95. Wife

On that fourth evening, Alric came to our rooms with a jug of whiskey and fresh tin cups, contentment in his manner.

“What shall we read tonight?”

he asked, handing me my cup as I sat up in the bed.

“I think a romance?”

His mouth was soft as he sat down in the desk chair, eyes on me.

I found myself wishing he would smile fully again.

But also I could not stop the words on my lips.

“What were you and the Lady Vinia discussing in the corridor? Three days prior?”

He paused in raising his cup to his mouth.

“The lady?”

“Yes.

You and the lady.

After the midday meal.

Do not pretend to me, Alric.”

He frowned, a flicker of irritation on his face.

“I did not pretend.

I was surprised at your asking me.

What is it that you wish to know?”

I willed my voice to be calm and my eyes dry.

“Twice before I have come across the two of you speaking.

This is but the most recent.”

My husband looked at me with confusion, but said “She tells me how my child comes along in the world.

As I do not have the privilege of knowing myself.”

“She is not your child,”

I said before I could think to halt myself.

Girl, came the warning scratch of Mother Earth’s voice.

Girl, tread with care.

He straightened in the chair.

“Edith.

I do understand that you are upset—”

“She has a streak in her hair.

Like Halsted.

And her brothers.”

I was without control.

Alric stared at me, his mouth again that slash without any softness.

“And— And how do you know this?”

“They buy her dye at the same dyer’s from which Helena buys minerals for paint.”

“That is not, in itself, evidence enough for me to confront the lady.”

I knew I was in dangerous waters, but I kept on.

“Have you ever wondered if she lied? Have you ever questioned it? Did you take her word as truth without question?”

“Edith.”

He looked both irked and unsure.

“What brings this on? Do you feel disrespected in some way? I have never spoken with the lady in private, not in a long time, let alone during our marriage.

I have not so much as looked at another woman in four seasons.”

I took a sip of whiskey.

“I believe she has led you to believe, over the winters, that her daughter is yours.

So she could have you still.

In some way, she still has you.”

“Has me?”

Alric set his own whiskey on the desk and laced his fingers together in his lap.

“Why would she want to tell such a tremendous lie?”

“To have you,”

I cried.

“She made a grave error by choosing Halsted and she must live with it.

But in this, she can still have a part of you.

In this, you are joined.”

He shook his head.

“Her love for me has been replaced by her love for her children and I believe her to have ultimately found amity with her lord.”

“You have never questioned the timing of conception?”

“Edith, how can you say such things?”

I was becoming unhinged.

“You have not? You have never questioned it.

What if the timing is off? What if you add up the days and the child came too early or late to have been yours?”

He glared at me.

“I’m sure there is some explanation to whatever—”

I laughed.

“Will you take antidote from your poisoner?”

There was a disappointment about him that was more painful than his anger.

“Why did you look upset?”

I said, changing tack.

With a sigh, he said, “Opal is soon to be of courting age.

I wish it was not true, but I have no leg to stand on in this.

Her lawful father is receiving offers from Vyggian lords and Sibbereen traders and other Tintarian noble families.

I worry that she will have no say in her husband.

I have asked Vinia to push Halsted to allow for Opal to have some manner of choice.”

He picked his tin cup up again and drank from it.

“You must tell me how I have offended you in this? I have a right to know if my child is well.

What I cannot understand is how this upsets you, you the most generous and considerate person I know.

Edith, you have shown me so much grace.

Why is this what keeps me from your favor?”

I put a hand over my eyes.

Swallowing a sob, I said, “You will forgive a wife, a wife who loves her husband, her jealousies.”

I brought the hand down to cover my mouth.

“Edith,”

he said exasperated, but with less rancor.

“Edith,”

he repeated, inquisitive.

I fisted my hand over my mouth.

“I will never speak of it again.”

He stood to come to me, but thought better of it and merely sat at the end of the bed, his hand on my crossed ankles.

“There is no other woman for me.

Know this and be well in that knowledge.

You are my happiness.

I can say no more to convince you.”

I wanted to scream that he could say he loved me, but I looked into my cup and nodded.

We lay apart for the first time since we had consummated our marriage, other than my night in the root cellar with Tuck.

In the morning, there was no opportunity for pondering our little rift for the keep was in tumult.

The Helmsmen, encamped for hundreds of winters in the Hintercliff mountains north of Tintar, those clans who had claimed to helm the first ships built by mortal men, but had lost the livable part of the coast in ancient wars to Tintar, had somehow gotten their hands on Ruskarian saltwater oak and built a fleet.

They had raided a small port town at the edge of Tintar’s northern borders.

The citizens had run inland and some had escaped with horses, racing down the coast to Pikestully, reporting this terror.

The entire Tintarian navy was deployed that day and I saw little of my husband.

We continued to sleep apart in the bed.

I could tell he wanted to mend things, but was unwilling to beg forgiveness for his interest in Opal, which rightfully, he should not have had to do.

But something in me told me Maureen’s observation about the girl’s mother making her dye her white streak was enough evidence.

Helena’s first saying it aloud had solidified it to me, she being my ever wisest as well as my oldest friend.

I had buried that initial envy in me at her news and resolved, if I would continue to live, to be a support to her and to applaud this baby’s entrance into our lives.

And I needed her.

In the baths, on the fifth morning after The Thawing, I pulled her aside to tell her of my and Alric’s first argument after having found each other.

I relayed Vinia’s alleged purpose for speaking with my husband and my doubts, that I felt the girl’s paternity was employed to remain connected to him.

She supported me entirely and agreed that that was what the lady did.

This only served to ground me in my resentment.

But my resentment was merely the topsoil on a deep bedrock of dread.

Tintar was under attack from both north and south.

Our allies had turned against us.

And I, the wife of a soldier, anticipated the worst.

And I rested in bed next to him, both wanting to be held and wanting to be justified.

He had left early in the mornings and come to bed late, held up in war councils, in discussion with the prince and Jeremanthy, by his training new recruits.

After three more nights of our separateness, he broke the silence.

“I cannot bear another night of this, Edith,”

he spoke into the darkness.

The infantry and cavalry marching on Sealmouth in a few days’ time hung in the air between us.

I had my back to him, Tabitha on my side, purring under my hand.

I did not speak.

He continued.

“You are allowed your jealousies.

I hold you in such regard that I hold you to an unfair standard and I forget that.

You are, despite my believing so, not perfect.”

My hand stilled over the cat.

Alric spoke again and I could tell, though he was on his back, his head was facing me.

“I will ask the lady to be more discreet when she has news of Opal.”

I did not want to let go of my anger, but when one is in love, holding on to anything else is a slippery affair.

“Thank you,”

I whispered.

His body turned towards me, the bed’s sheets shifting with him.

“I myself have been jealous.”

“You have?”

I remained facing the wall, attention on the cat.

“Wife.

You know you are temptation itself.

A king has called you radiant.

I have seen other men look and look twice.”

I fought the grin on my face.

“To some.

To some I have been tempting.

A smart woman knows what her beauty is.

And I am grateful you are one of the some tempted.”

This was the most of a concession I could make, a part of me still bitter and sad that she would always have more of him.

But he undid that sadness with his next words.

He drew me away from the cat, pulling me against him.

In my ear he said, “I am beyond temptation.

I have been tempted and I have surrendered.

To myself, I admitted defeat long ago.”

I sighed, slackening in his arms.

“I am sorry,”

I whispered.

“I am so sorry.”

“Do not be sorry.

Be my wife again.”

And so I was.

After a tender, wordless exchange of bodies who had been lonely next to each other, he held me, kissing my eyelids and nose.

He placed his lips against my forehead, saying “I call you ‘Edith’ when I am beguiled by you, but do you know what I will call you when I want to remind you of who you are and what you are to me?”

“What?”

“Wife.”

“You call me that all the time.”

“Exactly, Edith, my wife.”

I clung to those words, though none of them were the ones I longed to hear from him.

The next morning in the baths, I spotted the lady, wringing out her hair over her shoulder, speaking with another of Modwenna’s court.

I was not careful in my examination and Vinia’s eyes found mine.

Have mercy, girl, said my goddess.

She broke her own heart.

That is the deepest cut.

Mercy was the answer.

I gave the lady an easy smile and a nod.