“He was killed, less than a week before our wedding.”
As if uttering the dreadful words had sapped her of all her strength, she collapsed on the fallen tree behind her and stared at her hands.
Yes, he had been killed, but that was not all. It had been her fault that Edwin had died, and no one knew it. She’d had to live with that awful burden all these years, pretending she wasn’t responsible for his death. Even Cwenthryth, her closest friend, didn’t know that part of the story. She knew what had happened to him, but not why. No one knew why. Least of all his poor father, who would hate her if he knew.
“He was killed…because of me.”
And just like that, sobs started to rack through her body.
Sven allowed her to cry for a moment, then knelt in front of her, his face full of compassion. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. If you don’t want to talk about it, I’ll understand.”
Did she want to talk about it or not? Eahlswith didn’t know. On the one hand, saying the words out loud at last could help her. On the other, knowing what had happened might make Sven see her differently.
Well, that was what she wanted, was it not? A way to fight the feelings he stirred in her? This seemed like an ideal solution. If he agreed that she had been unforgivably selfish, he would not want to have anything to do with her. It would make the task of keeping him at bay easier. And if her heart broke as a result of his rejection, then it was no more than she deserved for causing the death of a good man.
She took a deep breath and started to talk.
“One evening, as we lay in bed, I told Edwin about a carving my father had made on the door frame of our home.” Had she known that this innocent comment would end up costing him his life, she would have cut off her tongue. “I told him that I had loved it from a young age and wished I could have taken it with me when I left, as it was the only thing I had that reminded me of my father.”
It had not been an option at the time. Not only had she left in a hurry, barely taking the time to assemble a few essentialsin a bag, but the carving was an integral part of the house. It would have taken more skill than she possessed to remove it. But Edwin had insisted that with the proper tools and some patience, he could probably lift it from the door frame. It had quickly become an obsession. He wanted her to have the one thing that reminded her of the father she dearly missed before she started her life as a married woman.
“He decided to go and get it before our wedding. I had twisted my ankle a few days previously and couldn’t ride so I begged him to wait until a more propitious moment, when we could go together but he was determined I should have it in time for the ceremony. So, one morning, he left.”
Eahlswith had often wondered what she would have done differently that morning if she had known he was riding to his death. Would she have made their last kiss more passionate? Would she have assured him that she would always love him? Would she have draped herself over him in bed and begged him not to go?
She had done none of those things. Silly her, she had assumed that they had their whole lives ahead of them and that there would be time for passionate kisses, heartfelt declarations and loving embraces when he came back. She had kissed him as she always did and watched him mount his gelding with her usual calm, never suspecting that this was the last glimpse she would ever get of him.
There had been no grim squeaking of a crow, no old soothsayer warning her of the terrible grief awaiting her, nothing.
“Osbert and I waited for days for his return. At first we didn’t get worried, knowing it would take him at least four days to get to the village and back. But when four days turned into five, then six, I understood that something had gone wrong. The wedding was planned for the following day, and his sisters and brothershad all arrived by then. Considering the effort it had taken them to attend, I knew Edwin would have made sure he didn’t miss the ceremony. It was impossible that he?—”
She stopped as her throat had gone too tight to allow her to carry on.
“He was attacked on the road?” Sven said after a while. She nodded. Unfortunately, the story was too common for him not to have guessed.
“The day we were supposed to get married, a man came to the door to tell us what had happened to him. Edwin had been found in a ditch just outside my village. He’d been stabbed trying to stop three men from stealing his horse and he was dying. As he lay wounded, knowing he wouldn’t survive his injuries, he begged the man who’d found him to go tell his father what had happened to him. And tell me, the wife he would never have…that he would always love me. Though it was a considerable journey, the man agreed to grant him this last wish, as he’d recognized my name as one of the former inhabitants of the village.”
Tears were now flowing freely down her cheeks. The night that should have been her wedding night, she’d thought that she had shed all the tears that she was capable of shedding, alone in her pallet. She’d soon discovered that despair was a bottomless pit and that she would never stop crying over the loss of the love of her life.
“It was all my fault, you see,” she said on a sob. “He’d gone to the village for me. If I hadn’t told him about the carving, he would never have gone?—”
“It’s not your fault,” Sven cut in. “You did nothing wrong by confiding in him about something you loved, and that meant a lot to you. That’s what lovers do. And people are allowed to come and go as they please. That Edwin was traveling alone did not make it acceptable for anyone to attack him, steal his horse, stabhim or anything else. That he had chosen to go to your village did not mean he should have died for it.”
“Maybe not. But he did die. Can you imagine how that makes me feel?”
“No,” he said with brutal sincerity. “I cannot begin to imagine the depth of your pain. No one can. Only you can know. But I can tell you, and repeat it as often as you need to hear it, that you did nothing wrong and that his death is not your fault.”
There was such earnestness in his voice that somehow, she found herself believing it. Eahlswith took a deep inhale. Maybe today would mark the first step toward acceptance.
“Thank you.”
Sven made a face she had difficulty interpreting. It was almost as if he would have preferred her not to thank him.
“Is that why you take such good care of Osbert?” he asked softly. “Because you feel guilty?”
Once again, he had read her mind. She did feel as if she had robbed him of his youngest son and wanted to compensate for that loss. “I feel genuine affection for him. He helped me when I needed it, and I would have wanted to look after him no matter what.” Her voice wobbled. “But yes, I feel that without me, he would still have his son and the least I can do is do what I can to make him comfortable.”
Sven’s heart almost broke when Eahlswith looked up to the skies and inhaled deeply, doing what she could to compose herself. Her courage was inspiring.
