45. Steps

We picked up the cinnabar basket and continued to walk, stopping at a flower stall.

We bought several dozen roses, lilies and a handful of blue flax blooms that had caught my eye.

We stacked them atop the cinnabar rock, wondering aloud which woman would pick what and carried on.

Before we reached the bluffs, we passed a large many-windowed building with a sign outside that said ‘Angler.’ I wondered if Alric was already inside with his family.

He was not because, as we walked up a set of the keep steps with the basket, he and Thatcher were coming down the same steps.

They both stopped short and looked down at us.

“Gods, how many flowers did you buy?”

my husband asked, tersely.

I glowered up at him.

Helena had now noticed the two men and glanced up the steps.

Thatcher stared down at her in her sleeveless rose pink summer dress, her dark hair flowing around her shoulders and her cheeks flushed from the rising heat of the day and the walk.

He was frozen for a moment and then jogged down to us and lifted the basket from our hands.

“Where to?”

he asked, eyes only for her.

“It’s cinnabar rock, not all flowers,”

I said to my husband.

“I told you the other night we were visiting the dyer, for the mural.

She has to grind it down for vermilion.”

He was still standing on the step where he had stopped, hands on hips.

“Well, I did not know so much cinnabar was needed.”

Alric’s eyebrows were drawn together, his mouth pulled to one side.

He appeared to be irritated.

Thatcher stood holding the basket, patiently looking only to his betrothed for an answer and she seemed at a loss, her eyes darting between me and my husband.

“No, you would not know.

You are not an artist.”

I was upset.

He was angry and I did not know why.

And he had spoiled what joy we had taken in choosing our flowers.

Helena turned to face Thatcher, his position on the step close to her and their faces were a hand’s width apart.

“Oh, I— Can you please carry it to the second level dormitory for the flowers and then help me take the cinnabar rock to the throne room? Edie and I can carry it if you were leaving—”

“There is nothing I would rather do, lady,”

he replied, his eyes roaming her face.

She softened, only somewhat, only enough that I or Mischa would see.

“Thank you.”

I looked back up at Alric.

“Fear not.

No more of your coin was spent.”

And I swept past him up the steps, angry with both his inexplicable vexation and myself for letting him get to me.

I had practiced being measured and open-minded for weeks.

With one interaction, he had undone all of my attempts at civility.

My tone was not as snappish as I had wanted it to be, but I had let him know his dislike for our spending coin on flowers was offensive to me.

What did he care?

I stormed into the keep, leaving Helena and Thatcher to handle the cinnabar and flowers.

I did not understand this man.

The effort I had made, the words I had said, the patience and gratitude I had tried to exhibit, none of it meant anything to him.