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It is hard to get used to silence.
And it is strange, because it is everything that a busy master can only dream of. But it is so difficult for Lucas, as if a rock falls on his soul with a terrible noise, and he is totally unable to stop it.
The old house in the mountains is enhanced well enough to not let the cold inside, but the forest is never completely silent - it whispers tirelessly in the ears with the winds, sings the songs of the cooing leaves, lives in harmony with the animal world. The murmur of water is barely audible in the distance, and Lucas concludes that there is a river or a stream nearby. This is a good sign. Pure mountain water will definitely not be superfluous.
But yet, silence is still there. Because someone else's laughter is not.
And his own thoughts, on the contrary, are too loud. Lucas shakes his head as he sets the alchemy utensils on the wooden shelves of damp planks. He looks around his poor semblance of a laboratory: the little room is more like a canopy between the porch and the house, one table and shelves with a bunch of boxes stacked on top of each other in the corner next to the window. Old wicker baskets and leather bags can be seen among them, which is not bad; at least it's something.
On the right, a cold stream pours over the opened door - Amicia helps him to drag his belongings into the house, bringing silence with them. Lucas points to the table, and she places the boxes of vials on the wooden surface. He pulls the corners of his lips into a smile of gratitude that breaks against the void at the bottom of her dark chocolate eyes. Amicia looks away and walks outside, boots rustling almost soundlessly. Lucas comes out to help with the rest of the cargo from their wagon. Amicia's behavior does not offend him at all, it rather worries him and makes him restless. She stares absentmindedly at the sack with clothes, twists the knots of the strings around her fingers, falls into thoughtfulness, giving herself away in jerky movements, and then blinks, hastily remembering what she was doing just a moment ago. Lucas picks up a smaller bag nearby, looks at the filly, which catches the sunlight with its dark sides, and sadly thinks that he will have to sell her. She will not survive the upcoming winter without proper care.
There is a stale smell of dust in the house, so the first thing Lucas does is open the windows, thinking as he goes about how to dry the wood and what particular piece the rotten smell comes from.
Amicia unpacks the sack, twitching her shoulders, so Lucas hastily leaves his load on a chair and starts lighting the furnace to heat the air through faster.
He does not hear footsteps behind him, but he sees Amicia sit down next to him, arms outstretched towards the warm fire. She has dirty fingers and black stains under her nails. Lucas pulls a clean handkerchief from his pants pocket and puts it gently in her palm. Amicia looks into his eyes for the first time in a day, giving him a clear, unclouded look.
A lump of heat swells in Lucas's chest, scalding painfully inside him several times.
The girl furrows her eyebrows in an unspoken, vague emotion, and then looks away and tosses a couple of logs into the furnace. Lucas squeezes her cold wrist, velvety, smooth as glass, and feels the life beating an even rhythm under the pads of his fingers.
That's right. The fire must burn.
***
It doesn't get easier right away. They learn to live, relying on each other, distributing responsibilities. Amicia speaks reluctantly, often limiting herself to only necessary phrases, such as “I’ll go hunting,” or “Do we have enough wood for the stove?”, or “I need to go to the city, are you with me?”. Usually they go together to sell the caught game and get a few coins for it.
Lucas hides the money from the sold mare in a linen pouch and puts it in a pot, after showing Amicia on which shelf he left it. The girl just shrugged her shoulders indifferently, sorting through the weaving of the old basket with chipped fingers. She handles this poorly.
“You can spend it however you see fit, Lucas. It doesn't matter to me anyway. I do not need anything.”
An emptiness flashes in her eyes for a moment, the one that has been splashing in there though the past month. For only a second, like a flash of lightning, Lucas sees the outlines of a stone children's grave in the sheer reflection of the pupil, but Amicia pulls herself back together very quickly.
A tree branch screeches against the window, causing Lucas to turn around, furrowing his brows under his overgrown bangs. Outside, the wind pulls black puffs of clouds in their way.
A storm is coming.
That night, he is awakened by a chill running down his spine. It seems to Lucas at first that his body is reacting to Amicia's disturbing dream out of habit, but he opens his eyes and sees that she is lying peacefully on the opposite bed. Lucas frowns around the room with a sticky, sleepy look and sees a huge rain puddle flowing into the house through the front door.
He jerks up on the bed, puts on a warm robe over a thin tunic, and tries to wake Amicia up. She opens her eyes almost immediately, pulling herself tenaciously out of sleep. Lucas feels bitter in his mouth at the realization that even now she doesn't feel safe, but pulls himself up right away, tries to bring his thoughts in order, drawing her attention to the problem.
They spend most of the night repairing the front door and collecting rainwater from the floor with rags, and in the morning they try to warm up by wrapping themselves in a bundle of blankets near the stove. Lucas hurriedly crushes motherwort with dried mint in a mortar, breathing heavily; makes a water bath for the infusion, and then hands Amicia a mug of decoction. The girl wrinkles her nose funnily, sniffing the contents, and this causes an involuntary chuckle from Lucas.
“It's for sleep. There are worse smells, as well as taste. Drink it.”
Amicia takes a sip from her mug and opens her hand, which is covered with blankets. Lucas sits down in the formed place and immediately finds himself in a cocoon of warmth. The heat from the stove gradually begins to burn his cheek, and he closes his eyes, taking measured breaths in and out, trying to calm the frantic pounding in his chest. His throat constricts to the point of nausea, and he relieves the spasm for a couple of minutes.
His left shoulder is pulled down suddenly, and Lucas turns his head.
Amicia gradually falls asleep, leaning her side against him. The shadows of her eyelashes dance on her cheeks, illuminated by the burning splinter on the table. She tucks her legs under her, suddenly becoming very tiny, almost smaller than him, and mutters:
“Thanks, Lucas.”
He carefully takes the empty mug from her fingers, forces her to lie down in bed and covers her with a blanket. She sleeps soundly this day, without nightmares.
***
He drags all the books left from Magistra Beatrice into his corner. Focuses mostly on those that tell about healing, studies herbs and infusions. He swallows the lines with rapture when he realizes that the subject of study is not familiar to him. Amicia still has a poor appetite, so he pays attention to the Amara [herbs related to terpenoids, bitter tends to increase appetite], and in his herb raid he plucks loads of dandelion roots, that have not wilted yet before winter.
“Radix Taraxaci,” he mutters under his breath, cutting off the roots from the tops. "You're so picky, aren't you? First sign of trouble, and you die.”
As if through a pillow, he hears someone else's quiet chuckle and turns to the doorway. Amicia holds the carcass of a rabbit in her hand. Lucas blinks and blows a strand of hair out of his eyes.
“Do you always mumble so funny when doing your studies?” She brushes his bangs with a finger and leaves a weightless flick on his forehead. “Need some help with your haircut?”
That evening, she carefully cuts his hair with scissors, lamenting that she does not want to overdo it, since Lucas’ hairstyle really suits him.
“Just a little, only to keep them out of the way.”
“Good,” Lucas replies, gently pushing a mug of dandelion root infusion towards her, and catches a nap under the pleasant touch of her fingers to his head.
Amicia begins to communicate much more willingly, more and more often stopping awkwardly next to his alchemy table, asking after a pause: “What are you working on?”, and then sincerely listening to his alchemical and medical babbling.
One day they go home after gathering herbs and mushrooms, talking about everything at once, as if the dam has finally broken and that invisible wall of silence between them is no longer there. Lucas remembers the wide smile his lips stretch into when Amicia, chattering, suddenly complains:
“I’m starving. Dinner suggestions?”
Most often, Amicia cooks, because, according to her, his food comes out much worse than his tinctures. Lucas frowns, muttering uncomprehendingly under his breath, lamenting about him doing something wrong. This is the same process of chemical preparation, only the elements are slightly different. Lost in thoughts, he stumbles, and only thanks to Amicia does he not smash his forehead on the ground.
“Be careful, you’re the only one with a bright head among the two of us.”
Her laugh is like a chime of bells. He likes how often a smile begins to appear on her face. Like a flower bud that opens in early spring, timid at first, and then in all its glory, dazzling.
It would be nice to admire such a flower all year round.
***
In the town, they sell a couple of hares and buy some kitchen utensils they need. Lucas looks thoughtfully at the spines of the medical books, carefully arranged on the merchant's shelf, but shakes his head, putting them back. At this gesture, the girl behind the counter smiles softly and cuts the price almost in half. She has a funny smile that lingers in the outer corners of her eyes. But Lucas’ cheeks are heated by a shameful blush.
“I’m sorry, what have I done to deserve such?…”
“Come on, take it, otherwise I’ll be offended,” the girl playfully tilts her head. She doesn’t look much older than Amicia. "You don't want to offend the lady, do you?"
Lucas tenses.
He is not stupid and understands perfectly well what this gesture is dictated by. But he does not like to take and not to give in return. And he definitely cannot give what this girl hopes for.
“Thank you so much for your kindness, of course he will take this book,” Amicia’s voice comes from behind, causing Lucas to flinch on the spot.
God, he constantly forgets that she has almost soundless steps.
Trying not to embarrass himself even more, he holds out the money - half of the price - and puts the book away in his carrying bag.
The girl finally gives him a sweet smile, but a barely noticeable sadness glimpses in her eyes as she steals a glance at Amicia.
Amicia laughs softly to herself as they leave the market and head home. She leans toward Lucas, tugging the sack strap around her shoulder more tightly. Her palms are wrapped up in freshly bought gloves, slightly worn out, but Lucas is distracted by the very fact of their presence, so he does not immediately hear her words.
For the first time in a while, she did something just because she felt like it. Such a banality, it's just gloves! But…
“Seems like she likes you.”
Lucas blinks sluggishly, takes a deep breath, preparing for the hard climb up the mountain and the fact that he will have to count his breaths.
“Hmm?”
“That girl,” Amicia smiles. “Maybe you should bring her flowers next time? If you want to thank her.”
“Ahhh,” Lucas cuts in strangely abruptly. “I'm not interested.”
Amicia is silent at this, and Lucas, for some reason, feels obliged to explain himself.
“Well, I mean, it’s very nice of her, and I’m pleased, but ... I wouldn’t be able to respond to her gesture, and maybe it was just a simple courtesy.”
Why is he so embarrassed? What nonsense!
Amicia mumbles pensively under her breath, and then openly teases:
“Well, you know, only if such gestures of courtesy extend to handsome and charming alchemists, then of course.”
Lucas's face is burning as if he spent half a day researching over a burner, and the air in his chest is running out faster than it meant to. And, despite this, he quickened his pace. This is inconsistent, illogical, why does he fall for such childish tricks at all? And why are they working?
Amicia's laughter makes a treacherous blush to spread down her neck.
They get to the house faster than usual, and his heart is pattering like it's about to jump out of his chest.
And he would be happy to justify all this with overwhelming feelings, but he sweats buckets up and his hands are shaking. Lucas enters the house, wearily leaning against the wall, counting the beats of his heart with the pad of his finger, and then hurriedly goes further into the room, behind the screen, to change his completely wet robe for dry, warm clothes. There was certainly no need for him to get sick.
After 30 minutes, shortness of breath goes away, as if it never happened, and Lucas stops counting his breaths and beats of his pulse. He looks at the sleeping Amicia, sighs raggedly, and goes to the table. In a mortar, he slowly crushes hawthorn leaves with no berries.
***
Amicia does not hide her surprise when Lucas asks to teach him how to hunt.
“Just in case. It might be useful.”
Of course, she doesn't refuse him. They train for several hours, and in the end, Lucas gets the feeling that his heart is just about to fall out right at his feet. But he stubbornly gets up every time, taking a crossbow from other hands. He still has to learn a recently acquired bow - the bowstring does not obey.
This is a useful and important lesson for him. A lesson that shows how helpless he can be and how it can harm the people he loves. A lesson from which he must learn how to deal with this helplessness.
Amicia praises him, but that doesn't quench the thirst of that worm in his head that's slowly eating Lucas alive.
He has one terrible trait - he hates unsolved questions he does not know the answers to. And he hates it even more when he cannot find answers, even if he tries his best.
He loses track of time with books, training with Amicia, testing his own limit. A cold white blanket of the winter lies on the Alpine forest.
He looks into the depths of the trees, into the darkness, holding his notes of the Libellus de Alchimia in his hands, when he feels the touch of a warm hand on his wrist.
“Why have you paused?” Amicia mumbles sleepily. “Go on, I like it when you read aloud. Even though I don't understand a thing.”
Lucas turns his eyes back to the lines and continues to read, covering her palm with his own.
He will become stronger. For Amicia. And for himself. He has to.
***
It's striking how just one detail can destroy everything you've been trying to restore for a long time.
Of course, a whole chain of certain actions and their consequences leads to this. Nothing collapses just like that, everything has a reason, everything can be explained by logic. Everything can be explained, but not everything can be fixed this way. Not the feelings, for example. And not the pain of the scars. You understand logically that this is a phantom ache, and your body is fine, but it does not lessen the suffering.
One day, late in the evening, Amicia leaves the house and does not return, even when twilight is gathering over the mountains and it begins to pour torrential rain. Lucas starts to get pretty nervous, and he tries to remember what was the rush that drove Amicia away from the house, reproducing her every step, walking on her heels, peeking into the corners.
Then he finally sees it.
It's not even a rat, it's just a little wood mouse caught in Lucas' trap, but his breath is caught at the realization.
He dresses as warmly as possible, lights a torch, stocks up on ingredients and walks out the door.
He knows exactly where he needs to go.
Amicia lies slumped against Hugo's stone grave, surrounded by snow and rain, and Lucas feels his feet sinking into the ground.
“God. No, no, no,” he exhales in a trembling whisper into the noise of the downpour around, kneeling in front of the girl. "Amicia, can you hear me?"
He clasps her face with one hand, puts it under the light of the torch, looks with horror at the bloodless lips and pale cheeks.
“Amicia, please,” Lucas pleads, feeling his head begin to ache and his thoughts to mix up. He flashes with anger for a second, and he lets himself to. “What were you even thinking about?!”
Perhaps from a scream, or it is just a coincidence, but Amicia opens her eyes. She squeezes his hand over her cheek, deathly cold.
“Lucas…”
They miraculously make it to the hut. Inside, Lucas puts her on a chair, sits down in front of her, takes off her soaking wet boots and sends her behind the screen.
“Take it all off, quickly, I'll bring you something to change into. Put on everything but the outer robe.”
He hangs the dry clothes on the fold of the screen, fussily rips off the blanket from his bed, prepares bandages, mixes the crushed ingredients in a water bath. Exhales in relief when he finds alcohol.
Amicia comes out from behind the screen, arms clasped around herself, the sleeveless white robe does not protect her at all from the cold, which bites not only her skin, but inside too.
Lucas reaches out his hand, sits her down on the bed.
“Here, you need to warm up, I hope we will get off with a couple of shakes, and we have to endure the night,” he mutters, rather for his own reassurance, because Amicia, even with all her desire, could not have a conversation with him. Her teeth are chattering so bad that he would hear this sound all the way from the threshold.
“Wh-what, and you w-won’t even s-speak at m-me?” she still asks, chapped lips curved with a smile.
Lucas shakes his head.
“I just want you to be okay, I don’t care about anything else. So please help me and drink this.”
Lucas dips his hands in alcohol, and Amicia begins to obediently drink the infusion, although she does not like the taste at all, judging by the expression on her face.
He does literally everything he can, and finally covers Amicia with a couple of blankets.
All night long, he sits by her side, holding down her body temperature and Amicia's desire to crawl out of the hot cocoon of cloth. All night long, he prays for the fever to bypass her. The splinter is flickering, but Lucas does not pay any attention to it, he gets used to the semi-darkness, gets used to moving in the natural light that the moon peering out the window shares with him. He does everything he can, but this is not enough, and when the morning comes, the fever locks Amicia in its embrace.
***
Everything seems to roll back to the very beginning. Only now he is alone, and there is no guarantee that it will become easier. He forgets to count the days, sometimes he forgets to count his pulse. Maybe a week goes by, maybe two. The only thing he understands is how comfortably the crossbow sits in his hands now, and how it gets easier each time to draw the bowstring. What he is always extremely attentive to is the pulse line on the fragile pale wrist.
But when he feels the stabbing in his own chest, Lucas takes up his hawthorn tinctures again. After all, if something happened to him, who would take care of her? He needs to be strong and healthy.
He almost dozes off in the chair next to her bed, the book is about to fall out of his weakened fingers and hit the floor with a dull thud. But a red-hot palm rests on top of his fingers, and Lucas wakes up so abruptly that his head spins.
Amicia looks at him with a weary smile on her lips.
“I heard your voice, there, in a dream,” she begins hoarsely. “Did you read to me some children's fairy tales? Poems or... stories?”
“I… was making up all kinds of nonsense,” Luca replies, not fully comprehending what he’s saying, he simply cups Amicia’s hand and inhales breathlessly as she squeezes it tighter in response. "I thought, maybe you'd find it funny, and you'd wake up. Begin to accuse me of being ridiculous, to tell that it could not be so. I was just trying not to lose my mind.”
Amicia furrows her eyebrows, looks at him with a long stare. Lucas does not rush her, sees how her chocolate eyes fill with tears, turn into pieces of glass. Maybe they reflect him, but he looks too deep to notice what lies on the surface.
Because an immense longing lurks and sits deep in Amicia, she's doing her best to suppress it. And she can't.
She rolls over on her side, clasping Lucas's hand with both of hers, forcing him to lean lower in the chair.
“After…” she tries to say, swallowing a lump in her throat, the first tear rolls from the corner of her right eye. “After Hugo… I wanted to die for a while. I was like a sleepwalker. And then I woke up.”
She suppresses a string of sobs, looks at Lucas, who has thousands of red-hot knots twisting in his chest from this gaze.
“You woke me up,” she admits, nodding like a confirmation of her own words. And I don't want to die anymore. If it wasn't for you... I thought I didn't have a heart anymore. It felt like a hole in my chest, and it's so empty inside, but... you know, even if the heart isn't there, I don't care. Because you are there.”
He is silent, caught off guard, trying to find words, but he can not. There are so many things in his mind, but the tongue seems to cease to obey, sticking dryly to his palate. So many times Lucas has thought about how much Amicia means to him, that she has the right to hear at least a small fraction of what tears his soul.
“You are the most important person in my life,” he whispers back, putting all the sincerity he can into those words.
“You did so much for me and this is how I paid you back,” she adds impetuously across, biting her lip to muffle another sob. "Forgive me, Lucas, I'm so…”
“I forgave you a long time ago ,” Lucas interrupts. “Just get stronger and get better. For me.”
Amicia nods as seriously as if they've just made a pact of life and death. Perhaps that is the way it is.
That day, he never let her hand go.
***
After that, they both seem to wake up. And the knowing comes.
Sooner or later, the cycle ends to give rise to another cycle. You either realize it yourself, or you are helped to realize it. Amicia is not used to being guided by logic, she acts driven by her senses. It is her, and not someone else, who draws the line marking the end of the cycle.
And when Lucas says that he will have to leave for a while, she explodes in incomprehension. He tells her something about wanting to own his own destiny, about liberation from the shackles of helplessness.
“You are not helpless!” She protests, her strength fully returned to her body, and all this is only thanks to him. “I know it! I believe in it!”
“And I thank you for that,” Lucas says, shaking his head. “But I have a lot to learn before I can believe it myself. And some knowledge will not come just like that while I stand still. Give me two years. And I'll be back.”
Amicia looks at him, imperceptibly changed, reaches out her hand to tuck his overgrown hair, that nobody will cut soon.
"You know I’m not sitting idly by," she replies more calmly.
“Of course. Therefore, we will conclude another contract. In two years, I will come to Provence, and we will meet at the ruined tower.”
“The one we play hide and seek by?”
“Exactly,” he smiles, trying to humor her. “Perhaps by this time you will find your own path, and you will no longer need me.”
Amicia is not amused at all, but it seems that she will not see him smile soon, so she smiles back. Humility sweeps over her with a wave of blunted melancholy. For some reason, everything that happens feels right, somehow.
"Don't even think about it," she replies, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “Just… come back to me when the time is right.”
He leaves at dawn, packing up the few things, carefully wrapping the alchemy beakers Amicia had given him in cloth and stuffing them into his bag.
As he descends the hill towards the town, the sun rolls out at his back, lighting up the path he has to overcome. He never turns around, and to some extent, Amicia is grateful to him for that.
Maybe she needs those two years too.