Chapter 69: Olivier – Eggshell
For the second time in his life the woman Olivier loved left his life on her own accord. The first time he begged, he cried. This time he didn’t react. His world was an eggshell and it kapt on shattering. He picked up the pieces and glued them, but someone always stepped on them. Someone like Pierre. When he closed his eyes, Olivier saw the Frontierman framed in the door, backed by the sky and the eyes of Tuen. Olivier touched his shoulder and remembered that woman’s strength. Damnable people, who gave Thaila a choice. Damned everyone who took away the women he loved. First his wife, now Thaila.
Anger burnt in Olivier’s stomach. Another man would have thrown himself against the bars, shouted to the darkness. Olivier was not the type that erupted. Poison doesn’t explode. He knew there were no soldiers. Captain Gaul had left no ear at Olivier’s reach. Clever man, Gaul, but Olivier had always known that. Incompetent as a soldier, but bright nonetheless. The perfect man to look after Tuen beside Maurice, incompetent as a whole, but with a huge heart. The city was peaceful with them and neither had great ambition. How fragil that balance had been. One man was enough to break it, a little man from the Frontier!
A shiver ran down Olivier’s spine. Pierre had a way of Mystery about him. Something in his voice made you think of a wolf of Sátiron. Pierre’s red skin made you think of a dragon, even though Olivier had never seen a dragon. It didn’t matter. Thaila mattered. Olivier’s last chance to be happy. He had that right. She had to be his. Olivier was going to take Thaila away, to Anjário, to Eslarina, anywhere. He would be happy. He had that right.
Olivier heard the sound of a key turning, and stood in his cell. Twelve were the cells in the dungeons of Tuen, all empty but for his. There were no windows, but Olivier was now used to the dark. He had to squeeze his eyes when light from the street hit the wall. He recognized Erla’s shadow. The difference between Gaul, Maurice and Erla was that Erla Olivier had taken from the street. There is nothing more faithful than a mongrel.
She unlocked his cell.
‘You are free,’ said Erla. ‘Let’s take back Tuen.’
But Olivier had seen his own reflexion in the eyes of the people. He was poisonous with no fangs, and, with Thaila out of his reach, he went back to thinking without the poison of hope corroding his brain. Olivier’s power was a smashed eggshell. He needed another type of power to fight Pierre.
‘I am going to Debur,’ Olivier said. Then, he spoke something he’d never thought would come out of his own mouth: ‘We need Henrique.’
There was a horse outside for Olivier.
‘Wasn’t there a soldier here?’ asked Olivier.
‘Dead,’ said Erla.
Erla wasn’t afraid to die or kill. She wasn’t afraid of the War.
‘We were born from the War,’ she said once. ‘She is our world, mine and yours. Everything we have we own to her; we understand her.’
Erla believed the War could speak, that it (she) gave her instructions. It was the War, she told Olivier, that had begun the revolts in Debur, using Erla’s voice as a tool. Erla thought Olivier could also hear the War, but the only reason he was still in Franária was revenge and even revenge lost its importance. He would get Thaila back, and he would go away to Anjário.
‘Stop!’ came a voice from the ende of the street.
The dungeons were in an alley and Maurice of Tuen blocked the path with ten soldiers. He was standing tall, the mayor, his back straight. The buildings around the alley spied with their windows. Children climbed up walls and roofs to watch. Pierre wasn’t there. Maurice alonde led those ten soldiers.
Maurice moved forward and Olivier heard a thump behind him, at the end of the alley.