“Keep telling me about how you love me,” I urged him, nudging him with a foot.
He brought one of his hands to his mouth. “Hmm, how I love you. I think I admitted how I felt to myself when I took you to the watchtower to see the view.”
“When I cried?”
He nodded. “When you cried. I thought you were a mysterious woman who I would never understand and I thought to myself, ‘I would like to die trying to understand her,’ that that would be enough, that that was a fine life to have lived, as a man trying to understand his wife.”
My amusement faded, replaced by a catch in my throat.
His non-smile was gone too and he was again, entirely solemn. “I did not care for that feeling, but I did not know what else to do. I could not mistreat you because you had enchanted me. And then River ran out of the Tallowgill.”
“Ah, yes,” I said. “I thought you were angry at me again.”
“I was,” he replied. “Until I realized that I had not successfully made you understand you could rely on me. And then I was angry at myself. In fact, perhaps, I still have not been successful in that regard.” Alric gave me a look of admonishment. “Anyway,” he said, when I did not say anything, “then we come to the farm with its field of rocks. And that is when I knew I was hopelessly in love with my wife. And you were so …warmon the ride home. You held on to me so tightly, as if Maggie was the first horse you had ever ridden. And I wondered, Edith, if you wanted me the way I wanted you. At least in body.”
I held my breath and now I looked away, down at my tin cup.
Alric continued and I could feel his stare. “I was then, between that time and the night of The Turn of Trees, completely suffused with desire for you. It was worse knowing you might return the longing. It was ten times worse. If you give a hopeless man a morsel of hope, he will gorge himself on that morsel. And that is what I did, Edith. I dreamt of you constantly. At night, I was next to you in bed, recalling every glimpse of bare skin, every outline of your frame I saw through your clothes, every brush ofyouagainstme. It was hellish. It was a torment.”
“Torment,” I repeated, sipping from my drink. I did not look back up at him still.
“Yes. And I had not the courage to try anything. I bless that rogue who tried his luck with you the night of The Turn of Trees. For he pushed me past my own fears.”
“He was very forward.”
“Did you look in a mirror that night before you left the keep?”
I did not answer, watching the surface of the whiskey in the cup.
“The tailor who measured you for your dresses must have interpreted your order as that of a woman hellbent on charm. I cannot blame that man for his tenacity. Had I not been already married to you, I would have ventured the same. But I skip past much.”
“What do you skip past?”
He squeezed my ankles in his hands. “The Gleaming. The sight of my wife, gifted by our goddess, shredding the palm of her hand to find a child she did not know. I hated watching you do that to yourself. But it was a sight. I wish you could have seen yourself. I remember your blood running down your arm, you were running through the surf, jellyfish shining around your knees. You were fearless. You were so magnificent that night, Edith. I wasexultantto be yours. Even if you had not chosen me for a husband, I wasyourhusband.”
I had no tears left in me. I had cried so much when I woke at the loss of my hand and in spurts of grief throughout my recovery, from bodily pain as well as from the apprehension of what life would be like with one hand. But, had I the tears, I would have shed them and happily. These words, spoken by such a reticent man, were a hymn to my ears, sacred, holy, an offering. Finally, I found his eyes, returning his scrutiny. “I was grateful you stayed with me, running behind me. In the water. I was weakened by that search.”
“You could barely stand.”
“I remember I could not see your face in the night, when you pulled me out of the water and held me. I wondered what you were thinking.”
Alric reached for my cup, taking it from my outstretched right hand. He drank from it. “Now, you know. And then you took care of me, bathing me, holding me, the night the trials became too much for these tired bones. And I thought, she has to feel something for me. You told me I was easy to care for.”
Tabitha leapt onto my thighs, walked in a circle and then sat down to purr.
As my hand was free, I reached out to pet her, watching her sides expand and depress.
“Shall I continue?” he asked.
“Yes,” I whispered, still looking at the cat.
“Then,then, you left me for an entire week, ten days and nights to cut down the vines from that plum orchard. And I was out of my mind missing you. I could not wait to see you. You can ask the staff in the earth temple. I asked after your return every day. When you asked me to read to you, when you prayed with me, when you drank wine or whiskey with me at night, when you spoke at length with me, I began to pray. I prayed for you to feel but a tenth of what I did. And then The Turn of Trees.”
“The Turn of Trees.”
He leaned forward to scratch Tabitha behind her ears. “I will forever hate Ruskar for being the cause of my leaving Pikestully to spy on their queen and her court when I could have been bedding my Edith.”
When I looked back to him, he smiled at me, the second one I had ever seen from him.
