-She's waking up, she's regaining her senses...- these words echoed in Diane's ears, in Diane's head over and over again, as if she herself wasn't sure she heard them.
She slowly opened her big blue eyes, opened them for so little that the light of the sun penetrated them slightly, to make her pupils widen again.
She didn't see well, not yet, she wasn't waiting to regain all her senses, not all at once.
She had to get used to the light again, slowly, as far as she could, acclimatise to the great outside world.
How long had it been since that day? How long had she been asleep? What had happened to her? Whose voice was that and what had become of her children?
Those two poor things would certainly have died of hunger without their mother to give them the milk, the twins would have died of hunger and starvation and she would have been alone, with no one left to accompany her on her long journey.
Her eyes still didn't see well, they saw a mixture of strong lights, dark shadows, everything swayed at her gaze, almost as if what she now possessed was the sight of a newborn.
She squeezed her fingers, her nails around what was holding her up at that moment, she felt the wood, she felt it by touch, she felt she was on a bed or something that at least resembled it.
She smelled the dust, of the old mattress, she was on a bed, she was sure of it.
The last time she had been lying on a bed almost unconscious, it had left her nothing good, apart from her two children and she was almost afraid that someone had taken advantage of her again.
On the other hand, Diane was still young, she was beautiful and it was precisely this that made that innocent young woman the victim of the evil thoughts of others.
What had they done to her children? Where were they now? Cassidy and little Logan, what about them? Had they killed them? No, she couldn't accept it, no, where were her children?
She began to sweat, her body began to take power of itself.
She was scared, she didn't understand what was happening, she didn't know what to do, how to get out of it.
She felt her light dark skin burn, she had been in the sun for a long time, as far as she could notice, it hurt, she had no sense of where she was.
-Oh no, be calm, calm down...please-.
Diane felt on her hot hands the sweet and cold touch of two other hands, that voice, she seemed to know it well enough, that voice of sweet and young, was the same voice that had stopped the landlord from shooting at her.
That person had saved her life, she had to stay calm, at least as long as she could, she felt she trusted her, for the moment.
The girl continued to touch her, slowly, on her forehead, hot and sweaty, on her face, to bring a cold touch to her overheated body.
Diane had to thank her, from her heart, with all her soul, for saving her life, because despite stealing in her house she felt pity, for her and for her children.
She opened her eyes, she noticed what her saviour looked like.
She found the face of the other directly in front of her face, her eyes, her skin, pale and white as fresh milk, the golden brown color of her hair.
The girl's hair, was tied on the top of her head in a ponytail, it was long, it almost reached Diane's face, she could smell their sweet smell.
They smelled of honey, flowers, violets, roses, mixed with the rural and agricultural smell of straw and animal and horse hair.
She worked in the countryside, as she remembered, she was the one who saved her.
She seemed quite young for such a hard job, indeed, noticing from her age it did not seem that that girl could have been older than seventeen years.
Her clothes still seemed incredibly clean for a peasant woman, not a patch of earth, not a fold, she seemed to take great care of herself.
The young peasant woman looked into Diane's large and deep eyes, smiled, her eyes were also very large, but they were instead of a yellowish-brown color, which in a certain sense made them even more particular.
-My name is Samantha, but you can call me "Sam" if you like-.
Sam was her name, the girl's name.
Diane rubbed her eyes, it seemed it was her turn to introduce herself to her saviours, she had to be kind to them, to the girl and to any other person who might have helped her at that moment.
-My name is Diane, nice to meet you... but...I... I don't remember...what happened? how long did I sleep?-.
Diane lifted her body off the mattress, her head, her long sweaty black curls from the pillow where they were scattered in great mass.
She was now able to take a better look at the room, a look that allowed her to notice that the room she was in seemed much larger than she ever could have imagined.
However, it was a room with an antique look.
She could notice the floor was exclusively made of wood, much like the rest of the walls.
It smelled incredibly of stones and water and old and wet wood and in the corners of the room little plant remains grew, roots with small and tiny leaves.
Where were they? Not in the city, not near any inhabited place, she perceived it, she could hear it, or better explained, hearing nothing, no voice, no noise apart from that of flowing water and chirping birds.
She seemed to be inside an abandoned cabin, in the middle of a wood, suspect but at the same time more reassuring and relaxing.
It was she and Samantha, there, in the room, she believed so, at least, until at a certain point she noticed, in a darker corner of the room the presence of a third person, she didn't know exactly who it was, but she saw that he was holding her two children in his arms.
-You've been unconscious for two full hours, we were so worried about you...- Sam said helping Diane to rest, stand, in a sitting position.
-You don't even remember what happened, do you? The blow, your head...-.
Her head, she was right, only now that she had begun to slowly regain her senses could she feel that in the top of her head a wound had been created with dry blood, it ached.
Another, second voice rose inside the room, together with a quick body movement, at the end of the large room where they were.
-Let her catch some breath, Sam, help me put the children in her custody- that voice was young too, but in some more adult and mature tone than the girl and definitely more masculine.
In fact, he was a boy, but unlike the girl, whose smells were more rural, the boy's smells were more delicate, clean and noble.
His ways were more abstract and cold, of higher culture than Sam's friendly innocence and kindness.
In any case that boy kept his children, and together with his children also an immensely beautiful, noble, delicate aspect, in everything, in his hair black as coal, in his blue eyes, the color of the sea, from his upturned nose.
He placed the children in their mother's arms, delicately, almost with fear, of hurting one or the other, he placed them next to Diane's breasts, which her children immediately recognised, starting to move their little hands and feet.
-My name is Damien, Damien Courcy, eighteen, nice to meet you-.
Diane was right, he was a noble, as the whole Courcy family had been, for centuries indeed.
It was strange to meet one of them in such a poor place as that shack inside the woods and to notice how the boy did not look at all like any Courcy.
The noble family from Norwich, in the South East of England, adjacent to Warwick, was characterised for generations by a reddish-brown hair color and a green eye color.
On the contrary, the young Damien Courcy had hair as black as coal and eyes as blue as the sky or the sea.
Diane smiled, she had to be kind, she had to remember it.
She did not know whether to reveal her surname to her saviours, she did not know if it was necessary or even safe, since she was in enemy territory.
Diane was just her name, nothing else was due to know about her.
She was Diane, without a surname, she didn't need a surname, not when she had her two children with her, the people she loved most.
Those poor little ones must surely have been hungry, they hadn't eaten anything for so long, if she hadn't fed them enough they would have remained very small and stunted perhaps, which she did not want, that her children would suffer from hunger.
Diane had to breastfeed them, but she couldn't, not publicly, not with a boy in her room, she couldn't let him see her breasts, it was too private.
So she did it under the blankets, even if they were old or not exactly smelling well, it was the only way to combine her mother's duty with her respectful behaviour toward a stranger.
She looked around her, Sam and Damien seemed not to give her respite, not wanting to leave her alone, which on the one hand was oppressive but on the other it gave her a sense of protection.
-Where we are? If I may ask?- asked Diane.
-This abandoned house is a possession in my family's land, they planned to destroy it in order to have more land, but I prayed to don't do it... - Damian explained -this place is almost like a secret hiding place for us, where we can be alone , talk and forget about our tasks and ways, about society...-.
It was beautiful in there, quite normal what the young Courcy had said, another noble bored with his monotonous life and the limitations of society.
It was not so rare this fact, that an aristocrat was so bored with his own life, the opposite was quite infrequent.
-You know, here we are all bastards, illegitimate children, everyone has their own story, everyone has to get by on their own...- Sam added, gently closing the window of that large and silent room, stopping once and for all the chirping of the birds and the sweet rustle of leaves.
Had he heard right? Illegitimate children? Apparently it wasn't too rare for nobles to decide to combine their blood with that of the plebeians.
Illegitimate children were born mainly in three situations:
The first, a rape, the worst and most violent condition in which the bastards were conceived, a bit like her children, she did not wish this kind of trauma to anyone.
The second, children born out of wedlock, without any marital ties, even if born out of love, the children were by then counted as illegitimate children.
Third, by mistake, simply, born from a single union, unplanned and illegitimate, that too counted.
-Currently Courcy is my mother's surname...- Damien said making the situation clearer again - my father must be an important person, really very important, I think, a person with a lot of influence ...-.
An important, interesting man, perhaps that was why young Courcy looked nothing like any member of his family.
He had at least a mother, she thought, she had a family that, although he was an "illegitimate child", respected and loved him, he was lucky enough not to have been drowned in a river immediately after birth, as was the fate of so many bastards.
-Courcy is a noble name, you must be happy to own it... - Diane heartened him.
-You, on the other hand, should be the daughter of the farmers... -Diane returned turning her gaze to Sam.
The girl seemed delightfully satisfied to have made the acquaintance of a new friend, perhaps she actually felt a more intense bond than with Damien's male friendship.
-I am the adopted daughter, yes, I do not know who my parents are, but I suppose it is not important, not as much as it is at the moment to look to the future...-.
Sam was very positive, unlike Damien she did not cry about her past and she did not like to do so, she too remained confident and optimistic despite the impending war.
She appreciated her, Diane really wanted to be as strong as she was.
-My adoptive father accepted at my prayer that you can stay with us for some time, on the other hand we need help in the countryside, these are difficult times...-.
Diane didn't know what to say, she didn't really know whether to accept or not.
On the one hand she was running away, she had spent her whole life running away from one danger to the other.
On the other hand, she was Diane Stanley and death haunted her, it haunted every person who had anything to do with her.
She was afraid for them, she was afraid, that two such kind and good-hearted people might leave this earth because of her.