Risen (43 page)

* * *

With nothing else to do, most of the
time they tried to sleep. This was for the best because the hold
was by then stifling. The slave compartment had excrement canisters
within reach that were emptied daily, but the captives did not
necessarily always have the strength to make use of
them.

Risen was grateful that his spot
allowed him at least one shoulder against a rib of the immense
vessel. Against him leaned Sylvie. The roiling of the ship on high
seas was disagreeable, but Risen did not retch like some of the
prisoners did. Several were unable to even sustain water, and they
were shortly unchained and dragged above; he chose not to imagine
to what end. Even with the extra food and water that the dark
skinned boy brought, the trip was harrowing and long. By the end,
there would be eight total amongst this slave lot who would not
survive.

No one told the prisoners how long
the passage would be, but another slave whispered that it could be
as long as two weeks. Risen marked the days on a sodden timber
above his head with his fingernail.

It was three marks later when Sylvie
slumped heavily against him, and he held her as though he would
never let her go. It was five marks later when she became ashen and
unwell, consumed with a terrible fever. Every so often Risen would
awaken her, brush his lips against her cheek as he offered
encouragement and slipped sips of water to her from the small flask
he hid.

But Sylvie was increasingly listless
this long night. He could not be certain, but he believed for the
first time that she might die. Consumed with helplessness, there
was little more that he could do when suddenly…the Englishman came
for the girl.

“No! You can’t take her,” Risen
pulled her closer to him. “If she dies, it will be in my
arms.”

“I will have her, or she will die.”
William went to unlock the manacle on her ankle and gestured with
one hand, indicating Risen should help her rise so that he might
receive Sylvie into his arms.

“What will you do?”

“I am doubly quartered, but my bed
is my own and curtained from the rest. I will put her there and, if
she can, she will gather strength. Then she will work the
galley—serve the officers if she recovers well enough. If she
cannot, she will die in a warm bed with every comfort I can provide
her.” His face was grim.

“Why?” Risen asked straight up.
“Why would you do this?”

“Because it is her best chance
to—”

“No. Why do you care?” Risen was
suspicious, not yet ready to accept that this man might possess the
goodness Sylvie believed he did. He smoothed the pale hair of the
sleeping girl from her damp brow, and she murmured something
unintelligible. “She thinks you are a good man, you know. You took
us from our homes, and she still thinks that.” Risen pulled the
delirious girl closer.

William sighed and gave the boy
prisoner more consideration than he was obligated to, given their
situation. It was a turning point for them both.

“I have regret.” He breathed deeply
and rubbed the heel of his hand into his eye. “Before, it was
something else—an escape, I suppose. I do not rue that I’ve been an
instrument of war, but…I regret that I am a part of this.” He
gestured to the unconscious girl. “This should not have happened to
you, should not have happened to her.”

“Then you will help us?”

The Englishman nodded slowly,
sincerely. “I will; at what cost I don’t know. But, yes, I
will.”

“Why now?” Risen pressed him. “And
why not before, before we reached the port and set
sail?”

William seemed particularly
uncomfortable under the questioning. He looked away, gazing down
the long row of mostly sleeping captors. “Risen, I am not a good
man…”

It was the first time Risen had
heard the soldier call him by name.

“…
but I am now
inspired to do a good thing.” William’s starkly pale eyes focused
on Risen first, then on Sylvie. “She did this. She made me begin to
feel again. So, I am ready to be done with this.” He did not give
Risen long to process the gravity of what he said. “Now help her to
me before she suffers the worst.” He motioned again, reaching for
the girl.

Risen helped the weakened love of
his heart into the soldier’s arms. Wrapping a blanket about her,
the man slung her gently against one shoulder as though he carried
an infant.

“You’ve done the right thing.” He
nodded at the boy. “From the first, you’ve done the right thing.”
And with that, he disappeared down the rows of enslaved
men.

Risen felt, for the first time in
his life, as though he was truly alone. He choked back tears for he
wanted only to be with Sylvie, and did not know if he would ever
see her again. His dreams for the two of them had been beautiful,
vaporous and perfect, of a time when they might ride his father’s
fine horses over the splendid countryside together, when their love
might be known by all.

These dreams had been wrapped in the
warmth of a few never ending summers and the magic of a young boy’s
heart, a boy in love. They’d been the dreams of youth and denied
heartache or uncertainty, but uncertainty was all that Risen
believed he had left. He had no choice but to release Sylvie to a
man he’d not so long ago hated—before she had convinced him not
to.

He meant to save her, to help her
survive all of this, from the very beginning. He was responsible
for her plight and lamented that he must trust another—one he did
not know, one of their original captors. Questioning himself, he
wondered what might have happened if he’d not left the castle when
the raid happened, not gone to her homestead in the early morning
light.

No! He refused to consider what he
knew the outcome of that would have been. Sylvie was alive today,
and bad as their situation was, he was not prepared to entertain
the alternative. Even so, seeing her disappear with William, her
limp arm dangling, was more than Risen could endure. He curled up,
head buried in his crossed arms, and fell apart for the first time
since they’d been taken. Despair threatened, and in this dark hour
he discovered his mind chose again to sweep to a time with his
father, another time, camped together in their beloved
woods…

* * *

“Tell me about when you were ten,
like I am now.” Risen poked at the fire, enjoying the pattern of
sparks against the velvet, black beyond.

He recognized that fire, with its
enduring light, only darkened the perception of everything else
around it. Ravan had explained it as light distortion, how
sometimes one must step into the darkness to really see. He was
speaking literally about the firelight, but Risen sensed there had
been something metaphoric about what his father was trying to
say.

It’d been a good day. Risen had
successfully tracked his own way back from a blindfolded trek into
the deep forest, back to their encampment. And, he’d taken not one
but two rabbits on the way.

Pride had shown openly on his
father’s face. The rabbits crackled as they roasted over the open
flame. Hunger that knew impending satisfaction made the boy
particularly happy and animated, and so he threw questions out with
careless abandon. What he asked obviously surprised his father, for
he received the raised eyebrow in response.

“What was it like when I was your
age?” his father repeated the question. Ravan repositioned one
rabbit less over the flame without yet answering. Just when Risen
thought he would not have his answer, his father shared, “I lived
at an orphanage. It was where I first learned the things I am
teaching you now.”

“About hunting? Tracking and
surviving?”

Ravan kicked back nearer to his son
and, as he so often appeared to do, gave the question generous
thought. “Hunting, tracking…building fire—to do these things can
save your life. I believe I was learning something more,
however.”

“You mean about life?”

“Yes, about life.”

Shifting onto his elbow so that he
might face his son entirely, Ravan added, “To survive is something
the human heart is compelled to do. But, to survive for another is
something else entirely.”

Together, they watched the sparks
coil, shoot into the darkness, and disappear overhead.

“I was compelled to help,” Ravan
said.

“Who, Father? Who were you so
worried for?”

“The others…the orphans.” He
paused. “They were vulnerable. Life had given them disadvantage. By
learning those things—hunting, surviving—I was helping them more
than myself.” He was very serious now. “But I was also helping
myself more than them because of it.”

“Did they live?”

“Mmm…most of them.”

“But not all of them.” Risen was
persistent, naturally curious of the fragile fates of the unwanted
children.

“No. Not all of them, and to lose
one—to be powerless of their wellbeing—is the greatest cruelty of
all. It was the first and one of the few times that I felt truly
helpless, when someone else I loved was at risk. It will be then
that you will suffer moments that the endurance of your character
will be tested more than ever.”

“Me? But I have a wonderful life!
There is nothing I fear.”

“Yes, Risen, but all men, if they
live long enough, with have their courage tested in some fashion or
another.”

“What if I’m not strong enough?
What if I fail?”

Ravan smiled. “Not all tests are of
might. Some strike you in places you cannot protect. When this
happens, the strength I speak of comes from here, from within.”
Reaching to tap his son on the chest, he explained further, “And it
is already there. A man may be only ten years old, but he can
possess the strength of spirit beyond that of kings.”

Risen frowned, not nearly as certain
as his father that such a thing was possible. “And how will I know
if I can endure? When the time comes, I mean?”

His father’s eyes seemed to go
somewhere else now, somewhere back into the experiences of his own
life. He said simply, “You will know. It will hurt, but you will
know.”

* * *

Risen’s sobs quieted, and his
breathing slowed. A soft determination replaced fear, and he
allowed the slow pitch of the ship to lure him into a diaphanous
sleep. He dreamed of the foal, the one that his father had given to
him, how many days ago? It had been a joyous day, his first horse,
his to do with as he pleased, and it was a beauty.

In his dream, he was giving it to
Sylvie, giving her the coal black foal. The colt was grown. Risen
was seventeen, Sylvie eighteen. Her face was beautiful and beaming
as he led the stunning creature into the paddock. It pranced in
place, glistening in its newly shed coat. Then, it spied
her.

As though the horse knew it was
meant for Sylvie and she for it, the stallion stretched its elegant
neck so that it was stunning in its approach. Reaching for her, its
nose quivering with anticipation, the young stallion touched
Sylvie’s outstretched hand with the velvet tip of its muzzle,
breathing hot air into her palm.

Sylvie was overcome with joy, the
gift her love had given her, and she turned, kissed Risen deeply,
completely. “Yes, my love. Yes, I will be your bride.”

CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE

†

The ship was nearly ready to set
sail, and the night was cool and bright beyond the pier. The moon
was hanging low, dancing off the water in silvery bands. Clouds
were scarce; a few forlorn puffs lingered in the distance. Ravan
was glad to have the rains behind him for now. It’d been a long,
sodden trip to the coast, a journey of desperation—the worst ever,
he thought—even worse than the caged one when he was taken as a
fourteen year old boy from the Inn.

Glancing up, he spied the silhouette
of his beautiful Nicolette, framed by the moon, standing motionless
as a bedded fawn. The soft, midnight breeze lifted her hair just
so, the only indication that she was not a statue—a beacon of the
night come to take watch for those who might brave the depths
beyond.

Ravan was overcome. His fear, dread,
anger, all of it threatened to explode from his chest. His son was
gone, and he swallowed his anguish, allowing himself this moment of
weakness, to have Nicolette be the stronger of the two of them. As
was his way, he walked nearly noiselessly down the long pier. It
was part of who he was, something he’d learned a long time ago as a
child of the woods. Even so, as he approached Nicolette, she
reached one hand—reached for him—not even looking back. She simply
knew that he was there.

Taking her hand in his, he spun her
about and wrapped his arms around her, holding her as near as
physically possible, as though he could draw her into himself and
pull from her strength. He held her like a lifeline, like
sanctuary, like an answered prayer.

“Nicolette…”

“I am here, my love.”

Nicolette returned the embrace and,
in doing so, she took from him a great deal of the pain that
burdened him tonight. She readily absorbed it, and he felt as
though a weight had been lifted, one he had carried for a very long
time.