Chapter 7 The Past Ought To Stay Where It Is
The Past Ought To Stay Where It Is
She was probably not dead. That was what Noah kept telling himself. It was not reassuring, however, and he did not quite believe it. Anything could have happened. She’d looked drawn and thoroughly miserable when they’d parted, and Noah could not get her face out of his mind.
He didn’t see her at the feast that evening.
Of course, the feasting table was packed with people, and it was possible he’d missed her, but somehow Noah didn’t think that was possible.
She had lighter hair than anybody else he’d ever seen, the palest blonde in the world, it seemed, and somehow, he always managed to find her in a crowd.
Always.
He had a feeling that even if she’d had nut-brown hair and eyes, common as tree bark, her presence would still draw him to her regardless.
She wasn’t there, though. That was that. He left the feasting room, still faintly hungry but with no desire to eat any more, and found himself prowling up and down the halls. His mind would not settle, and nor would his body.
At last, Noah gave in and collared one of the healers.
“Where is Senga?” he asked bluntly. “I must speak with her.”
The healer seemed faintly taken aback by his harsh tone. She wriggled away from him, shooting an annoyed look his way.
“In the medicine room, I believe,” the healer muttered. “She has not been in a good mood today.”
He had nothing to say to that, and the woman flounced off, head held high. Clenching his jaw, Noah turned and walked the way he had come.
The infirmary was large and always seemed to be busy. Now, just as dinner was being served in the feasting room, the infirmary was the quietest it would ever get. A few patients slept in their cots, and a few healers and leftover nuns scuttled between the beds, talking in low voices.
Noah stuck to the wall, circling the room until he came to one of the many doors opening up from the circular space.
Each of those rooms had distinct odors. Some smelled savory, like herbs.
He noticed the sharp, medicinal scent of herbs for healing, like lemongrass, rosemary, and shadesflax.
Other rooms smelled more relaxing; lavender and mint, for example.
One room smelled sharply of copper, the bloody scent making Noah’s stomach heave.
This room, then, was a surgery room, no doubt.
No amount of scrubbing could make the place smell like anything other than a slaughterhouse.
Many people came out alive and healed from that room, but many died in it, too.
He shuddered and hurried past.
The next room smelled musty and papery, like a library, with a heavy undertone of mingled herbs. This was his destination, then.
The medicine room of the infirmary was the largest off-shooting room and the most crowded, too. Shelves lined the wall from floor to ceiling, crowded with labeled jars and vials. He couldn’t name a quarter of the powders, pastes, herbs, and tinctures he saw crammed onto the shelves.
Just like he expected, Senga stood at the very end of the room, her back turned to him. She was carefully pouring a yellow-green powder from one jar into another, which was almost empty.
Noah paused, hesitating. He wanted to speak to her, of course, but making her jump seemed to be a perfect recipe for two broken jars and wasted powder scattered over the floor. He stood in silence until she poured all the powder away, then slid the jar safely back onto the shelf.
He hadn’t expected her to turn so quickly, but she did, blue eyes widening when she saw him. Senga gave a yelp of surprise, the empty jar falling out of her hands.
Noah dove forward, snatching it out of the air before it could smash on the stone floor.
“Ye ought to be more careful with these,” he remarked, straightening up. “We don’t want glass shards everywhere.”
She snatched it back, her face reddening. “How long have ye been standing there? Were ye watching me?”
“Watching ye? Nay, of course not. I simply didn’t want to give ye a fright.” He paused, wincing. “Which I did anyway, I suppose.”
Senga pressed her lips together, glancing away. “Why are ye here, Noah?”
A very good question, he thought bleakly.
Aloud, he said, “I wanted to make sure ye were alright. After that business with the horse.”
She cleared her throat, still not meeting his eye. That bothered him, somehow. Why wouldn’t she look at him? Was she ashamed? Guilty? Angry? It was impossible to tell.
At one time I knew exactly what she was thinking and feeling from simply one glance. That memory was not a pleasant one, and Noah did his best to put it aside.
“Why are ye so afraid of the stables, Senga?” Noah blurted out at last.
She looked up at him properly like that, eyes wide. He almost felt it when her gaze locked with his. What a strange sensation! Ripples went through his whole body, his chest tightening.
After all these years of telling myself that she means nothing to me anymore, Noah thought in resignation, and here I am, undone by a look.
“How can ye ask me that?” she managed at last.
He shrugged. “I thought ye had good memories of the stables. Ye and me… But then again, it’s nae place for a lady.
I was wrong, I suppose. And I was wrong to come here, too.
This place…” He gestured vaguely at the infirmary.
“This is yer place, just as the battlefield is mine. I just wanted to be sure that ye were safe, and ye are. That’s all I needed to know. ”
It was time to get out. Time to put some distance between them, at long last. Noah turned to go, heart thudding. There was a shuffle behind him, and he felt Senga’s work-roughened fingers close around his wrist. The touch shot through his arm as though flames were licking along it.
He glanced over his shoulder, heart pounding so hard he could almost taste it.
“Wait,” Senga said, a moment too late. “Noah…”
“The past is in the past,” he interrupted. “Where it should be. I believe that the past ought to stay where it is, and digging it up does no good.”
She clenched her jaw. “A lot has changed between us, eh?”
He looked away. “Let’s not do this, lass.”
“Nay, wait. Ye believe I hesitated to go into the stables because I looked down on ye. Ye must have thought that I believed I was too good for ye. Ye should know that it’s not true.”
He gently pulled his arm out of her grip.
“What do ye want, Senga?” he managed, an edge coming out in his voice. “Do ye want to soothe yer conscience?”
“Why should I need to soothe it? I did what was necessary.”
He gave a harsh laugh, glancing away. “The thing is I can tell that ye really believe that. I’ll not argue with ye, but if ye are looking to make peace with the stable boy ye left behind, it’s far too late. He does not exist anymore.”
Part of me wishes he did, chimed in a voice at the back of Noah’s mind, so that we could be the same again.
He didn’t like the thought. It came from nowhere and sounded worryingly like the truth. Now wasn’t the time for the truth, though, and anyway he’d long since learned that the truth was subjective.
“Ye seem fond of killing yerself off,” Senga remarked, lifting an eyebrow. “This part of ye is gone, this version of yerself is dead, and so on. Death comes to us all, lad. No need to hasten it.”
He rolled his eyes. “Ye always were too sharp for me.”
Perhaps there was scorn in his voice. He hadn’t meant to put it there. Either way, Senga’s eyes flashed, and she took a step forward, pointing at him.
“I waited. I waited for years,” she hissed. “All of that time, I waited for ye.”
He blinked down at her. “What for?”
She gave an angry exclamation. “There is no talking to ye, lad. Do ye not understand? I wasted years of my life waiting for ye, and when I saw ye, ye… ye acted like I was nothing. They told me ye were dead, Noah!”
He swallowed hard. “If ye thought I was dead, why did ye wait?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know…” she trailed off, covering her eyes with her hands. “I never saw a body, only blood. In the stables, so much blood.”
Noah flinched, remembering what she’d said earlier about the stables stinking of blood. He frowned, taking a step closer. “Yer father told ye I was dead then?”
She nodded, her face still covered. “Blood up the walls, pooling on the floor. Bits of flesh. There was a string of intestine in the corner, like a coil of rope. I wouldn’t let myself believe it, though.
I have always known how my father likes to torture people.
I told myself that he could have gotten a bucket of blood and offal, tossed it around, to make it look like…
” She bit off the sentence, shaking her head.
“I waited for ye, but ye never came. He told ye a lie too, didn’t he? Something about me.”
That ye betrayed me, aye, Noah thought, head spinning.
Senga let her hands drop, glancing up at him. Her eyes were heavy and tired, and he wondered when she’d last slept.
“He tricked us both, then,” she said flatly. “One last trick. My father, the God of Mischief. I didn’t leave ye behind, Noah. Ye left me. Ye believed the word of a man who’d beat ye over the lass who loved ye.”
The ground seemed to somehow be shifting underneath him. Noah swallowed thickly, shaking his head in denial.
“Ye would never have married me.”
Senga’s eyes widened at that. “What?”
He gave a harsh laugh, holding out his arms to the side. “Oh, come on, Senga. Ye and I were doomed from the start. I tried telling myself otherwise, but my heart wouldn’t listen. I imagine that ye were the same. I was a nobody. I am a nobody, I suppose. Ye and I would never have been anything.”
She stared at him for a long moment, eyes wide. He wasn’t sure what to expect from her next, but he had not thought that she would lunge forward and fist her hand in his shirt. He was too dumbfounded to struggle, letting her haul him forward until they were almost nose to nose.
“Ye listen to me, Noah,” Senga hissed, her breath warm against his skin. “I did not betray ye. I know ye think that I did, but I swear that I did not. I wish ye would stop accusing me of doing something terrible. I wish ye would just be honest with me. I never had to pry honesty out of ye before.”
“That was before,” Noah managed, lifting a hand to wrap around her wrist.
He could tear her hand away from his shirt easily, but somehow the effort was too much. Why was it too much?
This close, he could count the colors in her eyes. Well, he didn’t need to count the colors, did he? He knew them off by heart. It had once amazed him that a person could have so many colors in their eyes. The skin of her wrist was soft under his touch.
“We were never meant to last, Senga,” he whispered, after a moment of silence. His voice was softer than he’d expected. “I always prayed that we would, but the truth had been right there all along, hadn’t it?”
She swallowed thickly, and he tracked the movement of her throat.
“I dinnae care much for the truth these days,” she responded, barely louder than a breath.
He was not sure who moved first. Was it him? Or was Senga the one who closed the space between their lips?
Either way, between one eyeblink and the next, he found himself pressed against Senga, their lips fitting perfectly together as though they had been created that way.
She tasted of mint and salt, and her knuckles dug into his chest, her hand trapped between them. Her other arm was around his shoulders, and his hand, without his knowledge, had slid up her back, wrapping her long pale braid around his fist.
Heat fired up inside him, eating him alive. It was everything he’d wanted for so many years. It was every dream and every nightmare he’d had since they parted. It was…
No. I cannot do this.
Noah staggered back. Senga released him, drawing in a ragged, almost frightened breath. For a moment, they stared at each other, each one gasping for breath as though they’d been holding their breaths for minutes on end.
“This is a bad idea,” Noah said at last, his voice raspy. “We shouldn’t have…”
“Noah—”
“No,” he interrupted, more strongly than before. “Dinnae make me do this, Senga.”
She blinked, swallowing hard. “I am not making ye do anything.”
He smiled tiredly. “Ye never mean it.”
He turned to go, breaking into a run. She didn’t follow him, and he wasn’t sure whether that was a relief or a disappointment.