Chapter 51 The Welcome #2
She nodded again. He kissed her, his lips sweet and soft on hers, and Ayla started crying again, which was a little embarrassing, but it could not be helped.
She loved him. And this marriage would not be one of terror or boredom.
It would be one of hope, and happiness, and they would be each other's shelter.
“How?” she asked, when he drew back to wipe her eyes gently with another handkerchief.
“How what?”
“How do we get married here?”
“We can go to the guild, or one of their temples. Or we can just do it ourselves, at home. Just the two of us. It’s not like anyone here will know the difference.”
“It would have to be just the two of us, wouldn’t it?
” Ayla said, as she wound her hand into Niel’s hair, and he rested his forehead against hers.
He knew the men and women at the school, and she had become distantly friendly with the people at Gante’s shop.
They’d both spoken briefly with their neighbors, in broken sentences that were becoming more confident. But it took time.
“Just us two if we wed today,” he agreed. “Or we can wait, and make it three.”
“Today, I think,” she said, and traced a hand down the sharp line of his jaw.
A knock on the door startled them both apart.
“Are you expecting someone?” she asked, reluctantly letting go of him.
“No. Should I ignore it?”
“Best to check,” she said with a sigh, and started trying to push herself up out of the chair.
Niel offered her his hands and pulled her up with ease, then ducked under the low doorway and down the hall.
She wandered after him, heart still racing.
They were going to be married. It was no surprise, but she still felt her stomach fluttering with excitement.
There was nothing to be afraid of. Not with him at her side. After everything they’d faced, surely they could manage the future. Even if they had to do it alone, without families or close friends to help.
Niel opened the door, and Ayla’s eyes went wide as she saw the crowd of neighbors outside.
Without waiting to be invited they started to come into the house, and Niel stepped aside, looking as baffled as Ayla felt.
Here was Anfelisia, who lived two doors down, with a basket of folded cloth.
Her husband Rizar had a clay jug of some sloshing liquid hooked on two fingers.
Galitia, an elderly woman who lived with her children and grandchildren was helped over the foyer by a man with a basket of fruit on his other arm.
One after another they spilled into the house, talking animatedly and bearing gifts.
Anfelisia paused in front of Ayla to grip her forearm, the greeting many Cirancians seemed to favor.
“What is this?” Ayla asked, in her own language first, then rephrasing.
“The Welcome,” Anfelisia said, in Ciranci. “The baby soon comes, yes? So we Welcome.”
“But I am new,” Ayla said, speaking slowly to get the accent right. “Why do all of you…?”
Anfelisia clucked her tongue as others laughed or shook their heads.
“You live here. The baby will live here. We Welcome.”
Ayla was dangerously close to bursting into tears again.
The women of the neighborhood dragged her out of the hall and into the kitchen, where she was made to sit and someone else’s drooling baby boy was put into her arms, she couldn’t say whose.
She looked up and saw Niel being offered a drink from the jug.
All around her people chattered and laughed, finding places to put away the food and gifts they’d brought after showing them to Ayla, who nodded, shocked, uncertain what to make of this.
She wasn’t one of them. Why were they giving her gifts? They were acting like she belonged.
Two more men came into the house, ones who hadn’t arrived with the others. They wore empty scabbards on their belts. She didn’t recognize them as neighbors, but Niel grinned when he saw them, and introduced them to her as other teachers from the sword school.
“Come, sword-man,” their neighbor Rizar said to Niel, and he and a group of the men tried to lead Niel outside.
Niel’s eyes were instantly on hers, an unspoken question.
If she wanted him to stay, he would, without question.
But she nodded to him; she was fine. A few minutes later they could hear the men out in the front of the house, whooping and cheering.
The women inside fell silent for a moment, heads craning, and then they burst into laughter and snorts.
“Men,” one said, and took the baby back from Ayla.
She still didn’t know who’s child it was.
The women started giving her advice, and informing her they’d come when she screamed, and would bring the midwife with them.
And then they devolved into their own stories and games, and Ayla sat and listened, and found that after nearly a year in this country she could follow most of what they were saying.
And, more, that it was nice to sit in her kitchen, surrounded by people who seemed to wish her well, and who thought she was a part of their own homes, even if she was an outsider.
When they left at dusk, it was with the house fully-stocked and the neatly-arranged remains of a feast cooling beside the stove, the rooms cleaner than her guests had found them, and a small bowl of rounded stones on the counter, which one of the women had explained was good luck, for reasons Ayla could not follow.
Niel came back in and stood behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders and bending down to kiss below her left ear.
“Well, that was unexpected,” he said.
Ayla’s chest still felt flushed with warmth.
It wasn’t the two of them alone here; not at all. It was just like Niel had said. Everything was just starting.
“You didn’t know?” she asked.
“Not a single hint. Well? Are we getting married today?”
“Tomorrow,” she said, and covered a yawn. “The thought of—going anywhere—” Even if they wed in private, with no witness, they would need supplies. She had no cloak to give him. And she was still an Enarian, even in this new land.
“A night in, then,” he said.
“I seem to remember we were kissing,” she told him. “It seemed a very good use of our time.”
He laughed, pulled back the chair, and picked her up out of it.
“As my lady commands,” Niel said, and carried her to the comfort of the bed.
The story of Enar will continue in Hark and Tamsin's book, Knight's Storm.