Chapter Five
~
I forced one foot in front of the other and repeated the process mindlessly. The sun cleared the top of the trees. I regrouped what sense I figgered I ever held, which obviously wasn’t much.
Journey couldn’t have started off any worse. Unless I’d careened off the top of that mountain, or become a dragon snack.
The bad news—blood crusted over at least a score of punctures, cuts, and scrapes. The good news if I could really consider it good news—I would survive, for the moment. The wounds were all trifles, if I considered any single one, though painful. Pray they didn’t fester. The nub of it, all together they amounted to a mighty hindrance to more than just my comfort and self-respect. They weighed upon me as heavily as any ton of stinkin’ granite.
I glared at the wooded incline before me. It meant a more challengin’ hike. How far would I have to walk before the next settlement?
One step, then another. Feet stinkin’ ached. Blisters bled. Stomach growled. Patchy stars danced across my eyes from time to time. The sun slowly arched overhead. I paused at every creek crossin’ the road to scoop handfuls of what I expected to be refreshin’ coolness into my mouth. Except the sun-hot water hittin’ my stomach only made me feel hungrier, and thirstier if that’s possible.
A wagon rounded high with goods passed me headin’ south. The man holdin’ the reins avoided eye contact. Nothin’ moved north. Though I doubted anyone would give me a ride. Don’t think I’d give a stray lookin’ like me a ride if the situation were reversed. I’m a thin’ of rags to begin with. Now covered in blood and muck, cut and bruised, one eye swollen half-shut, must be a sight.
The trees pulled away from the road. I’d been walkin’ down a modest slope. The sun hung low in the sky to my left. Had I made it through the foothills? Nestled in the trees in front of me lay another little community. This wasn’t just a cluster of a few hovels. Homes hid among the trees to the left and right. What appeared to be a central park split the road a hundred yards ahead.
I stopped a moment and took a deep breath and my head swam. I withdrew Aedwin’s handkerchief and wiped the sweat from my forehead and used the moisture to wipe a little more of the caked blood from the dent in the side of my skull. The bruise around the wound encouraged me to leave it be, and I ploughed forward, for the next—adventure, jammin’ my sole possession back into my pocket.
A woman sat on a porch behind a white-washed picket fence of the first residence. Before I even reached her gate the woman collected her ball of twine and sewin’ basket and retreated into the house. The curtains across the door’s window pulled tight.
There were few people about, though in the distance voices called out, axes worked. The distinct sounds of a smithy rang. Three doors down I crossed my next villager. The man hoed weeds in a garden that stretched the breadth of his modest but tidy home.
“Good day,” I called out to the man.
He peeked the tiniest glance before turnin’ away, and got more industrious with the hoe.
“Suppose ya could spare a tomato or somethin’?” I asked. “Haven’t eaten in over a day. Anythin’ at all would be appreciated?”
The man didn’t turn around.
“I’d be willin’ to work for food,” I tried again.
The man stood erect and walked for the back of his house.
I continued up the dusty road. Repeated the same futility three more times with the same luck, before I reached the little park. A pine, whitewashed bench sat under a generous elm. I staggered to it and sat. Spied a water pump and horse trough set thirty feet away. Hurried to it and worked the handle of the pump. Water trickled down the flume when a man in cotton pants that looked as though they had never been worked in, stepped in front of me, and I jerked.
“You have business about?” the man asked.
I opened my mouth to speak but a scratchy noise like a heel scuffin’ a stone came out. I swallowed and tried it again. “I’m searchin’ for my papa, sir.”
He wore a hammered-copper emblem pinned to his vest and I remembered the proprietor of yesterday’s inn talkin’ about a constable. Figgered I now stood in a village with such an official.
“If you’ve lost your papa,” the man said in an unfamiliar accent, “I’ll recon he don’t want to be found. We don’t have anyone about like that anyway. I suggest you keep walking.”
“I’m, I’m—” I hung my head, and took a shallow breath, before standin’ erect and meetin’ the man in the eye. “I was robbed on the road last night—”
“That happens to young men alone on the road.”
“I haven’t eaten. Spose there’s somewhere I could get a bite? I’m willin’ to work for it.”
“Don’t wish to sound cold hearted young man, but riff raff don’t bring good news to little hamlets like ours.”
“I don’t mean any—”
“So you get your drink, and I’ll walk you to the edge of town.”
“But—”
“Or I can drag you away before you get your drink.” The man shifted his weight showin’ his right hand danglin’ at his side. He held an eighteen-inch length of iron pipe.
The life seemed to ebb out of my chest. My eyes burned and a new weight dragged at my shoulders. Tried to take a deep breath, but it felt as though someone held their hand clasped over my throat.
“Can’t—can’t I at least rest for a few minutes?”
Without warnin’ the man slashed me in the chest with the end of the pipe, which bent me double in agony.
“I’m trying to be polite,” the man hissed. “Now get going or you’re gonna find more holes to plug.”
I caught a breath and the constable reached out with his free hand and took hold of my coat at the shoulder, dragged me into the road, and gave me a shove. I stumbled, dumbstruck a person could be so mean.
Two houses up, I must have been walkin’ too slowly, for the man clubbed me in the back with the pipe.
I whirled around, eyes waterin’ so badly I could hardly see. But the man pulled back his weapon menacin’ly. By the constable’s expression, he was more than willin’ to commit murder with the shaft of iron. I shook my head. The man pointed, and I continued up the road at a brisker pace, one I wouldn’t be able to maintain for long, considerin’ the way the blotches flashed across my vision.
I didn’t have to, though. The man stopped beside the last picket fence, evidently satisfied I knew I best continue on by myself.
The road edged to the right. Once hidden by the trees, I fell to my knees in the grass and lay down. My stomach turned. Everythin’ hurt.
“Maybe I should have let him kill me.”
A new jolt struck me in the chest and tears welled. I pressed my face into my bent arm and sobbed. Was everyone gonna be like those I’d met so far? How long could I go on?
I lay there a full five minutes, catchin’ my breath. When I stood, the woods wobbled around me. I trudged up the road, only to realize the sun hung over my wrong shoulder. I headed south, not north. Jolted to a stop, turned around, and forced myself to plough forward.
~
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