He comes to the door. Has to duck through it. The house was built for normal people, and normal people don't need nine feet of clearance. He's talked about raising the lintels. I've told him that if he knocks himself unconscious one more time on the kitchen beam, I'm going to let him lie there.
“The goat is back,” I say.
“I see that.”
“It ate my rosemary.”
“I see that too.” He leans against the doorframe, arms folded, filling the entire opening. There's sawdust on his arms and wood shavings in his hair. He's been splitting logs for the surgery stove. My surgery stove, in the room at the back of the house that Mother Sanque helped me set up, with a proper examination table and shelves for my supplies and a window that faces the mountain.
“Are you going to help?”
“You seem to have it under control.”
“Kovren.”
He crosses the yard in two strides, picks up the goat with one hand, and sets it over the low stone wall that separates our yard from Tomas's. The goat bleats in protest. Kovren points at it.
“Stay.”
The goat stays. It will be back tomorrow. We both know this.
He looks down at the decimated rosemary. At my dirty hands. At me, kneeling in the garden in my work clothes, hair tied back, soil under my fingernails.
“I'll build a fence,” he says.
“You said that last month.”
“I'll build it tomorrow.”
“You said that last week.”
“Maren.”
“Build the fence, Kovren.”
He kneels beside me. Even on his knees he's taller than I am standing. He picks up a sprig of rosemary the goat dropped and tucks it behind my ear.
“I'll build the fence,” he says. “Today. Now. If you stop looking at me with that expression.”
“What expression?”
“The one that makes me want to build you a fence and a wall and a house and whatever else you need.”
“I just need the fence.”
“Then you'll have a fence.” He kisses the top of my head, stands, goes to get the lumber.
I watch him cross the yard. He moves differently now. Looser. Less guarded. He still checks exits when we go into town. Still positions himself between me and strangers. Still folds himself smaller in crowds. But the tension is gone. The constant bracing against the thing inside him.
The beast is gone. Mother Sanque confirmed it three months ago, during one of her visits. Put her hands on his chest, closed her eyes, opened them, and said “Empty.”
“Empty,” Kovren repeated.
“The berserker space. Where the rage lived. It's just you in there now.” She'd looked at him with those sharp eyes, softer than I'd ever seen them. “How does that feel?”
“Strange,” he'd said. “Quiet.”
“Get used to it.”
