“I am serious. That is not in good humor. You joke at my attempts to save my own life!” I began to laugh again, despite myself, but I was still half angry with him.
“What were those lines supposed to represent?” he asked over his shoulder, covering his mouth with one hand.
“I was trying to appeal to your Tintarian savagery and superstitions and sigils.”
“Madam, have you wet cloth?” he asked and the same woman offered him one.
He turned to me, his face now composed and wiped away each line while I glared at him. “Forgive me. I like to think on my first vision of you.”
“The day you set out to kill me?”
“The day I met the bravest of women.”
“You have yet to dig yourself out of this hole.”
“You do not like my jest. Well, then we should continue to our destination.”
I pretended to be angry with him for the rest of our walk to the keep, but held onto his arm. Maggie was saddled and ready for us. I sat in front, his arms around me, and we descended the horses’ ramp to the city, taking side streets until we were out on a dust road. It was not the road that connected with the bluff paths, but one that led further inward. I wondered if he took me to Nyossa, but that was too far. There was still so much farmland in between the city and the forest. But why would he take me to a farm? I guessed all of this out loud, but he would not answer me. He only kissed my temples or removed one of his hands from the reins to place against my waist. As there were few people on the dust road, only some wagons with holidayers arriving to The Thawing late, he was more demonstrative.
93. Lavender
I smelled it before I saw it, that herbal, earthy richness with its hint of floral and pine.
“Is this— Are we going to—”
He shushed me. “Quiet, Edith. Wait until the bend in the road is behind us. You know, you are very difficult to surprise.”
The thick trees that bordered the dust road gave way to wooden fenceposts behind which was a large lavender farm, fields and fields of that purple and green, rows and rows of it. Only in the far distance could I see another border of trees and fences where the property might have ended. The morning’s breezes were gone and we had reached that warm part of the day where the sun began to tell Tintar that summer would come soon. The heat and the scent combined was like a magic spell over us. We had not seen another person in the last hour and I could see no sign of life on the farm. It was as if time had stopped. For just that moment, we were together and I was alive. And the fragrance was inebriating. I could not inhale it enough.
I turned in the saddle to face him as much as I could. “This is so beautiful. Thank you.”
He put his mouth to my ear. “That is not all. The farmer and his family are in the city. He will allow us to walk in the fields, if you wish. Their farm is the first farm to have a bloom. It is too early for most, but their crop is heartier than any other variety. And this is the field that strain grows in. It is the only blossomed lavender in Tintar at present. I have promised him Maggie does not have a taste for flowers.” He paused and then asked, “Is that something you would like? To walk through it?”
Overcome with emotion, always his effect, I nodded instead of speaking.
He dismounted and helped me down. He turned me to face him and ran a hand down the side of my head and neck. “I like when you wear it down,” he whispered and tucked the waves on my left behind that ear. “But,” he continued, moving his right hand to my right side to tuck that hair behind that ear, “I like when you wear your braid crown. Because I like to look at your neck.” Alric put his hand under my chin, his forefinger along my jaw.
“You have said I always say the right thing,” I replied. “Perhaps it is you who always say it.”
“I have had a good teacher,” he said against my lips and kissed me.
He opened a gate in the fence in front of a small path that cut through the field and we led Maggie inside, behind us. He secured her to the fence, placing an apple on the ground at her hooves. We walked down the path in silence until we were in the center of the field. Beside us, the stalks were nearly as high as our knees.
I turned around in a full circle and looked at it all, an ocean of scent and blooms. If this were to be my last afternoon of life, this was a sight to end a life on.
His arms came around me from behind and he pulled me to him.
I realized what this was, his offering in response to Helena’s news. And then, that weight lessened, the anguish in me offering more room to my joy. I turned in his arms and kissed him, tender but firmly, my mouth opening. “Thank you,” I breathed into him. I kissed him again, my hands circling his waist. “Lie down with me.”
“In the dirt?” His tone was amused, his breaths one with my breaths.
I smiled. “In the rows between the flowers. I’m sure the farmer will not mind one small crushed section of grasses.”
“If that is what you wish, I will recompense him any destruction,” he said and led me into the field between two of the rows where thin lines of grass separated the blooms.
We sat down and from this angle, the lavender was as high as our shoulders and we could not see the fence or the trees. It was just the two of us and these flowers.
“You said lie, Edith,” he reminded me and pulled me with him to the grass.
