The Monk's Habit (The Disinherited Prince Series Book 2) Page 21

  “What do you need?” the clerk asked. He looked like the owner with his thinning sandy hair and the wide flat nose. It looked like it had been broken at some time.

  “Supplies. We’re staying close by, up in the hills,” Pol said. This far west, the Spines jutted further out from lower hills than the mountains to the east.

  “We don’t serve weeders here,” the man said.

  Pol wondered if the thugs that tried to attack Darrol dressed differently than these people, but he hadn’t paused to notice.

  “Not weeders. There is a healer that we’re with.”

  “Searl? He’s hardly a healer anymore. What business do you have with that hermit?”

  Darrol put his hand on the counter. “He’s an old friend. I knew him before he, uh, became what he is.”

  “You a monk, too?”

  Darrol nodded. “I am.”

  The man’s demeanor softened a bit. “See if you can get him sober enough to make more trips to the village. We’ve never had a healer do what he can do, even under the influence of minweed, especially when he first arrived. I’m afraid he’s gotten worse.”

  “I know,” Darrol said. “We have his list.” He looked at Pol.

  “I can go over this with you. I’m afraid his writing isn’t very legible,” Pol said.

  They bought their supplies.

  Pol looked over at the clothes racks. “Do you mind if I buy some clothes?”

  The man’s face crinkled into a smile. “That’s what I’m here for. It looks like you two have been on the road for awhile.”

  “Weeks,” Darrol said.

  Pol used some of his money to buy new clothes for them all. The men of Hill Creek wore looser shirts and tight vests. The trousers were fuller in the thigh and thinner in the leg to fit into tall boots.

  He treated Darrol to new boots and two shirts, since the repairs they had made to the clothes they brought with them from Deftnis weren’t the best.

  “You didn’t have to buy these,” Darrol said, on their way back to Searl’s.

  What did you get me? Demeron asked.

  “Everyone needs a reward for getting me to Searl. The horses will enjoy the grain,” Pol said, satisfying both comments.

  The clouds began to build up for another round of rain that threatened just as they rode into Searl’s yard. Pol felt that something was wrong.

  He looked towards the lean-to and realized that the horses were gone.

  ~

  Pol jumped off Demeron, head immediately down, looking for clues before the skies burst and any tracks washed away.

  “Check inside the cabin,” Pol said.

  “I’ll take our supplies in, so they won’t get wet.”

  While Darrol hurried, Pol walked through the yard. He didn’t see any blood darkening the ground, so that gave him a measure of relief. With their arrival the previous day, Pol had to sift through the footprints and find a pattern of those on the top layer.

  He couldn’t tell how many men came, but he detected both mounted and unmounted. Weeders had finally chosen to make Searl pay for the thugs’ deaths yesterday. Pol couldn’t help but feel guilty. If Searl was hurt, it was all due to Pol.

  “All stowed,” Darrol said. “We’d best get going. Which way?”

  Pol could answer that question. “That way,” he pointed towards another trail, not the one they had used to get to Searl’s. His yard seemed to be a crossroads of sorts. He ran into the cabin and grabbed all his knives.

  The heavens finally let go, and the journey became sloppy. Until the trail branched, they didn’t need to do much looking down at the tracks. The trail intersected a rough dirt road. Pol could see the tracks led upward. It didn’t take any Seeking skill to see the wagon ruts.

  “This is miserable,” Darrol said.

  “If we are miserable, they are, too,” Pol said, guilt still assaulting his mind as they rode. “We can pick up our pace on this road.” He didn’t say he would be using his locating spell as they went, but Pol would use any advantage he could.

  They didn’t travel far until they passed little meadows filled with bluish green plants. The weeders’ crops. Not long after the meadows appeared, Pol picked up three colored dots.

  “Sentries,” Pol said.

  “We can’t ride any further,” Darrol said.

  “I’ll leave you here, Demeron. Follow once I beckon.”

  Demeron nodded with his head.

  The mud squished on the road, but Pol led them off into the forest that was drier beneath the leaves. Most of the trees were hardwoods, their leaves just out. The forest floor was soft and damp, allowing Pol and Darrol to advance quietly.

  Pol led them past the first sentry, and then they circled back. Darrol hit the back of the weeder’s head with the hilt of his sword. The man crumpled soundlessly to the ground.

  With his heart beating faster, Pol pressed his lips together and concentrated on relaxing. He couldn’t let his poor physical condition keep him from saving Paki and Kell, not to mention Searl and his promise of a future.

  They made it through the next two sentries without a mishap. The men were obviously looking for riders. Being on foot disrupted the weeders’ own perceptions of the pattern. Pol nodded at the realization, and then called Demeron to come forward.

  “Halt any retreat, but watch for archers. I don’t want to find out if Searl is an animal healer,” Pol said.

  You can rely on me to protect Darrol’s mount and myself.

  Pol continued up the road, but moved to just inside the trees.

  “It helps to have a horse that follows instructions,” Darrol said.

  Pol shook his head. “It’s not a matter of following instructions. He’s one of us in this fight,” Pol said. “He helps us willingly.”

  Indeed I do. Demeron said.

  Pol just smiled to himself and walked forward.

  About one hundred yards further up the road, the weeder’s camp came into view. Pol noticed a large barn and two other buildings, one large and another smaller. It reminded Pol of the brigands of Rocky Ridge. They slipped closer.

  “There are eight people ahead. That means five against two with Demeron as a backup.”

  Pol heard a noise behind him and looked back at Demeron. “Follows instructions? No.”

  Darrol chuckled. “It’s time for a little retrieval.”

  With Kell and Searl out of the fight, they could only hope that Paki would be able to help.

  All the dots were in the big cabin. Pol crept closer and peeked over the windowsill. Men littered the floor, as if they had all fallen asleep. Since Pol didn’t recognize any of them, it appeared all the weeders were taken care of.

  He stood up and looked again. Searl smiled at them. Pol got the sense that the monk would have waved, if the weeders hadn’t tied Searl up.

  Pol walked through the front door, beckoning Darrol to follow.

  “Ah. You have arrived in time to free us,” Searl said.

  Paki was gagged and placed in a corner. Both Kell and Paki had their feet and hands bound.

  Darrol untied Paki.

  “I fell asleep before they crept up,” Paki said once the gag had been removed. “I didn’t stand a chance. Searl was asleep.” Paki glared at the monk. “And Kell was still unconscious. The weeders have been out for less than a quarter hour, I figure.”

  “Couldn’t have been long,” Darrol said. “There were three sentries.”

  “Were?” Paki began to untie his feet.

  “They are knocked out, but we didn’t use magic,” Pol said.

  Searl stood and stretched. “I’m too old to stay in the same position for too long, unless…”

  “Unless under the influence of your best friend,” Darrol said, the disapproval plain on his face.

  Searl nodded. “My best friend, indeed.”

  “How long will they be out?” Darrol asked.

  “Another hour or more. Can you write a note? I’m afraid my handwriting isn’t what it once was. We
have our disagreements from time to time, and I’d rather deal with these morons than a newer, rougher bunch.”

  Pol looked at Searl in shock. “But they just abducted you! It’s a wonder you are still alive!”

  “Bound until dinnertime, then I would share a meal with them and return to my home. It’s happened before. Evidently one of your victims was the cousin of Morfess, their leader. He had to do something. We’re still friends, enough. I put them to sleep, knowing that you two would find us. I didn’t want anything violent to happen,” Searl said, too sanguinely for Pol.

  “Then let’s get going,” Darrol said.

  Since Searl was in a more lucid state, Darrol suggested that he make sure the three sentries were all right. After he applied a bit of his healing to two of them, they returned to Searl’s cabin.

  The rain had stopped, and Searl allowed them a fire. Darrol cooked a dinner of sorts with the meat that he had purchased in Hill Creek and leafy vegetables and carrots that Searl plucked out of his garden.

  “I made sure there’s no minweed in my stew,” Darrol announced.

  Searl smiled and took a handful of minweed from the basket in his cabin and threw it in his own portion. “I missed my afternoon dose.” He began to eat more quickly.

  “Why are you rushing?”

  “Ah, the minweed puts me to sleep,” Searl said. “If I take my time, I won’t finish my meal.”

  The rest just ate, and by the time they were done, Searl snored with his head on the table. At least his bowl was empty and his stomach full.

  “He said dose,” Pol said.

  “I told you he had a shoulder injury. Maybe he’s still ailing. I wasn’t that close with the man,” Darrol said.

  Pol and Paki lugged Searl to his bed.

  “Where am I?” Kell said, holding onto his head. They had laid him out on some blankets on the floor with a pillow made out of his clothes propping up his head.

  “Searl’s cabin,” Paki said. “Is there any stew left?”

  “None for you.” Darrol poured the rest of the stew into his own bowl and took it over to Kell.

  “Hungry?”

  Kell nodded.

  ~

  Searl didn’t wake until later the next day, and he checked on Kell before he stuffed another handful of minweed down his mouth.

  “Your friend is no worse from his visit to my neighbors,” Searl said, his voice already slurring.

  Pol walked outside and said hello to Demeron before he began exploring the woods around Searl’s place. He found minweed growing in little clearings. The plant seemed to like the sun and the proximity to the woods, but it didn’t grow in the shady parts of the forest. Pol noted the pattern.

  Paki caught up to him. “He’s got little plantings of the stuff all through the woods?”

  “He does. I don’t know if he’ll be sober enough to help me.”

  “We came all this way. You’ll find something that will help.”

  Pol wasn’t so sure, so he kept walking. The forest seemed to teem with minweed. He began to pull the plants out. They came up easily enough.

  “Help me,” Pol said.

  Soon they had weeded three of the clearings. “We’ll do more while we can,” Paki said.

  “I don’t want Searl to get too upset yet, so let’s find the outside extent of these patches and work our way back towards Searl’s cabin.”

  Searl called them from their slumbers in the middle of the night. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you all to leave.”

  “Why?” Pol said.

  “The weeders know I’m entertaining capable men,” he looked at Paki and Pol, “and boys. They might feel threatened. For my safety and yours, I suggest that you leave. I don’t know why you’re here anyway.”

  Pol climbed down from the loft and looked at a lucid Searl. “I have a unique heart condition, and you are my only hope to get cured.”

  “Unique. Not so. Every heart looks pretty much the same to me.”

  “Then look at mine.”

  Searl snorted and poured himself a cup of water. “Lay down on my bed after you take off your shirt.

  Pol complied.

  Searl leaned over and his eyes took on the characteristic glaze. He moved his hand over Pol’s chest, and then moved down over his stomach. “I’ll be damned by whatever gods you choose,” Searl said. “That’s no malformation. Your heart was designed to be defective.”

  “Designed?” Pol hadn’t heard the term applied to a body before.

  “Designed, pre-planned, meant to be. There are tiny little strings in every cell of your body that determine how you grow, blue eyes, brown hair, height, sex, whatever. Your heart and a couple of your other organs have developed defectively, but defective on purpose.”

  “You can see that?”

  Searl nodded. “That’s why Deftnis wouldn’t mind me returning. I never taught anyone else how to do what I can do. I discovered it on my own, and then,” he shrugged, “I had to leave.”

  “Can you cure me?”

  Searl stood up, looking down at Pol. “I can’t fix the programming, but I could fix your body, if I was sober for a few weeks.”

  “Weeks?”

  Searl nodded. “I have to rebuild your heart, your spleen, and I haven’t looked at your head yet.”

  “Rebuild. Can a healer do that?”

  “I can, but your friends will have to agree to leave. I can’t have them poking around up here with a bunch of skittish weeders looking on. I want another promise.”

  “I’ll commit to nearly anything,” Pol said. Hope burned in his chest.

  “I want to find my daughter and her husband. I’ll go with you, but I can’t trust myself to go on my own.”

  “But my friends will have to return to Deftnis?”

  Searl nodded. “If they don’t, the weeders will return with a much larger force. Morfess is the boss in this area, but he reports to others. The minweed business is very big, and profits go to the highest level in Hardman.”

  “The Duke?”

  Searl put his finger to Pol’s lips. “I didn’t say him.”

  He didn’t need to.

  “Give me an answer in the morning. I won’t take as much medicine tonight.” Searl took less than a handful of leaves from the bowl. They had wilted a bit, but he still munched on them.

  ~~~

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ~

  POL LED HIS FRIENDS OUT OF THE CABIN. “Searl and I talked last night.”

  “I heard,” Darrol said. “I don’t know if I can leave you here by yourself.”

  “What?” Paki said.

  “Searl took a look at my insides and said they are a mess. It will take weeks to fix, and he’s uneasy that four men at his place might spook the weeders.”

  Darrol nodded. “It’s a valid point. Maybe we could stay in Hill Creek while he’s fixing you up.”

  Pol looked at Kell and Paki. “No, that’s too unfair. If you go to the south, you can be in Deftnis before Searl is finished, and I don’t think he can stay sober for that long. It will likely take longer. Kell and Paki can learn a lot at the monastery in a month or more.”

  “But what about you?” Kell asked.

  “He is a black cord, isn’t he, Darrol?”

  Darrol pressed his lips together. “He is.”

  “I can learn a lot from him, so don’t worry about me. I’ve always had a head start at the afternoon subjects anyway.”

  “Mistress Farthia Wissingbel,” Paki said.

  Pol smiled. “That’s right. You head back. If I’m cured, I will join you in a month or less. If I’m not cured, I don’t think I’ll be lasting more than a few years to hear the healers at Deftnis talk. Their treatments have ended up only accelerating my heart’s deterioration.”

  “It has?” Paki looked concerned.

  Pol put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I didn’t want to tell you, but that is why we traveled in the spring rather than waiting for harvest break.”


  “Ah. You did say you didn’t want to wait,” Paki said.

  “That’s why.”

  “Then we will leave as soon as Searl says Kell is ready to travel,” Darrol said. “Are you up to it?”

  Kell nodded. “The further we travel away from the Wild Spines, the safer we will be. I wish you well, Pol.”

  They all went back inside for breakfast. Searl finally awoke.

  “Decision made?” he asked of Pol.

  “My friends will leave as soon as you say Kell can go.”

  Searl folded his arms. “You are safer leaving here than trying to fight off another wave of weeders. Sooner the better. The best road south is two hours or so west of Hill Creek. Go all the way to the coast, and then it’s easy to get back to Deftnis.”

  ~

  Pol didn’t want to see his three friends leave, but they were ready to go right after a hearty midday meal. Pol distributed their new clothes, and Darrol gave Pol a bit more of their funds.

  He watched them take the path towards Hill Creek and went back inside Searl’s cabin. The monk had already fallen asleep after taking his latest dose. Pol watched the monk’s gaping mouth as he snored away the afternoon.

  Had Pol done the right thing? He had just sent his protection away, or had he? Pol walked out to visit Demeron.

  “Have I done the right thing?”

  We will get through this together, and you will grow strong, as long as you can keep your monk friend upright and awake. Can you do me a favor?

  “Whatever you want.”

  Groom Searl’s horse. The poor guy has got some tiny friends that need brushing out. The monk isn’t the only one we horses have to live with.

  ~

  At long last, Pol began receiving the treatments he needed to survive. Unfortunately, Searl never was awake very long. After a long week, waiting for Searl to emerge sober, Pol sat the monk down for a serious talk.

  “What kind of progress are we making?” Pol asked.

  “Slow. These things come slowly. It may take weeks or months.”

  Pol caught Searl’s eyes going to the fresh bowl of minweed that the monk harvested before Pol awoke.

  “We will never be able to find your daughter at this rate.”

  Searl looked away from Pol. “Perhaps that’s not so important.”

  “It was a week ago.” Pol tried to keep from getting angry. He took a deep breath and fought off anger. The pattern to dealing with Searl indicated projecting calm and reassurance, Pol thought.