Slip Away

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Illumina was wrong. Not much came of the contact between Libby and Nina, at least anything that helped them understand Nina herself. Libby did change. His attention to Nina gave him a feeling for another person that he had never had before. He came to realize how mysterious Nina was.

He asked Illumina about it one evening. "She's so difficult to understand. Well that's not quite it. She's so difficult to reach. I feel like she could just slip away from me and I could do nothing to hold her. The relationship is so fragile, even though it has been the one constant thing in my life for the last four months."

Illumina watched him for a while not responding immediately to the implied question. Then she did respond but with a question of her own. "Are there any relationships in your life that are any stronger? Is there anyone who couldn't just slip away from you?" She knew, even as she asked, that it was a hard question for him to face. She knew there was no one; the Queen, the King, the people he knew in the city, all the people he had met here, like herself or Taddeo, he had no connection to any of them. Any of them could slip away from him with hardly a thought. There might be some people in the city who would have some material reason for staying with him or keeping him with them, but no one would do it for his own sake. She watched him, seeing the truth of it come over his face like the shadow of a cloud over a stretch of water.

He went grey and still, looking down at the ground between them. "Illumina you're so hard. I think it was easier when you made me run behind the dog sled." He looked up at her, his eyes bright with emotion. "I know you could slip away from me with hardly a thought." She was about to interrupt, contradicting him in some way but he shook his head and waved her to silence. "No it's true, you know it is. I cannot just slip away from you." He laughed, "Don't get me wrong, I have no ambitions. I'm just like one of your dogs, you trained me and I jump when you whistle, I can't help it." He smiled apologetically at her. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I expect I present enough of a problem just by being here without allowing other entanglements to further complicate matters."

Illumina laughed in her turn, "It's alright. I still blush when I think about that reception and what I was wearing. It was an apple smock, you know. A garment we wear to pick apples in the autumn; only I'd been cleaning mushrooms in it. I was so against you and everything else in the King's City. Things have changed. I am amazed at how much they have changed. I have enjoyed the winter. It's been good for me and I don't regret your being here at all."

Libby looked at the ground again, recognizing how much she did not say. He looked up, smiling at her. "Well thank you anyway."

The winter passed by. Illumina started getting restless. They would have to leave for the Margrave's village well before the spring thaw. The dogs couldn't pull the sleds through mud. They went through the process of preparing for the journey. The same five people made the trip back again, though it was a different experience for all of them.

Nina was, if anything, even more isolated than she had been. Taddeo had a quiet respect for Libby. He still thought Libby strange in many ways but he accepted that he had changed immensely and was comfortable and relaxed in Libby's presence. Cosimo had been off in another village for most of the winter. He took to Libby with an easy informal companionship that amazed both of them. Libby especially watching the friendship between them with a kind of wonder that such a thing was possible for him at all.

Illumina realized that Cosimo and Taddeo regarded her differently as well, recognizing what she had been able to do for Libby. They took the route that led through the mountains, going south before heading east and north to get to the Margrave's village. Much of it was a downhill run. Libby was now a highly proficient skier and loved being out in the snow. Illumina even went so far as to allow him to drive the dog team on occasion. The trip was quick and lighthearted; often turning into a race between dogs and skis. Over a flat or uphill, the dogs would always win but downhill, they had to be held back and the Prince skied with a reckless abandon that quite worried Illumina sometimes. A couple of times he took a bad fall but did not do himself any serious harm. Both Taddeo and Illumina had gone to great pains to teach him to fall and he learned well.

They arrived back at the Margrave's village well ahead of the thaw. The Margrave was out on the village hall porch to watch them come in. They were racing again; Illumina driving her sled, the other two sleds were a long way behind. They had left Nina some distance back to ski in on her own. Libby came down the slope punting with his skis as well pushing with his sticks. He was getting every bit of speed he could out of the slope, keeping neck and neck with the dogs, shouting a wild mixture of encouragement and derision at them.

Daisy, especially, reacted to him with barks and whimpers, pulling for all she was worth and urging the other dogs to do the same. They came howling into the village, watched with amusement and admiration by the people who had come out to watch them come in. Libby was skiing in just a cap and scarf, his features clearly visible. The Margrave literally rubbed his eyes looking at the young man chasing Illumina down the village street. He could see it was the Prince but the evident change in his spirit was so profound it was difficult to believe what he saw.

Libby got left behind as they came into the village. He managed to catch up again as Illumina tried to stop the dogs. Still traveling, he shoved his sticks under one arm and grabbed Daisy's harness, laughing as she snapped and growled at him. Then he and the dogs hit the wall of a house and disappeared in a flurry of arms and legs just visible in a cloud of snow.

The Prince stood up, still surrounded by dogs, shouting and laughing at Illumina, "You might have gotten here first but you would have gone straight through the village if I hadn't stopped the dogs."

Illumina was laughing as well as she came to pull the dogs apart before they started fighting. "Help me with the dogs. We're lucky half of them didn't break a leg. Next time I want to stop a sled, I'll just drive it over a cliff; it'd be a lot safer."

There was more of the same as other people came to help. The Margrave came over and embraced Illumina, welcoming her back. He did not say anything but looked at the Prince and then back at Illumina. She smiled at him saying quietly, "I'll tell you later."

Later they did talk and she told him of the events on the journey to Nina's village; about him falling through the ice and how he was afterwards. "It changed him?"

Illumina smiled, shaking her head, "I don't know. I'm sure it did but how and why I don't know. I fear it made a bond between us that will always stand as an obstacle between us as much as a connection. I pushed him hard before the ice and even harder afterwards. He said to me once that he was like one of my dogs, I had trained him and now he can't help it, when I whistle he jumps. It's not a good thing; a man is not a dog." She laughed quietly, "A dog is not a dog."

They talked for a long time and Illumina also told him about Nina and the lost child. The Margrave nodded his head, "I wondered, when Nina agreed to go, how she would deal with being back there again. She doesn't look well and you say her relationship to the Prince is strange. She won't talk to him, yet she appears to resent other people around him, especially Cosimo. It may be just that she feels proprietary about him and resents not being able to mother him any more." He looked doubtful even as he spoke, reflecting the doubt in Illumina's expression. "I thought going back to her village might help her, I'm sorry, if anything, she looks even worse. I feel an obligation to her, for your mother's sake and she has served us faithfully for many years." He sat quietly for a while then looked at her, "What will you do?"

Illumina knew perfectly well what he was asking. It was a question she had felt at the back of her mind for weeks. What was to happen between her and the Prince? He was still just a boy even though he was chronologically older than her, marrying him would be like marrying her younger brother. The idea was profoundly distasteful to her and she was sure the same would be true for him as well. If not now, then some time in the future, he would come to see her as a monstrous imposition that distorted his life, his perception of himself and of everyone around him. Illumina tried to explain this to the Margrave.

He listened as he always did, carefully, trying to understand as much as he could. They sat quietly together for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. "I have news from the King's City. It seems the Queen was wise to get him out. There have been two attempts on her life. People around her have been threatened."

Illumina was shocked, "Attempts to kill the Queen? That's outrageous. What of the King, what has he done?"

The Margrave looked at her and smiled, shaking his head. "What can he do? He is merely the king; he only hears what people tell him. He can only accomplish what others will do for him. He is not a fool but he is not good with people either and so he is at the mercy of a few sharp characters that seek to isolate and control him. He helps the Queen as best he can but in the end, if she cannot protect herself, she will be destroyed. She has always known this. There have always been rivals, other women. She has lived on the edge of disaster all her life." He laughed again, "I am sure she has planted a few horns herself. Still the world is complicated enough as it is without bringing up all the old entanglements of years gone by. You have time. You don't have to decide now. The Prince cannot move until after the spring thaw. Then we shall see what we shall see."

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