The Monk's Habit (The Disinherited Prince Series Book 2) Read online

  His horse snorted.

  Pol located a single colored dot up ahead. He drew a knife and palmed it in his hand.

  The figure stood in front of the pathway.

  “Morfess wanted Searl to get his cut of the minweed earnings.”

  Pol’s eyebrows rose. “Searl was part of your group?”

  The man shook his head. “Not really. He helped us, healing and all, and Morfess thought he deserved this. Searl’s not to tell no one about it.” He looked at Pol. “You don’t either.”

  “He won’t, and I won’t,” Pol said. He accepted the purse as compensation for getting expelled from the mountainside.

  ~

  Nothing happened on the way to Hill Creek. Pol took them to the inn where they had had breakfast the day before. The innkeeper helped Pol take Searl up to a shared room.

  Pol looked down at the monk. Feelings swirled around in his head. Searl was likely to break his promise, of that Pol was certain, but still Pol didn’t know who really owned the minweed he had destroyed. The act didn’t backfire, but Pol hadn’t wanted it to cost a man’s life, even a criminal named Noobel.

  His mind went over everything, and Pol caught himself rationalizing his actions. He could make up all kinds of reasons why everything turned out for the better, but the means weren’t particularly honorable. He felt a bit diminished after it all. What would Val have thought of the outcome?

  The next morning, Searl struggled to sit up. He put his hands on his knees and looked over at Pol.

  “You messed up my life,” Searl said.

  “It seemed pretty messed up when I first met you.”

  Searl nodded. “Indeed, but I was comfortable with my life.”

  “As long as you could get a dose.”

  The monk shook his head. “I could use my magic to kill you.”

  “Could a former healer do that?”

  Searl looked out the window at the roofs of Hill Creek. “No,” he admitted. “It sounded menacing, though didn’t it?” Searl broke into half a smile.

  Pol hadn’t expected the humor.

  “We should leave Hill Creek after breakfast. I don’t suppose we need any supplies.”

  “No. It’s not as if we are roaming the hills. Desalt is civilized with lots of villages and inns, I suppose.”

  The monk nodded. “I’m hungry, and I need to tell you about what a withdrawal is.”

  They walked down the stairs. Villagers nodded to Searl with respect, those that recognized him without his beard.

  Breakfast was included with the room. Pol had opened the purse from Morfess and was surprised to find more gold coins than silver and none of copper or iron. The denominations came from all over Baccusol.

  “Morfess gave you a little going away present,” Pol said. He pulled out the fat purse and handed it over. “I paid for our rooms out of it. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Searl poked his head in the bag and snorted. “For a weeder, Morfess was a good man and honorable in his own way.”

  “I suppose. He didn’t have his men attack us.”

  The monk sighed. “There is that. I met Noobel once before. He was a weasel and an awful man in his own way.” He echoed his own comment.

  Where did this humor come from? Pol had to keep from smiling.

  “You said something about withdrawal?”

  Searl nodded. “I’m going to have to teach you a little more healing, an extension of the treatments you are going to have to continue on my shoulder. Minweed is an addiction, and my body is not going to appreciate going without its favorite drug.”

  “Oh. Like a hangover?”

  “But worse, much worse. I won’t be a very amiable traveling companion.”

  Pol wanted to leave the Spines and find Searl’s daughter, so he could put up with anything.

  ~

  “Damn you to every hell on Phairoon!” Searl yelled from the sledge.

  Pol kept cringing from the more colorful curses to come from the monk’s mouth. It had only been three days since they left Hill Creek, but it felt more like three months.

  Searl had barely taught Pol how to care for him during his withdrawal before the monk began to shiver. Before the end of the day, Searl had been tied to the sledge, since he couldn’t stay up on his horse. The cursing began shortly thereafter.

  The monk had told him he would have to be tied up for four or five days, and then the shivers and shakes would end, and the pain would begin. Searl had taught Pol how to put him under, but not until the pain began to overwhelm him.

  The process of putting Searl to sleep exhausted Pol. The spell only lasted for two or three hours. Pol hadn’t thought much about Malden putting Paki and Siggon to sleep in the Borstall castle infirmary, but it had to have drained him. He didn’t know if he could ride for long after he started keeping Searl unconscious.

  Pol rode up to a signpost. The right hand road led back into Lawster before another road would take them into Desalt. Pol pulled out a map that he had bought at a village and was tempted to risk going through Lawster, but decided to travel for two days longer over the eastern tip of Listya and then east to Desalt’s capital, where Searl’s daughter lived.

  Two days later, they rode into a town that stood on the duchy of Hardman side of the border with Listya. He had put the monk under while he traveled through the town. Pol managed to find a modest inn with the intent to stay in one place while Searl went through his pain stage. Pol needed to rest while keeping Searl totally under.

  “My friend is sick, but he isn’t contagious. Do you have a more remote room? He’s in a lot of pain and might be crying out during the evenings. I’ll happily pay extra.”

  “I have an overflow room on the other side of the bath house. Give me a few minutes while we clear some of our supplies out,” the innkeeper said.

  Pol waited, and then the innkeeper arrived with a few of her larger stable hands to help Pol take the comatose Searl to the room. It was perfect for what Pol needed. He had the men come back after Pol got things settled, and help Searl bathe. He was a mess, being tied up for over four days.

  Pol had never known how difficult it was to bathe an unconscious person. He ended up supporting Searl while the stable hands did the washing and scrubbing. He gave the two men big tips. Pol, as drenched as Searl had been, finally looked at the monk sleeping in a bed with clean sheets and fresh clothes.

  The monk twitched and moaned in his induced sleep. Pol had a meal in the dining room and then brought broth into their room and dripped it into Searl’s mouth for minutes at a time.

  Time seemed to stand still for Pol while he monitored Searl and continually applied spell after spell, but finally the twitching stopped. That was the sign that the pain had ended.

  Pol let Searl come out of his sleep.

  The monk moaned as he opened his eyes and then covered them with a hand.

  “I feel sick,” he said. Searl looked at Pol. “How many days?”

  Pol held up seven fingers. “We’ve been seven days from Hill Creek and are on the border with Listya. You were under for three of those.”

  Searl grunted, and then his eyes bulged. “I need a bucket!”

  Searl had told him there would be intermittent nausea, and Pol was prepared. At least the monk had precisely described what to expect. Searl didn’t have much in his stomach.

  “Have you been through withdrawal for minweed before?” Pol asked.

  Searl shook his head. “I’ve been the caregiver more than a few times.” He spit into the bucket.

  The monk fell back on the bed. “I’m just about through with this,” he said. “Another day, and we can continue.”

  “Good. Demeron and I can only talk about so much on the road. He’s extremely intelligent for a horse, but…”

  That got an unexpected chuckle from Searl.

  ~

  They took another day in the border town. Pol helped Searl exercise by walking around the area close to the inn and climbing up and down stairs.

&nb
sp; “I have one other thing to teach you before we go on the road. Since your hair isn’t a living part of your body, you can change your own hair color. It’s something I used to teach Seekers. You’ve got silvery roots showing, you know. I never realized that you had such light-colored hair.”

  Pol hadn’t noticed, but he looked in a mirror and pulled up his hair to reveal what Searl described.

  “The color will grow out, or you can change it back.”

  Searl discussed what kind of pattern Pol should think of, and Searl suggested that he needed to have a good idea of what color he wanted. He tried the technique and looked in the mirror. No person he had ever seen had the purplish hair that Pol now sported.

  “Here.” Searl pulled off his belt. “Try to emulate this.”

  Pol changed his hair color again and found that he would need an example when he tried it again. “I like this. It’s sneaky.”

  Searl smiled and nodded. “It is that. I could use it to color my gray hair, but I’m too old to be vain like that. The highest level seekers can change their facial features, too.”

  “You could get rich in Yastan or some other big city coloring women’s hair,” Pol said.

  “I could, I guess. It takes a Seventh Level to color one’s own hair. If you are that high of a level, there are other ways to make money.”

  “Does that mean I’m a Seventh, a gray? Vactor is a gray.”

  Searl nodded. “Amazingly enough, you are getting there. You have the power and control, but not the breadth of learning.”

  On the morning of their fifth day at the inn, they both climbed on their horses and left the duchy of Hardman. Pol hoped that Searl had left his minweed addiction behind. He was more sober than Pol had ever seen him, and he enjoyed watching Searl’s humorous side begin to emerge.

  Pol hadn’t been to Listya for seven years, since he was eight. He sighed, remembering bits and pieces of that trip. Time had softened most of his memories, but a few impressions had remained. Rolling hills dotted with woods and fields made up the eastern edge of the kingdom where Pol had once held the right to rule.

  He never had imagined himself as king. The prospect of dying by the time he was twenty had eliminated any political ambitions. Now that he was cured of the malady that weakened him, Pol looked at the land with a different eye. He wondered how his life would have been different had he not been sickly.

  Unfortunately, he would have represented an even greater threat to his older siblings and would have probably joined his mother in death. The bright, early summer day cast away depressing thoughts as they rode through the placid countryside. There were similar places in his home country of North Salvan, although the air was warmer and seemed more humid than in Borstall.

  Searl began to tell stories while they rode. They related to his healing experiences, and then he turned to recounting old scandals at the monastery. Searl had seen many monks and acolytes come and go and described how the feel of the monastery changed as personalities shifted.

  Some years were more raucous that others. Pol told him of his experiences at Deftnis.

  “You seem to have an unnatural talent for attracting trouble,” Searl said.

  Pol noted the good nature in his comment. “I think anyone does when they are unique. My poor health offset my talent, which I worked hard to cultivate, and that irritated others, including Kell.”

  “But Kell seemed to be a friend of yours, right along with your other two companions.”

  “It took a long time to get to be companions, along with some shared experiences,” Pol said.

  Searl shook his head. “We’ve shared some experiences.”

  “Have they been good?”

  The monk looked ahead and thought for a bit. “Taken together, they have. I haven’t felt so free in years, but it came at a cost. I lost a lot of honor among the weeders.”

  Searl’s comment shocked Pol. “What did it matter what the weeders thought?”

  “I made a commitment to those men. I healed them, and those that stayed with Morfess were, in a strange way, family. When you live close to anyone, relationships are created, and your lives, in a sense, intertwine. You destroyed that link when you removed the minweed patches.”

  “But Noobel was going to kill us,” Pol said.

  “For what? If the patches had remained, do you think he would have attacked?”

  Pol knew the answer and he didn’t like it. “He might not have.”

  “He wouldn’t. Morfess would have been more likely to stop him. Once the minweed disappeared, Morfess couldn’t protect me, but what is done is done. I’m glad I’m heading to see my daughter with a clearer head. That wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t shown up on my doorstep.”

  Pol thought that Searl had a better idea of what had happened than he did, but it seemed that overall, both of them had benefitted by Pol’s hasty action. Noobel had died, but if the man hadn’t ordered their deaths, twice, Pol wouldn’t have attacked in self-defense.

  He sensed himself rationalizing his behavior again, and decided to change the subject. He had to accept that he had killed the man and not dwell on rather or not it was justified.

  “When was the last time you heard from your daughter?”

  Searl looked up at the sky in thought. “Three years ago, after she married. When my wife died about ten years ago, Anna went to live with my wife’s sister in Desalt. I was too far gone to attend the wedding.”

  “I’m sorry,” Pol said.

  “Not your problem.”

  ~~~

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ~

  DESALT’S CAPITAL CITY SAT IN THE NORTHWESTERN CORNER of the dukedom, and served as the only port on a tiny sliver of land on the coast. Searl and Pol found an inn close to the address that the monk’s daughter had given.

  They ate a mid-afternoon meal and then walked to the address.

  “The pair you’re looking for left half a year ago,” a mother said, with two small children peeking around her skirts at the two strange men on the doorstep.

  “Do you know where they went?”

  “Let’s see. Alsador. Her husband was looking for a job as a decorative blacksmith. I think he makes fancy grills and doors for the nobles.”

  Searl nodded. “That’s them.”

  “Sorry to have bothered you,” Pol said.

  “Do I get some compensation?”

  Pol wanted to ask what for, but he managed to give the woman a Lawster guilder. The fewer Lawster coins Pol had in his purse, the better he’d feel.

  They turned to walk back to the inn.

  “There’s an eruption of the Spines between Daftine and Listya,” Searl said. “Do you want to go sightseeing?”

  Pol nodded. “It makes up the border, but they aren’t as tall as the Wild Spines, as I recall.” One place that Pol didn’t want to visit was Alsador. King Landon and Queen Bythia ruled Listya and their presence had taken away any desire to visit his mother’s home. He hoped they would quickly find Searl’s daughter, so Pol could run back to Deftnis. Why did she have to move? Pol lamented, yet again, that his life just couldn’t be easy.

  “If you’re thinking of your brother, he won’t recognize you. You’ve grown, put on weight, and you’ve got your dark brown hair.”

  Pol thought of Demeron, but then he smiled.

  “I can change the color of Demeron’s coat, can’t I?”

  Searl grinned. “I suppose so. What would suit him, orange? Green?”

  “Something less noticeable. I can put a star on his forehead and boots on his legs. Landon wouldn’t recognize him as the same horse.” He looked away from Searl. “I’m uneasy about going to Alsador.”

  “Other than your horse being one of the few Shinkyan stallions in the Baccusol Empire. Didn’t you mention you ran into a little trouble in Lawster? Did that scare you? Are you thinking of reneging on our agreement?”

  Pol pursed his lips. “I gave you my commitment. I’ll go with you.”

  “And
I’ll hold you to it,” Searl said. “I didn’t go through minweed withdrawal to face my daughter all on my own.”

  Pol tried to understand what Searl meant by that. He shrugged off the comment, and they continued on to the inn.

  ~

  Pol changed into his Hill Creek clothes that seemed to better match Listyan styles. The next day, after Pol had changed Demeron’s coloring, they purchased some fresh supplies and headed due west for Alsador.

  “We could go by ship, you know,” Pol said.

  Searl shook his head. “I’m still a bit queasy from time to time. A ship?” Searl continued to shake his head. “No, no, no, no, no. I know my stomach well. You don’t know how many times I rode the waves from Deftnis to Mancus.”

  Pol could understand.

  I’d rather walk than ride a boat, Demeron said. Searl, his mount, and I are of the same mind.

  ‘Well, that settles it then. I hope Listya has an excellent coast road.”

  They set out on what was billed as the Coast Highway. The cobbled surface stood three feet or more above the surrounding ground. Pol didn’t mind all of the traffic, since that meant a number of inns along the way.

  A town stood on the border between Listya and Desalt. Pol and Searl stopped in the afternoon for a cooked meal, and passing by a deserted border station, they entered back into Listya.

  The Coast Road ended at the border, and a wide dirt track continued, rutted and washed out. The easy riding all the way to Alsador had evaporated like the outgoing fog.

  They had to travel a fair distance into the night to arrive at an inn that looked over a fishing village on the shore. Pol hoped the inn still had some fresh fish to serve them.

  “Two rooms for two men riding two horses,” Searl said to the female innkeeper. This one was slight, only coming up to Pol’s shoulders.

  “Dinner?”

  Searl nodded enthusiastically. Evidently his sensitive stomach was better at the moment.

  “And two dinners,” she said, smiling and writing their names down in a thick ledger.

  “Breakfast is early around here and ends one hour after sun-up. Four fish extra if you want grain for the horses.”

  “Fish?” Searl said, looking slightly confused.