74. Onion

In the early hours the next day, I awoke to him pulling on an undershirt over his breeches, his boots already laced.

He had undone one of the hooks on one of the window covers to see by, barely any fading starlight getting in.

“You can use a candle,”

I said sitting up, covering my mouth as I yawned.

“I’m sorry, Edith.

I was trying to be quiet.”

“This is earlier than usual.

Where do you go?”

I only could make out an outline of him.

There was a beat and then he said, “To pray.

I have not been in the temple since our wedding day.

I have neglected my worship.

I am fortunate she is not vindictive.”

“No, she is not.”

“Have you—”

he cut himself off.

“Have you found prayer difficult or easy? I did not want to ask as I knew your penchant was not immediately known.”

I stood up, peeling off the undershirt of his I had stolen.

“Light a candle.

I’ll join you.”

“In prayer?”

“In prayer.

Or do you wish to be alone? With her?”

Another pause and then he said, “I will give you the room to change.”

I pulled on my teal dress over my nightgown and put on my winter boots which my feet now needed.

The keep’s floors were icy.

I finger combed my hair and shoved a chew stick in my mouth for good measure.

“We should take one of Maureen’s kittens,”

I said opening the door.

His face was confused in the sconce light.

“One of the kittens.”

“Yes.

Then it will sleep on our feet at night.

They are natural bedwarmers.”

“If you want one of the kittens, I would not mind,”

he said, still unsure.

I smiled at him and we made our way to the earth temple’s antechamber.

It never seemed to be locked as Tintarians were so naturally respectful of their deities, no one would dare thieve maps of Tintar’s agricultural regions or receipts of taxes.

Alric held open one of the oversized doors to the temple for me.

No one was praying yet, but the side of the temple without windows had lit sconces.

Cian was already in his office.

“Do you want to pray alone?”

Alric asked, looking down, one hand on the back of a pew.

“I would prefer your company,”

I whispered.

“If you would prefer mine.”

What this man did not know was that I, unknowing of how much time I had left, would spend it loving him and loving him shamelessly.

He nodded and sat in the pew behind him, allowing room for me to sit next to him, my left hand resting on the armrest.

Resolutely, I did not look at him but up at the wooden face of Mother Earth.

“I will have to think my prayers today, Mother," I thought.

“I cannot have my husband know my innermost heart.

Not just yet.

But, let me tell you what I have pondered and what I plan.

For I had to ponder and plan.

I was without your voice.

You did not speak to me two days ago when I asked for an explanation of my fate.

That hurt.”

Even I do not know all the fates, came her gravelly voice in my ears.

I did not wish to dwell on the loss of you.

For, if you come to the forest as a body, I will grow moss around your bones in my embrace, but I will not be able to watch you and talk with you.

I shut my eyes.

“When will I die?”

I thought, my right hand tracing the hagstone at my throat.

Even I know not, girl.

I never claimed omniscience.

Tell me of your heart.

I opened my eyes and focused back on her face.

“I want the man beside me.

However I can have him.

I have never felt this before.

Not even with my first husband.

That was something else.

What time is left, I want with him.

I do not ask you for his heart, I just need to tell you.

I cannot tell any of my kindred.

It hurts too much.”

I call him my onion boy.

I bit back a laugh.

“Why is that?”

I thought.

He is layered and layered tightly.

It has always been this way with him.

“May I have just a bit of him for myself?”

I looked at the wooden face, pleadingly.

What did you do when you raised the rocks from the dirt? What did you do when you found the boy? What did you do as you cut down the vines in the orchard?

I thought about it for a moment and then thought, in prayer to her, “I called you a bloody hag.

I claimed the boy’s life as still in this world and we said the orchard was only for plum trees.”

She did not speak to me again, but I had an idea of her meaning.

I turned to Alric, who sat hunched over, leaning his forearms across the back of the pew ahead of us, his chin resting on his hands.

If I wanted him, I had to take him.

I leaned into him a little and whispered, “Let’s go back to bed.”

He gave a start and then turned to me.

“This is an ungodly hour,”

I continued.

“What made you wake so early? I feel close to our goddess and I think she wants us to sleep.”

He cast his eyes to the floor.

“I have been so lax, Edith, I—”

“She is not a punishing goddess.

Even I, her newest convert, know this.”

I reached out and tugged on the elbow of his undershirt.

“Come back to bed with me.

We have perhaps two hours of sleep ahead of us if we leave now.”

He looked up at me and gave that little exhale through his nose that no one else would have noticed, but I saw as his reluctant laugh.

“Sleep sounds good.”

We returned to the room and in the dim light through the slit on one side of the animal tarp over one of the windows, I kicked off my boots, undid the hastily done stays on my dress and pulled it over my head, ignoring the tangle of the nightgown around my waist, near to exposing my sex.

If he saw, he saw.

I walked to my side of the bed in a hurry, yanking back the covers and climbing in.

“And you did this on such a cold morning too!”

I said as if we had been carrying on a conversation all the way from the temple.

“Why be penitent now?”

I pulled the covers up to my nose.

The weight of his body dipped his side of the bed slightly and he said, “I should have felt this conviction after The Rush of Flowers.

Or The Gleaming.”

He pulled the covers up around his head too and then he said, “I have not prayed in the temple in so long.”

“Why did you stop? The Procurer trials?”

I yawned, grateful for the semi dark so he could not see the funny face I made when I did so.

“You,” he said.

“Me?”

“I did not want to disturb you.”

“Why would your prayer have disturbed me?”

He shifted to fully face me now, though I could barely make out his face.

“You did not choose this marriage.

Or this country.

Or this faith.

I thought I would at least let you have her.

She has been a comfort to me.

After my mother’s death and… other grief.

I thought you might not be able to seek that comfort as easily if your unwanted husband was near.”

The distant sounds of a horse’s hooves on stone filtered through the window, along with the shouts of several men.

The city was waking.

Fisherman would soon be returning from their morning hauls.

Outside, so many people were leading their lives.

Inside, was this onion man.

And he had just peeled back one of his layers for me.

“Do you know what I think about you, Alric Angler?”

I asked eventually.

“No.

What do you think of me… Edith Angler?”

The idea of my formal first name now coupled with his last name was welcome, but the sound of him saying it was better than any love song.

“I think,”

I began, “shortly after our wedding you were mistaken when you declared that you did not know how to be a husband.”

“Everything I know I have learned from my wife,” he said.

“Oh, her.

That old scold.”

“She does scold.

Sometimes.”

“I’m sure she means well.

What are the other books on your desk? And will you read those to me too? I liked your poetry.”

He stretched his legs under the covers and said, “Dull accounts of land and battle.

I can get us other books.

What do you want?”

“I don’t want you to spend any—”

He interrupted me.

“Edith.

What kind of books?”

“I know they are expensive here.

I will listen to you read dull accounts of land and battle,”

I protested, but when he remained quiet, I said, “I like stories.”

“Then I will get us stories.

But you have to read to me too.”

A few days after that, I awoke to an empty bed and a pile of three new books on the desk.

One was another volume of poetry.

I did not recognize the poet but I liked what I read as I flicked through it, my thumb stopping on a poem entitled ‘How Long Until You See Your Love,’ in which the poet bids his beloved to see him as a suitor.

I shut the book quickly and picked up the second, about a group of boys who search for their lost brother in the wilds of Nyossa.

I shut that book too, another reminder of my bones’ final resting place.

Was that why I had liked the forest so much? Had a part of me known I would be returning soon? The third book was titled ‘The Warrior’s Lady.’ It seemed to be about a woman trying to run her husband’s estate while he was at war.

It reminded me of the stories we had poured over in Eccleston, looking for heroines that inspired us.

We spent more fall evenings reading aloud to each other.

I would ready for bed early and be in it when he retired to our room, fresh from a bath after a day of Procurer feats of strength, none of which I understood.

Wine or whiskey was offered to me and poured for us by him.

I would sit watching the firelight flicker over his face as he read, seated in the desk chair.

We lit a fire in the grate now, the evenings taking on a biting cold that only the noon sun could eliminate, but the days grew darker and cooler, little by little giving way to what would be Tintar’s winter, a short, awful squall of a season.

Wintry winds beat at the animal tarpaulins in the night, but we did not notice, comforted by liquor and literature.

I chose the story about the boys first as I felt the other two could perhaps be dangerous.

“It is your turn,”

he reminded me one night, pouring my tin cup half full of whiskey.

I pretended to pout.

I preferred to be the listener.

I found my own voice inane at times.

“I will if you come to bed while I read.

I need your body warmth.”

He stood from the desk, unsure of what to do.

“I am closing my eyes.

Put on your undershirt and breeks and hurry.

I am cold.”

I thought I heard his little exhale-laugh as he moved towards his wooden chest.

“And what should we get? A tabby or the black and white one?”

“You confuse me, wife.”

“The kittens!”

I exclaimed, eyes still shut.

“They will soon wean from Maureen’s feeding them milk.”

“You may choose the kitten.”

I thought that a cat could warm the end of his bed after I was gone.

“You can open your eyes,”

he said, now under the covers.

I opened the adventure story and by firelight, began to read to my husband, sipping at my whiskey with every turn of the page.

I felt his gaze on me, but I kept mine on the book.