It was late into the night before Lyra's soft footsteps led her to the manor house's gates. The moon hung bright as a silver teardrop in the eastern sky; painting the rustling leaves of the climbing roses dull silver as the soft wind of the summer night mingled their perfume with the ever-present scent of the sea. Lifting the heavy cowl of the woolen cape she wore low over her eyes, she glanced warily about and padded soft as a shade from shadow to shadow until she reached the crumbling red sandstone walls of her home. The vines of wisteria grew as thick as her leg against the wall, their blossoms hanging as heavy as summer in the night air. Glancing about once more, she tangled her fingers into the familiar holds and started to draw herself stealthily upwards.
Carefully and quietly as a cat, she let her cold fingers search out the way among the tough, fibrous creepers, her lute bumping softly against her back as she climbed. Once or twice, she lifted her head at distant sounds, real or imagined and held her breath until they receded into the night. Several breathless moments later, she felt her fingers brush the overhanging lip of her window ledge. With a final, desperate strain, she pulled herself through the narrow opening, and collapsed with a relieved sigh.
Right onto Matthew's severely tapping foot.
With a frightened yelp, Lyra pressed herself against the wall, searching wildly for some means of escape. Seeing none more inviting than the open window and the thirty foot drop outside of it, she swallowed nervously and, giving her mentor her most disarming smile, prepared to give him a perfectly logical reason why she was climbing through the window of her own bedroom two hours after midnight.
Before she could form a single creative explanation, however, Matthew held up a hand, fixing his sky blue eyes on her in an impressive glare. Lyra's mouth shut with an audible snap. Matthew rubbed fitfully at his temples.
"Here I would normally ask you where in all of the hells you have been. Here I would normally shout and scream and demand that you tell me what you have been doing out alone at night dressed like the common, questionably moral street women." He sighed tiredly and ran a hand through his mane of golden hair, still thick despite his age. "However, as I know you far too well to think I have the least chance of getting a straight answer from you, perhaps I should just satisfy myself with your safety and go to bed."
Lyra blushed crimson and struggled to her feet, straightening her skirt with an air of what she hoped was nonchalance. "That sounds like a perfectly sound idea to me, Matthew." She twirled round slowly, letting her skirts billow theatrically. "As you can see; not a scratch on me." Smiling cheekily she feigned a yawn. "By all the saints, I am tired, though, so I think if it's all right with you I'll just turn in…"
She tried to breeze past him, but was stopped short by a large hand on her shoulder.
"Not so fast, my dearest pupil." He held her arm gently but firmly and plopped her down unceremoniously on the small trundle bed. "We need to have words, you and I." She stared up at him defiantly, her silver eyes meeting his warm summer blue gaze with some difficulty. Their silent battle of wills seemed, to Lyra, to stretch into infinity. Finally, though, she looked away and Matthew sat down next to her with a heavy sigh. He touched her cheek softly, tucking an errant strand of raven hair behind her ear.
"Lyra…" He gently lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. "My silly, foolish, fearless, girl… Where have you been?"
She shrugged vaguely under his intense stare, wrinkling her brow rebelliously. "Out." Pulling nervously on the ratted end of her braid, she turned her head and gazed longingly out the window. Her pale face shone softly in the brush of the moon's white fingers. "Away from Keylor Brandt and his wandering hands and Mistress Brandt and her repulsive taste in music. Away from the everyday and the always and the mindless never-ending day to day drudgery that seems to be the lifeblood of this damn place."
Matthew shook his head angrily. "Midnight has come and gone, child, and judging by the look and smell of you, wherever you were wasn't in one of Kelebrind's finer districts. What were you thinking? You know Lord Brandt does not allow…"
Lyra exploded off of the bed furiously and started stalking the room like a miniature hurricane. "Lord Brandt? Lord Brandt! Lord Brandt would have me meek and meal-faced as the rest of his mindless, giggling scullery girls. I am a street rat that you took pity on, without any great means or station, but I am not one of Keylor Brandt's lapdogs, Matthew. I am not!"
"And I am?" His deep voice came softly from his shadowed form slumped tiredly on the bed. "Is that it?"
Lyra's eyes widened. "Matthew, of course not! I just…" He held up his hand and she trailed slowly off under his eyes. She stood in the middle of the tiny room with her arms wrapped protectively around herself, not looking at him, her shoulders slumped; alone and small and scared in the quiet light of the moon.
"I just can't always keep myself behind these bars, Matthew. I can't! Not when there is a life out there that is wild and careless and windblown. Not when there are adventures out there, and monsters and heroes." She hugged herself, near tears, in what may have been fear or rapture; he wasn't sure. "Oh Matthew, the night air in the streets is more potent than wine. It tastes like freedom. It tastes like life!"
Matthew sighed as his heart tugged at him, just as it had all those years ago when he had first seen a dirty, thin little child singing to the manor house's cats. He had demanded then that Lord Brandt let him take the little urchin as his pupil; a decision he was questioning the sanity of to this day. He rose from the bed and took her in his huge arms, rocking her gently as he had when she was a child. She was stiff and unyielding at first, but eventually relaxed and leaned her head wearily into his shoulder.
"Keylor Brandt be damned, Lyra. He is not the reason I have been waiting in this room since nightfall with my heart in pieces." She looked up to meet his gaze, and he wiped the single silver tear from her cheek with his thumb. He watched her eyes solemnly, with a weight and intensity in his face that Lyra had never seen there before. "By the name of Kaladine, girl; do you know what will happen to you if the wrong person catches you alone in the dark streets of Kelebrind? I love you like the daughter the Saint's never saw fit to bless me with. Do not make me face a morning where you do not come home." He lifted the lute from off of her back and, gently setting it against the wall, sat her down on the bed once more. He smiled, ruefully.
"Trouble runs in your blood, my girl. I knew that the second that irate cleric dumped you on our doorstep. Just remember that adventures are very rarely all that the bards would have us suppose, and as hard as it may be for you to believe, boredom is far preferable to death."
Lyra smiled crookedly and wrapped one of the good woolen blankets around her shoulders. She bit her lip softly, and glanced up at the man who had been a father to her from the time she was plucked off of the streets. The fine wrinkles around his eyes deepened as he smiled at her tenderly. She sighed.
"I'm sorry, Matthew…"
He placed a hand gently on the top of her head and ruffled her dark hair. "I know you are, Lyra. Now, let us forget this. As hard as it may be for you to believe; I too remember what it was like to be young." He turned and walked from the room, pausing in the dark doorway. "Give an old man a peaceful life, my child. Stay away from the dark and danger. Become the Lady I've been trying to beat into you, and take my place as the manor's minstrel when I'm old and deaf. Leave the daring adventures, risky escapes, and handsome, dashing heroes for your songs." Lyra smiled half-heartedly at him, and he closed the door quietly behind himself with a soft goodnight.
She undressed slowly and combed the tangles out of her long untamed hair. Letting it hang free down her back, she climbed to the window seat, still warm from the last remembrances of the summer sun. Long after Matthew had left, she sat quietly staring out of her window across the manicured gardens of Keylor Brandt's estate, far past the sleepy ramshackle town to the wild dark world beyond.