Tak

Aldervale - Part 4

     He woke up between clean sheets with no memory of how he'd gotten there. He must have fallen asleep in Toby's arms and been carried up. Embarrassment mingled with a warm glow at the kindness they'd shown him and the sheer pleasure of the cotton sheets against his bare skin. He felt as though he could spend the rest of his life just lying there. He drifted back down into sleep and spent the next hour or so in a wonderful semi-conscious state in which he was dimly aware of the soft breathing of other people around him. The slither of sleeping forms turning under their sheets.

     Finally, though, he was brought fully awake by the sound of voices and he opened his eyes to see a young boy, about his age, slipping out of the bed he'd been sharing with a young man a couple of years older. When he saw that their guest was awake he gave a start of self consciousness and hurriedly pulled on his clothes.

     "Welcome back to the land of the living," he grinned. "Hope we didn't wake you up last night. We were as quiet as we could."

     "I think you could have blown a bugle and banged a drum and it wouldn't have woken me," replied Tak, rubbing his eyes. He pulled himself to a sitting position. "I'm sorry for putting you to the inconvenience."

     "Forget it. My name's Jame."

     "Tak." They shook hands and Tak searched around for his clothes. "Where..."

     "We've got some better clothes for you. Proper protection against the cold. We've got plenty of stuff about your size, we'll sort something out for you." He hesitated, fighting a silent battle with himself, finally deciding he wanted to know. "Dad told us some of what you told him last night. Is it true? That your master... What he did to you?"

     Tak nodded silently, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.

     "And you're serious about going back to him? I mean, you're free now. You can go wherever you want. He'll never find you."

     "Right," agreed Will, pulling himself into a sitting position to join the conversation. He had a pattern of scars on his ribs that Tak recognized from a drawn illustration in one of Molos Gomm’s books. An attack from an archer plant. Will was lucky to be alive. "The town's got a constabulary that takes care of people like him. They'll sort him out."

     "I know this must be hard for you to understand," said Tak miserably, "but I have to go back. Thank you for your concern, but there are reasons it has to be this way."

     "What reasons?" demanded Will. He grabbed his underpants and pulled them under the bedsheets. Then he rose to finish dressing. "What reasons could there possibly be?"

     There was a slightly alarmed look in his grey eyes that told Tak that he must suspect the truth, and if he did then so must the others. He had to tell them, he owed them that much. "Let's go downstairs," he said. "I'll tell you all together."

     The door led to a small landing with two more doors in it, one presumably leading to Maggie's room, the other to Toby and Marly's room. They descended the ladder to the ground floor where they took turns to go through their morning routines. Toby and Marly were already up and Maggie, a long nosed girl with a wide mouth and untidy flaxen hair, descended the ladder as her mother was putting a breakfast of scrambled eggs on the table. Maggie gave him a pretty smile and sat between her brothers, who were soberly discussing the possible uses to which one of their fields could be put after the harvest. They fell silent as Marly said grace to Ramthara, Goddess of Life and Growth, and then they fell on their meals like a pack of hungry wolves.

     Afterwards, the men would normally have gone straight to their work while the women tended to the house, but today they waited, sitting around the table. They knew Tak had something to say and they wanted to hear it.