Mist on Water (8 page)

7

O
n my return from my swim, I was waylaid on my trek home. As a favored friend of the groom’s, I was enlisted to help clean up the commons. Empty kegs were hauled back to the pub, chairs were hefted back into their respective houses, and men were supported back to their beds. All-in-all, it was backbreaking work. While I rested from helping old man Tiller limp—though it was really a stagger—to his house, I overheard Nari’s father and the new wife.

“You must rest now, husband,” she said, patting him on the arm. “No one will mind. You have a long journey on the morrow, and I’ll need you home by week’s end.”

Nari’s father cleared his throat. “There will be no journey.”

The new wife suddenly grew tense and her eyes latched onto her husband.

He shrugged off her alarm. “Nari will not be returning to her aunt’s house. Her training is complete.”

Crickets could be heard in the silence that followed that announcement, for he was not a man conditioned toward conflict. He let his wife have what she willed so long as she saw to the house, fed him and left him in peace. But the new wife regained her voice soon enough. “Surely you realize it is unfair to assume such a conclusion this soon?”

He glanced away. “I never thought I’d miss her, but I do. She stays.”

Unused to him giving orders, she stuttered. “B-but…”

Panic covered the new wife’s face. “It is best to finish the job than to leave it half done. Even you must see the folly of trying to give away a half-trained wife.”

Nari’s father slanted an exhausted look toward her. “Stop your fretting, woman. What you could not accomplish is where my sister has excelled. Nari is all that a young woman should be, and I have every confidence she will be of great use to you.” With that, he walked away.

The new wife was rarely one to be put off. “And if your confidence is misplaced,” her displeasure railed against him, “a great burden. Left unmarried, she will drain our monies until there is none left.”

A ray of hope lightened my chest. I cared little if the new wife was pleased or not, her husband’s decision favored me, for it gave me a fighting chance to secure Nari’s forgiveness…and maybe a tiny speck of her love. Though bruised and frustrated, I was suddenly energized in my campaign to win Nari.

The day after the wedding, I rose early and set out for Nari’s home. I passed Gordie’s new house, and everyone else’s in the village, before I came to a stop outside a charming thatched cottage. I had to hand it to the new wife. Over the years, she had managed to work her magic on the dilapidated little cottage, making a pretty purse out of a sow’s ear. Morning glories draped the flowerbeds while climbing roses edged up the sides of the house, dripping red, and pink and white along the eaves. A fine, full kitchen garden had been planted out back and improvements to the overall construction to the place had been done–namely by myself and my father.

I waited in the darkness of the morning, rehearsing what I would say to Nari. I waited until the sun sprang from its long night’s rest to cast the first yellow vines of light along the streets. Not long after, a light in the window flickered brightly, and I straightened from my squatting position at the corner of the house across the lane.

I couldn’t move.

I just stood there, staring at the house as the village slowly awoke. As the dairyman went house to house, leaving the morning jugs beside each door. As the women rose to make a hearty breakfast for their families. As the men left for another day of labor. A young boy came and handed a letter to the new wife. Its contents making her squeal with delight. “You see here?” she crowed. “I didn’t imagine it.” And the door shut on her excitement.

Through it all, I was a sad piece of work, standing in the shadows there like a forgotten, ill-loved dog.

I avoided Nari’s father as he left the house, hiding like a cornered rat, terrified he’d see me. I shouldn’t have worried. He was too busy to mind the idiot hunkering in the shadows.

Not so everyone.

“Ryne, is that you skulking about over there?” a crusty, thick voice shouted.

My gaze shot to old widow Jens scuffling down the alleyway. Her steps were so slow, and she so slight, it was a wonder the wind didn’t knock her over before she was able to put her foot down. Within one hand, she held a basket and in the other a stout walking stick. As she peered over at me, I could hardly deny it was not I, for everyone knew everyone here.

She answered her own question before I could. “Yes, it’s you. Strange thing last night. Why would you yell at poor Nari, and her back for only a few days? Can’t say as your mother is pleased with your manners. That’s why you’re here. Come to make things right. Well, get on with you,” she said, close enough now to swat me with her cane. “You know the way and the how to.”

With my throat too constricted to say anything, I only nodded as I endured the prod of her stick. Under the widow’s watchful stare, I stepped up to the door and gave it a quick rap. I glanced back, and she gave me a satisfied nod. At the sound of footsteps from within, I faced the door and swallowed rapidly in an effort to lubricate my dry throat.

The door sprang open to reveal the new wife wearing a wide smile on her face and dressed in her best finery. One look at me and her smile disappeared. “What do you want?”

“I’d…I’d like to speak with Nari, if you don’t mind.” And then, in a brilliant show of afterthought, I tacked on, “Ma’am.”

Her nose twitched with disgust, completely unimpressed. “She isn’t in.”

How was that possible? I’d been staring at the house since before dawn. “May I ask where she is?”

“You may not.” She took a step forward, forcing me back as she waved her hand holding the letter that had been delivered that morning. “You hie yourself somewhere else. Nari has a suitor coming today to talk of an arrangement, and if he sees you hanging about, no telling what he’ll think of us.”

“Someone wants to marry Nari?” Word of her staying had traveled fast. Though I heard correctly, I couldn’t quite believe her.

“I’m as shocked as you, but that’s what he states. ‘As pretty a wife as I’ll likely get,’ he says. And I’m right glad to hear it. A godsend, he is.” She looked up and down the street, her gaze piercing the shadows for any sign of her prey before returning to me. “Away with you, now,” she hissed, and made to close the door, but I stopped her.

“Who?”

She looked from my hand on the door to me, and it was clear she was not pleased. “No one you would know.”

“Does her father know of your plan?”

“What impudence,” she bristled like a porcupine. “Of course he knows.”

“Does Nari?”

She blustered and gurgled and looked ready to erupt. “I’ll not say another word to you, young man. Be gone or I’ll fetch my husband to throw you away.”

With a hefty shove, she closed the door, leaving me to stare thoughtfully at the solid panel. Nari couldn’t know. But what if she did? Was that why she had been so ill-disposed toward me last night?

“No,” I said as I backed away. “She wouldn’t marry a stranger.”

“And who says he’s a stranger?” said the old widow.

I whipped my head toward the forgotten widow and blinked. “Nari can’t marry. She promised me she wouldn’t.”

The old woman snorted and shook her head. “A young girl’s promise is a worthless vow. Easily made, easily broken.”

But Nari was not like other girls. We had a blood pact...an understanding…the two of us, forever. She would never marry just anyone. As I stood in the brightness of a clear morning, the world turned gray, all the joy leeched from it by one word.

Married.

I spun on my heels and ran.

“It’s time, you know,” the widow Jens yelled after me. “If left on the shelf too long, her beauty will grow stale, and then where will she be?”

I ran until I came to a newly built cottage, stopping only when I collided with the stout door. I pounded on it as if I were a hare being chased by wolves. I would not let up, banging until the door was jerked open from beneath my fist.

Gordie, his trews riding low on his hips and his chest bare to the cool morning air, shot an irritated look at me and rasped, “You dare to knock on my door on my wedding night?”

“It’s morning.”

He pushed his hand through his tousled hair and peered past me, a look of surprise on his face. “So it is.”

“Who is it?” a young, sweet voice called from within.

“Just the village idiot come to beg for a hot bun, my love. I’ll be just a moment.” He stepped outside and closed the door, then faced me. Displeasure creased his brow. “This had better be good, Ryne. The next five seconds of your life depends on it.”

“What do you know about a man coming to wed Nari?”

Gordie put his hands on his hips and laughed. When he saw I was serious, he cocked his head questioningly at me. “Have you been drinking?”

“I’m serious. Your stepmother said some man is coming to make arrangements to marry her.”

“Well, he’ll not get far. Nari swears she’ll have no one.”

“Do you think your stepmother would promise Nari without her permission?”

Gordie thought for a moment. “That would be a bold move, but–oh bloody hell, she would. Her one real challenge has been to see us out of her house. And now that Nari is back…well, she’ll want to get her out for good.”

Alarm gripped me. I grabbed Gordie’s shoulders. “I’ll find Nari.”

“I’ll find my father,” he replied.

We broke away, each running in the opposite direction. I didn’t know where to look. I hunted the forest in a haphazard pattern, panic skewing my search. Just by chance, I found myself beneath the tree we had used to lie in wait for our victims. And just by chance, I glanced up.

Nari, dressed in one of Gordie’s old trews and a shirt, stared down at me. I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Nari?”

She curled her bare feet under her as if she were embarrassed to be caught up a tree. “Hello, Ryne.”

“What are you doing up there?”

“I like the view.”

I turned, but all I could see were trees and trees and more trees. I quickly kicked off my shoes and climbed up. It had been a few years since I’d been up this particular tree, and to my surprise, all the handholds and footholds remained. When I got to her branch, I scooted out beside her.

She cast me a nervous look, but didn’t say anything. I looked out to where she had been staring and I could see through the break in the trees the sparkling waters of the lake and my house.

“It’s a lovely view,” she said.

“It is,” I agreed, seeing once again why my mother loved her house on the lake. “Why did I never notice it before?”

A shy smile touched her lips. “You were always looking down, ready to spit…or worse.”

I smiled back, drinking in the way the wind gently blew her hair against her cheek. “I guess so. I never knew you weren’t doing the same.”

“I usually was. I only saw it once you left. I’d sit here for hours praying you’d come back.”

My smile faded and a tightness entered my throat. “I’m so sorry, Nari. Please believe me. I was being thick. A complete ass.”

“I’ll not argue with you there.” She slid a curious look at me. “Why are you here?”

“I was looking for you. I went to your house, to find you, and your stepmother said a man was coming.”

She looked blankly at me. “And?”

“And that he would be making an offer for you.”

She blinked, and her gaze shifted away. “Did she say who?”

That was not the reaction I expected. “You don’t sound surprised. You can’t be thinking of marrying?”

“Why not? Gordie’s wife is not even a year older than me.”

I watched her swing from the limb and climb down as quick as when she was just a lad. I couldn’t have heard her correctly. I followed her down, and once on the ground, I faced her. “You cannot get married.”

“What?”

“You cannot.” She was mine. We belonged together. The day of our pact sat so clearly in my mind. “What of this?” I said and held out my hand where a small scar had formed across the palm, an exact replica of the one on hers.