Stay With Me

That night the rain came down hard and rough, rattling the window in its frame without mercy. A flash of blinding light tore across the glass, and the brightness washing over my face pulled my eyes open at once. I’d been drifting in and out of sleep, half-waiting for Herman.

The weather’s turned truly foul.

Half-dreaming, I’d already checked the place beside me more times than I could count. Each time I found the bed empty, and worn out with waiting for him, I only let my eyes fall shut again just as they were.

Then, out of the darkness, a faint sound of breathing reached me. I turned quickly toward it. Through my bleary, wavering sight I made out the swell of a broad shoulder; even in the pitch-black dark, those bold, insistent features could only be Herman Ernst’s. When he’d come back and lain down I couldn’t have said, but there he was, brow furrowed, back teeth clenched tight.

“Your Excellency.”

A low rumble broke into a crack, and hard on its heels came a sound like the sky being torn open. Flinching in spite of myself, I reached out a careful hand.

“Your Excel—”

One finger came to rest against that solidly built body. The heat of him startled me, and only then did it strike me that I mustn’t touch him carelessly. I moved to draw my hand back.

“Hah.”

Another rough groan tore its way out from between his even teeth. Even in sleep, Herman wore the look of a man bearing down hard against pain.

“H-Herman.”

Laying a hand on his shoulder was an act closer to instinct than to thought. With my small hands I shook that huge body, my mouth calling his name all the while.

“Just a moment, Herman. Wake up, please.”

At the shaking, Herman dragged in a ragged breath and opened his eyes. He bolted upright so fast the motion shoved me back, and I curled small, one hand still resting against his chest.

“Haah. Haah.”

As he looked at me like that, Herman seemed to come back to reality by slow degrees. Beneath lashes that lifted and fell, over and over, his deep grey eyes searched out my flustered gaze.

“You— you seemed to be having a bad dream.”
“…”
“Is something troubling you?”

Even in the brief moment I spent studying him, Herman’s breathing stayed ragged and uneven. He’d woken from the nightmare, and still something seemed to hold him fast.

“It’s nothing.”

Herman said, dragging a hand roughly down his face.

“It’s just — the smell of the rain, and the thunder.”

The smell of rain and the sound of thunder, of all things. Between the state Herman was in and the answer he’d given, I could find no real thread of cause and effect at all.

“But how, exactly, are you unwell? You were burning up — the moment it’s light I’ll have someone send for a doctor, I’ll—”

As I spoke, I reached again to check his temperature. My hand had just crept toward his sweat-dampened brow when Herman struck it away with a sharp smack.

“…”
“…”

Into the silence of the bedroom, lightning struck just then. Herman wore the face of a man startled by his own doing. A low rumble built to a crack, and thunder split the silence and scattered it. In the same instant I saw the mountain-steady set of his shoulders draw inward, just slightly.

“It seems I’ve disturbed your rest. I’ll — hh — I’ll change rooms.”

That low, sunken voice and unsteady breathing looked dangerous even at a glance. And yet Herman, without a moment’s delay, rose from the bed and made to leave the room.

Could it be some nightmare of the war rising up in him?

A man who’d once been a naval officer might well be thrown back to the war by so vast a noise, or so I thought.

Once, I had read the memoir of an army surgeon who’d served on the front lines. Through his accounts of soldiers tormented by the aftereffects of war, I had come to understand how agonizing it was to be seized by a pain that had no shape.

Perhaps Herman, too.

The author of that memoir had argued that in overcoming the aftereffects of war, the people around the sufferer mattered more than anything.

“Wait a moment, Herman.”

On impulse, I rose from the bed. Then I wrapped the shawl I’d draped over the sofa around my shoulders and took up the basket that sat on the table.

“…Why, all of a sudden.”

Herman stood rooted in the darkened room, watching me. He couldn’t hide his bafflement; he hovered before the door, at a loss whether to go or stay.

“Come with me.”
“Where to.”
“Downstairs.”

At the sudden proposal, Herman quietly knit his brow. His face said he couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to go downstairs at this hour before dawn.

Just then lightning flashed once again. In the ominous stillness that settled before the thunder, I tugged at his tensed arm and spoke.

“Y-you have to take responsibility.”

In trying to force the words out before the thunder could swallow my voice, I’d lopped off the front and the back of the sentence and blurted out only the odd part in the middle. Herman tilted his head, clearly baffled by what I meant. Hurriedly I cleared my throat and rushed to get the rest of it out.

“You woke me clean up, so you can take responsibility for it.”
“…”
“Come down to the ground floor with me.”
“…”
“You’ll — you’ll come with me, won’t you?”

Herman didn’t trouble himself to answer. He only, quietly, took the basket from my hands to carry it in my stead.

The inn doubled as a restaurant, its whole ground floor given over to one wide dining hall. Well past midnight though it was, something stirred deeper in the room: the mercenaries House Ernst had hired seemed to be keeping the night watch. Two strapping men sat near the brazier, chatting in low, companionable voices.

“Y-Your Excellency.”

One of them, spotting us, rose hastily to his feet and made his courtesies.

“What brings you all this way at such an hour?”
“Well, the thing is—”

Just as Herman opened his mouth, the thunder arrived on cue. His back went taut with a flinch. Hastily, I answered in his stead.

“I couldn’t sleep, on account of the rain.”
“Ah, the thunder must have woken you, my lady. As it happens, we were just remarking how fearfully the sky’s been carrying on tonight.”
“Just so. Foul weather, and you kept at your posts till dawn — you’ve had a hard night of it. In any case, pay us no mind; be at your ease, all of you.”

I gave them a bright little smile and tugged Herman along by his sleeve. A little apart from the mercenaries, I settled us at a spot by the brazier and, brooking no protest, pressed Herman down into a chair.

“Sit here a moment.”

Herman slowly rolled his eyes upward, then gave a nod to say he understood. I rummaged through the basket he’d set down and drew out the bottle of milk Tess had packed for us.

“The salt was in here somewhere…”

I hunted for the salt, lifting the food out piece by piece. Somewhere in this heap of provisions I distinctly remembered having seen it.

“Ah, here it is.”

The salt turned up wrapped neatly in paper, and I gathered up the food in triumph and carried it to the brazier. I’d meant to warm the milk, but up close the brazier proved built a little differently from a kitchen one. Going by the kettle set beside it, the thing could at least heat water, though that seemed to be the extent of it. And I hated the thought of how awkward it would be to wake the young maidservant at this hour.

“Is there something you need, my lady?”

As I hovered by the brazier, a quick-witted mercenary came over and spoke to me. With an easy, genial smile, he introduced himself as Dan.

“I’d like to warm some milk, but I don’t know how to work the brazier.”
“Ah, if that’s all, allow me to do it for you.”

Dan lifted the kettle, tipped out the water, poured the milk into it, and hung it over the fire for me.

“Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it, my lady.”

Having thanked him for his timely help, I hurried to sprinkle in the salt and stir the milk well so it wouldn’t scorch.

It was just then that someone gave the shawl on my shoulders a couple of tugs.

“…”

Herman had come up right beside me without my noticing, and he was looking down at me with a face empty of any expression. It was as if he were demanding to be told just why he had to stand about here doing this.

“I-I’ll carry this over for you. Please, sit and make yourself comfortable with His Grace.”

Dan spoke hurriedly, watching Herman’s face for his mood.

“See to it, then.”

Before I could get a word out, Herman cut in ahead of me and drew me back by my shawl. Guided by that oddly careful, guarded motion back to the table, I found Herman, sullen-faced, coming straight out with the discontent on his mind.

“I’ve no idea what it is you mean to accomplish.”

Herman said. His voice was markedly calmer now than before. Pretending not to hear his fretful grumbling, I studied his color unhurriedly. Whether it was the red glow of the brazier or not, some blood seemed to have come back into his face.

“I’m hungry, you see. I only made do with a scrap of supper.”

I drew a few sandwiches from the basket and pushed them across in front of him.

“It’s dull to eat alone, so eat with me.”

Herman gazed at the sandwiches set before him, then raised his head. A faint trace of embarrassment seemed to melt into his face.

“Did you not hear me. Dragging a man out in the dead of night — I asked what in the world it is you want to do with me.”

Perhaps this was his way of apologizing for having put me out so late at night. It struck me that this man, too, was hopelessly clumsy at letting his true feelings show.

“I mean to go to bed only once I’ve made certain you’ve settled, Herman.”

Watching Dan come toward us with the warmed milk, I whispered low, so the others wouldn’t hear.

“So stay with me until then.”