CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
H e did not sleep in their room that night. She did not know where he rested, or if he did at all.
Over the next few days, he was distant with her. At meals, she served him to maintain appearances but when they were alone, he said little, and she noticed he looked above her when he spoke. When it was time to sleep, he chose the chair or rested with his back propped up against the wall.
Frustration fanned Petra’s blood temperature. He was being ridiculous. He kissed her and he was angry? Had he expected her to stand there like a wide-eyed, white rabbit while he talked to her like a lover?
That’s what it felt like. The sky was an endless indigo expanse above them. His burgundy eyes burned for her, and he made love to her. And her body reacted because she was human, because she was attracted to him. He knew it.
She had not been the one to play dirty. At the most, she called him out on his injustice. For it was an injustice. Taunting the starving with rice. Pouring water out in front of a parched man.
That she was the desperate one in both examples, Petra did not dwell on.
Twice he had pulled her into his lap, pulled her tight to his body. He had buried his face in her neck, called her his own. At the same time, he said he could not bear to cross any lines of intimacy. Yet, she was supposed to not react while being pressed against his body? What did he think?
He didn’t. How like a man not to think.
Except what do you know of men? How lofty of you, now a married woman, to look down from the height of your femininity and condemn him. What have you known of men? The boys in the village? The eunuchs at the palace? Your knowledge is hearsay. Men are burlap to the silk of females.
But he was unfair. To defer to him as a wife did not mean she must lay down like a rug.
I egged him on. I was angry. I was on fire, and he asked me to stand there and burn. I promised to be a helpmate not mute. I know he feels like the world rests on him. I believe he will find a way to save Mynydd. In the meantime, I am not the outlet for him to vent more of what he cannot control.
He was wrong. I am not innocent. Neither of us are in control, I suppose.
In the passing days, though Petra admitted his kiss was because of her, she was also determined not to apologize. Rand had basically accosted her and even between a husband and wife, that was not permissible. Not in their marriage. Not between them for she knew he respected her as she respected him. She would bow her head to him before she bowed to the emperor, blasphemous as that was to admit.
Still, he needed to apologize.
Throughout the following days, Rand and his men were part of the repairs, along with the civilians. The catapults had inflicted great damage. Several messages were flown out, begging the emperor to understand their urgency.
Forwin kept his soldiers on strict rounds of patrol and rest.
Petra found herself in many conversations stoking faith in the people. However, she knew, as others did, that even making the best time, it would still be a fortnight before supplies arrived. If they arrived. And what if that caravan was ambushed, too?
By now, Yates’ leg had been removed. In the wake, on his demand, soldiers of the royal city strapped him into his saddle. Positioned thus, he was able to maneuver on his elk, patrolling with little rest. Petra caught brief interactions between her husband and his compatriot, noting the strained look on Rand’s face each time.
Her husband had no finger to point, though. His mania for duty was the same. If she had been too blind to see the never-ending tension around his jaw, she saw it in the droop of his chin when he slept.
In between keeping up an appearance of civility with her husband and continuing to care for the wounded, Petra also tried to figure out what must be done with Lindy.
Sick with sadness, the poor child was one of the bodies in the hall, though she claimed no bed. Her sickness was of the heart. From dawn to dusk, she sat with her back against the wall, wide, vacant eyes watching and seeing nothing. Sometimes, she got up to help wash and roll cloth. Sometimes she could be persuaded to eat. Every night, though, she must be pulled to her feet and escorted back to the tower.
For now, she was being taken care of by her mother’s cousin. There was strife with the arrangement, however. Bodil’s cousin’s husband did not approve of Lindy, having been born out of wedlock.
Ostracized by her family in Ahn, it had been her cousin’s suggestion that she come, heavy with baby, to live at Mynydd. Amid the constant busy life of the fort, it would be easier for an un-wed woman to blend in. And she had.
Now, though, four children of her own, sired by her husband, Lindy was an inconvenience. Petra took it upon herself to ask for the name of Bodil’s family and get a message sent. Maybe the years had softened them. Maybe learning about the death of their daughter would open their hearts.
And hence, surrounded by devastation and death, life went on. It struck Petra as surreal. In the hours following washing festering wounds and cleaning bodily fluids, women would go to the market and trade for fur pelts. A man might be among the many with frostbitten fingers, shoveling stone and gravel atop the walls where others laid brick. Yet that same man would sit down and be served at mealtime.
Over everything, fear hung. Fear of the next time whistling arrows stabbed the air. Dread of drums in the distance. Men were getting little sleep. Women could not close their eyes without seeing horrific visions of their children being run through or crushed.
Eventually, the nightmares found Petra, too. They began as distorted waifs at the end of her slumber, ephemeral and gone when she opened her eyes. Yet, within the tangles of their tattered shape, fright flickered. Petra began to wake with an elevated heart rate or clenched jaw.
And once she was affected by their presence, they grew in number and palpability.
Then they found her in the deepest lull of torpor, dancing on the edges of her mind’s eye. Pin holes appeared as eyes but moved independently of one another, always looking at her. Often, they drained into one, threatening humanoid shapes.
Tossing and turning to rid herself of them, Petra woke tangled in the bed covers each morning.
She began to dread going to sleep and this was the final victory for the shredded ghosts. In hellish circles, they danced across her subconscious. Their black hole eyes floated in all directions, merging to create human-like shapes with eyes for a nose or mouth.
Then the human-like forms pulled from her memories and what they created was skewed by malcontent. She saw her mother with three legs. Aldney without limbs, writhing like a worm. She saw Miriam turn and look at her, but the face had only a mouth with lips stitched shut.
One night, all the shapes pooled into the middle of her imagination. Like sticky ink, they emerged in the shape of Rand. His heart was set outside his ribcage. It pulsed like rippling water. His veins rose up from under his skin. He tried to move. Yet every time he leaned in one direction, the veins stretched until several snapped. His scream was silent, but he doubled in on himself and then began fighting harder to move. Each time, his veins stretched to their utmost then broke. While she saw no blood, she saw his heart’s beat increase until it shuttered like the wings of a dragonfly.
If she did not stop him, he would kill himself. But as hard as Petra fought to manifest herself into the dream, she did not have control over her own mind.
He’ll die because he keeps fighting. Just like Aldney. I’ll lose the only other man I have ever loved, and this love is not a sister’s. I must stop him. I brought him to this, cast his fate. I must break it.
Rand! You’re killing yourself.
Stop!
Please, Rand!
“Stop!”
Petra bolted upright and into arms that whisked her off the bed, as if danger lurked between the blankets.
“Petra! Petra! It’s alright. I’m here.”
Cradled in his embrace, one arm around her waist and the other under her knees, she could not hold him tight enough, be near enough.
This time, it was she who buried her face in the nook of his shoulder.
“I was dreaming.”
“Seems you’ve had many dreams of late.”
“It was you, this time.”
From side to side, he rocked her. “And was I as cruel to you in your dreams as I have been lately?”
She shook her head. “You were hurt. You kept hurting yourself.”
He grunted. “How apt.”
“No.” She looked up at him. “I was trying to stop you, and you kept moving...breaking.”
He touched his forehead to hers. “As I said, how fitting.”
“I want no such thing.”
“You would not take me broken?” he teased, softly.
She buried her face again. “Ass.”
He laughed. “I have been that. I’m sorry, Petra. I was cruel.”
“I shouldn’t have—”
“Gotten angry? Challenged me? Called me out?”
“I was angry, too. But I shouldn’t have forced you like that.”
“To do something I longed to do? Yet when I had the chance, I take you like...unlike a man should take his wife.”
“Rand—”
“The next time we kiss, nothing but tenderness will linger between us. Until then,” he put her down, “I will be a gentleman.”
The hard line of his jaw and mouth were gone. Though exhaustion put shadows under his eyes, she stood beneath the warmth of his clear claret gaze, and he looked rested, looking upon her. Refreshment moved from Petra’s chest, down her lungs, like a spring zephyr. She took his hands and turned him towards the bed.
“Then my gentleman husband will accept his wife’s wish that he not sleep on the floor tonight.”
“And where will my wife sleep?”
He let her push him down on the mattress before she took the chair and brought it alongside.
“Your wife will sleep here. You forget she has slept in a barn on a pile of hay when the cow was near giving birth.”
Rand grinned. It bloomed over her, and she giggled, unbefitting her age.
***
O VER THE DAYS, MANY of the injured had recovered enough to resume their beds in the tower, but there was still a score of bodies who could not be moved. With repairs and the business of living, it was now only Petra and two other women who spent their day with the ill.
Although she had never considered herself a nurse, she found peace tending to others. To feel the strength in her arms as she lifted heads to eat or helped a body stand to cleanse their bowels—it was such an intimate look at life’s frailty. There was dignity in a body suffering to live. To wash wounds and wipe faces, a person was face to face with the innate desire to endure. Humanity was ferocious.
On one of these days, standing with a bowl of soiled water and bandages that needed cleaning, Lindy came alongside Petra. Thinking the girl wanted to help with dumping the water, she turned to hand her the bowl, but Lindy shook her head.
“Can we go for a walk, Lady Petra?”
“Of course. Let me clean these things first.”
“Can we walk outside the fort?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. You know how dangerous things have been.”
“Please. I...” A tremble rippled over her voice and wide eyes filled with tears. “I want to look at something besides stone.”
The same stone her mother had died within. Stone that used to mean comfort. Once it meant protection. Now it stood for the ruin of a small life.
“Of course. My husband’s friend Yates guards the perimeter. We’ll walk with him. I’m sure that will be okay.”
Lindy nodded and her small mouth became a straight line. In the moment, soiled water warm enough to release odors, Petra did not think it a strange reaction.
The day was bright. A walk about the perimeter would be pleasant. She would flag Yates’ attention, and he would be mindful of his temporary patrollers. She did not need to tell Rand. They would be close and safe.
Today, there was fuss at the gate. Apparently, in winter, the fort’s garden needed to be dug up every month if the texture of the soil was to remain ideal for the nightshades planted in spring. A group of men and women, their arms full of rakes, shovels, and hoes, chatted intently about dirt. They did not notice the Shivalry captain’s wife or the orphan girl. And when the massive gate opened, they all moved out together.
Petra was not the only one who looked over and around shoulders. Yet the sky was clear, and sunshine glittered over ice and frost on barren tree branches. If danger approached, it would be seen far out.
Lindy walked away from the crowd and leaned back on the outer wall. Tears drained down her cheeks and Petra thought it better not to say anything.
Yates rounded the corner. To the puzzled expression on his face, Petra whispered that her charge needed to see something not stone. They would follow in his wake.
It did not occur to Petra that Lindy didn’t move until Yates had turned the next corner. She was happy to let the little girl have space, and glad to enjoy an unobstructed view.
Lindy made no sound. It was movement from the corner of Petra’s eye that made her turn. She had cast off her cloak. Spindly arms and legs, pale as the snowy ground, gained length with a feverish speed. Already, she was meters away.
“Lindy!”
Petra bolted, tripped, threw off her own robe, and started running again.
There shouldn’t have been strength in the girl’s body to run so fast. She had hardly eaten, hardly slept. But human drive... is so strong.
“Lindy, stop!”
Fast Mynydd shrank behind them. Trees and bushes seemed delighted to obstruct the view. Only once did Petra risk glancing over her shoulder to see how far she had come. Yet the ground was uneven and obstacles everywhere; she was cuffed by a tree trunk, shattering snow and ice around herself.
She gained on the girl but not enough. Where Petra had to maneuver around the terrain, Lindy hopped and dodged with the ease of a sprite.
It was she who risked looking back.
“Don’t follow me, Lady Petra! Leave me alone! I can’t, I can’t stay at Mynydd!”
“Lindy, please!”
“No! I can’t! If mother is gone, I want to be gone, too!”
The words stopped Petra. Her insides revolted against such a grim declaration from a child. It was unnatural. It was a result of the horror of these attacks. It could not be allowed to win. This little girl would not be a victim.
The sharp air taunted her body, making her legs and feet stiff but Petra clenched her teeth and continued the pursuit.
She was not sure which of them was at more of a disadvantage out here. Despite her age, did Lindy know her way through this land? Or was she too blinded by emotion to discern anything? In the back of her mind, Petra tried to keep a sense of which direction the fort was every time Lindy’s path veered. It did no good if she caught her and they were both lost.
Not if. When. I’ll catch her. And if we are far out, Rand will know. He’ll come.
The sharp air hurt to swallow. Her eyes teared. Petra wiped at them furiously. The speed with which Lindy outdistanced her was fearsome and the surroundings were beginning to close in with dense pockets of evergreen bushes.
On one of them, Petra’s skirt snagged. At the same time she snatched at it, a child’s scream pierced the air.
Her heart froze but she dug her feet into the hardened ground and, somehow, ran faster.
“Lindy!”
She saw what made the girl scream before she saw the girl. Three men on horseback. Three armed men, one of which aimed an arrow.
“Stop!” Petra cried.
Scrambling into their midst, she saw Lindy crouched on the ground, arms over her head. Clutching the little body to herself, Petra dropped to her knees, having seen enough of Bessarabiah armor to know who surrounded them.
“Go on your way,” she gasped. “A child is not worth your time!”
Another man with a sword barked. “Where are you from?”
Petra’s mind raced. She could lie. She could say they came from Ahn and were on their way to trade with Mynydd, but it was an obvious lie. A woman and child traveling without outerwear? She could speak the truth. She could tell them exactly what happened but the man with the arrow had not eased tension on the bow. And if she kept silent for too long, then no explanation would be believed.
“This child is my charge. She has gone mad with grief after her mother died. She ran from me, and I chased her.”
The man with the sword squinted. “You did not answer my question, wench.”
“I believe you know where we are from, and I will not offend you by lying.”
“Be wary of her,” the second shouted, glancing at his silent compatriot with the bow. “Her hair is shorn. She might be as mad as the urchin. The worst kind of mad. Clever.”
“Think of me as you must,” Petra bandied back. “But let us go.”
The leader scoffed. “Back to the fort where you can tell others what you’ve seen? I’m afraid not. But we shall be merciful and kill you both at the same time.”
“Please!” Petra screamed. “Our lives mean nothing to you!”
The reply on the man’s lips withered. A sword sliced into their midst. It plunged into the ground directly next to Petra. All three men looked up and beyond her, their faces twisting in stupefaction and fear.
She did not need to turn. Instead, she pulled Lindy even closer.
“Shut your eyes and do not open them no matter what you hear.”
The girl struggled against her grip. “What’s happening? What is coming? A monster?”
“My husband. Now close your eyes tight!”