The Inner Beast

Good God, had it really only been three days? Time was passing so slowly, too slowly; it wasn’t fair. Cloella knew in the back of her mind that the Hessian would eventually have to leave, he did have his duty to attend to, but she had at least figured, or hoped, that he would remain with her until his wound had healed. But no, he stayed with her for only five days, but vowed to return in a week’s time, the longest week of her young life.

“The world thinks this beast has been hunted and killed,” he’d told her as he explained that he must go back to the war. “That makes now the perfect time strike.”

“But—“ She’d tried to protest, to at least tell him that she would be sick with worry for his safety, that she couldn’t lose him, that he was everything to her.

His long finger was only pressed to her lips as it was so frequently whenever she began a sentence he didn’t want finished. “Nein, there will be no objections, nor tears, nor mournful looks of concern as if you were seeing me for the last time. I will return. You will see me again. And I will hold you in my arms once more. I love you with all my strength, passion and pride, but despite that, there still exists in me something that requires the death, destruction and chaos of war for my survival.”

Those words were all that kept Cloella going. His words, and the giant footprints left frozen in the snow by him and the horse. Every day she would walk beside them as she did now; tracking the steps he took out of the house, to the stables, where he’d bridled and saddled Daredevil. The Hessian’s huge footprints circled those of the great horse’s that were planted in the center of the circle. She walked around and around those prints, her mind replaying how he lifted his heavy saddle over Daredevil’s back, fastened and tightened the girth, pulled his stirrups down their leathers, and patted Daredevil’s neck. Then he’d lead the big horse down to the house, by the garden gate, she walked beside these tracks too, counting the number of her strides that it took to equal just one of the Hessian’s: one, two, three, four, five; she didn’t really need to tally them anymore, but it gave her pleasure to do so, he was so big, so strong.

Originally, she had stood on the front porch steps and watched him at the gate as he girdled his rapier at his waist, hoisted the battleaxe over the saddle and then looked towards her. She’d tried so hard not to cry, for he said he would not allow her to, but she couldn’t stop herself from running into his arms and hugging him as tightly as she could. Now, everywhere the Hessian had walked, Cloella walked, remembering him. He did cut quite a dashing figure in his black breastplate, high collared cape, spurs and big black boots that came above his knees. God how she’d wished for something she could have said or did that would have made him change his decision to leave, even if it was only for a week.

She remembered the way her embrace had made him shudder as he stood, ready for battle, and ready to leave her. “Do not miss me.” He instructed, tilting her head up. “I am coming back to you! Miss those that you will never see again, only.”
She’d fought her chin out of his grasp, for tears were forming in her eyes and she couldn’t stop them. She buried her face against his chest, “I love you!” Her tears let lose with her words, and she was glad the Hessian’s arms enveloped her and pressed her closer to his body, holding her there for a few seconds. She’d felt his own breath seem to catch in his throat, but he made no sound.

His fingers had combed through her hair as she sobbed, she had tried to be secretive about it, but Cloella was sure her quaking shoulders had given her away, and perhaps they had, for he next spoke words she never expected him to say.

“So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
‘Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity of our love.”

Her tears had stopped immediately; she was so very surprised. “That was John Donne!” She cried raising her head from his chest so quickly it made her momentarily dizzy. “You know Donne?!”

The Hessian laughed at her shocked expression. “I can read!” He’d smiled, baring his pointed teeth at her with great amusement. “And there was a time that I was very keen on poetry of the Late Renaissance.” When she continued to just stare at him in amazement and said nothing, he had laughed again and said “Ja, the great devil reads love poetry!”

She’d actually found herself laughing after sobbing so horrifically moments before. “I love poetry! I know so many poems! My mother had a book of Donne’s work! I used to have to sneak it off the shelf, for she thought some it to be too…suggestive.” She had smiled as this new joy filled her heart; she and the Hessian shared yet something else. “Which poem is that from?”

“’A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’,” The Hessian answered, then again he took her under the chin with his gloved fingers, looked down at her, raised his eyebrows at her and cocked his head. “Do you understand?”

Cloella smiled then. “Yes.”

“There’s a good girl! Now send me off with a kiss.” His smile had given her the impression that he had no intentions of leaving her feeling worried, scared and lonely. And indeed, he had not.

“I will send you off with more than just that!” Her hand dug into the pocket of the shawl wrapped around her shoulders and brought out the lock of her red hair she’d cut and meticulously braided into a love knot the night before while he had slept. She’d pressed it into his black glove with a sigh of devotion. “Take this, for luck.” Her smile was calm, and so was she, no more blubbering.

His big shoulders shook with his delighted chuckle, she could see the sheer gratitude in his ice blue eyes; she knew she’d just touched him deeply. “I have not been blessed with a lady’s favor since I was a cadet.” He’d fondled the braid of hair in one of his large hands, and caressed the fiery tresses that hung down passed Cloella’s shoulders with his other. He pressed the lock to his nose and breathed in the sweet vanilla-cinnamon scent, then he’d smiled at her again, wrapped his other arm around her waist and pulled her to him tightly. “I accept it, with great joy!”

“Just promise to take heed!” She couldn’t help saying it, and she’d tried to disguise the request behind a laugh, but she was genuinely concerned.

He groaned as if she’d said it to him all the time. “I have been doing so for nearly forty-two years, I have no intention of changing my ways now.” He smiled. “Now, I believe I am owed a kiss?”

She could only roll her eyes and smile as she raised up on her toes to meet him, and touched her lips to his gently, only to have him quickly deepen the osculation, as he picked her up off the ground in a bear hug. She was breathless when he set her down again, and then stepped away from her, turned his back to her as he put his foot in the stirrup and swung up onto Daredevil’s back. She’d reached up with her hand; he took it in his for one last time before leaving.

“One week! Don’t forget!” She had been able to smile still, though her stomach had started to quiver a bit at seeing him on the horse; he would be gone soon.
“I will not.” He’d promised as he squeezed her hand.

A sudden smirk beamed across her face, for more of Donne’s words abruptly came to her. She would dazzle the Hessian with them! They were from the same poem he had quoted, and just as appropriate, for Cloella truly felt that she and the Hessian were like Donne’s compass, two points that could move separately, but yet were joined together at their center, and therefore destined to eternally come back to one another.

“And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and harkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.”

The Hessian smiled, leaned down, kissed her hand and gathered his reins. “Yours, Madame, in the ranks of death!”

She’d looked up at him with a furrowed brow, unable to place that line. “Marlowe?”

He’d laughed as he turned Daredevil to the horizon, pushing his heels down in the stirrups, as the big horse lifted his great front hooves off the ground, ready to charge into a gallop. “Perhaps you do not know as much poetry as you think! For that was Shakespeare; ‘King Lear’!” The jagged teeth flashed in a wide grin as he set his spurs, urging Daredevil onwards. “Fare thee well, mein Liebe! Study your verses!” He called to her as he and the horse set off into the woods.

“That isn’t fair!” She’d screamed to him in laughter. “’King Lear’ isn’t even poetry!”

Cloella was now standing in the footprints the big black horse had left in the spot from where he’d launched into a gallop. She was smiling with the memory of her last conversation with the Hessian, and still she was impressed at how well he’d managed to change her mood and calm her fears concerning his departure. He would come back to her, she would see him again, touch him again, feel his kiss, inhale his scent, be one with his powerful body, but not for four more days. Until then, she would walk in the footsteps he’d left behind, for it was the closest thing she had to walking in the woods with the man she loved.