Chapter 126: Family reunion
The morning must have been over for some time.
Enough time to convince Diane that her last blackout had lasted long hours.
She felt the heat of the sun burning her skin, yet for just that, the sun was slowly starting to set.
She felt the air freshen around her, she felt it, although still in her confusion she was not well able to open her eyes to observe her surroundings.
All Diane could do was stay silent and listen to what was happening around her.
Her heart was beating fast, it was evident she was afraid and excited at the same time for what was happening.
The lady could hear the voices of her three half-brothers around her, they were all of them together, she could sense it, she had spent part of her life with them.
Yet the three did not seem to be talking about anything interesting, nothing but the events of the night before: their loose memories of sex, beer and weed.
Not that the things the three told interested Diane so much, not that she actually understood what had happened, among the few memories she possessed.
She remembered having reconciled a duel between Damien Courcy, her friend, and Samuel Stanley, her older half-brother.
She remembered walking into the inn, she remembered pulling out her gun, she remembering pointing it at the head of Walter, her eldest half-brother.
She remembered shooting, but nothing more than that, it was strange, it was as if even her personal memories were so vague and poor that they left out details.
What had jumped into her mind? Seriously, she had tried to take the life of her own brother, one of her father's children, it was dangerous what she had done that evening, the bullet could have hit someone else, some innocent.
Diane lifted one of her hands, it was sweaty, sticky, wet, placed it with a quick movement on her forehead, it was too warm, much hotter than any other part of her body.
She couldn't have a fever, it wasn't possible because she could think for herself anyway and move with ease.
She opened her big blue eyes, turned them to the first source of light she could see, outside the small window of the hut, she saw the weary sun descend under the hills leaving room for the sunset.
Her sweet light dark face was immediately hit by so many faint rays of the remaining light.
Diane immediately heard the voices in the same room cease for a few moments, she knew that the attention of her half-brothers was directed to her, she was sure of it.
She was even more sure when, slowly lifting her back onto the back of the hard mattress where she lay, she could immediately see the eyes of the others on her.
Everyone was there, they were silent, some did something, others just stood there in silence.
She noticed all three one by one, she slowly passed her silent and curious gaze between the three men.
Her eyes rested for a longer time on Walter, on the brother whom she had tried to kill miserably the night before.
He was still alive, he didn't seem injured, this helped her in the reconstruction of her memories to understand that in a certain sense she had failed.
Diane stared intently into his large dark green eyes, his pale skin reddened only on the cheeks and his hair of a mixed colour between dark brown and tinged reddish.
Walter Stanley, their father's first-born bastard, born to him and a young Italian noble, of the Sforza family of Milan, Bianca Sforza was her name, she seemed to remember but she didn't know for sure.
She only knew that after the death of his mother the family gave full custody to the father because they claimed it was not their job to raise an illegitimate child they had never wanted.
In any case, Walter continued to visit Italy from time to time, he knew Italian fluently and this was enough for him, at least there in Milan to have support.
Then there was Marcus, the middle child, pale face, almond-shaped eyes to give him an original Asian appearance.
Born on a business trip to their father in Asia at the China's borders with Viet Nam, of an unknown mother. He did not speak a word of his mother language but spoke English and the Gaelic dialect of Man very well and poetically.
Samuel was the last bastard, a few years older than Diane and Gilbert.
Wavy hair and straw blond, blue eyes, maternally prince of Denmark.
In Man he had learned in his childhood to speak Scandinavian, but after years of difficulty he had given up on that too hard language and had only dedicated himself to English, his father's language.
These were her three older half-brothers and their stories.
It was impressive to see how each of them carried more of the characteristics of their respective mothers, but that in their doing they carried an iota of their common father within them.
Diane sat comfortably on the bed, stretched her limbs.
-Good awakening sister- Samuel hinted -you are awakened and without even too much damage, this is a miracle-.
Miracle, her brother was right, it was a miracle that after what she had tried to do she had not been taken to prison by the guards.
But she knew the Stanleys, they were masters in corruption, and even though this might seem really bad, their charisma and their money had saved them from various dangerous situations.
This was something their father had taught them well, to fend for themselves.
Diane saw the scene change every few minutes, first someone observed the her movements, then someone else observed the ground and so on.
The most perplexed seemed to be Walter, who in that situation and after the incident was trying to have the least to do with her.
He sometimes touched his wavy brown hair, pulled it to his forehead, he had a lot of it and it was wavy and puffy.
Diane most likely knew he hated her right now, but she didn't care, she had to try to keep her cool and don't get angry, don't cry, just pretend nothing happened.
She also assumed this cowardly aspect of herself having learned it from their father and it was not a bad thing at times.
Walter pulled at the foot of the sheaf of straw where the gun was: it was unloaded and it was her, Diane recognised it by the symbol of the deer that was engraved on the wooden handle of the weapon.
The pistol made a sort of snap on the floor, followed by a metallic, iron clatter on the hard floor.
She felt a discussion would follow, she sensed it.
-What did you think you were doing last night?!- the man himself scolded, turning his big and lively dark green eyes against her in a single moment -you have entered the inn, do you think I have not seen you pointed at me?! What jumped into your mind, did you want to kill me perhaps?-.
Diane stretched, she herself did not know what had happened the night before, she had cried, but she had not drunk or smoked, which in any case had not protected her from forgetting most of the events.
-Probably...- commented her placing both her hands on her legs -we haven't seen each other for years, maybe, I missed you brothers- she joked trying to dampen the air and not wanting however to aggravate her position in a possibly hostile territory.
-This is not a good time for jokes- Marcus stepped forward between his half-siblings, getting closer to the bed.
Standing directly under the sun the small window let his straight hair, black as coal, shone with an almost dark bluish shade.
-...Diane, our job here is to take you back with us to Man, to our home where you really belong, this is the command given to us by your mother...-.
-And you like good obedient bastards are at my mother's service right now, how interesting...-.
Diane was sure of it, with the utmost certainty that the plan to bring her back to her house was not born from the heart of her half-brothers but from the mind of her own mother.
She understood that having her only biological daughter in her home would have been a great relief for her, especially since a war was about to begin and that she was still in the territories of the crown.
-Since our father's death, your mother cannot bear to have us under her gaze every single day, she wants us to take you home, sister, to make ourselves useful...- they were afraid, she knew it, she felt it, from their trembling voices, of jerky movements of the eyes of some of them.
Of course, it must not have been easy for her mother to bear to see her late husband's bastards day by day, the children whom her husband had generated with other women, betraying her and her trust.
Diane did not even imagine it was easy for her mother to accept the fact that her husband returned home after months, sometimes taking with him a child, a small baby that he had at that time conceived with other women who were not her.
Did the other young women know that their alleged "lover" had a wife? Anyway it was still difficult to accept that situation as time passed and the bastards had become three over time.
She knew however her mother had raised them as her children, she knew she would never have the strength to hurt them or send them away as she had seen them as babies, helpless children.
Anyway she had to come up with something, she wouldn't go back to Man or those years, the losses she had suffered, her traumas and fears would all have been for nothing.
-I don't think I will...- commented Diane placing both hands behind her head, touching her soft and curly black hair -I don't think I'll go home with you-.
This statement made all three of her brothers shiver for a few seconds, she was sure they didn't understand why.
They were proposing to go safely home with them and she refused, like that.
-Are you really sure?-Samuel asked, her blond brother innately worrying about her, she knew he was good, she could feel it from the flushed colour his pale cheeks took every time he worried about her.
-What will happen to your children? They are almost two years old...if something should happen to you...I mean, as a mother you would not want your children to grow up without you, right?-.
He had a point indeed.
Her children had recently started expressing their ideas, talking, walking if not running, they were curious about everything that happened and being twins, partially curious about each other.
They played with each other, they looked into each other's eyes, sometimes they spoke to themselves, sometimes they didn't speak and it was as if they were communicating mentally without the need for words.
Cassidy and Logan, the children that she had never wanted, mistakes, the memory of a horrible event of two equally horrible men.
They had ended up being the best things in her life.
She anyway was their mother and she had to keep up with them and protect them if that was the case.
Should she trust to leave her children alone with her three half-brothers? She didn't know but she had to trust them if she wanted to continue on her way without putting two innocent people in the way.
It would have been hard and painful to part with them, especially now that they were talking to her and showing their affection but she had to do it, because she was their mother and that task belonged only to her.
-I will not return to Man, but I beg you to take my children with you, keep them safe as long as you can, with all your strength-.
The three men looked into each other's eyes for a few seconds, they did not initially seem convinced that it was a good idea but they knew their sister well, she did not allow herself to be forced by anyone.
So it was better for them to secure moral support for her.
Marcus moved his head slightly, his straight and black hair, he nodded briefly, he knew they would take the children with them.
The door swung open, leaving a noise, a strong enough bang against the wall of the room.
Diane immediately understood who it was, opened her big blue eyes, clear, the colour of the cloudless sky.
Her pupils dilated as she recognised the people standing in front of her in the middle of the door's arms.
All the Stanleys immediately laid a hand on their guns.
The lady on the contrary recognised them immediately, the boy and the girl who stood in front of her, Damien and Sam, why did they have those faces so pale, so sad, full of anger and terror?
What had happened to them? Weren't they friends?
-So you're a Stanley, Diane...I didn't expect it from you...You lied to me! For all this time I believed we were friends...- it came out of the boy's lips as he lowered his dull grey eyes towards the woody and hard floor.
She imagined, this was the problem, she was a Stanley, he was a Courcy and the two could not get along, be friends, never ever.
They were like dogs and cats, like Capulets and Montagues, they were different things, they always had been and always would have been like that.
Diane looked down, she guessed, but she didn't understand why.
What was causing their hatred? What led to their diversity?
For whom they fought. Perhaps.
For the name and title. Perhaps.
But until he had embraced the fact it hadn't made any difference which family she came from, why did it had to change right now?
-Damien...- came out like a whisper from Diane's lips -where is the problem?-.
-You let your family enter my territories! For what reason? To weaken us? What about our friendship? Was it all a construction? All a farce to play the role of your family?-.
Diane could learn the anger in the his voice, his belief but it was all wrong.
Damien didn't know how much she wanted to get out of the family business, how much she regretted her surname, she wanted to find words to express herself, but she didn't find them, she remained silent, a long and deep silence.
-Be silent Courcy, don't address our sister any more in these ways if you don't want to leave this room punctured by some bullets- Walter Stanley ventured .
Damien didn't have a weapon, he was sweating, he was afraid.
He didn't want to die, not now, not by the hand of a Stanley, so he just took a soft, prized white handkerchief from his pocket and stamped it under his feet, under the soles of his boots. He gave up.
-Let's get out of here Sam!- the girl nodded, she took one last sad and final look at Diane and followed him.
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