If Only In A Dream

Jurgia was a quiet little town, prettily made. The bustle and vigour of the port city had given way here to something peaceful and pastoral. They asked their way to Mareni’s house and found it: a pretty house, white all over, with deep pink geraniums at the window and a horse-shaped bronze ornament hanging from the front door, the emblem of the Maktans.

For a Maktan to live apart from the community was uncommon, though not unheard of. From what they had gathered, Mareni had run off from home while she was young and left no kind of work untried. She had settled in the south and borne a child, then set out again in search of another adventure, and in the end she had spent her later years at the White Castle.

On the road to Jurgia, Ardine had told them Mareni loved her, and that she loved Mareni back.

‘Mareni is Ari’s mama. And Ari likes Mama better than Papa.’

When he heard those words, Keith wore a strange expression. The reason he held Ardine so especially dear was that she was the daughter of Elrod and Virginia. When he had risen all at once in the world, from a thirteen-year-old slave boy to the second son of a ducal house, the two of them were already promised to marry. She was the child of the precious people who had taken him in, and so he felt a deep tenderness for her. And yet this was a child who had only ever seen her mother in a portrait, who had always been awkward even with her own father. To hear her profess love for a nanny who shared not a single drop of her blood left Keith unsure what he was even supposed to feel. In honesty, a speck of resentment toward the Maktan nanny had risen in him too.

“Mareni! Mare… hic, Mare, niii…! Mareni!”

But as he watched Ardine go pattering into the inner room, calling the nanny’s name in desperation, Keith saw his own younger self laid over her.

“Waaah…!!! I missed, hic, you. Mareni… Why did you leave just me behind, hh, hhh, waaah!”

How lonely he had been, losing the only flesh and blood he had at seven years old. A slave’s hard labour had thinned the longing and the loneliness day by day, yet they never quite disappeared in the end, and lay thick as fog over his childhood.

“My… lady…”

“Hup, hic. Mareniii. A-are you all right? Does it hurt…”

“My pretty… my lady…”

Keith stood at the door with Pai. A low wooden bed had been set in the room with its small window, and Mareni, a bright patchwork quilt drawn up to her chin, had gone snow white in the hair. The arm stretched out from under the quilt was as gaunt as a branch on a winter’s day, and a withered hand stroked Ardine’s shining hair, on and on.

“The doctor said she wouldn’t make it past this spring.”

The woman who had stepped back a pace from the doorway spoke. There was a melancholy in her face as she told them she was Mareni’s daughter, and she kept her voice as low as it would go, looking at the bawling child with pity.

“To think that Mother left and then the Duke of Paragon ended up like that, one after the other… Mother was terribly shocked as well. She was set on going straight back, but…”

“…”

“How could she ever get all the way north in that state? It’s a miracle she even made it here.”

Mareni’s condition was worse even than they had feared. She was dried out like a thorn, and kept fainting from the pain and coming round again.

“I’m quite all ri— kaff, kaff!”

“Don’t talk… You mustn’t talk. Ari’ll bring you honey water, so you have to wait.”

Ardine pressed a kiss to the old woman’s rough forehead, a little ‘mwah,’ and then, her eyes swollen puffy, asked whether she might use the kitchen.

“Ari needs chestnut honey. When Ari caught a cold, Mareni used to make her honey water all the time.”

“Ah, of course. So you drank that honey water too, my lady. My mother’s special recipe.”

“Mm. Ari knows how to make it too.”

“The kitchen’s that way. Would you go on ahead? I’ll follow you in a moment.”

Ardine scrubbed hard at her eyes and went pattering off in the direction Mareni’s daughter had pointed.

Mareni’s daughter looked at her plainly ailing mother with worry and let out a small sigh.

“What am I to tell the young lady…”

‘Remember this, my lady. His Grace Paragon loves you. He is only ever so terribly busy.’

‘S’awright. Even if Papa doesn’t play with Ari.’

‘His Grace will be wanting to play with you as well, my lady. It’s a shame, but shall we play tag again today, you and I?’

‘My lady, goodness me. You’ve gone and made a fine mess! That’s not how a good girl behaves!’

‘Papa doesn’t love Ari. He’s away every day, every day, every day. Presents and letters and things like that, Ari doesn’t need any of it.’

‘My dear lady… You must be terribly upset. Come here. It’s the cold that makes it worse. I’ll fix you some honey water…’

‘Don’t be angry, and don’t be afraid. My lady, my puppy of a lady…’

‘Mm-mm, mm-mm-mm, la, mm-mmm, mm… Thunder and lightning both, away with you all. Mm-mm, la, mm-mm-mm…’

— Shhhhhhh…

Ardine opened her eyes in the darkness. Rain was beating hard against the frail window, a sudden downpour. She rubbed at the damp rims of her eyes with the back of her hand. Pai was asleep in the bed a few steps away, her steady breathing mingling with the sound of the rain and the wind.

— Clatter.

“Eek…”

Ardine pulled the quilt up over her head. Any moment now, it felt, thunder and lightning would split the sky wide open.

“Mareni…”

The name had slipped out of her without meaning to, and now it was shut in with her under the quilt, humming at her ears. Ardine squeezed her eyes shut. Fear and longing bit deep into her chest.

“Hic…”

After Mareni left, she had been heartbroken.

A thousand nights!

Mareni had said she would come back once she had slept a thousand nights, but Ardine had no idea how to count a number that big. Even so, she had made a great show of it to Mareni, promising she could do it, that she would count all the way to a thousand, so Mareni had to be sure to come back. It was that promise that had let Ardine hold in her tears even when they told her she would not see her father for a very, very long time.

Besides, she was used to going a long while without seeing her father. Ordinarily Mareni would have waited for him at her side, but this time she had to bear it alone. That was all right. She was seven years old already, and fooling the grown-ups was easy. Everyone in the castle was busy with the funeral.

There had even been someone to help her. The pretty maid called Pai had caught her trying to slip out through the window, and taught her how to rig a rope safely and how to ‘destroy’ the evidence. They met at two o’clock every afternoon to play together. Ardine had even taught Pai the song. The one Mareni used to sing her whenever the rain came pouring down and the sky flashed; the one that came drifting in low and soft while a hand patted her head, or her back, in a steady rhythm. Sadly, Pai was hopelessly tone-deaf and never did learn it.

In any case, she could have borne the thousand nights. If only, one day, she had not overheard the maids talking…

‘Oh my. You didn’t know? Mareni’s taken a fatal illness. They said she could go any day. Perhaps she already…’

— Rrrrrr, krrrrumble…

“Eep…”

Ardine shivered, curled in on herself. Then, ever so carefully, she got up from the bed and slipped out of the room.

They were staying at an inn five minutes from Mareni’s house.

“It’ll be quick.”

There was no telling when Mareni might die. And she knew what death was, too. Grown-ups made a fuss as though saying the word ‘death’ out loud would bring calamity down on them, but she was no coward like them.

“Ari has to be there beside her…”

Ardine whispered it low and crept along the corridor. In that instant a glaring light flashed white.

“Eeek…!”

Thunder rolled after it and shook the corridor. She came down on her bottom with a bump and rolled her lips in between her teeth.

“Not, crying… Ari’s not cry, y, hh…”

Just then, a door in the corridor opened without a sound.

“Hic!”

“…”

The man who claimed to be her uncle stood in the doorway, a snapped rope dangling from his wrist. His face was terribly tired, but he looked at Ardine and coaxed his mouth into the gentlest shape he could manage.

“…Want to come in?”

“…”

“I’ll leave the door open a hand’s span, so do as you please.”

The man really did leave the door only a little open, and went back to the bed.

— Gulp.

Ardine dusted off her backside and followed him into the room. A single candle lit the place, and orange firelight and shadow wavered over the ridges of the man’s profile where he sat on the bed.

— FLASH!

“Eeeeek!!!”

When the lightning struck once more, Ardine went pattering over to the bed. She clung to a leg like cast iron, and the man soothed her and settled her on his thigh.

“…You didn’t sleep?”

“That’s right.”

“…Why?”

“No reason… Sleep just wouldn’t come.”

Ardine nodded.

“Ari can’t sleep either.”

“Aren’t you sleepy?”

“Are you stupid? Sleep doesn’t come when you’re not sleepy.”

“…I see.”

— Rrrrrumble, CRASH!!

“Eek!”

“…Are you frightened of thunder and lightning?”

“N-no.”

“…”

“Really, no.”

“I’m frightened of them.”

The man said.

Ardine, who had somehow come to be nestled comfortably in the man’s arms, looked up in surprise.

“You’re frightened of thunder and lightning…?”

“That’s right.”

“Coward.”

“You’re right. I am a coward.”

“…Ari knows a song.”

The man’s chest was broad and solid, and warm, and it smelled of something good.

Ardine began to hum the song that made thunder and lightning stop.

“Mm-mm, mm-mm-mm, la…”

Following the slow rhythm of the song she sang, the man’s hand patted her gently.

“Mm, mmm…”

Her eyes drifted closed.

Sleepy. Really, so terribly sleepy. But I couldn’t sleep. Because I was worried. Because Mareni might die. Because I’m here, right here, this close to her, and I might not even get to say goodbye.

“Mm-mm, la, mm-mm-mm…”

And then the singing carried on from the man’s mouth.

“Mm-mm, mm-mm-mm, la, mm…”

It was the same song.

How does he know it?

She was terribly curious, but her eyelids were too heavy to ask.

“Mm-mm…”

The window frame rattled in the driving wind and rain, and now and then the lightning still came down, but Ardine was not frightened anymore.

She simply gave herself over to the sleep pouring down over her, so that she might meet the people she missed, if only in a dream.