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Disclaimer:- I don't own Beyblades or the characters but I do own my ocs and this story
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Chapter 5
They didn't come until four in the morning and al night the silence of a dead town and streets all waiting for the end of the patrol. Once there was a woman shouting far down the street, "No no no! He's not a priest!" then silence.
At one o'clock Loretta fell asleep. She had dressed herself in her most beautiful negligee and spent a long time doing her hair. Once she knew that Tala was gone, she was no longer really frightened only pleasantly afraid. Allowing herself sensual frissons of terror and begging Adele to comfort her to hold her. In the absence of any man she treated Adele like a substitute stroking her arm and saying how strong she must be and how dreadful it must be to be so strong. Loretta wondered how wonderful and asking repeatedly what happened. Who would come to search, what would they say and what would they do?"
"How would I know you imbecile?"
"Oh Adele you're so cruel to me!" as if she longed for the right kind of cruel, "Where is Ester, I want a foot rub and my hair brushed?"
"She cant, not now, she must help me scour the apartment for any trace of Tala." Adele also looked for more papers were overlooked and could still be taken When they had done everything that could be don't they went down to Madame de Martinique and Margareet to see if they needed anything but the two old women had already stupefied themselves with brandy.
There was nothing to do but wait. Loretta was asleep and Ester silent as Adele wanted them to be. Ester looked at her with those ivory eyes seeming to be able to look at her no matter where the round head was directed. Ask me her eyes said, mocking 'Ask me, white Madame, about your stupid lover who knows nothing and maybe I shall tell you something or maybe not.'
Silence.
3 o'clock, half past, four striking. In the silence of the house, the mantle clock in the anteroom stroked a warning. Ester lifted her head listening before coming to her feet slowly.
"They're coming."
It was another minute before Adele could bear their footsteps. No shouting, no banging of musket butts against doors but a man reading a paper. 'The Citizeness de Martinique, a ci-devant, the Citizeness Margareet Devon, the foreigners two remain here the rest upstairs, begin with the attics.
The search was quiet, polite and methodical. Adele had left the ladder on the landing below the loft.
"What's up there Madame?"
"I don't know, we're only visitors here, Madame de Martinique is a distant cousin of my cousin."
"Nothing up here."
Two men climbed down as cobwebs draped their shoulders and hats.
"The two old women below are drunk, Citizen, nothing there."
"What are you looking for?"
They didn't answer and Loretta was awake, beautiful in terror. The officer. if he was an officer took his hat off to pay respects to her and gave her, "Mademoiselle," as if there were such things as ci-devants, his eyes admired her beauty. He had manners and bearing of a ci-devant himself, the salon grace, even men were cleaner that the ordinary. They didn't smash locks or throw things but if there had been a mouse hidden they would have found it. Adele's heart felt like it was about to burst as if Tala was still there.
"The roof," the officer said to the men who had searched the loft, "Did you look up top? There's a skylight."
"We did but there was nothing there."
It was a quarter past five before they left, the same officer saluted Loretta then Adele before leaving. He ordered one of his men to replace a carpet that had been turned back to look under it.
Adele sat in one of the chairs in the ante room with her green eyes shut. Ester was putting Loretta back to bed.
'I must go to bed soon, at least for an hour. It is way too early to go to the prison now, to tell her father that he would be released on Sunday. It was too early for hope that Tala had sent word. How would word come from him?' The sky blue haired woman thought to herself.
A scary thought entered her mind, 'What it Citizen Bryan doesn't look after Tala and lets him die or worse hand him over to the Commune or the Section.' she had to hold herself back from running down the streets to beat the courtyard door and force her way in, in order to see that Tala was alive with her own lime green eyes.
Ester was at her side, "Stay quiet Madame," she said, although Adele had said nothing or moved, "He is safe enough."
"How do you know?" she caught the girl's hand and held it in both hers.
Ester looked down at her as she sat, the malice gone from her eyes or at least hidden. She almost looked sad as if she didn't want to know the things she knew. "He's safe."
"And my father?"
"He is too."
"Thank god," she buried her face against the mass of straight black hair, though Ester was a servant to Loretta she was treated like a friend and so she was able to wash her hair with some of the scented washes that Loretta gave her. "How do you know things?" almost like a child's question to a mother, "How?"
Adele was so tired that she rested her head softly against the girl's shoulder and could understand why Loretta found comfort from her and even depend on her. She felt that she was surrounded by safety and strength, like being held by one's mother, and ideal mother who knew everything as was so strong and wise that nothing could ever harm them. A unlike her own mother was-.
"are you good?" she whispered, Ester touched her hair slowly closing her fingers in it before lifting it so that Adele's head was away from her. It was like looking at the inner soul and see nothing but crimson and blood. As if the blood was running how the wall, a curtain, ca cataract of blood but it was only Ester's gown. Her tight crimson bodice and silk skirts.
"Go to sleep," Ester whispered.
The sky blue haired woman did sleep and dreamed of blood.
At the prison her father scarcely believed her that he would be free on Sunday and then he pretended to believe so that she would stop shouting. Adele showed him the papers to the gate keeper at the Abbaye, the undertakers and the guards holding it all the time in terror that they might snatch it from and destroy it and yet needing to show it.
"Oh aye," they said, "Sunday is it 3 o'clock? Oh aye like enough."
Thursday, Friday, Saturday. To the prison everyday with food, wine and linen before headed home to the apartment. Talking to no one and looking into every rumour, the army, everyone between 16 and 55 no, 60 no, 55 must report to be recruited. They can't take old men.
"My husband is ill, they can't take him!" women talking in front of the posters around the city.
'Every proprietaire, every head locatiare of the house. Every man must be prepared to volunteer. To arms Citizens! The revolution is in danger! The enemy means to destroy our lives, your liberty. Report to your Section. Report what arms you have.'
Every horse, carriage, or saddle horse is to be reported.
To arms!
Defend your lives! Defend the revolution!
Sunday came, waking and making sure that the paper was on her bedside table. The order should arrive at 3 o'clock. 3 o'clock, eight more hours, eight! He would need food like every other day, clean linen and money. Well the money is for the gatekeepers and the guards. Money to leave behind with the poor men who would not be freed today. Would they all be freed now that the search was over?
She made up the basket and forced herself to drink some honey and milk then wait to nine o'clock. She couldn't stay in the house listening to Ester and Loretta gossiping in Creole and sipping hot chocolate as if she was kissing the cup.
Adele went down into the street and began to walk. Men leading horses out of the courtyards, the horses fretful at being taken away by strangers. Old grooms protested and complained as their beloved horses were being towed away. The hours went by like snails, eleven, twelve, one o'clock. The crowds have started to gather everywhere.
"La Patrie est en danger! Aux prisons citizens, they'll try and break out and kill us all. Aux prisons."
Some of the onlookers with cards pushed into the ribbons of their hats, 'Pierre or death'
'I've his paper,' she thought, 'I've his promise. Found it hard to breathe as she walked and begun to run. To the prisons? What are they going to do there?'
There were more people coming and Adele couldn't run no more as they blocked her way.
"The Jerussians have taken Verdel! Everything is lost, the army is destroyed!"
"To the prisons, kill the bastards, kill the aristocrats, and kill the priests! Burn them out!"
Everywhere the crowd was running and leaving Adele in a tight spot against a stone wall while a man made a speech that said death for the traitors at 2 o'clock, "TO the prisons!"
The crowd was a like a river even a flood full of hatred and fear like stenches boiling and bursting from the mud. She couldn't get out of the crowd to see over the heads of those in front of her. A man was giving orders, the Citizen Bryan. Black coated and the same dominating sneer.
Adele began to fight her way towards him, kicking and pushing. The Citizen Bryan was directing half a dozen men in shirt sleeves, "Let me through! I've a message for Citizen Bryan."
The men in shirt sleeve held axes and clubs like the porters at the meat market let her pass.
"Monsieur- Citizen, I've seen Mayor Pierre, he has given me a promise, a paper-"
At the name Pierre, the crowd had drawn back giving her room. The Citizen Bryan looked at her with hatred, "What the hell are you doing here?" he whispered and then in a louder voice, "Mayor Pierre? Why of course, citizeness. Show me the paper."
He read it, his mouth sneering almost laughing as if he was pleased now that she had helped her, "What do you want?"
The butchers' men craning their heads staring at the paper that was from the Mayor, from the Blessed Pierre.
"To go in to him, to wait with him until he is released."
He hesitated, smiled wider, an ugly, crooked smile showing all his teeth. "That might be best," he said, "But you'll have to go in here, they won't let you in anywhere else." He took one of the men's clubs and leaned on the heavy timber.
"Hulloa! Inside there! Citizens! Open up! Its I, Bryan, the Citizen Bryan waiting out here. I've a woman with an order for release for a prisoner. Let her in."
The crowd was murmuring, "Release? Release?"
Adele saw the bolts and locks as she stepped darkness of the narrow passage where some men said, "Take her where she wants to go."
A hand pushed inside and the door slammed then bolted behind her. The sky blue haired woman was in a long passageway with a flight of stairs at the far end. As she came to them a man was coming down towards her driven along by two warders. His shirt sleeveless and he was hatless with grey hair and a bewildered face. An old man most definitely. "I'm released, "he said as if he couldn't believe it.
He was shoved past her, "Get on with you old man. Out into the sunshine with you."
Up the stairs into a small room that was stifling hot was a table and five men like judges, a crowd of guard and prisoners. The judges looked at her in astonishment.
"An order from Mayor Pierre, the prisoner Balt-" the guard didn't bother to read it out and gave the paper to one of the judges who merely waved it away.
"Not here, take her to the greffe. Next prisoner, have you taken the oath?"
"No monsieur, I can't."
"Ah well release him,"
"Release me?"
She didn't hear more but outside she hear a muffled shouting and roar of hatred. She went through corridors to eventually reach the gatekeeper's room where normally she was let in. One of the gate keepers to whom she knew was behind the table sweating in fear.
She gave him her paper and he shook his head over it as if he had forgotten how to read. Outside that muffled roar again as if the whole prison was surrounded.
"What is happening? Are they releasing people already?"
"They're killing them," he said, "Heaven save us." he looked around to make sure that no other guards were around before he leant across the table. "They're killing them all."
"But my father! I've an order -from Mayor Pierre! He said himself so you got to release him, where is he? The order will come at 3 o'clock it says here in his own writing. I've seen two men released!"
He stared at her, "God can't permit it," he whispered, "I've been a jailer 30 years. I-"
She realised he was drunk as well as terrified. Adele went round the table and lifted him up from the chair, "Please take me to him. Where are the guards?"
He waved his arms helplessly and she took the keys from a numbered hook, "Take me to him yourself."
"I can't. I can't leave here."
The roar lifted like the sea beating against the cliffs. She thought she could distinctly hear, 'Death! Death! Death a mort!' the crowd was angry that prisoners were being set free?
"Take me to him!"
He led the way up the stone stairs trembling with every step. "They're eating," he said, "they don't know yet. Oh God, oh God."
A man was hurrying down the stairs, "They've paid me," he shouted. "Now they can go to Hell with easy consciences," he laughed like a madman running away.
The door that was as familiar as the hack of her hand was their final destination. "You'll have to shout loud-"
"But you're going to release him! You've seen the promise! Let me bring him down to your gate. Te order will come any minute." she snatched the keys from his hand and fumbled for the right key and finally finding it opened the heavy door. "Papa! Papa!"
Men's faces stared at her greenish with fear. A long table set with the remains of a meal. Slants of light from the high windows illuminated just a few people's faces.
"Papa!"
Down the stairs and behind the door crashed and a roaring of rage and triumph echoed along the stone walls.
"Get inside!" the old gatekeeper shouted, "they've broken in! Have mercy on all of us," he pushed her into the room, "Keep quiet," he hissed, "They may not come here." the door slammed shut and she was inside the room with the promise of her father's freedom still in her hand.
"They're going to release you," she said, "Mayor Pierre-"
Men were looking at her most of them old men but two of them young and so alike that they might be twin brothers.
"They've just given us a meal," her father said as if it was an important thing. He had grown strange in these past weeks. Placing the basket down on the ground, Adele hugged her father closely. Outside there was a noise of a mob through the thickness of the door. One of the prisoners climbed to the window to have a look but there was no such luck.
The two boys approached her, the one named Edward said, "What is happening outside mademoiselle? Have they begun the massacre? His face was alight with something past comprehension, which he could have stepped out of a painting and his hair angel gold.
A crash of muskets, clubs battered against the door and the timber echoed through the room. In the middle of the room every man had their hands held out above them all kneeling.
"They're all priests," her father said, "They've been very kind to me,"
"I confess before Almighty God-"
The two boys had joined then kneeling men as a thundering against the door and the shouting and cursing of the crowd increased. "Cursed traitors, assassins, priests, the justice of the people are here for you. Death death to them!"
It was impossible to think that all these people were to die today, her father, the two boys and the kneeling priests.
"Go forth O Christian soul, from this world, in the name of God, the father Almighty-"
There were men getting out through a window and vanishing while the shouts outside still revved on, "The bastards are escaping, pike them down, give me an axe, and hack at them. Murderers, murderers!"
"Christ have mercy on us,"
"I love you Papa." tears were running from her green eyes.
Then the door at the far end crashed open, "At the hour of our death-" the old tall priest opened out his arms like the Crucifixion above his kneeling brothers as me ran towards him and lifted axes and sabres. A sabre swung and he bent his head under the blow, Adele couldn't bear to look or speak as she clung to her father in a dark corner. The room was full of men shouting and cursing as the blood seeped from everywhere and the screams of the wounded men echoes the stone walls.
"Kill the bastards, kill the murderers!"
The stench of blood and terror made her want to faint but her father dragged her close to him as possible which calmed her slightly. The priests were still kneeling as they were being killed. One of the patriots grabbed the golden haired twin by the hair as he lifted his axe for a blow.
"No not him, he's too young, he's not a priest, hold citizen."
"Are you a priest little rat? Confess it."
"Kill me, kill me!"
"And me, I'm with my brother, blessed be God!"
The blade on the white throat, Adele shut her eyes and nearly half fainted from the sound of the boy's cry of agony, "Stop! In the name of the revolution stop. All is to be done by law."
Silence.
The men groaned as they died in agony. The old tall priest was already dead and one of the two brothers. Edward lay on his back with his throat cut and blood pouring out of the wound. How many dead? She couldn't look or trust herself to move but eventually she found herself moving and kneeling.
"God forgive them," a dying priest whispered as she held his head in her lap. One of the patriots made to kick her but the leader stopped her.
"Let her be," the leader said, "Her turn will come. Why is there a woman here?"
'My father is to be released."
He was not listening to her but calmly stepped over the dead, dying men and pools of blood. They left them in the dark as everything was ready.
Adele had carried the wounded priest to a corner and made a sort of bed from the discarded tablecloths.
"Now I'm content," he whispered, "I've shared my Lord's pain." his eyes looked a long away off and grew veiled.
There were other wounded men and her father helped her, the brother who wasn't killed, Alexander and other priests. The men who had tried to escape into a courtyard below the window were brought back with their hands roped. A sort of order began to be established and the prisoners who hadn't been wounded were made to stand in a line before the long table. Behind the table were five men with sashed and cockades. The leader, who had shouted 'stop' placed at the centre was younger, better dressed and had a handsomeness that was burning and yet full of joy. He made the others look like simple murderers.
Along the far wall Adele and her father with the others helping them had laid the dead and the wounded for ten minuets without being conscious of the time.
Eight dead, eleven wounded and bound up.
"Take him away," the head judge was saying. One of the unwounded priests had his hands bound behind him then led out the door. At the door one of the patriots knocked his hat off and kicked it across the floor.
"You wont need that."
"Next, have you taken the oath?"
"No monsieur, I can't."
"Take him away," the hat was knocked from his head and outside the guards laughed. Further down the step a long cry of terror and agony, "Oh my God, my lord and my God."
Alexander cried, "Take me! Take me! Let me be with my brother. Let me die!"
He had no hat to knock but was taken away like a bridegroom out of the far door.
The sky blue haired woman knelt where she was by the line of wounded men holding her father's hand. "They're going to release him," she told herself consistently. The order will come but deep down she knew that it wouldn't, that she had been tricked and they were both to die here. She recognised the priest m the old man who had come there only to see his brother. He went out of the same door as all the rest with his hat knocked away.
'They're killing them all outside,' she thought. It couldn't be true but they were doing it as she spoked. One after the other, these old men and the young man and the others.
"Ask about me in the Cordeliers citizen! They will tell you! I swear by the name of liberty that I'm as good as a patriot as you are. Ask the Mareillais where I was on August the tenth! I was with them!"
"He was only brought this morning," her father whispered. "HE kept shoutin at everyone."
The man was put outside, a messenger was sent off for a witness while the trials went on. "Have you taken the oath?" most of the prisoners were priests who ha refused the oath that binds them to the state. One of the wounded men died so the casualty count grew and the line became shorter. Then only Adele, her father and the wounded men were left. One of the guards came for a wounded.
"Have you taken the oath?"
She was on her feet, staggering, as he, leg had gone to sleep from too long kneeling.
"You can't! You can't try a wounded man!" she didn't know why se said it or anything let alone shout it is Talmish than Aserythian. They stared at her like an apparition. Tall, lurching with blood on her elbows and her skirts in rags where she had torn off pieces to make bandages. For a moment, they thought that she was one of their own who had busted in from the courtyards.
"You can't touch him! Lay him down again!"
"He's a guilty man," the leader said, his voice almost polite but hoarse with tiredness. "Guilt doesn't come to an end with being wounded. What is your answer priest?"
The old man couldn't answer but stared around him as if he didn't know where he was.
"You can't try him if he doesn't answer. Lay him down!"
The door opened as Doctor Cruesole, the Citizen Bryan and four others came in. The judges got to their feet crying, "Welcome to the Citizens form the Union of the Cordeliers! Welcome to the Citizen Cruesole, to the Citizen Bryan and their colleagues. We invite your aid in dealing out revolutionary justice."
"I see that justice is being done citizens," Cruesole said. His hand under his shirt raking and raking as if his flesh tormented him. Twitching and staring about with his mad visionary eyes which stopped with he saw Adele. The Citizen Bryan had already seen her and seemed ill pleased.
"Let the Patriots of the Cordeliers judge this case," the leader of the judges said. He told Cruesole of the argument over the wounded man as if he was telling a joke at which he himself was to tire to laugh. The embers of fanaticism in his smile and the holy idealism that gave him inner joy if not peace.
"What had been begun must be ended," Doctor Cruesole said. "The Delegation of the Cordeliers votes for Death. If my colleagues agree?" he looked around him, one of his companions struck himself a blow in the chest. "Death for all suspects, all caloins, all traitors! I move that we resolve on cruelty! Only the axe can save us."
They carried the wounded man away and it took four men to hod Adele still.
"Who is this woman?" the leader of the judges said, wonderingly. "Is she mad? Why is she here?"
"I know her," Doctor Cruesole said, "A Talmishwoman. She has a father I think."
"I have an order from Mayor Pierre for his release! Look at it look!" Searching for the paper and holding it out. Blood was on it like a seal. "The Citizen Bryan-"
"I know her too," Bryan said, "She is stark mad. She should be locked away." his silver eyes caught hers threatening death.
"You're monsters," she whispered. "Monsters! Give me m father, he has done nothing, we came here as friends as lover of Liberty!" she shook herself free and came to the table as if it was she who was on trial.
"Let her go free," Doctor Cruesole said, "I've never seem a so tall a woman, she's a giantess. She'll make splendid children and plenty of spirit I see."
"Give me back my father!" she held the paper out in front of the judges and Doctor Cruesole. "You sent me to Mayor Pierre." she shouted at Bryan. "He promised me an order of release by 3 o'clock."
"Ah Pierre," Doctor Cruesole said, "He's a humourist but why not? Give her father back. He must be a strong man to produce such a daughter. I move to free this young woman and her father."
They were being led out of the door. Adele tried to struggle and say more about the wounded men but they forced her out of the door as if she was condemned.
"This is a trick another dirty trick, they want to kill us both." in a distant part of her mind she thought.
"Give the citizen his hat. any hat and put it on Citizen." they crammed a hat on her father's head and forced them down the stairs through the courtyard as bodies laid stained with blood on the stone. The guards shouted, "These two prisoners release by order of Citizen Cruesole."
Outside men with clubs raised and a bloody sabre as if they were about to strike whoever walked out of the door as it opened. The crowd stared and murmured as Adele and her father walked out of Sainte-Margertite. Her shoes slipped on the blood but hands held her up as voices shouted, "They're released, released, released! The Citizen Cruesole has released them."
"See his hat; he's wearing a hat to go free!"
The crowd surged as hands pushed them into the crowd as the men with axes made for them.
'They will hit us from behind.' Adele thought. The crowd laughed and lifted them up above them.
"The friend's of the Citizen Cruesole! Released, released! Where to, where ti live? We'll bring you home!" like a flood the crowd abandoned death for the life for freedom and for the joy difference and dancing while chanting Ca ira ca ira.
"The rue de Martinique, the rue de Martinique! They live in the rue de Martinique!" the brought them home like captives, like heroes, like a sacrifice and set them in the hall then left.
Men were shouting as they marched down the street, "Long live the Citizen Cruesole long live the Cordeliers. Long live the revolution. Death to the traitors!"
Adele sank down on the floor of the black and whit marble hall, and began to cry as if she was weeping blood.
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She count sleep, rest, or even keep the house. The first night she had slept because of Ester giving her a drug that made her sleep for twelve hours and each a nightmare. She woke ill ad feverish, needing to go out into the streets to breathe. The streets howled with the killings that were still going on. The woman had an urge to go to prison, the same crowd outside the door watching, not shouting or roaring in triumph. They waited for a man to come staggering out of the door, and then the axes and clubs would lift and strike as the man screamed and vanish among the legs of his executioners.
The crowd would make a silent passageway for his body to be dragged to a waiting cart with the other corpses there. When it was full it would drive off. Every few minuets the door would open and a man would walk out.
Adele walked away from them not knowing where, not even thinking of Tala, her father or herself. Like a sleepwalker and still half drugged with Ester's medicine, Adele saw crowds everywhere. A sudden rush of men and women, there seemed to be more women. A column of recruits marched and sung, they too were going towards death. She wrung her hands in fury of despair, not knowing where she had to go and not caring.
There was a thickening of the crowds, another person, the Temple. A garden surrounded it and the crowd had broken into the enclosure surging against the tower.
"There they are the tyrants, the Mixerian. Inside there. Guillotine the bitch, the Mixerian whore. Kill her!"
"That window there! There she is! Mixerian wolf bitch, you'll not live to see your brother."
The crowd carried something on a long pole. A head, a woman's head. The long hair and bloody battered face unrecognisable as anything but a woman's head.
"The Hilary! Here's your lesbian, here's your paddle! Kiss her mouth now you whore!"
The head was pushed towards the tower window.
The woman looking out vanished and the crowd chanted as the bloody trophy was waved like a flag of glory.
"I ate her heart!" a woman screamed, "I ate it! Don't you envy me? That's all the food I ever got from you, curse your soul!" the demented woman screamed and started to tear her clothes and dance in triumph.
'I shall go mad,' Adele thought.
She walked into an abandoned cathedral not knowing where it was but just wanted to sit down. Her bones hurt and didn't know what to do now. There were people praying, praying for what? Were they mad?
'If there is a God,' she thought, 'He's not here, nor looking at any of this. It wouldn't be possible because he would destroy everything'. She went home and collapsed as Ester had given her another drug but she couldn't sleep properly.
The killings went on for five days. Her father had become ill and somewhere in her mind, she knew it. Even helped in a distant away to look after him, while Loretta reproached her for heartlessness, "How can you go out and leave him? You don't have a woman's heart at all." she didn't want to hear about massacres and would put her lovely hand over her ears crying, "Stop! Stop! You're making it all up. Oh how wicked you are that you make me so frightened Adele!"
The lady with the blue hair ate very little and she must have eaten at least something or else she would have collapsed by the fourth or fifth day. On the fifth day she found herself without knowing wondering in the Street of the Holy Virgin outside Citizen Bryan's house. She knocked as a servant answered; a small man with a sneering mouth like his master answered the door.
"He's not in."
"Then I'll wait." she pushed the door in driving the man against the wall. Not from intention but indifference, not thinking about her strength or his weakness. He snarled and cursed shuffling backwards down the hallway. "I'll wait in the courtyard," she said.
He tried to bar her way but she lifted him aside like a doll. Tala was sitting in a broken armchair beside a fountain with his legs stretched out one of the new made chairs. He had another chair beside him and a paper, a pen and ink on his knees.
She didn't say anything to him and took the seat beside him. "It's alright," Tala said to the servant. "She knows that she's safe," and to Adele, "You got my letter?"
She shook her head, tiredness was almost taking her and she felt like laying on the straw and cobbles to sleep. It had seemed a thousand years since she was last in this place. She tried to remember what she had been like then, what she had thought and felt but she couldn't.
He seemed to understand and didn't say anything and after a time he began writing again. The sounds surrounding here soothed her to relax in the chair. The Neighbour's voices, the chirping of the sparrows that came to drink at the fountain and the warmth of the sun eased her stress.
"It will come to an end today." he said after an interval. "Your father is alright?"
"Yes."
After another interval and more waiting Tala announced, "I'm leaving for the East very soon, Bryan is getting me a passport. You-you and your father are welcome to come. All of you."
Adele was half-asleep and it took time to register what he meant and said but it still seemed distant to concern other people.
"It would be safer and you've got business there, near where I'm going."
"We've no passports," she said and didn't want to talk or think about doing anything.
"He'll get them for you, he'd be glad to see you out of Ishe. He's not happy about me being here and you knowing about it."
"He tried to get me killed," she said realising it almost as said it, "Only for that? That I knew he helped you."
"This is an Age of Humanity," Tala said, "What more reason would he want? Come here."
She made herself stand up and walk round to his chair. Taking a seat o the new straw seated chairs from the pile, she sat close at his side but didn't dare to take his hand or touch him let alone tell him what she had seen.
The blue haired woman put her hands to her face and after a minuet or two he put out his hand and pulled her away, "Look at me."
He was no longer laughing at her, only a shadow of laughter remained in his eyes. Their hands lay together on her lap as of it was their hands that were lovers and not their eyes or minds. There was nothing to say, nothing that needed saying.
'We belong to one another,' their hands said. 'They don't know it yet but we know.'
Adele sat looking at the courtyard driving away the ever occurring nightmares that haunted her so.
"Yes." she said at last. "We'll come with you and you'll need someone to look after you. Ask him for four passports for us.'
Two sparrows rubbed their necks together as though it was a sign to the world.
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A reminder that this story is completed but I choose to not put the updates up until I get at least on review
Read and review
ikl wings