Tears of Leyden Read Online Free PDF

lashes to fall.
    He seems to understand my situation and sighing again, keeps quiet a moment. Then, he speaks lenient and pitifully to me. “Listen to me, please…I know we’ve hurt you, and I’m sorry for it, but please…I did what I could’ve done…I’m here for whatever reason to control you, and to ignore this would be insolent to the higher controllers on our part…specifically the monarch. I will do my best to care take you, if you do your best to hear me through.”
    I slowly peek back up into his eyes and for the first time find them not cold, but warm . I hate them.
    “You must be alive to do,” he tries. “I am being and I am doing…not just thinking and dying by thoughts.”
    I study his portrait, his dark brown hair, his light olive complexion, the expressive, abysmal, and decisive blue eyes, his sudden appearance not vivid with Spanish blood, but definitely I see it in him…or on him. His clothes are not fancy but common; button-down white shirt and breeches that look new but also darkened from travel. His boots have the mark of the Spanish militia imprinted on them. I would love to scrawl out the print. A certain sense of resonance though, in his being, threatens to make me feel forgiveness. I swallow hard and try not to lose my anger towards him, let alone my hatred for Spaniards. He searches my face for any left emotions to be aware of.
    I hate him. That is the only one left. I hope he sees it straight on.
    “I did not choose to take you away from them…I would never have done it if…”
    “You did though.”
    He looks at me gravely. “No. I didn’t, that was my fellow company. You are in my hands now , whether either of us can do something about it I am not sure. I do know, however, that I am supposed to protect you for unknown reasons of the King. You must agree that I have no hands in that.”
    I look to the ground and avoid him. I will never agree. Not for him or with him.
    “May I call you by your name which I know not of?” He introduces gently.
    I swallow dry spit and want to feel the loathing I know to be still stored in me somewhere. “You may not.” It is hoarse and whispery but I take pleasure at the callousness.
    He sighs. “May I at least take you into a safer environment?”
    “My welfare is my own concern, even if you have been given responsibility of it.”
    He is still calm. “I agree it is in your keeping physically and mentally, but it is in my hands to keep you, not just your health, in good condition for whatever the king desires.”
    The way he says it makes the King’s ideas sound worse than before, but I feel a shift inside that he is right. I look at him, not wanting the truth to separate me and the roaring despised feeling I have for him, but the hate is fleeing quickly from my heart, and I cannot seem to harness and pull it back.
    I tighten my fist, feeling the anger through it as I dig my nails into my skin. “What did they mean I was wanted by the King?”
    His face turns flushed, and he looks unmistakably unconvinced. “I do not know.”
    I hate that he sounds honest. “If it is your responsibility to take me somewhere, you must know. You belong to the Spanish army.”
    He clenches his jaw, but not out of anger, it is passive and slightly annoyed, though not with me it seems. “I cannot tell you if I don’t know. I am new to the military. The man you ran into today…he was the one you could have asked.” It is earnest.
    I think over the event with the first officer again. I hate to break it to him, but I don’t think there would have been a moment when I could have asked him, and I don’t plan on meeting him again. Now or ever.
    “Then why do you want to control me?”
    He is quiet. “Not control, care-take.”
    It sounds much worse. “Why?”
    He is silent.
    “If owning me is in your best interest than…”
    His face is firm. “You belong to no one but yourself and God, but we have our rights to protect and help each other whether the