With You Here

by Sarah Monzon

  “Once upon a time…” Amber rested her chin on the top of Orhan’s head, which had nestled its way into her shoulder. “A long, long, long time ago, there were two dinosaurs named Sam and Jane—brother and sister, of course.”

  “Like me and Orhan?” Yara lifted her face enough to ask.

  Amber smiled gently at her. “Exactly like you and Orhan.”

  Orhan moved his face to the side so one eye peeked out of his hiding place. “What kind of dinosaurs?”

  Amber paused. “What kind do you think they were?”

  “Big, scary ones.”

  Amber nodded. “Of course. They couldn’t have been any other.” She licked her lips. “Sam and Jane lived in the most beautiful valley you could ever imagine. There was a lake that the sun would shine down upon, making its waters look like a million sparkling diamonds. And when Sam and Jane looked up, that same sun would blaze in a sapphire-blue sky. It was almost magical, because the sky seemed to have the power to pull up a gossamer veil out of the lake’s deep waters and cast a shimmery haze across the expanse of the lush green grass. Life was good in their valley.”

  Seth tore his gaze from Amber to look across the huddle of children. He doubted any of them understood all the words she was saying, but it didn’t matter. She used a hypnotic, melodious tone that seemed to be soothing the children and carrying them away from the terrors of their memories.

  “Sam and Jane loved adventure and had left the rest of their herd to go exploring in a nearby cave. The cave was dark as midnight without the shinning moon or winking stars for light. A thrill of the unknown sent their hearts racing as they plunged into the darkness. They encouraged each other farther, each wanting to prove that they were the braver of the two. Then suddenly, a loud bang sounded from outside the cave and the whole earth shook under their feet. ‘What was that?’ they asked each other.”

  “Was it a missile?” Sonia asked.

  Amber stroked the girl’s cheek with the back of her finger. “Sam and Jane didn’t know what it was, so they turned around and headed out of the cave to investigate. Turns out a great big rock had fallen out of the sky and landed right in the middle of their perfect valley. They couldn’t believe it. At first, they just sat there at the entrance of the cave in stunned silence. Then sadness crushed down on them until they thought the weight of it would cause their hearts to fall out of their chests.”

  Amber continued the story in the same quiet and calm tone of voice. She told how the two dinosaurs had dealt with their grief. How they had to come to the realization that it was okay for them to feel grateful that they had survived when the rest of their herd hadn’t. And how they had to decide if they were going to stay there in their valley and wish they had died too, or if they were going to move forward, even though nothing seemed right anymore, and make a new life for themselves in a new valley that would be different than theirs but perhaps just as beautiful.

  Seth felt a reverent hush deep in his soul. A kind of still after a turbulent storm, where wreckage was visible as far as the eye could see, but a ray of sunshine split open the gray skies, offering light and hope.

  With a simple story, she had given them that. Hope. Where he had mentally floundered on what to say or do to offer these young hearts comfort—for what did one say in the face of all they’d suffered?—she’d easily spun a tale that acknowledged that their lives had been irrevocably shattered, but also that they had a choice to move beyond it. To create a new future for themselves in a new homeland.

  And she doubted her calling? Because of what, her gender? He shook his head. Inconceivable.

  Open her eyes so she can see.

  Because what he was witnessing on these kids’ faces as they stared up at her looked an awful lot like a miracle to him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Holy Roman Empire, 1527

  Christyne tracked the progress of the procession as it climbed the incline, swatches of color from the landsknechte winking behind the thick groves of the forest.

  Too soon.

  Her nails dug into the stone of the half-wall along the parapet, rough edges biting into her tender skin as she willed the cavalcade to evaporate before her eyes. She blinked, yet still they came. The sun glinted off the long flamberge swords of the mercenaries, blades longer than the soldiers were tall, as they marched along. Garbed in the colors of the house of Heidelbraum, mounted upon his prized Palomino stallion and leading the pack, was her father, proud chin jutted in the air, his graying hair hidden beneath a feathered cap.

  Her innards squeezed. Too late.

  An hourglass had been turned the second Christyne had stumbled upon Lorenz in the woods, his healing forced to duel every grain of sand that slipped down the neck of the timepiece and plunked to the bottom like a bolder sinking beneath a crystalline surface.

  Like the watery grave into which he would descend if his presence were discovered.

  Her father’s form became fully visible as he exited the woods, the sun shining upon him with the full force of its splendor as the last granule of sand dropped to the bottom of the hourglass.

  ʼTis time.

  In a swirl of skirts, she turned from the rampart and descended the steps that would lead her to the great door to meet her father as was expected. Already, servants were drawing open the heavy wood, allowing rays of afternoon light to pool in the castle’s middle.

  She glanced to her feet, her thoughts transcending the floor beneath her soles to settle in the undercroft below. To Lorenz. How was she to tend his wounds now that her father the prince was returned? Any sound, a sneeze or a cough, could alert one of a growing number of people to the hidden room beneath the castle. Had she managed to prolong the young scholar’s life only to see his candle snuffed out so soon?

  “I am returned, daughter.” Prince Ernst’s voice boomed around the courtyard as he dismounted his steed.

  Christyne hurried down the steps and lifted onto her toes to press a kiss to his grizzled cheek. She took a pace back and folded her hands demurely in front of herself, her gaze arrested by the ranks of men filing into their midst. She lost count as they entered, her head growing dizzy with the colors and patterns of the many landsknecht. For what purpose was there such a number? She flicked a worried glance at her father, stilling her feet from retreat and her tongue from calling out a warning to Lorenz.

  Fool she was to have not apprised the man ahead of time. She’d known of her father’s looming return. Why had she not prepared the accused? Alerted him to the mounting danger at his door? Mayhap she could have borne his weight again or spun a tale and drafted the help of Nikolaus to move Lorenz into the village. To a cellar or the bottom of a haymow.

  The answer to those questions was near at hand. So near she had no troubled closing her fingers about it. She had been distracted. By Lorenz’s words of God’s grace and love, which speared her soul. By his expressive and intense eyes, which pierced her heart.

  As if sensing her mounting distress, her father rested his heavy hand on her shoulder. “Worry not, daughter. The soldiers’ presence is merely acquiescence to the wishes of my future bride’s family. They do not portend any looming threat to either our persons or the villagers.”

  For safety he believed she worried. Yea, but not her own, nor that of their people. One man alone had captured her thoughts these past days, and of him she must rid her mind lest all be lost.

  A palfrey as white as fresh snowfall walked through a gap in the mercenaries’ ranks, creating a hush among the gathered crowd. Christyne allowed her gaze to be pulled to the object of everyone’s attention. Sitting atop the mare was a slight woman who seemed even younger than Christyne’s own ten and eight years.

  Her hair, the color of golden wheat stalks, glowed beneath the jeweled net and jaunty velvet hat with a plume of white feathers dancing with every subtle tilt of her head. A gold necklace circled her throat, the garnet stones embedded within accenting the red velvet of her dress and the white lining of her paned sleeves an
d damask bodice.

  Prince Ernst beamed as he stepped to the young lady’s side and offered his hand to assist her dismount. The woman hesitated but a moment before accepting, her gloved fingers resting on his shoulders as he clasped her waist and settled her feet on the ground.

  Christyne studied her father’s intended. Had this young woman been permitted a say in her future? In the man she would bind herself to in mere days? Though her father had his good qualities, he was still a man with enough years to have sired the girl he was to wed.

  Christyne’s chest squeezed as the lady’s gaze remained fixed on the ground, her fingers twisted within the folds of her gown. Too easily could Christyne imagine being in this lady’s slippers. Indeed, if not for her father’s reluctant agreement, she would be—to the brute from the duchy of Schlestein, no less.

  Wishing to ease the lady’s discomfort, she stepped forward so the hem of her own gown would be within the woman’s range of sight. “I am Christyne von Heildelbraum, and I welcome you.” She put as much friendliness and compassion into her voice as she could. As with a trapped hare, it seemed this girl would have scampered away within the breadth of a heart’s beat if she had not already felt the noose about her throat.

  Prince Ernst’s laughter boomed. “Forgive me. It seems my thoughts scattered the moment mine eyes feasted upon my intended, and they have not yet returned to me.”

  Christyne winced at his choice of words and his willingness to be overcome by his baser self. Such things should not shock her, for the wedding and bedding of younger women to produce heirs flourished across the empire like weeds choking out tender shoots.

  “Daughter, I present to you my future bride, Clare von Hesseburg.”

  The woman’s gaze flicked up to meet Christyne’s. Fathomless gray orbs assessed Christyne openly before the young bride-to-be’s shoulders squared almost imperceptibly. Uncertain though she may be of her future as the wife of a prince of yawning years, she seemed determined to take her place and fulfill the duty for which she had been raised.

  Christyne felt for a moment as though she stared into a looking glass. Her own future was equally unknown. Would her father press harder for her to marry so that he might enjoy his new bride without his daughter underfoot? Would Clare wish the same so as to establish herself as the new mistress of the castle?

  And what of Lorenz? Had their meeting been mere coincidence or a divine appointment? Her heart nearly ached with the need to hear and learn more of the Scriptures. Of grace and not works. Sanctification and not sacrament.

  If her father sent her to another ruling state as a bride, would her opportunity to learn these new and radical truths be shut to her forever?

  The prince clapped his hands, drawing the focus of all to himself. “Let us refresh ourselves in the great hall, one and all, with vittles and mead.”

  “Huzzah!” The landsknechte grinned in approval.

  Christyne hastened forward to direct the servants in preparations, thankful to depart from the horde of murderous warriors. Their stench filled her nostrils and caused bile to climb up her throat. She could not behold them without memories of the peasant uprising and subsequent bloody defeat assailing her mind and sending her mad.

  She gave orders to the steward and then joined her father and Clare on the dais. Her own appetite had vanished at the first hail that the conclave has been spotted. In truth, she feared that, should she eat even a morsel, she would embarrass herself by its immediate reappearance. She could not let her unease be made known, however, so she picked at the crusty loaf of bread and the clusters of grapes that had been harvested from their own ancestral vines.

  The hairs on her arms and along the back of her neck rose. As if she were prey within the sights of a hunter, she felt marked. She glanced around the room, but no one seemed to be paying any particular attention to her. Nay, they all appeared in their cups. What, then, caused her skin to crawl as if a spider stalked across her surface?

  “Ah, Herzog Kampff.” Her father stood and extended a hand in greeting, beckoning the Schlesteinian duke closer. “There you are.”

  Kampff held Christyne’s gaze, the curl of a smirk twisting his lips before he returned his gaze to the prince and arranged his features into civility.

  “Is it not fortuitous, daughter—nay, divinely ordained, as Bishop Wilmer would no doubt proclaim—to have stumbled upon the duke as we traversed the woods?” The man who sired her looked upon her not as a father but a ruling monarch. One who would not stand for his word to be publicly reproached. “As you previously expressed a need to acquaint yourself with his person, I have invited him and his men to remain as our guests for the nuptial celebrations.”

  Kampff approached the dais with an air of self-import and mockery, his gaze upon her needling. “It is good to see you once more, princess.”

  She could not voice the same regards, the words being as much a lie as his had been.

  “What is this?” Prince Ernst exclaimed. “You have already been introduced to my daughter?”

  Christyne glanced to her side. Though her father’s words held only a hint of curiosity, she knew he was a man who held the reins with a tight fist. He did not like to be apprised of matters after the fact, so learning that the duke had deigned to meet with her without first gaining his approval would be a mark against the man.

  Christyne was returning her focus to the threat in the room, knowing enough about combat to understand one should not turn one’s back to one’s opponent, when Clare snagged her gaze with a widening of her gray eyes. She flicked a look toward Kampff, then returned her regard to Christyne with a questioning lift of her brow.

  What did the lady wish to know? With Kampff the answer must always be nay. With a subtle shake of her head and downturned lips, she let her displeasure with the man be known.

  “But a day past, my men and I entered your fief following a report that an arrow had been loosed into a heretic upon your lands. It is for this reason alone you find us in your woods, as I claimed then and still hold to be true now. Thoroughness, however, did necessitate I inquire of your household whether the apostate had been seen, reported, or captured and brought here for detainment. Little did I anticipate my inquiry would also serve as my introduction to your lovely daughter.”

  Christyne’s father held Kampff’s gaze before he turned to her. “And had any such report been made, daughter?”

  She squared her shoulders. “Neither myself nor any within our walls have heard an account the likes of Herzog Kampff.”

  The prince’s lips thinned. “I see.”

  Movement out of the corner of her eye drew Christyne’s attention.

  Hette. Fingers clutching the beads about her neck, lips moving in silence, eyes splayed within her small face.

  Be still, Hette! Christyne willed her thoughts to grow wings and take flight. To land within the maid’s mind and calm her hands, her lips, her fears.

  Afraid someone would track her line of sight, she moved her regard from Hette and returned a watchful eye to the duke. He seemed to study her as one would a chess board. Did he view this as a game? One where he could decipher moves before they were made? Verily, she prayed not.

  “We must all be vigilant for His Holiness, Pope Clement. I will send men to comb through the woods. This heretic will not leave my lands alive.”

  #

  Her father’s pronouncement rang in her ears over and over like the echoing of a gong. Not alive. Not alive. As if those words transformed themselves into the cadence of a beat, her heart matched their rhythm.

  The sounds of slumber resonated around the castle. Deepened breath. The wheeze of a snore. A body shifting under a blanket. They all underscored the crescendo happening within the confines of her chest.

  Skirts gathered so her movements would not be impeded, she pressed her damp palms against the cool stone and breathed in a steadying breath. Though darkness cast shadows across her vision, she prayed an inner light would guide her way.

  T
hough I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…

  She pushed off the wall and picked her way across the great hall, shuffling between prone bodies, pausing when a landsknecht shifted at her feet.

  I will fear no evil: for thou art with me…

  The warrior settled, so on tiptoes, she continued to traverse the labyrinth of sleeping forms.

  Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies…

  With a sigh of relief, she stepped over the foot of a servant slumbering near the exit to the kitchens, then hastened toward the outside. She put a hand to the apron tied around her waist and felt for the candlestick she had shoved in the pocket before leaving her bed chamber. Though she wished for daylight to more quickly put this night behind her, she thanked God for the crescent moon He had hung in the sky for her this hour.

  She peered over her shoulder as she approached the door to the undercroft. No one about but the animals of the night, their distant calls in the pitch somehow soothing. A comforting reminder that she was not alone.

  Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness of this hour in which she should be abed, but they rebelled at being plunged into the absence of all light as she lowered herself fully into the undercroft’s belly.

  “Lorenz,” she whispered as she shuffled her feet across the open expanse.

  A scuffling sound came from a far corner. “Christyne?” His voice held the deep timbre and languorous quality of one throwing off the grip of slumber.

  Her middle clenched and sent waves of an unknown feeling through her body. Though she had been thinking of him by his Christian name for days, this was the first experience her ears had of her name from his lips. As with all she had heard from his mouth, her name in his voice gave her an unexpected thrill. Already he had opened her eyes and mind to new understandings.

  Her brow creased. This unnamed feeling, however, did not enlighten. Nay, she felt muddled. Unbalanced.