chapter six
The Freemen
Rats scampered away as Alex squatted down in front of the secret hatch in the wall. Warm lamplight illuminated his soaked tunic and the fletches of the arrow pointing up behind his collar.
Dark hair clung to his brow and the back of his neck as he kept his back straight and his chin up as if trying to balance plates on his head. His whole body trembled. How the shot didn't just kill him, she would never know.
A man inside sucked air through his teeth, the sound carrying out into the canal. “Alex, man. That looks really bad."
A bald Freeman reached out to help him and Alex grabbed his hand, leaning on the man as he hobbled through the hatch. Ayla poked her head through, keeping them in sight. The Freeman escorted Alex farther back into the lamp-lit underground room.
She ducked down to follow them in, but a man with chin-length blonde hair stepped in front of the hatch, hand on a dagger in his sash. He rested one palm on the low ceiling. His fair eyebrows lowered as he leaned over her, hair dangling in his eyes. The sharp reek of moonshine wafted toward her as he spoke.
“Who’re you? Where’d you get that tunic?”
She could ask him the same question. He wore a tunic identical to Ayla's, black with navy trim. She reached her hand down the front of her wet collar. His hand dropped to the dagger, a warning on his rugged face. Ayla paused. She held his gaze as she lifted the hoop medallion by the chain for his inspection.
“I’m Ayla, Daughter of The Goddess of the Night.”
Ayla tried not to smile. She had a title.
His eyes meandered away from her face, down to her chest, then back up to her face. He blinked slowly at her and she could practically see the gears turning in his head.
“What?”
Alex’s strained voice cut in from the other side of the room. “Let her in, Max.”
Max stepped out of the way, one hand still on his dagger. Ayla pointedly ignored him, stepped into the room and looked around. The ceiling, walls, and corners were all rounded and uneven like someone dug the room out by hand, and it contained six long wooden tables, three on the left and three to the right, with Alex laying on the second. The bald Freeman stood over him between the table and one of the polished benches. A dozen or more oil lamps and sconces burned low, some on wide shelves recessed into the walls. They provided ample light and burned away some of the smell and damp. At least one of them contained sage, to further combat the stench. It was, after all, still a sewer. At the other end of the short aisle, a closed wooden door hid another room.
Ayla walked the few steps down the aisle and stood in front of Alex’s table. The injured Freeman’s face dripped sweat. He looked at his bald friend through the corner of his eye. The bald one pointed at the wood door, then pantomimed sipping a drink with his eyes crossed.
Alex brought two shaking fingers up to his wounded temple, then closed his eyes. “Go get it.”
The bald Freeman turned and tipped an imaginary hat at Ayla. She turned to Max for a translation.
Max stood behind her in the aisle between the long tables, arms folded. “He said, excuse me.”
Ayla moved and the bald Freeman sidestepped out from between the pew and table. He hurried to the back of the wide room and pushed open the warped plank door to another lamp lit room beyond.
Ayla stepped between the bench and Alex on his wounded side. A mix of sewer water and blood flowed down the cracks of the table to the floor. The arrow had pierced straight down, just inside the collar of his navy tunic. His dark brown eyes stared at a single point above. The arrow scratch over his temple bled through the dirty hair that was stuck to it.
“It’s deep,” she said.
Alex laid his good arm over his eyes. He swallowed and let out a slow breath. She could tell that every movement hurt.
“I’m aware."
The lamp above his head shone on the medallion dangling over his chest. She took Alex’s good hand in hers.
“Did you hear what I told Max?”
“No.”
“My name is Ayla, I am the daughter of The Goddess of the Night.”
He eyed her from underneath his arm but said nothing.
Ayla cleared her throat. “Thank you for saving me, Alex.”
Footsteps came up the aisle. Max stood over her shoulder, watching. Max had a strong, scruffy jawline, and brown eyes like Alex’s, only lighter. He kept a palm on the ceiling as he leaned in to look at Alex’s wound.
“You look like shit,” he said.
The bald Freeman came back and stood at the foot of the table. He held a cask like the one Alex dropped in the field. He tucked it under one arm and tipped his imaginary hat in Ayla’s direction.
Ayla turned to Max. "Can't he talk?"
"Not without a tongue, and he wants you to move."
He sighed and tipped his imaginary hat again.
Alex spoke with his arm still over his face. “His name’s Blabbermouth.”
Ayla didn't think the name was very nice, or all that clever for a man with no tongue. She hesitated to use the name, but couldn't think of anything politer.
“Give me a minute Blabbermouth, please?”
He held up one finger, then folded his arms over the cask and waited in the aisle.
Ayla gave him a warm smile. “Thank you.”
Blabbermouth tapped his foot on the floor.
Ayla made a cup under her chin. This time, she knew what to ask for.
“Mother, bringer of rest and succor, your daughter is in need, and begs humbly, for her to heal this man’s wound.”
Ayla opened her eyes. The wound remained the same. Alex uncovered his eyes too and checked. His muscles went rigid from the pain of moving his head. He spat and slapped one foot down on the table.
Impatient fingers snapped behind her. Ayla didn’t look up. Her new Mother told Ayla she could heal in her name, but they ran out of time before she could explain.
“I'm sorry. It’s my first time. I know she can heal you. She healed me. I was dying and she -” Ayla blinked and shifted her attention to Blabbermouth. “Get me some water.”
Max dropped his hand from the cobblestone ceiling and hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “You’re done. It’s his turn.”
Blabbermouth held up one finger, then cut a line in the air with his hand. Your one minute’s over, it said.
“Fine.” Ayla stood. She pushed between Max and Blabbermouth, forcing each of them to lean on a table to make way. “Where’s your water?”
Blabbermouth ignored her and uncorked the cask as he knelt in front of Alex. Max pointed at the wood door.
“In there.”
He put his palm on the ceiling again and watched Blabbermouth go to work. Ayla made her way down the center aisle and crinkled her nose. The lamps burned away the smell of sewer from the room, but not her hair and clothes. The constant stench turned her empty stomach. She swept away the strands of hair sticking to the bridge of her nose. She wanted nothing more than to take off the tunic.
The squat door swung inward, and Ayla descended the few stairs to another rectangular, well-lit room. More oil sconces, two for each wall, flickered as the air pressure changed. The ceiling here in the sleeping quarters was tall enough to accommodate a line of bunk beds. They sat with their heads butted up against the far wall, tunics laying over some of the footboards. Clothes and boots littered the floor. It smelled like someone had stored onions and dirty underwear in a hotbox.
She considered donning one of the discarded tunics but decided to wait and ask first. Next to her by the front door, a barrel with a spigot on the bottom stood atop a rickety chair, dripping water onto the floor.
Alex screamed in the other room and Ayla jumped. On the other side of the barrel sat a rusted bowl. He screamed again, weaker this time, as she filled it with brown tinted water from the spigot. She picked it up and sloshed water onto the floor as she hustled back to the dining room. Max had his hands over his face as Blabberm
outh grabbed the arrow and pulled. Alex hollered - a miserable choking sound.
Ayla made her way down the aisle, noticing as she did, the same symbol as on her medallion carved in relief on the back of each bench. She sidestepped between the bench and table, opposite Blabbermouth’s work. He shooed her away with a short, tense flick of his hand. Ayla turned and rested the bowl on the back of the long bench.
Max took a step toward her and she gave him a warning look. He stopped, watching as she cupped her hands and bowed her head to pray over the water.
“Mother, bringer of rest and succor, your daughter is in need, and begs humbly, for Her to heal this Freeman.”
Ayla opened her eyes. The water within sparkled a clear, cornflower blue and effervesced for a moment before settling. The aroma of scented oils wafted from it. She lifted it with both hands.
Max backed up, his light brown eyes wide. Ayla couldn't read his expression, but she couldn’t care less. She turned back to Alex with the bowl, water shining with pale blue light.
Blabbermouth did a double take, his confusion causing him to let go of the arrow and stand up straight. Blood flowed from the wound onto the floor. The projectile had come out a few inches, but now Alex’s face had lost all color. The pungent smell of the moonshine Blabbermouth used to clean the area overpowered all others.
Ayla’s eyes watered from the fumes, but she was grateful for the relief from the stench of her own tunic. She poured the water over his shoulder in a steady stream, as the Goddess had done for her. The arrow blackened, withered, and curled as if the water was fire. The lines of pain in Alex’s face smoothed and he let out a long sigh. When the last drops of water passed over his shoulder, the bleeding stopped and the remains of the arrow turned to ash. He lifted his arm off the pew, sat up, and stared at Ayla in disbelief as he rotated his mended shoulder.
Max spoke up from behind her. “Bullshit.”
Blabbermouth stared at Alex’s shoulder. He took the bowl from Ayla and sprinkled the last few drops into his palm. He lifted it to his nose, then tasted it. His eyes opened wide as he handed it back to Ayla.
She smiled at him. “It’s the smell of the Goddess’ breath.”
Alex rotated his arm as he got to his feet in his soaked, now partially cleaned tunic. He put his hand on her shoulder. “I don't know how to thank you,” he said.
“Do you have any food?”
Alex grinned at her. “We’re a bit low, but I have some bread.”
“That sounds great,” Ayla said, and Alex caught Blabbermouth’s attention.
“Grab my bread for the Priestess.”
Blabbermouth rolled his eyes but got up to fetch it. Ayla held up a hand, signaling him to wait.
“I’ll get it. I need more water anyway. Where’s the bread?”
Blabbermouth pointed to his feet, patted his chest, and then turned an invisible key in the air.
Ayla grinned, pleased with herself for getting it. “A foot chest?”
Blabbermouth nodded, his bald head shiny with sweat. He made an “L” with his fingers and then held up two more fingers in his other hand.
Second one on the left, it said.
Max sat at the table closest to the secret entrance and put the bowl down. He swept his hair out of his face and scooted closer to the wall.
“Not to spoil the moment, but we need to talk.”
Ayla left them to it. They needed to discuss what happened outside now that Alex felt better, and she needed to wash and eat. She reached and took the bowl from the other table, and then sidestepped back to the aisle.
Ayla walked to the sleeping quarters, unable to stand her own stink. She pushed it open and turned to the barrel. The men spoke in hushed tones until Alex raised his voice for her benefit.
“Someone was in my hiding spot, and I got caught.”
Ayla shook her head as she held the bowl under the spigot. It filled slowly, as the voices returned to normal volume. Halfway done filling up, Max yelled.
“You came in the front? Dammit! Did anyone see you?”
Alex muttered something back.
She topped off the bowl, wondering if he told the truth so she would know what not to say. Though spotted or not, she could not imagine anyone finding the secret entrance. Even if they did, no minotaur could fit in those tunnels anyhow.
Ayla prayed over the water and carried it to a far corner, away from the beds. She poured the sweet, luminous water over her head. The wound on her back healed, and the smell from her hair and tunic was rinsed away. She sighed with relief and moved to the second trunk on the left. The bread was stale, smelled like a dirty sock, and was positively delicious.
Max yelled again. “They’ll get into the crypt from upstairs, you idiot!”
Ayla came back out of the room, curiosity piqued. They sat at the table next to the blood-soaked one. Alex had removed his cloak and sat wearing a tunic like the others, with his arms resting along the back of the bench. Max and Blabbermouth sat together, opposite him at the table.
“All they know is that we used the drain to get in the city,” Alex said and waved Ayla over without looking. “The crypt’s been hidden for two hundred years. We’re safe. You’re missing the point of what’s happened here.”
Max folded his arms. “And that is?”
Blabbermouth signed and then pantomimed pulling an arrow out of his own shoulder. Ayla didn’t catch every word, but she got the gist. She sat next to Alex with the bowl of water and the bread.
Max spared her a glance. “I figured we would wait till the kids were in bed before we talked about that.”
“Are you afraid of me?” she asked around the bite of bread she was chewing. “You looked scared when I healed Alex.”
Blabbermouth signed, faster than before, not giving Ayla a chance to guess what the gestures meant. He gave her a furtive glance, then waited for Alex’s response.
Alex scowled at him. “They can’t heal wounds.”
Max signed his response slower than Blabbermouth, but still fast enough that she couldn’t follow any of it.
Ayla slammed her bread down on the table making everyone but Alex jump. She stood and glared at the side of Alex’s head. “What did they say about me?”
He didn’t look at her. “Blabbermouth thinks you’re a witch and Max thinks we should find out if anyone is looking for a lost slave.”
“I’m not a witch, I’m a Priestess, and no one is looking for me here. I came here because the Goddess herself told me the Freemen would help me.”
Max folded his arms and turned in the bench to lean against the stone wall. “The last time the Freemen helped a priestess was a hundred years ago. Know what happened to them?”
Ayla shook her head and swallowed. She didn’t, and wasn’t sure she wanted to.
“They were all burned at the stake,” Max said.
Ayla’s gaze dropped to the bowl of water on the table.
Burned alive; her stomach turned cold at the thought. Her throat tightened, turning her voice into a whisper. “The light has many guardians.”
Max scoffed. “They’re called minotaurs, and you probably led them straight to us.”
Minotaurs didn’t burn slaves – not to Ayla’s knowledge – but she understood why a Priestess of The Dark Queen might burn at the stake. There was no darkness within a flame, no place for the Goddess to come and comfort her.
Alex stretched and rotated his renewed shoulder. “If no one’s found either entrance to the crypt in a hundred years, they’re not about to now.”
“If this is a crypt, what’s upstairs?” Ayla asked.
Alex broke off a small piece of the bread in Ayla’s hands for himself. “Storage room along the inner wall. Across the main road from the Smith. The entrance is through there,” Alex lifted his chin in the direction of the back wall. “With what’s left of the men who were buried here.” Another door, shorter than the one to the sleeping quarters, stood obscured by the two tables against it. “There’s some stairs t
o a trap door buried under tons of who-knows-what.” He bit into his piece of bread.
Ayla looked up at the low ceiling. “It’s a temple.”
Max followed her eyes up to the cobblestones glowing in the lamplight. “How do you know?”
“For one, the tunics. You pulled them off of the bodies in there, right?”
“We aren’t the first ones to do it,” Max said.
“They’re priests,” Ayla explained and pinched the short sleeve of her wet tunic. “Priests wore these before the fall of the empire. And the benches came from a temple just like the one where I met the Goddess.”
Blabbermouth shrugged. So?
“How long has it been a storage room?”
Blabbermouth pressed his lips into a firm line and turned his palms up. No idea.
She fixed her attention on Max. “Did the last priestess find it? The temple, I mean.”
“What does it matter?”
“Temples are places of the Goddess’ power. She said that when Tor destroyed her temples, it weakened her – or something like that.”
Alex reached under the table. Bloodstained cloak in hand, he stood and sidestepped his way past Ayla to the center aisle. “We’ll talk about getting you up there tomorrow. Let’s get some rest.”
“We still need lamp oil and moonshine,” Max said.
Alex slapped Blabbermouth on the shoulder as he headed for the bunk room. “You can handle that, right?”
Blabbermouth flipped him off, and then waved as he spread his fingers. Screw you. The sun’s up.
Alex laughed. “Then it can wait till I get up. Unless you want to do it, Max.”
Ayla followed Alex down the center aisle, with Max behind her.
“No,” Max said, “I was up waiting for you all night. I need to get some sleep.”
When Alex reached the door, he turned to face her. “Pick a bunk, or sleep out here. Your call.”
He pushed the door open to the sleeping quarters and Ayla headed for one of the unused bottom bunks without blankets. Max went to one on the opposite side and stripped off his tunic. Ayla waited for him to turn around, but he didn't. He dropped the tunic to the floor. Smiling at Ayla, naked, he winked.
He meant to embarrass her and succeeded. Ayla’s cheeks flushed, even as she glared at him. In retaliation, she stripped off her own tunic and dropped it to the uneven floor in a wet heap. The only thing Ayla wore was her hoop snake medallion, boots, and a challenging gaze.
Max’s jaw fell open, and his cheeks turned pink under his long blonde bowl-cut. Ayla knew men found her attractive. She never had a shortage of interested boys, and even kissed one in the fields once. Though, after her mother died, she lost all interest in romance.
Alex laughed and tossed her a new one, then turned around before stripping down. His wet tunic slopped to the floor, revealing a crosshatch of whip scars on his sinewy back. She averted her eyes, put on the new tunic, and sat in the bed with her back to the headboard.
Alex turned back around with a blanket. He handed it to her as he ducked under the top bunk and sat on the bottom corner of her bed.
Max scoffed, incredulous. “What? You going to tell her a bedtime story?”
Alex leaned toward Ayla with a smile that did a poor job of hiding the irony in his voice. “Once upon a time, Max woke up dead. Everyone was happy. The end.”
Blabbermouth sputtered and snorted in the other room, laughing.
Ayla liked Alex’s wit, too, and matched his tone. “Great story Alex. What’s it called?”
“Well, Priestess, it’s called…” Alex stared at Max with a sardonic smile. “Max Finally Learns Respect.” He turned back to Ayla. “By Alex Freeman.”
If Ayla had any previous question about who led the Freemen, she didn't anymore. She held her breath, stifling a laugh.
Max covered himself and mumbled under his breath.
Alex put a hand on her foot. “I just wanted to say thank you for saving my life.” He lifted one eyebrow. “Even if it was your fault I got shot in the first place.” He patted her on the foot and stood up.
She shook her head as she laid down. “I wasn't the one who got caught.”
Alex laughed as he went to the far wall, over by Max, and blew out one of the sconces, then the other. The room filled with the scent of oily smoke.
Too warm for a blanket, she kicked it down to the foot of the bed. Her body sank into the plush mattress and a sigh escaped her lips. She’d never slept on cotton before. With a full stomach, almost nothing could spoil a night’s sleep on this bed.
Almost.
She rolled on her side to face Max. Alex walked around the room and blew out the lights, one at a time. Ayla held up her hand and asked him to stop, leaving only one lamp still lit by the front door. She fixed on Max.
“Max?”
He kept his hands folded behind his head as he lay naked on top of his blanket.
“Yeah?”
“The last male to touch me was a minotaur. I drowned him in his own blood.”
Alex stood by the door and looked at Max with a raised eyebrow. Max rolled over, muttering.
Ayla gave him her back, as well, and closed her eyes. “Goodnight, Alex”
Alex left the one lamp lit. His bed creaked. “Goodnight, Priestess.”
She held the snake medallion in her hand and whispered a prayer for Deetra, thinking about their parting hug and the way Deetra touched her lips after Ayla kissed them.
She would never again meet someone so brave, or have another friend like Deetra. She ended the prayer without a request, leaving it to the Goddess, as the bed carried her off to sleep.