He was looking out through the windows. He seemed to want to see anything but me.
“Would you like to have the room to yourself?” I offered, standing and picking up my stays. I put my arms through the holes and laced the front together, roughly because I was trying to be quick. I turned towards him, lifting up the cyan green dress from the edge of the bed. “I can go to dinner and grant you some time here.” I pulled the dress over my shoulders and straightened it over the shift, lacing up the ties in the front, tying it off at the square neckline. When I looked up, I saw his eyes were on my hands, his eyelids low.
“No,” he said briskly, turning back to the window. His voice was thick with something.
He said nothing as I belted the apron and sagaris to my waist.
I stepped into my new summer shoes. “Have I upset you, husband?”
His head whipped back to me at the term. “No. Why would you think that?”
I shrugged. “If I were you I would want to come home and not find my rooms with someone already in them. Again, let me give you time in your rooms. Alone.”
He held up a hand. “I’ve a proposal. You may reject it, of course.”
“A proposal?”
“Yes. I arrived back in Pikestully late last night. I slept in the infantry barracks as I had intended to originally after… after our marriage.” He had placed the hand back on his hip. He looked at the ground. “This winter will be my forty-fourth. I cannot sleep there. Those beds are for young men and I miss my bed. It is a large bed. It was a gift from the king. Would you share it with me?”
Heat stole across my cheeks and chest. “I— Do you mean—”
He grimaced. “I mean I will sleep on one side and you will sleep on the other. I mean I will try not to spend copious amounts of time in here and I mean I will try not to be a bother to you. But I cannot sleep in those barracks.” He looked desperate.
“Of course,” I rushed to answer. “You should be allowed your own bed.”
He nodded. “I will try and be gone in the mornings.”
I shook my head. “I do not want you to feel unwelcome in your own—”
“I will have to be,” he interrupted. “I have Procurer trials. To replace Nash.”
“Is that who all those boys are?”
He nodded. “I have to test them all. And decide who will be the twentieth Procurer.”
“There are nearly three hundred of them.”
“I know. But it is the way of things. Even if we be at war’s doorstep.”
I walked past him towards the door. “I’m going to dinner. I will return tonight. Please have the rooms to yourself. I’m sure you have had no privacy for weeks.”
“There is no need—”
I waved at him dismissively and not looking in his direction, exited and made my way down to the dining hall. I picked at my smoked crab, warm bread and pickled beets. I listened to Mischa’s afternoon news from Jeremanthy’s office about Perpatane being the cause for the sacking of Sealmouth. They were claiming it retaliation for Tintar invading Eccleston. Under rubble, Tintarian infantrymen had found evidence. Perpatane had left the blood red Perpatanian flag staked through a wooden idol of Sister Sea in her collapsed Sealmouth temple. I tried to listen as it was important, but I could not stop thinking about sharing Alric’s bed with him, as if I were a maid of eighteen and not a woman of thirty-eight.
There was a restlessness in the hall as confirmation of Perpatane’s attack spread.
After dinner, I went to the women’s baths, seeing only a few women bathing and none I recognized. I sponged off any grime from that day, rubbing my lavender oil over my body after drying. It had thankfully been in my apron. I had known we would be at another farm and the horse manure could be ripe in the nose. I had dabbed it on my upper lip before we reached the farm, while Cian had introduced the taxing dispute we were addressing with the farmer. My hair was mainly clean, only a few days from its last washing. I vigorously chewed on a chew stick, rinsing out any proof of the smoked crab. Redressed, I made my way to the second level dormitory and pretended to be interested in River’s account of Thalia’s most theatrical pronunciation that day. I let Maureen take my braid crown down and weave it into a soft braid down my back. I asked Catrin how the queen was treating her. And when Mischa started to yawn, I knew I had to finally return to the room.
I crossed through the stairwell landing, the sconce light almost ominously flickering over me and knocked on that first door just outside it. There was a pause and then Alric opened it, peering out at me. The setting sun’s pinkness outlined his frame.
“We should knock if we are going to share,” I said as breezily as I could, walking inside.
He made a noise of agreement.
My back to him, I unlaced my new summer boots and removed the thin socks, tucking them under the desk. I undid the leather apron, belt and sagaris, draping it over the back of the chair at the desk as I had been. I looked up to find him watching me. “Is there a place you would rather me put these?”
He shook his head. “I rarely use the desk anymore. It is yours.”
