Ancient Things We Hold

Chapter 18

An Arrow of Intervention Instead of Love

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The river had been drenched in the leaves which had been blown from trees during the stormy weather. Hodaya was the one who had to pull all the leaves from the well and, in the process, was being drenched. The rain ran into her hair, soaking it and pressing against her cheeks. She wanted to get inside as quickly as possible.

The wind kept on sending further gusts of leaves over her way, so she soon dropped the barrel to the bottom and gave up. The comfort of domestic chores undertaken inside seemed much more appealing but, just as she turned to go inside, she heard the ground behind her come alive with the sound of heavy footsteps slapping in the mud.

At first she smiled in relief. She thought he had returned with the good news they had anticipated, but then she saw his face. It was twisted into anguish, his sweet face distorted by sadness. He fell into her arms, his broken voice murmuring intangible apologises into her ear.

"What is it? What has happened?" she asked. She pushed him away slightly so that she could see his face properly. She felt her hands grow damper when she held his cheeks and it was not due to the rain.

He tried to tell her for quite some time, but he struggled. He just wanted to hold her for a little longer until she knew her papa was dead- that it was his fault. As he suspected, she pulled away when he finally summoned the courage to tell her. At first, he hoped that perhaps she did not hear over his broken voice being drowned in the rain. However, her face told him otherwise.

It was awful. He wanted to look away, but he felt such pity for her. There was no room in his soul for feeling sorry for himself anymore, not when he saw her eyes. She just stood there in the rain with a pale and frightened face. When he stepped towards her again, she grew flustered. She wouldn't give him her hand anymore.

Instead she turned away from him. He saw her shoulders move up and away with her heavy breathing. Her arms flailed lifelessly. When he began to hear her cry, a rush of sadness filled him with tenderness and affection. Tears began to form in his own eyes, choking him when he tried to utter words of sympathy again.

Her father had grown old. He was in his forties and for a farm labourer, that meant he was aware that his time was running out. All of his family had been aware of that. Why else would he be enforcing his children's marriage so much? He was trying to ensure that they would continue to be safe when he was gone. It happened too soon, though. They weren't safe. There was no one to protect them anymore.

And Hodaya had thought about what would happen if- or when- her papa died. The older he became, the more she thought about it. However, she thought about it like one thought about faraway places that they had never seen before. They did exist, but they were unreachable. Their images were formed from faded portraits on pages and old words. One would never reach them so they existed only in dreams. Surely they could never be seen? And surely her papa could never die?

But he was dead. When she heard Aldwyn repeat that all would be okay, all she could do was wonder how it could be. She did not have her papa, nor his words or his old hands. How hadn't he just continued being old?

Somewhere in the middle of her tears, or it may have been much sooner- she didn't know how long her head had been whirring for- it occurred to her that it was her fault. Yes, her papa would have been there regardless of whether she and Aldwyn cared for one another, but the King would never have been enraged by their actions and hence not have killed her papa in this fury.

She didn't know what to think about it. How they behaved did not justify the King's anger. He was responsible. However, she knew that her papa would still be there- still be wheezing in fatigue as he worked the lands- if it weren't for her and Aldwyn.