41. Bed

I was grateful for those two windows in my husband’s room.

They offered such security for me, being able to see out of the enclosure of his quarters.

It had been two weeks now since my wedding.

The captain had not returned from Sealmouth, even though Thatcher and Perch had.

I was tempted to ask Helena to ask Thatcher if she knew when he would be back, as he continued to solicitously visit our table in the dining hall to ask after her needs.

She always told him she was well.

He would offer to walk her back to the dormitory after the last meal of the day and twice, she had acquiesced.

I was frustrated that I badly wanted to know.

Perhaps living in the man’s quarters and briefly reading his book of poetry had caused me to find him interesting.

At that time, I would not admit to myself that I liked to look at his long limbs, that slash of a mouth and his stark cheekbones.

Or that his roughened hands had drawn my attention time and again in Nyossa, skinning a deer, strapping his saddle to his mount or dripping with his morning prayer’s blood.

It was late afternoon.

I had no intention of going to the dining hall.

I was tired and lethargic.

The weather was hot, summer descending on Pikestully.

I had spent a day on horseback with Cian, visiting another farm.

I had stolen a pair of Alric’s breeks from the wardrobe and worn them under my shift to soften the saddle’s rub, but I had removed them now.

I thought that if their spring was warm, their summers must blaze.

I untied my braid and combed it out.

I had stripped down to just my shift and was laying on that big bed, barefoot, staring up the ceiling.

And as I lazed, it occurred to me a moon and a half had passed since I had pleasured myself or been pleasured.

I thought of Levi’s mouth on my skin, his honeyed words in my ear as he swived into me.

But I could not think of a dead man.

I would think of no man.

I placed a flat hand on my stomach.

Should I touch my breasts first or put my hand between my legs right away and make it quick? Did I dare do it in his bed? But now it was my bed too.

Before I could decide, the door swung open.

I lurched up to see Alric in only his shortsleeved tunic and leather breeches, armor and a bedroll slung over one shoulder.

I drew my legs up under me as he heaved the pack onto the floor and began to hang up the armor.

I realized he did not know I was there.

The white sunlight hitting my white shift had disguised me.

“Alric,”

I ventured, grateful he had not walked in a moment later.

He dropped a leather scabbard and turned to me, face, as always, without expression.

“Edith.

Why are you not in the dining hall?”

We stared at each other.

“I am not hungry tonight.”

“I see.”

He turned back to the wall with the hooks for his armor and weaponry.

He continued, wordlessly, putting away his belongings.

It seemed a very long silence.

Gods, I thought, can you not say something, man?

“How was— How were your travels?” I asked.

He straightened from arranging things on a lower rung and placed his hands on his hips.

“The country of your birth has turned against Tintar.

Perpatane prepares to go to war.

Exactly why, I know not.

We had every right to invade Eccleston after that trade agreement was broken and I believe Perpatane, acting as Eccleston’s ally, is using this as cause to go to war with us and gain control of the coast.

They are paying other countries with gold now, something they never did.

They ally themselves with other lands against us.

I think your king greedy.”

Did he expect me to apologize for a country for which I had no fealty? And had not in over ten winters? “That is a tragedy,”

I said.

“War is tragic.”

“Yes, I agree.”

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.”

Without the apron, axe or shoes, I had nothing else to remove except my dress.

I stood there, unsure.

I needed to retrieve my nightgown from the wardrobe, but he was standing in front of it, still watching me.

He cleared his throat and said abruptly, “I will allow you to change for the evening.”

He left and I heard his steps cross the hall, his knock on Thatcher’s door and the door’s opening and closing.

Muffled, I heard Alric murmur something and then Thatcher’s bark of laughter and uproarious cry of “for fuck’s sake.”

I changed into my cotton nightgown with its long hem and short sleeves.

I climbed into the bed on the side farthest from the door.

There was a candle on the desk still lit and the sky was not yet dark.

I read Gareth’s journal until the sun had set.

Then I placed the book on the floor next to me and curled on my side, facing the wall on the left.

I thought I heard another laugh from Thatcher as I wondered when my husband would return.

He did shortly after that thought and closed the door gently behind him, assuming I was sleeping.

I could not help myself.

I looked over my shoulder so that, with just a sliver of vision, I could see him as he unlaced his boots.

He took them and his socks off, placing them at the base of the wardrobe.

He took off his shortsleeved tunic.

He had no undershirt on due to the warmth of the day.

His torso was more slender than I had thought, but he was still strong in his shoulders, chest and arms, the muscles ropy, his strength more wiry than brutish.

My right eye lingered on the laces of his breeches as he undid them.

He shucked them off, the candlelight playing on his long legs, also muscled, but in an agile, limber way.

He wore a pair of dark linen breeks that stopped midway down his thighs.

He was folding his breeches when I realized he would be turning towards the bed and may see my right cheek slanted just so over my shoulder and I shifted my head back towards the wall.

He took a few steps towards the desk and the candle was blown out.

We were entirely in darkness together.

Because the bed was big, his weight as he climbed in did not disturb me or cause me to roll towards the middle.

I wanted to continue to pretend being asleep but something about this man undid the careful maturing I had done in Eccleston.

Thrush had always accused me of being hotheaded, emotional and never able to shut my mouth.

I had learned to curb my speech, to speak more gracefully and to remain silent when nothing needed said.

It was a practice that I believed made me head scribe.

Alric Angler undid it all.

“Should we have a schedule?”

I asked before I could curtail my tongue.

I felt his flinch at realizing I was awake.

“I thought you were asleep,”

he said gruffly.

I did not answer him.

I could tell he was lying on his back.

Where the boldness came from, I did not know, but I turned so that I was laying on my back too and turned my head towards him.

The moon was in a waning phase, but there was enough weakened starlight to make out his profile.

He seemed to be determined to stare at the stone ceiling.

“As I have already said,”

his voice weary, “I will be up early every single morning with Procurer trials.

Or I will be sent away again by our king on some business, preparing for this war.”

“I see.”

I replied.

“Then I shall let you sleep.”

And I turned back to the wall.

There was a pause and he then said, “Edith.”

I did not answer.

“Edith, I did not mean to be short.”

He breathed in and then out.

“I do not know how to do this.

I have never been a husband.”

There was a note of sadness in his words.

“What do you not know how to do?”

I remained staring into the dark.

Another pause and then he said, “I do not even know how to answer that question. Wife.”

He said the last word as an afterthought, but there was no cruelty in his delivery.

There was twinge in my chest at the way he said the word ‘wife,’ like he was trying it out.

“Alric,”

I began, using his name the way he had said mine.

“We will figure it out.

One day at a time.

I promise you, I will try to be civil and considerate.

As you have been.”

I stretched my legs out under the blankets and yawned.

“And I thank you for the note about the turret.

You were right.

It is breathtaking.”

He said nothing.

“I certainly owe you my life and I owe you for every single item in my possession.

As well as the lives of my fellow captives.

I am indebted to you.

You have been… merciful.

And hospitable.

I will not return that with disagreement.”

He did not answer, but later, on the edge of sleep, I could have sworn he said, “You owe me nothing, Edith.”