50. Apologies

“Edith?”

I turned to face Alric, coming towards me on the street.

“I am coming,”

I said on a sigh.

“No, I did not mean… may we speak?”

I stopped an arm’s length from him.

“Speak.”

“I am sorry for this morning,”

he said.

Something in his tone was strained.

“I resolve again and again to be honorable and cordial and I keep failing you.”

I did not know what to say to this.

“I do not know how to be your husband,”

he said.

“And for that I am sorry.”

I looked into his face and saw more emotion there than I had except for the night before our wedding when he called me his pillory.

But this was not fury.

It was sorrow.

“And I have not been a wife in winters,”

I answered him.

“But when I was a wife the first time I had to learn that I must think before I speak.

And if I can learn to do that, anyone can.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I was a hotblooded child and a hotblooded young woman.

And now I am a woman reaching her middle winters and I am better about my anger, but not always.

I mean, husband—,”

my emphasis on the word as warm as I could make it, “I was short-tempered this morning and I too am sorry.”

“Your temper was in response to my own.”

“I think you have apologized enough.”

He placed his hands on his hips and looked at the ground and then back up at me.

“And I did not mean I did not like the flax in your hair.”

I crossed my arms.

“You have dug yourself out from your hole,”

I said, my tone light.

There was an ease at the corners of his mouth, not a smile, but something.

Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small leather pouch and handed it to me.

“I never got you a wedding present.

I asked Anwyn to make it.”

I loosened the strip around the pouch and poured out a dainty chain onto my palm.

In the half moon’s light it looked silver.

“This is delicate,”

I whispered, holding it front of my face.

“It is for your hagstone.

I saw you hold it in Nyossa and I see you play with it in your pockets.”

I withdrew the hagstone from my pocket and undid the tiny latch on the chain and despite the late hour, I was able to see enough to thread it through the hole.

I held up the two ends behind my neck and redid the latch, the stone settling in my collarbones.

When I looked up, Alric was quickly replacing his hands on his hips and I realized he must have been holding up his hands to help with the chain.

He looked almost abashed.

“Thank you so much,”

I enthused, touching the hagstone at my neck.

“This is thoughtful.”

He nodded, but his head was hung.

My boy is difficult.

“Let us promise each other something,”

I said as tenderly as I could.

He looked up.

“Promise?”

“Yes,”

I continued.

“Let us promise to think before we speak to each other.

I believe when we both do that, this is not that hard.”

He rubbed a hand over his mouth and then said, “I promise you I will.”

“And I promise you.”

His eyes roamed over me and he opened his mouth to speak, but closed it.

He was forever doing that when he was with me, hedging his words.

Perhaps my idea was poor and I should have made him pledge to speak without thinking about it ever again.

On impulse, I said, “I know you will think this treasonous, but I am sorry for you.

You should not have had to marry me or pay for all of our belongings and our citizenship.

It was a terrible sentence.”

He blinked at me and his eyes dipped to my figure and then to the ground.

“You are not terrible, Edith.”

A laugh erupted from me.

“Such a sonnet.

I thank you.”

He shook his head, again that softness around his mouth, not quite smiling.

“May I walk you back to the keep?”

I desired that, I thought to myself.

The two us, perhaps in stilted conversation, but engaged in one another, striding up the moonlit stone streets and steps, petals on the night breeze.

I desired that very much.

But I shook my head.

“I want to catch up with Quinn.

I worry for her.”

“She is upset?”

I nodded.

“She— I cannot say why, but she is.”

“You know it is not illegal here.

As it is in your home country.”

He paused and then said, “Anwyn and Vincent… they are that way.

They live in a house together.”

“How do you know about River and Quinn— oh, the glowing stream.”

“I had to listen.

In case you tried to escape.

I am discreet.

I will not say anything.”

“I appreciate that.

Then you know that Quinn is also from Perpatane and it is not a country that is fair to women, especially certain kinds of women.”

He said, “I feel for her.

And for you, if you were mistreated there.”

I said nothing, but my face was open to him.

We look at each other for a moment and then the brewery doors burst open and Arbis, Anwyn, Thatcher, Perch, Luka, Tristan and four other Procurers came into the street, yelling.

“Captain,”

called Perch.

“Come! The night is young.”

“Oh but he be with his bride!”

Arbis cried, eyes flashing between Alric and I.

“Then we should rescue her from his company,”

said Anwyn.

Thatcher laughed loudly.

“Enjoy yourself,”

I said to my husband, amused at his dour expression.

“You cannot kiss the man goodnight?”

called Arbis as I turned to walk up the street.

As I walked away, over the songs of fiddles, I heard Alric say, “I told you to let her be.”

And Anwyn said, “See what I mean? So protective.”