"That's new," said Amis. "I like that—Gird laughing again."
"Be still," he said, ducking away from Amis's arm and the finger that was prodding his ribs. "You were right: I admit it. I needed to go dancing—"
"You didn't dance," said Jens.
Gird shrugged. He could feel more laughter bubbling up, like a spring long dry coming in. "I did well enough," he said.
"Watch him go to sleep behind the hedges today." Koris grinned, but it had no bite to it. "You may be tired by nightfall, eh?"
Gird grinned back. He felt that the bad years had never happened; he felt he could work for two days together. He drew a long breath—sweet, fresh air of dawn—and said nothing more. He had never expected to be happy again, and now he was.
He came in through the barton, aware of the stale, sour smell of the cottage after the freshness outside. All very well to fall for a girl, to marry her—but where would they sleep? He'd have to build a bed. He'd have to earn the marriage fee for the count, and the fee to her family for her parrion. He'd have to—
"You're looking blithe this morning," said Arin, from the flank of the red cow. Milk hissed into the bucket. Arin's voice had sharpened, in the difficult years, but he sounded more worried than angry.
"Sheepfold last night," said Gird. He took down the other milking stool, and a bucket.
"You? I thought you'd gone to Kirif's."
Gird washed the cow's udder with water from the stable bucket and folded himself up on the milking stool. The brindle cow flapped her ears back and forth as he reached for her teats, and he leaned into her flank and crooned to her. "Easy, sweetling—I was at Kirif's first, and then Amis came along and we went over to the fold—"
"Good for you," said Arin. "Meet anyone?"
He might as well admit it; it would be all over the village by the time they came to the field. "You always meet someone at the fold," he began, but he couldn't hold the tone. "Someone," he said again. "Arin, there's a girl from Fireoak—"
"Where?"
"Fireoak. Sunrising of here. You know, Teris's wife's sister married into Fireoak. And her parrion is cooking and herblore—"
"Teris's wife's sister?" said Arin, with maddening coolness.
"No. Mali's parrion. The girl I met."
Arin's eyebrows went up. "You were talking parrions? In one night?"
"We did more than talk," said Gird, stripping the first two teats and going on to the next.
"You can't mean—you're not betrothed? Gird, you know you have to ask—"
Gird grinned into the cow's flank and squirted a stream of milk at Arin, who had come to stand by her hip. "Not betrothed, but more than talk. Lady's grace, Arin, you know what I mean. And I will ask for her, just you wait."
"But are you sure? The first time you've been out with the lasses since before—" he stopped short, and reddened. Gird laughed.
"Since before I left the guards, you mean, and you're right. So you think it's like a blind man's first vision, and I should wait and see? So she said, but I tell you, Arin, this is my wife. You'll like her."
"I hope so," said Arin soberly. "Best tell Da."
"After milking." He finished the brindle cow, and took both buckets into the kitchen.
His mother gave him one look and said "Who?" Gird looked at her. "Is it so obvious?"
"To a woman and a wife? Did you think I was blind, lad? No, you're a lad no more. Man, then. You've found a woman, and bedded her, and now you want to marry."
"True, then. What d'you think?"
She looked at him, a long measuring look. "About time, I think.
If
you're ready. You've spent long enough sulking—"
"I know," he said, to forestall what was coming. She shook her head at him, but didn't continue the familiar lecture.
"Well, then—I don't know where the fee's coming from, but you can earn that. What's her parrion?"
"Herbcraft and cooking." He held his breath; his mother had always talked of finding a wife with a parrion to complement hers: another weaver or spinner, perhaps a dyer.
"Well enough. No lad—man—takes advice of his mother, but you think now, Gird—is she quarrelsome? The house will be no larger for cross words." That was said low; Arin's wife was still in the other room, and she had brought, his mother had said once, a parrion of complaining.
"Not—quarrelsome." She had said she was freespoken, but nothing in her voice had sent the rasp along his skin.
"Best tell your father." She gave him a quick smile. "If she's brought you laughter again, Gird, I'll give her no trouble. It's been a long drought."
His father, still hunched over his breakfast, brightened when Gird told him. Arin's wife said nothing, briskly leading her oldest out the front door. His father leaned close.
"Comely, is she?"
"She's—" Gird could not think of words. She had been starlight and scent, warmth and strength and joy, all wrapped in one. "She's strong," he offered. His father laughed.
"You sound like the lad you were. Strong didn't give that gleam to your eye, I'll warrant. There's more to the lass than muscle. When will you go to her father?"
"Soon. I—I'm not sure."
His father whistled the chorus of "Nutting in the Woods" and laughed again. "Young men. By the gods, boy, I remember your mother—" Gird was shocked. His mother had been his mother—that capable, hard-handed woman in long apron, spooning out porridge or carding wool or weaving—all his life. His father had gone on. "Hair in a cloud of light around her face, and she smelled like—like—I suppose all girls do, in their spring. Never a young lad can resist that, Gird; we all go that way, rams to the ewes and bulls to the cows, and spend the rest of our days yoked in harness—but it's times like this make it worthwhile."
"Eh?" He had not followed all that; his father's words brought back Mali's scent, as if she stood next to him, as if she lay—and he pulled his mind back with an effort.
His father thumped the table. "To see sons ready to wed themselves, strong sons: that's what's worth the work, Gird. To see you with your eyes clear and your mind on something but the past."
Gird shrugged. The self of yesterday, the self that had had nothing to hope for, was gone as if it had never lived.
" 'Tis the Lady's power," said his father. "She can bring spring to any field." This no longer embarrassed Gird; he had returned whole-hearted to his family's beliefs.
His visit to Fireoak began auspiciously. Mali's own mother had seen his mother's weaving at the tradefair years before.
"She has the parrion for the firtree pattern," the woman said. She was as tall as Mali, but spare, her dark hair streaked with gray. "If she has not the parrion for the barley pattern, I would be glad to trade." Gird knew that his mother had wanted the barley pattern for years, and had never been able to work it out herself. She had bestowed the firtree pattern on Arin's wife's aunt; surely she would trade with his wife's mother. He nodded: no commitment, but possibility.
Mali herself was kneading bread, her arms flour-smudged to the elbows. The scar she'd told him of was obvious enough, along the right cheek, more broad than deep. He didn't care; he had known he would not care. It was hard to be that close to her, in the same air, and not holding her. Her eyes twinkled at him: agreement. Then she looked back at the bread dough and pummeled it again. He could feel once more her fist on his arm, the strength of her. She was strong inside and out; his knees weakened as he remembered the feel of her body all along his on the starlit grass.
"Mali's not the quietest girl," said Mali's father. He was not so dark as Mali and her mother, a brown square man with a graying beard, almost bald. "She's got a quick tongue."
"Gird knows that," said Mali, flipping the dough and slamming it down again.
"Like that," said her father. Gird smiled at him.
"Better a quick tongue than one full of malice," he said, misquoting the old proverb on purpose.
"Oh, aye, if it's not quick into the pot. Good cook; her parrion's valuable." That began the bargaining phase. A daughter's parrion was a family's most valuable possession, the secrets and inherited talent of generations of women passed to a chosen carrier. A valuable parrion enriched the household gaining it, and impoverished those left behind. The lords' fee for marriage was the same for all of the same rank, but he would owe Mali's family for her parrion.
At least it meant that her family found his acceptable, and she must have agreed as well. Despite all the lords had done, the people had never come over to thinking that girls had to go where their families bestowed them. Marriage was, in the old rituals, the mingling of fires on a hearth—and if either failed to kindle, the marriage could not be.
Arin had come along for the bargaining phase, since Gird was neither holder nor heir. Gird and Mali escaped to the smallgarden, there to stand awkwardly staring at each other, in full view of her village. An amazing number of people seemed to need to go back and forth in the lane. Gird knew none of them, but noticed the same small boys driving the same goats up and down, a girl in a red skirt carrying a basket—full, then empty, then full again—past the gate. Mali finally began to laugh.
"It's true—they're just seeing how long we can stand here, and expecting one of us to turn tail and run."
"The scar doesn't matter." The words were out before he thought; she flushed and it showed whiter. "I'm sorry," he said.
"No—I'm used to it. I
thought
you'd come anyway, and I thought you'd still—but I'm blushing because it's my fault."
"Fault?"
She looked away past his shoulder. "I had heard of you; I went there to meet you, and no one else. And meeting you, I wanted you—and then—"
"And then I wanted you. So?"
"So—I still want you, but—don't bring it back to me, years from now."
"No." He moved closer to her, ignoring the women now carrying buckets past on their way to the well. "No, it was meant. The Lady meant it, maybe, or some other god." He put his arm around her waist, and she leaned on him. He could have carried her off to the barton, then and there, but Arin came out looking pleased.
"So—we have work to do, Gird, to earn your fees."
He knew he had turned red; he could feel the heat on his face. "Ah—yes. Mali—"
"Don't tarry," she said. Then she leaned against him again, and kissed him, and whispered in his ear. "We may have a Lady's blessing already."
The only awkwardness came when he had to bring Mali before the count's steward, to have her transferred on the Rolls. Luckily the count himself was not in residence, but the steward might have decided to invoke the rule himself.
"So—you're marrying, young Gird?"
"Yes, lord steward." Gird kept his eyes down.
"About time—you've loafed long enough." The voice was chilly; Gird watched the fingers holding the pen tap on the edge of the parchment. "Look up at me, boy."
The steward's face was older, grayer, but otherwise unchanged. Gird met those ice-blue eyes with difficulty.
"You brought the marriage fee?" Gird handed it over, the heavy copper coins slipping out of his hands much faster than they'd come in. "And this is the girl—" The steward looked her up and down, and then glanced at Gird. "You chose strength, eh? A good worker, I'll be bound—none too pretty—" Gird felt his ears burning; Mali's face had gone mottled red. Her scar stood out, stark white, from brow to jawline. "Wide hips—good bearer. Any mageblood in your line, girl?"
"No, lord steward." Her voice was husky, almost a growl.
"No, I daresay not. Nor would breed mages, is my guess. Waste of his lordship's time, your sort, bar the fun of it." The steward looked back down at the parchment. "Mali of Fireoak, daughter of Kekrin, son of Amis, wed to Gird of this village, son of Dorthan, son of Keris. Fee paid, permission granted to farm with Dorthan. That's all then."
They ducked their heads and went out quickly, both of them flushed and angry, but too wise to speak of it. First to Gird's father's house, for Mali to lay her first fire on the greathearth; every old grannie in the village was there to cry the portents of that flame. Gird held his breath. She put the splinters down in the Star pattern, and above them the tripod of fireoak, brought from her own family's hearth, and then struck the flints. Once—would have been too soon. Twice—a fair omen, but not the best. On the third strike, a spark leapt from her tools to the tip of the fireoak splinters, and kindled living flame. Now she moved quickly, laying the rest of the fire in ritual patterns: this twig over that, this herb, a twist of wool from her father's sheep, an apple-seed from their tree. The grannies muttered and flashed handsigns at each other; Gird was worried, but his mother smiled happily. It must be all right, then.
He and the other men left then, trudging through the back kitchen, then the cowbyre, into the narrow, cramped barton where the women had laid out the wedding feast on planks. This would be the refusing, he knew: Mali's parents would come, and try to persuade her to go home. She would first refuse them, with the door open, then—when they argued longer—close and bar the door to them. After a ritual greeting to her mother-in-law, and a prick of the finger to get two drops of blood, one for the fire and one for the hearthstone, her parents would knock again. And now, as a member of this household, she would greet them as honored guests.
All this time, Gird endured the jokes of his friends and his brothers and father. He had heard such jokes all his life, finding them funny once he was old enough, but now, waiting for Mali to become his wife, and not her parents' daughter, he was not amused. What did these grotesque fantasies have to do with Mali? He swiped irritably at his brother, when Arin tried to tie the traditional apron on him.
"You have to, Gird. You're her husband now; don't you want children?"
Gird looked at the apron, its ancient leather darkened by generations of celebrants. It was ridiculous. Bulls didn't need such a thing; why did the gods demand it of humans? He could remember sniggering in the corner when Arin danced in the apron, and wondering how his brother could approach his wife in his own skin afterwards. His friends had come nearer, warily, ready to help Arin force him into it if necessary. He sighed, and let his arms fall.