“Ye are goin’ tae bring God intae it?”
“Seems like he knows, he heard us decide to marry.”
He nodded looking at his beer, turning slowly in his fingers. Then he said, “Dost ye ken who else can marry a man and wife besides a priest?”
I cocked my head. “Who?”
“A king, and if ye think on it, I hae sworn my oath tae ye in front of a prince, yer brother, and after I declared m’love for ye, he left us here tae live alone.”
“It’s as if he believes we’re married already.” I asked, “Do you think of us as already married?”
He said, “I ken I love ye, Alexandria, I would like tae take ye tae the bedroom, I am havin’ difficulties thinking beyond it.”
Heat rose to my face and I laughed. “Iknow.Everything we have to do to get married sounds like a total hassle, but I am having trouble thinking too, Torin, I really like you, I do.”
He asked, “What of marriage by habit and repute? Dost ye hae it here?”
“What does it mean?”
“We would decide tae be married, and twould be true.”
“That’s in Scotland?”
“Aye.”
I said, solemnly, “Torin, I think we are married and I’m the princess and so no one is allowed to argue with me about it.”
He chuckled. “Ye do?”
I said, “Yes. Do you think we are already married?”
“Och aye. I told half of Scotland I was married tae ye already, if we daena behave as if we are, then I am a liar.”
I grinned.
He said, “We will make it an unbreakable bond — dost ye hae a rope?”
My eyes went wide. “What are you going to do?”
He grinned. “For a handfastin’ ceremony.”
“Oh, gotcha, you worried me for a moment.” I got up and went to my junk drawer and fished out a coil of leftover thick redyarn. It was knotted in a few places. “Long enough?” I returned to my seat, my knees between his.
“Aye.” He turned it over in his hands, then looked at me with that steady, serious gaze. “This will do. Tis nae the kirk, nor the banns read, but the vows will be ours, and if he dinna hear us before, God will hear us now.”
Torin put the end of the yarn between his teeth, reached for my left hand, then my right, and began wrapping the yarn around once, twice, bringing his wrists into it and then dropping the end across them all. Our wrists were loosely lashed together.
We bowed our heads over our hands, and his voice was low. “By this binding, I pledge my troth tae ye. Ye are m’wife, Alexandria, from this hour until my last breath. I will guard ye, keep ye, greatly vex ye but try not tae, and I will always love ye.”
I bit my lip, holding back a laugh. I whispered, “And I promise, Torin, I am yours. To love you, to fight with you, to follow you, to keep you. Even when you’re very vexing.”
He lifted his eyes to mine with a smile. “Tis all we needed tae do, we are wed, Alexandria. Nae prince nor priest need say it, we hae spoken it true.”
“That’s lovely.”
He leaned forward and kissed me, hands still bound, until I forgot about everything else. The kiss started softly and pressed, pushing me back into my seat, and became stronger and deeper. I tried to move my hand but our wrists were still bound.
He chuckled and shook our wrists to try to get the yarn to fall off the other side. “Och we are trapped.”
