Part 4
Soft smooth rays showered down through the crevice in the study ceiling, but Gwendoline did not fawn over its glowing glory. Her thought lay elsewhere, in the many books that waited for her. These had now become her days, reading in the study. Gwendoline detected a short burst of happiness as they told Floraline of the new arrangement. She simply brought the Dreamer to that place each morning and Jabari came for her mid to late in the day to take her across the SlipSwamp to practice with her knife.
Much practice had strengthened her grasp, aligned her form and quickened her blow. Jabari had set up straw men for her along the edge of the swamp as she improved because he would not be her pin cushion as her aim became true. He fashioned a sturdy sheath that she latched at her wrist and she practiced bringing the blade to her grip before meeting her mark. Its existence would be a secret between them alone.
She beheld amazement in Jabari’s eyes each time she laid upon the straw man a mortal wound. She witnessed validation and perhaps happiness for her as she developed confidence in her strike. He did not have to say it. Around her he could keep his words few as he spoke to her perhaps the way nature intended. She saw all that she needed to see though her Dreamer eyes.
Still she dreamed of freedom from this place. Of escape. Of being rescued. Of her knight with his wind filled blond. He would be riding upon a fine white horse. She had seen the image so many times in her dreams, in her woken thoughts.
She looked to Jabari with his black hair cut straight at the brow line, his gentle yet awkward little grin which grew on her more each day. Brave knights can come in many varieties. She thought it for only a moment then she put it from her mind.
She lifted her eyes to see that darkness had fully transformed the forest. She could only make out large trunks and shuttering leaves in the light of the twin sisters moon. The shadows upon the forest reminded her of the night she had arrived here. Although, in the darkness she could not see, but she knew, that the new bud growth had faded into the sharp, dark greens of hot season. Now as a cool wind rushed across her, she became aware that harvest would soon be upon them. Nearly two seasons had she spent in this place, now harvest was upon them which would be followed by cold season’s chill. Harvest might as well be skipped all together, with her family so far away. She would not dance at the parties, nor eat the fine dessert, not even open harvest day gifts. Hot season would melt into cold if she had to spend harvest in this place. But maybe mother would visit her for Harvest Day. What greater gift could she hope for as her sixteenth harvest drew near?
The next day, Gwendoline tried to focus on her reading. Her thoughts drifted home. To the pink- washed buttresses and high stone towers, hill after hill painted in pink and yellow and blue. With Harvest Day only a week away her focus could only be home.
When the Healer’s son arrived late in the morning, she thought she must have dreamed the day away, but she felt something inside him as he rounded that corner, something uncertain as if he did not know whether to be joyful or cry. As thoughts and intent raced through him, she tried in vain to grab onto any one, and he could do no better.
“A cantor has come in,” he exclaimed.
“What’s a cantor?” A look of bewilderment met her brow.
“It’s a bird.” Jabari spoke simply as if expecting the Dreamer before him to glean the rest from her Dreamer power. But she could not. Where on a normal day she might see a trickle in him, today a waterfall overwhelmed him, and her no less.
“I’ve seen many birds. They are lovely, but birds do not invoke this response.”
Jabari pulled a bit of dried meat from his pocket, took a quick bite and then proceeded to chew and chew.
“Is something wrong?” Gwendoline had to pull it out of him. He would have to just say it. As he bombarded her with his shifting mood, her head began to ache.
He answered her question. “I don’t know. When a cantor comes in, the message is rarely good.”
“A cantor is like a messenger bird then. Should you not retrieve the message? Why have you come for me?”
Jabari shifted the calm. “Because the message is from the Province of Flannigan.”
Gwendoline’s eyes went wide before she patted Jabari on the back. “It’s probably from Mother, saying she misses me and will be here to visit on Harvest Day. Why do you assume the worst? Not all messages are tiding of ill happening. Messages can also be good.”
“I hope you are right.” Jabari said simply, but she knew that they were only words. “The messenger will be waiting at the far end of the SlipSwamp. My father and Grenal go out to meet him now.”
“Then take me to them.” Gwendoline would tolerate no delay.
“I don’t know if i…” Jabari started but did not have to finish.
“Of Course, you should. Flannigan is my province. Any message from there will be for me.”
“As you wish.” Jabari spoke softly, as Gwendoline calmed some straying stands upon her head then placed her hat upon it, shifting it so slightly to one side.
The trip across the swamp she made in half the usual time, she only slowed as she saw the Healer Anselo looking at her from across the swamp. He lifted an outstretched hand, signaling to his son that he must take her back to the Jagged. But Gwendoline would not go back. As a hand met her shoulder, she twisted away. Then she ran across the swamp, toward the Healer Anselo and Grenal and a man in a forest cloak. The swamp creaked and moaned, and the soft ground and shallow waters tried to tangle her step.
She heard that commanding voice that she had heard in the arena that day as the fighter’s cleared the room. “Don’t stop running. Don’t fall.” It commanded her. The voice was not that of Anselo. The voice rose up behind her. Jabari’s voice rose behind her, where before he had tried to stop her now he commanded her not to stop as she splashed across pools and around prickly bushes. What sense did that make? It did not matter. No one could make her stop, not Jabari, not Anselo, not the swamp itself. She had to get to the messenger. She had to know what she saw in Anselo’s face, what she saw running through him, great sadness, why, for himself, no. The sadness she sensed was for her.
Her foot at last met solid ground. Jabari ran up but one step behind her.
She saw the essence of intent rising in the Healer Anselo before he could frame the words. “I’m sorry, Gwendoline, Flannigan as you knew it is no more.”
Questions shaped Gwendoline’s face, then she realized that she would have to speak them to receive any reply. “What happened?”
“Tobias.”
Gwendoline thought of the couple she had heard declaring his great deeds in the market. “Why do I care about a High Counselor of a foreign land? What has happened in Flannigan?”
The Healer Anselo placed an arm around her shoulders. “Raskiny marched on Flannigan seven days past. Within four it had fallen.”
“We must go to them.” Gwendoline looked up into Anselo’s eyes.
“It’s three day’s ride. It’s already done,” he replied
“I don’t believe you.” Gwendoline screamed. He lied.
The Healer Anselo pulled her closer in an embrace that said he might not let her go. “Look into me, Dreamer. Look into this man here. You know we speak the truth.”
Gwendoline’s head shook wildly. A brightly colored brimmed hat flung upon the ground, then she pulled away from his grasp, twisting against his weakness just as Jabari had shown her. She just skirted the messenger as he too reached out for her. The messenger’s horse waited there. Throwing a foot to the stirrup, she swung her body over and then grabbing the reins she pulled the beast around, past them and called it to full gallop.
Jabari lifted a hand to stop her, before his father pulled his hand down to his side. The Healer Anselo spoke, “We never could have kept that one here. She just did not belong. Her heart lies in Flannigan. She’ll only be happy there. Let her go.” Anselo threw a comforting arm across the messenger’s shoulders. “Come, Fred. Let’s have drink then I sh
all see about getting you a new horse.”
Fred nodded.
Gwendoline bounded through the forest. Her heart knew the way, across hills, past rivers, until the hills of Flannigan came into view. It would still be a day’s journey from here, for Flannigan spread across many hills and valleys and lakes. Gwendoline could see why Tobias would wish this land to be his, but this was her land not his. She could never let him have it. As the pink-washed buttresses rose up before her she saw once white towers sooted and still smoking and only then could she believed that truth had passed Anselo’s lips. But that did not mean that she would not find her mother, her uncle safe still.
She called the steed to leap through the gates as she found them unbarred. The place seemed a graveyard after all the mourners had left. A horrific smell wrinkled her nose. Bloated bodies lined the pathway that led to the castle proper. Again she found the tall oak doors opened to the world. Perhaps they had escaped into the night, left the castle behind. She could imagine the sadness they would feel at leaving this place, but at least they would have each other.
Even more bodies rotted in the foyer, as if her Uncle had let the townsfolk in to protect them or protect himself perhaps. But even sturdy stone had been no protection. She dismounted, before walking with great haste up a flight of stairs, around the fallen dead four possibly five days. She had to get to her mother’s room. She would leave her a sign, she had no doubt, a sign of where she and her brother, Gwendoline’s uncle had fled. She met the landing, and walked two doors down. Gladness consumed her for the smell did not linger in greatness as she left the stairwell behind. She walked two doors down and turned a corner, to find an empty room, but the bed lay all in disarray, with pillows and blankets strewn across the marble floor. Now where would her mother leave a message for her? In her jewelry box, no, besides it lay toppled and emptied upon the dresser. In her armoire, perhaps, but it would be quite a search as wood lay scattered and broken intermingled with fine scarves and skirts. Where might a place be?
She rounded the bed and her heart sank. A woman lay there face down with a fine red dress ripped and barely covering her beaten body. Her skin once a soft smooth tone now fell across her shoulders, back and legs in purples, blacks and blues and sometimes red. Gwendoline fell down beside her and put an arm around her. Her body felt warm to the touch though it held no life in it. She had not died with the others. She had lived several days as they beat and tormented her. If Gwendoline had just arrived a few hours sooner, she might have found her still with the living. Gwendoline could only regret. She should have been here with them. She should have died too.
As she lay there a slight glimmer under the bed caught her eye. Light from a tall window danced across marble and reflected across gold. Gwendoline rose from her mother’s side and reached past the bed’s strong wooden edge to grab it. Her fingers just reached the round of it, when hands met her feet. A strong grip dragged her out from what might have been her hiding place. She turned to meet the man’s eyes. She did not know him. Why had she not felt someone here? She did not know. Then she thought of the warmth of her mother’s body. Of Course someone was here. A few had to remain to clear out the dead.
He pulled her to him with firm grip on her ankles, out to the end of the bed. She beheld his intent for her. Terror shaped her features. She struggled against his strength. He lacked none as he forced her knees apart.
She screamed. Nothing more she could do. He laid a massive hand across her throat. Consciousness seeped slowly from her, but she still held awareness enough to see inside him. She could see the darkness there, his plan for her. And this frightened her even more that his hands upon her, across her thigh, upon her throat. Her throat. Remembrance flashed through her. She had a knife. But with the man already upon her, had she missed her chance? Lessons learned encumbered her mind. As soon as she revealed the blade, she would have to strike. The strike would have to be a mortal wound. She would get no second chance. His eyes diverted but for a moment and she saw her chance. With a flick of the wrist a blade met the air. It tripped across her fingers with grace yet speed unmatched. She saw her moment and drove the blade straight into the man’s neck before he could so much as flinch. She pulled the blade free and red rained across her face. She pushed the man to the side before he could fall.
She rose, drawing up a fallen blanket to clear her sight. She let the offending iron clink to stone slab. Then she felt them, three maybe more distinct sensations she received but like intent. She lifted her eyes, to see three men standing there, looking upon her, upon what she had done. She crouched as one reached out to her, drew up her knife, held in out. Quick jabs met the air, daring them to approach her. This dare they would accept. As she thrust a hand met her wrist. He stepped up behind her, twisting her arm across her back. She let her blade again clack to cold stone as she fought his grasp. Helplessness met her in that place. Why had she come here? What had possessed her to think this a safe place?
Then she felt it. She could feel him before she could see him. She smiled as his name met her lips. “Jabari.”
He crashed into the room, with no sword in hand, only a shift of his wrist and two men flew back against the wall. The sounds of at least a dozen shattering bones met her ears. They did not rise.
Only the man who held her remained.
“Unhand her.” Jabari spoke again in that voice that did not sound like his own.
The man laughed. “Your tricks will not work on me, Warlock. You do not want to see this one hurt.” The man’s grip upon her grew tighter. “How easily I can snap her little neck.”
Jabari stood there a moment looking at her, and she observed his movement before his blade met the air. A short sword slid from beneath his cloak, before with quickness that eyes cannot behold, he bolted up behind her capturer and drove it through his right kidney. Gwendoline felt his strike even before the blade had been revealed. She twisted her lower body to the left as the blade came through the other side. She could be glad that his actions always met his intent. She had known exactly which way to shift her hips and he knew that she knew.
The man released her as Jabari pulled the blade free. The man staggered back, before he stumbled and fell. Jabari, extended his blade to the man’s throat. He had no choice. He drove it through with regret shaping his features.
Gwendoline fell again across her mother. She only wished to die beside her as it should have been had she not been sent away. She felt someone tugging at her sleeve, then her waist, pulling her away. “We cannot stay here. More will come. Tobias did not take Castle Flannigan just to abandon it.”
“I can’t leave her, Bari. I can’t.”
“She’ll have a proper funeral, Gwendoline. I promise you. But you can’t stay with the dead. You are the living.”
Gwendoline sighed, before reaching under the bed to grab the ruby ring that she had given to her mother. It lay cold across her palm. Fingers curled around it as Jabari drew up her mother’s body. She turned away from them at his command though he said not a word. He did not want Gwendoline to see her mother’s face. She could not imagine why but the force with which she felt him, she could only look away.
The flowered hills of Flannigan had faded to a robust green, as Gwendoline and Jabari stood there before the funeral pyre. Two coppers Jabari placed upon the eyes of the departed before he again covered her face and they bid her safe passage across the river. Flame billowed up into the air; smoke mingled with graying clouds.
She had nothing left, no home to which she might hope to one day return. Loneliness embraced her. She could only cry into Jabari’s shoulder as he held her there.
“We will be your family, Gwendoline.” He spoke with words. “You will never be alone.”
She lifted her head to see the deep brown of his eyes. The knight she had dreamed of stood before her. “Yes.” She said to his unspoken question.
He leaned into her. She met his lips.
Storm clouds rolled in over the hills castin
g shadows and light across their shape, one upon the hillside. Bees did not buzz past her ears nor tree swallows of blue streak the sky; rather vultures black and menacing circled the place that she would no longer call home, and she could only long for the cool, the safety of the Jagged.
END
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If you liked Gwendoline’s Story then you will love The Healer’s Creed Series where you’ll read more about Gwendoline and Jabari along with an intriguing cast of characters living in a world that is changing around them as they fight for their people, for that which they love, for their very lives.
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Description:
A healer’s duty is to sustain life, not take it. It seems a fact irrefutable. But when a mark is upon his head the healer must choose; hide in the safety of the fortress he has built around himself or venture out to aid his embattled people while sacrificing the lives of those who seek to detour him and---even more troubling---those who would protect him with their lives.
But when did life’s choices get this hard for the healer raised, as he was, in the ancient way of Five Virtues? It was about the time a young girl named Ren’ai joined the elite guard that protects him. After the wrongful execution of her father, he took the twelve-year-old in, saw to the training of both body and mind but, despite his mentoring, the one thing he could never seem to help the girl understand---the destructive power of a vengeful spirit.
As each new harvest waxes and wanes and that scared little girl becomes a woman, What will it take for the virtuous healer to go from forbidding revenge to actually laying the way for her? When one of his own is brutally murdered by a tyrannical king and a dark prophecy seems ripe to unfold, he will make such a choice and their world will never be the same.
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