Preserving Hope by Alex Albrinck Read Free Book Online Page B

we could work harder. If we lived longer lives, he’d get more work out of us. It was easier to get work out of someone by extending their lives from twenty-five years to thirty, than to wait for a young child to grow strong enough to take the place of one dying so young.”
    Will shivered at the cold calculation.
    “So he pulled the ten of us out of servant quarters, out of mines, out of forests, out of his fields, off of the roads of his properties. He put us up in his smallest home, and charged us with figuring out why, exactly, we died so young. More critically, he wanted us to figure out how to change that, so that he could get an extra five to ten years worth of labor out of us. He left a handful of servants to handle day-to-day chores so we could focus on completing that task, rather than the daily hard labor we’d been accustomed to performing.”
    Will picked up on the historical revisionism once again. The other servants were there to handle day-to-day activities, to be sure, but the serfs in the experiment were not free to do as they wished. The baron would suggest something to test, and the serfs being tested would be forced to do as he pleased. If the tests succeeded and the serfs showed improvements in their health, the baron would order those techniques administered throughout his lands.
    If those techniques failed, the serfs died. And those acting as servants moved in to take their place as test subjects, and were themselves replaced by other servants. Will felt a sudden sense of horror at the human test factory, but realized he needed to go along with their revised history.
    With some difficulty, he acknowledged her statement. “And I take it that you succeeded?”
    Eva nodded, her face contorted in the pain of the memory. Whether it was the memory of the “research” or the memory of being a slave that drove the expression, Will did not know. “When we finished, when he’d found satisfaction with what we’d learned, he told us to report back to our old stations the next day. We didn’t. We took various supplies, coins, and horses, and fled as far away as we could. We had no interest in going back to being sla—serfs. We had tasted a small sliver of freedom, and we wouldn’t live any other way. We’ve been here since.”
    “That’s why this place is hidden and has walls, isn’t it?” Will reasoned. “So that he can’t find you and take you back?”
    “Initially.” Eva’s face turned cold. “He wouldn’t be able to take us anywhere now.” The threat in the tone chilled Will to the bone. There were certainly more than ten people living here, and they were heavily armed at all times, both men and women, with two exceptions. Will and Elizabeth.
    “So what did you learn?” Will asked, hoping to change the subject.
    “It wasn’t terribly difficult to make a large difference. We found that something as simple as washing our entire bodies daily was a good thing, for example.” She glanced at Will. “I know most of us wash in that fashion once a month or less, but trust me, you’ll be glad of the results. We walk as a community to the Halwende each morning before beginning our daily work. I’m heading to the gate now to wait for the others.”
    “The Halwende?”
    She gave him an odd look. “Yes. That’s the slower-moving of the two rivers surrounding this forest, the one to the east. Surely you crossed that one to get here?”
    Oops. “Of course. I’ve traveled a long way, and have mixed up the names of the two rivers. I thought I remember the Halwende being the one with the more difficult waters.”
    She chuckled. “No, the Ealdor is that one. I suppose if you’ve not lived nearby it might be easy to get the two rivers confused; they are rather close together, and merge together farther north. Where do you come from?”
    “A town far to the west. Or at least, I think it’s to the west. I’ve been in such a deep state of mourning since losing my family that I’m not certain