William Monk 08 - The Silent Cry

you can indicate yes or no to me.”
    Rhys stared back at him, almost unblinkingly.
    Hester found herself gritting her teeth, her hands sticky. She knew Evan had no choice but to press. Rhys was the only one who knew the truth, but she also knew that it could cost himmore than even his mother could guess, let alone Evan, who stood there looking so gentle and capable of pain himself.
    “When you went out that evening,” Evan began, “did you meet anyone you knew, a friend?”
    A shadow of a smile touched Rhys’s mouth, bitter and hurt. He did not move.
    “I’ve asked the wrong question.” Evan was undeterred. “Did you go in order to meet a friend? Had you made an arrangement?”
    Rhys shook his head.
    “No,” Evan acknowledged. “Did you meet someone by chance?”
    Rhys moved his shoulder a little; it was almost a shrug.
    “A friend?”
    This time it was definite denial.
    “Someone you do not like? An enemy?”
    Again the shrug, this time angry, impatient.
    “Did you go straight to St. Giles?”
    Rhys nodded very slowly, as if he had trouble remembering.
    “Had you been there before?” Evan asked, lowering his voice.
    Rhys nodded, his eyes unwavering.
    “Did you know your father was going there also?”
    Rhys stiffened, his body tightening till the muscles seemed locked.
    “Did you?” Evan repeated.
    Rhys cringed back into the pillow, wincing as the movement hurt him. He tried to speak, his mouth forming the words, his throat striving, but no sounds came. He started to tremble. He could not get his breath and gasped, the air dragging and catching in his throat.
    Sylvestra bent forward. “Stop it!” she commanded Evan. “Leave him alone.” She placed herself between them as if Evan were offering some physical threat. She swiveled to face Rhys, but he cowered away from her too, as if he could not distinguish the difference.
    Sylvestra’s face was ashen. She struggled for something tosay to him, but it was beyond her reason or even her emotion to reach. She was baffled, frightened and hurt.
    “You must both leave,” Hester said firmly. “Please! Now!” As if assuming their obedience, she turned to Rhys, who was shuddering violently and sounded in danger of choking. “Stop it,” she said to him loudly and clearly. “Nobody is going to hurt you now. Don’t try to say anything.… Just breathe in and out steadily. Very steadily. Do as I tell you.”
    She heard the door close as Evan and Sylvestra left.
    Gradually, Rhys’s hysteria subsided. He began to breathe regularly. The scraping sound in his throat eased and he trembled instead of shaking.
    “Keep on breathing slowly,” she told him. “Gently. In, out. In, out.” She smiled at him.
    Warily, shakily, he smiled back.
    “Now I am going to get you a little hot milk and a herbal draught to make you feel better. You need to rest.”
    Fear darkened his eyes again.
    “No one will come in.”
    It was no comfort.
    Then she thought perhaps she understood. He was afraid of dreams. The horror lay within him.
    “You don’t need to sleep. Just lie there quietly. It won’t make you sleep.”
    He relaxed, his eyes searching hers, trying to make her understand.
    But he did sleep, for several hours, and she sat beside him, watching, ready to waken him if he showed signs of distress.
    Corriden Wade came in the late afternoon. He looked anxious when Hester told him of Rhys’s distress and of the nightmare which had produced such prolonged pain and hysteria. His face creased with sharp concern, his own physical discomfort from the fall from his horse forgotten.
    “It is most worrying, Miss Latterly. I shall go up and examine him. This is not a good turn of events.”
    She made to follow him.
    “No,” he said abruptly, holding his hand up as if physically to prevent her. “I will see him alone. He has obviously been profoundlydisturbed by what has happened. In his best interest, to keep him from further hysteria, I shall examine him without the possible embarrassment of a stranger, and a woman, present.” He smiled very briefly, merely a flicker, more of communication than any lift of mood. He was obviously deeply distressed by what had happened. “I have known Rhys since he was a child,” he explained to her. “I knew his father well, God rest his soul, and my sister is a long-standing and dear friend of Sylvestra. No doubt she will call in the near future and offer whatever help or comfort she may …”
    “That would be good—”