L'appel Du Vide [Call Of The Void]

[3]

"Bonjour, Maman," Philippe whispered into his mother's ear as he hugged her. She had aged ten years despite the fact being that only five had passed. Her face was an ancient parchment, lined and translucent with age. The few white hairs that adorned her head were twisted into a tumbling bun. She pulled away, wiping the tears lodged in her beady little eyes which had always reminded him of those of a crow's. Small, but intense. Her lips twitched, revealing three gaps that had replaced her front teeth.

And her eyes fell on his ear—the one an arrow had nicked during the chase. Her smile faltered. "Philippe, your ear!"

"It's nothing much, Maman. One of the thorny branches in the forest brushed against it," he lied.

"Come, let me clean the wound, it's bleeding severely," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Her eyes were pools of worry as they examined Philippe's wound, her face was pained.

Seeing the pitiful expression on his mother's face, a large lump rose to Philippe's throat. The pressure that was building up in his chest threatened to crush his ribs.

Maman had changed so much ever since he'd left, he could barely recognize her anymore. Age had robbed her of all her familiar features that he'd known and loved. His heart ached at the realization that the woman who stood before him was the one who had raised him. And then, he couldn't help it. Pulling his mother into a crushing hug, he broke down in tears.

*

That night, he sat by a flickering oil lamp on the only cot in the single-room shack, tapping his knuckles against the hollow wooden frame to the beat of the song his mother was humming as she made watery potato stew. She was on her haunches as she stirred the liquid in the rusting pot.

Philippe hadn't gotten to see Papa yet. Having gone to work at the bakery at sunrise, he hadn't returned. Maman had told Philippe that, if luck was on their side, he would slip some slices of bread into his pockets and bring it home for dinner.

He couldn't look at his mother without a wave of conflicting emotions crashing into him—joy at seeing her after so long, but sadness to see that she was not immune to the test of time.

She had only a worn blanket pulled over her cotton dress to shield her from the cold. When she spoke, her voice quivered like a little leaf in the wind.

The money he had been sending them over the years—nine livres a month—three-fourth of his wage-- had given them little reprieve. The situation was so bad that Maman had forced him to hand over his coat and his dagger an hour after his arrival; she'd marched right to the market despite his protests and had sold them for thirteen livres.

Never in any of their letters had his parents expressed that they were indeed this badly off. He'd known that they had had to cut corners, but it hadn't ever crossed his mind that they had to stretch their income this tightly. The crazed look that had clouded his mother's face when she had realized how much money the dagger and the coat would get them—it had thrown a wet blanket over his happiness at being back home.

They were scrambling for money, and Philippe didn't like it one bit.

But then, his thoughts took a sudden tangent-- Marie d'Aramitz. The enigma. A noblewoman masquerading as a peasant, being chased around in the forests by the cronies of who seemed to be one of Paris's most powerful men. He was intrigued by his encounter with her.

The afternoon's events befuddled him: What had she done to offend that Carpentier? Why had she been dressed like a peasant? But the most puzzling question of all: What had prompted him to comply with her bizarre request? Had it been mere lust for adventure? Or was it his frustration at the stalemate between him and the nobles at Bordeaux that had propelled him to plunge his life in danger just for the sake of some action?