The hand does not waver although his expression shifts to pain. ‘Mehrab, she’s been gone all these months. I cannot imagine she’d remain here after escaping, not even to punish me.’
How unhappy were they; why did no one tell me? Not even Reynald? But I know. This is precisely the sort of gossip no one would share with me. The habit of not speaking to me of my once-upon-a-time lover too ingrained, something I, after all, have trained them in over the years. So my tone is sadder than I would like when I ask a question I wish I’d swallowed, ‘Why didn’tyoucome to me sooner?’
He speaks softly, with neither heat nor hurt. ‘And say what? How could I come to you after all that had happened between us? After what I did? I regretted it the moment I tried to manipulate you into marriage – I felt sure you would change your mind and live happily ever after.’ He snorts. ‘But I’d not thought you’d be so stubborn.’
‘Had you even met me, Faolan Alderson?’
‘I was sorry and knew what I did – marrying Helvis out of spite – and while I wasn’t the worst husband, I wasn’t the best. Felt guilty all the time at what I’d done. Not sure I wasany better as a father. And I miss her, I do, after so many years together, and she tried her best. She loved me in spite of myself.’ He shakes his head. ‘But I have years left to live. If you would try again? If you’d find it in you to forgive me? I offer no chains, I will take whatever crumb you’re prepared to give.’ He grins. ‘And even if you can’t bear the thought of me for longer than a day, would you give me this one night, if I beg? C’mon, for the cost of two horses, surely it’s a bargain.’
There’s no thought in my mind when I take the hand he’s held out all this time, and he’s so strong, the horse so sturdy, that he swings me up behind him without effort. I wrap my arms around his waist, press myself against his broad back and hold on for dear life as the horse takes off at ridiculous speed. Briefly I curse myself for giving in – it’s the second time in my life I’ve made such an impetuous choice – then I embrace it. The wildness, the recklessness, the moment when my heartbeat begins to hammer in time with the horse’s hooves and every so often I think I see sparks fly up from where they strike the earth. A sense of danger, yes; a sense of threat, no. No fear of falling, of the beast losing his footing. Utter, headlong certainty of my safety in this at least.
When at last we slow, I can’t help but feel disappointment rising; I’d have gleefully continued on in this fashion for hours, perhaps days if it were possible. But the horse is lathered in sweat and breathing heavily. Through the trees is the green, laid out for the harvest-messe, meal and ritual, the villagers laughing, mingling, children playing – Faolan’s lad talking to Tieve by one of the trestle tables; I smile at their awkwardness, cannot imagine myself like that, not when the high sorceresstaught me how much power lay in me. No sign of Anselm or Gida or Ari, but they might be anywhere in the milling of bodies; the Peppergills are at the head table, young Matthias in his mother’s arms being fussed over, the child’s stare a little blank. Tiredness, no doubt, shyness.
Suddenly the thought of all eyes upon me (us), of anyone staring, sniggering that I’m stepping into a dead woman’s bed is too much – and I’m as nervous as those youngsters I just grinned about. Madness to think I’d move easily among these people who seek me only when they need to, who show respect out of fear, who tolerate me for the memory of Yrse who was one of them. No, I’d not given it a thought to this moment, but now… now it’s all I can think about and, as he makes to dismount, I lean forward and whisper, ‘Not yet. Wait.’ He obeys, obedient as the beast beneath us, unmoving.
The sun is sinking behind the trees, leaving a golden corona of fire splashed against the clouds. The giant corn-doll waits at one end of the green, a ring of offerings at her feet. In the hands of children I see the miniatures, awaiting their fiery fate. Thaddeus Peppergill strides forward, a lit torch in hand; I spy Reynald in the crowd, watching anxiously – it’s his accelerant that will ensure a perfect and thorough blaze. The brand touches the kindling at the feet of the wheat-wife. The villagers take up a chant and their voices rise and rise with the flames. Children, encouraged by hands on shoulders, gentle pushes, dart forward to throw their own corn-dolls onto the fire.
I can’t help but flinch as the woman-shaped thing goes up in awhooshof orange-gold and blue. Faolan feels me do so; we’re too close for him to miss any twitch or breath from me,or I from him. He puts one hand over my clasped fingers, still tight around his waist. Without a word, he turns the horse and takes us deeper into the forest, where shadows are growing longer and darker, far away from the songs of harvest home and the buzz of chatter and laughter and feasting and all that will come later.
***
The glade is quiet and cool, small and sacred with an altar covered in ivy, not neglected exactly, but ancient, perhaps forgotten; the full moon casts a silver glow over the grass and trees and the flowing river. He dismounts, lifts me down, and we leave the horse to graze as he will. Faolan sweeps me up like a bride, carries me closer to the water, lays me down in the thick, soft grass and covers my mouth with his. There’s a clever, cold part of my mind that says this is a foolish idea, the height of idiocy to trust him, that to even partake in this congress either with promises or without is folly. The other part of me commands silence; the part of me that’s lonely and has been so for year upon year as each fosterling moved on, as each summer husband met his fate, as every contact in my life proved ephemeral. The part of me that’s come to love Rhea’s company, even as I’ve resented her taking a –my– summer husband, yet what is such a husband when only for a season?
One I don’t have to tolerate for long or compromise for; one that has his function built in so that he can only satisfy the limited expectations that puts upon him? Not human, not unpredictable, not fallible or liable to disappoint – till this year. One that can be controlled.
That’s the part of me in ascent as Faolan looms over me,covers my body with his, removes our clothes so cleverly it seems like magic or some sort of melting away. The lines of him, so familiar, that scar on his torso, and the one on his back, almost as long, healed and raised like a fault-line. The sweat of him, the silk of him, the hardness and the tenderest of tongues; not an inch of skin is untouched, untended, until I’m biting my lip to stop the primitive screams that press up and out of me, until he kisses me, laughing, and I scream into his mouth, wondering if it makes his head ring, his brain shake in his skull, then the screams are gone, replaced by moans and kittenish whimpers and sighs on both our parts.
He curls around me and it’s as sweet as it once was, that first year, the second, part of the third.
I think about all I’d lost, all I’d run from, from my old life… To find him so soon after landing in the Great Forest, to love him, be loved by him, seemed a miracle. It seemed as if all I’d done had been or might be forgiven. For a while itseemedthat my luck might hold. And I have wondered, over the years, if what I felt for him then was merely gratitude; false affection. Pure lust that I mistook for something better. Still, I don’t know.
Held by him, I push those thoughts away, tell themhush, that this feeling is all I have right now. No plans, no future, no promises. No memory of what I did in the wake of losing him to try and stop the pain. As I’m dozing off, I think I see something pop up in the dark waters of the River Ayda, almost like a head, but it disappears so fast I tell myself it’s a fish, catching the rare nocturnal insects that flit too close to the surface for their own good.
I will not speak of things that stalk the forest paths, that have sent me dreams and tried to lure me out. I’ll not let my mind pick and pull at every thought and word and deed. I will lie here, warm and sated and, for however long it lasts, loved.
***
In the morning, when dawn wakes us, we do it all again. Lying beneath the open sky, we talk, roaming from one topic to another until I ask if he was happy these past years. If he’d been a good husband to Helvis; last time we’d touched on it he’d been somewhat ambiguous in his reply.
‘I tried to be. Since I’d chosen her – since I’d hurt you to do so – I tried. I hope I succeeded. It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t you. Where I failed was with the boy. Gods help me, Mehrab. He was what I’d wanted – children, the whole reason I broke with you – and she gave me that child and I… I couldn’t – can’t connect with him. Or I just didn’t. Don’t. Nothing he did was good enough. Even now… I hear myself speaking to him as if he’s annoying me. It’s my own guilt, I know it, but… my boy… is grieving his mother and I can’t make it better.’
‘What was your birth father like?’ I ask, because our parents inflict our very first wounds, sometimes without us ever realising it. I ask, also, because back then such topics remained shallowly discussed when passion was at its height – and we missed the years when we might have grown together and spoken of deeper hurts. A slithery, hissing part of me wonders if his dislike of Orin stems from the lad not beingmine– I do recognise that as sheer egotism.
‘I don’t recall. When I wandered into Berhta’s Forge, when the Aldersons took me in, I was already grown and had norecollection of myselfbefore, nor of a family. Just a… just the sense memory of a blinding flash, of incredible pain – pain that dogged me until you worked your magic. The only father I knew was Zeb Alderson, and he was kind and respectful – but I was already a man grown. He never had to parent me when I was an infant, child, youth. I was already fully formed, if broken. I didn’t learn enough from him, clearly.’
‘Then how are you different with Orin? Why?’
‘Impatient. I’m always impatient with him. And every fault I know or fear in myself, is one I see in him.’ He runs a hand over his face. ‘Whether it’s there or not, I fear somelack.’
‘Sometimes,’ I say delicately, ‘what we consider a failing in ourselves – what we suffer for – we think at first to save others from, to warn them about it. But if you can’t accept a fault in yourself, you won’t be any more forgiving of it in another – and you can find yourself punishing them for continuing to show you what you loathe or fear. Sometimes you have to like yourself better in order to repair that other relationship. Lest you spend all your time teaching someone you should love that you think they’re not good enough. Constant criticism makes for hatred.’
He doesn’t reply, just kisses the top of my head and holds me tighter.
***
Later still, we bathe in the river, eat the remains of the small feast he’d brought in a saddlebag (suspecting I might baulk at other company), then succumb to each other again and bathe some more until I insist I must return home. He agrees. Asks if I will see him again or permit him to call. I tell him I willcome to him but make no promises as to when. I’m no young maid in the first flush of youth; nor a fool to run at his beck and call. He knows better than to push and it pleases me to see him honour (so far) his word. When he delivers me back to the cottage, the last kiss is lingering and it’s all I can do to keep myself from pulling him down with me.
I walk to my door, resisting right until the very last moment the urge to glance over my shoulder. There he sits, astride that great black horse, smiling gently. A single incline of his head and he turns for Berhta’s Forge. I open the door, bruised and grazed in the best of ways, tender in mind and body and heart, with a stupid wide grin on my face.
