Chapter 7 #2
"There is something ye should ken plainly," he said.
She set her cup back down.
His eyes lifted to hers.
"Two weeks." He said and she looked up from her plate.
"Before I claim me marital rights. Ye have two weeks. Tae settle. Tae learn the island. Tae grow accustomed tae the keep and the people in it." He held her gaze. "After that, we proceed as husband and wife in the full sense of it."
The table nearest them went very busy with their food.
A muscle moved in her jaw. She set down her spoon very carefully, the way she did when she was deciding what to do with her hands.
"Ye're tellin' me this here." A faint color had climbed her neck and reached her cheeks. She knew it had, he could tell by the set of her mouth. "Now."
"I thought it better said plainly and early."
"In front of everyone?" Her eyes moved to the nearest table, where two women had developed a sudden fascination with their stew. She looked back at him. "Ye couldnae have chosen a more private place?"
"There's nay confusion this way. Everyone kens where things stand."
"Everyone," she said, with great precision, "certainly daes."
From down the hall, a man coughed. Ivar didn't look to see who. He didn't need to.
She picked her spoon up. Set it down again. "Two weeks," she said.
"Aye."
"And this is," she stopped. Looked at him directly, "this is ye bein' considerate, is it?"
"This is me bein' clear."
"Aye, ye're very clear." She glanced at the nearest table again. One of the women had found something on the far wall that apparently required her full attention. "So is everyone else in this hall."
"They would have found out eventually."
"That," she said, "is spectacularly unhelpful."
But the corner of her mouth had gone tight in the way that showed that she was fighting something that wasn't anger, and he looked down at his wine before she caught him looking.
He shouldn't have said it there. He knew that.
He'd known it before he’d opened his mouth. He'd said it anyway because the alternative was saying it after the wedding, in private, in the chamber they would share, with no hall full of people between them and whatever her face would have done when he’d said it.
This had seemed safer.
He was no longer entirely sure it was.
She looked at him. He looked back at her.
Her chin was up, her eyes steady, and there was color still in her cheeks and she was very deliberately not looking at the nearest table anymore.
"Is there anything else," she said, "ye'd like to announce tae the hall while we're here."
"Nay," he said. "I think that covers it."
"Good." She picked up her spoon. "Then I'm going tae finish me supper."
She looked back at her plate.
He drank his wine and watched the fire and did not look at her again for the rest of the meal, which took considerably more effort than it should have.
The chamber was full of light when she went back to it after dinner.
That was the first thing she noticed. Candles everywhere.
On the windowsill, on the table, on the shelf above the hearth, on both sides of the bed. Along the top of the chest at the foot of it, burning steadily in the still air of the room and turning the stone walls amber and warm.
Every corner lit. Not a shadow left unclaimed.
She stood in the doorway for a moment.
He had simply observed her panic in the dark and provided the remedy without demanding she explain her shame.
He'd simply told Sigrid who had gotten it done. She'd walked into a room full of light without being asked to explain why she needed it or being looked at carefully while she didn't explain.
She stepped inside.
Sigrid was behind her, setting down the satchel with the efficiency of someone who had a system and intended to follow it.
"Bed's fresh," she said. "Water's still warm on the stand."
"Thank ye."
Matilda moved to the window and looked out. West-facing, she noted. She'd see the sunset from there. The thought was unexpectedly steadying, a small promise of beauty in a place defined by stone and salt.
"The candles," she said. "Did he say why?"
"Nay," Sigrid said simply. "Just said to keep them lit. All the time. And to replace them before they burn out." She paused. "I've got a good stock. Ye willnae run short."
Matilda only nodded, because the sudden lump in her throat made speech impossible.
"I'll help ye with yer laces," Sigrid said, already moving toward her with the practicality of a woman who had helped people out of their clothes for years and found nothing remarkable about it.
Matilda submitted, because she was tired enough that her arms weren't fully cooperating and the laces were at the back. She felt the older woman’s hands work with a briskness that discouraged any further display of emotion.
"The keep," she said, as Sigrid worked. "What's it like. Truly."
"Truly?" Sigrid considered. "Loud in the mornin'. The men train at first light and they're nae quiet about it. Ye'll hear it from here."
"And the people?"
"Cautious," Sigrid said, without apology. "They dinnae ken ye yet. They'll watch before they decide." Her hands moved steadily. "But they're fair. When they decide, they mean it."
"And the laird?"
Sigrid's hands paused for just a moment. Then continued. "What about him?"
"What's he like. Here. On his own island."
Sigrid was quiet for a moment, in the way of someone choosing words with care.
"He's nae easy," she said finally. "But he's honest. And he daesnae ask anythin' of anyone he wouldnae dae himself." She paused. "The men follow him intae anythin'. That tells ye somethin'."
"Aye," Matilda said. "It daes."
The laces came free.
Sigrid helped her into her nightgown with the brisk warmth of someone who had decided practical help was worth more than commentary. Then moved around the room checking the candles, pinching out the ones too close to the curtains, leaving the rest burning.
"The bannocks," Sigrid said, pausing at the door. "Cook makes them at dawn. Get there before the men or ye'll get the end of the batch."
"Are the end of the batch nae fine?"
"They're fine," Sigrid said seriously. "But the first ones are better. I'm just sayin'." She looked at Matilda with the direct, uncomplicated gaze of a woman who had decided something. "Ye need anythin' in the night, me room is two doors left. Knock hard, I sleep deep."
Matilda looked at her. "Thank ye, Sigrid."
"Aye." Sigrid opened the door. Paused. "He isnae what they say, ye ken. The stories that travel." She said it plainly, no softness around it, just fact. "He's nae that."
She left before Matilda could answer and the door closed with a loud thwack.
Matilda stood in the amber room and looked at the candles burning in every corner, all the dark pushed back, all the shadows dealt with. She realized with a start that her fingers were no longer curled into the tight, defensive fists she’d carried since Kinlochaline.
She thought about a man who had slept upright outside her tent all night without being asked, cut a hole in his own canvas without comment, and told his housekeeper to keep the candles lit before he'd seen to his own horse.
She thought about the two weeks, announced to half of Mull at the supper table. The memory of the nearby women’s stares still stung, but the weight of Ivar’s promise felt like a solid floor beneath her feet.
As she climbed into bed, she thought about the almost-smile she kept almost-seeing.
The room stayed lit, and outside the window Mull settled into its dark.
Matilda lay on her back and looked at the amber ceiling and listened to the unfamiliar sounds of an unfamiliar place, the creak of the keep, the distant sea, the wind finding the gaps in the stone.
Strange. Uncertain. Entirely unfamiliar.
She reached for the fear that usually lived in that combination and found it quieter than it should have been. It was still there, cold and dormant, but it was held at bay by a dozen small flames and a laird’s rough, deep voice.