“As long as I live, I will never forgive myself, Edith. I have prayed over this and repented. I have asked our goddess to forgive me. But I cannot forgive myself.”
From behind, I wrapped my arms around him and pulled his head and shoulders into me, my hands linked and resting on his chest, the bandage on the left one gone after the first use of the soap, the stitched skin puffed and pink with irritation. I breathed slowly, fighting back a sob that wanted to come forth.
“May I speak plainly?” I said when I had regained control.
“Please,” he said.
I lowered my head so that my mouth was closer to his ear. “I hated you for that. I did. Maybe a part of me will always hate you for that. But more so, a part of me will always hate myself. Maureen warned me of his interest in her and her mother. And I dismissed it because I thought that while you were our abductors, we were safe from that particular harm. I thought you were not that kind of men. I did not want one more thing to worry about at the time. A woman should never let her guard down like that. I was foolish instead of warning the rest. And I will never forgive myself for that.”
“Youshouldhave felt safe,” he said. “Though you were our prisoners, still. Procurers are not that breed of men. Or we were not. A herd of deer cannot settle if one wolf prowls. I have blood on my hands, but his does not trouble me.”
His eyes were shut and I wondered if he too fought tears.
I took in his harsh profile, that slender, if rather large nose, broken at least once, those high cheekbones, that firm, proud mouth. I leaned in and kissed his cheek as long as I dared. As I pulled away, I said, “There are evils in this world of which there is no undoing. Killing yourself will not fix this.” I kissed his cheek again, the crossing of that boundary an illicit indulgence on my part.
I returned to rubbing his back. I could tell this was a balm to him. Isabeau’s words came back to me.I have never been with a man who wanted to be touched so much.
Mischa was right. I was in love.
68. Mine
The gods took pity on me. My occupation took me away from the object of my misplaced affections. I spent the next ten days away from the city at the home of orchardists, a two-hour ride south of Pikestully. Hazel and I and a young acolyte of about nineteen winters named Tuck traveled there on horseback on the first day of the work week that followed my begging my husband not to injure himself any further.
We had lain together in the bed that night and he had thanked me for my care.
I had whispered, without thinking, “you are easy to care for.”
He had not replied and a part of me had withered inside.
When Hazel approached me at breakfast the next morning, a day of rest, asking if I would join her the following day, I had grasped at her hands, saying “oh, yes, of course,” like a fool.
The property consisted of plum, cherry and walnut orchards. The family was welcoming and eager for our assistance, for their entire plum harvest had suffered from an invasive type of vine, likely brought here from one of The Flavored Three. The vines grew at an almost visible rate. When pruned, they regrew overnight. They were full of hooked thorns and it was arduous work to remove them, which had despaired the family to see them reformed every morning. They feared the vines spreading to the cherry and nut orchards on their property.
In the mornings, they fed us fried eggs and toast with preserves from their harvests. Then Hazel and I tied back our hair, belted our sagarises onto our waists, bled onto the axe blades with our pricked right hands, and pulled on long leather gloves that went up to our elbows. It was a grueling labor. We hacked at the vines and once they were limp around the trees, we pulled them off. Tuck was behind us, collecting the felled pieces into a basket for burning. He would often throughout each day prick his palm and bleed over our axes, continuing our communion with the goddess. Hazel reminded me to ask Mother Earth for her blessing, saying out loud that we reclaimed the orchard for this family and after the first few days, I found myself naturally joining her and Tuck thanking the goddess, asking her to bless the plum trees and the orchardist family. We made a merry threesome, cheered by the simplicity of the labor. We were rewarded at dawn by bare tree trunks.
The work was a refiner’s fire for my soul. The crick in my neck and soreness in my back and arms at the end of every day was a perfect distraction and at night, sleeping in the hayloft of their stables, I watched the stars through the loft’s window and was too tired to even miss my husband’s warmth next to me. I put my heartache out of mind and spoke more and more with my deity out loud and in my head. I thanked her for her mercies, for guiding me as I was taken from a life I knew to a life I did not. I thanked her for knowing me before I knew her. I thanked her for all nine of us surviving. I thanked her for meeting people like Cian and Hazel. I thanked her for the food in our bellies. I thanked her for the renewed life in Helena’s eyes. I thanked her for my niece still having her girlhood, still finding joy in things like kittens. I thanked her for Catrin’s sisterly bonding with Maureen. I thanked her for every time Mischa had made me laugh. I thanked her for River and Quinn being together when they were taken. I thanked her for Bronwyn’s contentment and comfort late in life. I prayed Eefa’s child would be borne with ease.
However, one night, bathing without shame in front of each other in a nearby creek, trying to slough off the dirt and sweat of the day before we slept, Hazel said she missed her husband. I asked his name and what he did. She told me his name was Gordon and he was a farrier and they had pledged their love to each other forty winters past when they were children. I had authentically smiled as she spoke, but after, under dazzling starlight through the window, I thought to myself that I could not openly refer to my spouse the way Hazel referred to hers, with much love and a little ownership. And I could fight the self-pity no longer. Trying not to wake Hazel or Tuck, I bit back tears and turned my face to the stars asking Mother Earth why him? Why must he be the man to whom I was married? Why could not Perch have been the captain of the Procurers? Or Thatcher? I liked both men but would have been in no danger of losing my heart. Why did it have to be the lean-limbed man who never smiled and spoke rarely? Why did he have to be so devastatingly beautiful to me? Why did watching him cross the training yard feel like a dagger to the chest? Why did his monotone voice sound like a line of music? Why did it have to be him?
And then she spoke. That crone croak of hers, at first sarcastic, at second helpful, was this time as a mother’s, caressing, settling, close. Again, I heard it at the shell of both my ears.Who do you be? Without a man or a babe? I will tell you. You are mine, girl.
And my tears truly poured forth. “I love you,” I said back to her.
And I you.
The final day of our time at the orchards, we revisited each tree to inspect its progress in regaining itself. We had emerged entirely victorious and watching the family walk through their unshackled plum trees was one of the proudest moments of my life. My little bit of earth magic had had some effect. Hazel had assured me it was not just her blood and Tuck’s but mine also that had had sovereignty over the vines.
We rode back into Pikestully at the dawn of that week’s day of rest, all three of us exclaiming over how refreshing a true bath in hot water would feel. Tuck and I offered to take Hazel’s mount back to the keep’s stables, for she only walked to the temple every day and ate her breakfasts and lunches at the keep, but spent most nights with her Gordon. She took us up on the offer and me and the boy rode up to the plateau, her horse tethered to his. As we dismounted, I heard Alric’s voice.
“Edith?”
My heart sank. I stared into the black hair of my mare’s mane, combing my fingers through it. Could I have no reprieve? I had not thought about seeing him again after a week apart. I had only craved a bath. Our last conversations had been perfunctory and informative after I had said those dauntless words.You are easy to care for.But then I remembered that an actual god had told me they loved me. I remembered that I stared up at the stars and heard her tell me I was hers. I put my hand on the top of my sagaris hanging at my hip. It laid perfectly along my right thigh when in the saddle. I had placed it, in its scabbard, along my body in the hayloft, like a companion.
I am yours, I prayed to the goddess in my mind.
And I be here, she said.
I turned to face him, smiling and blinking against the sun in my eyes.
