Some Third Person

The day after the meeting, all of them headed south, pursuing the following. They left so much behind them, they carried so much with them, there was so much unknown ahead of them that all they could do was ride or walk. They found a lot in simply talking to each other, making the most of the day between them; it was impossible to look beyond it.

Wals had talked at length to Nina but it seemed a curiously unsatisfactory thing for both of them. Nina was hardly able to look at him, never mind acknowledge him as her own. She talked to him if he came to her but mostly, if anything, she seemed to ignore him. Apparently, out of habit as much as anything else, Nina tried to continue to look after Libby. She found herself supplanted by Manueline. Not that Manueline ever offered to do anything for Libby but she would scold him and ridicule him if he ever allowed Nina to do anything for him, insisting that he do it himself. Even Illumina was still restrained by the aura that surrounded Libby from his role as the Prince and perhaps even some echoes in her mind of how he was when they first met. Manueline had no such compunctions. She scolded and teased him mercilessly. He took it well, even joining in, mocking his princely persona as though there was some third person in the conversation; a not entirely competent or trustworthy person at that.

Manueline did not see it, or failed to recognize it for what it was, but Nina would cringe away from these exchanges. As though from some old, ingrained habit she took refuge inside herself; withdrawing behind a fixed mask of a face that let nothing out and apparently let very little in either.

Illumina asked Wals at one point, "Did she tell you your name?" It seemed an oddly personal sort of question to ask but she had the sense that Wals should not be allowed to become isolated because Nina was still choosing to isolate herself. So she asked.

He shook his shoulders. "I did ask, but all she would say is that my name day had been put off because of the people having to hide away in the forest. I was never named. I insisted she must have had some idea what name she would have given me. She denied it, saying there was no name."

"Did she say who your father was?"

Again, he shook his shoulders, "She wouldn't say. Said it didn't matter, that among her people the father was not a consideration if the child was conceived outside of a regular union; it was a brief thing for her and would have meant nothing to her, if not for me.

Illumina listened with a rising sense of outrage and disbelief and had to make an effort to control herself. "I'm sorry Wals but none of what she told you is true. Fathers do matter and it makes no sense postponing your name day because of being in the forest. In fact, if the father is not available, it is the mother's privilege to name a child. While there may be a name day to announce a name, I never heard of a mother not naming her child as soon as it was born."

"She's hiding something?"

"It certainly seems that way. For a long time I have had a feeling that there was something strange about Nina's reaction to Libby. I thought that being reunited with you would explain and maybe get rid of some of the strangeness but, if anything, she seems stranger than ever."

All this was spoken as Illumina and Wals walked together ahead of the main party. Manueline was riding Cavalla, Libby riding next to her. At first, the horses had been wary of the wolf but seemed to have settled to his presence. As they traveled, either the wolf stayed close to Manueline or Wals or he stayed with Daisy. Daisy watched, trotting out well ahead of them, often accompanied by the wolf, ranging as much as a thousand paces ahead and either side of where they were traveling. Illumina watched the animals, curious at the easy relationship that had sprung up between them. While she would have been surprised if the wolf had actually attacked Daisy, dogs rarely went for bitches outside their own territory, it still seemed odd to her that the wolf should have taken to Daisy as much as he had. Somehow, it comforted her that they should have the wolf watching them as well. His obvious combination of intelligence and raw power gave her a sense of security beyond anything explainable by the simple fact of his physical presence. She had the idea that the wolf stood for something. He was a symbol of some power that no one would lightly defy.

Libby and Manueline rode side by side when the path permitted. Manueline asked Libby about his life as a prince. At first, he prevaricated, not really wanting to talk about it and be reminded of what he was before the winter in Loro. She insisted, seeing there was some kind of reservation that involved hiding something from himself, not just from her. She thought it would be good for both of them to hear whatever he could say. "Come on it can't be that bad. Did you hurt people? Is that why you don't want to talk about it?"

"No, I don't think I hurt anyone. That was never my intent, though I can imagine some people suffered because of things I did or failed to do." He looked down and laughed, "No it's not that. It's more a matter of being ashamed of myself. Take the clothes for example." Manueline brightened considerably at the mention of clothes. She was wearing some spare pants and a shirt belonging to Illumina, garments, the like of which she had never owned before, the cloth being finely made and heavily embroidered. Libby looked a bit puzzled for a moment. "You know I'm not even sure how most of them were made or what exactly the material was they were made from. I used to wear tights." He launched into a long explanation of what tights looked like and what it was like to wear them.

"So they were like a 'second skin' you say. It was like walking round in your skin, walking round naked?" Manueline laughed, "What did they look like from behind? They were tight behind as well. Weren't they uncomfortable?"

"You got used to it after a while."

Another thought occurred to Manueline and she burst out laughing, clapping a hand over her mouth as she blushed but could not help alluding to what amused her. "What if you got excited? You know how men do sometimes. I mean it could be pretty embarrassing from the front." She laughed again, "I wouldn't know where to look."

Libby laughed as well, admitting that some people were not too shy about such things but that for the most part, the sheer embarrassment would be enough to restrain the body's natural impulses. "There is a curious rivalry between the men and the women as the women seek to be as alluring as possible and the men as blatant as possible."

Manueline was intensely interested in what steps the women took to be as alluring as possible and Libby had to discuss in great detail subjects such as dcolletage, corsets, jewels, display of the ankles and shoes. He laughed again at the mention of shoes and described the fashion for high heels among men as well as women. He found himself so embarrassed over the description of the shoes he had been wearing when he left for Loro that it was hard to talk about it. He came out of the description to find Manueline looking at him with a quiet reassuring smile on her face.

"You have changed haven't you? What made the change?"

Libby nodded his head towards Wals and Illumina walking ahead of them, talking quietly to each other. "She did. Perhaps I would have changed anyway." He shook his head. "I think not. She literally saved my life you know." He told Manueline of the occasion when he fell through the ice. How she told him what to do before he went under and then found him and had the others chop through the ice so they could get him out. Libby had the curious experience of confusing Manueline and Illumina, at times almost mixing their names up. Finding it hard to be clear about the referents of words like 'she' and 'her' as they seemed to shift between the two women as though his use of language was becoming confused by the parallels between them in real life. He felt as though it may have been Manueline who saved him and it could be Illumina riding beside him now.

They rode back through the forest, talking quietly. The journey was new for Wals and Manueline but the others were now wearily familiar with the path and dreading what they would find at the end of it. They had discussed the following the previous evening. Libby and Illumina told the story of the devastated villages and the bridge where they encountered the Lord of the North. Manueline and Wals told of the formation of the following in the first place and the events on the river north of the forest.

It seemed to all of them that things were worse south of the forest and they decided it was probably something to do with the language and the fact that the people of the following could not speak to the local people and so distanced themselves; in that distance there was endless cruelty and violence. There was a growing sense of urgency through the day as they saw again the damage done by the crowd of people. They hoped that the people would have stayed in one place as they knew that the villages got closer together further south along the river, so the potential for damage would be that much greater. Wals and Manueline were not accustomed to riding but they took it in turns to walk and ride keeping the pace as quick as they could and traveling until late in the day.

To follow this thread in the story go to: Grasping for Something to Say

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