On the Path of the Giants

Chapter 14: Lydia

        Lydia drew her head back after a couple of second that felt like an eternity. She could still feel the itch of his moustache on her upper lip, and the taste of the stew on her mouth. She looked down, feeling like she had been pushed in an impossible situation, before looking back at him. Sharp was looking at her as if he had not enjoyed the kiss as much as he had expected.

        “Go, now” he told her dryly. “And do not tell anyone.” His blade shimmered next to him, and Lydia understood. She left the tree without a word, and shamefully walked back to the stew pot. Thankfully, there was enough left for her, although it seemed cold. She took a bowl, and started to eat with hunger, but without appetite. She ate more and more, as if the stew would rid herself of the taste of Sharp on her tongue. She wished it had been hotter, so she could burn it off. Burn it all off. Burn him off.

        She ate until she felt she would be sick. It is only then that she allowed herself to stop, and went back to the other women. She lay on the ground, facing away from the other women. The temperature had dropped from earlier. She took her fur blanket out of her leather bag, and wrapped herself around with it. Lydia stared into the dark horizon, at the distant trees ahead, and imagined she was back at the village, before Joshua left. She imagined that she was back, all those years ago, when she had kissed Joshua for the first time, when they had sealed the promise of their life together.

        Lydia could hear a distant crying, coming from the soldier camps, from the women of her village. She found solace in this, in the fact that she had not been the most abused today, but she still felt a sting in her heart as she thought back to the memory of earlier tonight. Her tongue was still unclean, as her mouth had been raped, and she dreaded the next day, when she would have to face the consequences of this act again.

        She closed her eyes, attempting to find peace in her dreams. But instead, she was faced with the worried thoughts of nightmare. It was as if the curtains of her eye lids had given place to the theatre of her deepest fears. She dreamt that she was back with Joshua at the village, only to have the Sharpmen come in, killing and murdering. Joshua was caught in the fray, murdered in front of her eyes by Sharp’s shining blade, before he took her in front of Joshua’s dying eyes, in front of everyone in the village, who looked at her and judged her for being the whore that she was.

        She woke up in the middle of the night, and felt tears flowing down her face, landing on the earth beside her. She could feel from the dampness of it that she had been crying for a while. She closed her eyes a second time, and tried to fall asleep some more, but sleep did not come. She turned on her back, and looked at the sky. She liked the way the stars formed clouds of light above her. She thought about the way that it illuminated the sky, about how it was like the sun being divided in millions upon millions of small dots, all working in concert to create the image.

        She looked at the east, and saw a glimmer of sun on the horizon. She decided that there was no reason to continue to sleep, and started to get up. Her legs felt stiff from all the walking of the day, and feared that it would only worsen with time.

        She was walking towards the cauldron when she realized she was not the only one awake. Some of the Sharp women were already washing the cauldron, and she was glad that she did not have to do it herself.

        She greeted them with a slight nod of the head, but could not look at them directly, fearing that they might understand what had happened the day before just by looking into her eyes. She did not know how the Sharp women usually acted, and tried to be cautious in her behaviour with them.

        One of the women, named Greta, was working her way towards scrubbing the bottom of the cauldron. She was much older than Lydia, and streaks of white hair showed upon her usual ginger complexion. She looked at Lydia as she approached, piercing her with her gaze, before going back to scrubbing away the stew that was stuck at the bottom. From the look in her eyes, she did not seem to enjoy the smell of the herbs that the other Sharpmen liked, and was blaming Lydia for it. Another woman, Helen, was working her way towards making a breakfast lunch that they could eat while packing. Helen was very tall, and only slightly younger than Greta. She gathered that they must have been two women who used to be enjoyed by the soldiers in their youth, and had now been given the task of scrubbing the dishes and cleaning the dirt when their physical appearances stopped pleasing them. Lydia felt bad for them, and yet she knew that they secretly all hated her. Probably because, despite being very young, she had been given the role of lead cook, and had bypassed the role of pleasure women.

        Lydia offered her help on the scrubbing, but was only met with heinous gazes, and angry grunts as answers. She did not know whether it was customary for lead cooks to help wash the dishes, but she gathered that it was not.

        The sun was rising on the horizon as she finished packing everything that she still owned. With the rising of the sun came the rising of the camp, and soon the sound of stomping men and loud talking filled the grove. She saw Ron Sharp emerge from under the tree, Lightning following him. His metal shirt shimmered in the light of the rising sun, and everyone felt silent as they looked and stared in awe. Lydia stopped what she had been doing, trying to get as far away as possible from him as she could get. Unfortunately, the washing women saw her, and realized that something must have happened. Lydia held her head down, trying not to look at anyone. The march towards Tarto would be long and perilous, both physically and emotionally.