Chapter Thirty #3
Otto saw me to my room. The sheets were dirty and cold, but it had a wash table and closestool, and I was happy to have a chance to freshen myself.
After I’d washed, I lay under a pile of blankets and quilts, looking around at the wainscoted walls and a tin plate of dried flowers that trembled in the draft like shriveled insects.
A far cry from the dirt floor of a hut, and yet I found I could not sleep.
There was too much to hold, to turn over, in my mind.
If the first day away had felt like a breathless, slow-moving adventure, the reality of what was happening had finally caught up with me.
I hoped beyond all reason that Alice had found Lucy.
I worried I would be too late in finding Elin, but also worried about what would happen if I did find her.
What would Sigrid do if the engagement was broken?
What was I to do when no outcome was one I could stomach?
I was certain I would never fall asleep. The thoughts were overpowering. Except then, suddenly, I was roused by a knocking at the door, and I realized I had been dreaming. I pulled my dressing gown on hastily. The knocking didn’t stop. “Who is it?” I called.
“Me.” Otto’s gruff voice.
I cracked the door. “It is the middle of the night.”
“The sun rises in an hour. And I found them. Or I think I did.”
I opened the door wider. “Where?”
“The innkeeper on the night shift pointed them in the direction of another inn, a few towns over.”
I sucked in the cold air. “They stopped here, while we slept? How is that possible?”
“We don’t know it was him for sure, but aye, it seems as if we passed them somewhere along the journey. They won’t be far.” He gestured back to the room behind me. “We must hurry.”
I looked down and saw the stub of a candle and a horse blanket on the floor by my door.
“You slept here?” I asked.
“There are no locks on your door.” He shrugged. “Be quick. I’m going to ready the horse.”
When I got to the small stable, Otto was finishing with the saddle.
“Good lot he does,” he said, cocking his head toward the sleeping stable hand.
I watched Otto, familiar already with the sight of the back of his head.
He was capable and calm with the horse, taking care with its comfort.
He moved easily, though he was likely stiff from sleeping on the floor outside my room.
He checked the cinch and turned back to me, speaking over his shoulder.
“I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t have told you to say you’re my wife. ” He turned to face me. “Or—”
I didn’t think about it. It wasn’t a decision.
I leaned forward and put my lips on his.
His head was angled, and it was not a perfect match.
I found my mouth half pressed against his cheek.
Rough warmth. My breath caught in my throat when I realized what I had done.
I took a step back, glancing, worriedly, at the sleeping stable boy in the corner.
Otto looked at me, quizzically—the faintest breath of a smile—and then turned back to the horse, running a hand along its neck.
“Better get on with it,” he said.
The embarrassment coated me—a roiling in my stomach and a lump in my throat.
I had always made such a fuss about appearances and honor.
And here I was, with the royal advisor, who was helping me on a rescue mission, kissing him.
I was supposed to be a distraught mother.
I was supposed to be crying fat tears and beating my breasts.
Overturning every stone. Working tirelessly.
Sacrificing endlessly. Thinking only of my children.
All I did was supposed to be for them. Live, live, live, the very same as my heartbeat.
And yet, I was no different than the woman the alewife had supposed me to be.
We were moving quickly on the horse and did not speak.
I couldn’t help but feel, sitting behind Otto, avoiding looking at the whorl of hair on the back of his neck, jostled against his back again and again by the pounding feet of his stallion, a shift in his posture.
He was stiffer, more formal, reverting to some version of the Otto I’d met before.
The stranger in the woods. The shared saddle suddenly too intimate.
After two hours of hard riding, when the sun was fully low in the sky, Otto pulled the animal off the road and directed it toward a small stream.
Wordlessly, we climbed down. I went first, stood by a small tree, listening to the dribble of the brook.
The horse took long drinks of water. The sun lit up the little copse around us, beginning to warm the dew-covered leaves and the cold earth. I shivered.
Otto took his time managing the horse, checking its hooves and then the fit of the saddle.
He withdrew two apples from the saddlebag and handed one to me.
We still didn’t speak. I didn’t know what to say.
Unable to meet his eyes, I polished the fruit on my skirt.
Polished and rubbed its skin, though I had no appetite. I heard him crunch on his apple.
A sound of a boot in the brush. I looked up and he was right in front of me.
My breath hitched. He reached a hand out, tentatively, and put it on my waist. Then, he pulled me to him.
Closer, closer until our bodies were nearly touching.
With the palm of his hand on the small of my back, he pressed me to him and kissed me.
Slowly. Steadily. His mouth, his hands, warm in the cold morning. He tasted of apple.
After a long moment, he stepped back. A little twinkle in his eye. He took another bite of his apple.
“Well,” I said, flustered. I smoothed my skirt down with one hand. Held my apple helplessly in the other. My heart beating madly. I was warm. It had been a long time since I had kissed anyone like that.
He still had not said anything. He raised his eyebrows.
“Yes,” I said, nodding. “Yes.”
He nodded.
I wasn’t sure what he had asked me. But, in that moment, I felt certain of my answer.
It might have just been: Maybe apples aren’t so bad after all?