While Angels Slept (43 page)

“I understand.”

“What happened
to the knight? The one you said is her true father?”

Louisa drew in a
breath, coughing slightly when her chest roweled. Tevin stood well back as the
woman covered her cough with a vinegar soaked cloth.

“He left me for
another woman,” she finally rasped. “I was seventeen years old. My father
disowned me so I had no choice but to do what I could to survive.”

“You are a
prostitute.”

Louisa simply
nodded, closing her weary eyes.  “Certainly not as I had planned for my life to
happen,” she said, opening her eyes and fixing on him. “I heard a few years ago
that Arabel’s father had been killed in a tavern fight.  I also heard he had
fathered several other children with different women. I suppose, in hindsight,
I did not fall in love with a man of good character. But I was young… I did not
know any better.”

Tevin simply
nodded.  In truth, he had heard everything he wanted to hear and there was not
much more to say. But he wanted to make one thing very clear.

“Arabel has
asked to meet you and I have agreed,” he said, his voice low. “Let me make it
clear that you are not to tell her of your past indiscretions or of her true
parentage. She does not need to know these things. Tell her of your family
history, or of other meaningless things, but do not upset her with things she
does not need to know. Do you comprehend?”

Louisa nodded
weakly, but there was uncertainty to it. “She will want to know why I left,”
she said. “What would you have me tell her?”

Tevin averted
his gaze, thinking on what his daughter knew of her mother’s abandonment. “She
believes you left because she was born crippled,” he said quietly. “Perhaps…
perhaps you should allow her to believe that and simply tell her that you are
sorry for it.”

“You would
rather have her believe I abandoned her because she was deformed and not because
she was her mother’s bastard?”

He looked at her
sharply. “She has already been hurt by what she believes to be the truth,” he
said. “If you tell her your real reasons, she will be hurt twice by your
departure and betrayal. This I will not allow. No matter if she is truly not of
my blood, I have raised her as my own and she
is
my daughter.  I love
her as much as I ever did and if you hurt her again, I swear to God that you
shall not like my response. I am granting you the privilege of meeting this beautiful
young woman whom you gave birth to, who you are wholly unworthy of. Do not
betray my good graces again.”

Louisa’s dark
eyes were wide on him.  After a moment, she simply nodded. “As you wish, my
lord.”

“If you have to
tell her something, make it tales of glory that will make her feel good about
herself, not like a worthless cripple whose mother abandoned her at birth.  If
you must say something to her, give her something to dream.”

Louisa carefully
regarded him. His words spoke of a very great love for Arabel, surprising when
men were usually not the emotional sort.  “I see you now as I saw you then; a
man of great feeling,” she murmured. “That is a rare thing, my lord.”

Tevin’s response
was to shoot her a look of impatience before he turned for the door.  As he put
his hand on the panel, Louisa’s soft voice stopped him.

“I
am
sorry, my lord,” she said with as much strength as she could muster. “Please
know how sorry I am for what I did.  I am sorry we did not have the life
together you had planned for.”

Tevin looked at
the woman. He couldn’t muster the pity for her that Cantia had. “I suspect you
are only sorry because your life did not turn out as you had hoped,” he said
frankly. “If you and your knight had lived a long and healthy life together,
you would not be sorry in the least. You would consider Arabel and me a
casualty of your decision and nothing more.”

As he left the
shack, Louisa came to realize he was right.  He was right about something else,
too.

Perhaps she
should give Arabel something to dream.

***

“Father, I do
not want you to go in with me,” Arabel told Tevin as they crossed the bailey
towards the smithy shacks. “I will speak to Lady Louisa alone.”

Tevin was
carrying his daughter in his arms. Her latest statement had his brow furrowing.

“You cannot go
in alone,” he said flatly.

“Why not?”
Arabel demanded. “She cannot hurt me.”

“Nay, she cannot
hurt you, but the fact remains that I will be there.”

“Why?”

“Because I
will.”

“But she may be
afraid to speak if you are there,” Arabel pointed out. “You are quite
frightening when you want to be, Father.”

“I will go in
with her,” Cantia said quietly, following the pair.

“Nay,” Tevin
said firmly, glancing at his lady. “I will go in. You may accompany us if you
wish, but know that I am not comfortable with it. I wish you would simply stay
out.”

Cantia looked at
him. “I am not going to stay out. If you go in, I go in.”

Tevin rolled his
eyes. “Stubborn woman,” he muttered as they reached the shack.  He stuck out a
foot and pulled the door open. “Then stay close. If you get too close to her, I
shall carry you out and spank you soundly.”

Cantia fought
off a grin at the threat, lowering her head because she did not want Tevin to
see her face. He was edgy enough as it was and she didn’t want to push him. Tevin
was already moving into the dim, musty shack, keeping Arabel far from the
figure lying in the shadows upon piles of fresh straw. He couldn’t set Arabel
down because there were no chairs in the room, so he stood several feet away
from the bed and cleared his throat softly.

“Louisa,” he
said, his tone low as he deliberately left out ‘lady’. “We have arrived.  Are
you awake?”

The figure on
the musty mattress stirred slightly. Bits of chaff blew up in the air as she
moved, settling upon the uneven floor.  Several long moments passed before a
faint voice began to speak.

“In the fall,
the trees will turn shades of orange and gold, soft strokes of the colors of
sunset that appear vibrant against the deep blue sky.” The voice from the bed
was barely audible. “In the winter, the colors will disappear and the trees
will be hidden by blankets of white snow, glistening and puffy pillows that
look like clouds but melt to the touch.  When I was a child, my brother and I
used to run wild in the fields of shimmering snow that the old people would
call Winter’s Tears.  We would make shapes in the snow.  Have you ever seen
snow, Arabel?”

Arabel was
listening intently, mesmerized by the first sound of her mother’s heavily
accented French. It was a deep, raspy tone, not what she had imagined or
expected.

“A few times,”
she replied softly. “But it usually melts and turns to mud. It never stays very
long.”

The
vinegar-soaked rag came away from Louisa’s face as she gazed at her daughter,
nestled in her father’s big arms.  Arabel was several feet away but still,
Louisa could see her delicate features. She was a beautiful woman, looking very
much like her mother had at that age. Tears sprang to her eyes.

“In the spring,
the show would melt and the streams would become great raging rivers,” she
continued hoarsely. “Yellow flowers would wake up from the frozen soil and the
mountains would be covered with them.  In the summer time, those same mountains
would be overrun with families of rabbits and the entire valley would come alive
with hopping, fuzzy creatures, all of them eating those pretty yellow flowers
and growing fat and happy.”

Arabel grinned
at the visual description. “I like rabbits.”

Louisa did
something very surprising, then; she lifted her head and, extremely laboriously,
pushed herself up so that she was resting on one elbow.  It was as close as she
could come to actually sitting up, but for her child, for this beautiful young
woman, she would make the attempt. She didn’t want to speak to her lying down
like a weakling. She wanted to show her daughter what she was made of. 

“You come from
strong and powerful people, Arabel,” she continued softly. “My father was
called Maurice the Bold because he was firm and strong, and everyone both
respected and feared him.  My brother was called Kurt the Brave, and he was
indeed a very brave man.  He once saved many people from a sinking ship by
charging his horse out into the river and using his long beard as a rope for
the drowning to cling to. It is true!”

Arabel giggled
at the story of the man with the rope-beard, bringing a grin to Louisa’s pale
lips.  “But the most respected and wise person in our family was my mother,”
she said, warmth and reflection glistening in her dark eyes. “You are named for
her, in fact. Her name was Arabel Edeline Johanna von Karmann von Hassenpflug
and was a direct descendent of the Valkyrie Sigdrifa, who was one of the chief
Valkyries. Do you know who they are?”

Arabel was
enthralled with the story. She shook her head. “Nay.”

Louisa’s smile grew.
“Valkyries are the goddesses that choose who may live or die in a battle,” she
said, rather proudly. “They are in my blood. They are in your blood as well.”

Arabel’s eyes
widened. “I am descended from
gods
?”

Louisa nodded.
“Sigdrifta was known as the ‘victory maker’. She brings luck to all men in
battle. Perhaps that is why your father is such a great warrior – he has you to
protect him. That is why you were meant to stay with him, you know. You have
protected your father all of these years.”

Arabel was
astonished. She looked at her father, who was looking at Louisa with an odd
sort of expression, something between disbelief and warmth. She had never seen that
particular expression before. Rather speechless, she returned her attention to
Louisa.

“But… but you
left me,” she said, sounding as if she was almost embarrassed to voice her
thoughts after what she had just been told. “Why did you leave?”

Louisa’s smile
remained. “I never left you, Arabel,” she murmured. “I gave you over to your
father so that you could protect him while I was called away.  We are
Valkyries, you and I, and we are needed everywhere. I came back when I could
but soon, I will be called away again.”

Arabel cocked
her head. “Where will you go?”

Louisa’s
strength was failing her. She had exerted herself all that she could.
Carefully, she lay back down on the stiff and crunchy mattress, gazing up at
her only child. She sighed faintly.

“Where all
Valkyries go,” she murmured. “Walhalla. It is where all of the great warriors
go when it is time for them to move on to another life. When it is time to
die.”

Arabel thought
on that a moment. “Will I go there, too, when I die? I thought I would go to
heaven. That is what the priests say.”

Louisa could
feel her life draining from her. Her arms and legs were growing very cold and
she instinctively knew she was not long for this world. God had given her just
enough time to reconcile with her child and now that it was done, there was no
longer any reason for her to remain. It was time for her to go.

“Wherever you
go, I shall see you there,” she murmured. “But for now, you must stay and
continue to protect your father. That is what you were meant for.”

She closed her
eyes and faded off as Arabel, Tevin and Cantia watched. The hut grew
excessively quiet, for not even the sounds of Louisa’s heavy breathing filled
the stale air.  It was Cantia who finally went over to the woman and felt her
pulse, realizing she was gone. She looked at Tevin with big eyes, implying the
worst, and he took the hint. As he turned to leave, Arabel stopped him.

“Is she dead?”

Tevin nodded
faintly. “She is, sweetheart.”

He started to
move again but she balked. “Please,” she begged her father, “I… I just want to
touch her. Can I please touch her?”

Tevin realized
he was fighting off tears. He wasn’t sure why, but he was. Perhaps it was
because Louisa had done what he had asked and given Arabel a true sense of
worth.  Perhaps it was all fantasy; perhaps not. In any case, Arabel would
forever remember the last words of her mother and cherish them. Louisa may have
wronged both Tevin and Arabel once, but in the last few moments of her life,
she made up for it. She gave Arabel the right to dream.

Silently, he
took her over to her mother’s body. Arabel wanted to be put down but there was
no place to sit her, so he ended up putting her on her spindly knees as she sat
next to the bed. When Cantia tried to move close again, he held out a hand to
her and had her keep her distance.  In fact, he moved back as well, going to
stand with Cantia by the door as Arabel sat beside her mother’s bed.

Arabel gazed at
the face of the woman who gave birth to her, seeing her own features in the
weathered reflection.  Lifting a weak arm, she gently touched Louisa’s hand,
her wrist, feeling her still-warm flesh beneath her touch. Then, she reached up
and pulled the blanket off the woman’s head, revealing hair that had mostly
fallen out. Louisa was almost completely bald.  But Arabel gazed at the woman
with some pity, some warmth, and stroked the sparse hair anyway. She was sad,
but not terribly so. In fact, she felt rather comforted.

“If you are not
in heaven when I get there, I will demand they take me to Walhalla,” she
whispered. “I will tell them I am a Valkyrie and they will have to let me go.
But until that time, I promise I will continue to protect my father. Thank you for
leaving me behind to protect him. I am glad you did.”

Bending over,
she kissed the woman’s wrist and covered her head back up with the blanket.
Then she turned to Tevin, who was standing near the door with Cantia in his
arms and tears in his eyes. Cantia had her head turned but Arabel could see
that the woman was crying. She smiled at the emotional pair, having no real
idea why they were so weepy.