Two weeks had passed since Elbert took Helena in, and they had passed fretfully.
She was confined to her bed for most of the day, and when she wasn’t, she wasn’t allowed to wander far. It was a pity because the bookseller’s home seemed vast and full of secrets.
Her injuries were slow to heal, but Elbert didn’t fuss over them, so she assumed that it was normal. He was gone for the majority of the day, leaving early and returning late.
Sophie was there, though, and she took her nursing duties very seriously. She administered doses of Yinroot three times a day, changed Helena’s bandages, and brought her meals. The food wasn’t special, but it was a significant improvement over the bland porridge served once a day at the orphanage.
In between meals, they talked. Sophie explained that Elbert had taken her in about a year ago and had been mentoring her ever since. She wanted to become a physician, and he was teaching her the basics on his days off. From her stories, he seemed like a kind man.
Helena was still undecided.
Her father had pretended to be a decent man plenty of times in the past and she fell for it each and every time. She trusted kind people about as much as she trusted her own judgment.
Still, for now he was letting her use a spare room with a little window overseeing the market - and she was determined to appreciate every minute spent in it. To savor the quiet chirping of the birds in the mornings. The sound of Sophie preparing breakfast downstairs. The absence of threats and doors being slammed on their hinges.
“Thank you,” she told Sophie one afternoon when she came to collect her empty plate.
The other girl paused in her tracks. Helena rarely contributed to their conversations or talked at all. She mostly listened, so Sophie was not used to being addressed by her unprompted.
“Sure, I don’t mind,” Sophie replied, taking a seat on the edge of the bed, interpreting Helena’s words as an invitation.
“I’ve been stuck binding books and organizing shelves for weeks before you came along. I thought I would die of boredom.” She added.
“Does he do that a lot? Look for injured street urchins to take care of?” Helena asked before she could stop herself.
She remembered that when Elbert found her, he was carrying a bag of medical supplies. Not to mention that he lived in a wealthier part of Giria, and she couldn’t imagine why else he would be in Lower Lakeside.
Sophie didn’t seem surprised at the question.
“Pretty regularly, yeah. The past few weeks have been slow though.” She said, then added -
“Just before you we were treating a pregnant lady, and there was also a young boy that managed to chop his finger off working at the butcher’s. You should’ve seen it - there was blood everywhere. It was real gross.”
‘And yet it’s only the two of us in this house.’ Helena thought to herself, ignoring the gory image that Sophie so casually painted.
‘I need to be prepared for when he decides I’m well enough to leave’
She felt a pang of jealousy in her heart. Sophie clearly had something the rest of his patients did not - including herself.
Xxx
When Helena was eight years old, she found herself at a wedding.
It was her father’s betrothal to what must have been her third or fourth or fifth stepmother. She always got them confused.
Looking back on it now, she couldn't really blame herself. He had a very specific taste in women; Overly perfumed, recently widowed and in possession of more gold than he knew what to do with.
She remembered trying her best to be excused from the whole ordeal - promising her father that she would attend his next wedding. She’d said so entirely innocently. Unfortunately for her, third or fourth or fifth stepmother didn’t see things that way, and she went to bed with a ringing cheek and no dinner.
She made sure to be extra behaved and obedient when she was around from then on. Especially on the day of the wedding, when she let her new maid tug and pull her fair into a bun so tight it was giving her a constant headache.
"Little miss Bowbridge,"
A lady with a mouse-like face approached Helena, who didn't realize she was being addressed until she was nudged harshly by her father. After all, she'd been a Little Miss Harlow, Beckham, Goldsworth and another two surnames she couldn't quite recall in the past three years alone.
"Ah, yes. Pleased to meet you my lady,"
She gave the woman a feeble attempt at a courtesy, but in the dress that was chosen for her even sitting down would be considered an achievement.
The wedding progressed well, but Helena made sure to stay out of the way as the evening set in. She knew once the newlyweds were alone and her father had to answer very basic questions like ‘Where is our new house?’, things would get ugly.
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She didn’t know how he managed to trick women so easily.
‘I mean what do they talk about when they go out? The weather? How do these things not come up?’ She pondered.
Either way once the women he tricked found out, they had a few months of living in luxury until the divorce proceedings were completed. In that time, her father made sure to spend as much of his new wealth as he could get away with.
It was strange, wearing beautiful dresses one day, and the next repurposing them into blankets to keep them warm in the winter.
What was left when they were back living on the streets was all spent on Reposeweed.
There was probably nothing she despised more in this world than the red, foul-smelling powder. When he was on it her father would sit unmoving for days, always with a dreamlike smile on his face. He didn’t react to the cold, his own hunger or her voice. He only stirred when the effects were starting to wear off.
Then the paranoia would hit. He would spend days believing that she had stolen his supply, or had money he could use to buy more. No matter how much she assured him, he never believed her.
The kindest thing he ever did was leaving her at the orphanage.
Of course, he couldn’t have predicted that the place would be even worse than living on the streets at time.
Xxx
Elbert trudged through the dark, rainy streets of Lower Lakeside, his boots sinking into the wet gravel, slowing his progress.
He missed Peanut, his old horse.
Looking back, he had no idea what possessed him to choose such a name. It must have made things very difficult for the bards who had the unfortunate job of immortalizing him in song at the time. "Soren the Merciless, the terror of the land, on noble Peanut, his mighty right hand" just didn't quite fit with the tales of his savagery.
He changed his route again, this one bringing him under the bare laundry lines that connected Saint Serenity’s orphanage and the building across from it.
Dim lights flickered in some of the windows, but the place was silent as a graveyard. It didn’t sit well with him. It was unnatural for a place with so many children to be this quiet - even at this time of night.
He frequently altered his routes on the way to Veilbreakers meetings, but deep down, he knew he had chosen this path on purpose.
Helena never mentioned the orphanage, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that it was her former residence. He was never any good at keeping his curiosity in check. It was why when he was no longer fit to serve on the front lines he switched to reconnaissance.
A door opened, and Elbert maneuvered himself into the narrow space between two buildings.
A young girl of about ten stepped out.
There wasn’t enough grime in the world to hide the terrified expression on her face as she whipped her head around in every direction. When she concluded that the path was clear, she took a hesitant step outside.
She tiptoed around the building for a few long minutes, peeking inside barrels and behind bushes. Whatever she was searching for wasn’t there, but it didn’t seem to slow her down. Every so often, she cupped her hands to her mouth to whisper something into the night air.
As she completed her third lap around the building, a light flickered on in a window on the first floor. He heard footsteps slowly descending towards the door, but the young girl seemed completely unaware.
Elbert cursed himself and his curiosity - he was already going to be late to the meeting.
He glanced around, quickly assessing his options. He spotted a small stone on the ground, carefully picked it up and then tossed it in the direction of the door. The girl’s head snapped towards the sound.
She managed to hide behind a bush just as the nun stepped outside. Fortunately, the woman was more focused on lighting her pipe than on her surroundings. If she had been paying closer attention, Elbert was almost certain the girl would have been spotted.
Letting out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, he finally headed in the direction of the old watchtower.
Xxx
“Settle down, everybody,”
A young man in elaborate fancy clothing stood at the podium, looking distressed. Elbert couldn’t recall seeing him before.
Back in his day, the rebel army mainly consisted of farmers and fishermen, but in recent years, he’d noticed more and more middle-class and even nobility joining the fray.
It perplexed him. In the early days of the revolution the movement wasn’t exactly kind to people with means. Sometimes wrongfully, brutally so. And even if things had changed since then - he didn’t see what a man like the one standing in front of him could possibly benefit from enlisting.
He looked around the room. Unsurprisingly, he spotted Ollie in the crowd. The squire waved at him cheerfully when he noticed him in turn, munching on a sweet potato. A few other young men seemed to be treating the situation like some sort of celebration too, all of them talking loudly between themselves.
When it didn’t seem like things were going to quiet down any time soon, the man at the podium pulled out what looked like a makeshift megaphone made of a hollowed-out horn. If the watchtower wasn’t in the middle of abandoned wheat fields, someone would’ve needed to knock some sense into him. It still seemed like a risky choice to Elbert.
“People, please quiet down, we have a lot to discuss!” The man said, this time achieving the results he was looking for.
“As you all know, we’re gathered here tonight to choose our next general, who will guide us through these trying times.”
Elbert couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, but the words sounded rehearsed, as if practiced several times in front of a mirror.
“Our cause is righteous,” the speaker added, his voice laden with self-importance.
“For too long, the Crown has waged its cruel tyranny upon the simple folk, crushing their spirits beneath the iron heel of its oppression. They, in their ivory towers and gilded halls, turn a blind eye to the suffering they sow. Their taxes bleed our people dry, their decrees shackle us with endless toil.”
Elbert wondered if the man saw the irony in his own words - standing there wearing the latest fashions made by Giria’s best tailors. He found himself growing increasingly annoyed.
“Tonight,” The speaker continued after pausing dramatically.
“We stand not merely to select a new general, but to affirm our defiance against their heartless rule. We will cast down their false idols and usher in a new era of justice and freedom. Let it be known that our struggle is not in vain and our resistance will not be forgotten!”
It seemed Elbert wasn’t the only one who found the speech overly theatrical, as the ensuing applause was subdued. He wasn’t pleased with the “false idols” line either; he didn’t see what the Holy Five had to do with this.
The speaker left the podium, allowing two other men to step forward. One appeared to be in his early twenties, dressed modestly and wearing a dark cape, while the other was a severe-looking middle-aged man.
The speeches they gave were just as long and dramatic as the first, and Elbert left the meeting feeling deeply concerned about the future of the cause to which he had dedicated most of his life.
Xxx
Elbert entered his home quietly and made his way to the living room, intending to warm himself with a nice cup of tea - when he noticed that his favorite spot on the sofa was already taken.
Sophie and Helena were fast asleep, his thickest winter blanket covering them from their chins to their toes.
He tucked the blankets more snugly around them with his free hand.
Then he snuffed out the candle beside them and went to drink his tea in his bedroom instead.