Page 78 of Wild Reverence

LVIII

Dear Matilda

VINCENT

Another day passed. Then another.

Matilda had yet to appear.

Every hour I was tempted to write to her and burn my words into smoke, bury them in the garden, but I held back.

She will come, I told myself.

I simply needed to be patient.

But how my worries crept over me, growing like thorn-riddled vines. Something unexpected must have happened in the divine realm to keep her away. Something in a place I could never reach, unless I wanted to be like my mother. A vassal.

I lay awake at night, imagining it.

As the sun set, I stood on the parapets and watched as Hugh’s ballistas were heaved up to the bridge towers. I watched Grimald prepare his trebuchets on the riverbank. Only two days of mourning remained, and time was stretching thin between us.

“Vince?”

I turned to see that Nathaniel had joined me.

Ever since he had returned from the dead, he had seemed distracted, as if he saw things in our world that I could not.

Omens in shadows, warnings in clouds, prophecies in wax, dripping down candlesticks.

But nor could I deny that there was also a radiance to him that had not been there before, a lightness in his steps, a fervor for even the smallest of things.

A cup of honey mead, brewed last summer.

A tunic, freshly washed and dried in the sun.

A cat to curl up on his lap in the evenings, when we sat before the fire.

His perspective had shifted. He was savoring life, and he had only become more powerful for it.

I felt like the moon diminishing in the brightness of his presence.

But it made me content. This was what I had wanted, to see him thrive.

To watch our warriors look at him in awe when he passed, eager to rally around him.

My people had been amazed to see my brother hale again, returned from the dead.

Rumors and speculations had started to fly; I had no choice but to tell them that I had prayed to both Death and Fate when Nathaniel died.

My cold, irreverent heart had been moved; I had pleaded to the gods to bring him back, and they had answered me.

It was all a lie, of course, but I was swiftly discovering that I would do anything to keep suspicions away from Matilda.

“Any word from her?” he asked, joining me at the battlement.

“Not yet.” My gaze coasted back over the river to the bridges, the camp on the bank.

Nathaniel was quiet, but I knew he was also waiting for Matilda to return. He was keen to speak to her again.

“I have a request,” he finally said.

“Yes, what is it?”

“What happened to the knight who killed me?”

My brow furrowed as I glanced at him.

“He is not dead, is he?” Nathaniel continued, as if this worried him.

“No. None of the baron’s men we took as prisoners are dead. At least, not yet. But that one… he will face the worst of fates for what he did to you.”

“What fate did you have in mind for him?”

“I was thinking to drown him,” I replied. “Give him to the Wyndrift currents. Let him waste away in his armor at the bottom of the river.”

Nathaniel was quiet.

“You disapprove?” I said.

“I was thinking of something else,” he confessed. “A different sort of punishment.”

“Which is…?”

“Letting him live. Letting him serve me as penance.”

“Serve you?”

“Yes. He is to follow me, walk with me, listen to me. Perhaps he can even read to me in the evenings.”

“This does not sound like punishment, Nathaniel. Have you forgotten that he killed you? He drove his sword into your throat after he had surrendered to us. That is a stain upon any knight. No honor can be regained after that.”

“Yes, but I have heard whispers in the dungeons,” Nathaniel said, his voice smooth and calm compared to the rust and bite that had been in my own.

“Most of Grimald’s warriors, the knights in particular…

they hold no love for him as their leader.

They remember when he took Englewood, how bloody and cruel he had been, dethroning their lord.

They gave that vow of service to him only to survive, most of them still very young.

And after their arrival at the riverbank, our uncle put a bounty upon both of us.

Should any of his men bring back our heads, he will grant them a boon.

Anything they desire. Riches, a title, land.

They could ask for anything in exchange for our deaths. ”

He paused and I waited, my impatience rising.

“And that excuses this knight’s actions?” I prompted.

“No, of course not. But I think he wanted something more than riches, a title, land. I think he wanted his freedom from Grimald.”

I sighed, my weariness turning my limbs into lead. I leaned upon the battlements, the wind gusting between us, sharp from the north.

“Let me think on your request,” I said. “If you want him to serve you, it will have to be after this conflict has ended. He must remain below, contained, until our uncle is defeated. And if he kills you again… I will drown him in his armor. I will hold his head beneath the river until the fight bleeds out of him, and I will let him drop to the bottom like a millstone.”

Nathaniel nodded, solemn. But then a smile lifted one corner of his mouth, as if he could see what was to come. There was light ahead, after so much gray and dreariness.

“Thank you, Vince.”

When he left, I felt colder for it. As if he truly had become the sun, and I was a waning moon.

That night saw me alone in my bedchamber, the wind whistling through the cracks in the mortar.

It seemed relentless, a prelude to a storm, stripping every last leaf of autumn from their branches, rippling over the river until it foamed like the sea.

When I stood at the window, I could see the baron’s camp rattled by the fierce gusts, the campfires struggling to burn.

Shale must be angry.

I was tossing another log into the hearth, sparks rising in a flurry, when the knock sounded on my door. It was late, and for a moment, my heart betrayed me and leapt into my throat.

Matilda.

The knock came again, softer this time, but as my hand found the iron handle, I knew it was not her. She who tumbled through windows and walked riverbeds and slipped into dreams.

I cracked the door open.

Gwenda stared up at me, her blond hair gleaming in the firelight. Her blue eyes were round, imploring.

I knew her as many things. She was a skilled healer.

She had worked tirelessly the past few days, cleaning and mending wounds, gathering names of warriors who died beneath her care.

She also brewed the tonics I drank to keep my nightmares at bay.

And years ago when my loneliness had become a sword, I had visited her chambers on the nights when sleep would evade me entirely.

Once, I had tried to love her, as she had tried to love me, and while there had been pleasure between us, there had been no fire.

What little flame had kindled soon became cold embers.

“Your tonic, lord,” she said, holding up a bottle made of green glass. “For the nightmares.”

It had been a long while since she had knocked upon my door and delivered the tonic to me. Alyse always saw to it, but Alyse was preoccupied with other things these days. As were we all.

“Thank you.” I accepted the bottle, but she remained standing, as if she had more to say. “Is there something else?”

“I was wondering if I might speak to you,” she said, and then added, “privately.”

I hesitated a moment before inviting her in.

“Please do not tell me another one of our warriors has died,” I said, setting the bottle down. Please, do not give me another name to write down in ink. Another soul, gone to the mists.

“No, blessed Enva. I think we are past the worst of it, until the next battle comes.” She crossed her arms, studying my wardrobe.

The door was ajar; Matilda’s mortal clothes hung within, jewel-dark wools and embroidered bodices.

A bolt of a sheer chemise. “Although my ponderings have drifted toward death.”

I waited.

At last, she looked at me, her face guarded save for the wrinkle in her brow.

“How did Nathaniel return from the dead?” she asked. “I know you said you prayed for him to be brought back to us, but I feel like there must be more to it. Something else happened, didn’t it?”

I was silent, but my stomach churned, uneasy. I did not want to speak of this, and she must have seen it in my expression. How my eyes shuttered and my mouth pressed thin. Gwenda took two steps closer, holding out her hands as a supplicant.

“Please, Vincent. I need to know how it happened. I need to know if there is a way I can make it occur again. Think of all the people I could save, how many people I could bring back if I knew this secret.”

“This is something far beyond you, Gwenda,” I replied.

She stopped short, a few paces away.

“You are skilled, and I am thankful for what you have done these past few days,” I continued. “But Nathaniel’s return was not due to your hands. That was Death and Fate.”

I could see her swallow, her neck becoming splotched. Her eyes flickered to my bed. A place she had never been, despite all our trysts.

“Where is the herald?”

“My wife? Matilda?”

Gwenda sighed. “I did not want to be the one to say this to you, but… there has been talk that the two of you are not truly wed. That all of this has been a mere ruse to distract the baron.”

My blood warmed like iron over fire. “Who has said such things?”

“It does not matter, Vincent. Many of us believe it. We witnessed no vows spoken between the two of you. Only a stilted kiss. She comes and goes as she pleases. She left you—she walked right past you!—as your brother was dying in your arms.” Her voice had risen, her cheeks flushing.

“Even now, with the mourning sennight coming to an end, she is nowhere to be found. Is that what you want? What you deserve? A woman who comes and goes, who leaves you when it pleases her?”

I flinched away as if she had struck me. I suddenly could not bear to look at her; anger simmered at the back of my throat.

At once, she softened.

She reached out and took hold of my sleeve, holding me still.

I had forgotten that some nights, long ago when I had been much younger and far more trusting, I had let her draw her fingers through my hair after our couplings.

I had let her hold me in her bed, and I had told her the things I feared, the things that had wounded me in the past. I had told her about my mother, abandoning us for a Skyward god.

Gwenda knew where I ached. She knew where to strike to hurt me.

I was suddenly relieved I had walked away from her when I did. I had wondered if I would come to regret it, but no. Splitting paths with her had been wise.

“Forgive me,” Gwenda whispered, her grip on my sleeve tightening. “I… I did not mean to upset you. I did not mean to bring up your past wounds. I only want you to see the herald for who she is.”

I stared down at her, my teeth clenched.

It was Matilda. Matilda brought my brother back from the dead. She created a gate when ours failed. She brought the battle to its end. She gained us more time. She ushered our people to safety.

And yet… I could say none of those things.

My people might revere her, but they did not understand her and they never would. Even the most devout of Wyndrift would never fully recognize what Matilda had done for us. What she had given to protect us.

I wanted to tell Gwenda where Matilda had gone when she rushed off the bridge. Where Matilda had been when we had laid my brother in his sepulcher.

No one must know. Matilda’s warning echoed through me. This must remain between the three of us.

Me, and Nathaniel, and her.

Gwenda took my silence as encouragement. Slowly, her hand drifted upward to my face. Her fingers were like ice, her palm clammy as she traced the ridge of my cheekbone, down to the stubble of my jaw.

“I love her,” I said. Her hand froze in shock and then dropped away. “I have loved Matilda a very long time. Before I even knew you existed. And there is nothing you can offer me that I want. Nothing you can give me that I need. I am hers.”

Gwenda moved away, her face scarlet, her eyes flashing.

She did not say another word to me.

I watched her slip out the door.

It was not difficult to write after that.

I sat at my desk, listening as the wind continued to hiss, and I drew out a sheet of parchment, a quill, an inkstand.

Dear Matilda, I wrote.

I let the words flow for her.

And when the ink dried, I gave my very heart to the fire.