Tears of Leyden (4 page)

I choke up at his absurdity. “Why does it matter?” I sob. “Why does it matter to you whether I am dead or alive….you couldn’t let me and my family be and saved me from this…this suffering…why?” I feel my eyes fill to their brim and have to stare out of force. I do not dare to blink in fear of causing the water behind my lashes to fall.

He seems to understand my situation and sighing again, keeps quiet a moment. Then, he speaks lenient and pitifully to me. “Listen to me, please…I know we’ve hurt you, and I’m sorry for it, but please…I did what I could’ve done…I’m here for whatever reason to control you, and to ignore this would be insolent to the higher controllers on our part…specifically the monarch. I will do my best to care take you, if you do your best to hear me through.”

I slowly peek back up into his eyes and for the first time find them not cold, but warm
. I hate them.

“You must be alive to do,” he tries. “I am being and I am doing…not just thinking and dying by thoughts.”

I study his portrait, his dark brown hair, his light olive complexion, the expressive, abysmal, and decisive blue eyes, his sudden appearance not vivid with Spanish blood, but definitely I see it in him…or on him. His clothes are not fancy but common; button-down white shirt and breeches that look new but also darkened from travel. His boots have the mark of the Spanish militia imprinted on them. I would love to scrawl out the print. A certain sense of resonance though, in his being, threatens to make me feel forgiveness. I swallow hard and try not to lose my anger towards him, let alone my hatred for Spaniards. He searches my face for any left emotions to be aware of.

I hate him.
That is the only one left.
I hope he sees it straight on.

“I did not choose to take you away from them…I would never have done it if…”

“You did though.”

He looks at me gravely. “No.
I
didn’t, that was my fellow company. You are in my hands
now
, whether either of us can do something about it I am not sure. I do know, however, that I am supposed to protect you for unknown reasons of the King. You must agree that I have no hands in that.”

I look to the ground and avoid him.
I will never agree. Not for him or with him.

“May I call you by your name which I know not of?” He introduces gently.

I swallow dry spit and want to feel the loathing I know to be still stored in me somewhere. “You may not.” It is hoarse and whispery but I take pleasure at the callousness.

He sighs. “May I at least take you into a safer environment?”

“My welfare is my own concern, even if you have been given responsibility of it.”

He is still calm. “I agree it is in your keeping physically and mentally, but it is in my hands to keep you, not just your health, in good condition for whatever the king desires.”

The way he says it makes the King’s ideas sound worse than before, but I feel a shift inside that he is right. I look at him, not wanting the truth to separate me and the roaring despised feeling I have for him, but the hate is fleeing quickly from my heart, and I cannot seem to harness and pull it back.

I tighten my fist, feeling the anger through it as I dig my nails into my skin. “What did they mean I was wanted by the King?”

His face turns flushed, and he looks unmistakably unconvinced. “I do not know.”

I hate that he sounds honest. “If it is your responsibility to take me somewhere, you must know. You belong to the Spanish army.”

He clenches his jaw, but not out of anger, it is passive and slightly annoyed, though not with me it seems. “I cannot tell you if I don’t know. I am new to the military. The man you ran into today…he was the one you could have asked.” It is earnest.

I think over the event with the first officer again. I hate to break it to him, but I don’t think there would have been a moment when I could have asked him, and I don’t plan on meeting him again. Now or ever.

“Then why do you want to control me?”

He is quiet. “Not control, care-take.”

It sounds much worse. “Why?”

He is silent.

“If owning me is in your best interest than…”

His face is firm. “You belong to no one but yourself and God, but we have our rights to protect and help each other whether the other is ignorant of it or wants it.”

I can’t answer it. I instead direct him elsewhere. “Why?”

He glances behind me. “I don’t know,” he sounds earnest, and I have a feeling he is.

I push aside the words. “Where are we now?”

“In a friend’s cottage…I must take you somewhere safer,” the last part was only to himself, but I can’t help it.

“No.”

He eyes me carefully. “I have to.”

After a moment of my silence, he starts to rise.

I watch, unsure of his action and my best interest being in it. He comes closer and the unsureness soon roils inside and turns into nothing but dead quiet. My heart pounds again. I shake my head in imploration, but he is already picking me up and dragging me towards the door.

The loathing returns.

I pull back but he brings me in tight in his hold. He is of the greater power. I nearly lose my balance as he pulls me to my feet too fast. I twist my wrist trying to get away, but he holds me in his hands, loosening and tightening depending on my force. I beg out in sobs, but he seems unmoved by it all. My head is spinning and it takes all my concentration not to stumble over myself as tears blur my vision. I don’t know why I am even fighting anymore.
I couldn’t get to them even if I did free myself.
I don’t stop even though I know this.

We make a slight curve in our path along the wall and I find myself identifying the side of the city on the east. He pauses a moment and his grip tightens at a sound nearby. I want to scream. I almost scream. I should scream, but I don’t. He brings me forward another yard, and then without warning turns into an open doorway. The moment I feel him relax, I know we are in his desired place. I pull away. I glimpse a dirt grounded room with a table, a stove, and a book shelve before I smack against the floor.

I let out one last sob as my knees wobble beneath my weight as I try to support myself. I crawl and drag myself away from him, cowering and then collapsing to the ground, never wanting to be touched again.

He stands there panting and watching with an unreadable expression on his face. My eyes forcibly open and close as I shake with my consistent sappy sounding sobs. I hear him sigh and as my eyes open, I glace him from my awkward position as he turns and locks the door we came through and then starts towards the open doorway to the right. I close my eyes and keep crying and groaning into my hands, burrowing into myself.

I am all I have left.

Chapter 3

I don’t know how long I’ve lain here, but it is cold, my toes are numb, and my body is stiff against the hard floor. I slowly raise my head from its long endured cradle in my arms. I feel my stomach growl and remember that I haven’t eaten anything today. I hear something creak and a small scratching sound against steel is followed by the sound of silverware against glass. I conclude that I am not yet left to my freedom and lay back down my head, not wanting to be noticed but forgotten. I close my eyes and wait for silence. It comes too soon and I start to drift.

Something warm and steamy wafts into my breath and I frown. I soften to it as it strengthens and become a little too comforting. I hear the muffled shuffle of feet over the ground close behind me, but my lethargy gives me no warning. The smell is irresistible.

There is a soft brush against my shoulder and I freeze, my eyes shooting open at the unexpected contact with another object. I do not move.

Then I hear it.

“Are you hungry?”

I swallow as I catch the scent of waving heat again. Without turning, after this past month of starvation, I know it is hot food.

I ignore it.

There are a few moments of quiet. I hear the sound of something being set against the floor by my head and glimpse a white bowl with something contained in its round circumference. I listen to him getting to his feet and wait until he is safely out of hearing. I gradually start to push up from my lying place.

I peek into the bowl and see warm millet with some rosemary sprinkled over the scoop of boiled granules. I once again swallow dryly into my sore throat. My stomach feels empty and pitted. I feel it churn restlessly as though speaking for itself. I don’t take the millet. I lie back down and try to forget the ache in my sides from my strain and hunger. I start to sink and drift, forgetting all else and letting go of the images of my nightmare. I feel myself being lifted into sleep again and don’t have the strength to fight against any other battle to be won. I let go.

I awaken slowly to the sounds of birds chirping outside. My eyes are blinded by the shock of early morning light as they absently open. I shift a little and pull the warm blanket farther up and around me. I frown and leisurely start to lift my gaze from my lids. I look around me and am thoughtfully forgetful for a few moments. Then, all rushes into me like a newly surfaced stream. I am suddenly bolted with energy. I start up a little from my place on the dirt ground.

The room is empty and quiet apart from the scarce furniture and sounds of dishes and pots being rattled in another room. I look in the direction from which the sound is coming from, and it takes me a moment to fully wake my eyes. He is there, through the door-less doorframe, with his front facing me as I sit here watching his figure and recalling the loathing I’d felt for him. I suppose that the stove is pushed up against the wall, so that blocked from my view.

I watch hesitantly but with resentment to the hesitance, frightened of meeting his gaze. He fills the bowl and then takes up another and fills it to the brim as well. I feel my stomach twisting and my mouth waters out of hunger. He steps over to the small table with two chairs only half hidden behind the wall, and sets the filled bowl on the side closest to me, and then sits with his face to me. To my thanks, I do not find him looking at me. He picks up a letter and opening it, begins to read, his brow slightly furrowed in a thoughtful crease.

I feel my stomach growl. I don’t think I can last without at least water. I look for the bowl he’d given me yesterday (
was it yesterday already?)
but it is no longer in my bearings. I swallow hard at the thought of a day passing since moeder and Meyleia’s departure. Though it pains me, I feel the ache in my stomach and my head keeps me from retaining a reasonable train of thought. I reluctantly start to rise and begin towards the table.

I must pray for them later.

For them to come back.

Chapter 4

I slowly sink down into the seat and forbid myself to make any visual contact with the being sitting across from me. He looks up and I uncertainly meet his gaze.

I hate it, how even as I try to I cannot disobey my etiquette but I can disobey my self-commands.

Slowly, a weary warm gaze melts through my tension and shows his clearer interpretation of my presence. I keep looking at him unsurely, my head lowered, and the slouch in my worn figure probably illustrating my weakness. He swallows and slowly reaches out over the table and stirs his porridge. Feeling my eyes on him, he raises his gaze from the bowl.

I watch him intently but angrily. His stormy dark blue eyes are not in the least displeasing or intimidating. I realize that even if he was, he did not look like a Spanish man at all, despite his hair which has the same charcoal brown look about it as most of them do. Still, I do not show my true sentiments, instead performing by the largest emotion within me: fear.

He gives me a questioning look and then glances at my porridge. I look down as well, not positive of my own permission to end my hunger with the food served. Most importantly I wished to see that it was no trick of poisoning. Vader had taught me how to tell if it was meddled with, but as I sit before the food now, between the restless agitations in my muscles, the sour limitation in my stomach, and dizziness of my head, I would hardly be able to test it.

“It won’t bite back,” he ensures.

I look up and find him watching me calmly. I do not wish to join in this game of humiliating myself before him just for my reason of self-defense. After all, I did have provocation to do so.

“Are you going to eat?” he tries again.

I hold back from amusing him.

He understands the match and sighs out forgivably. “Fine, you win. Call me your enemy, but please, do eat?”

I do not stir.

He waits.

I lean back farther in the chair;
away
from the food.

He looks as though relieved for a reaction but still concerned for my stomach’s well fair. “Please.” His face is now nothing but sincere.

I do not respond.

He sighs and stands, starting for the door. I stop as pride rises in my chest at my control in the encounter. I think of Vader’s words on the virtues and vanities of the world, and resist remembering how virtue did not include pride or contempt. I remember how Gilch had taken me close when they’d threatened to mean me harm. I resist this thought even more so. I feel some guilt ascend in my heart, and my beats already being weak, I can’t bare it. I remember his subtle eyes as I’d first looked into them;
full of promise.

This ends it.

I shrink.

“Wait…” I hear his steps decease.

There is a moment of silence and I listen. Slowly, his steps restart towards the table,
coming nearer to me.
I fight the urge to stand and observe his every move to make sure he steers clear of my place. I manage not to do so and he rounds into my vision once more. He sits opposite from me and waits patiently. We are both quiet.

When I can’t find anything to distract my pounding heart, I speak. “Are you upset with my people?”

His face softens further as though I was a babe saying its first words. I try to look at him without seeing the care in his face but fail. “No. Your people have done nothing.”

I search his eyes. “What do you want me for?”

This time, his face is too sinfully soft.

I feel myself cringe.

“Nothing,” he says it truthfully.

It is too easy to believe. “Then why must you keep me here?”

He swallows and his face hardens a little. “Protection from…the average....”

He stops as though seeing deeper into me, understanding my need for a response of some kind to hold onto.

“Duty to the King is such that I must…I cannot answer you directly…but I feel there is some force out there which wishes to harm you.”

I give him a look. “I need to know why if I am forced to stay.”

He is gentle. “If I am to teach you, it would be guesses. I am not the right one to ask…I myself hardly understand why…if it would make you more comfortable, I could inquire after the answer for you to my superiors.”

I hesitantly re-meet his gaze. “When will you let me go?”

He watches me, his expression unreadable. “When I am directed”

I keep looking at him. “When...?”

“Soon enough,” he replies soothingly.

I want to implore, but feel that his answer is too explanatory. “Are you upset with me?”

He is gentle, and almost teasing. “No, but I feel that was part of your plan…to make me to be.”

I look down. “Then let me go.”

He firms a little. “I cannot…please pardon me and set aside that wish, for it is beyond what I may do.”

I look up. “You want me for something…please, don’t push me to…”

“I want you for nothing but your protection…as is my duty...only for a little longer…you shall make the rules, use my house as refuge…but please do not ask me such questions…they are worthless to either of us.”

It is rushed and earnest, as though trying to stop the words I had been implying from spilling from my mouth.

I look up hearing this in his warm voice. When I find a glass case over his expression, I look down again and I keep quiet.

He tries to meet my gaze. “Have I hurt you?” He sounds concerned.

I flush a little at the sensations the kind words give me and avoid his gaze.

He grows apologetic. “I’m sorry…I’m sure they will let you go home soon.”

I grow a little uncomfortable. “Please don’t sound so sincere,” I request it quietly, feeling his words deeper than I should and regretting it.

He seems a little confused. “How would you rather me sound?”

I squeeze my hands together. “Just not like that.”

He seems to take my seriously and I am glad that he does. I meant it. “Alright.”

I do not look at him.
It was still gentle.

When I don’t respond, he speaks again, more firmly. “Is there anything else?”

I curl my fingers together and squeeze harder. “Yes,” it comes out softer than before and I blush to think he might not even hear it. By the way that he stays quiet though, I suppose he has. “Don’t…touch me,” it is smaller than intended and I can feel his confusion already mixing with my desperation in the air.

“What is your meaning?” It is earnest and not at all demanding, but no longer too soft.

My need to speak again makes me feel jitters. I pinch my nails into my palm. “I want…boundaries.”

He sounds concerned now, but I can hear he is trying to keep up with me. “I can’t understand exactly…what sort of boundaries?”

I feel my pulse dashing. “Just…don’t touch me the way you did…yesterday…” I am digging holes in my skin now with nerves.

Even though I can’t meet his gaze I feel him soften. “No,” it is soft again. This time I welcome it. “I wouldn’t have…I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

It is sorry. I almost forgive him.

“I won’t.” It is a promise, one that I accept and halfheartedly allow forgiveness for.

I keep looking down as I keep my hands clasped together.

“More?” It is gentle.

I swallow hard and feel a little relieved at his acceptance to my wishes. I think a moment. “What will happen to my family?”

Now that I think of it, I had only assumed they would be killed. Since I am not in the middle of the spectacle however, I am not so sure of the assumption anymore.

I look up here, the topic not being so personal, yet more personal to me on a different level. Seeing the pity on his face however, I wish I hadn’t looked.

“I…can’t precisely tell you.”

For some reason, I believe him.
How would he know after all?

“If you want…I could see to it that I am informed of their…situation.”

I look up to his gentle suggestion. I look into his eyes and for a moment I linger here, forgetful of the fear I had felt. I feel he knows what it is like to lose loved ones. I know not why, but somehow his sensitive expression displays this.

I nod and I can see he takes it down somewhere in his list of to-do’s to keep his promise. Wanting to let it all out here though, I continue. “You don’t think…don’t know that they weren’t…” I hesitate. “Hurt?”

He watches me with the same soft look casted across his features, only now, that glass surface of calm has sheltered his possible emotion. “I cannot rightly say.”

Though it hurts, I respect him for it. As a matter of a fact, I appreciate his honest answers, however much it shakes me.

“Are you alright?”

For a moment, I do not process what he said. When I do, it takes me even longer to think of how to connect to my emotions.

“No,” it is all I can think of, but I at least say it lightly as to not worry him. I don’t know why I consider it (his worry) but I do.

“Will you eat?”

It is soft once more, but not so soft that I can’t think of what to do with myself. I glance at the food, but seeing it makes me sick. I shake my head a little and he now seems to accept my refusal.

He reaches out and slowly takes my bowl from before me. I look up and watch as he also takes my folded and wrapped napkin and unrolls the fork from within it. He dips it into the still warm and steamy porridge. With a pause, he stands up and removes the bowl from the table. I hear him set it near the stove which is behind me. This time as he draws near, I do not feel quite so jumpy in my seat.

When he sits again it is, I notice, with more grace and ease. “May I know your name now?”

I look at him pleadingly.

He seems to understand. “Tell me when you are ready then.”

I watch him a moment unsure of how he could be so kind when his people are acting from the very opposite quality. I look down and refuse to stare.

“You have lived your whole life here then?”

I look up at him again, this time with disbelief.

He seems to remember. “Oh, right…when you are ready,” he lifts his hand and waves aside his question for me without further inquiry.

I look down again and fiddle with my dress where it has lost some thread from my struggle yesterday. I stop and feeling watched look up again. He watches me calmly, a keen sense of care in his face. He looks away and I do so as well, my heart hammering. I remember his words precisely;
“You make the rules.”

I am in control.

“Who are you anyways?” It is small again.

He looks up and that faint smile slowly lights its way across the storming ocean of his eyes. “I thought who I was mattered little to you if your brain has me programmed as enemy.”

I blush out of embarrassment and a little irritation for being pointed at for my callousness.
This was not true at all…at least not entirely.
“No…your name is your name, but you can be whoever you prove to be and what you are capable of.”

He smiles faintly. “You are very hard Dutchling…I am glad I am not your courtier.”

At that last part, for some horrible reason my insides go tragic. I hate it, but they do, and it ruins my appetite further.

“Ms. Thimlet,” I correct softly, blushing at the quake in my voice.

He watches me. “Miss Thimlet,” he says it back to me sincerely.

I fiddle again.

“Not otherwise?”

I look up at him. “No.”

He unleashes a faint smile.

I do not smile back. “How come you do not know my family name if you are to take care of me?”

He maintains my gaze. “I’ve had to memorize important things…what the King
wants
me to know. We are like his little warriors doing what he wants us to do and knowing the truth as what he teaches it is to us. My second in command is in the position I will fall in if he dies, which is the Commander…or we call him General…I suppose. It was based off of my communication and planning skills. He knew more than I did…about you that is. I am still his lesser. If you saw how…he came before anyone else.”

I look at him uncertainly. “It was planned?”

“No…it was spoken of. It was one of the many ways we could hold more against the city…but we didn’t know where you were until at most a week ago. We were almost about to let it go, but once we had gone there, there was no going back for Gage, our second in command. He is the one directing in the city; Alba is the one on the out. He took it upon himself to start the revelry. He has been pining for a drunken night and women since I first knew him. It was his favorite pastime in Spain. On duty though, he couldn’t afford to do such things.”

I listen quietly, and the more I think of how Gage touched me, the more I wish he hadn’t.

“I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have burdened you with that,” his voice is once more gentle, and I realize that while speaking of his Commander, his voice had turned otherwise.