Lydia's Dance (The Two Moons of Rehnor)

by J. Naomi Ay

  I continued past them in my boots and fur lined cloak, my hood hiding my face, my tiny purse clutched in my pocket. My destination was yet unknown, but I was foolishly not afraid, until moments later when my cloak and purse were torn away by a herd of street boys. Within minutes, I was frigid and was certain I would die for where I had wandered; there was no one else about. The wind came up again and howled through the streets, sending drafts between the buildings and chilling me even more. My teeth chattered together, and my jaw began to ache. I clutched my hands around me, desperate for their menial warmth. When the wind became so harsh that I could not walk any further, I sat beneath a stoop, somewhat protected from the snow. I clutched my knees to my chest and tried not to cry for surely if I did, the tears would freeze upon my cheeks. I was indeed a foolish child for having gotten myself in this mess, for now, I could not return to my home having no idea of the direction. I huddled in this desperate corner and prayed that I might be saved. I thought of Loman holding me in sleep the night before. I dreamed of my four poster canopied bed and the fire burning in my hearth. I longed for the Palace as it shown at night with a million lights aglow. I had walked away from all that for the sake of my brother's throne.

  My prayers were answered in a strange way that night when a large brown dog curled next to me and saved me with his coat. He licked my tears with his rough wet tongue and guarded me while I slept. In the morning, though it was cold again, the winds had calmed, and the sun arose warming up the small corner where I sat now all alone. I was hungry and thirsty but didn't have even a single coin to buy a cup of tea. Presently, a girl came along and stopped in front of the stoop.

  "Are you lost?" She asked from beneath the brown hood of the cloak of a Sainted Lady. She carried a basket filled with fresh bread and a second one filled with eggs.

  "I suppose," I replied. "I am not certain where to go."

  "Come with me then. I'll take you home where it's warm, and there's food. You're not dressed to be out here on the street, and you shouldn't be alone. It's not safe for a girl, especially one with a pretty face like yours." She peeked out from beneath her hood. Her own face was scarred and burned. It took me aback for a moment, but I forced myself to smile for her eyes were kind and filled with concern.

  "I'm Lydia." I said and rising to my feet, I extended my hand to take one of the baskets.

  "I'm Meri," she replied. "I'm a novice still for perhaps a few months more." She limped as she walked for her back was bent as an old woman though she couldn't have been much older than me. "I live in the Old Mishnah Orphan Home and mind the babies. You know, we can always use help."

  I considered the offer as we walked down the street, my mind twisting with the possible implications. If I professed to having heard "the call" and announced I was to become a Sainted Lady, my father couldn't force me to marry the Karut. The Church trumped all; even the King would have to obey the Saint's implicit command.

  "Alright," I agreed, getting excited by this thought. "I shall come live with you for a time."

  "Are you an orphan too or did you run away from home?"

  "Both," I nodded sadly, considering that if I was going to lie, I might as well make it a good one. "I have run away from a cruel and evil father."

  "Ah," Meri muttered and nodded, her eyes opened wide as she limped down the street next to me. She knocked on the door of an old decrepit building which smelled foul and echoed with the sound of children crying. An eye peered through a key hole and then the door swung open and an elder Sainted Lady stood looking crossly at me.

  "This is Lydia, Sister," Meri told the old lady. "She's run away and wants to help tend babies too."

  The Sister peered at me closely with bottle thick glasses that were perched precariously on her long pointy nose. Her wimple was askew, and her hair in a knot and she looked like a woman who might boil the children in a cauldron. She inventoried my clothing and studied my boots before finally speaking loudly in a high cackling voice. "Find her a tunic and a head scarf from the bin, Meri. Her boots can be sold to pay for some food."

  "My boots?" I cried as Meri thanked the Sister, for my boots were all that I had still keeping me warm.

  "You'd rather pamper your feet and let children starve?" The Sister asked. "Go back out to the streets then. We have no use for you."

  Compliantly, I slipped off my boots and handed them to the woman who snatched them and walked quickly away. Meri led me to the baby room where it did feel safe and warm. For the rest of the day, I helped to clean and feed the babies, something this pampered princess had never before done. I sat in a rocking chair with a little boy tucked in my arms, his tiny hands grasping the bottle as I guided it to his mouth. For a moment, I wished for my own son who would gaze at me with this trust and love shining in his eyes.

  "I should like my own baby someday," Meri sighed as she rocked back and forth with a little sleepy head propped upon her shoulder. "But I am too ugly for any man to want me for a wife. At least I have these unloved babies to comfort me."

  "I should like a baby too," I said, "the son of the man I love. My father needs to understand, my womb is not for sale."

  "Is that why you ran away?" Meri asked, rising to put her baby back to bed. "Were you being forced into marriage?"

  I nodded my head but did not speak for tears came unbidden to my eyes.

  "We are all forced to do things we do not wish. That is the lot of poor women like us. Perhaps someday it will change. Maybe we'll have a queen who shall prove that women are more than pawns."

  Not if my brother were king, I considered although I did not voice the words. Yet perhaps under the reign of my son, if I taught him well, this might come to pass.

  "Mayhaps your intended is kind and shall treat you well and in time you shall learn to love him? It might be quite nice after all."

  "I don't think so," I responded. "He is far different from me, and my heart already belongs to another."

  "But you are young," Meri said as if she knew of these things. "Your heart is clay, not cut from stone. All of our hearts can be molded and shaped."

  She was wrong, I believed, but I didn't tell her that. Instead, I was thinking of my son. If I could teach him to respect women and treat us as equals if he could help these poor people and make Rehnor prosper, perhaps it might be worth it after all. I resolved to think on this more, but at a later time as we were called to serve dinner to the House Father and the Sisters. They all sat at long tables made of plain unfinished wood and upon hard benches that left tiny slivers in my dress. The House Father was old, and his head was nearly bald with only a tiny wisp of white hair that grew above his ears. His eyes were a vivid blue that gazed surprisingly bright as Meri, and I served him and curtseyed at his feet.

  "Tell me your name, young one," the House Father said as I set his pudding before him. He grabbed my wrist with his crooked fingers and turned my hand around. "You have not done work like this before. Where have you come from?"

  "She's run away, Father," Meri interrupted handing the Father a spoon. "Her own father is cruel and forcing her into marriage. She would like to stay with us and love the Saint instead."

  "Would you, girl?" The Father asked his eyes climbing the length of my arm. He studied my face and furrowed his brow then smiled with his stained yellow teeth. "Bring her to my chambers tonight, Meri. We shall see if she can learn her prayers."

  Meri curtseyed again and then glancing quickly at me, she hurried away. I followed her into the kitchens where we got plates for ourselves of some kind of meat in a bowl of clear broth. The bread was all gone, and the cheese had been eaten.

  "We're the newest and the youngest," Meri said as she ate, slurping loudly, the spoon awkwardly crossing into her burned and damaged mouth. "We're given the food last. We must eat whatever we can find."

  "What does the Father want from me? Why must I go to him to recite my prayers?"

  "There are trade-offs for living here though you'll stay warm and fed." Meri looked away. "I
think you should reconsider your father's intended match."

  After dinner, we knelt in the chapel and prayed. The floor was hard, and only cement and the chill crept into my bones. I longed for my warm fur cloak, and my fur lined boots which now warmed the toes of the Sister from the door.

  "Pray," Meri hissed, "and even if you don’t, if you'd like to stay, pretend that you're doing so." She bent her head, and I did as well and let my thoughts wander into some sort of prayer. I asked Him for guidance, to spare me from my fate while at the same time, the House Father lectured about all the evil in the world. I grew very tired for the last night I had slept little, and though the Father still droned, I began to nod off. In my dream, the Father's voice silenced, and when I raised my head, I saw not the House Father but another man. He stood above me in a haze of silver light, and his beauty was such, I could not even behold. I covered my eyes and fell upon my face for surely if he were not the Saint, he had been sent from the Heavens.

  "You must leave this place, Lydia," his voice spoke to me. "You are not safe here. You must return to where you belong."

  "How am I to do that?" I begged. "When I have neither cloak nor boot nor coin?"

  "Meri will fetch them for you. Tell her in exchange you shall grant her a gift, a gift she shall treasure beyond all else."

  "What gift? I don't have anything to give."

  "You will," he replied and vanished in a mist.

  I woke from my dream and bolted to my feet before I realized that no time had passed. The House Father was speaking of the same evil things, and Meri's lips were whispering beside me.

  "I must go," I prodded her. "I have to leave this place now."

  "You can't," she hissed back. "We have yet more prayers to recite." So I told her of my dream and of the angel's secret message. Her eyes grew wide and her crooked mouth opened in surprise. "As soon as prayers are over, I'll find these things for you and show you to the door before the House Father calls."

  That night I spent again on the street huddled in an alley inside a cardboard box with newspapers for a pillow. I was warm in Meri's cloak, and my feet were dry from her boots. My belly was filled with the bread and cheese that Meri had stuffed in my pockets. In the morning, I would use her coins to take a bus ride out of the city. I would return to the Palace and throw myself upon my father's mercy. If he would not grant me the freedom for which I begged, then I would have no choice but to marry the Karupta prince. I could not run any further and did not wish to hide, I wanted to go home to play my piano and dance. Unfortunately that night, I was visited by someone else, who clamped his hands upon my mouth and tore me away from my box.

  Chapter 2

  Loman

  I bolted upright as if a bell had rung right beside my ear.

  "What the hell?" I roared and then listened to the echo as my own voice bounced across the walls of the tiny room. It was dark, and no one was there. The only sound was the beating of my heart.

  "Damn!" I swore and then lay back down to stare at the ceiling, now completely wide awake. It was just past midnight. I had been asleep for only two hours and with only three more hours until duty, I'd be dragging my ass again today. I tossed and turned for a while and then reached into my bedside drawer for a smoke. All I found was an empty pack which I hadn't replaced since I'd promised myself I'd give it up. Instead, I found a chocolate bar and ripped it open with my teeth. I really would have preferred the cig. I got out of bed and looked out the window at the two moons illuminating the night. A shadow passed below me on the beach and for a moment I thought it might be Lydia. It couldn't be. She had sworn never to speak to me again.

  "Damn!" I swore again and really wished I had a cig. I thumbed through bottom of my drawer looking for a few odd coins which would have to tide me over until payday next week. I dressed in jeans and sweater, an old coat and some boots and then locking my door, I headed across the building to the Royal Guard Canteen.

  "Are you on duty now, Loman?" The cashier asked, taking my coin and then rubbing his sleep-deprived eyes.

  "No," I replied breaking into the packet and quickly tossing the cig in my mouth, I inhaled all the pungent smoke. "Although, I might as well be. I can't seem to sleep at all these days."

  "Ach well," the guy sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Half the guard is out looking for the Princess anyway."

  "What? Where is she?"

  "Well, if I knew that, nobody would need to look for her, now would they? As far as anyone knows, she just ran off into the old city. Can't hardly blame her. What's her choice, run off or marry the Karut?"

  I had to find Lydia. She could be killed wandering around the old city. Even though it was the middle of the night, I raced across the campus to the armory and begged the sergeant there to release a gun to me.

  "Sorry, Lieutenant," he said. "We've issued our entire allotment, and without your Captain's signature, I can't give you anything else." I wanted to kill the guy as he stood there filling out forms, but I couldn't decide whether to pound his skull or simply break his neck. Then I realized I was wasting time on this bureaucratic idiot. Lydia was out on her own in the city and as helpless as a baby. She had never left the Palace without Farman or me, and she hadn't the slightest clue what dangers could be lurking there. I raced back up to my room and searched in the bottom of my dresser. In the very back, underneath my old shorts, was a black lacquer box with the Royal seal imprinted in gold on the top. It was the last gift I had from my mother before she had passed away. She had been a maid to the dowager Queen in the years before I was born. The box and the contents, she said, were in thanks for her service although why a Queen's maid should be given a blade I never did understand. It had a gold hilt that exactly fit my hand and was incrusted with three perfect emeralds. The blade was a sharp as the day it was made and as far as I knew, it had never been used. I clipped the sheath to my belt and found myself a torch and headed out into the snow covered night.

  My best bet, I figured, was to look in Old Mishnah where Lydia's face was probably unknown. More than five million people lived in both the new and old cities with half a million homeless bums wandering the streets. It wasn't safe in the best of times for even a big guy like me. A tiny little thing like Lydia could be dead before morning.

  I blamed myself for her running away although I knew it wasn't my fault. Yet out in this cold night, as I walked from the Palace on the path Lydia might have taken, a seed of a thought popped into my brain. What if I found her and we left? We could leave this planet all together. There were hundreds if not thousands of places we could go to start over as entirely new people. No one needed to know about our past. Of course, the logistics of this plan were difficult as I didn't have any money to buy another pack of cigs let alone passage to somewhere else.

  On top of that, there was the king, who I served and loved like the father I never had. He had treated me as a son since I came to the Palace after my mother's death. I owed him my loyalty and I owed him my obedience and running off with his daughter was not a fitting way to pay him back. As it was, I was playing with fire by indulging Lydia's games. If we were ever found out, the both of us would be ruined. Her future was too promising as the mother of the next king and my goal was to be Captain of the Guards.

  "Any luck?" I asked the guardsmen who were smoking beneath a streetlamp. They stood next to a burning drum surrounded by a crowd of homeless bums. When I was Captain of the Guards, I wouldn't allow smoking in the ranks. I'd toss out guys who didn't salute and or didn't keep their hair and uniforms neat. I wouldn't allow fraternizing with girls while on duty or living in the Royal Guard House. In short, I'd dismiss everyone like me.

  "Someone found her cape," one of the guardsman replied. He breathed a cloud of smoke in the air while I waited with bated breath. "A couple of homeless boys claimed they found it on the ground, but it was clear it was torn from her as the neckties were all snapped."

  "Did they know which way she went?" I demanded.

  "No clue," the gua
rdsman shook his head and rubbed out his cig in the snow. He lit up a fresh one from a full pack in his pocket and, so I held out my hand.

  "Two," I requested, "and I won't report your dereliction of duty. Now get back out in the streets and keep looking for the Princess."

  I said the same to five more guardsmen on my way into town and by the time dawn broke that morning, I had a dozen cigs in my pocket. I also had a picture of the Princess to show to everyone I passed. Either they didn’t see her, or they pretended they hadn't and by the end of the day, I was exhausted with no further clue as to where she had gone and no idea how to find her.

  I slept that night in a broken bus shelter, my hand on my blade and one eye opened just in case. It was neither warm nor dry, but the best place I could find. Fortunately, the next morning the sun came out and the snow melted into a slushy grey mess. I smoked two cigs for my breakfast and then wandered into a shop hoping the proprietor might spare me a day old bun. The bells on the door tinkled a cheery greeting although the shop looked decrepit with barren shelves and naked light bulbs to reflect off the unpainted walls.

  "Can I 'elp ye, Coppah," the guy at the counter asked and though he probably wasn't past forty, he looked like he could easily be twice that age. His teeth were tobacco stained, what few of them were left. His hair was thin and straggly as if it hadn't been washed in a number of weeks. He wore a grocer's apron over his worn and ragged clothes although the apron was stained and threadbare and protected little underneath. He spoke Mishnese but with the accent of the street and it took me a few moments to understand what he had said.

  "I'm looking for a girl," I replied and held up the picture of Lydia's beautiful smiling face. "I'm also looking for some breakfast, if you've got an old bun or two?"