Chapter 37

When I woke, I woke to find Felicity sitting over me wiping my brow with a damp cloth. I tried to speak but couldn't. Seeing me staring at her with questions in my eyes, my mate just shushed me back to sleep. Too tired to resist, I did just that.

The next time I woke it was Kola watching over me. She smiled and offered me some water to drink. It tasted wonderful. Still I was unable to mutter a single word and when Kola told me to go back to sleep I did.

The last time I woke I did so with a groan that startled even me. My voice sounded strangled for some strange reason. Surprised I sat up immediately, wondering what had happened. I was on my bed covered in a light linen blanket and I was alone. Slowly I stretched my arms and groaned aloud once more. As I did I glanced about trying to remember how I had gotten here. My memory was a blank. A second later people came rushing into the room. The people were my mates.

"Charles," they all cried at once, hurrying about the massive bed to get to my side. Kola was the first to reach me.

"What happened?" I croaked through dry, parched lips.

"Give him some water," Felicity urged as she too reached my side.

Hurriedly a cup was filled and passed to me. Slowly I sipped it. When I was done, Kola took it away.

"What do you remember last, Charles?" Nimue asked impatiently.

"I remember the party and talking to Barnabas and Elsa," I muttered thoughtfully, looking at no one in particular as I spoke, "and not much else. I remember Samira as well but don't know why I should."

"You were attacked Charles," Nimue informed me bluntly, "by a trio of assassins. They used a poison on you. Do you remember that?"

"No," I said shaking my head as I did, "I don't remember any assassins. Obviously you got them or I wouldn't be here anymore. Tell me what happened."

The four women looked at each other and sighed. Instantly I knew that things hadn't gone well and that someone had died other than the bad guys. I frowned while they hesitated.

"Who died?" I asked when none of them spoke up.

Kola took the lead here. With a heavy sigh of resignation she told me to sit back and listen patiently and she'd tell me everything she knew.

For the next thirty minutes Kola told me what had happened. Assassins had entered the keep and they had killed the three young Minoan women. They were just about to do the same to Samira when I had apparently interrupted them. From what my mates and others could piece together, I had fought them and had almost won when I had succumbed to a neurotoxin that had been injected into my blood stream. The last assassin had been killed by Nimue. She had found the woman kneeling beside my unconscious body with a dagger in her hand, screaming in pain and agony. From what she could figure out afterwards, I must have stabbed the woman in the leg with my dirk just before passing out. Nimue had dispatched her with her sabre before she could do anything to save herself.

As Kola told me this, memories started floating up from my subconscious and slowly I remembered everything including the image of the real Samira lying face down on the floor of her sleeping chamber, blank faced and beside the bodies of her slain friends. Fear and anger welled up in me.

"What happened to Samira?" I asked anxiously, glancing from Kola to Felicity.

"She's still unconscious," Felicity told me calmly, "and we're taking care of her as best we can. Unfortunately I don't know what kind of neurotoxin the assassins used on the two of you and I don't have the equipment to analyze what samples we recovered from the assassins' bodies. For the moment Samira is still breathing, but just barely. If it wasn't for my medical scanner to show us otherwise, a person would think that she was dead. The same was with you. It took my scanner to tell me that you were alive and it's taken two full days for you to wake up completely and I'll put money on it that your recovery is more because of your enhanced condition than my medical skill. There's no telling whether Samira will come out of it or not."

I shook my head at that and sighed in response. Kola reached out and stroked my cheek with her hand, tenderly comforting me.

"It will be all right my mate," she whispered softly. "Everything will work out in the end."

I just shook my head again and then I forced myself up from the bed again and looked over at Felicity.

"What about a blood transfusion?" I asked her. "Do you have the equipment to give Samira a transfusion of my blood or to make a serum from it to give to her? Can you do that?"

"I've got the equipment to give a transfusion," Felicity admitted, "although I'll need to type your blood and hers. Personally, now that you're awake and recovering, I think the blood transfusion might be a good idea. It could help her recover. Unfortunately making a serum is out of the question. I don't have the equipment or the facilities to make a serum out of your blood and even if I could cobble together some low tech equipment to try and make one, I won't guarantee that it would work. So let me try typing your bloods first and we can go from there."

"All right then we'll do that," I replied in a low distracted voice, my mind already racing with other thoughts and concerns, "but first I want to speak to the trio."

"Why the trio?" Felicity asked.

"Because they might know of an antitoxin," I answered thoughtfully, "and can provide it to us in exchange for a favour. I'll need to speak to them."

"I'll manage that," Felicity reassured me. "You're still too weak for things like that."

"Maybe," I sighed in acknowledgement, "but I'll still need to talk to them soon and not just about the antitoxin. There are issues I need answers too before I can decide what to do next."

"Well for now," Felicity stressed, "you need to rest. Maybe you can speak to them tomorrow."

I was too tired to argue with my mate and doctor. Just talking was leaving me spent. Surrendering to the loving care of my mates I settled back upon the pillows that had me propped up on the bed. As I did I looked from the face of one of my mates to the other. I could see the concern in their eyes and the worry etched onto their faces. I tried to smile for them but couldn't. I was worried as well and I wanted more answers.

"Was anyone else injured in the attack?" I asked pointedly, looking over at Nimue.

"No Charles," she replied forcing a smile onto her lips. "From what we can determine, the assassins were either teleported into the keep by the bastards on the other Earth or they found a way in that allowed them to pass any posted sentry."

"That's good to hear," I sighed in reply, "considering the damage they did to us. Thankfully you came along in the nick of time and saved me. I appreciate that my little elf, you know that don't you?"

"I do my love," Nimue told me, this time succeeding to smile, "but it isn't me who you should be thanking. It is Elsa Mueller. She's the one who alerted us to the danger."

"Elsa... ?" I said in a bewildered manner. "How is she involved in this?"

"Elsa was with you at your meeting with Lord Barnabas, my mate," Kola interjected, "and it was she who killed the other assassin."

"The other assassin," I gasped as another memory rushed back into my consciousness. The image of the false Samira gloating over me came back to mind and the words that she had said just before I had blacked out. "There was a second assassin pretending to be me!"

"You remember," Caitlin piped up enthusiastically from where she'd been sitting beside me on the bed. "Elsa killed him. You should have seen it happen. Everyone was stunned when she did it."

"I can imagine," I stated, giving Caitlin's hand a gentle squeeze when I did. "Tell me what happened."

Caitlin took over the story then and told me how Elsa Mueller had come down the flight of stairs from the upper level of the keep, having left me taking Lord Barnabas back to his room, only to find a second me, drinking wine at the head table surrounded by my mates and friends. It had taken her aback for a second but only for a second and then she had acted. Elsa had simply walked up behind where my doppelganger had been seated. When people had noticed her she had just smiled at them and had pretended everything was fine and that she just wanted to be near me for some reason. No one had suspected anything, not even the doppelganger. In fact the doppelganger had even looked at her for a second before becoming distracted with something someone had been telling him. That was when Elsa had struck. She had pulled a knife from its sheath on seeing the doppelganger and she'd kept it concealed until she was in striking range and then she'd shoved it into the base of the doppelganger's neck.

"After that chaos broke out for about thirty seconds," Caitlin told me, "as all kinds of people jumping on Elsa and wrestled her to the ground. Thankfully Felicity got to the doppelganger first and she instantly realized that it wasn't you. It seems that when Elsa's knife entered the man's neck it short-circuited the outfit that he was wearing. It sparked and it fizzled in the time that it took to grab Elsa and then it shut down to reveal that the person was not you. Once we knew that and once Elsa told us that she'd left you up here, the rest happened like a blur. Nimue led the charge with her sword drawn and she was followed by almost every person at the party still sober enough to realize what was going on and that was it. Nimue came in and chopped off the woman's head and saved the day and then Felicity took charge and we've been caring for you and Samira for the last two days.

Caitlin's story left me stunned. The bastards had come close to killing me and my loved ones and from the sound of it nobody had known it at the time. Only a fluke had saved everyone. If Elsa had just gone to bed instead of going down to the party, we'd have all been killed. It was too much to think about and I found myself just shaking my head in disbelief. As I did my mates tried to sooth me. Eventually Felicity gave me something in a cup of water and I found myself drifting off to sleep again.

I woke the next morning feeling a lot better. I was being watched over by Caitlin, who was curled up on a large couch that had been pushed up beside our bed for people to sit upon without disturbing me on the bed. I smiled when I saw her. She was curled up in a ball with a pillow tucked under her head and a blanket thrown over her. Silently I slipped out of my bed and headed for the bathroom.

When I was done, I took a cold bath and cleaned myself up. As I did I noted where I had been nicked or cut in my struggle with the assassins. The spots were all healed over and barely visible save for the fact that the new skin was lighter than my normally tanned flesh. Once I was done checking myself out, I found my clothing and chainmail and I got myself dressed. After that I stepped over to the chamber that had been Samira's and the Minoan girls' bedroom. I found Samira in bed still unconscious. Asana was curled up beside her. I sighed at the sight of the poor young woman and found my anger building once more. Biting it back, I turned and silently exited the room and then my bedroom.

My appearance at breakfast caused a stir. I walked into the great hall to find Lord Barnabas holding court at his head table surrounded by his two ex-concubines, Kola, Nimue, and Felicity, Elsa Mueller, and to my surprise Glenn Dupree. All of them jumped to their feet at my appearance except for Barnabas and Dupree.

"Charles," exclaimed my three mates as one, "what are you doing out of bed? You should be resting!"

"I am fine," I said in a gruff but loving manner, pulling each of my mates to me to hug them and kiss them with affection, "and I needed to get up and do something constructive."

"You shouldn't be doing anything," Felicity chided me. "You're still in recovery."

"I'm fine," I told her again, "and I'm fully recovered. You keep forgetting that my body isn't like most peoples. I heal a hell of a lot faster than the average guy. Now if you don't mind, I'm hungry and I want to know what has been going on here since the assassination attempt. Feed me and then tell me about what has been happening."

Well they did feed me and I found myself to be ravenous. I ate a stack of oatcakes covered in freshly reduced apple compote, scrambled eggs and several slices of ham, home-fried potatoes, and several cups of honeyed tea. While I ate I got the low down on what had been happening for the last three days. Most of it was boring day-to-day stuff that I really didn't need to know about. Work was progressing slowly on the new settlement and crops in the fields were ripening just nicely. The townspeople were happy for the influx of work and trade and most of the original citizenry of Oak Hall had become used to the idea that their population had grown considerably over the summer. The intelligence service started by Sir Humphrey and Tobias had identified a couple of rich men who weren't happy with the way things were progressing, but besides grumbling about it, none were actively plotting anything against the new council or Lord Barnabas. I considered that to be good news.

"Interestingly," Elsa informed me while I sipped my tea and washed down my meal, "we've had an increase in pirate activity out on the sea. We had a Thracian merchant attacked just north of the big island who just escaped capture when the Shark showed up in the area on patrol and we had a merchant from Ibos sunk a few miles off shore from here. We wouldn't have known anything about that incident except that there were a couple of survivors who made it to shore alive."

"Who do you think is doing it?" I asked, wiping my face and hands clean as I did.

"It could be Rolf Steinman," Elsa replied without hesitation. "He's the only real threat this close to Oak Hall. The other six enclaves along the southern shore wouldn't risk ranging this far north. They'd be risking getting attacked by another band, either at sea directly against their craft or against their settlement while they were away."

"So we should do something about this Rolf Steinman then," I suggested.

"We are," Glenn Dupree said speaking up for the first time. "We're sending in your six men to eliminate him and his lieutenants and we're putting together an assault team with the intentions of putting their base out of action. If everything goes well, it should all be over in a day or two."

I nodded my head at that and smiled in response. I wondered for a second if I should go along and then decided that I should just keep out of things. From the sound of it, everything was going smoothly and these people really didn't need me putting my fingers into their operations. I let the thought drift away and focused on other matters.

"How are you Dupree?" I asked the tall black man. "The last time I saw you, you were in a world of hurt. Now you're sitting at Lord Barnabas' table planning operations and chatting with my mates."

"And enjoying myself doing it," the man chuckled in reply. His responses brought giggles and laughter from almost everyone.

"You can thank your mate for him being up and about," Elsa interjected in a serious manner. "Her magic medical bag has healed a lot of our people faster than I'd have expected it. I don't know what we'd have done without her."

"And I don't know what we'd have done, if not for your quick thinking the other night," I responded, looking solemnly across the table at Elsa. "I'm told that I and my mates owe you our lives and I am grateful for that. Thank you!"

"It was nothing," Elsa muttered dismissively, looking awkward as she did it.