Tears of Leyden (7 page)

Chapter 9

When I wake up, it is in his bed. I don’t remember much of it. Only the sear burning in my throat and my red eyes can attest that I had cried for quite a while. I lift myself from the covers without thought, like any other wild creature, living life the way they instinctively can, not hoping for anything, not questioning anything, just being.

I step to my clothes and unbundle the pile from the shelf. I slip off the nightgown and instead fit over the Spanish dress I have been wearing since the bath a day or so before. I look to the window a moment and observe not the wonders outdoors, but my own reflection, clearly shining back at me across the pane of glass. Looking at myself I feel reckless, knowing I still look like that girl who lost her family makes me feel reckless, so I walk away without tending to the disrupted hairs on my head.

When I enter the kitchen, it is silent and not empty. Nadeje is walking across it as I step in, and hearing me, he stops and calmly reads my manner. I feel like I am a statue and he a man walking passed and observing its complexity. It makes me feel slightly ill, though not as much as it would have before, all my emotions at present are diluted with the grief I let go of earlier. I feel like stone; a stone statue.

“Are you better?”

I try for a nod, but it is a lie. I shake my head when it refuses to come.

His cavernous eyes are not judgmental, but definitely hold some deep thought. “Could something help you? Someone help you…I wish I could help.”

I stare at him and ignore the flood of warmth filling my chest. “No,” it is gentle.

He watches me a bit longer, and then sighs and turns to the stove to stir something. I wait, not wanting to do more without his request. He stirs the food hard, as though it is thick, and I absently watch his back work, gazing over the faint muscles beneath his shirt and not noticing any fault in it until he stops and turns.

I hate myself.

“Could I…bring you something? Or…”

He stops. I watch him for a few moments and the room is silent. Seeing something further inside me that I don’t see myself, he seems assured. I almost want to go back into the bedroom as his eyes venture into me. I do not.

“I wish to supply you with something for comfort and use…but I don’t know what you would like,” he tilts his head and looks down as though knowing it is wrong. “Would you like me to get you something from a shop?”

I feel a small flutter of hope inside at his offer. I do not know what he could possibly gain from it other than my better regard or his punishment. Surely it was not allowed for me to remain and for him, my protector, to go out, not even for his own needs, but for mine. I am not sure whether I should feel wary for him or not, not because I don’t know if it is permissible or dangerous, but because I am wary presently.

“It is disallowed…but because I am your guardian I feel we could make accomodations for your…security,” he looks at me questioningly. “Lyra? I need you to answer me before I may think of how to plan it and go.”

I nod a little, taking my time to warm up to the idea of him caring enough to do this.
Do I look like his sister?

He straightens to my response, and looks at me as though judging and charting something I couldn’t see. He then looks down.

“I will have to call on Arturo…” He says it as though speaking to himself and I stand watching him as he contemplates deeply. He tunes back in as though just noticing me for the few seconds of absence. “Are you able to walk a distance?” He inquires purposefully.

I look at him still from my place at the door, unsure. I nod.

He watches me a moment longer. Then he seems to remember. He gently adds in. “When you feel the need, there are cucumbers and nosh upon the table, please help yourself…what would you like?”

I take a moment to understand his question.

He notices the confusion and clears it for me. “Shopping-wise.”

“Isn’t it…not safe?” I inquire uncertainly. I feel resistant to ask but seeing no regret or softness to my request I continue. “Couldn’t your Commandant find out…or if anyone noticed…”

He shakes his head assuredly. “Today is generally my shift…we take turns walking through the streets so that there are not too many in number. If I am there at the time I usually am then it should be of no trouble to the others. I will have to be careful though.”

I am too taken back to think straight. “Why?”

He looks lost.

“Why are you doing this?”

His face is expressionless. “Someone has to do what is right.” It comes out firm and sincere.

It makes sense and it makes me senseless.

He watches me quietly. “Food? Or…no…I have enough of that…do you enjoy reading?”

At the first part I realize with a little resentment, that the storage he has is filled with everything we’ve eaten so far. A little envy and anger at the Spanish fleet for having such provisions and us nothing glints in the bottom of my gut, but at the second part I feel my heart spiral with undeniable delight that plummets to guilt. I have never been offered such things. Never have I been spoilt.

“I would love to read…if I ever did…”

He looks at me frowning thoughtfully. “You have never read?”

I look him in the eyes. “Not these past few years of…disadvantage. When I was little I used to learn how to read signs and occasional lines in the letters my vader received…but the books my moeder once had owned I didn’t get to…” He looks confused. I quickly fill up the space of absence. “We had to sell her few copies for necessities.”

He seems to understand. “I aim to mend that by tomorrow. What are your favorite genres?”

“Poetry, I enjoy poetry.”

I love to read anything, but poetry is different somehow. Maybe because vader used to make poems about silly things with me when I was young or maybe just because of the tangled secrecy in each individual writing, all I knew, was each one left me breathless for more, and every time I read another the more breathless I got.

“I know of a small outer shop for books and written works…and little to your liking goes in there without poetry…though heroics…” I grimace.

“I do not enjoy the bold show-offs of those who wish to be recorded…biopics…no. I enjoy fiction with history.”

He nods. “Then this is the place…I will guide you away from my favorite sections of heroism then, and try to find you a lady’s proper guide to pleasure.”

I swallow. It takes me a moment to get my voice to come back to me to say the words. “I do not want you to spend every bit of money upon me,” I say it remembering my proper respect and a lady’s poise.

Though, half to my sorry, he is not listening. “I will have to come up with a plan through the streets and rides and contacts…” he turns away from me, leaving behind his low murmur, also leaving the hanging feeling of the weight tying me to him now. For now I cannot go. Not after he has left me here, without chains tying me to the foundation of his house, or interdiction of the door at my back. Not after he has left me without being harmed, not after he has left me undoubtedly with trust, tying me here with intangible cuffs.

That evening I move quietly towards his shelf of books, wanting nothing more than to find something suitable to put me to a calm sleep and keep me in a drowse throughout the rest of the night, and doubting upon finding such in maps and heroism. Scanning the shelves I find that my eyes land on what seems to be a dusty old journal, a few maps of some sort, a few old poetry papers, and some bound books of the newer kind. Reaching out, I withdraw one of these.

“I suspect you shall not find what you wish inside that one.”

I look up quickly, turning my gaze to the left to find him standing within his hallway doorway, leaning lightly upon the frame. “Her books tend to carry thick information on weaponry and the nursing laws from last year…and the slight physiology of the body discovered by her husband, who is a politician for the King and a respected surgeon…” it takes me a moment to process his words. “With rights, of course, to write such things in copies for us militia.” Understanding how this was not meant for me, I silently reshelf it to its place.

“If you are interested in such you may read it, it is just, I find, somewhat frustrating and…tedious.”

I do not respond a moment, then I turn. “You will be going then, tomorrow morning?”

He steps to lean against the shelf instead, not looking at me. “Yes.”

It takes everything that is left inside me to voice the question, but I manage to let it out. “It isn’t safe for you to go…is it?” I have to know; need to know if it is true that he takes no benefit from it other than my peace of mind.

He looks at me and those ocean blue eyes are somewhat curious. I do not break the gaze, I must not or else it would show how weak I feel in this moment.

“No, but I considered that already.”

It is calm and honest, and I can’t tell if it scares me more than it gladdens me. I look down to the ground space between us and am thankful there is this much of it. “I like poetry.”

I can tell he is still watching me, but I can’t tell if I want him to or not. “I do too.”

I look up and find him watching me as I thought he would be. “Am I staying alone?”

He takes a second to answer. “I have a friend, who will watch you. He is different from me, but he is not unkind.”

I watch him suddenly alert.
He?

He sees my pale face and understands. “You can stay in my room if that would make it better. He will be left to stay out of it.”

I still watch him. I know I couldn’t have hoped for freedom, but secretly I had. I nod slightly, realizing I liked this option better than being in the same house
and
the same room as an unknown Spanish soldier. I breathe once deeply and look to the floor.

“You should get to bed.”

It is quiet, and it takes me a moment to register he is speaking to me. I look up and read his eyes a little longer, before I nod and step towards the route to his room.

Chapter 10

I have been here sitting in his room at least a quarter of an hour. Nadeje left at the same time I trapped myself in here away from the man. I estimate that Nadeje should return soon. At least I hope.

The man, Arturo as Nadeje calls him, stepped inside the house casually enough that quarter of an hour ago, but by the way I had to turn my chin up to look into his face far above me, and by his well-built height, I immediately reserved Nadeje’s room for the time Nadeje would be absent. Arturo is tall and brawny, and despite the kindness in his face, his piercing grey eyes and chestnut hair made him look like a powerful victim of God. He seemed curious, but I could tell that his strength was far above mine, and his paler complexion made him look ill-tempered. His character was unknown, but with the combination of all I knew I decided not to stay to learn it. The moment Nadeje excused himself I dismissed myself to his room. Since then I have been here, and my boredom, worry, and grief put together are doing me no good.

Outside the window, the weather is misty and cool to those in it. A faint fog seems to drift through the breeze over the streets, and though I am not in it, I can feel the fresh cold blanketing my skin. When a few Dutch soldiers pass, my hands tense around each other and the sour taste in my throat comes back from after I heard the news.
They didn’t even protect them.
The thought is cold and dribbles down my conscience like a drop of dew on an icicle. I try to ignore it.
It wasn’t their fault. They hadn’t known.
The more I think of it though, the more I wonder how no one heard us screaming for mercy.

Suddenly, I realize what I am doing.
Moeder would be cross.
I stand silently and wonder if she can read my thoughts now that she is a part of the supernatural world. I shake a little at the thought and turn from the window.
I can’t go against my own people.
I swallow hard.
I can’t let this rule me.

I step past the curtain that I had messed with before to tie it back, its long end sprawled out in frenzy upon the floor. I remind myself to ask Nadeje to fix it before I sleep tonight. Heaven knows I will get no rest if that window remains uncovered in the dark.
Especially after moeder and Meyleia…
I stop the thought in its tracks and head for the door. It would kill me if I thought of them. I place my hand on the door knob and pause to reconsider. Despite the alternative’s risk, I feel the urge to open the door, to not be alone in this room anymore.

What if he…what?
What could he possibly do to me without getting repositioned or removed from his dignity?
Anything.
I swallow.
Nadeje left me with him.
I remember Nadeje’s kind eyes, his sincere speech yesterday, and his response to my wild thoughts and grief. I remember his virtue and his truth. His words whisper into my ear like music seeps through a hush.
“Someone had to do what is right.”
He wouldn’t leave me with someone who would do the wrong. I turn the knob. Nadeje trusted this fellow with his life by leaving me with him. So I trust this man.

I step out and at first the room is even quieter than the one I just left. Then I hear a slight creak to my right, and a movement catches my eye. Arturo sits with his feet propped up on the table, leaning back into his chair so that it leans precariously on its back two feet. He does not look up, but keeps his gaze to himself. In his hands there is what looks like an article, and he looks very absorbed in it. I am taken aback. Not because of his inappropriate position, no. I could see him being disrespectful with an odd manly love towards Nadeje, but when I first met him I had never pictured this muscly, burly, God-like creature picking up a book to do something like read it for a pass time.

When he notices my regard, he slowly raises his gaze to me over the object he had been staring at. Seeing him like this, even if he is huge in his place, I have no tremor passing through me, the pierce of his eyes not too intense as others have been before. I can tell he is guarded, but his open nature is displayed by the way he is sitting, and how he doesn’t even try to conceal his emotions or to move in response of my presence.

“You are Lyra then?”

The sound of his voice catches me off guard, and the way that he calls me by my improper name is almost listless.

“You may call me Ms. Thimlet,” it comes out soft, and not as planned. I can tell he means no harm by it, but still I feel I need to stand my ground.

He raises one hand as though I won and keeps the other on his book. “Very well then, Ms. Thimlet.”

His tone is kind but more booming than Nadeje’s. Half the power behind it seems reserved, the other half seems to come from over-confidence.

“So,” he sets down the book in his lap but does not remove his legs from the table. “You are enjoying your stay with my friend then?”

Despite the formality of the question, my cheeks heat up and flare in the cold room. I curse myself and the soul across from me. “Not entirely,” my answer feels chalky.

I feel him look up at me, and his quiet lasts long enough for me to feel his inspection. “I heard about your family.”

At this, everything inside me crumbles and I feel that I could break down again.

“I am sorry.”

The last part is the only thing that stops me.
Sorry? He sorry? A Spanish soldier who was guarding me in my imprisonment who might have had partake in the matter of my family’s death was sorry!?
It escapes me for a minute that he is one of Nadeje’s friends. When I remember, it is what prevents me from running away and keeps my cool.

“Nadeje told me of their unfortunate…end.”

Now I could kill him.

He slaps his book together and I am startled a bit. I watch him as he switches the cross of his feet on the table. When I do not move, he looks back to me again, this time a bit more disbelievingly.

“Will you sit down or not?”

I contemplate it a moment, unsure of the want to get any closer to this ill tongued clever brute. I take my chances. I step forward, and knowing there is no escape now, I move to the seat opposite him. I do not sit for a moment, curious to see if he will remove his feet or not. He doesn’t.
What a gentleman.
I sit.

“You are different from what I thought you would be,” I look up at his secretive tone, and the sly look on his face makes me become uneasy again.

I don’t respond.

He still watches me keenly. “You…” His face loses its smirk and he becomes a little blanched. I am taken aback by his quick set of emotion, it being unbelievable to me that he could do so after his sluggish humor. “Never mind it…it was something unclassified to…just a bother.”

I let it go as he twists his feet and finally takes them off the table. There is a clatter as they and the chair clomp to the floor all at once. It is quite a few more seconds before he looks up again.

“Leyden is an interesting city.” It is quiet and more controlled than his last speech, and I can tell he is somehow more guarded.

I nod in agreement, mainly because it seems an appropriate topic to have, but also because I agree. From a whole moat of water to walls surrounding odd little communities of people it had secrets and intrigue, but after the Spanish troops came it became more or less a prison. Everybody had been trapped inside the city by the wall surrounding us, but also saved. We labored hard to keep it from falling for the past months, stacking rubble and who-knows-what material to stop the destruction of the wall. I remember the tension I had felt carrying those materials, the soreness in my hands the days after.

“It was probably peaceful before we came then, huh?”

I look up to the surprising remark. This coming from a Spanish soldier, I can’t find a reply.

“Some of us aren’t that foolish, you know.”

I still watch him as he shifts.

“Unfortunately, it is generally the leaders who are the fools.”

It takes me a moment to realize I am staring at him. I glance away. “I never said you were foolish…”

He watches me. “You thought it.”

I look back up at him and see that he knows. “You are different.” It comes out before I can stop it.

He raises his eyebrows. “Different,” he seems to contemplate. “How?”

I grasp my hands tight in my lap to keep myself from fidgeting. “I…just…you seem different from the rest…like Nadeje is different from the rest.”

“Different in a good way, or a bad way?”

I can’t believe it, but he actually sounds sincere. “Not bad,” I say carefully. “Just not extremely good either…you have diverse principles.”

I can feel his eyes piercing me as he says it. “I see.”

I look up as he repositions himself in the chair. I watch as he opens his book again and without another word starts to read. I am astounded. “I thought we were conversing.”

His eyes switch up to me again, then back to the script. “You want to speak with me?”

I wonder at it myself before I respond. I nod passively.

He snaps the book shut and slaps it onto the table heartily. “Well then, we shall speak, shan’t we?”

I watch him unsurely. When I say nothing, he seems frustrated.

“You bore me.”

I open my mouth to reply, but he beats me to it.

“Let me start a conversation. The world is a complex illusion that God has created to give us, his creatures, a story. What do you say to that?”

I can’t focus my mind on anything he just said to be true. “Excuse me?”

He smirks. “Apparently religion isn’t your strong point,” his hand drifts over his book again and hovers there, like a threat.

“I study…” I stop as I almost say Protestantism in his presence. “Christianity…and that is a religion.”

His hand slowly drifts back to where it came from. “That is your faith, not your religion.”

I frown at him, now vexed. “Then religion is?”

He smiles. “Religion is fake. It is a tie to something you wish to believe…really…it is like a hobby or a…thing we give service to. Everything around us is a test, to prove our reality and to make us see our true purposes. Everything is an illusion here. It is quite simple really.”

I frown. “I don’t understand it.”

He smirks. “Of course you don’t now. It takes years to understand it.”

“You are not much older than I am,” I argue.

He leans back. “24,” he made his point. “That is not what I meant though…I had meant studying for years…observing life’s complexities, not age.”

I think over this for a while, taking it in. “Nadeje understands this definition of
religion
?”

He stretches his back over the chair. “He’s twenty.”

My heart lifts a little in a beat. I ignore it. “So?”

He comes back to his position. “You said age had to do with something.”

I frown. “No…you said it had to do with years and…” I stop, realizing I am arguing with a soldier, a fully trained soldier evidently out of his mind and twice my size that could easily bend me in half just the same as shove this religion down my brain.

He seems perfectly giddy however. “Nadeje can teach you if you have interest.”

I think over the offer a moment.
Moeder would be turning in her grave.

“You are distressed.”

I look back up in surprise and see him watching me.

“You shouldn't be.”

I almost burst now.
Shouldn’t?
I am in a soldier’s house against my will, my family is gone, I am lost inside my own mind, Nadeje is gone so that I am stuck with this abominable brute, and my home is almost dominated by the Spanish.
I shouldn’t be distressed?

“Shouldn’t?”

He takes five seconds of thought. “No.”

It is short and simple but I feel stupefied.

“You have the will power to change anything you want to Lyra. Nothing makes you unhappy, you let yourself become unhappy, and in this I feel that we as humans need to see the difference between someone and something hurting us, or ourselves hurting our own lives.”

I stare at him. I have to process his every letter in silence to get half of what he just said. I feel spellbound when I do get it. Not by him, but by the clear inanity of his words.

He leans back and I am brought to the present as his lips curl up in a nifty smile. “You are charming when you are lost.”

My face pales and I bite my tongue, hard.

He looks past me as though he had seen nothing wrong in the comment. I calm down but drop my gaze as my cheeks burn with shame.

I hear him lean back again into his chair.

I don’t look up.

“You did not correct me, by the way, on your proper name.”

I recover slowly and the answer takes a moment. “I was distracted.”

He smiles, this time not only slyly but cunningly. “By religion?”

I glance up. “It is engaging.”