Chapter Two

She was sitting opposite me on the hard dirt floor.  The wolf was mostly black except for her face which was dotted with white.  A turquoise cloak hung about her shoulders though it had faded to the color of blue flax flowers about the hem which was also dusty.  A long scar ran from her neck to her left shoulder.
       “You awake?” she whispered.
         “Mm, yeah.  Is there anything to eat?”  I hadn’t eaten since the previous morning.
        “Um, they must have forgotten today.  Usually they come around with salted fish and a bucket of water twice a day.  Nasty stuff, but if you hold your nose it almost tastes like locks.”  She had a far away look.  “Mmm, nice thin fresh locks from the ice house on fresh bread with chilled nut tallow and tartar.”
        “Oh please don’t.”  It hurt just to hear it.
        “Sorry, say what’s your name?”
        “Apothacer, I’m a healer.”
        “You mean like magic, can you get us out?  Why don’t you heal yourself?”
        “I’m not magic, I mix medicines,” I pulled myself into a sitting position against the wall of the cell.  “And I lost everything I had except the clothes on my back.  Now, what would your name be?”  I smiled.
        “Aylee.  I’ve never seen a red fox before.”  Her open inquisitiveness made me chuckle.
        “In general we aren’t so swollen and sore.  I’ve never seen a grey fox like that captain or a hedgehog, or a lot of other things for that matter.  I’m from the mountains.  Have you ever been there?”  
         “No.  I’ve lived in this valley my whole life.”  

~~~~~~~~~

          There was much to talk about that day.  We kept talking long past noon and into the night.  No food came and as the wind changed direction at night fall the smell of wood smoke and cooking meat reached our nostrils.  It was torture.  I learned that the king of this settlement had grown ill and strange in the head.  The captain had all but taken the throne and enslaved the people of Krentshire.  They had to bring all that they could grow of one crop to the fort and there exchange it for food.  They were never allowed to eat what they had grown.  To secure extra food some, like the hedgehogs, had gone over to the side of the captain.  All these goods were shipped down river to the port city of Feldoh.  The food provisioned privateers and the trade goods went to far off lands.  In return he was given arms and the scum of the seas.  Warlike creatures from the south.  
         The captain wanted plunder but he had only river boats and since his trade had also benefitted the pirates few now dared to dwell along the shores of the sea.  He needed to find a target on land which is why he captured wandering travelers to find out what they knew.
        “What did you tell him about the mountains?”  It was dark and we were leaning against the wall.
        “I told him that there was no plunder to be had there.  That there were no great houses or forts to capture and no warriors.  He could only slaughter and have no gold or property to show for it.”
        “Oh you couldn’t have!”
        “What?  I just told him there was no fight there.  He’ll likely go elsewhere.”  There was a sinking feeling in my stomach.
        “No, I couldn’t think of anything that would make him happier than to go and make war in such a place.”  I started sweating.  Had I just killed a hundred fold as many as I had saved thus far?  Fool that I was.  I felt numb.
        “No, no...”
        “I’m so sorry, you couldn’t have known.”  If she kept talking I can’t remember.  The thought of war coming to my mountains.  Yes, my mountains.  I has strolled though the pine groves so many times, visited to many families.  It was painful enough to be locked away from them.  At that thought my heart had nearly left me but for Aylees company.  Now, should I ever escape there would be no mountains to go back to.  I had no home but the forest canopy.  Now I had with a few words set it ablaze.  I saw the faces of young creatures working in the bright light of the sun.  
        A torch light approached and cast an eerie glow on the two of us.
        “Oy, fox, shift yer mangy hyde over here.”  Before I could get up Aylee flew at the bars.
        “Come in here and say that to my face  Where was our food today?  The only mangey lazy one I can, Oof.”  A spear butt had shot through the bars and caught her in the stomach.
        “Get back gorgeous or I’ll feed you with the other end of this little beauty”  She was winded but her eyes blazed in the torch light.
        “Stupid guard.  Too scared to spear a defenseless wolf, and you imprison your own kind. Scum of the earth, begone." She whispered this with a smirk on her face and a twinkle in her eye that made her look like a little girl playing some type of old fashioned war game with the boys.
         “I’ll go.”  I got up and walked to the door without feeling my body.  The door opened and I was seized.  I would have walked but they held me so I could only drag.  Down the long corridor past many cells which each had a bucket of water and salted fish placed close to the bars.  So they were starving us.  It was the only thought that swirled to the surface until I reached the captains quarters.  He was seated at the remains of a large meal.  He picked his teeth with a frog bone while I was thrown to the floor.  I did not stir from the spot.  The two guards left.
        “Hungry?” he asked.  “Well?”
        “Yes.”  Why would anyone answer no?
        “And how about your friend, the wolf?  My jail keeper tells me she doesn’t like you getting called names.  How is she faring with no food?”  I didn’t answer.
        “You can feed her, why you can even set her free if you like.”  I sat up.
        “Leave her alone.”
        “So you do care about her then.  Well your home sounds like the perfect place to get slaves.  That’s the one thing I don’t have you see.  Not enough creatures to do the farming as it is.  A young working creature is worth more than any farmer can produce in one season you see.”  Here was madness.  Here was true evil.
         “Now, you must be clever and you’ve been around a bit I see.”  He swept the remains of the meal from the table smashing pottery and scattering scraps.  He turned out my pack on the table.  “A grass bowl that the mice weave, some bark cloth from the squirrels, a charming bone tail ring, otters no doubt.  Ah look, a rabbit must have done this to be so brightly colored, this ax and knife bear the mark of a coyote smith and what a fine sheath the weasels made for them.  I don’t know much about plants but these must have come from every corner of the mountains.”  I wanted to fly at him.  His vile paws went over everything.
        “So, we have a master thief and poisoner then?”  A what, thief?  Suddenly I had an idea.
        “A common thief?  Hardly.  Is an eagle a master jumper?”  I tried to sneer.
        “So, tell me truly, as one fox to another, what is there to be had in the mountains?”

~~~~~~~~~~

         I was lead back to the cell bearing my pack and a platter of the captains leftovers.  I stepped into the cell.  The bars closed behind me.  She saw the tray.  
        “How could you.  They’re defenseless creatures.  You condemned them to death just to fill your own stomach.”  She turned from me.  I grinned, she was perfect.
         “Aylee, I’ve found a way to save my home and free Krentshire” She turned to me in the darkness.  
        “How?”

~~~~~~~~~~~

         We talked until the morning while finishing the meal.  I had told the fox many things.  How to keep his troops in tight clusters, how to keep to the river course, which froze in winter and that was when he must strike.  Winter, I told him, would make them easy to subdue.  I told him that he must use pikes and not bows or spears which would be useless in the thick forest.  I told him the mountaineers were proud and would try to meet him in open battle and he would need only press forward.
        Ha, he had believed it   This gave Aylee time.  She was free and I could give her my pack and possession.  There was not a family or clan that did not know of me.  In my wanderings I became the repository of news.  I was the one reliable source because I had been to every part of the forest.  Eight years of wandering had brought me to each household at least twice.  Aylee would take my pack, its warm clothes, and the possessions that I was known by.  Surely help would come to her in warning them.  If they all knew what I had told her they would be able to wage a war of attrition.  The creeping frost, the biting hunger, the empty houses.  All this would bring the foxes force to its knees.  To think of an army trying make its way rank upon rank up the treacherous river.  The shafts of arrows and hard stones would also take their share of weary soldiers.  This valley would be free of a great evil as well as the mountains.
        In the morning she would go and I would stay to whatever end.  I told her everything I could in the little time we had.  Which paths to take, where she would find help.  
        Then I showed her the herbs.  I discarded those that were good for naught but the minor and passing maladies.  I showed her the plants of great power.  Comfrey root, tinder fungus, yarrow root, alum root, the medicines that stop the blood and life from draining.  Comfrey and boneset, those that hasten knitting bones three fold.  Woundwort, figwort, plantain, yarrow, and comfrey, those that speed the stitching of flesh.  Nettle and hepatica to open wide every vessel of the frost bitten.  Brandy to keep out blood poisoning in open wounds.  Boneset and willow to break fevers.  Then I showed her the medicines that could kill in enough quantity.  Aconite, hemlock, and foxglove.  Outright poisons like death cap I described to her.  Then those that stole the senses.  Datura, delphinium, belladonna, fly agaric, and mandrake.  She wrote all this down on a strip of bark cloth using one of my remedies for poison ivy that was dark as any ink.  It was precious little information but it would serve her well in raids and in the sick tents.  On the other side of the cloth was the plan, carefully written down were my instructions to the creatures of the wood.  Soon there was nothing left to write or to tell as the sun rose.
        “There is a little space left on the cloth, how would you have them remember you if we can’t...  Your family will... want... to.”  Her voice quavered.
        “I have no family left.  Now I’ve seen your strength.  My every hope rides on that, and though they do not know it yet, so do the sons and daughters of the mountains.”  The swish of a cloak and the clank of armor announced the captains approach.

~~~~~~~~~~

        I was alone.  The patch of light crept across the floor.  I ate fish and tried to imagine what locks tasted like.