Forgiven

Forgiven

Lucy and Ed’s daughter and son attended private schools in different suburbs and Lucy still dropped them off and picked them up again in the afternoons. It was during this routine that her daughter Peggy had been very curt with Lucy and this had been the case since Lucy moved out of the family home “to think.” This had meant that Lucy had to drive from her mother Harriet’s home, where she was now staying, to the house where she used to live with Ed and the kids every morning, a practice for which she got up extra early so she could be on time.

It was one such morning that Peggy’s teacher Mrs Josephs had come up to Lucy to find out if everything was ok at home. The teacher was a middle-aged woman who was thick around her middle and she wore her hair short as a boy, with plastic-rimmed spectacles and wide-legged pants.

Lucy had felt ambushed by Mrs Josephs questions especially when Mrs Josephs had told Lucy that Peggy was depressed and that she wanted to make sure she was getting the right attention from her parents. She did not want to tell Mrs Josephs that she had left her husband and he was contesting the divorce as she didn’t think it was Mrs Josephs business to know that much about their personal life.

“I thank you for your concern,” Lucy said, “please tell me the behaviours you noticed and her father and I will deal with it privately.”

Mrs Josephs had then said that Peggy had slacked on her homework and become difficult to manage in class. She was only nine but she had been in fights with other students and was generally acting out. Mrs Josephs told Lucy that Peggy had sworn at a boy in class and called him a name which Mrs Josephs did not want to repeat. A name that had to do with sexuality.

On the drive taking the kids home that day Lucy asked them, and it was not the first time she asked, if they were doing ok, but she knew that they were not. They had been different with her since she left and she knew this to be because their father was filling their heads with his own version of events. She had tried to talk to them before but they had just shut down so today instead of going home Lucy drove to the ice-cream shop so they could sit down and talk.

With waffles and pistachio and mint cones they sat down at a table and avoided each other’s eyes while eating.

Eventually to break the silence Lucy said, “Do you know why I want to leave?” she asked, and Peggy and Sean didn’t answer at first, they just ate their waffles, but she asked them again and Peggy blurted out, “Dad says because you don’t want to love us anymore.”

Lucy’s heart sank and all she wanted to do was make them see how lonely she had been in that marriage, how she loved them but she had felt so empty for so long, how she had felt this way for many years. How she still wanted them and loved them. She searched for the words and all she could find was that she wanted them all to be happy, to feel free.

“You’re hurting Dad,” Peggy said, and her son echoed.

“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” she said. “This might be difficult to go through now, but you’ll see in the end it’ll be the right thing. Sometimes things hurt when we do them but later we can tell it was the right thing.”

On the drive home that day Lucy felt low and at fault and selfish, but she still could not picture herself living her life with Ed anymore, being his wife. Too much had happened and she had tried. She typed into Grok, “Child psychologists in Longview” and it popped up a list of names. When she got home she chose one and made an appointment for the kids to start going to therapy.”

_____________________________

 “What do you mean he wants to interdict Peter?” Harriet was in the garden in a wide-brimmed straw sunhat and oversized sunglasses delighting in the sunshine. They were at her suburban home as she pruned her rosebush babies and planted a new batch of St Joseph lillies at the back of the lawn. “These will bloom come summer,” she said, “I want them near the lemon trees for the scent.” They were her babies ever since Lucy, her only daughter, had left home for college and then dropped out to marry Ed and start a family of her own. According to Harriet, Lucy had not cared that she did not much approve of Ed and she had wanted Lucy to turn him down in favour of one of the Davison boys, whose mother was a friend of Harriet’s. Lucy did not let her mother dictate her decisions and so Harriet for one had not been surprised by the marriage falling apart, only surprised that it had taken so long. In this regard, her orange garden gloves, much like her conscience as a mother were stained in patches of soil and compost.

“Exactly what I said Mom, he’s applying for an interdict to keep Peter and I apart.”

“But darling, can that be done? He hasn’t beaten you or anything has he.”

“No Mom,” Lucy said sipping on a glass of cold lemonade as she sat at the garden table watching Harriet prune. “Apparently it’s some ancient law and Ed’s using it to hurt us. As if the kids aren’t torn up enough already. This is so typically selfish of him. Arrrgh!”

“I don’t want to say I told you so.”

“Please don’t. I need emotional support not judgement from my mother, none of the kids will talk to me. He’s got their heads completely bamboozled.”

“More than I could get away with you.”

“He’s blaming me, making them hate me. I left to think things through but I just,” Lucy broke down in tears, “I just couldn’t go back to him. I don’t know what to do Mom.”

“This is a small town honey, and you have to be ready for what people will say. Are you ready for judgement?”

Harriet pulled at the finger ends of her gloves one by one and pulled them off. “Oh honey,” she said, and went over to where Lucy sat and hugged her, “How did you get into this, my sweet sweet child.”

__________________________

The street in the suburb was dark with only a few lights beyond drawn curtains still casting yellow glimmering shadows in the distance. A man was walking his dog and the dog ran ahead of him as the man stuck his hands into the pockets of his jacket to keep them warm. A Subaru came down the road and Ed, sitting in his parked car under a tree, lowered his body to conceal himself, biting into what was left of a polony gatsby. The feint sound of music blurred into the air as the car whizzed past him. Aside from this the road was quiet and Ed sat there all alone, only his regrets to keep him company. He had been there all night and was not sure what had brought him out here, only that he had gotten an undefeatable urge at 1am to know exactly where Lucy was and to see exactly what she was doing. This was silly perhaps, because parked outside her mother Harriet’s house, where she was staying through the divorce, he could not even see her, only that the house was already dark. Lucy had always been an early sleeper, but these days he did not think she was being herself, and he was starting to feel that he did not know her anymore, that the woman he wanted so hard to keep had become a stranger to him. He could not pinpoint precisely when the rift between them began, but the woman he had married had loved him and had wanted a family with him and Ed was not sure how this had changed without him even noticing it until they ended up where they were now. Lucy could pinpoint the time better  than he could, after all, it had been her unhappiness. She had started to drift in her heart from the life they had together the night they had one of their famous dinner parties and his colleague Abdul brought a woman along, Tracy, whom he had just started seeing. 

"Where do you live?" Lucy had asked her, trying to decipher her accent, and she replied that she'd spent most of her life traveling, not living in one place for longer than necessary, Rome when she was younger, then London, Casablanca, now Cape Town. She'd only stayed when she was in love.  

"I'm a writer," she said, "the freedom invigorates me." 

"Don't you ever feel, I dunno, displaced?" Lucy had asked her, "I'd miss having roots, steady ground, " and Tracy smiled and said, "the only time I've ever feel truly alone was when I tried to live according to other people's rules and expectations. I'd have to compromise my joy too much."

After that Lucy had started to question the motives behind all of her own conformity, the choices she'd made because it seemed the proper way to be. Required. Was any of it even really her?

Now Ed sat outside her childhood home, witnessing her transformation. 

A light in the house went on and a surge of adrenalin shot through Ed as he adjusted his eyes. He had considered hiring a private detective to watch Lucy, to know what she was doing, when she was doing it, and who she was doing it with, but instead he’d found himself trailing her across town for weeks, consumed by her absence from their usual routine.

He strained his eyes to see across the road and coming out of the house he saw a hooded figure, a woman, Lucy, dressed in jeans and wearing a cap. Ed’s attention switched to high alert as he watched Lucy get into her car, reverse out of the driveway, and drive off. He put his foot down on the accelerator slowly, with a sombre hunch about where she was going, and if he was right, he was not going to stand by and let it happen.

The highway was busy and he managed to stay well enough behind her so that he could follow without being noticed. At a robot he nearly lost her but caught up again where she had stopped at the garage to get petrol. A car attendant in blue overalls was humming a song as he washed her car window under the bright lights amid the darkened streets, dragging a yellow rag across it. With his window rolled down a bit Ed could hear the radio playing loudly for the night staff. He watched Lucy go into the all night deli and she came out five minutes later with a coffee, still wearing the cap, he waited quietly nearby and then followed her again. They drove like this for twenty minutes. He checked his watch.

______________________

Ed parked across the road again, this time as Lucy got out of her car and went into the gallery. She stood at the door for a few seconds, wrapping her knuckles against the window, the upstairs light went on and then the downstairs light, and Peter opened the door. The two hugged and gave each other a passionate kiss, then they went inside and the door closed. Right in Ed’s face.

Ed’s blood burgeoned. How could Lucy do this? She didn’t even care that they were still technically married to each other. He banged his fist against the steering wheel with a hard force and the hooter honked, although he did not mean for it to. It startled him and then he saw the gallery curtain move from the window and Peter peered out. Ed ducked low. He wanted to know what they were doing in there, and his anxiety heightened, pulling his breath into a tight stretch, he held his hand over his head, restraining himself from going in there. There was a darkness in him that he always thought Lucy triggered.

Fumbling in his back pocket for his cellphone he rang Morris, his contact at the police station. Morris had been in the police force for over 20 years and he’d investigated a number of cases that Ed tried in court back when he was still a prosecutor. “I’ve got to report a crime buddy,” Ed said, “can you get a squad car out to Peter Michaels gallery in the centre of town. It’s Lucy and that, that, artist she’s fucking. Get down here and arrest them.”

_______________________

Ed waited there until the squad car came, still ducking down and he watched from across the road as a young officer knocked on the door and when Peter opened the door shirtless he could hear his protests as they cuffed him and Lucy and threw them both in the back of the police van. At least he’d had the good sense to file an interdict for alienation of affection against them. Ed knew it was an archaic law that would get thrown out of court, but for now it served the purpose and he couldn’t help but be enthralled at the satisfaction of watching the squad car drive away.

                                                              _____________________

At home Ed had the kids and when he got in he walked up the stairs and straight to their rooms to check on them. Lucy was in a cell by now, he knew this and he didn’t feel sorry for her. No doubt her mother would bail her out. She had brought this into their lives, she had disrupted everything. He was no innocent, he knew this, he’d been a workaholic most of the marriage and it wasn’t like he hadn’t had his share of distractions, but this. What she had done to their family was unforgiveable.

The kids’ lights were out and they were safe beneath their blankets as he stood in the doorway, staring at them so peacefully asleep. The light from outside the window cast shadows against their faces. It killed him that their family was being ripped apart, it’s not what he wanted. They deserved to have their parents together, they deserved to have their Mom and Dad loving each other. He deserved his wife.

That she had broken the interim court order just so she could see that loser was embarrassing. He was an artist of sorts who had led a hippie life with no structure and no consistency. Ed didn’t respect that. She’d met him when she went for art classes, sketching nude models every Wednesday night for two hours, and then one thing had led to another. When she told Ed she blamed him, said that she hadn’t felt seen in years, he snickered with disbelief. An electric wave of anger rippled through Ed’s chest.

“Dad,” Peggy said, opening her eyes, “is that you?”

“It’s me pumpkin, go back to sleep.”

“Is everything ok? Why are you standing there?”

“Everything’s gonna be ok sweetheart, I promise, go back to sleep. Love you.”

“Love you, Dad,” Peggy said and closed her eyes wriggling her small body under the duvet.

Ed closed the door and went downstairs to his study to pour himself over his litigation files but he couldn’t concentrate. In his body he was going back to his childhood and how his mother had been with his father. Ed had not grown up in a stable family, his father had been a man who drank too much and when he got like that he’d take it out on them. Ed remembered cowering in his bedroom when fights broke out and sometimes staving his father off to protect his mother from his fits of rage. This continued until his mother built up enough courage to pack him and his brother up one night and run away to live at his uncle’s house where they stayed in a back garden cottage. After that night they never went back home and they lived in different apartments from time to time until after high school when he left home for college. His younger brother was only younger by two years and he got a job to help pay Ed’s tuition. He shivered thinking of the old times and knew that against all odds he wanted a stable home for his family. That was why he was doing this. That was why he was fighting to make Lucy stay. Ed picked up the phone and called someone who would understand. He called his mother.

___________________

“What the hell do you think you’re doing to my life?” Lucy screamed at Ed the next day, closing the door to his office. She’d stormed in right past the receptionist who couldn’t stop her in time and broken up a meeting he was in. She was livid that she had spent the night in prison and her mother had to bail her and Peter out. “I swear Ed, I’ve tried to understand your side of it, but I’ve had it. Are you following me now, is that what we’ve come to?”

“Close the door,” he said and got up to close the door. “You want everyone to hear you?”

“Aren’t they all already working on our case?”

He stood against the door and lowered his voice. “You couldn’t wait could you, you just had to see him, it was that urgent. Damnit Lucy can you just see this for what it is, a crazy infatuation that’s gone too far and caused too much damage.” Ed walked back to his desk. “Do I really have to stand here and tell you to think about your kids. Are you that selfish?”

“Me? Selfish? You know damn well what our marriage was like. All I’ve been living for are those kids and you know what, I need a life too. I need to feel like I’m still alive and I didn’t get that from you and you know it.”

He pointed around at the office, “Everything I’ve ever done I’ve done for us.”

Lucy said, “the weekends with your receptionist at our cabin by the lake, that was for us?” she said, “and as for this,” she pointed at the office, “I never asked you for it.” Her heart dropped and she let her guard down a bit.

“It’s too late for us Ed. It’s over. There’s no going back. When I testify in court tomorrow I’m going to tell that judge that Peter didn’t lure me away, he saved me from an empty life that looked perfect from the outside but had nothing to hold onto on the inside. That I was just going through the motions like an electronically engineered corpse. I’m gonna tell him Peter didn’t seduce him, but that I’d lost my marriage a long time before he ever came along.”

“I’m gonna fight you every step of the way.”

There was a knock at the door and Ed’s secretary opened and stuck her head in. “There’s an important call for you on Line 2, it’s about the Solomon’s foreclosure.”

“We’re done here,” Lucy said, and she turned toward the door and left.

__________________

The judge was sombre in his black cloak, sitting on the bench overseeing the courtroom. His gray hair and severe features made him look stern and intimidating. Both Ed and Rob had appeared before him in the past. Judge Michaels had a reputation for giving harsh judgements and not entertaining frivolity.

Ed was a good enough lawyer to know he had to have a friend bring his case and Rob was one of the best litigators at their firm. He wanted that personal attachment and he counted him as a confidante and so wanted him on board, even though this was an application and no litigation was expected. The two had worked together at Rogers, Moore, and Saunders for over seven years and had gotten to know each other’s style. One case they worked on together was the Hailey matter that drew a ton of media attention when the State tried to deport a group of refugees back to Somalia. Rob fought that case and won.

 “This is a tragedy your worship,” Rob began, “a tragedy of a family that got ripped apart, children who are being torn from their mother, a husband who loves his wife, who has dedicated his life to them, being indignified by repeated acts of adultery being committed right in his face. An indignity which he is continuing to endure. The family unit is the building block of society your worship, and we should be asking ourselves if this kind of behaviour should go unchecked. Legally, the first issue to be clarified is the delict committed against the applicant. Time and time again the respondent has committed acts of adultery with the applicant’s wife, adultery which will continue to be committed again and again in the future. The respondent will show that the applicant’s wife was enticed away from him, alienating her affections and without court intervention this will continue to go on. The applicant will show that his wife was induced into leaving him. That they were a happy family with two children until she was coaxed away by the respondent and was talked over by him, the acts of enticement proven by incidents his wife relayed to him. Your worship, the applicant calls upon the court to send a message, to intervene to save this marriage and restore to the children their mother and the happy home they were raised in. That the sanctity of the family unit should be heralded as the cornerstone of society’s foundations and that adulterers will be penalised for their actions and disregard for basic human dignity. Modernity and evolution of the law should not erase this.”

He sat down and turned to look at Ed, who was sombre in his seat.

“Your worship, the opposing attorney began, standing up and walking towards the judge’s bench, the applicant is right about one thing, this is a tragedy, but the tragedy is not that the applicant’s wife was coaxed away, the tragedy is that their family broke down irretrievably before the respondent met the applicant’s wife and that she was trapped in a life that didn’t fulfil her. The tragedy your worship is that the respondent met a woman who made a decision in her youth which she later regretted but was being forced to live by. The tragedy your worship is that the respondent is being blamed for the shortcomings of the applicant in the life he built with his wife. The truth your worship is the real tragedy. That the applicant met a broken woman who was desperately in need of love, and if a family unit is the cornerstone of society then it must be a happy family, not the appearance of a family simply going through the motions. The real root of society your worship is the individual and without individual freedom being guaranteed societal freedom can never be guaranteed either. Your worship the respondent denies enticing the applicant’s wife away from him and the stories that the applicant cites in his papers amount to no more than hearsay. The respondent avers that the marriage had already irretrievably broken down when he met the applicant’s wife. He knew this from what the applicant’s wife relayed to him. When she met him she told him she was down, that she couldn’t go on the way things were. The respondent avers the applicant’s remedy is divorce not interdict. The law has long steered clear of the husband’s marital power over his wife and an order preventing adultery cannot be granted as being within the ambit of the court. The testimony will prove that what happened between them occurred from a natural affection that flowed without enticement or coaxing and that his wife was more than a willing participant and in fact instigated the affair.

__________________

That afternoon Ed went for a walk, he felt like being alone to clear his head and he walked from the courthouse, crossing the road into the park across the way. For the first time since the lawsuit he questioned if he was doing the right thing. He wanted Lucy to stay, but he wasn’t sure why anymore. If it was because he loved or if because he just wanted to win. Maybe he was the one being selfish. That had never occurred to him before. That wanting to make someone stay put was cruel when they were telling you they wanted to be free. From the start he’d seen Peter as the villain, but for the first time he wondered if that was who he was too. He was going to have to decide if he wanted to call the lawsuit off or not but either way it was a losing case, all he could do was buy time. It seemed that the threat of blocking Lucy was all that was left of their relationship.

At the park he noticed couples holding hands, strolling, clinging to each other. Couples seemed to favour taking walks in parks and he seemed to see them everywhere he looked. An elderly couple with gray hair holding hands. That wasn’t going to be him and Lucy, he felt that now, they had started out together in life, built a family, but they weren’t going to be that old couple madly in love until the day they died. It was true that he’d worked too much. That he’d had his fun, his women, until she’d started playing that game too. The truth was he had never thought she would leave him. Two kids and 14 years, amounting to what?

Ed sat down on the wooden bench near the pond to watch them and saw how intimately they looked at each other. Like they had their own language and were in their own world. The man bent in and kissed the woman on her forehead and then they walked on, disappearing into the pathway behind a row of trees, the ducks gobbling up little pieces of bread they’d left behind.

___________________

 

Amlavi

 Amlavi

Part 1

Day by day the scene is fixed but the sky changes, the dunes grow tall and then low yet it is all the same. It blends into each other like an ocean of sand washing over the horizon. It seems that we do not move very far but night and day pass over and over us. Sand blows hard against our skin. We thirst and our limbs grow tired. We are the Amlavi. We travel from place to place. Yet we have not always been like this, it is how we live now, carrying our belongings where we go. It’s meant we have learnt to live without too much of what is unnecessary. 

 

The desert saunters, as is its nature. All things have their nature and nature can be cruel and it can be dangerous. Even people are like this. Father has said you must learn to understand so you can protect yourself. We should be used to it by now but a dry thirst scrapes against the middle of my throat as if I have never tasted the coolness of water. Some things you never get used to. Some things you can’t control.

 

“The winds blow East,” my father, Lord Hilaram says turning his head to face us. He is the leader of our people and I watch how he conceals his sadness. He has tried to be strong so that those of us who are left can keep up our spirits. It’s been a struggle since we ran from home, the journey treacherous. The camels carry enough provisions for the few of us. It will not last forever. It is like good times or bad times, nothing lasts forever. The others are still there, we left them behind, or they left us behind. This has been difficult to accept. Father says nothing of it yet, but he must be disappointed that more people didn’t choose to flee with him. It’s the kind of realisation that breaks a man’s heart. My sister Amrain, she is not with us either.

______________________

 

 

“Cover your face, a storm is brewing, “it will be with us in the next few hours,” he calls out, raising his hand to feel the direction of the wind, then he turns to look at Rainier, one of the 5 councilmen. “Send the navigator ahead to dig, we will camp near water, for now we rest,” he covers his face with the scarf around his neck.

 

Rainier turns his horse and at a speed gallops to the back of our party to find Fiban. He was one of the Berbers we brought with us to make our way through the desert. Without his knowledge of the sky we would be lost. A man must be trained in the ways of the stars to know how to lead with it.

Fiban gallops forward and stops to nod at my father, then like the wind he moves ahead of us leaving clouds of smoke and dust. He will find what we need.

A murmuring drifts through our party as people dismount.

“Rest!” my father calls out.

The camels fold their legs and sit. People drink water and chatter amongst each other. Though the heat is like fire, the sun is almost dipping and beginning to leave us on this 21^st day of the moon year 700. We have been travelling for 36 days.

 

_____________________

 

“A storm,” Mirab says, his voice strong, concealing fear. He is a councilman like Rainier, but much younger than him and without my father’s unequivocal trust. Like the other councilmen he wears a tunic in light beige with a rope fastened around his waist. That is how you know the elders. From this and their short beards. The councilman were not appointed by my father. They were voted for by the Order of knights, the nation’s noblest of warriors. While he has gotten on well with Rainier the same is not true of all 5 councilmen, but the country’s law is to demand they be consulted. My father has always sworn by the law of our land, to disregard it will cause him dishonour, but now that we are fleeing things may be different. We will need new rules out here. We will have to make new ways. We travel with a few soldiers, much of the army was slain and the others are home with the new ruler. They were stronger than us, their fighters tactical. Our kingdom has been usurped by a brute who steals by war.

 

“That is not a ruler they chose nor love,” the Councilmen whispered as we fled into the desert, but people are fickle my father says. It was not the people’s heads they wanted.

“You were greatly loved,” Rainier told him, but my father feared the people’s loyalties did not run that deep.

 

“If we camp under the shadow of the boulders, there,” he pointed, “the storm will blow over without burying us alive. Then we can journey on.”

Rainier and Mirab listen close. “We are so few now.”

My father looks grim.

“Sire, this traveling is treacherous,” Mirab said. “The Berber spoke of a city ahead. We should not chance our luck in a storm.”

“What do you suggest,” my father replied. “That we stay out in the open, ready to be buried in sand graves. The city is miles in the distance, the storm hours away, we will not reach there in time, that is to assume the people be gentle enough to take us in and not slaughter us for our belongings and our womenfolk. Which chance would you prefer to take my dear Councilman. You have lived through the war same as I, do you want to put your trust in a city of strangers that you might not even find.”

The councilmen fell silent, Pytr, Halaq, and Iury were alongside too now, listening to my father.

Our provisions are meagre but some say we will be happier now. When we were a great people we had so much to lose we could never be happy. Now that life is simple joy will come easy. Not everyone in the tribe agrees with this. There are those who want the old world back. They will not rest until it is so once again. I have overheard father and the councilmen talking. Our most important aim is to reunite with our people.

 

 “We will camp beneath the boulders on the other side of the dunes,” Pytr said agreeing.

“So it is then,” my father said as he looked out for Fiban, “so it is.”

_____________________________

 

When Fiban returned an hour later the sun was low in the sky, but he bore good news, carrying a pitcher filled with clean water from where he had dug it out beneath the sand. The discovery was not too far from the shelter, only about half the distance between the boulder and where we stood now.

 

My father led the way and we made camp beneath the stone jutting out from a sea of dunes. It did not look that far but the journey was slow and arduous. The eye can trick you with distance. By the time we found it close by it was dusk and the light was fading and we were tired again. All you have in these conditions are the people around you and I felt I needed them, my mother and father, my siblings to make me feel safe. It had been so lonely. That was the hardest part of leaving home. An overwhelming sense that you did not belong anywhere anymore. Like there was no place on this earth that was yours. We had already lost my sister and I felt it bearing on me. I wondered where she was now, if she wondered if we were ok, or if she was too happy in her foreign world. Thinking of this broke my heart and I looked for my mother and young siblings.

 

If she had been here she’d be pestering me about my habits, my way of riding, the way I read too much from the books I brought with me from the old city, the way I could go quiet and she’d tap me against my spine, or rumple up my hair just to get my attention. She was two years older and she had been my first friend.

 

Under the boulder we made camp and I went over to help my mother with our shelter. I watched the twins whom she had been carrying with her throughout the journey. They were only 3 moon years but could talk so much. I could tell they missed Amrain too. She had helped my mother too to take care of them.

Inside the tent I tickled them until even Driar giggled. He was quieter than Muir who was a playful girlchild. Driar could be a sullen boy. People said he had my father’s temperament, that it was usual for boys to be still.

 

“Your father has made a fire, you can feed them shortly,” Mother said, “Let them play a bit with the other children. But do not leave them with anyone.” She was very protective since their birth had been a difficult one and she almost died bringing them into this world. The baby she had before them was born but not breathing. We buried him in the old city, near the grounds where the people went to worship the gods. Father said mother was as strong as any dragon for what she survived.

 

I fed the twins and amused them with noises and games. Other children gathered round us. We had had many mules back in the old city and so they laughed when I made neighing noises. We had horses too, but they are no good in the desert. In the old city my family had lived in a modest castle. Driar giggled and reached out to touch my face as if he was trying to tickle me back. I laughed with him, then Muir, until they squealed loudly. They turned 3 shortly before the war caused us to leave home. Soon they would not remember that life anymore. I worried they would never know the life we had most of my years alive.

 

Around the camp other people were making fires until it was a glowlight of tents and flames amid the desert sand. When the storm hit nobody was truly prepared.

 

It came fast and unexpected, the sharp wind that blew across, striking like a bolt of lightning. A gust of sand scathed against my face scraping my skin. I fell over so that Driar and Muir fell with me. The twins started to cry then and when I looked the fire had been wiped out. I threw my eyes across the camp and saw we were not the only ones who had felt it. The storm was creeping into the settlement and people were frantic because they were scared. There was no time to cry though, another gust of sand blew furiously over us, knocking me off my feet. Everyone scuffled for safety, the wind tossed sparks from the fire around the camp. One tent was aflame. People were screaming now.

 

“Fire!” they called out and a few men rushed to douse it with sand. People were running around throwing water where there were sparks.

 

“Kill the fires. Kill the fires! Go inside!” the Councilmen screamed. “Storm!” more sand came rushing in a violent burst of wind, knocking people off their feet and blowing possessions around like air. Visibility became near impossible between the gusts of blowing sand.

 

“Retreat! Retreat!”

 

I fumbled to pick up Driar and Muir. Driar ran away from me thinking we were playing a game and Muir cried out for mother. I tried to hold onto her while running after him and when I found him I beat him against his thigh. “This is not the time to play,” I screamed, frenzied as another gust of wind blew over and I grabbed them both and looked for our tent. Mother was rushing towards me, calling our names. I could barely see as I ran to her dragging Muir and Driar with me until she was near enough to grab them and put her arm around us, dragging us into the tent with her.

 

The gusts of sand came harder and faster as we sat as far underneath the boulder as we could, covering our faces and eyes with scarves, waiting for the storm.

 

_________________________

 

“If the sand gets in your nose and mouth you’ll suffocate. Here,” Agia’s father said wetting scarves and passing it to them. “Hold your heads down, and bend over so you don’t get lifted away, cover your nose, eyes, and mouths.”

 

Agia was squeezed over the twins fitting them tightly into her lap, and around her, her mother Bilari and father Lord Hilarim held a protective embrace. This was how they stayed for the duration of the storm.

 

“May the gods be with us,” Bilari said, gripping onto her family as wind and sand raged between and over them. You could hear it howling across the desert, menacing, and all around the tent shook, blowing their belongings from side to sad, pots and utensils rattled and clanged against each other.  

 

It became harder for Hilaram to hold onto the beam of the tent as the storm grew. His eyes began to feel scratchy from minute grains of sand filtering in through his scarf.

Outside there was screaming between the howls of the wind, he wanted to go see but it was difficult to move against the storm.

 

The pressure of sand and wind ripped a deep cut into the side of Hilaram’s tent, breaking it only a little, a gash, but as the wind beat against it it tore deeper until it split into a long opening.

“Hold onto the beam,” he screamed and they tried to hold it together but they were in the open now and the sand and wind ripped the beam in two bringing the tent collapsing down.

“Cover your faces,” Bilari screamed, “my children, the gods help us!” holding on tighter.

 “Keep huddling down,” Hilaram screamed holding onto his family and when he raised his face for a moment he saw through the sand a vague silhouette near their tent. There was a little boy, alone, holding onto a piece of cloth still tied to a wooden beam.

 

“Where was his family,” he worried they were hurt and looked to Bilari and his children and saw that they were safe.

“Stay here,” he commanded “and keep holding onto each other. “Whatever you do don’t let go.”

“Wait, where are you going?” Bilari panicked as he crawled away from them into the thick density of the sand and wind, “We need you, don’t go!”

“I have to,” he said, I am the Sire.

“No! Stay!”

“No,” came the swift reply. He could barely see anything ahead of his face and Bilari was frantic but he knew he had to go.

“Stay!” she called out again. “What about us?”

“You’re safe,” he said, “Stay together. I’ll be back.”

 

He crawled through the sand trying to see the boy he had spotted but it was difficult to see past his own hands. Instead he used his voice to call out so the boy could call back and he could follow the sound.

“Wait there,” he called out. “I’m coming for you.”

The boy cried out, “Mamma, Pappa.”

 

Desert brambles swept across Hilarim’s hands as he crawled toward the voice, scraping him against his cheeks until it burned. He wiped his face and when he looked his hands were covered with smudges of blood. He called out to the boy again to make sure where he was going.

 

“I’m here,” Hilaram called crawling closer.

 

The sun had sunk and the desert was cold now, the temperatures low enough for him to shiver.  

 

It was difficult to breathe and the air had given him a dry cough but he pushed ahead. As he moved a beam fell against him, hitting him hard against his left arm. It left a wound that bled. He screamed out in pain and stopped for a moment to check, but the boy called back, “Help, Mamma,” and so he kept moving, crawling on his other arm until he reached out and felt the boy within reach.

“I’ve got you, you’re safe,” he said pulling him close. They crawled back together to a place under the boulder huddling over each other to make them stronger against the wind.

 

So they stayed until the storm was over.

______________________

 

Afterwards it was dark and cold in the thick desert air, but visibility was clear now that the storm died away.

Hilaram went to his family first, they were all there and for this he felt relieved and guilty.

He went with the Councilmen around the camp to see what damage there was. They found the boy’s parents, who were frantic without him. His mother was crying and grabbed him from Hilarim, who comforted her quietly. Hilarim did not have to do this. He could send the Councilmen and stay with his wife and children but he wanted to show the people he felt their pain.

The storm was short but the damage was far. Provisions had been blown away, they were even more short of water and meat and bread. People were hurt too. They had wounds and there was blood, but by the gods graces nobody had died. That was the victory. They would try to rebuild what they could with what was left behind, wooden beams and muslin enough to make a tent for everyone to sleep, they’d have some protection from the elements. They would keep each other warm until the morning came. They would make fire and tend to the wounded.  

 

Bilari cleaned Hilaram’s arm with an alcohol soaked bandage. He took the twins and held them close. Agia attended to her father by making him a strong drink. “We are lucky,” he said, “we have each other.”

 

But around the camp people were despondent and cold and hungry.  

 

“The morale is low,” Rainier gave word as the Councilmen discussed among themselves. “People are feeling the blow. We’ve lost provisions, how much longer will our food last?”

 

And as they canvassed the matter with each other’s counsel, the heavens opened up wide and amid the cold desert air, a deep thrashing rain began to fall. The people stood, as the rain beat down hard against the sand.

_________________________

 

It had been four days since the storm and the rains. At least they had been able to collect water. But that was not enough. They were tired and weather-beaten, and weak.

 

Bilari held Muir close to her chest as they continued on their way through the desert.

A murmuring of coughs spread amongst the people. Some had taken ill and were suffering from the inclement weather. Muir was one of them. She had shivering followed by a fever.

 

Jari, the father of Metin and father-in-law to Sarah had been the first to succumb. He began by coughing and took so ill they had to stop for a while to tend to him, but he was too old and sickly to feel so ill. He was one of the oldest to flee with the tribe, refusing to live under a new ruler. His loyalty had been marked by Hilarim and he felt a special tenderness for him.

Brave to the end he refused to hold everyone back and insisted they keep going that he was strong enough.  But as the camels rode he started to get the cold shivers again, his face became pallid, and when they stopped once again to make a fire so he could warm himself it was already too late. Sarih held him in her arms dabbing his forehead with a damp cloth. So it continued for two days and when he still did not get better he told them to leave him behind. Jari and Sarah could not bear to hear him say this and demanded that he let them help him. That they would stay there with him alone and be prey to the sandwolves if they must.

 

It was then that Muir started coughing as well. Her mother kept her cool with a wet scarf but she was not getting better either. She was too little to fight off the pneumonia without the help of a healer. Myrcella had made a potion for her to drink made of water that she had whispered sage blessings on, bidden to the gods, but it had not helped. She slipped between fever and cold shivers like the Jari old man did and all Bilari could do was keep her comfortable. For two days she had stopped speaking and her lips were pale and cracked.

They tried to feed her but she did not want to take food and when they made her drink she could not keep even water down.

 

On the third day Jari the old man was lying by the fire in the night camp to keep warm when he let out a soft gasp. Moments later his son called out, “Father! My father!”

 

Hilarim thought perhaps the man was recovering and finding his speech, but this was not the case. He had let out his last breath and there was no life in him anymore. His son closed his eyes and made a prayer, a blessing for his soul.

 

The Councilmen and Hilarim joined his son in burying his body. That night they kept him with them in the tent to protect him from sandwolves, and the next day they rode out on camels to find a place where he could rest in peace. As they dug two eagles hovered above, watching, and they made sure they dug deep into the sand to hide him from the scourge of predators.

 

“He has died in the name of freedom,” Hilarim said, “the cowards who stayed behind in the old city had not half the heart your father had. It is an honourable death.” Metin could not think how little that mattered to him now when he would never have the comfort of his father’s embrace or wisdom, when his children born and unborn would not know their grandfather or hear his tales. Maybe they should have stayed back with the others. Maybe if they had not been so proud he would not have lost his life. But what dignity was there in living under a new king who had his own ways. They could not have lived that life.

 

Rainier and the councilmen patted Metin on the back and had few words that could comfort. “More people are coughing,” Rainier said, “your own daughter is one of them.”

 

Hilarim listened. He did not want to lose another daughter. Not after he had lost Amrain the way he had. “The city,” he replied. “The city that lies ahead of us.”

 

And so it was decided, with sickness spreading they would have to go to the city and without knowing what they would find there they would do the near unthinkable, they would ask another tribe for help.

 

When they turned to go they felt sombre, leaving a modest plank impaled into the sand to mark the grave with an X, although it was the middle of no man’s land it seemed only right, and as they left and made their way back to the camp more eagles descended from the sky, and hovered over the final resting place.

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TO BE CONTINUED…