“That very look has gotten young women with babes in their belly.”
Caught by surprise again, I laugh. “Has it now? A fine Garra you are indeed, if you think ’tis done that way.”
I stand, and she does so with me.
“I know how ’tis done,” she says, smiling.
Two smiles in one afternoon. It is a miracle indeed.
“I’ll not deny my desire for you, Aedre. ’Tis plain to see, as you’ve pointed out.”
As is hers for me. I suspected before, but now I’m sure.
“And yet, you restrain yourself. ’Tis why I knew I would be safe with you in here. You’ve looked at me thus since the first time we met. But we’ve been alone before, and you’ve never once tried anything.”
Her forthrightness only makes her more desirable.
I take out a coin purse and move toward her. “Will you meet me on the morrow? I’ve gotten to know much of Murwood from our meetings.”
I take her hand. Aedre does not pull it away.
Unprepared for the spark such innocent contact ignites, I place the small bag in her palm and step back as if scorched.
“You do not need me,” she says softly.
She’s wrong. So very wrong.
I’ve lived only to serve Galfrid these many years. But being with Aedre reminds me of what I’ve given up . . . a life of my own.
“Help me gain an audience with him.”
Aedre moves past me to take hold of her boots. My eyes linger on her backside, but I glance away quickly as she turns.
“He will be wroth with me for it.”
“I know you care little for Meria, but you are a healer, Aedre. Your nature is to help people. If Lord Hinton becomes king, all will suffer.”
I remember one fact about the sinking which we did not discuss earlier.
“He was on the ship that day. The king’s nephew. He was to sail with it, but after too much revelry the eve before, the simple act of standing on deck was too much for him. Before it went to sea, Hinton disembarked. The church, seeing his survival as a sign he should be named as successor, immediately offered him their support. I left only days after the king’s son perished, but already word of Hinton as the church’s chosen one had spread.”
“Despite the man’s nature?”
If she is incredulous, we were as much so.
“You know their teachings as well as I. They claim God’s will can only be interpreted through signs they alone can read. They consider this the ultimate sign of his will: sparing a man who should have perished.”
She watches me for any glimmer of deceit. But there is none.
“I ask just for an audience.”
“And if he refuses to leave with you?”
“Then we go without him. We’ve no edict to force him, nor would our interests be served in doing so. No man can be made to accept the crown.”
“How can you know what kind of king he would be?”
The question is an easy one to answer. “Galfrid has kept watch over him for many years. Would you deny he’d make a good king to Meria?”
Wetting her lips, though an innocent gesture, makes me forget for a moment about my mission, my attention snared by the possibility that Aedre may allow me to kiss her before I leave Murwood.
Just once.
It is a weakness I never knew existed in me. Every one of my previous dalliances has been with widows or women not tied to the precarious strings of nobility. Never have I compromised a woman before, or even considered doing so. Perhaps this weakness was simply waiting for Aedre to release it.
“Nay, I cannot deny it. Very well.”
My jaw drops. I’d not expected her to agree so easily.
“But there is no longer any need for us to meet. You need nothing else from me, except this one boon. Which I grant as a grateful gesture for your offer to speak to the Elderman.”
I’m grateful for her agreement, less so for her decision to no longer meet with me.
We stare at each other for a moment, so close it would be an easy thing to pull her to me, but I don’t. The moment passes, and Aedre flees from the cave as quickly as she did from the rock by the shore.
I decide her habit of fleeing is not my favorite thing about her.
You do not need me.
True or not, it matters little. Aedre has spoken, and I’ve little else to do but heed her words. Though I have gained something extremely valuable this day, an audience with the future king of Meria.
Chapter Thirteen Aedre
“Do you suppose it will work?”
I hand the mixture to the midwife and bid her to drink it.
“Better than placing fish inside you. Where did you learn such nonsense?”
My friend Aloisa has a sheepish look. She’s only been the town midwife for less than a year. Before her mother’s death, she didn’t show much interest in the calling, but she’s since become a fine midwife. Except for her belief in tall tales.
“You know more about women’s bodies than most. Can you not see ’tis a silly notion?”
Aloisa drank the mixture I gave her and placed the empty cup on the table next to her. She and her husband share a modest two-story, timber-framed cottage right in the very center of the village, but a short walk for me. And so we visit each other often.
But this is no casual meeting.
When Aloisa first told me she was having difficulty becoming pregnant, I was more surprised than I should have been. If I can practice as a Garra, never having been in love myself, then surely a midwife could have difficulty with the very thing she practices every day.
“’Tis not magic, Aloisa, as well you know. The mixture will simply relax you, for I’m sure your worry is not easing matters.”
Amma believes pleasure during sexual relations is not a sin. And that
