TST (30 page)

The mayor’s answer confused Azerick. “Why did you not just come out and ask us? Why the charade to try and keep us here?”

“It was not a charade though I certainly laid it on a bit thick I suppose. We really are a good town full of nice people and good intentions. It is just that with your story about escaping your captivity, I thought you would be too eager to return to your homes and decline my request for help. If I could have convinced you to stay here for another week, snows would likely have closed the pass out of the valley and you would have had no choice but to stay,” the mayor stated, looking abashed at his own duplicity.

“I know it was wrong of me to attempt such a thing but as the mayor it is my responsibility to ensure the continued success of my town. The harvest is very important to all of us and it caused me to act with poor judgment. Please forgive me,” he asked contritely.

“Are you saying we are stuck here, that we cannot get through the pass?” Azerick asked a bit more calmly.

“I give you better than an even chance if you left within the next day or two. Another week at most and the upper pass will be blocked by snow. Even if it was not, the threat of avalanche is too great to risk. If it is not too presumptuous of me I still have to ask, would you consider staying on and helping us?”

Azerick allowed himself to relax and sat down at the table. “That’s it? That is what you were hiding from us? All you wanted was some manual labor in exchange for providing for us through the winter?”

Mayor Remkin lifted his hands, palms up. “That is all. Would you do it, or at least talk it over with your men?” he pleaded.

Azerick felt all his anger and suspicion drain from him. “Mayor Remkin, please forgive me. Any duplicity on your part pales in comparison to my rudeness and suspicion. I think a short stay in your town is exactly what we may need. I also have no desire to walk home in the dead of winter.”

Zeb concurred and promised that he would talk it over with his people today. Mayor Remkin returned to his usual jolly self at Azerick and Zeb’s promise to discuss his proposal with the others. By the time lunch came around, Zeb had spoken to nearly everyone that had fled through the portal with him.

When the mayor returned to the inn, Zeb was able to give him the answer he wanted. Although several people had families they eagerly wished to return to, they realized that the dangerous and harsh journey ahead made waiting after the cold season a wiser decision.

Everyone supported the plan with enthusiasm. That day, most of the men and women left to stay at the homes of outlying farms. A few lived in town to work at the silos and receive the crops that the farmers brought in.

Azerick elected to stay at the inn and was introduced to the town’s healer, Margaret Thistledown. Margaret was an ancient woman but still fiery and full of life. It appeared that even death respected her wishes and left her to decide on her own when her time was up.

She told him that Anna was out collecting roots and plants with medicinal properties. She admitted that she had waited too long to take on an apprentice to take over for her when she was gone. Now her eyes were bad and her hands too stiffened with arthritis and needed someone with a good knowledge of herb lore to show Anna firsthand the kinds of plants and roots she needed to collect.

She hastily added that she would have taken on an apprentice long before but every girl that came to her was a bubble-headed little twit without the sense of a mentally deficient turkey.

The ancient herbalist began quizzing Azerick extensively on his knowledge of plants, herbs, roots, and healing. After more than two hours of interrogation, she concluded that the young man was fit to assist her in educating her apprentice.

Azerick was impressed with the old woman’s knowledge and was certain that she contained a great deal more within that wrinkled, thinly grey-haired head of hers. Anna walked in just as Margaret finished grilling the young sorcerer.

 “Anna, this is the young man that the mayor sent to assist in your education,” Margaret said as her apprentice walked into the room.

“Yes, we met briefly the other day.” Anna replied formally.

“Why don’t you go make us some tea before you hang your plants to dry,” the old healer told Anna. “She did not sound pleased to meet you,” she told Azerick when Anna left the room.

“I am afraid I was a bit—abrupt with her yesterday.”

Margaret let out a rough cackle. “Don’t let that bother you overmuch. The girl’s gotten a thick skin since she came to work for me. She’ll be fine.”

Azerick noticed several books upon a shelf, pulled one out at random, and began flipping through the pages. It was a handwritten journal detailing the properties and uses of various plants and roots accompanied by detailed color drawings. He replaced it and pulled out another. This one was strictly about mushrooms and fungus. Drawings, the uses or toxicity, along with each variety’s spore count, accompanied every entry.

“Did you write all of these?” Azerick asked as he pulled a third book from the shelf.

“Oh yes, back before my vision went, I wrote those over the last fifty or sixty years.”

“They are spectacular. The drawings and descriptions are some of the best I have ever seen. Anna is fortunate to have such material at her disposal.”

Margaret waved off the compliment with a snort. “There are many things that a person must learn that simply cannot be put in books. Healing takes as much intuition as education and you can’t get intuition from a book. That is why she needs someone to go out with her and give her firsthand knowledge of such things. If healing and herb lore could be done out of a cookbook then everyone could do it.”

“I had a teacher who told me very much the same thing,” Azerick replied quietly.

Anna returned with three cups of tea and a small crock of honey to sweeten it. The conversation was light and subdued. When they finished with their tea Margaret told Anna to go hang her gatherings in the drying room and recommended that Azerick go help her.

He followed the young woman through a door and was surprised to find that the room beyond was even larger than the main room where they sat and drank tea. There was a large fireplace with a warm fire burning, more to dry out the air than to provide comfort.

Plants, roots, herbs, and fungus of all sorts hung from wires strung across the room. Anna went about using clothes pins to clip the plants and such that she had gathered that morning to the lines to dry. It did not take long for Azerick to decipher the organization that she used. Like plants hung with like and organized by their uses and properties.

“Anna, I would like to apologize for my rudeness the other day. I have not been myself for quite some time,” he explained.

Anna’s face softened at his words. “It is all right. I imagine you are under quite a lot of stress from your ordeals. Margaret is not one to work for if your feelings are easily hurt.”

“So she told me,” Azerick replied with a grin.

The rest of the day went much more smoothly. Azerick spent time on discovering what Anna already knew so he could decide where best to start training her. The old healer had done quite well with her tutelage thus far but Azerick found a few gaps in her education that he could start working on.

He returned to the inn that evening and found Zeb and Toron sitting at a table enjoying a meal and ale and took a seat between the two. Both man and minotaur worked in town so Azerick was not surprised to see them. Zeb’s experience as ship captain made him an excellent foreman and Toron’s incredible strength allowed him to do the work of two men.

“How is the work going so far, Zeb?” Azerick asked as he took a seat.

“Well enough I guess. It lacks the excitement of sailing but it beats the heck out of polishing marble floors and brass all day. There’s not much work to be done just now but we’ll be pulling some long nights when the crops start coming in.”

“I for one will be glad to be finished with this farm labor,” Toron rumbled. “I am eager to swing an axe again even if it is only at trees.”

Zeb answered Azerick’s questioning look. “You see, I figured that if we are going to be here for several months, the boys and I could build a ship and take it down the river by midsummer at the latest. It would make for much easier and faster traveling. I’ve asked around and as far as anyone knows there are no falls or shallows that would keep us from reaching the sea. Each man would have a stake in the boat and a share of any profit we might make with it.”

Zeb got more and more excited as he continued to talk about his plan. “This place is ripe with timber and not only for building the ship. The river runs right through the Habberback plains. Great farming land but not a piece of wood bigger than a broom handle for hundreds of miles, nor any iron ore to be mined.

These folks mine much of their own ore from the nearby mountains. We can load up the ship with timber and as much smelted or raw ore as we can, trade it for grain and produce at one of the Habberback towns that lie on the river, then sell that load to one of the large coastal cities for a huge profit!”

“Sounds like you have it all figured out, Zeb. Do you think you can make a decent ship with what you have to work with here?” Azerick asked.

“No doubt about it. The boys and me know all there is to ship construction and the locals have some excellent woodworkers and a waterwheel-driven saw to make the timbers. The hardest part is going to be getting enough tar to seal her up but the locals told me there’s a supply a few days southeast of here where the river drains into some lowlands making a marsh that’s got a couple natural tar pits. It’ll be a chore getting it but we’ll manage.”

“Let me know if there is anything I can do to help. It sounds like a grand idea, Zeb,” Azerick congratulated him.

“You’ll be going with us won’t you, lad?” Zeb asked with concern.

“I imagine so but who knows what will happen by then. I may grow to like the peaceful life here and stick around a while,” Azerick replied.

“Well, whatever you decide I wish you luck but I sure hope you go with us.”

“Like I said, I have not made my mind up one way or the other. We will see what happens when the time comes. I may find that the quiet life may not be for me.”

“That’s an understatement!” Zeb loudly laughed.
 Within days, wagonloads of farm crops began coming in to be stored in the silos and grain bins. Most of the women in the town were busy boiling water for canning fruits and vegetables into sealed glass jars to preserve them through the winter.

Azerick and Anna got the opportunity to treat the inevitable injuries that sprang up during such times of intense labor. One man broke his arm and injured his back when he fell from a grain elevator, another got a nasty gash in his leg when he slipped from a piece of farm equipment and got it hung up on a sharp piece of metal. Two women had to be treated for burns they received from the boiling water used to seal the jars during the canning process.

Azerick and Anna continued to get along well and he even began to enjoy their walks in search of poultice and medicinal ingredients. The crops were harvested with no more than three days to spare when the first heavy frost coated the ground and froze the earth solid. Within days of the frost, the first light snows carpeted the lower hills and soon after, the valley itself. Zeb, Toron, and his men along with a few local woodsmen worked through the snows, chopping down trees and pulling heavy logs on sledges with a team of mules to the saw house next to the river.

Azerick walked into the inn one cold night after leaving Margaret’s home and saw Zeb sitting with mayor Remkin. From the look on Zeb’s face, he must have been talking about his ship. The mayor’s face however was creased with the look of apprehension or concern. Azerick picked up their conversation as he strode towards the table.

“How long do you think it will take you to complete this ship of yours, Zeb?” the mayor was asking.

“I reckon we’ll have her finished by the end of spring or early summer. If I just wanted a boat to get us home I could probably have her done before the snows melted but I figured I’d make a good working ship. One I can use along the coasts as well as the river if I choose to,” Zeb replied in an animated voice he adopted whenever he spoke of sailing and ships.