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Henry wears yellow when he comes to see her.
It shouldn’t bother her. It’s the colors of the banners flying outside Rattay, where Henry lives now. The fields outside of Skalitz used to be yellow with dandelions at the beginning of summer. Theresa, Bianca and Johanka used to pluck them to make crowns for themselves, pretending it was their wedding day. They took turns being the groom, the bride and the proud mother.
She had a dream the other night that Henry asked her to marry him. She woke up before she could answer and laid awake for some time pondering what exactly she would have said. He’s not a bad choice of husband, perhaps even a favourable one. He is someone up there in the castle, isn’t he? Riding in and out of the gates, always on his way somewhere in the service of Sir Radzig. He doesn’t talk about that part of his life with her so much. It’s probably secret, not for a miller girls’ ears. Once he mentioned that he had seen Johanka in Sasau. He even suggested that they should go there together to visit her sometime, but he never specified when that would happen. Theresa is beginning to think that it might not.
Bianca would have said she was just being pessimistic.
He apologised, didn’t he? she would have said, the eternal romantic. He came back, didn’t he?
Or maybe, more likely, she would have said: Henry? How could you, Theresa?
The night after that rainy afternoon in the barn she dreamt about Bianca. In her dream they fought all night and Theresa said over and over: But he’s in Rattay and you’re in Skalitz, Bianca! He’s never coming back!
Then she woke up crying and remembered that Bianca wasn’t in Skalitz, but with the Lord. Or maybe, more likely, purgatory. Theresa prays for her every day. She wonders if Henry prays for her too, or if he’s forgotten her.
He looks so carefree lying down in the grass beside her, hands behind his head. Birds sing in the thicket around them, and if Theresa closes her eyes she too can pretend that they’re not in Rattay at all and that nothing bad ever happened.
“Don’t you have anything important to do today?”, Theresa asks, ripping grass out of the ground and strewing it over Henry’s chest. Green and yellow like the fields outside Skalitz.
“I feel like this is quite important”, he says with a content smile, opening his blue eyes to squint up at her. “Spending time with you.”
She smiles back. She can’t help herself. She strews more grass over him to occupy herself, or else she might just throw herself down beside him, taking his head in her hands and kissing him senseless. Like they did in the barn.
Sakra, she still wants it.
Sometimes she can’t get it out of her head, the warmth of his hands as they slid down her ribs. It was a pleasant memory until a few days later, when he finally rode by only to tell her that he didn’t think it would work out between them.
I’m sorry, I’m just so busy. And I don’t want to give you any false promises.
She wanted to slap him then. She had never asked him for any promises. She had never asked him for anything.
But he came back, didn’t he? He apologised, didn’t he?
If we weren’t made for each other, God wouldn’t have put us together.
Maybe soon it can be a pleasant memory again.
“Brave Sir Henry shirking his duties to court a mill maid”, she teases.
She plucks a dandelion and tickles it against his cheek. He scrunches up his face and laughs, catching her hand in his, crushing the dandelion between their hands.
“I’m no Sir”, he says, as if it’s reassuring.
“Not yet”, she says. “I heard they gave you a room in Pirkstein.”
He laughs a little, blushing. “Yes, well, it’s basically in the stables. If you saw it you’d think I was closer to a dog than a knight.”
“And as loyal as one, I wonder?”, she says, unable to dull the edge to her voice.
It’s not about her, not really. It’s that he’s wearing yellow.
“Of course!”, he says, sitting up, hand still clasping hers. He sounds so surprised it makes her feel bad.
“Oh no, Hal, I was just joking!”, she says, forcing out a laugh. Then she ruffles his hair as if he truly was a dog. “I know you’re a good boy.”
His other hand comes to rest on top of their tangled fingers. “I will be”, he says, so earnestly. “Trust me.”
She wants to.
They gaze into each other’s eyes. He has beautiful eyes; so sad and kind.
If she leaned in they could lie down among the dandelions and kiss the afternoon away.
She wants to.
But she doesn’t.
“Maybe we should get back”, she says, glancing down at their hands. Yellow petals peek out between their fingers.
He looks away, visibly disappointed. But he nods and stands up, still holding her hand to help her on her feet. He doesn’t let go as they walk along the pond back towards the mill.
If this was her life, would she be happy?
For a moment her thoughts drift to a distant future where she might also have a room in Pirkstein. Would there be a wedding, not in the dandelion fields outside Skalitz with Bianca and Johanka, but a real one?
Would she too start wearing yellow?
They arrive at the crossroads between the mill and Rattay. His hand lingers in hers for a moment more, in plain view of anyone who could happen to pass by.
“Theresa, I was thinking… Would you like to get something to eat?”, he says, a little bashfully. “You said you were done with your chores earlier, so…”
She pretends that she has to think about it, looking over her shoulder as if some urgent task is vying for her attention. “Right now? Oh, I don’t know… I suppose I could, but I have to be back before sunset, alright?”
“On my honor as an almost-knight”, he grins, hand to his heart.
“Lead the way then, almost-Sir Henry”, she says with a curtsy becoming of the finest almost-lady.
They no longer hold hands, but they must still look like they belong together, the way they talk and laugh and tease as they make their way up towards Rattay.
It could be a happy memory. It could be a tiny piece on the way to put her shattered life back together. But maybe God has other plans, despite what Henry says.
A rider comes towards them when they’ve walked in through the Rattay gates. His horse is draped in a bright yellow caparison and he reins it in when he spots them.
“There you are, Hal!”, he calls out. “Where are you going?”
It’s Lord Capon. Addressing Henry like an equal.
Theresa has never met him before. Henry has talked about him often enough, calling him a buffoon and an arrogant prick but smiling all the same. Zdena gossips about him from time to time too, giving Theresa more information than she would like about the lord’s preferences in the bedchamber. All in all, she doesn’t have a high opinion of him.
Lord Capon looks down at them from his yellow horse, clad in his yellow pourpoint, evening sun catching in his yellow hair.
“Just getting something to eat, my lord”, Henry says, the title somehow sounding more playful than formal.
“And this is the fair lady you’ve mentioned, I suppose?” The lord’s cornflower blue eyes look her up and down. “Theresa, the mill maid?”
There is undeniable disdain in his voice. If Theresa could, she would drag him off his horse and spatter all that yellow with mud. Just then she feels Henry’s fingertips at her elbow, as if he can read her thoughts.
“Yes, my lord”, he says. “She saved my life back in Skalitz.”
“I suppose I should thank you then, my lady”, the lord says, bowing his head in a way that seems mocking to her. “And I must apologise on Henry’s behalf, because I’m afraid he cannot take you to supper just now.”
Henry frowns, looking from Lord Capon to Theresa then back again. “I can’t?”
Capon waves a lazy hand towards the towers at the other side of town. “They need us for God-knows-what up at the castle. Sir Radzig just sent a guard to look for you.”
Henry turns to look at Theresa with his sad, kind eyes. “Theresa, I’m…”
“Don’t worry about it, Hal”, she mumbles, ignoring the feeling of Lord Capon’s eyes boring into her. “I had some things to do anyway. We’ll have time another day.”
He looks relieved. It hurts.
“I’m sorry”, he says.
It could have been a happy memory. Or maybe she is looking for those in all the wrong places.
But he apologised, didn’t he?
She watches him trot along beside Lord Capon, casting one last glance at her over his shoulder and lifting his hand to wave.
He wears yellow.
Like the horse. Like the lord. Like the banners flying outside of Rattay.