Adam's Journey (The Aliomenti Saga - Book 8) Page 7

  They spent two long years toiling in servitude. Only Arthur seemed to find the arrangement an improvement over his former life. All developed a deep thirst for whatever form of freedom they’d once held. They watched in horror as others in their number were buried, victims of long years of bitter toil. All were fearful that they’d meet a similar fate, ignominious ends to lives of silent desperation. All looked for an opportunity to escape that fate.

  997 A.D.

  They were selected to test new living and eating arrangements, not because they were liked, but because they were troublemakers, chosen in the hope that the “harsher” requirements—different foods considered health-sapping, requirements to bathe daily in the coldest available water—would kill them off.

  Instead, they thrived.

  Word of their improvement reached the noble, who deemed the experiment a failure and opined that the world would be better off if those who’d failed didn’t live to tell the tale.

  The quartet learned of their fate through a network of old friends—those who still lived. Knights would arrive in two days, ready to carry out their death sentences. Plans, mostly of Arthur’s derivation, were made.

  At a prearranged signal, they snuck out of their simple shared dwelling, and upon passing one of their owner’s presently unoccupied homes crept inside, making off with clothing, weapons, simple tools, and money. An old mare left behind became their beast of burden, and they fought fatigue, walking without stopping for two straight days, keeping their movements confined to creek beds to hide their footprints and scents from anyone thinking of tracking them.

  No one found them.

  998 A.D.

  Random travels over the course of the year brought them in contact with others who sought a different life, often men and women like his father who had no future in their current arrangements. Many joined their merry band of nomads, and they pushed to the north and east, trying to follow the path least likely to bring unwanted reunions with any who sought their recapture.

  As time passed, the group became like family, and they often joked that it was as if all the years before their meeting didn’t exist, that they’d all escaped their various undesirable circumstances together.

  They settled one frigid evening in a clearing deep in a forest, huddling together for warmth, a small fire lit only to keep predators at bay; a larger bonfire might draw attention.

  They woke to a deep snowfall, one that impeded progress, and they mutually agreed that it was time to stop running. They’d learned skills in their former lives, skills honed over the year-long trek, and set to work immediately building more permanent lodging, turning the random stopping into a home for all of them.

  1000 A.D.

  Their small encampment was now a small village, with tiny cabins for individual privacy and sleeping. They’d also erected a barn and had dug a well for water. Specialized skills kept them well stocked with foraged food, hunted meats, grains tended in the open fields beyond the forests.

  They’d scouted and found large villages and towns within a few days’ journey of home and began regular trips to each of them to trade, focusing in the earliest days on critical supplies—tools, seed, domestic animals—before buying less practical items.

  In those trading runs, most often performed by Adam, Eva, and Arthur, they heard of other villages full of wonders both material and mystical. They decided to have their top traders travel to one of those more distant realms, seeking both new markets for buying and selling, but also to seek out purveyors of these claimed “magical powers” and perhaps learn their secrets, secrets that would protect them from any future efforts at recapture by former masters.

  Though they’d agreed to a one decade ban on marital relationships, most recognized the gleam in the eyes of Arthur and Genevieve, who were chosen by random lot to carry out the journey. The group found the idea of sending a man and woman together, especially those with such obvious romantic interest, an unsavory proposition. Calls to draw lots again were discarded as unfair.

  Finally, the man they called Adam, a skilled trader himself, persuaded the group to send him along, adding both another trader and a “chaperone” against any possible misbehavior carried out by the young lovers in violation of the group’s pact.

  1001 A.D.

  The trio departed home and reached one of the distant towns. They acquired odd luxuries, including books—though none of them could read—and indeed witnessed miraculous skills they could only describe as magical. Conversation with the performers of said magic led Arthur to spend extra money on anything the practitioners suggested might trigger such skills in him and others.

  Genevieve began to sour on her relationship with Arthur, whose need for control over all things had worn her down. She’d publicly rejected Adam’s advances to the group, but found him of growing appeal in their time of relative isolation from the main group, especially compared to Arthur.

  The town celebrated a local festival full of drinking and dancing, and Arthur’s clumsy, drunken advances horrified Genevieve before he passed out, leaving her emotionally shaken and in tears. Adam moved to console her in her time of need, and their relationship was soon consummated.

  Arthur woke remembering nothing, but when Genevieve was obviously pregnant shortly before they commenced the journey home, after spending several months in the remote city, the pair allowed Arthur to assume the child must be his, the result of a drunken dalliance on the main night of the festival. They married at a church, ignoring the whispers and the fingers pointed in Genevieve’s direction.

  They didn’t notice the strange man in the shadows, or the guilty look on his face as he watched another man marry the woman he loved, and lay claim on his child.

  1002 A.D.

  Arthur and Genevieve were subjected to deep ridicule back in the village; Adam suffered his share of the blame for failing to keep the two apart, and considered it appropriate punishment. Those left behind had struggled in their absence; knowing that Genevieve would require some downtime as her pregnancy neared an end and in the early days of the child’s life. They'd demanded to know how the village could support, for a time, two residents unable to carry their share of the burdens.

  The supplies Arthur suggested could trigger “magic” were pushed into the corner of a supply storehouse, largely forgotten within weeks of their return as the village worked to repair the broken bonds of trust.

  1006 A.D.

  Elizabeth, now four, had learned to handle simple household chores, and kept the Lowell cottage in order. Though the villagers adored the little girl with the chubby cheeks and the bright red hair, they still groused at the fact that she was not helping with the general work of the village. Nor did the others find it fair that Arthur and Genevieve could perform their general work without worrying about maintaining their home.

  Though they’d overcome some concerns by insisting that all be paid for their wares—be that berries or bread or a new chair—and her parents were thus paying for her food in a literal fashion, Arthur offered a solution. Lizzie could do those same household chores for all. That was agreeable to the village… for a time. Arthur slowly began to note that the lack of fairness was now reversed. He was paying for Lizzie’s food and clothing, while others benefitted from her labor without contributing to her financial upkeep. The solution: Lizzie worked for one person each day, and that individual must cover the cost of her food for that day. Payment for Lizzie’s work went to her father, as the girl was not yet able to handle her own money.

  1007 A.D.

  Eva, Arthur, and Adam made a trip to a nearby village, looking to sell furniture and fabrics. While there, they witnessed “magic” similar to what the men saw during their trek six years earlier. Eva admitted such skills seemed desirable, and the trio plied those demonstrating the magic for information. They expended a large chunk of the profits from their trip, and returned home, excited again about the opportunity. They dug out the old materials—those that hadn't rotted or decay
ed away—and supplemented with the new materials and vague descriptions of formulas offered for unlocking “magical powers.”

  But no one wanted to be the first. The foods had powerful, pungent aromas, and a hint of the taste triggered gagging in many of the villagers. The warnings offered—that failure to precisely follow vague directions could cause injury or death—offered further discouragement. Their fragile economy struggled during the brief departures of traders; illnesses would be horrific shocks, deaths would be irreparable until new residents could be found, vetted, and integrated into the community.

  Arthur fumed at a suggestion that Lizzie—whose sole job was cleaning cottages—might be the ideal test subject; Genevieve had to be restrained from attacking the one offering the idea, for implying that the little girl’s life was expendable. Two weeks later, though, Arthur—with Genevieve shouting against it—said that he’d allow anyone hiring Lizzie for the day to determine if they’d like her to clean house or try to unlock the riddle of the magic foods, for the child had “willingly volunteered” to act in that capacity for the greater good.

  Only Arthur had heard the little girl volunteer.

  Her real father fumed at the outrage, but followed in the footsteps of the other non-parents in the village and said nothing.

  1007 A.D.

  Adam’s time machine emerged from his time jump, arriving invisibly high above the village.

  ~~~15~~~

  1007 A.D.

  He’d arrived just after midnight, long after the villagers slept, minimizing the opportunity that any light sleepers might sense the minor thrumming of the arriving time machine. That was the strategic reason for choosing that point in the day.

  In more practical terms, he needed sleep.

  He’d not done much during what he considered the previous day, not in a physical sense. He’d walked a mile or so over relatively flat terrain, changed his physical appearance, and held a conversation. Normally, such effort wouldn’t leave him quite so fatigued.

  Normally, though, he wasn’t doing those things in a year with a triple digit number. Or talking to his father as a fourteen-year-old boy. The emotional toll of the encounter, the mental control required to maintain the gruff voice, the pure will it took to restrain himself from throwing his arms around the teenager… those had taken the toll.

  And so he slept.

  He woke before dawn, before the villagers would move to the river for their daily community bath. After checking his Energy Shield and activating an Energy Eater, he wrapped himself again in the warm embrace of quadrillions of sub-microscopic robots which protected him from physical harm, blocked all sounds he might make from the world outside the cocoon, and prevented anyone from seeing him.

  They also allowed him to fly. And he did, but only after collecting the supplies he’d need for his work this day and loading them inside a pack mounted on his back, all inside the exoskeleton.

  He floated down through the tree canopy and emerged above the village, taking in details that he’d only seen before in the mental images shared by his parents in rare moments where they felt nostalgia for their old home. He noted the wall of logs embedded in the soil, providing some degree of physical protection from the outside world and any predators lurking in the night. There were larger communal buildings like the barn, open space around the well, and a gate that allowed entry and egress. Adam positioned himself above the well, about twenty feet off the ground, and waited.

  Arthur, far removed from the emaciated skeleton youth he’d just seen, was the first to awake. He emerged from the oversized cabin he shared with Genevieve and little Elizabeth and moved to the large communal stone oven, stoking the flames inside, his face and beady, calculating eyes lit by the fires. He gathered ingredients from stone storage containers near the ovens, dumped them into a large metal kettle, and added water he drew from the well. After ten brisk minutes spent stirring the concoction, he used wooden spoons to glop the gooey mixture into stone and clay containers he pushed into the ovens. He watched as the others emerged from their cottages, including Genevieve and little Elizabeth. The girl’s flaming red hair stood out among the more common browns, blacks, and the occasional blonde. Genevieve and his mother would likely stand out, their white blonde hair as odd as the child’s amber locks. He knew now, after seeing the story unfold in his teenaged father’s mind, that his grandmother—and Elizabeth’s—had similar hair coloring. But only Adam, Genevieve, and possibly Arthur knew the secret of Elizabeth’s true parentage.

  He wondered how much longer that secret might last.

  The last stragglers emerged from their small cabins and the group headed out of the village to the Halwende river, where the waters ran slowly and bathers needn’t worry about being carried along by the current. While they were gone, Adam noted the emerging aroma of baking bread, and he inhaled deeply. Arthur’s early morning food preparation would soon feed a hungry band of villagers ready to begin a long day of hard work.

  The group soon returned. Elizabeth’s thick red hair remained matted to her back, highlighting a thin face that had no trace of the “baby fat” Adam often saw in children that age. He wondered if the newly minted practice of having her eat undocumented foodstuffs might be the cause of that physical detail.

  Arthur used large metal tongs to remove the freshly baked bread from the ovens, and sold loaves to the other villagers. He’d use the money later in the day to buy the raw ingredients for the next day’s loaves from those who grew grain and milled flour… and, along with the money he’d collect later for Elizabeth’s work, use it to buy food for his wife and child, who like the others bought and ate berries and vegetables collected from the forest and fields around the village.

  Genevieve bustled her daughter back inside the cottage, and Adam could see inside through an open window. She pulled out a brush and worked it through the knots in the girl’s thick hair. Elizabeth’s eyes closed, enjoying the quiet time, the calm before the proverbial storm.

  Back near the ovens, the elder Adam finished his meal and approached Arthur, offering the latter a coin. Arthur collected the fee for Elizabeth’s services to be rendered, thumbed the coin as if testing for authenticity, and led the way to the Lowell cottage. Elizabeth’s face, so cherubic and cheerful a moment earlier, fell, reflecting her expectation of the unhappy events to come. The practice of “food testing” was still new… and it was obvious she’d quickly come to fear the process.

  The little girl wrapped her arms around her stomach and she followed the man toward the large building near the village gate. Dubbed the “Schola,” the villagers used the building to store excess food, grains, animal feed for their horses and livestock, and communal tools for farming and carpentry. The elder Adam waited as others collected their supplies before beginning their workdays, and then led Elizabeth inside. He shut the door behind them, a practice the villagers understood to mean that testing was underway and should not be interrupted. They’d all bought into the stories of magic, accepted that someone would figure out the secret, and understood that because being the first brought with it some degree of social supremacy, they’d need to allow testing to happen with a degree of privacy.

  The younger Adam thought them all crazy. But as per the rules of all time travelers, he couldn’t interfere, except where history showed he already had.

  Like today.

  He sent a few nanos through the closed door and closed his eyes, watching and listening as events unfolded within the Schola, safely sheltered from the world inside his invisible cocoon.

  Elizabeth sat on a small stool, her face clenched. She pulled on and squeezed her hair, her eyes flicking and watching the elder Adam move about inside the building. He’d drifted to the corner furthest from the door, where shelves of berries collected from the surrounding forest rested, awaiting consumption. He scanned the piles, stooped to ensure he could see everything on the deep shelves, and moved some items around to look for anything hidden.

  “A ha!” He reached
far back on a low shelf and used one hand to roll piles of berries toward the front, then pulled his shirt forward and used it to hold the entire supply. The younger Adam zoomed in on his father’s offering to the magical power experiment, wincing as the sharp imagery confirmed what he’d suspected and prepared for.

  Morange. Lots and lots of morange berries. He would feed massive piles of morange berries to his daughter.

  Adam walked over to the trembling child, his face full of excitement until he saw the worry etched into hers. His heart breaking at the sight of the hurt he’d unlocked in his unclaimed child, he reached out and gently cupped her cheek, trying to comfort her. “Don’t worry, Lizzie. I’m not going to hurt you. I want to make sure no one can ever hurt you.” From a distance, his son struggled to detect the thoughts behind the words, not yet able to interpret the spoken words directly. He could “hear” them, but just barely.

  His father stooped down and looked Elizabeth in the eye. “Do you believe me?”

  She looked into his eyes, and the younger Adam watched as the fear seemed to leave her. She did trust him.

  The elder Adam nodded and held out his collection. Elizabeth wrinkled her nose at the pungent smell. “They stink.” Her voice was quiet and unusually high pitched. Adam suspected it was a combination of her youth and the nervousness she felt, no matter how much she might trust the man in the room with her.

  He nodded. “They do, don’t they? They don’t seem to smell too badly for me. Do you know why? They are very common where I come from, Lizzie. Back there, we were warned that we shouldn’t eat them. I saw a few people try, though. They’d start claiming to hear voices no one else could hear. They’d be expected at one part of our land to work and show up someplace else and claim they didn’t know how they got there. Most complained of feeling quite sick for a time after eating them. But after a while, they’d return to normal. We were always taught that the berries made people crazy for a while.”