“Silly child, you’re in love with the boy,” he said, averting his eyes. “And times are dark. You need a husband to keep you safe. It’s for your own good.”
“Have you lost your mind?” she screamed, her world no longer making any sense. “We were going to go to the palace city with the duke—you and I. What of that?”
“You will not be going to the palace city with the duke or with anyone else. You will be staying in Nag’s End with your husband,” he said, looking down at his papers. “This is the best path for you, Daughter. I will not discuss it further. This is my final decision.”
Rowan blinked and tried to focus on the ground, solid beneath her feet. Surely she must be dreaming, but she knew she wasn’t. Her father was really saying these things to her. And all at once, she saw herself as her father must see her, as Tom must see her—weak, small, and useless. Beautiful in some fragile way, but what good was beauty? It had done Fiona Eira no favors.
She felt trapped, as if she might suffocate. But something else swelled in her chest, something hot and burning, similar to the anger she’d felt earlier but more intense. It was sharp and spiked, and pointed directly at her father, and she knew without a doubt that she hated him. Hated him more than she’d ever hated anyone. More even than she hated the Goddess for taking her mother from her all those years ago.
She cleared her throat. “Yes,” she answered, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “I understand.”
“Good,” her father said, then stood and, walking around the desk to her, hugged her close to his chest as he had done a thousand times before, and she was astonished at how something that used to feel so warm and human could suddenly feel so dead.
She turned from him, and doing her best to keep from breaking down, she opened the door, the coldness of the metal knob like a knife against her skin. When she stepped out into the hallway, she was stunned to find Merrilee standing there, leaning against the wall, her tiny navy dress blending into the darkness. Had she been listening? The girl smiled at her, then turned and raced up the back stairs.
Tom tried to put his misgivings behind him as he approached the inn. Surely he was imagining things. Surely Rowan wanted to be his wife. There was no one who knew him better, no one who loved him more. So why had she reacted as if he’d proposed a double suicide?
He burst into the inn and found his mother setting up for the supper crowd.
“Hello, my boy,” she called, looking up from her washcloth.
Jude sat in the corner, a piece of paper before him. He seemed to be puzzling something out. He glanced at his brother, and then folding up the paper, he put it in his pocket.
“Hey now,” Jude said. “You look well for once.”
Elsbet smiled at her youngest son. “You’ve done it, haven’t you?” she squeaked.
“I have,” Tom said, ebullient. “Just now. I’m to be married.”
Jude stared at him, stunned.
“My brother,” Tom said, hands on the table in front of Jude. “I’ve taken a bride.”
“What?” Jude laughed. “Who? I thought you were … excuse me here, but I thought you were in love with Fiona Eira. I thought you said no other girl was fit to touch the hem of her garment.”
Tom drew back, seeing Fiona’s smiling face in front of his once again, smelling her breath on his neck, and then, as quickly as the vision had come, it was replaced with the image of her splayed out like meat in the slickening snow.
“Jude,” Elsbet spat. “Show some respect for the dead. And for the living.”
She moved closer to Tom and gave Jude a self-satisfied smile. “I’m going to have a daughter finally. I’d hoped you might be a girl, Jude, you know.”
“So who is she?” Jude asked, beginning to warm to the idea of a sister-in-law taking the brunt of his mother’s wrath.
“Why, our own Rowan, isn’t it?” Elsbet said. Jude froze, and Tom noticed his brother’s face grow pale. “You’re joking,” Jude said.
“Not a bit,” Elsbet chirped. “Tom’s finally seen the light. Seen what was right in front of him.”
Jude shook his head, anger slowly distorting his features. “Crow’s eyes if I’ve ever heard such a thing,” he seethed, his gaze boring into his brother.
“Jude!” Elsbet yelped. “I’ll not have language like that in my inn. I’ve thrown men out on their ear for less.”
Tom stared at his brother, his defensiveness piqued. “Do you have something you want to say, Jude?”
But his brother just glared at him.
“If you have something you want to say, by all means, say it,” Tom urged.
Jude opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words flowed. He simply shook his head and stared at his brother with a hatred that seemed to reach into Tom’s very being.
“You don’t like Rowan, is that it?” Tom said.
“You know I don’t,” Jude said, looking away.
“Well, you’re going to have to get used to her. She’ll be moving in with us in two months’ time. Soon she will bear my children.”
And with that, a color rose in Jude’s cheeks. “It must be very convenient for you to be able to change your heart so readily.”
“I’ve done no such thing,” Tom said, looking away. “Rowan has long been my closest friend, and she’ll soon make an honorable wife. That is the most I can ask for.”
“And I suppose you’re the most she can ask for?” Jude said through gritted teeth.
“Jude,” Elsbet snarled. “You watch it, boy.”
“You’re a hypocrite,” Jude said, his eyes trained on his brother, and Tom saw that every muscle in Jude’s neck was taut. He looked feral, like an animal waiting to tear flesh from bone.
“That’s enough!” Tom yelled. “You will show respect to me and to my bride-to-be, or so help me …”
“So help you what?”
“You may be older, but I’m bigger than you, Jude, and I’m not afraid of you.”
Tom moved closer, confident in his ability to hold physical master over his brother, but when he was within a few steps of him, Jude suddenly stood and, in one quick and terrifying movement, flipped the old oak table over, missing Tom’s leg by inches. Elsbet screamed as Jude pulled himself up to his full height, and though he was slight of build, his rage seemed to lay claim to the whole room.
The two boys stared at each other, the animal within each pushed to its extreme—Tom ready to physically harm his brother, and Jude seemingly poised to kill.
Elsbet’s hands flew to her face, and she backed away in horror from what she had created.
The moment hung like the blade of a guillotine, ready to drop with startling finality.
And then Jude stepped away. Tom relaxed his shoulders, and Jude turned and walked to the back door as if nothing had happened. Tom and Elsbet exchanged a look, the same one they’d been exchanging for years, as if to ask what they had done to deserve such a relation. But just as Jude was about to step outside, he turned back and stared at his brother.
“I just want you to know. I’ll kill you before I let you marry her.”
And then he was gone, the door slamming behind him with a heavy clash of wood against steel.
Arlene Blessing had set the hearth fires to burn low for the night. She had tidied up, and had drunk a cup of willow bark tea. Things were quiet now, different since the world had taken her William from her. It had taken her babies too, years ago—decades now. And though she’d loved them truly and with all her heart, she’d only known each of them a few days before the fever took them. The grief had been so great that she’d decided she couldn’t bear another pregnancy, and she and William had been careful ever since. Still, she bore a constant ache in her heart for her children—Lily and Tim, she’d called them, but it was different to lose her William. She’d spent a lifetime with him—married a week after her fifteenth birthday they were, and now he was gone. One full spring and a summer he’d been gone, and now they were closing in on yet another spring. It wasn’t sadness exactly that she wore in her heart, it was an emptiness, as if everything inside her had shut off, and now she moved through her life waiting, half hoping that every cough might develop into something more, wondering each night when she lay down to sleep whether things might be better if, when the dawn came, she simply didn’t wake up.