Chapter 67: Olivier – Two Inches
Olivier, counselor to King Henrique of Baynard, owner of King Henrique of Baynard, was now just a long, grooved man standing at a locked door.
How did Thaila do that? How did she always find a door to lock, a key he didn’t have? How did she grow so thin? She refused to eat, but he forced her. Even so Thaila withered.
‘Monster,’ came her weak voice through the door. That was all she ever said. Monster.
He spread both hands against the wooden door.
‘I saved your life. I’m everything you have.’
And the dorr repliede silence.
Olivier was going to break down that door, like he had done many others. Doors, windows, walls: he’d break them all. Sheets, clothes, chains, he’d tear them all. But every piece of cloth he ripped, every piece of wood he chopped, Olivier felt older.
The revulsion in Thaila’s black eyes when he went to her house to arrest her. The subtle turning of her lips when his hand touched her. He thought she was going to be sick, even he felt disgusted by that white old hand on her smooth, copper skin.
‘Sir,’ he was called.
Olivier stepped away from the door and faced Erla’s despise. Even Erla! When did Erla become taller than him? No: he was the one who shrunk, like a shirt washed too many times. She began to call him Sir when Olivier brought Thaila to Tuen. Sir with her red gums showing.
‘Sir, Pierre is here.’
‘Pierre?’ Olivier searched his mind for a memory that gave meaning to the name. He found nothing, not even his mind. His thoughts were thinner than air at the top of the Oltiens.
‘Pierre of the Frontier, tamer of dragons,’ said Erla. ‘I have warned you, sir. Pierre has conquered Tuen and Chambert. I keep warning you.’
The Frontier! Why would anybody from the Frontier com north to the mess that was the rest of Franária? Thaila starving herself to death on the other side of this door and Erla speaking of dragons. Thaila disgusted by Olivier’s hand and Erla talking of the Frontier.
Erla: Her disapproval was almost heavier than Thaila’s revultion. Erla was so tall. Still the same magnificent woman who went alone to Debur shout demands at Henrique of Baynard seven years ago. She raised her voice and said all those things that were still stuck in Olivier’s throat. He, on the other hand, sold to Anuré someone who had once been his friend; he had touched Thaila’s hand, and now she killed herself behind two inches of solid wood.
‘They will invade, sir, if you don’t go to the door.’ Erla had grey pupils. Her eyes were brown, but the black hole in the center wasn’t black, it was grey.
Invade? Yes, of course he would invade. He needed an axe to break down those two inches and get to Thaila. Olivier went down the stairs toward the weapon’s room, but stopped at the hall when he saw the open door and a strange, two-headed silhouette against the outside light.
‘Olivier of Tuen,’ the silhouette’s voice echoed in the hall.
He came to the door, but every step he took was more hesitant than the previous. The silhouette revealed itself into a young man with eyes the colour of honey and a young woman with eyes the colour of ice. Behind them there were two and a half monsters with melted skin. Two of them were armed. Behind the monsters, Maurice and Gaul of Tuen. Behind the mayor and captain, hundreds of people waited. It was Olivier who made Maurice and Gaul what they were. They couldn’t turn against him.
‘Olivier of Tuen,’ said the young man with honey eyes, ‘You keep a woman here against her will.’
‘And you are?’ Olivier had never seen that red skin before.
‘Her name is Thaila,’ said the man.
The grooves on Olivier’s face became deeper.
‘Thaila belongs to me.’ And he turned to close the door.
He expected Pierre to bounce and was ready to react, but he wasn’t ready for what really happened. Something fell on the floor with a dry bump, holding the door open. Olivier stared and couldn’t fathom where that crutch had come from. Then, though Pierre didn’t move, Oliver was pushed back and suddenly the pretty woman with icy eyes was inside his palace.
Olivier was so surprised that he didn’t notice Pierre’s and all of Tuen’s surprise. The woman, stronger than the force of gravity, hissed:
‘Thaila belongs to you!’ and walked past Olivier, wiping the hand that had touched him.
Olivier leaned against the door. Two inches of solid revulsion. That woman’s disgust swept down Olivier’s body like a strong wind stirring curtains and throwing light inside an abandoned attic. Olivier saw himself through the young woman’s eyes, was more disgusted at himself than at the melted hands that grabbed and cuffed him. Two inches of iron round his wrists. He vaguely noticed Captain Gaul of Tuen with five of his soldiers.
‘We’ll take him.’
Olivier knew he had to react, raise his voice, remind Tuen who ruled there, but Olivier was tiny inside the filthy attic of his soul. Couldn’t they see it? They had to. He had saver Thaila. But the young woman had said no; the honey-eyed man said crime. Monster. Olivier threw himself against the soldier, yelled a yell without names, without verbs, filled with entrails. The people of Tuen turned away from him, with piety, aversion; they called him crazy, they called him monster. Only Erla faced him.
‘I’m not a monster, I have no fangs,’ said Olivier’s wordless shouts.
Tuen heard:
‘I am nothing.’
Vivianne gave orders and was taken to the locked door. She demandad they gave her the key, but the key was inside, with Thaila. Vivianne knocked.
‘Thaila, my name is Vivianne. I’m here on behalf of your father. Open the door and I’ll take you to him.’
It took Thaila so long to reply that Vivianne feared the other woman was unconscious.
‘My father is dead.’
‘Look, I don’t know how it got to this,’ said Vivianne, ‘but there’s a nearly dead Eslarian man at the Plume begging for someone to rescue his daughter. Well, rescue is here.’
Vivianne stood there for a few minutes and almost lost her patience, but then she remembered how terrified she got everytime she thought of the dragon and how it took someone like Líran to make her horror go away. Olivier might not be a dragon, but maybe he was worse.
Two slow clicks, the door opened and revealed a woman with her copper skin hanging on her bones, black dirty hair, weak naked legs. She looked at Vivianne in a mixture of doubt, relief, horror and hope. Thaila staggered and Vivianne supported her.
Strange that Vivianne’s leg didn’t hurt now. The moment she thought about the leg, it began throbbing with rage and Vivianne nearly collapsed. She was nearly blind with pain, but she helped Thaila reach the palace door.
Pierre was framed in light. He seemed to give orders, Vivianne couldn’t see to whom. She saw nothing beyond him. He was the only thing beyond the pain. He came into the shade, but the light came with him, which was funny. When he reached her, Vivianne pushed Thaila to his arms. He gave her the crutches.
Pierre picked Thaila in his arms and she cuddled against his chest, hid her face on his neck. She cried. Vivianne gave one of the crutches to Coalim and walked beside Pierre to the Plume, saying gentle things to Thaila. People watched, sobbed, averted their eyes. Pierre took Thaila upstairs.
‘This way,’ Vivianne opened her own room’s door.
Joanna followed them with hot water and soap. Pierre put Thaila on the bed and Vivianne squeezed his arm. She felt more grateful now than when she found out he had saved her life. She didn’t understand why, but decided to think about it later. She asked him to go fetch the Master Healer, then joined Joanna inside the room.
Thaila was already bathed, wearing cotton pyjamas when Pierre arrived with Marie. Vivianne left Marie alone with Thaila, who had accepted the bath and some soup without much reaction. She only asked one thing:
‘My father?’
‘Next door,’ said Joanna. ‘He’s alseep.’
Thaila moved her lips again and Vivianne thought she heard, ‘Alive?’
She closed the door and the rest of the world reached her ears. She hadn’t heard all the voices in the Plume while she helped Thaila bathe and eat. That woman’s pain erased the rest of the world, just as Vivianne’s leg darkened everything except Pierre. She couldn’t explain the light around him, especially because her leg didn’t hurt that much now and he was surrounded by light like a light was lit behind him in the dark corridor. The shadows were purple.
‘Thank you,’ Vivianne said.
‘Why thank me? You did everything,’ said Pierre.
Only because you were there, she thought. Vivianne was beginning to understand what Líran meant when she spoke of Pierre’s power, the story. He was a tear in the cloak of darkness that smothered Franária. Throught him, anything could happen.