Preserves–Excerpt from ‘The Hangman’s Valley’

Chapter 9–Preserves
Amazingly, Robin’s ribs were healed. He was awake after a sound sleep, lying in bed alone and feeling not a wince of pain. He gently pushed each of his ribs with his fingers, feeling for a tender spot and finding none. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He coughed heartily and felt only strength. Robin wondered how such a drink, unheard of and mysterious, had healed him so quickly. Don Alvarado, the old woman and Peter had helped him, and he was grateful. Feeling healthy, he realized he was very awake, and very hungry. He started wondering how long he had been in these underground rooms, and if Sister had been looked after. He thought of the western road, and the sun, golden like the hair of the injured girl, and they called his being. But before he could go, he thought, there was still the question of his connection to someone called the Prince.
The door opened and the hairy brute Don Alvarado called Marcos walked in beside Peter holding a lantern that illuminated their excited faces.
“Birdy, thank God. You look much better. Here, you must eat,” said Peter, smiling pleasantly and in a good mood.
Marcos had a tray in his hands, loaded on top with a plate of bread and cheese, and what looked to be a glass filled with plain fresh milk, mercifully white and not red. Marcos passed the tray to Robin as he sat up quickly, aching to fill his empty belly.
“Thank you, Marcos,” Robin said. Marcos grunted back a response and walked out of the room.
Peter stood over Robin and watched the boy dig into the food. The staleness of the bread went unnoticed by Robin, who smothered it with strawberry preserves that accompanied the cheese, eating until he licked his sticky fingers.
“This is the nourishment you need, little spring Robin. You must finish the food, because Don Alvarado will ask something of you, and there must be strength in your little body, yes? The drink has amplified your hunger.”
Robin nodded in agreement as he drank a mouthful of milk.
“Hah! You already are finished, I think? You eat like me; very good.”
The food and drink worked its way into his belly, stimulating his need for answers.
“Sister?” he asked, swallowing the last of the milk.
“Your horse? She is spoiled princess, now, I think. You were a very naughty boy not to feed and brush her before you started your drinking, but we take good care. Marcos is most stupid, but he love horses, and I think Sister is becomes his favorite. Sister likes him too, maybe because she smells you on us people. Very smart creature, no?”
“Will I be able to see her?” Robin asked.
“Yes, but after meeting with the Don, which is after breakfast, which, if you are done, is now, no?”
Robin wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and brushed off crumbs from his chest. “Ok, I’m done, see? Now can we go?”
Peter smiled at the boy. “Robin is healthy now, and has full belly, and thus he wants to leave the people and be on his way, is that it? You are in great hurry? I am only kidding. Put on your clothes and we’ll walk together.”
Robin did as he was told, putting on a fresh pair of clothes laid for him beside the bed, and followed Peter through the door into a cramped tunnel lined with wooden boards packed into dirt walls, a single corridor amongst the underground miner’s hive of which he was a guest.
“How long have I been recovering?” Robin queried Peter as they kept their heads bowed marching beneath the low ceiling.
“Lost track of time down here, no? I hate this place. Not too long, Robin, just a week.”
“A week? It’s felt like only two days!”
Peter sighed. “The drink, it’s a nasty one. You only had enough of it to take you out for a week. When I drank it, I was in such bad shape I was down here for a year. Now I can’t stand this place. I feel like ugly little rat in damp old cellar, running in circles.”
They proceeded down the tunnels. At one point Robin walked past a wooden board lining the wall that seemed to have sprung loose and, glancing at the exposed earth behind it, he noticed a row of polished white globes packed into the dirt. Puzzled, he was about to stick his hand in and grab one when he noticed that from each base of the globes protruded a ridge of enameled teeth. Human skulls. Robin shuddered, and ran to catch up with Peter.
Arriving at the end of the corridor they came to a large iron door. Robin was surprised something of such weight adorned a miner’s tunnel underground, but he was even more surprised by what he saw beyond the door when it was opened, as Peter pulled a lever and gestured for Robin to step through.
Robin entered a large, rectangular hall, at least five times the size of the room in which he had first met Don Alvarado and constructed in the same manner. The walls were lined with a great many bunk beds and down the middle ran two rows of tables and benches. It looked as if the miners’ barracks and dining halls above ground had been replicated below ground; but, unlike the deserted buildings above, this hollow was bursting with people. Forty plus men and a dozen odd women were bustling about in the middle of the activity of a meal, eating and drinking and arguing. Robin looked at Peter in awe.
“The whole town moved underground?” Robin asked.