11 – 3

Lenn's dark eyes are keen behind the swollen reddening of spilled tears. I meet her gaze and, in silence, wait. This is the second time the question's been asked.

What's happened?

Juliana only got some gossip, the kind of light talk shared with distant friends at market stalls. Pushing for more had ended with a line drawn 'twixt outsider and Royah, and a warning: Mind your own business. She had respected both, which I should think has earned her some in turn. It did for me.

I am Royah, so maybe now that I am the one asking, there'll be an answer. It's a cold night. The scabbing scar on my back aches with it. Leen breaks the lock of our eyes to look a question at the man who brought me to her, whose name I still don't know. He lifts his shoulders and tilts his head, deferential to whatever choice she makes. She sighs through her nose and says, “Come inside, but take your boots off. Don't want you tracking dirt on my floor.”

What is it, I wonder, about mothers and their floors? It's a whimsical thought that I carry with me to her home's door, leaving it on the threshold as I climb in behind her in my woolen-socked feet. Hinges creak, and the door clicks shut. For a moment there's darkness, and a woman shuffling within it. Then the strike-and-flare of a lighting match, filling every line of Lenn's face with deep, sorrowful shadow before the lantern's soft touch chases them away. It paints streaks of gold into her graying hair and brings her dark eyes to life.

Her home, it merely illuminates. A pair of beds fill the back half of it, their headboards carved into the wall furthest from me. A curtain rail separates them, the curtain itself held in place by a braided cord. A wooden chest is fastened securely to the foot of each bed. One is closed and latched. The other, wide-open and spilling clothes over its edges. Books and little trinkets fill parallel lines of railed shelves running the length of the wide walls.

There's a knot in my throat, a thorny tangle of homesick longing that fills my eyes with tears to swallow. I miss my family. I miss feeling safe. I close my eyes for a moment and, when I open them, Lenn's watching me. Embarrassment flushes across my face, but all she asks is, “Why do you want to know, hm? Why is it so important to you?”

“Because –” I start, and there I stop. How do I explain it, when I'm not sure myself? A handful of answers come to mind, none of them good enough. In the end, after a sound of pure frustration, I say, “I don't know. I just...it is. I do.”

Lenn hums. She seems displeased with my answer. That makes for two of us, but it's all I have. There's a long minute of quiet between us, a minute where her eyes are on me, but her look is not. She's turned that elsewhere; turned it inward, perhaps, on whatever wrong was done here to fill the open air so horribly, to drive her to tears, to leave this home empty by half. “They arrested my girl,” she spits, and in her voice is a towering anger. In her eyes, a desperate fear. “Men from the city, men in uniform. They brought their weapons and their stories, and they took her.”

It had been a lament. If only you'd come a day sooner. “Why?” I breathe, leaden understanding settling heavy in my belly.

She snorts, teeth flashing in a brief, bitter smile. “My daughter is beautiful,” she answers, “In that, she takes from her father. From me, she took a quick temper and a will to fight.” Lamplight plays over her hands. Faint, faded scars on her knuckles. “I encouraged her, taught her to protect herself. 'Put up with nothing you can't put down', I told her, 'and if someone lays an unwanted hand on you...remove it.' She's not to blame for learning what I taught.”

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I am, she leaves unsaid, for teaching it. But she's wrong. I know Lenn won't believe me, but I say it anyway, “You aren't either. Whatever happened, neither of you are to blame.” Then as it occurs to me, I ask, “They brought stories?”

Lenn nods, bit in her teeth, thunder on her brow. “They said she was in the market, acting strange. That they had reason to believe she'd been stealing. Said that when they confronted her, she turned violent. Fled. Had to do their jobs and come after her.” She snorts, bitter.

“What really happened?” I ask.

“What always does,” she answers, “One of 'em saw her going about her business and decided he had to have her. When she turned him away, he tried to take what she wouldn't give. He paid for it, I saw: both eyes black, nose broken, split lip...broken wrist.” She lists each injury with vengeful pride, “Then he made up that horseshit about her being a thief to get back at her. Coward couldn't take the beating he'd earned, needed to soothe his damned pride.” All the fire leaves her, and she sighs. “That was early yesterday, Today, they won't let any of us through the gates. Tomorrow'll be worse. One day,” she laments, “If you'd just been here – one day – earlier, none of this would've happened.”

- - -

I fear for Leda, the fierce and beautiful daughter I've never met. I can picture her so clearly: a younger Lenn with anger's fire in her dark eyes and pride's steel in her spine, blooming bruises and split skin on her fists. A shadowed figure kneeling at her feet, as battered and beaten as they sought to make her. My tardiness put her in a cage, far away from anyone who would help her, from anyone who could help her. “I'm sorry,” I say, to her and her mother who sits before me, hollowed by fear, helplessness, rage, and heartbreak. “I'm so sorry.”

“So am I,” she answers hoarsely, then clears her throat and asks, “So, what will you do now, hm? Where will your road lead you next?”

Would it be kind to follow her lead, I wonder, or kinder still not to? “What are you going to do?” I ask in return. I can't leave this as it is. Not when I made it possible. She doesn't answer, not right away. When she does, I almost wish she kept silent.

“What – can – I do?” she answers. The lamplight weaves golden bands into her gray hair, plays shadows across her scarred hands. “Fighting won't do her any good, and talking? I'm an old woman, and a Royah one. They won't listen to me.”

“So you'll do nothing?!” I challenge. My voice rises, lifted by the image of Leda in a dark cage of iron bars. “You'll just – just sit here and wait?!” There's no helping the disgust in my voice, nor a quick temper's sparking in Lenn's eyes.

“Not your business, is it, girl?!” she growls, sending the challenge back. “Leave it be!”

I set my jaw. Narrow my eyes. “No,” I answer, “I won't. Why won't you do something? Why won't you even – try –?”

Whatever vulnerable part of herself she'd opened to me, she now closes. “I don't have to explain myself,” she says, dismissive. Defensive. “Not to you. We're not kin.”

It's like she's given up. I don't understand. There's something wrong here, and I don't know what it is. Her words sting, as they were meant to. I want to sting her back, to let fly with the venom on my tongue until this is nothing more than a fight.

I don't.

I know how that ends. I've learned that lesson and learned it well. I take a breath and swallow those hurtful words. Instead, I say, “Yes, we are.” Then, “Why won't you help her? She's your – daughter – , she needs you! Why won't you do something?!”

Lenn closes off further. There's pain in every line of her. Helplessness and heartbreak. “You're young,” she says, “You'll understand one day.”

No, I should think I won't. If this is what it means to be grown, then I'll stay young. No matter how wrinkled I get, or how gray, I'll stay young. “If you won't help,” I say, “If you won't...then I will, and – and I'll tell her that when I asked her mother to help me, she turned me away.”

She doesn't answer. It's fine. There's nothing more to say. I lace up my boots with trembling fingers and leave. Behind me, I hear the man who guided me to Lenn call for me to wait. I start running, hurtling through the camp until my blurry eyes see Clarke and Juliana awaiting me. They're sitting around a small fire, feeding it twigs to keep it alight.

Juliana stands up, rising high and higher still. She looks at me with her blue-dark eyes, narrow beneath a thunderhead brow. She asks nothing, simply opening her arms to me. A shuddering gasp escapes me, and I go to her, letting her wrap me in strength and the fire-warmed safety of her hold. Clarke's hand comes to rest between my shoulder blades.

Behind us, a camp closed off. Trapped in its own horrible stillness.

Ahead, the lake breathes fog over the port.