Medieval Rain Page 3

  A horrific retching emanated from the core of his gut and the water came up in a mixture of bile and vomit. She stepped away to avoid soiling her boots and watched for a moment as he revived after a lot more vomit, mucous and tears.

  “Get up,” Rane said, kicking the bottom of his foot. She had no time to ask questions. Dusk had turned into early evening, and she had to get back. She hoped he would be able to ride either unaided or even slung over her saddle, or she would have to leave him and that didn’t seem to be a viable option now.

  He attempted to sit, succeeded, then hunched over and vomited again.

  “Damn, I don’t have time for this,” she grunted, pulling him up and pushing him against the horse’s flank. Draping his arms over Treefall, she hurried to the other side and hoisted him over the front of the saddle. Now, at least if he vomited again, it would be down the shoulder of the horse and not on her boots—perhaps.

  She wheeled her horse around and practically had to lie atop the virul to keep him from sliding off. It made for a very long ride home, but at least the way was familiar, she having ridden these acres her whole life.

  About one hundred feet from her lodge’s enclosure, a golden tunnel of maples shielded the canter path from the elements. She pulled up on Treefall, wrapping her arms over the virul to keep him from pitching off the horse. She sat for a moment. Her mind had been busy over the ride with various alternatives of what to do. She should just turn the matter over to her mother. Rane didn’t really need to add this virul to her busy existence. But, she didn’t know this virul’s story. He could be a fleer, or even a fomenter, and if he were either, it would not be good for him to have contact with the other viruls of the house, infecting them with curiosity or silly ideas. That would not do. And, for some reason, she did not want to lose control of him, at least not yet.

  She avoided the tunnel and veered off to a large stand of birches carefully negotiating her horse through the branches’ wooden claws that caught at her face and jacket, one even becoming wedged between the virul’s chest and the horse’s flank. Cursing, she stopped and pulled at it until it came loose. In the process, however, the branch strafed the virul’s chest, his moan alerting her to the injury, confirmed when her hand probing the injury came away with blood. Great, she thought.

  Finally, the pipehouse came into view. It was little more than a shack, really, and there would not be much room for him to lie down, but at least she could conceal him until she could reach an intelligent and informed decision on what to do with him. After dismounting, she pulled the virul off the horse and dragged him into the pipehouse. He babbled a bit, his protest lost in his delirium, and she stretched him out so that he at least looked comfortable. She inspected the wound on his chest, and it looked worse than she thought, but then again it was almost dark. She really needed to get a lamp from the house so she could see what she was doing. Not only that, but he would need ointment for his wound, not to mention food and water. She should probably get him something for the pain. She thought her mother had some extract of poplom in the house. She took off her jacket and covered him.

  “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I will be right back.”

  No response.

  She stood and moved toward the door, then thought of something else. She removed her belt and made a loop around his hand and another around one of the pipes. It would not hold very well, but it was the best she could do until she brought some rope from the house.

  When Rane arrived at the house, she was panting, sweating and she was sure her hair was even wilder than usual. Searching upward with her hands, she found that her locks were indeed agitated. She did her best to smooth them down, twisting the mess into a knot at the back of her head before she dismounted. She tied Treewalk to the side of the house and walked in.

  No one heralded her return, or remonstrated with her for returning after dark, thank the gods, and the viruls were out of the kitchen for the evening, so it did not take her long to gather the necessaries, even finding the poplom in the earthen fruit cellar. There she also found a sack of potatoes, emptying the vegetables into a crate and filling the coarse homespun with her supplies. On her hurried way out, she looked in the sack: bread, poplom, her mother’s ointment, rope, and a water jug wedged tightly in the middle. The jug had a stopper, but just to make sure it didn’t leak, she grabbed a cloth from the side of the cookstove and snugged it over the top.

  She was so astonished that she had encountered no one that her anxiety heightened at the prospect of total escape. She slowed down and increased her stealth, creeping out of the kitchen to the front of the house.

  “Where are you going, Lead Rane? May I help?”

  WATERGODS, the epithet entered her mind when she heard squirrel’s voice. He was probably the worst person to have run into as he was always aflame with rumor and gossip of the house. She turned quickly and did her best to assume nonchalance. “I am just taking Treefall some carrots and potatoes. I am going to have the groom make a mash of them.”

  “If you would like me to take them,” squirrel said, ”I would be happy to.”

  “Not necessary,” Rane said, curtly. “I need some fresh air. Tend to what you were doing.“

  “But Lead Rane, you just went riding,” squirrel pointed out. “And—“

  “That will be all!” Rane barked, not having to assume irritation. “And do not be cheeky with me!”

  Since squirrel was bowing, Rane could not see the smirk she knew was on his face, so she just pushed past him. Grabbing Treefall’s reins, she mounted up, and just in case squirrel was watching, headed toward the stables. Her horse did not need much urging, as he thought he was going home, and she used the respite from the reins to check her sack again. Oh, she forgot clothing. Well, she would have to make another trip tomorrow.

  Tomorrow. What was she going to do with the virul tomorrow? She couldn’t leave him in the pipehouse forever, and she had no idea of another place where she could house a sick and unpredictable runaway. One thing at a time, she told herself fiercely. I’ll figure it out after I’m a little calmer and he is securely tied up.

  She was out of sight from the house, so pulled up on Treefall and cantered him to the left on a path that would get her out to the pipehouse. Then she heard her name.

  “Rane!”

  Rane produced another “dammit” when she recognized the voice of her sister, but halted her horse and trotted back to the voice.

  Shukad was on foot coming from the stables. Rane used query to engage her sister so she could think of a good lie to explain her being mounted on Treefall this time of evening.

  “Did you go out riding, sister?” Rane asked amiably and added, “I went too. I wonder that I did not see you. Where did you go?”

  “That is not your business,” Shukad said with disdain. “The question is not where I went, but what are you doing and where are you going?”

  “That is not your business,” Rane said, thankful that her sister’s rudeness gave her the perfect rejoinder. She had a good lie, but it seemed she would not have to waste it this night. “Farewell. Tell mother I will be in a little later.”

  “You’ll tell me right n—”

  But Treefall’s hoofbeats pounded over and away from her sister’s words. Rane was not worried about her sister following her. First, she would have to walk back to the stable and re-saddle her horse to catch up with Rane, second, she was too lazy, and third, she was too lazy.

  Security was a perfect post for Shukad, Rane decided. The brutish girls employed in security shared Shukad’s profile: belligerent, large, and, above all, averse to manual labor.

  The pipehouse came into view and she sawed at Treefall’s rein, pulling him so far back on his haunches that they almost slid into the side of the shack. Shaking her head, she realized that she had to calm down so she could think; bashing her horse through a wall wasn’t going help matters.

  Creaking open the door, she peered in and chastised herself for not bringing a to
rch. “Are you in there? Are you awa—”

  A mouthful of dirt was all she knew at first and then darkness. Coming feebly awake to a noisy cataclysm about her, Rane saw light flickering and pulsing against the wall, exposing the overgrown network of clay pipes. What was she doing on the floor? Faint crashes and a voice—her sister’s—crescendoed as her senses came back to her. She stupidly thought, but I didn’t bring a torch, or did I? She turned her head and after spitting out the dirt, now mud, having mixed with her drool, she did notice a torch lying on the floor, the dirt muffling its flame into a gutter.

  She rose shakily to her elbows and tried to lift her head, craning her neck so she could make sense of what was happening. She didn’t have to exert too much effort since her sister and the virul, looking much more robust from the time she left him, were almost right on top of her, stepping on her from time to time as they each struggled to best the other. The virul’s depleted condition, though, soon decided the contest, although he must have outweighed Shukad by many stones, and by the time Rane was able to wobble to her feet, her sister’s foot was firmly planted against the virul’s throat.

  As the virul gasped and retched, Shukad panted, “Yes. Now, Rane, you will explain yourself.”

  By now, Rane’s head had cleared. She had overestimated Shukad’s laziness--she had followed her--and underestimated her previous need for a plausible lie. Her problem now had the potential for exponential growth. And, suddenly, she felt pain. She put her hand to its source on the back of the head; her fingers came away with blood. Good. The injury would gain her a few moments to seek clarity and a good lie. She decided that the virul must have gotten loose from the stupid belt, hid behind the door, and hit her in the back of the head when she came in, knocking her out.

  “Explain? Why don’t you tell me?” Rane said, deciding to play everything against Shukad. In fact, in her mind she role-played, imagining all the questions her sister would ask her about the virul. Her sister, for all her bravado and belligerence, was just not that smart. And, the only evidence her sister had about the situation was that Rane had visited the pipehouse and had been attacked by a virul. “Shukad! Tell me who this virul is and where he come from?”

  Shukad seemed a little thrown from Rane’s aggressive questioning. “What—what do you mean?” she sputtered. “I followed you here, where you were hiding him!”

  “I came to the pipehouse because I thought I left my level here,” Rane said with as much derision as she could. “I needed it for my shift tomorrow.” She used the ruse to pick up the torch, holding it aloft to allow it air to flame, and start looking around for the fictional tool. “Well, great! It’s not here. And, I have a damn headache! Thanks to you!” She kicked the virul in the leg.

  Then something surprising happened—the virul, his neck still under her sister’s foot, sought Rane’s eyes with his own. He seemed to assess her for a moment, then a conspiratorial glint appeared in his gaze indicating that he was about to throw his lot in with hers. For the first time, she heard him speak.

  “I am sorry to have caused so much trouble, Leads! I lost my way and sought shelter here—”

  His speech was cut off when Shukad pressed on his windpipe with her foot.

  “Then, why did you attack her?” Shukad said. “You know the punishment!”

  He gagged a little until she lifted the ball of her foot. “I am embarrassed to say that I thought she was a bear!”

  “A bear!” the sisters said in unison.

  “Well,” he said, shrugging with difficulty given the foot’s placement. “Your hair, well it’s—well, it is a little—wild. No offense. I hope I did not hurt you.”

  Shukad’s laughter in her ears, Rane peered suspiciously at the virul, her thoughts frenetic. There was no way she was going to trust a virul, but by playing along for the moment, a nice symmetry presented itself. The virul certainly knew that he was in for it. Of course, he didn’t think she was a bear, although she almost joined in Shukad’s laughter at his little joke. He needed Rane to step in and urge some clemency or he would certainly die. This actually might not be so bad. Her sister looked very confused and this would also make it so that Rane would not have to go to the trouble of concealing the virul, as was her original plan. That could have gotten her in a lot of trouble had she been found out to be sheltering a fleer, which he obviously was.

  Shukad shook her head and said, “He hit you, Rane! We must turn him over to the Titleds’ Council.”

  Rane said, “I do not care what you do with him, but it seems stupid to waste this virul when all he did was make a simple mistake. If he had known I was a Lead, he would not have hit me. Viruls do not have that kind of courage. Why don’t we give him one of the shackle tasks. That way we can train him.”

  “But he is obviously a fleer!” Shukad protested. “If he came from one of the sectors in the Wastes, we could be prosecuted for harboring him.”

  “Look at him,” Rane said. “Who is going to come looking for such a shabby specimen? He doesn’t look like he is worth much. And, if the Seekers do come looking for him, we can just say we were saving him for them—keeping him healthy to protect the owner’s investment.”

  “But the law—” Suddenly Shukad seemed to become tired of the argument and stopped, bewildered by Rane’s studied replies. “Oh, I do not care anymore. But you have to take care of it. We’ll shackle him tonight then tomorrow put him out in the field. There are a number of fence posts that need repairing.

  Rane was so relieved that she decided she could make a few concessions to her sister’s viewpoint. “I think that is best. If nothing else, it will give us a little more time to think about what to do with him. If you still feel right about turning him in in a couple of days, then we can still do so. “

  The virul’s expression of horror made Rane smirk, but she knew that her sister’s attention span was so short that she would barely remember this incident in the morning let alone two days, so engrossed in her own affairs was she.

  Shukad stood guard as Rane used the rope out of her bag to tie the virul. She blessed her sister’s brutish intellect that would not question her possession of the rope, let alone the bag. If her sister had thought to search it, she would have found the food, ointment and poplom for the virul. Oh, well. If necessary Rane would have just had to think of another lie to explain the food. After the last snug knot, Rane nodded at Shukad who rode off fetch the shackles back at the outbuildings.

  Rane eased away from the virul and sat against one of the dank walls of the pipehouse, leaving him tied to one of the pipes that led out an opening that had been cut into the wall many seasons ago. She stared at it for a few minutes, her mind off thinking about the fields the water pipe fed, then her thoughts flowing away in different directions like the water that the pipehouse serviced: finding the virul, fooling her sister, the healer, this virul again, who interrupted the rivulets of mind story with a question.

  “So, you do not like your sister very much.”

  Rane stifled her gasp of surprise, as her thoughts had made her forget the virul trussed up against the pipe. “She is not my sister. Shut up.”

  The virul went on easily. “Oh, she is your sister. Except for the hair and coloring, she could be your double.”

  “I said, ‘Shut up!’”

  The virul was quiet for a moment, then said softly, “I thank you for my life.”

  Rane growled, “You won’t thank me after posting fences under shackle tomorrow. The only reason you are alive is that it made it easier for me to allow the ruse. I will deal with you soon enough. I do not like getting attacked, especially by a lowly virul. Now, shut up on your own, or I will use my mace to do it for you.”

  The virul fell into silence, putting his head back slightly so he could rest, although it did not look like it would be a comfortable doze. What did she care? He was a virul.

  Finally, hoofs pounded up to the door of the pipehouse. Rane seemed to have dozed herself, for she sprang to her feet shakin
g off the disconcerting sweat of sleep. Shukad kicked open the door and threw the shackles at Rane’s feet.

  “Put them on him,” she commanded.

  Rane picked up the iron fetters and warily crawled crablike toward the virul, keeping her eyes on his face for any hint of aggression. There was none. She pulled the pins out of the shackles and opened them. He was still tied, and she saw no reason to change that, so she pulled one of his wrists toward her and—

  A blazing fire erupted in her forehead, and she was thrown back by the blow. She heard her sister scream her name, but for the second time this night, she found herself in a fog. She watched the virul use the shackles as a weapon, smashing them across her sister’s face. He did not have to hit her again as evidenced by her heavy and immutable collapse. He put a hand on Shukad’s neck and let it rest there for a moment. Satisfaction on his face—that Shukad was still alive, or that the blow had killed her—Rane could not tell, but as he stood and walked swiftly to her, the shackle raised, his intent was clear.

  Chapter Three

  Oh, the gods—her head hurt! Rane opened her eyes, but had not the strength to sit up. Lifting her hands to her head, she probed the nexus of the pain and found what she assumed was blood on her forehead, the edges dried and that around the wound still congealing. She had never felt so sick and wretched, not even during the training times. She lifted her head and stopped that immediately. Added to the pain now was intense nausea.

  “So, awake, are we?”

  Bile bubbled up and, pain or not, there was no help for it, she rolled to her side and vomited. She lay on her side, feeling awful enough that she wished she were dead. She had only heard the virul speak once, and recognized the voice, but felt too ill to respond to her situation—dire though it must be. All she could do was roll back to her original position and will the sickening spinning in her head to stop.

  The virul went on, “I truly was glad of those shackles, they really were a wonderful weapon. Your sister went down like a trough log. And you, well, you put up a good fight, I can tell you, but in the end. . .”