“This one’s brown,” he said. “Like mud.”
“Better than blue.”
Finally, he said, “This one’s gray and it has pockets.”
“Pockets?”
“Two of them.”
“Sold!”
He helped her pick a cloak, then Seraphina went to search for undergarments and stockings. Her life had been miserable without stockings. They had been taken from her when she was arrested, then she hadn’t found any to steal.
“I think I found everything I need,” Rune said. “I’m going in that corner to change.”
She saw his shadow pointing at a corner at the other end of the shop, and she nodded at him. This was her chance to change as well. She slipped out of her clothes, letting them pile up. She kicked at the heap with her foot, as if it had offended her. They were dirty and smelled foul, and she hated that she had no way of washing herself before putting on the new, soft garments. She scratched at her skin for a few seconds, then sighed and forced herself not to think about it. She got dressed and allowed herself to enjoy the feel of cotton and wool. She inhaled deeply and thought she didn’t smell too bad given the circumstances.
“Gather your old clothes,” she said. “We’ll throw them in a ditch somewhere.”
They met again in the middle of the shop, and she heard Rune stop and stutter, as if the sight of her had taken him aback.
“You look lovely,” he said.
“In a sad, gray dress? I’ll take your word for it.” She felt her cheeks heat up. “I’m sure you look dashing, though.”
He chuckled awkwardly. “I don’t know...”
“I wish I could see you.”
The words were innocent enough, but she sensed Rune tense up. She’d said the wrong thing again. In her defense, she knew him by his low, vibrating voice, by the poems he wrote, and the songs he’d sang to her, and by his kind gestures and promises of violence toward those who’d hurt her. She also knew him by his fear of open spaces, and his self-loathing when he thought he’d disappointed her. She didn’t think that someone who was so beautiful on the inside could be ugly on the outside.
To her, he wasn’t a creature. He was Rune. And she would’ve given anything to see him right now.
“It’s better that you can’t,” he murmured.
“I don’t care–”
“You would,” he cut her off.
“Do you care about my eyes?”
“No.”
“That’s because you’ve never seen me with my face uncovered.”
He reached out to her, and she saw the shape of his hand through the relic. His long fingers were getting dangerously close to her face, and she forced herself to keep still and not pull back. Was he going to remove her strip of fabric? It was threadbare at this point. He could probably see the two voids of her empty eye sockets through it. If he wanted to remove it, would she let him? If she let him, would he allow her to run her hands over his face – properly, this time – and feel the true extent of his scars?
At the last moment, when his fingers brushed her cheek, she turned her head. He curled his fingers, hesitated for a few more seconds, then pulled away and cleared his throat.
“I found a scarf for you.”
He held it out to her, and she took it with trembling hands. She wished she were braver, but she simply wasn’t. Because if she didn’t care about how he looked – she truly didn’t, he could’ve been the most monstrous man alive – that was because she was a woman. She knew women who were married to ugly men, disgusting and foul so many of them, and as long as the men were warm to them and provided for their families, their wives loved them. It was in the nature of a woman to love and nurture and ask for little. Kindness over beauty. Men were not like that. A man, however despicable and unwashed, sporting a beer belly and garlic breath, would always want his woman to be a pretty thing to look at.
Not that Seraphina thought Rune to be that way. He was unlike any man she’d ever met or heard of. But this was not the time, nor the place. The night stretched before them, and they had one more thing to do.
She turned her back to him and undid the knot behind her head. Quickly, she replaced the worn fabric with the silk scarf and fastened it, but she found she couldn’t bring herself to add the piece of torn shirt to her pile of discarded clothes. It was dirty, but it was something Rune had given her, something that she’d worn for the past week. It had kept her safe and hidden her shame from the world. She wrapped it around her wrist as she picked up the clothes.
“Let’s get rid of these and find the cutler’s shop.”
