It would seem with every new thing I found happiness in, in my young life, it became armor, a shield to stand between me and the church of Rodwin. I guarded myself with these things, withThe Life of Una, Magda’s books, the craft of herbalism, the joy of living on her farm, the mysteries of Nyossa, the burst of pleasure I could find with Thane’s mouth on my neck, his fingers inside me while my own finger worked at the top of my sex. These things kept me, girded me, protected me from tenth-day sermons that told me I was hell bound.
47
THEN: BASTARD
Having been an apprentice to an herbalist and midwife, albeit a clandestine abortionist as well, I was terrified of falling pregnant. It was not that I did not trust Magda to come to my rescue, nor did I have any doubt regarding mother’s moss. It was that I did not trust myself not to tell Thane if I did, by some small chance, quicken with a child. And my heart, in some way, knew that if I told him, he would see it as a way forward, a sign that he should marry me.
And much like pregnancy, marriage scared me too.
I had yet to witness a happy marriage. My parents seemed to adore each other, but that was only because my mother never let my father see her as anything but a doting, respectable wife. My sister took after her, always pleasant, always agreeable. But I did not. I could not be pleasant and agreeable for anyone, not even people I loved.
Other marriages, even ones not fraught with dissatisfaction, also concerned me. The women were all meant to be subservient, and even when their husbands were not particularly brutish, these wives still had no say.
I may have been mad for Thane, but I wanted to be the half-naked girl he pleasured in the woods, not the madam of his household.
For close to three winters, we touched each other in every way but in the way of man and wife. I did not explain my concerns over pregnancy to him, and he did not question my initial refusal to let him put his prick inside my sex. His retreat was polite, immediate, and singular.
Near to my nineteenth day of birth, we lay on an old quilt, a canopy of white sycamores around and over us, half clothed after having given each other pleasure, drowsy with satisfaction and drunk on each other. This was when he told me his plans.
“My father heard an idea of mine the other day,” he said, pressing an innocent kiss to the side of my head.
I turned to him and put my hand over his chest, leaning the length of me along his side. “What was that idea?” I asked, yawning.
“I have an idea for a business. And he thinks it a good one and would give the seed coin to start it. As I am—well, a second son and a bastard.”
I was unsure what to say to this and waited for him to continue.
“We wait so long for traders to come. And they don’t always come with a seasonal regularity. It is a good thing Sheridan can live off its own land, but Vyggian salt has to travel to Tintar, usually to the south border and then come up that dust road that cuts Nyossa off from the marshlands. So we rely on the few salt mines of Eccleston, but those salt mines sell their wares so quickly because they are more affordable than Vyggian salt. So my father pays a fortune to one of those salt mines to hold a measure aside for Sheridan and for them to bring it here in a transport wagon. This is the problem with many goods on this continent. The low country is cut off from other lands by distance or terrain.”
I felt myself growing a bit bored but tried to pay attention.
“So I said to my father. What if Sheridan had its own transport outfit? What if we built our own fleet of transport wagons,hired the drivers, kept the routes going? We could even sell our wheat in more bountiful winters. And maybe other settlements and countries would pay for the transport of their goods from one place to another. We could also deliver letters and the like. Even passengers.”
“And what did he say?”
“He was very taken with it. He said he’d pay for the building of six wagons and four seasons’ pay for five drivers as a wedding present. He said I should drive one of the wagons, know my own business.”
“A wedding present?”
My sweetheart sighed. “Starling was there when I spoke of this. Stupid of me not to seek out my father when he was alone.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Starling said that lots of travel like that for a young man would be?—”
“Would be what?” I sat up, propping myself on one arm. I looked down at him, confused. My hair was undone and spilling over my shoulders. The ties on my dress and stays had been loosened for our previous activity and were still that way, my breasts soft and unrestrained under my clothes.
Thane looked up at me and smiled. He reached up to bring me down, pulling one of my legs over his hip to straddle him. “I love you like this. All undone and dressed in sunlight and grass stains.”
I swallowed the gasp that rose in my throat.
I love you.
Ears reddening, despite what we had just done to each other, Thane said, “Starling said it was only right that I be married as most places, save Sheridan and Perpatane, of course, were godless and unholy. I think he used the phrase ‘dens of iniquity.’ That I would be tempted astray by heathen women. And my father agreed.”
His blush made me feel rather proud, and I leaned in as if to kiss him. “Did you say that you and I have made our own den of iniquity already?”
His cheeks were even more scarlet, but he said, “I said I already have a bride picked out.”
