Al Dakar

By Amanda Wray

 

Chapter Two  

 

            Mandine woke, clawing away her sweaty sheets and struggling to sit up. A cool night breeze blew in through an open window, making her shiver. Drawing a deep, steadying breath, Mandine groped for a candle to light, and then relaxed slightly as its pale glow cast a small but comforting illumination. She breathed in and out slowly, trying to calm herself, and waiting for rational thought to come.

            It was not the first time Mandine had experienced dreams like this one. Almost as long as she could remember, she had been having dreams of strange beasts and walking corpses, with ravens and buzzards circling in a blood red sky. And slipping in and out of the shadows were always figures clad in flowing white robes: Seekers. An inquiry or two as a child had led to frowns and uneasy rebukes, and Mandine had learned to keep these dreams to herself. The only person who knew she still had them was Aleric.

            Lately, however, the dreams had been coming more frequently. As a child she had awoken in fright from these nightmares maybe once or twice in a year’s time, but during the last few months the dream had been recurring at the rate of once a fortnight or so.

            This night, however, had marked the first time one of the dream-Seekers had ever spoken directly to her. Mandine shivered, recalling: It is time, House Al Dakar. It is time to pay your debts. Return to us and unite. Return to us and perish. We await you, daughter.

            Mandine threw her legs over the side of her bed and rose unsteadily to her feet. She dressed by the wan light of the guttering candle flame, almost tripping over her skirts in her haste. Her fingers trembled as she laced up soft leather boots and buttoned a royal blue cloak around her shoulders. 

            Her dream had given her the resolve to act. If the Seekers were summoning her, then it was prudent to obey their summons. And if not, perhaps they could tell her what these dreams meant. In any case, a journey to the Seekers, although hazardous, would get Mandine away from her mother and the looming responsibilities of womanhood at House Al Dakar.

            Mandine went to the open window and raised the sash higher. She swung one leg over the ledge, pulled her skirts up out of the way, and dropped herself lightly to the ground. Exiting the cottage by a more conventional method might have attracted the attention of a fitfully-sleeping servant, and that was a scenario Mandine wanted to avoid.

            Outside, she moved quietly across the stiff, dry grass to the low hulking building that was her private stables. The moonlight cast long shadows across the yard and lit her way. The barn door opened with a low creak, and Mandine stepped into the sweet-smelling, warm interior. Nervous snorts greeted her, and Mandine called out in a soft but soothing voice as she bent to light a lantern. “It’s alright, Silk,” she crooned to the mare. “Nothing to be afraid of. Just me.”

            She led Silk out of her stall and to the cross ties, and hurried to saddle her. The longer she left the lamp burning in the stables, the more of a chance there was that a gaurd or servant would notice and come poking around, thinking that something was amiss. No one would dare to question Mandine’s right to be in her own stables, regardless of the time of day or night, but it would raise some eyebrows and start the servants talking.

            Mandine finished the job quickly and led Silk out into the cool night, whispering softly into the palamino’s twitching ear.  “That’s a good girl. You and I are going to take a little trip,” she said, stroking the animal’s velvety nose.

            Mandine swung up into the saddle, and Silk danced sideways nervously. Mandine reined her in skillfully, even as the images of the morning’s fiasco returned to her. She was determined not to let such an incident happen again.

            She stroked Silk’s neck absently as she studied her surroundings, trying to decide on the best path to take. The home of the Seekers, the Mountains of Mist, were always visible off to the east. Finding the Seekers was not the problem. The problem was which direction to head in immediately, so as to get her off the estates of House Al Dakar with as little chance for discovery as possible.

            After a moment of indecision, Mandine decided that it was best to head off the property to the north, where she could circle around the lightly forested River’s End before heading east towards the Mountains of Mist.

            She set off at a quick walk, Silk’s hoofs making dull thuds against the turf. The moon provided just enough light to guide her and give her warning enough to be able to duck the low hanging branches that sometimes criss-crossed the path that led to River’s End.

            Mandine reined in her horse for a moment, and cast a glance through the trees behind her at the dark shadowy buildings that made up the estate of House Al Dakar. All remained wrapped in sleep. So far so good, she thought with satisfaction as she turned to face forward again.

            “Going somewhere?” asked a familiar voice.

            Mandine started violently, and Silk snorted and took a step backwards and stomped a hoof nervously. Mandine looked around hastily, searching for the source of the voice.

            Aleric stepped from the side of the road onto the path in front of her.  Stray beams of moonlight illuminated his dark curls. “You know,” he continued, “you should not have left the lantern burning in the stables. Fire hazard. It’s pretty late for an evening ride, wouldn’t you say?” His words were light, but his voice was tinged with concern.

            Mandine’s ire at having been discovered was mixed with relief that it was only Aleric. Suddenly the magnitude of what she was planning to do hit home to her, and almost took her breath away. Without a word, Mandine slid down from her saddle and stepped into Aleric’s arms, pressing her face against his chest and squeezing her eyes shut to stop the tears from coming.

            If Aleric was surprised by her action he gave no sign. He merely folded his arms around her and held her against him for a moment. Then he took her by the shoulders and gently stepped back from her.  “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked softly, looking down at her.

            “I had the dream again,” Mandine relayed haltingly as Aleric reached over and caught Silk’s bridle to keep the animal from wandering. “This time they -—“ there was no need to clarify who ‘they’ were; Aleric had known about the dreams almost since she’d first started having them – “they spoke to me. They told me to come. And...” Mandine drew a breath that only trembled slightly. “And I can’t stay here. I just can’t do... what Mother wants me to do. I just can’t do it,” she finished somewhat lamely.

            Aleric was silent for a long moment. “So... You’re leaving. Going to the Seekers.”

            Mandine nodded.

            “Well,” he said after another pause. “You can’t go like that, can you?”

            Mandine folded her arms defensively. “What do you mean?” she asked, eyes narrowing.

            “No blanketroll, no spare clothes, no food... You aren’t even dressed for riding,” Aleric pointed out. “I bet you haven’t any silver on you, either. How are you going to pay for a decent meal or a bed?”

            Mandine opened her mouth to respond, and then closed it again. It was true that in her haste to depart, she hadn’t properly considered the logistics of this journey. “I hadn’t quite thought that far,” she admitted sheepishly.

            “Wait here,” Aleric commanded, and disappeared back in the direction whence Mandine had just come. Mandine started to protest, but Aleric’s form had already been swallowed by the night shadows.

            “I don’t believe this,” Mandine said to Silk in exasperation. “I am supposed to be taking the initiative, and seizing control of my destiny by leaving my family and friends behind. Instead, I am getting lectured by my tutor on how best to run away.”

            Silk snorted sympathetically.

            “I should just leave,” Mandine muttered. But instead she looped Silk’s reins around a branch, and settled herself down on a tree stump to await Aleric’s return.

            Why was the man bothering? She wondered as she waited. Didn’t he have something better to do? Didn’t he sleep? Aleric had come to serve House Al Dakar ten years previously, in the capacity of “military strategist” or some such. Mandine’s grandmother had been a child the last time House Al Dakar had needed to defend its estates against more than a poacher or two, and so Mandine had absolutely no idea what Aleric’s responsibilities at the House actually were. His was a position of considerable authority, though; even the Captain of the Gaurd, a stocky man named Thorley, answered to him.

            Apparently Mandine was not the only one who wondered where Aleric’s authority came from; rumors on the subject went in and out of favor regularly among the livery. When Mandine was a child and had first been introduced to the man who was to be her combat instructor, the rumor among the servants was that Mandine was proving to be such a rambunctious child that her mother Helena had had to seek beyond the bounds of the estates in order to find a suitable keeper for the girl, to prevent her from getting into trouble. At the time Mandine had been a child, and Aleric had been scarcely able to be called a man, himself. Even so, he had already proven his ability with a sword, and was commissioned by Helena to teach her youngest daughter.

            Now Aleric was about twenty eight years of age, as near as Mandine could calculate, and had earned considerable respect among the members of the House, not the least of whom was Helena herself. One not-too-distant rumor had it that Aleric maintained Helena’s high favor by sharing her bed. 

            Mandine contemplated that thought for an instant before shoving it out of her mind. Aleric was an extremely handsome man by any standards, and truth be told, Mandine had had something of a crush on him ever since she’d been old enough to appreciate that fact. As the years had gone by she had learned to appreciate his other qualities as well, and now considered him to be her closest friend at House Al Dakar. But whatever still remained of that childhood crush was sufficiently dampened by her certainty that when Aleric looked at her he still saw the scrawny ten-year-old of years past. His persistence in aiding her escape tonight was evidence enough of that: Mandine was a grown woman and could take care of herself, yet Aleric persisted in treating her like a child. Or so it seemed sometimes to Mandine.

            A chilly breeze rustled through the trees, and Mandine hugged her knees to her chest and shivered. Maybe some warmer clothes would have been a good idea. She was forced to conclude with a grimace that she had indeed not thought her departure through.

            Mandine looked up as she heard the rustling of leaves and the crackling of branches underfoot. She craned her neck to see in the pale moonlight. Aleric emerged from the moonlight on the trail behind her. Mandine breathed a sigh of relief that it was only him. As he drew nearer, Mandine rose to her feet in perplexion. Aleric was leading his gray stallion, Shadow, down the trail behind him. Shadow whinnied as he caught scent of Mandine’s horse, and Silk snorted and stomped a hoof nervously in reply.

            Aleric drew to a halt in front of Mandine, and handed her a pack and blanket roll. Mandine tied them behind her saddle without even looking at the contents of the pack. She indicated Shadow with a wave of her hand. “What’s this for?” she asked suspiciously. “There’s nothing wrong with my horse; I don’t care what Marec or whoever told you about her -- I can handle her just fine. You won’t get me on another horse,” she added firmly.

            “I would suggest nothing of the sort,” Aleric said, sounding a little too innocent for Mandine’s taste. She eyed his horse again, and noticed that there was a pack and blanket roll similar to the one he had given to her tied behind the saddle. She eyed Aleric even more suspiciously than before.

            Aleric led his horse forward a few steps, and then swung up into the saddle. “Allow me to present myself,” he said, with a flourishing bow from the saddle. “Aleric DeLestia, personal escort to the Seekers, or wherever else you wish to go. At your service.”

            “You’re crazy,” were the first words out of Mandine’s mouth. She unlooped Silk’s reins from the branch she’d tied them to, and mounted. She swung the horse around partway on the narrow trail so she could glare at Aleric. “You are not coming with me. I appreciate your concern for me, and your help so far, but you are not coming with me. That’s crazy. Do you know how crazy that is?” Mandine fell silent, her anger rising. What did he think this was? Some kind of game?

            “No,” he said, sounding angry himself. Mandine hid her surprise; in all the years she’d known Aleric, she had never seen him angry with her. Exasperated, yes; angry, no. “No,” he repeated. “You want to hear what is crazy? I’ll tell you. What’s crazy is a young woman who’s never been off her mother’s estates travelling by herself to the Seekers! Do you know what’s out there?” He gestured expansively with one arm. “here are brigands out there Mandine, who give their loyalty to no House. They see a woman travelling alone, and they see two things: someone to rob, and someone to rape. And that’s if you’re lucky! Against one, Mandine, I know you could escape. But against three? Four? Brigands don’t travel alone. You’d be lucky if you got halfway to the Seekers by yourself. Extremely lucky.”

            Mandine frowned, mostly because she knew Aleric was right. She eyed Aleric out of the corner of her eye, as she considered his words. For the first time she noticed the sword he wore at his hip. He could indeed protect her. She frowned some more. The silence hung between them like a veil, broken only by the nervous shifting of her horse’s hooves beneath her.

            When Mandine spoke, her voice was gentle. “I can’t ask you to come with me, Aleric. I don’t think I will be coming back. I am breaking my vows to House Al Dakar, and walking away from my responsibilities. I can’t expect you to do the same.”

            “Mandine, I am not walking away from my responsibility. I am following it. Your mother commissioned me ten years ago to protect you, just as your brother protects your elder sister. She told me she feared you would not lead a quiet life, and she made me vow to protect you to the best of my ability. It would be by letting you go alone that I would be forsaking my responsibility to House Al Dakar.” Aleric’s voice matched Mandine’s now, all trace of anger vanished.

            Mandine turned her horse foward again, saying softly to herself, “A vow, then. He follows me for a vow.”

            “If anything were to happen to you on your journey, Mandine, it would not be my vow I would mourn,” Aleric called to her as she started off down the path.

            Mandine winced inwardly. She had not meant him to hear the comment. She felt that perhaps she should apologize, but apologies had never been her strong suit. Instead she called, without looking back, “Let’s get moving. I want to be far from Al Dakar by the time weÕre missed tomorrow morning.”

            She knew he smiled, even without looking.

            They skirted around the edge of House Al Dakar’s estates silently, travelling in single file down the narrow dirt path that led to River’s End. The lake was mirror-calm, its shores deserted at this time of night. In the moonlight Mandine could see Silk’s hoofprints still in the mud by the lake’s edge, left over from her ill-fated morning ride. She could tell the exact spot where Silk had reared and thrown Mandine over her head into the water. Mandine frowned at the memory, then looked at the prints once more and frowned again. She reined her horse in and turned to Aleric, who rode silently behind her. “Will they be able to follow our tracks, Aleric?” She looked at the muddy hoofprints again. House Al Dakar’s insignia was punched into the metal of each horseshoe. Supposedly to track thieves, were they to steal any of House Al Dakar’s horses. But to Mandine, trying to escape, the practice seemed more menacing.

            Aleric followed her eyes to where they rested on the tracks from the morning, realizing the source of her concern. “To a point, yes,” he answered. “They will be able to follow our trail until it intersects with the main road. Hopefully by the time they realize that we are both gone and aren’t coming back, the road will have been so heavily trafficked that our tracks will have been obliterated. They won’t even know which direction we took.”

            Mandine eyed the road that led east-west away from House Al Dakar’s lands. “It is a well-travelled road, then? Many people?” she asked.

            “Yes. As I said, our tracks will be long gone by the time anyone thinks to look for them,” Aleric said.

            “And so what will the search party do then?” Mandine persisted, rummaging in her pack. Aleric had packed trousers for her. Good. She’d need them for more than just comfort in the saddle.

            Aleric pondered a moment. “Knowing Helena, she will send riders out in both directions with our descriptions.”

            “Exactly,” Mandine said, swinging down from her saddle. Aleric followed suit, suddenly seeming to catch on to what she was getting at.

            “I will not stand out much to the townspeople, but you...” Aleric said. “They will remember seeing a beautiful woman.”

            Mandine flushed at the compliment, and was glad it was too dark for him to notice. “Especially,” she said, “one with hair lighter than any except the Seekers. It will take hours for Helena to find an artist who knows you well enough to draw a suitable likeness of you to show to the people, but all she has to do to find me is ask about a woman with honey colored hair. She won’t even need a drawing. Not to mention the fact that many of the peasants in the surrounding villages would recognize an Al Dakar by these –“ Mandine indicated the gold jewelry she wore – “and this,” she said, holding up a corner of the blue and black-trimmed cloak she wore. They were House Al Dakar’s colors, and Helena was so serious about having House Al Dakar recieve the respect it deserved that it was outlawed for anyone inside twenty leagues of House Al Dakar to wear those two colors together.

            “What will you do?” Aleric asked.

            Mandine tied Silk’s reins to a fallen log and walked over to Aleric. Taking a deep breath, she pulled his knife from his belt and offered it to him hilt first. He took it, and looked at her questioningly. Mandine gathered her long hair over one shoulder and held it out to Aleric. “Cut it off,” she commanded.

            The surprised look she got from Aleric was priceless. “Cut it off,” she repeated, turning to face away from him so he could do the job better. “Just above the shoulders, please. Helena will be looking for woman, and she’s not going to find one.”

            Aleric made a sound in his throat that Mandine couldn’t translate, but he gathered her hair awkwardly in one hand, combed it a little with his fingers, and began to saw through it with the sharp knife.

            “Try to cut it straight, please,” she admonished. “I’m going to be a boy, but that doesn’t mean I have to be an ugly boy.”

            Aleric grunted again, this time in acquiescence, and continued to carefully saw through her hair. When he was finished, Aleric deposited the remnants of Mandine’s blonde mane in her hand. Mandine gazed at the mass of hair in her hand, and fingered the ends of her shorn hair, that now came just shy of her shoulders. Her poor hair... It would grow back, she reminded herself.

            Aleric stepped back to admire his handiwork. “It doesn’t look too bad...” he offered helpfully.

            Mandine stooped and picked up a fist-sized rock. She wrapped the remains of her hair around it and tied it tightly. She hurled the rock into the lake, where it landed with a splash. She didn’t want anyone discovering what she’d done with her hair; that would defeat the purpose.

            Aleric watched silently as Mandine went to her pack and removed the clothing Aleric had packed for her. “Watch my horse,” she told him, and disappeared back into the woods to change. When she reemerged she was wearing brown pants, a forest-green shirt and a cloak made of brown wool. She buttoned the cloak closely around her shoulders to hide her feminine figure.

            Mandine stuffed her dress into her pack and turned to Aleric. “Well? Do I look like a man?”

            Aleric stared at her, frowning slightly. “I guess so,” he said doubtfully. He touched her smooth chin with a finger. “Well, more like a boy than a man,” he teased. “But what about your hair color? On a man or a woman, the color will still stand out.”

            “I know,” Mandine smiled grimly. “I’m not finished yet.” She began to poke around among the weeds by the lakeshore. It was difficult to tell the plants apart in the moonlight, but Mandine soon found the one she was looking for: flat, thick shiny leaves with small white blossoms. It was the root of the plant Mandine was interested in, though.  She borrowed Aleric’s knife and dug around for a moment, to expose a section of the thick root. She sliced through it, cutting off a section about the size of her thumb.

            Mandine rose and looked to where Aleric watched in puzzlement. “Do you have a bowl?” she asked him, not bothering to explain what she was doing. He would see soon enough.

            Aleric went to his pack and retrieved a small wooden bowl. Mandine took it from him, placed the root inside, and began to pound it into a pulp with the hilt of Aleric’s knife. Dark brown juices oozed out, staining the knife hilt. When the root had been mashed to a thick pulp, Mandine added some water to the bowl and mixed it around. Satisfying herself with the mixture, she scooped up a small amount with her fingers and began to rub it into her hair, being careful not to stain her clothing. She worked the mixture carefully throughout the length of her hair, being sure to cover it all. Then she went back to her pack and retrieved a comb, and brushed the excess mixture from her hair.

            When she was finished, Mandine turned to Aleric. Her hair was now every bit as dark as his. Aleric reached out timidly and fingered a lock of her hair. “Is it. . . How long will it stay that way?” Aleric asked.

            “A week or two, I think,” Mandine answered. “It will wash out a little each time it gets wet. But it should suffice until we reach the Seekers.”

            Aleric was still silently fingering the lock of hair. “Don’t just stand there,” Mandine said crossly. “Try to think of something positive to say.”

            “It… it makes your eyes stand out,” Aleric offered.

            Mandine smiled. “Thank you. That’s better.”    

              “So now that you’re a boy, how am I to introduce you?” Aleric asked.

            Mandine considered. She hadn’t thought about that yet. After a moment of silence she asked, “Do you have a brother, Aleric?”

            “I did,” he answered, “A younger one. But not for long. He died shortly after birth. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck.”

            “I’m sorry,” Mandine said inadequately. After a moment she asked, “If he had lived, what would your mother have named him?”

            “David,” Aleric answered. “She was going to name him David.”

            “Then I shall be your brother David until we get to the Seekers,” Mandine decided.

            Aleric nodded. “I will try to remember that,” he said.

            She turned to her horse, and mounted up. “We’d better get moving. We only have a few hours left till daylight.” She waited till Aleric mounted, and the two of the trotted their horses past the lake and to the wide packed-dirt road beyond. They stepped their horses onto the road and turned east.