With tears running down her cheeks, Aletta van den Garde moved about among her beloved wild roses and healing herbs in the fragrant herb garden on the side of the Dillenburg hill. She snipped at leaves and blossoms and stuffed them into her large gathering basket. She tried not to think about what was happening under the linden tree at the top of the hill, just outside the kasteel gates.
Alas! She could bring herself to think of nothing else. Yesterday Prince Willem and his friends had met in that spot and planned a war. Today her husband, Pieter-Lucas, had been called there to receive his orders.
Close behind her billowing skirts, in the herb garden, trailed her three-year-old son, Lucas. He whimpered and waved a small square of canvas with a globby-painted shape in the center.
“Moeke,” he whimpered, entangling himself in her skirts, grabbing at her leg.
“Ja, jongen, what is it?”
“You almost done?” The little voice hung heavy with a tired wistfulness that added to her melancholy.
“One more plant,” she promised and hurried to the remaining shrub. She squatted down to snip off a pair of twigs, and Lucas leaned up against her shoulder. From the corner of her eye, she saw a downcast face and curling lip. The blanket of sullen silence that held him tightly enveloped her as well.
He tugged at her arm. “Moeke, when’s Vader comin’?”
Turning her head slightly to avert his gaze, she said, “When Prince Willem lets him come.”
She felt Lucas’ warm fingers on the side of her chin, pulling her head around, forcing her to look into his wondering blue eyes. How sad the face framed by golden curls shimmering in the sunlight. If only she could keep her son from seeing the tear she felt sliding down her cheek.
“Oh, Moeke,” he wailed, smudging the tear with a sticky palm. “Is he goin’ far away again?”
She embraced the child and smoothed back his curls with trembling hands. Trying to sound cheerful and reassuring, she said, “Your vader is a messenger for Prince Willem. ’Tis the work of a messenger to go away—and come back.”
A shudder ran through her body. For at least five years Pieter-Lucas had been doing this work. Almost she’d grown accustomed to it, especially in recent months when he went mostly to German and French noblemen, trying to raise funds for a war with a noble purpose. Yesterday’s meeting under that linden tree had changed everything, though. Now he would have to travel in disguise across enemy-infested roadways to army encampments, alongside swords and guns and trampling horses.
Lucas wriggled free from her grip and held the canvas in her face. “He can’t go. We gots to finish my lamb.”
Forcing herself to smile, she said, “I’m sure he’ll help you before he goes.”
Nothing delighted Pieter-Lucas more than helping his son paint. Early this morning he let the boy lead him out to the stables and helped him begin to paint a lamb that Lucas had watched being birthed yesterday. Before the paint was half applied, a servant summoned Pieter-Lucas to go meet with the prince. Lucas followed his moeder around all the rest of the day and never let the half-finished painting out of his hand.
“Come on, let’s go get him,” Lucas coaxed, pointing to the tree with its fresh greenery just outside the kasteel wall. “He’s up there.”
Aletta let her son tug her to her feet. She patted her skirts into order and said, “Nay, son, we can’t disturb him. As soon as they finish talking, he will come to us.”
“Look, he’s coming now!” The little voice grew lively, and the boy charged up the pathway to meet his vader, his arms and legs all moving at once.
Aletta watched her husband hurrying toward them, as always, limping as he came. The wind blew his doublet tails and shoulder-length blond curls around him. In spite of herself she smiled.
For a long moment she stood watching, wishing desperately she could keep him here. She folded her arms tightly around her middle and was reminded of yet another ache, the ache of empty moeder arms. It didn’t come as often now as it had two months ago when her second child was born without a single breath of life in her. But when it came, the pain still ran deep. She knew it made letting Pieter-Lucas go away harder than before.
Grabbing up her herbal basket, she hurried toward the spot where Pieter-Lucas was picking up their son, who was shoving the tiny canvas into his face. She soon came close enough to hear him begging, “We gots to finish the lamb.”
“I know,” Pieter-Lucas said and reached out to gather Aletta into his free arm. Together they began the long walk to the kasteel at the top of the hill.
“It needs feet an’ ears an’ eyes,” Lucas was saying, “an’ a mouth.”
“We’ll do it,” Pieter-Lucas said.
“And, Vader”—the boy was holding his vader’s face close to his own and staring hard into his eyes—“when you go away, you take it with you.”
“Ah! Then you’ll not have it to look at again.”
Lucas pulled back from his vader’s embrace and poked his finger in his chest. “It’s for you.”
“Then I’ll carry it with me here,” Pieter-Lucas said, pointing to the inner folds of his doublet, “next to my heart and the picture of your moeke. It will never leave me, no matter where I go.”
“A picture of Moeke? Let me see!” Lucas was pulling back the doublet, searching for the surprise treasure.
Pieter-Lucas produced it, and the boy’s eyes grew wide with wonder. “Oh!” His little mouth formed into an awed letter O, then a smile. He giggled and planted soft moist kisses on both his parents’ cheeks.
Aletta and Pieter-Lucas exchanged aching smiles. Aletta hung her head and nestled into her husband’s one-armed embrace. Lucas waved his globby lamb and sang and chattered. None but Aletta knew that she wept all the way up the hill.