Akira Rises (19 page)

Nels looked at Crow and Dimitri who looked at him suspiciously as if he had not checked on her. “She said she was good...” his voice trailed off.

Dimitri believed him. She could lie with a straight face. The spitfire was still saying she was good as her knees buckled. Damned, stubborn woman.

“Tired,” muttered Akira. It was struggle to stay awake. In a moment of clarity, she struggled uselessly to get put down. It was embarrassing that her legs would not work properly, and suddenly she didn’t care about anything. She was too tired to be embarrassed. Too muddled to think.

The spitfire was not fine. Dimitri ignored her weak efforts and protests, carrying her through the tunnel that connected to a hallway that would eventually lead to the infirmary. A monk quickly appeared. The grey robed man called for assistance. Within minutes, grey robed men, white robed men scurried like mice through tunnels. Doors were opened before Dimitri reached them. Torches were lit. A horn was blown. Dimitri knew all too well his way to the infirmary.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

D
imitri gently deposited an unconscious Akira onto a sturdy plank examining table in the middle of the room. A healer was summoned. He had heard the horn that would bring one or more healers and a bevy of assistants. The monks who held doors and torches retreated. While waiting for the healer, Dimitri pulled off Akira’s hooded cape and untied the stiff frozen leather straps that secured her fur robe. She shivered. He loosely draped the fur robe back over her. He removed the wrappings over her boots, removed her boots and pulled off her stockings. Her feet were cold but not dangerously so. He rubbed her feet between his hands, massaging them until she pulled them back under her fur and tried to get warm on her own. The healer Agar arrived, his white robe flowing behind him, with an assistant packing the torch that lit their way from whence they came. He wasted no time. He examined the young woman for any obvious signs of frostbite, listened to her breathing, and placed his hand on her fevered brow.

“She must have an infection somewhere. Does she have a wound?”

Dimitri was about to say no when he remembered the large splinter he had removed from her firm and beautiful back side. “I suspect we need to remove her breeches and check where a splinter was lodged in her pretty little ass.”

Agar raised his shaggy white eyebrows. “Pretty little ass? Do I want to know how you know where to look?”

“Probably not,” admitted Dimitri as he started pulling off Akira’s first layer of breeches. When it came to the second layer of breeches, Akira, in feverish confusion, kept trying to pull the breeches up as Dimitri was trying to pull them down. Finally, Agar pulled a glass vial off a shelf on the wall and poured a liquid onto a clean cloth. He held the soft cloth over Akira's face gently but firmly. She struggled for a few seconds. When she succumbed to the deep sleep vapors, Dimitri finished pulling down her other layers of clothing. Agar removed the fur robe she had held so tightly, and helped Dimitri roll her onto her stomach. An angry swollen area that covered half of one butt cheek was exposed to their view.

“I can safely say there is the source of the fever. Did she not complain?” Agar asked incredulously as his assistant covered as much of Akira's bared skin as possible for decorum’s sake while leaving her infected wound exposed.

“No, she did not complain. The splinter’s location was a great source of embarrassment for her.” Dimitri answered truthfully. “At the time she acquired the splinter, I removed what I believed to be all of the splinter. In my haste to preserve her modesty, I did not do a thorough enough examination of her wound.”

“Hmnnn... I take it you were not on intimate terms then?” Agar did not wait for Dimitri to answer, and Dimitri did not volunteer any more information. Agar’s assistant brought a basin of hot water and a clean cloth to Agar. Agar washed his hands, then touched the skin around the puncture wound. It was tightly swollen and clearly painful. He gently pressed around the hot center of the wound. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to lance this and clean the wound. Hold the cloth over her face for a few more seconds. Let us make sure she remembers no pain or embarrassment.”

Agar's assistant followed the instructions. He flicked Akira's cheek. She did not flinch or waken. The assistant nodded to Agar. The vapors had done their merciful work. Drugged asleep she would not fight them, and suffer no embarrassment.

“It's a pity this will leave a scar.” Agar looked at Dimitri who nodded in agreement. Dimitri remained impassive as Agar pressed a sharp blade into the center of the wound. Had she been awake and in pain he might not have been able to be as stoic. Immune to his own pain when wounded, seeing a child or woman injured and in pain was a different story. A gob of pus oozed out. Agar cleansed the wound and pressed around the wound. A second spurt of pus brought forth a small jagged piece of black wood. He poured a clear liquid over the wound. Dimitri recognized the smell and wondered if the liquid spirits were also of the drinking sort. He was tempted to take a swig. It had been a long cold hard ride.

“Prepare a drawing poultice Edvard.”

Agar's assistant scurried away to crush herbs into a paste, mumbling “mortar and pestle, mortar and pestle” as if he might forget his task. He returned a few minutes later with a green paste. Agar applied it liberally to the cleaned wound, then covered it with a clean white cloth. The smell of the paste was familiar to Dimitri. It smelled of mustard and something else he could not quite identify. He had his wounds treated with a similar medicinal paste, but without the benefit of the vapors sparing him discomfort. Not that he would ever need the vapors, he told himself, but it was good to know Agar had them.

“We shall keep her in the infirmary until the fever breaks. Brother James, go to the kitchen and have the cook prepare some bone broth. Our patient will need it to regain her strength. To break her fever, we shall prepare an infusion of willow bark tea. Lord Dimitri, your guest needs her rest.” Agar did not mince words.

Dimitri felt dismissed. He was tired, and hungry. There was nothing more he could do. She was in good hands and would be sleeping off the effects of the vapors she had been forced to breathe. Still he felt curiously reluctant to leave and attend to his own needs and duties. He thanked the healer, Agar, and took his leave. He decided to join his men in the dining hall. As late as it was, cooks would have been summoned, and his men would be filling their bellies, and warming themselves by the fire hearth. Nels especially would want news of Suraj. He had looked stricken that she fell ill under his watch, not that it was his fault. The men would all want to know that Suraj was going to be fine before heading off to one of the hot spring pools where steamy mineral laden waters flowed up from the bowels of the earth. The sacred waters of the mountain held healing and rejuvenation powers. The monks would attend his men when their bellies were filled. The cleansing rituals would be performed before the men would be invited into the healing pools to soak the heat and healing powers into their bodies. Many an argument had been to decide if a good bedding with a warm woman was more relaxing than the sacred pools. The opinions were split evenly and all agreed to ensure the best relaxing protocol one should do both activities. Naturally, there was an argument which should be done firs.

The Order of the White Rose guarded and protected the sacred healing sanctuary carved by nature over millenniums into a deep bowl shaped depression near the mountain summit. Legends told of a great spewing of fire and brimstone in the time of dragons that left a gigantic bowl atop the mountain. The bowl was said to have been filled with heavenly rains until a crystal clear lake formed. The heavenly waters fed the thirsty mountain, cooled the fires within the belly of the mountain. With the passage of time a side of the rock walled bowl had broken away from the mountain where winds, ice and water had weakened the wall. The lake had disappeared in the time of gods and other immortals.

No one knew what manner of men or holy men had started building a man made wall to make a safe fortress and sanctuary on top of the mountain. Carefully guarded scrolls were rumored to hold evidence the original builders of the fortress came from the skies with amazing magic abilities and tools. Where they had gone, what happened to them, was not known to most mortals, but those who pondered the whys and hows of magic argued that true magicians were descendants of the sky travelers. The churches of many of the surrounding kingdoms thought it heresy to stray from their own version of how man came to be. Those who spoke against the church’s beliefs were persecuted, tortured and killed. They maintained that ogres and fierce beasts always roamed the kingdoms and were not brought by the mythical sky people as beasts of burden. Only one version of creation was permissible and as people traveled and migrated, the migrants learned there were many versions of the only permissible version of creation. They also learned it was safer to adhere to the version of creation of land they entered into.

Men from earlier times rebuilt the wall so that once again against the sides of the mountain that protected the hot springs from three directions, now were protected from every direction. Natural caves had been enlarged by carving out the rock. Tunnels connected caves. The rock materials that were carved out from the cave walls rebuilt the exterior walls where the wind and rains had eroded the basin. The new wall made a fortress around the small plateau where on a clear day it seemed like one could see forever and beyond. The monastery had an ethereal look to it, especially when cloaked in white mists, and wisps of clouds.

The hot spring waters bubbling up from the bowels of the mountain provided heat year round for its guardians. The healers believed the heated pools were a gift from the gods, and Dimitri had no cause to disbelieve. He had benefited from bathing in the soothing waters, drank from potions made from its waters. Healing crystals that formed around the pools, were carefully gathered, and then sold to healers in secrecy far and wide. The payment for the healing crystals bought food and supplies for the guardians and healers.

It was the last of the winter’s livestock feed supplies Dimitri and his men had just delivered. The supplies were for men and beasts alike. The monastery inhabitants tended livestock that provided much of their fresh food. The goats, mules, sheep, cows and chickens all needed grain, and gathered dried grasses for food and bedding. The animals provided more than meat, milk, eggs and cheese. The droppings of the animals helped nurture the thin soils in the basin that in summer grew fresh vegetables in tiered garden beds.

Glacier ice was carried into the mountain for fresh drinking water, and cold food storage caverns. Summer rainwater was stored in deep rock ponds. The mountain provided for those who protected its treasured healing waters and crystals. It was beautiful, and majestically high. The mountain was not so high that men had trouble breathing. Some of the neighboring mountains in view were so high, they sucked the breath out of men so foolish as to try conquering their heights. It was said the lack of good air was to prevent men from trying to reach the heavenly gods.

Caves and tunnels contained supplies and rations for at least one year ahead, if not two, in case of an attempted siege. Few siege attempts were made as the sanctuary was built like a fortress. Only the mages of the mountain order knew of the mountains' secret tunnels, veins and arteries. The holy men and mages treated the mountain with reverence. They believed the mountain was a living breathing entity. Dimitri did not know if it was really so, but who was he to argue. The mages and healers had inexplicable power, and they guarded an inner sanctum few had knowledge of or access to. The mountain had a heart, a center so holy few could enter it and return alive. Songs of men without the ability to read or write preserved the stories of the mountain. Of course the churches forbade the singing of them. Those who chaffed against the rulers of the day, the brave rebels of oppression, ignored the rulers and priests of the current versions of creation. The rebels, called heretics, preserved the songs.

~

T
he winter isolation months atop the mountain were a time of purification, meditation and training. Years earlier having been healed atop the mountain from an almost certain death from battle wounds, Dimitri felt an obligation and need to be a part of the security force for the order. For faithful and brave duty to King Peter, located west of the mountain range that was home to the White Rose Order, Dimitri was elevated in position to a Marquis. With many men at his disposal, he was charged with protecting the mountain border lands and in particular the mountain. Because he felt an obligation to the order for saving his life, he never left its care to his second in command. Every few years, he would oversee the training of new guardians while availing himself of the rejuvenating waters of the pools.

Dimitri was not ready to settle down. His warrior spirit was at its peak. He told himself someday if the gods were good to him for faithful service, he would find a good woman and allow himself some latitude and creature comforts. No woman tempted the very eligible bachelor to put down roots, save a few that were already spoken for. Those spoken for and bound to others were tempting, but not worth the trouble of jealous husbands wanting to run him through with a dull sword. |However, there were women that satisfied his needs when they aroused his natural desires. Suraj was not the typical type of young woman that stirred his interest and loins at the same time. Dimitri was still convinced she was not who she said she was. She had to be the girl he had hoped to rescue and return to her mother. He stretched his neck and rolled his broad shoulders. The healing pools would feel good on his bruised shoulder. Knowing the morrow would bring more answers, he rejoined his men.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN