Sigrid looked at him. Then at Matilda.
The look she gave Matilda communicated several things without requiring any of them to be spoken aloud. Among them was that she had opinions about being dismissed from her own garden circuit and was choosing, on this occasion, to keep them to herself.
"Aye, me laird," she said, with great dignity, and went.
Matilda watched her go.
He matched her pace without adjusting it, settling into the circuit as though he'd been walking it all along, and the silence that opened between them was the comfortable kind. The kind that had been building for two weeks without either of them deciding to build it.
Ivar told Matilda about the Council meeting with the envoy.
"Henry, the envoy," he said, "he wants us tae go tae the town fair tae be observed."
"Observed how?" She kept her eyes on the path, but he caught the small shift in her shoulders that meant she was already running calculations.
"How we present ourselves. Where we stand. How we look at each other." He paused. "He had specific thoughts about how a wife ought tae position herself beside her husband fer maximum political effect."
She turned her head. "He said that."
"Near enough."
"And what did ye tell him?"
"I told him nay."
She was quiet for a moment. The gravel turned under their boots, slow and even. "He accepted that."
"He accepted that I wasnae going tae change me mind about it." He glanced at her sideways. "There's a difference."
"Aye." She made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "I'm familiar with that particular distinction."
"I imagine ye are."
She looked at him then, properly, and the corner of her mouth had gone tight. "He'll try again. At the gathering. When he thinks ye're distracted."
"Aye."
"And ye'll say nay again."
"Aye."
"Even if it costs ye politically."
He said nothing for a moment. They reached the end of the path and turned, the dead herb stems chattering softly against the wall.
"There are things I'll spend political goodwill on," he said finally. "Henry's opinions about where ye stand isnae one of them." He paused. "Ye're me wife. Ye stand where ye want tae stand. That's the end of it."
"That's a very straightforward position for a man dealing with the King's envoy," she said.
"I'm a straightforward man."
She made the sound again, the almost-laugh. "Ye're the least straightforward man I've ever encountered."
"And yet the position stands."
She glanced at him.
He kept his face composed, which cost him something, because she was looking at him the way she did sincethe bath. With something behind her eyes that had moved closer, and he was very aware of it, and the exact number of inches between his arm and hers.