Chapter 17

Act 3

Scene 3

Kim was the first to shake off her stunned immobility. Never taking her eyes from the huge bamboo building, she said, "Yes, where is the priest who can help my daughter?"

Evan added, "Your village is amazing! But, I agree, let's get Becky the help she needs."

The two men carrying Becky's litter had never paused, so the entire group hurried to catch up. They had to scramble a bit over the rough ground of the cartpath, especially since all eyes were drinking in the odd details of the village and its surrounds. There was a truck garden growing vegetables in mounds. But what vegetables! A single thick corded vine covered nearly an acre and was covered with scores of squash of every size, from grape sized to over one hundred pounds. Several corn stalks rose twenty feet from each of a dozen mounds. Each stalk was festooned with over twenty ears over two feet long. A row of tomato plants sprawled ten feet wide and eight feet high, bearing thousands of yellow, purple or red tomatos. Dozens of other huge, vigorously growing types of plants weren't instantly recognizable.

A corral made of new growth bamboo, only twenty feet long and three to four inches in diameter held a pair of monstrous beasts. Almost twenty feet tall at the shoulder, they looked like hornless rhinos, but were placidly eating from a huge mound of hay on a wagon.

As the group got closer to the gatehouse, Paul's experienced eye picked out small cannons atop each of the guard towers along the wall, plus three more above the gate. He looked at Ambrose and asked, "I see you have cannon placed for defense. Defense against what? And if you have cannon, why are your men not equiped with muskets?"

Pointing at the two huge rhinos, Ambrose answered, "Yon great beasties an' their ilk, plus the occassional land dragons, and the mighty griffons an' eagles. Muskets? Bah, betides slow ta load, mine brothers are unsurpassed with bows!"

As the party approached the gate, several older men holding long muskets stood at the walls of the gatehouse above the gate. One, completely bald on top, with a wild fringe of pure white hair, cupped his hand to his mouth and shouted down.

"Ambrose! Be yea daft lad? Methinks thy senses hath fled!"

Ambrose aimed a huge grin up to his tormentor. "Uncle Abraham, hast thy been in thy cups aready? Canst thou not least wait til dusk? Open the gates afore mine fine new friends. Yon baern hath need o' succor."

He flushed bright red from his chest to the top of his bald plate, turned, and bustled his companions off the gatehouse out of sight. Momentarily, the heavy doors of the gate opened inward, and the party trooped inside.

All the girls' necks were swiveling to take in every detail, but Kim had eyes only for the two men striding to meet them. A tall, slender, young dark haired man in a dark robe, and a solidly built older man with a short cropped, salt and pepper beard and a fairly severe limp.

Kim rushed toward the litter bearing Becky, looked down at her daughter's still pale form in worry, and then turned to the two men as they arrived with a look of hope. Choking back her sobs, and tears streamed down her cheeks. Kim pled, "Can you help my daughter, Becky? She's sustained a severe head injury, and I'm afraid she's dying."

"Fear not, with mine avowal of the Lord's blessings, thine daughter shalt bless thee once more."

That said, the young priest knelt next to the litter. He placed one hand on Becky's forehead and with the other drew out an odd cross from his robe. The cross was lacquered wood with gold filigree, but the proportions were off, with the vertical and horizontal pieces of equal length, and the intersection at the midpoint of both, it looked more like a plus sign.

The priest's hand began to glow with a pearly opalescence. The girls gasped and exclaimed wordlessly in shock and hope. Paul grunted in thought, and put on his sunglasses. Without the sunglasses, he could see only a formless pearly glow. Looking through the sunglasses, he could see tightly packed strands of different colors flowing from the cross to curl about his niece's head. The pattern seemed both familiar and soothing. Paul nudged Kim on one side of him and Evan on the other. Kim ignored him, merely staring intently at the tableau, but Evan remembered their earlier conversation, and got out his own polarized sunglasses. The priest began to strain visibly after less than a minute. Paul and Evan watched as the final strands were cut off from their source in the cross, and tied themselves off. The priest slumped, panting as if he had run a hard mile.

Becky's eyes flickered open. She saw all of the concerned faces staring down at her. She smiled as she sat up, and said, "Hi everybody! What's going on?"

Through her tears, Kim convulsively pulled her daughter into a hug. "Oh! Thank God you're all right!"

All of the girls were hugging each other and jumping for joy. Even Lewis and Clark turned to their Dad and gave him effusive high fives.

Evan reached down to the priest and helped him to his feet. As the man stumbled to his feet, Evan pulled him into a crushing hug. He said, "Oh thank you! I don't know what you did, or how you did it, but you saved my daughter!"

The priest's companion interceded to save his ward. He pried the priest from Evan's grasp with casual strength. Wobbling on his feet once Evan had released him, the priest managed to mumble, "Saved? Nay. Mine work but gainstayed yon lass."

Sarah watched the priest and said with awe, "It was magic!"

Ambrose hissed, "Nay, sayeth thee not! T'would gain yea the fires of perdition!"

He pulled the priest's arm over his shoulder and started a lurching retreat. Over his shoulder, he growled, "Ta do so, Michael near kilt hisself. Get thine lass victuals and drink, whilst thy canst."

Evan sped to the priest's other side and took his other arm over his shoulder. Hung between the two men, head lolling, they ended up carrying the priest toward the bottom of the huge bamboo building.

Evan asked, "What do you mean, while we can?"

"Nay doubt about it. Young Michael did all 'e couldst for the lass. Yet, 'e's not a Bishop, 'e's not te power to cure such a wound. Yon lass hath no more than a day, two at best, afore ta Fates stride ta 'er side."

Evan protested, "But she looks all better!"

"Aye. She doth." He gave their burden a paternal look of pride. "'E's just bout kilt hisself ta grant 'er t'is boon of time. Now, 'e must rest."

"Give Michael my thanks when he awakes. What is your name?"

"I be called James. Now, step back, least thee be struck."

James pulled the priest onto a bamboo platform suspended by corded ropes from the building above. Grabbing a looped rope, he looked up and shouted, "Two!"

A few seconds later, Evan saw another platform swing free in the hole at the bottom of the building. Then, James and the priest began a steady ascent of one hundred feet, as the counterweighted platform came down. Evan watched with interest, as the two platforms neared their destinations, they began slowing down.

He muttered to himself as he walked back to the group. "Interesting. They must have a pulley system and a brake to keep it from going too fast. It's quite a sophisticated system really, considering they have no mechanization."

Evan edged his way around the huddle of girls to get near his daughter. Ambrose stayed close to Paul and the boys, as his brothers headed to the lift and all rose together on the platform.

Evan leaned down to give his daughter a kiss on the top of her head. Evan asked, "Becky, how do you feel baby?"

"I feel just fine Daddy. In fact, I'm starving!" Becky beamed back and attempted to get up from the makeshift stretcher.

"Take it easy Becky, you have been pretty sick. Here, let me help you." Evan replied quickly and helped Becky to stand. Kimber hurriedly moved to her other side to add support to her daughter.

"Mom, Dad, really I'm fine. See?" Becky pushed away her parents and stood. Wobbling a bit, both Kimber and Evan reached out and held her steady.

"Well, you may be fine, but I will feel better if you lean on your Dad and I. So humor us, OK baby?" Kimber replied anxiously.

Flushing a bit from her unsteadiness, Becky smiled and agreed, "Maybe you're right. I think I'm a little light headed because I'm so hungry!"

Watching Becky's unsteady form walking slowly towards him, Paul quietly asked Ambrose, "If that wasn't magic that healed that girl, can you please tell me what exactly that priest did to her?"

Ambrose frowned, eyes darting to where the priest had just disappeared. Quietly, he answered, "Thine question ist fraught with peril." He sighed, "Lest yea find to thy sorrow, we shalt speak to this and other questions. First, to feast and merriment, thy clan needeth sustenance afore a long parley. Mine own curiosity ith piqued, most prominently with thine weapons. Tis no mere musket, that fireth thrice in a single breath!"

Paul put his fingers to his pursed lips and whistled a loud shrill whistle. It cut through the other conversations and drew every eye in sight. Several of the men on watch atop the walls jerked in shock and whirled to look back into the courtyard with hands on their weapons. Paul noted the guardsmen's reaction, but he concentrated on his family. Raising his voice, he said, "Ok. We have been invited to a feast! Everybody follow our kind host, Ambrose."

Ambrose turned and started towards the lift. As they were following Ambrose, Bell and Jenny skipped to walk with Lewis and Clark, talking excitedly. "Isn't it wonderful about Becky! That priest-man just touched her and poof, she's all better! Do you think it's magic Clark?" Bell asked as she grabbed Clark's hand.

Looking down at his cousin's hand, then to her smiling face, Clark cleared his throat and whispered, "Bell, hush now. Don't say the 'magic' word. I think it really pissed off Ambrose. But yeah, I'm glad your sister's gonna be OK."

Giggling but bringing her voice down close to a whisper Bell replied, "Oh, sorry. I won't use the 'M-word' again. But you know it was, too!"

Rolling his eyes, Clark smiled back then cast a sideways glance to Lewis. Nodding in understanding, Lewis shook his head at their young cousin's irrepressible exuberance. Ambrose broke them into two groups. Paul, Becky, Lewis, Clark and Sarah joined him on the first platform. While Evan, Pam, Tammy, Bell, Jenny and Kim waited for the platform to descend, and then joined them at the top of the lift in less than a minute. Ambrose pointed out the three-man crew running the lift, and acting as guards for the entry point into the keep. He pointed out that this lower level served as the primary storehouse for supplies.

Lewis carefully scanned everything. Along one wall, huge sections of bamboo were cut open at the top and used for dry storage of grain, flour, and vegetables. Along another wall, other complete sections of bamboo were tapped as casks, lying on their sides on raised, notched stands. The ends of the cask weren't the ever-present green, but rather a buff tan. There were handcarts, wooden pulleys, huge coils of braided rope, and tools of every description. Lewis leaned over the railing around the elevator shaft and looked upward. The rope lifting the elevators was run over a pulley attached to a cross brace near the very top of the giant bamboo shafts that supported the building, at least fifty feet above the roofline. Each of the eight floors above had an opening to match this one, and Lewis saw a few curious children looked down at him from the levels above.

Ambrose led them up a broad ramp near one wall. At the top of the ramp they entered a large room that took up over half of the floor. Eighty feet long and fifty feet wide, windows along three walls let in plenty of light and revealed columns for a large wrap-around deck outside. Long tables filled the room, with a scattering of people already seated. At the far end, Ambrose's brothers sat at one end of a bar topped with a heavy slab of dark wood. Ambrose crossed the room with them all straggling along behind. Ambrose stepped up to his brothers, and before a word was said, was handed a huge foamy mug of dark ale. He took a long draw off of the mug, and clasped hands with each of brothers in turn. An older man looked up from his mug blearily from one of the nearby tables, just as a plump matronly woman exited from a door at the end of the bar and walked the length of it to greet them. She circled the end of the bar and slapped Ambrose with the small towel she held.

Smiling to them all, the woman gave them all a curtsy. "Ambrose! Beast and scallywag thou art! Prayeth thee, proclaim thee thy new friends! Well met, I be Rose."

Mimicking the women, Kim, Sarah, Pam, Beth, Bell and Jenny curtsied in return as they returned her greeting shyly. Becky and Tammy belatedly joined them in embarrassment.

Ambrose pointed to each of the males in turn. "Rose, these be Paul, Evan, Lewis, and Clark. Enough woman! Bring ale for all."

Ambrose led them all to a long bamboo table, and they sat on benches made of the same bamboo material. Bell and Jenny, sat next to Clark, and all three of them stared openly at their surroundings. Beth, Pam and Sarah sat across the table from Becky and her parents. Their eyes flickered between the young men juggling as they walked through the crowd, and bustle of more people flowing down the ramp from above. Young girls, most younger than Bell, began streaming out of a set of double doors near the elevator shaft carrying platters of food. They heaped the food on each of the tables, while Rose, and several helpers filled large mugs of strong-smelling ale for everyone.