The Gorgon's Blood Solution (12 page)

“He’s not to be allowed to leave the island.  He’s not to be allowed to go in pursuit of Porenn.  He’s not to be allowed to do any ‘man things’ to any of our girls,” Iasco instructed.  “And he’s not to be harassed or abused by any of our girls either,” she added.  “Other than those rules, he’s to be given freedom of the island.  I don’t think there are any harmful intentions in his heart, and I hope there’s some good common sense in his brain.

“Now, off with the two of you.  My day has been wrecked by our little adventure this morning and I have a million things to do,” Iasco shook hands with Albany, then turned to Marco.  Flustered by the circumstances, he quickly bowed to her, then followed Albany out the door and off the balcony.

“It’s good to see that you’ve got at least a sliver of good manners,” the guard commented as they re-entered the hall.  “Now, where would you like to go?”

“Is there someplace I can get some bread or meat to eat?” Marco asked.  “The fruit was good, but I want something solid.”

“Do you have any money?” Albany asked.

“I’ve got a sword, a pair of pants, and a vest, and that’s it,” Marco replied.

“You’ve got more than that, from what I hear, but nothing that’s going to buy you a meal,” Albany said wrily.  “Well, we could go to the guard mess hall and get something there, but I’m not sure I want to take you in there just now.

“Can I trust you to behave?” she asked him.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Come with me,” the guard told him and she set out walking at a brisk pace.  They left the building, walking past guards who looked at Marco ominously, then they walked up one of the side streets that climbed the sloping mountainside portion of the village, and turned into a dim doorway.  Inside, Albany opened a door and led Marco in.

“Here, this is the library.  You stay here, don’t talk to anybody, don’t let anyone see you, don’t go anywhere else, don’t do anything at all,” Albany instructed him.  “I’ll go get some food and bring it up here to you.

“No one who might want to mix it up with you is going to think to come to the library, so you’ll be fine here as long as you don’t call attention to yourself.   Do you understand?” she asked.

“I’ll stay here and won’t talk to anyone, don’t worry,” Marco said earnestly.

And with that, Albany was gone.  Marco was alone for the first time since the screaming girls had awoken him that morning, and he let out a deep breath of relaxation, able to let some of his tension temporarily slip away.  He slipped away from the wall that held windows looking out over the street, and he slipped between two of the many book cases.

There were dozens of books lining the shelves.  He randomly pulled an ornately illustrated, hand-scribed tome entitled “The Wellness of Blessings”.  He randomly opened a page in the front of the book, and saw an image of Jesus on the cross, beneath which were written the words, “All prayers for healing and wellness must be from a pure heart, one ordained to place love of our savior as the highest means of finding relief from pain.”

He closed the book and restored it to its position, then looked at another book, one which had drawings of plants, and told of their medicinal properties.  He was intrigued by the similarity of the concepts to some of the alchemical formulas he had prepared, and he leafed through several pages.  Something caught his attention from the corner of his eye, and he looked up to see a very large book lying on its side on top of the bookcase.

Marco put the botanical lesson book away, and stretched upward to pull the big volume down.   He examined the dusty cover, and saw that it had no title on the leather-bound wood.  There was no title page either; the first page was a very old parchment that contained closely scribed writing, and it appeared to end abruptly.  There was no writing on the back side of the page, but the narrative carried on at the top of the next page, and Marco realized that the pages had at one time been a scroll, which had been cut into pages.

He began to read again, and as he did, he realized with a start that the text was referring to obscure alchemical theories, things that Master Algornia had tried to teach him over the course of his apprenticeship in the shop in the Lion City.  Purification was constantly referred to – using various elements to purify the flaws in people.  He took the book and walked back out to the front of the room, where he sat on the floor by the window, and began to read the book clearly by the light that came streaming in through the glass.

He came to a page on which a profile of a man’s head was drawn above letters that spelled HERMES TRISMEG.  Below that he saw an image of a caduceus.  The images were familiar, and he realized with a start that they were the same as the images on the coin he had swallowed in the Lion City, the coin given to him by the old woman who had disappeared.

The words inside the book were nonsense and indecipherable at first, as Marco’s brain slowly shifted gears from thinking about survival among a village of hostile women to thinking in terms of the principles and practices of alchemy once again.  As he perused the pages he was surprised by the continual stream of triggered memories that came flooding back to his mind, the memories that Algornia had managed to plant more securely than Marco had realized as he had sat and daydreamed in the shop on the square.  And other concepts seemed to leap into his comprehension as well, ideas that surprised him with their complexity and alchemical relevance.

He came to the end of the opening prologue, and the pages became a long, comprehensive list of formulae for concoctions.  They all were related to healing he realized, as he began to leaf through the book.  The whole book was hundreds of formulae for treatments of illnesses, injuries, conditions, even diseases of the mind!  And they all made sense to him.  He would be able to create any of the cures the book spelled out, given the proper ingredients, he grasped with a start.

Marco sat with the book propped open in his lap, his eyes closed, as he tried to recall the various mixtures he had worked on related to healing over the course of his service to Algornia.   None of the formulae in the book seemed familiar, and the book seemed capable of treating a vastly greater range of conditions that Algornia had ever worked on.

“Are you sleeping?” Albany’s voice made Marco jump, as he opened his eyes and saw her standing in the doorway, holding a paper-wrapped parcel.

“I, I was just resting my eyes,” Marco stuttered.

“If you’d rather take a nap, I can put your food aside for later,” the guard said as she displayed the food she had brought.

Marco’s stomach growled loudly at the recollection of food.  “I’d like to eat now,” he answered.

Albany came and slowly lowered herself to the floor, then laid the parcel between them.  “I think I brought enough for both of us to have a bite, if you don’t mind sharing.”

“That sounds good,” Marco said, as he unwrapped the paper and looked at the pile of rolls, slices of meat and cheese, and small bottle of wine that were contained within.  “There’s more than enough to share,” he looked warily up at Albany’s face, and saw that there was an expression of curiosity in her eyes.  He realized abruptly that he had set his sword down back in the book cases when he had reached for the alchemical text, and he was alone with a woman, weaponless.

“You’re just sitting here quietly reading a book while there’s a hundred women wandering around the town trying to figure out where you are; now isn’t that funny,” she said as she took a bread roll from the package and bit into it.

“Am I going to be safe?” he asked as he picked up a wedge of yellow cheese and bit off the end.

“I think so,” Albany answered, speaking around the food in her mouth.  “The Lady has sent out a pretty clear message.  If anything does manage to happen to you, it will look like an accident – for all I know, it might even really be an accident!” she laughed, and Marco gave an uncertain chuckle with her.

“Of course the other problem is what the little vixen Porenn started.  There are a bunch of women who just want to ‘talk’ with a man, they say.

“I’m already working to squelch that problem,” she said.

“How’s that?” Marco’s curiosity was intense.

“I’ve told everyone that Porenn said you were a lousy lover,” Albany answered, then laughed loudly at the injured look on Marco’s face.

“Stop worrying, I didn’t really say that of course, and even if I did, there’d still be those who would want to find out for themselves.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to give you the opportunity to satisfy their appetites.  Women have gotten along just fine on this island for centuries; we’re not going to let you screw everything up here in the next couple of days.”

They ate in silence after that, as Marco considered the implications of Albany’s report, and mulled over the surprising information.  At length they finished their meal.

“What would you like to do now?” Albany asked.

Marco looked at the angle of the sunlight coming in through the window; it appeared to be late afternoon.  “I’d like to go take a walk along the beach,” he said, dreaming that he might catch a glimpse of Kreewhite, and be magically rescued from his predicament.

“Along the beach,” Albany muttered to herself.  “Now, in the daylight, or would you like to wait until the evening, after dark, when you won’t be quite so identifiable?”

He wouldn’t be able to see Kreewhite if he waited until evening, and that was the only reason he wanted to go to the beach.  “I’d like to go now,” he answered.

“I didn’t have any children of my own,” Albany muttered again.  “My sister did though.  I always felt a little envious of her.  Now that I’ve had the pleasure of being your mother for a couple of hours though, I don’t feel so envious.

“Go get your sword,” she told Marco as she stood up.  “The first place we’ll go is to the armory, to get a belt and a scabbard for you to use.  Then we’ll probably be mobbed to death.  Then we’ll go to the beach.”

Marco obligingly fetched his sword, and followed Albany out a small back door that led to a narrow alley.  “Maybe folks will take a little time to figure out where I’m keeping you if we play a couple of hide-and-seek games,” she said as they emerged from the alley onto a deserted street, and walked down into the heart of the small commercial sector of the village.  They immediately drew a crowd of observers as they began to walk along the main street.

“Careful Albany, you’ll be sent into exile next,” an anonymous voice called.

“Aren’t you two supposed to hold hands?” someone else asked.

“Want me to give you a break and watch him for you?” another voice asked, as they passed by the others in the village.  Marco felt their eyes upon him, and he felt his cheeks grow warm as he blushed from all the unwanted attention.  They both gave sighs of relief when Albany turned and they entered the door of a large stone building, which turned out to be the armory.

The building was loud with a wooden clacking noise that Marco didn’t identify until they walked through the short entry hall, and he saw several pairs of woman fencing with wooden practice swords.  “The equipment is over here,” Albany indicated, as she led Marco to a small room that was full of leather harnesses, belts, scabbards, vests, and other objects.  Marco selected a belt, tested three scabbards to find one that was the right length, and then put the two together and placed his sword on his hip.  It felt slightly awkward; he hadn’t carried a sword when he worked as an apprentice, and he had no experience with the weapon except for what he had gained that day, using an enchanted sword that seemed to fight its own battles on his behalf.

“This is good.  I’m ready,” he quickly told Albany, and they left the room.

“Hey Albany,” a voice immediately called out.  “How would you and your new champion like to go a few practice rounds?”  Marco looked over and saw that the voice belonged to one of the guards he had fought earlier, when he had been ambushed.

“What do you say?” Albany instantly asked him with a gleam in her eye.  Marco could see that the idea appealed to her, though he had no desire to rely on the magic of the sword.

“I’d rather go to the beach,” he answered his guardian in a low voice.

“Come on, just one match.  I’d like to see you in action, the boy who singlehandedly beat the three guards in her Ladyship’s house,” Albany wheedled him.

“Okay – one match,” Marco agreed.

Albany led him to the dressing room to put on protective pads for the match, and Marco hurriedly backed out when two guards who were changing out of their own pads looked at him while they stood bare-chested in the room.

“Sorry, we don’t have a men’s room,” Albany called.  “They’ll be out in a second.”

The women exited the room a minute later.  Marco hung his head and refused to make eye contact as they laughingly walked past him.  Marco went in, and found a set of pads that loosely fit him, and he let Albany tighten them up on him.  “These would fit better if you had a chest,” she muttered.

“I wouldn’t be in so much trouble in the first place if I had a chest,” he retorted, making her grin.

He picked up his sword as they prepared to leave the dressing room.  “Hold on!  No sir, no metal blades on the practice floor,” Albany abruptly told him, making him wince in horror, as he realized he would not have his enchanted sword to give him any proficiency in the match.

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” he answered.  “Let’s just go on down to the beach.”