Balanced on His Feet

"Nina, Nina are you there?"

Nina had just finished going round the halls, upstairs and down, lighting lamps. There were dozens of them in each room. Nina was upstairs in the corridor that ran the length of the building on the side furthest from the river. She had just finished with the lamps at the far end when she heard Illumina calling. Nina had changed into a dress, putting on formal, hard-soled shoes that clicked on the bare wooden floors of the corridor as she walked down to the entry hall.

There was a murmur of voices as she walked. Though she could not hear any specific words, she knew that, among the voices, Illumina and Wals were talking to each other. Nina came to the balcony where the other woman had looked down on her. She stood looking down on the people below, denying any connection with any of them or with anyone who had ever been in the room.

Illumina looked up at her and smiled. "Nina, there you are."

Nina could hear there was no surprise in her voice. She had known Nina was coming.

"There are forty-eight people coming for dinner and I need the tables laid out in a very particular way." Nina protested about the lack of people to help her and the lack of staff in the kitchen. Illumina brushed her concerns aside, firing off instructions to Nina even as she walked down the stairs, assigning Drem, Brac, Felice and Cosimo to help Nina. Part way through all this, Manueline and the Prince came bursting in, breathless and laughing over some incident in the town, Manueline asking what they could do to help.

Illumina sent them off to a local inn to arrange for food to be brought for the forty-eight guests, the others set about getting tables and chairs out of a storeroom and setting them up in the dining room. Wals and Illumina stayed in the entry hall talking with a growing crowd of local dignitaries. They closed the doors leading to the dinning room, so Nina missed the sight of Illumina's dominance of the other room and Wals' growing confidence in his interactions with the people of Norton.

They were only partly finished laying out the tables when Manueline and the Prince came bursting in again, announcing that the food would arrive soon. Again they were laughing, this time over the confusion between Illumina and Manueline and Wals and the Prince. The innkeeper had thought the Prince was the new Lord of the North and Manueline the Margrave of Loro's daughter; he hopped about like a cat on a hot roof organizing food for them all. Manueline and Libby stood together, so obviously together even though there was no actual contact between them. Libby looked smiling at Manueline, "The sooner we leave for the south the better, so the locals can stop being confused about who we all are." The remark passed without any comment from the others. Manueline looked round the room, struck by how they had all come to the same conclusion, though she could see something in Nina that she knew fought against it. She dismissed it, forgetting about it as she felt Libby's arm round her.

Felice, Cosimo, Drem and Brac all caught their mood and started playing around as they laid out the tables. Even the usually staid Drem walking on his hands across the floor with an empty tray balanced on his feet.

Manueline was standing laughing, watching Drem doing his trick. Nina came and stood next to her, saying in a low voice only Manueline could hear, "I can't imagine what the North Lord's wife would think of all this."

Manueline clapped her hands and laughed just as Nina spoke. The remark was so out of context that it was some time before Manueline understood what had been said. "You mean the wife of the North Lord who died? Where is she? What happened to her?"

"She is dead, drowned herself in the river this afternoon."

Manueline turned to look at Nina, wondering why in the world she would say such a thing. Just as she did so, the Prince came up behind her, putting his arms right round her and laughing as he lifted her off her feet. Manueline held his arms to her, leaning back against him as he put her down, laughing again as the Prince made some remark about Drem walking on his hands. Manueline put her head right back so it was resting on the Prince's shoulder. She closed her eyes and smiled, and shivered as the Prince whispered something in her ear and then kissed her, blowing some loose strands of hair away before he did so.

Daisy stayed close to Illumina all afternoon; the wolf stayed with Manueline and the Prince. The wolf was asleep in the dining room, Daisy was lying in a corner of the entry hall, watching as Illumina talked to the various Norton dignitaries. At one point, Illumina put her head round the door to see how things were coming on in the dining room and asked Nina if she could feed Daisy and give her some water. Nina protested that she was busy and was about to qualify the protest to say that she would do it anyway when Manueline burst into the conversation saying she would do it.

Nina looked at her coldly, "The dog won't take food from you; she is trained to only take food from people she knows."

Manueline smiled brightly at her, "Yes she will. I fed her the other evening when Wals and Illumina went for a walk." Manueline put her head round the door, affectionately taking Illumina's arm at the same time, kissing her and reassuring her that she would look after Daisy. She called to Daisy, snapping her fingers and cooing at her as she came across the room. Daisy was obviously rather bored by what was happening in the room and only too happy to escape for a while. Illumina went back to the Norton dignitaries, Manueline walked off towards the kitchen, followed by Daisy and calling the wolf to her.

Nina was left standing by the now shut door into the entry hall, a stony expression on her face. She stood there for a long time as the others finished the arrangements with the tables. Manueline put her head round the door saying the food had arrived. The Prince came over to Nina, opened the door and beckoned to Illumina, passing the message on. Illumina clapped her hands calling to the guests. She and Wals made a particular point of escorting some of the guests into the dining room, taking them to specific tables. As Illumina came through the doors, the Prince turned to Nina, asking cheerfully, "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, though it seems I'm not to be trusted with anything, not even the feeding of the dogs." She spoke loudly, ensuring that Illumina would hear it as she went through the door. Illumina gave Nina a sharp look but clearly had no time for anything else as she escorted her guest to a table in the middle of the room. Nina was ashamed of herself and angry, reacting to the look from Illumina. She did not move but stayed by the door as the others served the meal, helped by the people from the inn. She was horrified to see the Prince bringing a tray of food in followed by Manueline, laughing and chivvying at him as they chased each other back and forth from the kitchen. The sight of him brought the anger flooding back into her.

Nina had some satisfaction watching the scene in the middle of the room. Illumina was angry and it showed. Her laughter had an edge to it that was making people nervous. The tension built perceptibly when Wals started using his curious greeting; reaching out and touching people on the side of the face, his finger just at the point of the jaw. She saw several people almost collapse back into their chairs as he went round the tables, talking to and touching each person in turn. He went round all the outer tables first, leaving the two tables in the middle until last. Nina saw Illumina take him by the arm and lead him to a particular person at one of the center tables. It looked to everyone as though Wals was leading Illumina but Nina knew it was the other way round. She led him slowly, deliberately, ignoring the other people at the table, almost literally pointing out one specific individual to him.

Wals stood for a moment looking down at the man. He bent over taking the man by the arm, pulling him to his feet. The man was shaking, trying to stammer out some words, a greeting perhaps. He watched fascinated as Wals brought a hand up to his face, leaning away from the hand but apparently unable to move. Wals touched him, his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed on the floor. Wals stood a moment looking down at him. Illumina called Felice and Cosimo over, telling them to take the man out of the room. Wals continued round the table as though nothing significant had happened. Each of the other people stood as soon as he came to them, bowing low and accepting his touch without any further comment or incident. It was obvious to Nina that they were utterly cowed by him.

Nina felt a growing sense of rage and frustration that coalesced out of the normal inner turmoil that she lived with every day. She found herself latching onto it as a refuge from herself. She discovered something about herself, standing there, watching Illumina and Wals take control of Norton; frightening, persuading and seducing its people into subservience. She discovered the anger she had latched onto years and years ago; never realizing, in her initial grief and anguish, how much anger she had borne with her. At that moment, she had no idea of understanding it or coming to terms with it, seeing what it had done to her or to the people around her; especially there was no question in her mind of getting rid of it. She clung to it. She felt herself embraced by it; a lover coming up behind her and taking her into his arms. She leaned back gratefully into his embrace feeling herself kissed and caressed by this thing she had created.

All the guests were eating and talking, loudly proclaiming to the world how little they cared for themselves and how much they cared for the Margrave's daughter and the new North Lord. Illumina walked over to stand next to Nina, turning to watch the people round the tables; watching Wals as he made the rounds, talking to some, mostly listening and allowing them to talk. He learned well. It would take some time but already she felt she could trust him to feel his way through the delicate currents and crosscurrents of alliances and ambitions. Still, she was tense and took a moment to see where the tension came from. It was Nina. She almost smiled at herself, recognizing that unconsciously she had come across the room because of the tension in her mind that came from Nina.

Still watching Wals and the people round the tables she asked, "What's the problem Nina, why did you make that comment as I came in the room?"

Nina just stood aside, allowing her anger to speak for her. She did not stop to see whether Illumina was really the cause of any of it or whether anything she said was actually connected with recent events in any way. She stood aside and allowed it out of herself, as much in her tone of voice and the way she held herself as in what she said. She even found herself admiring Illumina, watching her attacked by the anger in herself. Never flinching, never shifting her gaze from the Wals and the tables; just her lips growing tight, eyes narrowing, giving a hint of what was going on inside her as her own anger responded to Nina's.

There was silence for a time. Illumina spoke seeking a response from Nina, almost for the first time, until then she had merely responded to the stream of abuse coming at her. "I had thought to ask if you would run the house here. Now it seems to me we would be better off out of each other's company for a time."

Nina's anger was not satisfied, she knew it was an all-consuming hunger, it would devour the whole world if she let it. She watched a while longer as it savaged Illumina; accusing her of always managing other people's lives, of always managing herself, of never offering a genuine, innocent response to anyone or anything, everything she ever said or did was calculated to elicit a specific response. Nina watched her anger, seeing how it used the truth to drive splinters of pain under Illumina's skin.

Then Nina had enough, she shut the anger away. "I will go with Manueline and the Prince when they leave for the south."

"Go then. You have run beyond my care. Maybe away from us, you can find yourself and find a way back to Wals and I."

"Make no mistake; I know exactly where I stand."

To follow this thread in the story go to: Give it a Name

The next section to read is: Looking at Me

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