Live with Every Day

Illumina, Wals and the Margrave spent the next three days setting up the government of the North. There were numerous positions to confirm or fill, people to meet, contracts to assign, the dispersal of the following to be planned and initiated. Illumina had already done much of the work. The added authority of the Margrave's presence gave a sudden urgency to the process. Those who had been sitting on the fence, thinking the new North Lord would not last, suddenly realized he was there to stay and they rushed to grab whatever positions and privileges might be available.

The Margrave did not mention the subject of Wals and Illumina again but he watched Wals closely, getting a feel for who he was and what he might be capable of. At the end of the three days, he found, quite simply, that he liked him. He had a quiet, ready sense of humor, a basic respect for the people around him and a capacity for inspiring respect and even devotion in the people he dealt with. Many of the Norton people feared him, hearing all kinds of wild rumors from the people of the following. Those who met him found him an easy companion, undemanding, always more ready to listen than to speak. Slowly the sense of him as the personification of death became overlaid by the sense of him as the new North Lord, the man who carried ultimately authority in the community and who brought the power of the following and the alliance with Loro. People started greeting and cheering him in the street.

On the morning of the fourth day, the Margrave and Illumina met again on the Terrace of the North Lord's house and stood together watching the sunrise. He looked out over the water, marveling at it as something that the people of Loro never experienced. A huge body of water, unimaginable quantities of it flowing past the town everyday but taken completely for granted by the people who lived by it all their lives. He laughed at himself, thinking of the mountains of Loro. He suspected that most of the people of Loro rarely if ever looked at them with the same kind of wonder that he now gave to the river.

Illumina took his arm asking what he was laughing at.

"Loro has the mountains, Norton has the river. I suspect that neither of them realizes the beauty and strength they live with every day."

"You mean we don't appreciate something we find right under our noses."

"Something like that. I knew all these years that giving you advice was a waste of breath. Now when I finally do break down and, against my better judgment, tell you what I think you should do, you blithely ignore it. So it seems I was right all along."

"What do you mean? What advice?"

"There you see, you don't just ignore it you forget it altogether."

Illumina laughed, squeezing his arm, "Father, you mean about Wals? There hasn't been a moment in the last three days to do anything. What do you expect me to do? Sound him out while we admire the offering from the North Lord's pig keeper."

"You should speak to him. The boy will get confused. I suspect he is on the verge of confusion already."

She went quiet for a while, not really thinking of anything in particular, just some sense of herself and the relationship to her father. She found he was looking at her again, a quizzical expression on his face. She squeezed his arm again, smiling at him, "I'll talk to him."

Illumina made a point of riding Cavalla everyday no matter what might be happening elsewhere. Wals, Felice or Cosimo would always accompany her. Daisy was a constant companion. She watched herself and Wals, watching the emerging pattern of their lives, almost distantly curious about the way they related to each other. Several times, she went riding with Wals but nothing ever came of it. Something about being on horseback again threw them both back into how they were in the days after they first met; riding together made no difference.

There was a powerful sense for her of the expectations of the people around them. Her father and the other men from Loro went out of their way to make Wals feel welcome among them and at the same time avoid coming between them. If some chance threw her and Wals together, any of the Loro men present at the time would discretely distance themselves or disappear altogether. The people of Norton were less subtle, treating Illumina and Wals as a couple despite the absence of any explicit declaration of the fact. It was naturally assumed that when they entertained, they did so together or if they went out they would go out together.

Illumina could see that Wals was confused. Not consciously so but confused in how he behaved. He was treated by the people of Norton as though they were bed partners, by the men of Loro as though there was some privileged but unspecified relationship and by Illumina as a teacher and guide as much as a friend.

One evening at the end of a long and complicated dinner involving various people from Norton and the surrounding countryside, Illumina took his hand and said, "Meet me tomorrow, at sunrise, on the terrace."

"You'll have to wake me up."

Illumina looked exasperated for a moment then just smiled and nodded her head, leaving him as she went up stairs and to bed.

The following morning she woke early before the sunrise, dressed and made her way out on to the terrace. Wals was nowhere to be seen. His bedroom opened on to the terrace at the upstream end of the house. Illumina walked slowly along the terrace; looking thoughtfully at the river, glancing occasionally at the house. She could hear servants inside already beginning the day's work. She came to the door to Wals' room. It was a beautiful room, with big glazed doors opening out onto the terrace.

She knocked quietly; not asking permission to enter the room, the nock was for something else. She smiled to herself, recognizing it as a summons. She was calling him. Telling him it was time to wake up. She tried the handle on one of the doors. The door was open. She smiled to herself as she opened it wide enough for her to slip inside, seeing Wals asleep in a bed set against the opposite wall, the light just beginning to creep into the room as the sun rose. He had thrown off the bedclothes in the night and had a nightgown on; lying, innocent as a child, in the middle of the bed.

She walked across the room. "Wals' wake up, we were to meet at sunrise remember?"

He groaned a little and turned over, turning his back to her. She had a suspicion he was awake and merely teasing her. There was a jug of water and an empty glass beside the bed. Making no attempt to be quiet, she poured some water into the glass, just a spoonful or so. She saw Wals twitch out of the corner of her eye and smiled again, almost laughing as she could feel the tension in the room rising as she picked the glass up, deliberately chinking it against the jug as she did so.

He was still lying on his side with his back to her. It was a big bed; she had to brace one knee on the edge of the bed as she leant over. She held the glass in front of her and carefully and deliberately poured the entire contents in his ear.

Wals leapt up with a shout, looking wildly around him as Illumina dropped the glass on the bed and, screaming with laughter, made a dash for the door. It took Wals only a moment to gather his thoughts before he was out of bed and after her. Illumina slammed the door shut as she ran through it. Wals fumbled with the door handle to open it again. He was fast on his feet and Illumina was wearing a rather elaborate formal skirt and long jacket that slowed her down. Anyway, she did not intend to run far as she made for the eastern end of the terrace. Wals caught her before she could get to the balustrade looking out over the river. As he caught her there was a snarl and bark behind them as Daisy came hurtling down the terrace after them. Wals turned with Illumina in his arms looking at Daisy as she came growling and barking up to them. Daisy was obviously not sure what they were doing. Illumina laughed, holding a hand out to her, "It's all right girl. I was just waking Wals up."

To follow this thread in the story go to: Come from Him

The next section to read is: Matching His Steps

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