Give it a Name

Two days later, Manueline and Libby were silent witnesses to Illumina's confrontation with the Captain of the Guard. Wals had wanted to go out and confront the man himself but Illumina and Manueline talked him out of it. They pointed out that he knew Illumina and was only vaguely acquainted with the Prince. If he found them both apparently within his grasp, he might try to do something rash and there could be a massacre. At the same time, he would be afraid of hurting Illumina because of her father. In the end, Wals agreed and Illumina went out alone, accompanied only by Brac.

Manueline and Libby watched as Illumina talked to the Captain, the following surrounded his men and he submitted to the authority of the new Lord of the North. She found herself torn between a genuine concern over the difficulties that Illumina and Wals had to face dealing with the people of the north and the imminent problems that confronted her and Libby in the journey to the south.

Illumina was in contact with her father. She managed to find one of his 'correspondents' the first evening they arrived and had all the news both from the correspondent and directly from her father who managed to get a pigeon back to her by the end of the first full day they were in Norton.

The news from the south and from the King's City was not good. There had been further attempts on the Queen and at least one on the King himself though it had never been officially acknowledged. There were two factions, supporting different candidates, ostensibly drawn from the nobility in the King's City. In fact, each was a proxy for a larger interest. The Lord of the East covertly supported one of them; the Lord of the South supported the other. There had been a third supported by the Lord of the North but he had faded away in recent days for obvious reasons.

As Libby remarked, with a bitter laugh, "What's the matter with your father, why isn't he supporting someone?"

Illumina just looked at him seriously, "There's a reason your mother and father took refuge with him all those years ago. He doesn't play those kind of games."

Libby and Manueline decided to leave as soon as possible, which meant the day after the confrontation with the Captain of the Guard. Nina announced she would accompany them. Wals and Libby were mystified by the announcement; Manueline and Illumina were not taken by surprise but still found it hard to explain to themselves. They had a rare moment alone together, standing on the terrace of the North Lord's house looking out over the river.

Manueline spoke without looking at Illumina. "I don't understand Nina's story. She lost her child all those years ago. Against all hope, she finds him again and the first thing she does is to leave him again. As a story, it doesn't make any sense. Then I look at her and watch all the anger and bitterness she carries within her and I quite understand it. In losing him, she became separated from him and the mere fact of being together again is not enough to close the separation." She looked at Illumina, "You've known her all your life, was she always like this?"

"In some ways. There was never much joy in her. Something happened when we went to the King's City at the end of the summer last year. Libby came back to Loro with us and she ended up taking care of him. It seemed to wake something in her, almost as though she knew that Wals was coming."

"That's a good thing isn't it?"

"It should be. You talked of anger and bitterness. I think there was more. I think there is fear as well. She hides it for the most part but I have seen odd glimpses of it. I don't know what it is that she is afraid of, what she is hiding."

They talked for sometime, Illumina talking about Libby, Manueline talking about Wals. Illumina felt some guilt over leaving Libby and Manueline to face the South Lord and the King's City on their own. She could do nothing else. Wals would not survive on his own in the north. Without him as the Lord of the North, the death march would rise again with who knows what consequences for the rest of the country.

"Drem will be going with you. I know Felice and Cosimo would come as well if I asked them. Are you sure you don't want them to come?"

"No, thank you. Even if you could send twenty men, it wouldn't make any difference. We cannot fight our way through. If we get there, it must be through persuasion not force." She laughed, "Anyway we will have the wolf."

"Well, hopefully you will meet Ivo and Duilio in Sutton." She told Manueline about them and the decision to send someone south to try to warn the South Lord of the coming of the Death March. "If you see them ask them to help you if they can."

The four of them left the following morning before sunrise. Illumina did not want any of the following to see Libby and Manueline leave, so they left while it was still dark, riding west across the fields and then heading south to pick up the Loro road. They followed the road going southeast away from Loro and then almost straight south as it bent to follow the river which meandered south towards Sutton and the King's City.

Being separated from Wals was a strange experience for Manueline. She found herself unconsciously worrying about him but, when she confronted the concern, she found it was just a habit. She was quite satisfied that Illumina would care for him and love him. She found herself reflecting on that as well, wondering about herself; how she felt about Wals and the relationship between him and Illumina. She smiled at herself, wondering how Illumina felt about the relationship between her and Libby. She laughed ironically, knowing that the relationship was as much a mystery to her as it might be to anyone else. She was sure they felt strongly for each other but she was reluctant to give it a name. Libby certainly had not done so but then, she reflected, it might be that he would not give it a name unless she prompted him to and she was not sure that she wanted it named under those circumstances.

Libby looked across at her as they rode side by side, "What are you laughing at?"

"Oh nothing really, just how little we understand about ourselves and the people around us."

He laughed quietly in turn, "Isn't that what it's all about? I think we spend most of our lives trying to understand ourselves or understand the people around us or trying to recover from a misunderstanding."

"Do you understand me?"

"No, I love you."

They rode along side by side for a while, Manueline with a quiet smile on her face. She asked, "Is it the same thing?"

"No, not at all. It is a commitment to something. I know I will never understand you. That is part of why I love you." He paused a while. "I cannot make you be anything, I cannot understand you by putting you in a box and saying, 'this is where you start, this is where you end.' I will always welcome you as you are. There will always be something of you beyond my understanding and beyond my control. That is what I love about you."

Manueline laughed, "It sounds as though you're saying I'm lovable because you love me."

"Perhaps I am." He looked very serious. "It makes no difference you know."

Manueline looked at him for a long time. She thought of her first encounter with Wals. She rapped her knuckles on the bow of the saddle and smiled at him. "Thank you Libby. Thank you for loving me; it is a great gift. I only hope I have the courage to accept it and the strength to return it."

He looked worried, "Are you all right, have I said too much?"

"No, not at all." She laughed quietly again, "You asked me what I was laughing at. I was thinking of how mysterious the people around us are. I was especially thinking of you and I and how reluctant we were to put a name to the thing between us." She stopped, looking down and she actually blushed with embarrassment, something Libby had never seen in her before. "I was thinking I could prompt you to name it but that I wouldn't want it named if it needed the prompting in order to acquire the name." She looked up and laughed, "Well the prompting wasn't necessary. In fact, it seems it's me that needs the prompting. I'm the one who finds it difficult to give it a name. I'm sorry Libby, what I'm trying to say is 'I love you too'. But it frightens me. I don't know how to say it and give it meaning. I don't know that I'm capable of everything that saying it implies."

Libby shifted nearer to her, reaching out and taking her hand. "Don't worry it's there between us and that's what matters. We'll work it out, I promise."

To follow this thread in the story go to: Everything and Everyone

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