A warmth engulfed him, swallowing him. Flickers of red and black pierced his vision, and he was awash with pains, ebbing and flowing. His body felt like an ocean of senses, waves of feeling roiling and crashing upon his consciousness. A sudden jolt swayed him back to a painful awareness. There was a sour taste in his mouth and his head was ringing with noise and confusion. He felt sick and dizzy.
His face was covered, stifling, and with a stiff and inordinately painful arm, he cleared the thick hemp blanket from his face. It was dark but he could see stars, peering from above scudding clouds, thin and wintry, their trailing lengths scarring the pebbled star-scape.
How was it night? How long had they traveled? He was in a cart, the back of a cart and there was a warm body beside him. He pushed himself up on his elbows, fierce jolts of pain jerking down his arms. Up front, a dark-cloaked figure swayed with the gentle motion of the cart. He did not need to see the pale hindquarters of the familiar mare in the reins or the items in the cart, with smells faintly exotic, to know who the figure was. A momentary puzzlement fogged his mind.
It all came back to him then. He barely managed to reach the side of the cart. When his stomach had emptied itself and his throat was raw, he managed a choking breath. He felt rather than saw their cloaked driver peering back at him once or twice from the shade of her cloak. He croaked “The back gate!” and she nodded almost imperceptibly. He would have smiled had a flash of urgent fear not burst upon him. He half-rolled to where his companion lay, a huddled shape under the thick blanket. Her chest was rising and falling in short, shallow gasps. Her face was burning to the touch. Rimbaud fumbled around him for what he knew must be there. A whisper from the front of the cart came back to him on the night-breeze, “There, under the seat.” He reached under and found it, a thick water-skin, half-full.
His hands shaking, and his fingers fumbling, he removed the cap, and, tilting Estelyn’s head back slightly, allowed a trickle to pour into her throat. She murmured and thrashed her legs a little.
“Hurry!” he said insistently, hardly lifting his head. He knew the driver had heard but the cart did not pick up speed noticeably. Rimbaud aimed another trickle of warmish water down the throat of the fevered Princess. The cart rolled on, steadily through the night.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Not so very far away, in a large building in Minas Tirith, a shadowy figure made his report, to the great satisfaction of he who had given the instructions. “Very good,” he was told. “Do you believe that it will be necessary to remove any who may suppose to know too much?”
The voice of the underling was low, a sinuous whisper. “As far as I know, sir, those that were sent perished also.”
His master rose, tall above him. “That is well.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Dawn was yet an hour off when the cart rolled unseen to a halt outside the back gate of The Seventh Star. Bethberry stepped down from the cart and approached the gate, with the intention of opening it.
“Hold!” came the whisper from the cart. She half-turned. Rimbaud beckoned her over. “You would be in grave danger trying to sneak in that way,” he said hoarsely. He held up his left hand, and a ring, previously unseen and unknown to Bethberry, glinted faintly in the starlight. The gate creaked and Bethberry faintly heard cogs in motion around the gate as it swung slowly but smoothly open. She had not time to ask the thousand questions that sprang to mind. Rimbaud lowered his hand and she walked swiftly to Riverdance’s head and led him in. The injured man whistled, and she started.
“Fear not,” he said, “Ulaf can be trusted to keep quiet.” The man in question came, presently, from one of the Inn’s outbuildings nearby. He nodded to the Innkeeper, just visible, shoulders and head above the side of the cart in the faint morning light. Riverdance whickered as she was led away and Bethberry seemed uncomfortable but had more pressing matters.
“Upstairs?” she asked.
“Yes, if we can manage it without waking the guests!”
It was a struggle, even with Ulaf’s help. By the third stair, Rimbaud’s help in carrying the Princess was negligible. At the top he motioned them to wait with her on the landing. He caught his breath and walked to his small chambers, separate from the other rooms of the Inn, fetching his keys from the chest within.
When they had installed Estelyn in a bed in one of the simpler rooms, Bethberry made her way to the kitchens to fetch what she needed. Rimbaud delivered instructions to Ulaf; the stable-hand helped him to his rooms, and Rimbaud slept.
Some time later, Bethberry came to his rooms. The early afternoon sun streamed in through the windows and the Inn was a bustle around them. She sighed sadly as she saw him, sprawled atop the blue linens of his small bed in his soiled clothes, and muddied boots. Blood had stained the sheets and dirt was over the floor. There were signs that he had been all over the room, traces of blood and earth, on the desk, and incongruously on the mirror.
Fool man doesn’t know when to stop, she thought wryly.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
As she stood there, in the doorway, a figure touched her shoulder, causing her to jump. A short lady, in the grey of the Inn stood before her, two young helpers behind her. Bethberry was surprised, she could not remember the staff here, normally so efficient and noiseless, ever approaching her unasked.
A question formed on her lips, yet before she could ask it, the woman had pushed past her into the room. “The Inn takes care of its own, thank’ee Miss,” she said over her shoulder. The two helpers squeezed through as well, and then Ulaf, bearing a great steaming basin of water. The woman looked up at Bethberry before she bent over the Innkeeper. "You be sure not to let your tongue be flapping now, Miss,” she said. “This Inn keeps its secrets and this Innkeeper especially.”
Bethberry laughed. It seemed the Innkeeper had his match in the small but tigerish head of staff. She gladly left him in her care and made her way down to the common room.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The End of the Saving of The Seventh Star. We hope people enjoyed reading this small scale RP as much as we enjoyed writing it. Thanks for reading, if you did!
This story blends back into The Seventh Star
here.
Thread closed.
[ December 17, 2002: Message edited by: Rimbaud ]