only recognized Prince Jon and Alec but hailed them forward and opened the drawbridge in welcome. As soon as the Commander of the Armed Watch, Padraig MacGavin, saw how severely Jon was injured, he sent Watcher Owen Lynch racing for a healer and Watcher Ned Logan to ask the innkeeper to prepare them a room.
As Padraig led Alec and Jon across the drawbridge, Alec couldn’t help but glance down uneasily several times to see if the wood might move. Noticing Alec’s nervousness, Padraig’s hazel green eyes crinkled, and he cried out suddenly, “Look out!”
When Alec jerked in alarm, Padraig roared with laughter. The wood did not move. The portcullis remained open to them, and the street winding away from the gate was wide and well-lit.
“I almost dropped Jon,” Alec complained as he squinted at the stocky, red-haired commander, and then tried to hide his emotions behind a soldierly face.
“I’m sorry,” Padraig apologized as he continued to chuckle. In front of them, a monument loomed skyward from a small, grassy park in the center of the roadway where travelers entering SnakeIn for the first time would be certain to see it. The statues depicted four scientists in their long white lab coats standing with their backs together and their gazes turned outward in four directions. Around their feet were broken rods and a portion of the outer structure of a spacecraft. Padraig waved at the monument and said, “The Four Glorious! These are the scientists who stayed behind when the Earth’s military forced the others to leave. They laid the intellectual foundation of our city, and of course, created the hungry drawbridge you were suspicious of. And, by the way, it is entirely done manually; there isn’t so much as an ounce of magic involved. Some poor souls have to remain by the gate until the last moment, jeopardizing their lives, to activate the controls. One of the big differences between us and the kingdom is that we honored our scientists instead of blowing them to pieces. We still honor them every day of the year.”
Padraig chuckled again, and then, seeing the continued unease in Alec’s face, bit down the rest of his laughter, and explained, “Unlike New East Anglia, we were never a prison colony. Nor privately owned. People who came to the kingdom did so of their own accord: scientists, adventurers, pioneers, entrepreneurs, people who escaped from the prison colonies, or convicts who had served their time only to discover that the Courts which sentenced them allowed no funding for any of the convicts to get home. Unless they somehow found the capital to line the officers’ purses, Earth’s military refused to transport them back to Earth. Whatever their reasons, they made the choice to come to Midhe Nuae and start a new life. And the freest of them came here to Midhe Thiar.”
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Alec half-listened as he shifted Jon’s weight, and asked, “He seems to be fading fast here. How far away are we?”
“We’re here,” Padraig reassured him with a gesture toward the building immediately ahead of them.
The Exiled Soldier was more brightly lit than anything else on the street. The walls of the inn were all freshly whitewashed. The windows’ black shutters were newly painted, and the front door boasted a cheerful coat of red paint. The innkeeper, Craig Docherty, stood on the front steps, his dreadlocks tied back professionally, his alert brown eyes scanning the road for any sign of his guests. When they appeared, the innkeeper and his two sons hurried to assist Jon down from Alec’s horse.
“I’ll bring him,” Alec said anxiously.
“Let me help you get him down from the horse,” Craig Docherty responded. “I’ll be very careful, and hand him right back to you.” To his eldest son, he added, “Rory, bring the gentleman’s baggage upstairs.”
“Still, I —” Alex began to protest, and then stopped himself as he realized that Craig was right. He handed Jon to him and was relieved to see how gently Craig held his battered friend.
“Callen, stand aside so that the gentleman can reach his friend,” the innkeeper instructed the younger of his sons when Alec reached out to take Jon back. “Please take his and Commander MacGavin’s horses around to the stables.”
“Yes, sir,” Callen answered. As soon as Alec held Jon securely, the boy led their mounts to the stables behind the inn, while Craig showed Alec and Jon to a small attic chamber four flights above the street.
“Hold on,” Craig directed when they entered the room. “Let me move the bed so the healer can get all the way around it.”
Once the bed was repositioned, he assisted Alec with laying Jon on the one bed, retrieved a wooden chair from a corner of the room to place it beside the head of the bed, and then focused on setting wood in the fireplace and lighting a fire.
“Thank you,” Alec said gratefully. “That’s a good idea. The warmth will be uncomfortable to us, but Jon needs it.”
The healer and an assistant came within minutes of their own arrival. When Alec held out his hand, the healer shook his head and said, “I don’t shake hands. Germs, you know.” When Alec looked puzzled, the healer smiled and explained, “I’m Healer Callahan. You’re kingdom, aren’t you? Germs are on everything and can make us sick, especially someone who’s poorly already. Like your friend.”
Alec nodded his acceptance of what to him was new information as the innkeeper’s wife entered carrying a lamp in each hand and towels thrown over her arms.
“Thank you, Kenzie,” Craig Docherty said as he took the lamps and set them so there would be additional light on Jon, while his wife put the towels on a small table near the bed. Their oldest boy came through the door carrying two buckets of fresh water which he set near the fire. He hurried out, and then returned almost immediately with more clean towels and another blanket. The younger son followed him, carrying a bottle of whiskey and glasses which he placed on the fireplace mantle. The innkeeper’s wife and two sons left silently, but Craig Docherty remained, standing as unobtrusively as he could in the small room, in case the healer needed him. The oldest son returned with the rest of Alec’s belongings and then joined his father ready to be of use.
Alec helped Healer Callahan remove his jacket from around Jon and then set it near his bags and their weapons while the healer’s assistant attached parchment to a board. He watched in fascination as Callahan examined Jon meticulously and made comments to his assistant who compiled notes and sketched images of the wounds. When Callahan unwrapped the broken arm and leg, the assistant made sketches of the broken section of each, and then set down the board and washed his hands in one of the water buckets. The assistant held Jon’s limbs immobile, with occasional assistance from Craig or Alec, while Healer Callahan bound or stitched each cut.
When Callahan began assessing Jon’s arm again, Craig hurried downstairs and returned with two husky patrons from the inn’s pub. At the healer’s nod, each of the patrons, Craig and Rory held Jon still. Alec knelt beside the bed so he could speak gently to Jon while he held his head immobile.
When the healer set the break, Jon screamed and wildly searched the faces of everyone around him, eventually settling his gaze on Alec before he passed out.
“Quickly, let’s try to get his leg set while he’s out,” Callahan advised as he painted a gooey substance around Jon’s arm. “This cast will prevent movement while the break heals. We’ll remove it in six to seven dimmings.”
He moved down the side of the bed and analyzed Jon’s leg more closely. At his nod, Craig resumed his hold on Jon’s good arm and shoulder while the others adjusted their positions so they could keep Jon still while Healer Callahan set the bones in Jon’s leg and then painted on a cast while he was still unconscious.
Afterward, while Alec thanked the two patrons profusely, Craig’s son poured each of the patrons a bit of whiskey. The two men generously dismissed Alec’s gratitude by insisting that anyone would do the same, downed the liquor without hesitation, then left. Alec took a clean, empty glass from the mantle, lifted the bottle to pour a bit of whiskey for himself, and then placed them back on the mantel as he shook his head.
“Rory, before I start closing up this cheek, would you run and ask Seamster McSwiney to come at once,” Callahan asked. “He’ll do a better job of stitching and that will reduce the scarring. In the meantime, I’ll see to repairing the damage on the inside of this poor man’s mouth.”
McSwiney was known throughout the country for his delicate embroidery stitches. Rory and the seamster returned within a few minutes. McSwiney washed his hands thoroughly and soon healer and seamster sat with their heads bent side by side as they sutured the laceration in Jon’s face with the tiniest stitches they could manage.
Through the small window in the attic room, the rosy glow of First Sun poured into the room as it dawned. Alec tipped his head to one side as he considered his options. He realized that the repairs to Jon’s face would be slow going and that he was underfoot rather than helpful. He looked again at the whiskey, and then scanned the entire room, before nodding decisively.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Alec told the others in the room as he collected Jon’s sword and crossbow, his own weapons, and then gathered up Jon’s torn, bloody clothes. He strode down to the stable where he discovered Padraig MacGavin and SnakeIn’s Armed Watch waiting for him.
“Been thinking you’d be here any time now,” Padraig greeted him. He waved an encompassing hand at the other members of the Watch. “We’re going with you. Everyone here is interested in helping with what you’re about to do.”
With that, they mounted and rode with him back to the edge of Midhe Thiar to an area close to where he had found Jon.
©2022 Vera S. Scott