89. Starved

In the moon before The Thawing, two things took my attention away from my loving Alric.

Maureen’s time of birth had always been celebrated three weeks before mine and as Alric and I had worked out my time of birth on a Tintarian calendar would likely fall on The Thawing, I informed Helena that Maureen would then probably reach her majority.

Mischa and I pooled our coin to buy her a copper chain with a small aquamarine pendant.

The seven of us, and a handful of girls Catrin and Maureen had befriended in the dormitories, gathered with Eefa and Bronwyn at the brewery at the next day of rest.

Thatcher insisted on paying for the food and drink.

The shark’s mating season had come and gone without Hinnom insisting either sergeant marry his betrothed, to the relief of Perch and Mischa.

But Thatcher had asked Helena to still marry him and she asked him for a summer wedding.

At the end of the night, with wine in me, I could not bear to look at my niece, now taller than I, laughing and rosy-cheeked, happy, so far from the inquisitive little girl who had stolen my heart when she was a child, who had sat leaning against me after a nightmarish nap, who had asked me to tell her stories.

It would be the last time I celebrated her birth.

I left the brewery claiming I needed fresh air and I stood outside in the street, in the dark and cried quietly to myself.

I had tried to keep these tears at bay for so long.

I let myself fall apart, one hand against a stone wall.

Oh, girl, came her voice.

I too weep.

This sorrow is more than I can bear.

I put my forehead against the wall.

“I cannot bear it myself, goddess.”

Come to me, she persuaded.

Take your man’s horse up the plateau ramp to the bluff rock path that leads away from the city.

The mare knows the way.

Come to Nyossa.

Please.

You will live rough, but you will live.

I will take care of you into your old age.

How I love you, girl.

If you cannot do this, I will take this burden from you.

Ask it of me.

“I cannot leave him,”

I replied.

“I won’t.”

I know it, she sighed. I know.

“I’m sorry,”

I sobbed.

“I am trying to be strong.”

You are strong, she said and that disembodied, ancient voice cracked.

Do you hear it? Do you hear me mourn you? You have been so strong, girl.

Know that I will treasure your bones in my wood.

The sweetest flowers will cover you for the rest of time.

Rodwin had never loved me.

But she? She loved me.

It was this that gave me the strength to go back inside with a serene face.

The second thing to distract was the slaying of the infantry and cavalry contingent posted out on the southern dust road that bordered the marshlands and connected Tintar to the rest of the continent.

A large unit of Perpatanian troops had taken the men out and set up camp in the now deserted town of Sealmouth.

One lone cavalryman had escaped and ridden up the coast to get word to the capital.

The city of Pikestully was in an uproar at this.

Not only was a spot on the coast now Perpatane’s, but this cut the Tintarians in the marshlands off from the rest of the country.

There had never been such a defeat in Tintar’s history.

Hinnom raged and his brother, generals and archpriests gathered daily to plot and prepare for a battle in Sealmouth.

Once the winter’s thaw was complete, they would reclaim the port and Tintar’s portion of the coast and the southern dust road, mounting an attack of infantry and cavalry Perpatane’s unit could not possibly weather.

Hinnom wanted to show Perpatane the might of Tintar.

Boys from across the country were showing up at the keep to enlist and the Procurers, having chosen the son of a farrier whose arrow never missed its mark, turned to an expedited training of these boys, the eager sons of fisherman and farmers.

Cian sent me away from my marriage bed to visit a root vegetable farm with a field that had yielded nearly nothing in the fall, all the plants choking and barely showing growth above ground and only wizened roots when pulled.

I was not warned of this, as he had done so in the past and rode to the farm without my usual Tintar black, peeved that my emerald dress would have dirt on it.

He had withdrawn his friendship more and more the closer I had gotten with my husband.

I did not pride myself enough to think he had been that interested in me for the reason to be jealousy, but it had hurt for his friendship to turn to formality.

Tuck and I rode out on a morning and returned the following day, having spent the night in the farmer’s root cellar on bedrolls.

I was grateful for the leggings Alric had given me.

I was cold and cranky but the day of our arrival, I had, pulling my emerald dress up as high as I could, knelt on the soil with my pricked right hand and prayed, Tuck observing me.

Cian had sensed magic in the young man and asked him to become an acolyte and his penchant seemed to be best put to use on green things.

He was a genial companion and I was fond of the lad.

Mother Earth did not speak to me directly, but in my mind’s eye I had seen porous rock that craved moisture.

I told the farmer I believed that the foundations below the soil had started to suck away water from the vegetables.

Tuck said horse and cow manure mixed into the topsoil would work as well as adding peat moss in between rows.

We returned to the keep by midday after our night in the cellar.

I went directly to Gareth Pope’s bath and cleansed myself, dispatching Tuck to Cian to tell him our findings.

I did not care if I missed out on an afternoon’s work in the temple.

I lied somewhat to Tuck asking him to tell Cian I was unwell.

I wanted Alric and poetry and my own bed, but with time to spare and time to myself, I decided to take Thalia’s advice and spend time in Sister Sea’s temple, offering worship to my goddess’s companion deity.

I did not make it far.

I had returned to our rooms to deposit my belt and sagaris and change into my thinner teal fall dress, now feeling warmer inside the keep.

I had dispensed with my leggings too, feeling they were in need of washing.

Walking along one of the long throughway corridors that ran the entirety of the temples and keep, I encountered my husband.

“Edith,”

he said from behind me.

I turned to see him walking quickly up to me.

“Did Hazel find you and tell you—”

“I have been looking for your return all day,”

he said, taking my hands and kissing me eagerly on my mouth.

This surprised me.

The corridor was empty, people at their second half of the workday.

But this was demonstrative of him.

I smiled into his mouth and wrapped my arms around his neck.

“Good afternoon.

I hope you always greet me in such a fashion.”

“Why does he send you away from me?”

he complained into my hair, his hands roaming down to my rear and squeezing, pulling my pelvis into his.

He pushed his growing hardness against me and muttered, “Now I cannot sleep without having had you first.

Or at least have you beside me.”

“Alric,”

I said, only half cautioning.

He brought hands upward, his right circling around my lower back, his left gripping my right breast, thumb insistent and searching for my nipple through the cloth.

“Wife, I am in need of you.”

“This is hardly the place.”

I kissed him.

“Our room is not a quarter hour’s walk away.

Take me back and show me how you missed me.”

“Too far,”

he murmured, biting my neck with purpose, almost pain and then kissing the area softly.

“I cannot wait that long.

I will take you in that alcove.”

The spot was deep enough with a narrow window barely the span of my hand that overlooked the plateau and city, but it was not private.

He pushed me backwards into the area, kissing me, petting me and up against the wall inside, he asked against my lips, “Did you not miss me, Edith? Tell me you were sleepless also.”

Kissing him, fire in my belly, I responded with a hum of agreement, but I said, “We cannot do this.

Someone may come.”

Our kissing grew savager by the second.

“It is the workday,”

he said, spinning me around.

Before I could react, he had lifted the back portion of my skirts up to my hips.

I let out a shocked breath.

The chill of the air that came through the narrow window should have reminded me that we could not do this, but it only served as his accomplice, the coolness making my flesh prickle and cry out to be caressed with his heat.

We came together like that, both of our faces turned toward the wall, his hands outside mine on the rock, trying to stay quiet, hoping the scant seclusion the alcove offered would keep us from discovery.

On my left side, I saw our hands, mine inside of his, both with the plain silver wedding bands.

I wondered if he noted this too as I felt him smile, his lower face against my temple.

Despite my utter lack of sense as I found pleasure, I had the thought that it was another smile I could not see.

He found his pleasure as mine faded, burying his face into my neck and saying something I could not make out, but his voice broke on one of the words.

Then he lifted his head from my skin and as we panted together, both needing the wall for support, still hinged together by the entwining of prick and sex, he said, “See? A man starved."