“That is enough, friends,” and the two lowered their swords.
“Leggitt,” de Garcia bowed as he turned around, “You wish to join us in the fight?”
“A fight, yes, but not this one. We have broken through the storm and Thunder Bay is just ahead. It is held by Gylain’s fleet!”
Meanwhile, in another part of the ship, Patrick and Lydia sat in conversation, on the forward rail overlooking the sea. A deck below kept them from harm.
“You hold our country in your hands,” and Patrick held them in his own.
“Yet I am no warrior.”
“I am, and you hold my heart.”
“Only a fool mortgages that which is indispensable to him.”
“Did I set out to sell myself? Did I intend to be indentured to the flaming sun that holds your face and to the eyes that haunt my dreams? If I did, then yes, I am a fool. But no man is made a fool by fate, for fate the foolish do not understand.”
“When your desire is fulfilled, your passion will subside. Have I not seen it before? Patience is necessary in love: it is becoming more than being.”
“Then am I to become nothing? For this love consumes me. Am I to reap the nihilist’s demise because I cannot but see your beauty? If I see a forest in the distance, I cannot rest until I stroll among its trees and taste its leafy air. If I see the ocean beyond a bluff, I cannot breathe until I swim alongside its waves. And when I see your sunny hair and starry eyes, I cannot live until I walk along your lips and swing your tempered tongue. It is the way of nature.”
“Nature has many ways. Civilization has arisen to thwart them. Should a man kill to fulfill his hatred, or plunder to vanquish his hunger? Trees do not look back and seas have no heart; a woman does, and I am no pleasure cruise.”
Lydia turned her head to the storm and her blue eye to Patrick.
“Damnation drown my wayward heart, the siren cries!” Then, in a whisper, Patrick continued, “I am a vulture in the graveyard and the carrion my own.”
“A siege without a fight is no true tale, a woman without a tale no true bitch. Faith makes love, that when passion has fled desire remains. Let it be this way and it may be.”
“You give me hope!” Patrick cried in joy, “And I am not so foolish as to ask for more. Now, my love, I go to ready my arms, for look: the Atiltian coast approaches.”
He went below deck.At the same time, Willard and Ivona sat together.
“Silence does not suit your countenance, Ivona.”
“Yet it suits my mind. What would you have me say?”
“That you love me and will be my queen when this is over.”
“But I am no liar.”
“Nor am I, to say I love you.”
“I, however, cannot love you. So I will not.”
“All that keeps you is yourself, Ivona!”
“But if your heart keeps you from love, love it may not be.”
“Then you do not love me: your glances originate in my mind and our kiss was but my nocturnal longings? Do you feel nothing?”
“I feel everything, but my heart cannot think and my mind cannot love. If I loved man, I would love you; I love God alone.”
Willard rose and paced the room. It was a closet by land, a cabin by sea: wooden walls, ten foot square and six high, ordained with an empty bookshelf and a paperless desk. There was nothing else, as it was only a sitting room beside the galley. Ivona was silent as he paced, having nothing to say. At length he aroused himself and spoke in a distracted manner.
“I am a man of the forest. By justice I mean strength and power: the ability make your sense of justice enforced. Yet you are something else, Ivona. To you justice is applied by the power of God and not derived from man or beast below. I am a man of the forest and I do not know you, I cannot. For you are a woman of God.”
“Then why do you pursue me? I am of God in spirit, of earth in flesh, and torn asunder by the tides of love against love. One will win and I will make it God. But, by God, why must you love me?”
“Because I am a man only in contrast to a woman. Does not the darkness love the light? For without it, what would darkness be? And do not angels love demons? For without demons, what would angels be? Thus, I love you; for without you I am not man but beast. Only your love keeps me from the forest, gives me heart above the trees.”
“But if an angel loves a demon, does it not fall itself from the light? If the light makes love to darkness, will it not grow dim? If I am yours, I will not take you from the forest; I will join you there. And if I love you, I will no longer be what you love. Thus, I will remain with God. He will be my only master.”
Willard knelt before Ivona, placing his hands together in supplication.
“I beg you, Ivona, forget the realms which cannot be known and give yourself to those which can. I love you and you love me; if God keeps us apart, then let him be forgotten and our love remembered. Even now the storms of love invade your heart. They cannot be defeated. So let it be and let us be one in love.”
Silence came down from above. The timbers creaked; the waves broke against the hull; but there was no longer noise within the room. Ivona looked into Willard’s face with raining eyes and storming lips. Her face was torn apart as he watched with forest eyes. But then, with the virgin glow of passing storm, her storm-cloud lips broke into a rainbow. Her heart was calmed. Its storm had passed.
“As for me, I will serve the Lord.”
Willard fell back with a word through his heart. His face blew foul, his heart trembled with the swell. He returned to his birth and was, once more, a creature of the forest. Time disappeared and only returned when the door opened to reveal Leggitt and de Garcia, with Khalid close behind.
“It is time,” they said, “We have reached Atilta!”
Willard went with them. He did not turn back.
Chapter 94
Thunder Bay had spread across the plain. Now the entire area was underwater. Only the tall trees of the forest stood above it and even those no longer seemed secure. The Hibernian and Atiltian fleets could come within yards of the castle walls. And still the rain showed no signs of slowing.
“Let me go, fools!” cried de Casanova to those who bandaged him. “Let me go, for if we all die what evil will my wound cause? There is much to be done.”
“No, my lord,” the sailors answered, “We have them trapped: if they resist us they cannot resist the water. We need only enjoy the spectacle.”
“Fools, I say again, that you have eyes and cannot see. Look, behind us in the bay proper, what colors do those ships fly? By God, if they are not the French! The fight continues!”
The distant trees blocked the ocean and the bay’s mouth from view, so the sailors had not seen the French coming. Now the trees seemed to vomit them endlessly, each ship lined with soldiers and archers fresh for war. De Casanova jumped from the deck upon which he was stretched and leapt between the ships as he had done before. In a moment he reached
“De Casanova,” Lyndon said without emotion.
The same screwed back, alarmed by the ambiguous tone.
“My lord, the French fleet arrives.”
“I am not blind,” the king returned sullenly.
“Indeed?” de Casanova answered, his voice flush with anger at the other’s languid form. “Indeed? Then why do you not prepare the fleet?”
“What is this war to prove?” the other asked. “We fight on foreign ground for foreign oppression, and for what reason?”
“To destroy the rebellions of freedom, which are connected in spirit if not in force. If the Atiltian rebels fail, so will the Hibernian; and it is better we put down a rebellion without fighting our own country men. Gylain chases his own ends and Cybele is taken: you must command.”
“Gylain! Where has he gone, the fool? He would not care one way or the other, where he is bound.” He
