CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE THE QUEEN BENEATH THE MOON
M arion returned to the cottage not as a widow fleeing the world, but as a woman deciding what the world no longer had permission to take from her.
That sounded noble in her head.
In truth, she nearly tripped over the doorstep.
The cottage looked smaller than she remembered.
She had not expected that to hurt.
It stood at the edge of the village road, crouched under a gray sky with snow gathered along the thatch and the rowan tree bent over it like an old woman guarding a secret.
Smoke did not rise from the chimney. No lamp glowed in the window.
No pot waited over the hearth. The door hung slightly crooked from the night soldiers had searched it, and the latch bore scratches where fear had once taught her to check it twice.
Marion stood in front of it with Georgie’s hand in hers and Euan beside her on a horse he had agreed to ride only after Morna threatened to dose him unconscious.
He looked too large for the animal and deeply offended by the arrangement.
Marion enjoyed that more than was kind.
Georgie looked up at him. “You are making the horse nervous.”
“The horse is fine.”
“The horse disagrees.”
The horse stamped, as if supporting the accusation.
Euan looked down at the animal with weary dignity. “Traitor.”
Marion laughed before she could stop herself.
It came out small, and it surprised her. Laughter had begun to feel like something they needed permission for. Yet here it was, slipping through a morning full of death and smoke and leaving the air changed behind it.
Euan looked at her.
The softness in his face made her wish she had something to do with her hands other than hold Georgie and feel too much.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“That was not a nothing look.”
“I was only thinking I like your laugh.”
Georgie wrinkled her nose. “That is very courtship.”
Marion closed her eyes.
Euan said gravely, “I was practicing.”
“You need more practice,” Georgie informed him.
Marion opened the cottage door before she could smile too openly and encourage either of them.
The smell struck first.
Dried herbs. Cold ash. Old wool. Lavender hanging from the rafters, brittle now. Garlic. Soap. A faint trace of Euan still lingering from the days he had been wounded on her bed. Blood too, old and scrubbed badly from the floorboards near the back room.
Home.
Not safe, exactly.
It had never been as safe as she once pretended. Duncan had known where to knock. Villagers had known where to whisper. Hunger had known every shelf. Fear had sat in the chair by the hearth often enough that it might as well have paid rent.
But Georgie had learned to walk here.
Marion had sung badly here.
She had hidden light under her hands here and healed half the village whether they loved her or feared her. She had dragged Euan through that door in chains and set him on the bed because she could not leave cruelty lying in the mud.
The cottage had held everything she had been.
It could not hold everything she had become.
Georgie slipped from her hand and went straight to the little stool by the hearth.
“It is still here,” she said, as if someone might have stolen a three-legged stool with one painted flower scratched into the seat.
Marion swallowed. “Of course it is.”
Euan stepped in behind them. He had refused to wait outside, though every step cost him. His wounds were healing, yes, but healing was not the same as being whole. Marion intended to explain that to him in stern detail for several weeks.
He ducked under the low doorframe and paused.
The cottage seemed even smaller with him inside.
He looked around, and Marion felt the memory pass through him.
The pallet where he had sweated through fever.
The table where Georgie had put broth before him and ordered him not to spill.
The corner where he had stood like a beast pretending not to be one while Marion pretended she was not staring.
His gaze moved to the floorboards near the hearth.
“I bled there,” he said quietly.
“You bled everywhere.”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “Aye. I was untidy.”
“You were a terrible patient.”
“I remember being charming.”
“You were half dead and argumentative.”
“Still charming.”
Georgie nodded while examining a shelf. “He was not charming. He was scary.”
Euan’s smile faded a little.
Georgie turned with a clay cup in both hands and added, “Then he was less scary because he drank soup politely.”
The smile returned, softer now.
“I worked hard at that,” he said.
“You did not spill much.”
“High praise,” Marion said.
Georgie looked pleased with herself and went back to collecting treasures from the shelf. A chipped wooden horse. A ribbon faded nearly white. A little carved bird Marion had bought at market the winter Georgie turned five and asked why all birds looked as if they were keeping secrets.
Marion crossed to the rafters and took down a bundle of lavender.
It crumbled a little in her hand.
She brought it to her nose.
The scent was dry and faint, but it was hers. Nights spent tying herbs by candlelight while Georgie slept. Mornings counting coins. Afternoons pretending she had not heard the word witch outside the door.
Euan stood near the table, not touching anything.
That gentleness undid her more than if he had swept everything into a chest.
“You may sit,” she said.
“I am well.”
“You are pale.”
“I am always pale in comparison to your temper.”
“Sit.”
He sat.
Immediately.
Georgie looked up. “That was good listening.”
“I am practicing that too,” he said.
Marion went to the small cabinet by the back wall and opened it. Her healing books were wrapped in cloth, hidden behind jars of dried yarrow and boneset. She pulled them out carefully.
One was water stained. One had bite marks in the leather from when Georgie had been a toddler and apparently thought knowledge needed chewing.
Another held old notes from Marion’s mother in the margin.
Remedies, warnings, little corrections written in a hand Marion still missed when she let herself.
She held the books against her chest.
Euan watched her.
“Those come with us,” he said.
“They do.”
“And the stool?”
Georgie hugged it to her chest as if anyone might object. “Yes.”
“The bird?”
“Yes.”
“The bed?”
Marion stared at him.
His face was perfectly serious.
Georgie considered it with grave attention. “No. The bed is lumpy.”
“It saved my life,” Euan said.
“It is still lumpy.”
Marion laughed again, and this time the sound did not surprise her as much.
They took little things.
Not everything.
That was important.
Georgie chose her carved toys, the cup with the crack shaped like a river, and a small blanket Marion had patched so many times the original cloth was more memory than fabric.
Marion chose the books, the herb knife from the shelf, lavender, rowan berries dried in a little pouch, and the small wooden box where she had kept coins, needles, and the first ribbon Georgie had ever worn.
Euan took nothing until Marion noticed him standing by the door of the back room.
“What are you doing?”
He glanced at her. “Remembering badly.”
“That sounds unhealthy.”
“It likely is.”
She went to him.
The back room was colder than the rest. The bed was still there, blanket folded badly at the foot. Someone had searched under it and left the floor mat kicked aside. The basin where she had washed blood from Euan’s skin sat on the little table.
Marion looked at it and felt the past press close.
Then Euan reached past her and picked up the basin.
She blinked. “You want the basin?”
“No.”
“Then why are you holding it?”
His jaw tightened. “Because I wanted to throw it.”
Ah.
Marion looked at the basin. Then at him.
“Do not hit the window.”
He stared at her.
She lifted one shoulder. “It lets in enough cold already.”
For a second he did not move.
Then he stepped outside through the back door and hurled the basin into the snow beyond the rowan tree.
It landed with a dull, deeply unimpressive thump.
Georgie came running. “What happened?”
“Euan threw a basin,” Marion said.
Georgie looked at him. “Did it deserve it?”
“Yes,” Euan said.
Georgie nodded. “All right.”
Marion pressed her lips together.
Euan looked almost offended that no one had objected to his dramatic gesture.
That made her love him so much she had to turn away.
Then she saw it.
The cloak.
It hung on the peg beside the door, black wool, plain, mended at the shoulder, worn thin where her hand had gripped it on too many cold mornings. Her widow’s cloak.
Marion stood in front of it for a long time.
The cottage quieted around her.
Georgie had stopped sorting toys.
Euan did not move from the back doorway.
The cloak looked like a thing that had once kept her warm. It had. Sometimes. It had also marked her. Widow. Alone. Respectable enough if silent. Pitied enough if useful. Available to men like Duncan if law could be bent and reputation cornered.
She touched the edge of it.
Rough wool.
Old smoke.
Fear, if fear had a fabric.
Georgie came beside her and slipped her small hand into Marion’s.
“Are we taking it?”
Marion’s fingers tightened once on the cloth.
Then loosened.
“No.”
Georgie leaned against her. “Good.”
Euan’s voice came low behind them. “Marion.”
She looked over her shoulder.
His eyes held hers. Not pity. Never that. Understanding, perhaps. Respect for a thing that looked small and was not.
She took her hand from the cloak.
“Leave it,” she said.
And they did.
By the time they rode back toward Castle McFarland, the sky had cleared.
The castle looked different when they returned.
Or perhaps Marion did.
Its black towers rose against the pale afternoon, no longer quite so much a warning as a challenge. Smoke lifted from chimneys. Wolves moved along the walls. Wounded were being carried into the lower hall, and Morna’s voice could be heard shouting before they even crossed the gate.
“I said clean cloth, not whatever corpse rag you found under the stairs!”
Georgie brightened. “Morna is alive.”