The candles burned in every corner.
She turned a page. The keep was quiet around them. It was warm, genuinely warm, and she was here and the door was shut.
She was there, still turning pages, still breathing in the slow, even way she breathed when she was actually absorbed in something rather than performing absorption.
He watched her without appearing to. He had become very good at that.
He sat in the chair and stared at the fire and let the room do what it was doing, which was being warm and lit and full of her without asking anything of him.
His heart was beating a rhythm he hadn't decided on yet.
He thought about the cliff. About what he'd said to Torvald in the dark. On that north cliff he'd said things aloud that he hadn't meant to.
She's more.
Two words. Plain and unguarded and entirely without the armor he usually wore. Torvald had said nothing in response, which was the most effective thing Torvald could have done.
He stared at the fire.
He understood now that he was going to be thinking about those words for considerably longer than he should. That was new. That was, if he was being precise about it, the part that frightened him.
He did not look at her again.
He sat with the fire and the candles and the sound of her breathing and told himself that was enough.
It wasn't enough.
But it was what he had, and he was holding on to it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Matilda had found it four days ago, tucked behind the east wing, behind a door that looked like it led to a storeroom.
Herbs along the south wall, mostly dead now in the autumn cold, their stems brown and rattling faintly in the breeze. A stone bench that caught the afternoon light at an angle that made it warm. Nobody went there. The silence was the kind that asked nothing of a person, and she had needed that more than she'd known.
Sigrid had found her the following day and sat down without being asked, which was very Sigrid. They'd been going there together since.
They walked the circuit slowly, hands clasped behind their backs, their boots quiet on the gravel path. The sky above the garden walls was pale blue and cold, the kind of blue that looked warm from indoors and wasn't.
Matilda looked at the path.
She'd been turning the question over since she'd woken that morning, trying to find a way to say it that didn't make her sound like what she was, a woman who had run out of time.
"Can I ask ye something?"
"Aye," Sigrid said, without breaking stride.
Matilda's fingers found the fabric of her cloak and held. "The marital bed." She kept her voice even. The words felt sharp in her throat, like something she'd been carrying at an awkward angle for too long. "Is it as frightening as it sounds?" She stopped. Started again. "I've heard things. From women who werenae kind about it. And from women who were kind, but I couldnae tell if they were being honest or just… saying things." She pressed her lips together. "I dinnae ken what tae expect."
Sigrid was quiet for a moment, not commenting on the fact that Matilda had just admitted their marriage wasn’t consummated, for which Matilda was grateful. They reached the end of the path and turned. The dead herb stems fluttered softly against the wall.
"There are women who'll tell ye it is unpleasant and that's all there is tae it," Sigrid said finally. "And women who'll tell ye it's wonderful from the first moment and always will be." She paused. "Both of those women are leavin' something out."
Matilda looked at her sideways. Her pulse was going faster than the conversation warranted.
"The first time depends almost entirely on the man," Sigrid said, plainly, with no softness put around it to make it easier to hear. Matilda had always appreciated that about her. "If he's selfish, or careless, or in a hurry — aye, it'll hurt fer a moment, and ye'll wonder what the fuss is about. But if he pays attention…" A pause. "If he goes slowly. If he's more interested in what ye're feelin' than in what he's feelin', or at least equally interested," she looked at Matilda steadily, "it's different."
"And ye think Ivar will pay attention?"