Chapter 15
When my limbs finally unhooked, I trembled all over being pinned unmoving for all that time. Cramps punished me with decreasing severity until I was able to untie the broad leather strap around my waist. Once free of all shackles except for the shiny steel cuffs on my wrists, I managed to slide off the frame and onto my feet. I promptly fell flat on my face. I lay on the plank floor enjoying the coolness of the wood against my heated cheeks.
Slowly, I inched my way up onto my knees and my feet but this time, I kept hold of the frame to stay upright. Even so, I wobbled until the blood caught up in my head and the faintness went away. I opened the door unto bright moonlight that lit up the apple grove in silver and ebony, where the shadows made long eerie echoes. The trees chattered and wiggled like the mysterious imps that legend said would catch and eat an unwary, disobedient child.
I stepped out on the grass and felt the ground heave under my feet like the deck of a sailboat. My stomach did not like it and I reached out for something solid only to grab at the wall of the shed for support. If I thought it was going to make an escape, I was sadly overestimating my body’s resources. I had the awful suspicion that if I didn’t escape and soon, I would not be able to do so. I was determined and if I had to crawl out on my hands and knees, I was going to try.
I made it to the nearest tree and found a neat stack of limbs that had been pruned off and piled. One was just long and stout enough to use as a staff and that let my progress double.
I walked for ten minutes and still hadn’t reached the end of the rows. No matter which direction I looked, all I saw were rows upon rows of trees that went on until the middle of next week.
Standing there, I felt my awareness dwindle until my brain was processing information in a way that was easy for me but I doubted it was natural. I was seeing the orchard not by moonlight but by heat. Animals were bright crimson and carried their scent to me; letting me differentiate between species. To my right was a pair of deer–a doe and her fawn, to the left, a fat stickleburr lumbering down a tree trunk. Further in my direct line of sight was a scavenging fox and dogs intent on tracking said fox.
Nowhere did I sense humans or the Borderland farm’s owner or family. I wondered just how large this farm was and where they made their homestead. I walked for an hour and by then, was spent. I sank down in the grass, stretched out and rested on my belly to give my aching back, ribs and legs a break. I was thirsty and ruefully, I chided myself on setting out without food, water or shoes.
Before I knew it, I fell asleep and only woke when the sun slid her warm fingers across my back tickling the hairs on my neck. Something else garnered my attention; the cuffs on my wrists were warm, warming even as I stared at them. Warming to the point that they burned me.
I cried out and tried to wrap them in cloth torn from my light pants but that did not put enough between the dull steel bracelets and me nor could I pull them over my wrist bones.
I got up and stumbled back, turned around and as soon as I did so, the burning eased. If I deviated from my straight line, the cuffs heated up. I stopped in my tracks and they pulsated sending sharp jabs of pain into my flesh. They were a goad driving me as a stick on the nose steered an ox. Like an ox, I wore the farmer’s yoke.
As I stumbled into the yard where the apple press was, the pain eased off but my wrists were blistered and oozing clear fluid, my feet were bleeding and I was in no mood to say hello or be polite to the group of people standing there. It was neither Jennessa nor her father but a short, squat man with dark hair, brutally tanned skin and hot eyes. He wore a short trimmed hat, white trousers, sleeveless jerkin and a heavy belt loaded with tools. In his hand, he carried a short whip like the kind hostlers used on their dray horses. The others were all human–from young boys no more than six or seven to oldsters in their sixties. Dressed in thin trousers and loose white blouses, all of them wore silver cuffs on their wrists except for two. Those two wore a thin collar on their necks, too. Both were a few years older than I, late twenties, fit and healthy. The looks in their eyes scared me. They looked…broken.
“Here is a fine howdy-do,” the man with the whip grinned and he had large, beautiful white teeth. “Where do you think you are going, boy? It’s nearly 140 miles to the next holding and the closest town is a three-day ride by a fast horse.”
“I wasn’t going anywhere,” I said sullenly. “I was just walking.”
“Well then, you won’t mind walking with the rest of these fine gentlemen.” He pushed me with the knob end of his whip and I bared my teeth, lashing back at him. His response was swift, he hit me in the stomach and as I bent from the sudden lack of air, he walloped the back of my neck. Next thing I remember was lying face first in the dirt with water dumped on my head.
He was striding off down the rows of trees leaving the two older men to pick me up. They helped me to my feet, checked my eyes and the taller one with the blue eyes spoke. “What’s your name?”
“I don’t have one,” I returned checking myself for hurts. The back of my head felt odd, there was a huge knot right at the base of my skull and my stomach ached. No blood, though.
“That was Dioneses,” he said. “Head foreman over the slaves. He doesn’t take crap from anyone but he’s fair if you do your job. I’m Geraint, and this is Markus. We’re from Lichstein.”
“Agenor named me Reuven,” I answered finally.
“You don’t know your own name?” Markus asked. The two looked enough alike to be brothers. “We’re brothers.” Startled, I stared at them, thinking he had read my mind. He snorted. “Everyone always asks that. Can you walk?”
I took a few steps, wobbled and kept on with them holding onto my arm. As we followed the small group and the overseer into the orchard, they explained the circumstances into which I had fallen.