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psalm_onethirtyoneI seem to have written ALL THE FIC IN THE WORLD during the month of July. Idk. This is about two weeks old.
Title: Portions for Foxes
Fandom: Arthuriana
Characters/Pairings: Sagramore/OC
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Present for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mhari! Completely based on a throwaway comment Sagramore made during rp, because I am a nerd.
Anne knows the moment he enters her father’s house.
It isn’t just the immediate cries and squeals from all the children, from Leah’s ‘Uncle!’ to Mordecai (the eldest boy, eighteen, two years younger than Anne herself) saying politely, “Good morrow, Sir Sagramore.” She’s grown used to the sound of Sagramore’s footstep, light and unsteady, on their earthen floor. She puts down the dough she’s kneading and comes out of the kitchen, wiping her hands down on her apron.
Sagramore is holding Leah in the crook of one arm while she pulls on his curls, and Micah is holding his sword, staring at it with delight. Sagramore smiles at Anne, and, as usual, her heart feels suddenly softened, like butter left out in the sunlight.
“Good morrow, sir.”
“How are you, lantmadár?” he asks.
“We’re all well.”
Anne has managed her father’s household since Mother died bearing the stillbirth three years ago. When the baby slipped out in a wash of blood, warm to touch but wrinkled and unmoving, Mother was already dead: the midwife who helped them had decided there was a better chance of saving it, not knowing that it was already dead in the womb. Anne had wept and wept, and when she stopped weeping she came out and began to take care of the house. Mordecai was clever, but he didn’t know how to sew or cook, and minding little Leah disconcerted him; and Anne was the only one besides Father who knew how to read and write, however little.
The midwife, Kate, helped her to learn the things Mother hadn’t taught her. She was wise with herbs and a little medicine, and it was she who taught Anne to use steeps of feverfew to manage Naomi’s headaches, and how to cook a pottage that could stretch a leg of lamb for a week of suppers.
But for the most part it’s Anne. She manages the money from Father’s scattered, illegible notes, and takes care of the children. When it comes to buying cords of firewood and arguing with merchants and shopkeepers on market-day, Anne’s the one who goes out at sunrise and comes back with as much for as little as she can get.
“Good,” Sagramore says, “good, I’m very glad. Are you busy?”
Anne is always busy, but she doesn’t say so. “No, no, I’m glad you came. How have you been?”
Sagramore is always ill, but he never says so, either. It’s just something Anne knows. “I’m very well, very well, thank you.”
Leah pulls his beard. “Have you brought us things?”
“Leah!” Anne says warningly.
“I’m afraid not this time. I’ve been busy with my Lord and haven’t had time to go to the market.” He tugs on one of her earlobes for retribution, and Leah makes an indignant sound, squirming in his arms. “Is there something special you’ve been wanting?”
“Don’t encourage her.”
“A kitten.”
“Oh, really, Leah, there are stray kittens everywhere in this city--the cat eating the mice in the dovecote just had a litter.”
“I want Sagramore to bring me one.”
Naomi, who is only a year older than Leah, agrees noisily.
Sagramore laughs. “I suppose it won’t trouble me particularly to find one for you. What colour would you like?”
“Black!”
“Orange!”
Anne first met him after Arthur Pendragon went to war. Since Lord Mordred made himself king, Sagramore has been his emissary from the castle; when deliveries of food and goods are made, he’s the one to receive them. Father needs her help as well as Mordecai’s when it comes to trading (he’s growing old, and his memory isn’t as strong as it used to be: he needs them to make sure the dealings run fairly. It makes Anne’s heart sting sometimes, when she thinks of how sharp his mind used to, and how only his tongue is these days), and he brings them both to the castle with him now.
Father is a cloth merchant, and Anne is good at selling the cloth. She holds it up to her body, tells people how beautiful it will look when it’s cut and sewn, talks about thicknesses for winter and summer, and sells the short ends of bolts for half the price to encourage customers. Sometimes Father tells her that she’s the best gift God ever gave him, and her always-feeling heart hums with joy.
The day she met Sagramore they were in the courtyard. He was looking over their merchandise when Anne found a warm yellow wool and laid it next to his arm.
“This is the finest colour for you, my Lord.”
He laughed. “Oh, lantmadár, you can’t coax me into spending my own purse.”
Anne smiled at him. “Perhaps I can coax you into spending Lord Mordred’s purse on your behalf, my Lord.”
“Good Christ, I can see you care more for your own profit than whatever punishment comes my way.”
“How else does a merchant sell his wares? I must care for myself.”
“So you must.”
He bought the wool, although truthfully there was no reason he should have.
Anne glances over at the door. The new raw wood of the lintel and posts that stand just outside still lets out a smell of fir. Those are his gift; he gives her money sometimes, whenever she tells him that they have need of it. She knows Father and Mordecai would be too proud to take it, so he gives it to her and she pretends to have made a good profit on their cloth, or to have done sewing for some of the neighbours.
Their house is a good house, made from sturdy stone walls, thatched with sweet-smelling grass and strong, tough straw, the earth floor solid and clean. There are three bedrooms: Father’s, one for the boys, and one for the girls. There is even a special sitting room separate from the kitchen and the supper room. Anne keeps it clean, although Miriam helps when she can be found. Anne is almost certain she has a stableboy up at the castle with whom she’s in love.
Anne isn’t sure whether she’s in love with Sagramore. What she knows for sure is that he’s nearly twice her age, and that he’s always tired and usually sick, and that he’s terribly in love with her.
The argument over the colour of the kitten has been resolved, because when she turns back to him Leah is back on the ground, squealing delightedly with Naomi over their future prize.
Sagramore takes her hands in his. “Will you come back to the castle with me for a little while?”
Mordecai scowls--he probably knows why she’s going, but Anne doesn’t care. She’s grateful for Sagramore’s favour, for the gifts of money and the books he has that he’s lent her to read.
Sometimes Miriam points out that to have the affection of Lord Mordred’s right-hand man is worth a great deal, and the possibility that he might offer to marry her.
Anne supposes she would agree if he asked. It would let her take care of him and Father without having to wait for him to come to her, and the children all love him, Leah and Naomi and Micah especially. Micah is always saying he wants to grow up to be a knight like Sagramore, and it’s probably possible, if Arthur Pendragon ever returns.
“Yes,” she tells Sagramore. “Mordecai can look after the little ones, and Miriam will be home soon.”
He crouches down beside Micah. “Well, gyerek, I’m afraid I’ve got to ask you if you’ll give my sword back. I’ll need it to protect your sister on the way to the castle.”
Micah nods solemnly and gives it to him. Sagramore tousles his rough black hair and gets back to his feet, buckling the sword back to his belt, and offering Anne his arm. She takes it.
“Mordecai, make sure Naomi has her feverfew to keep her head from hurting. And when Miriam comes back tell her the bread isn’t finished yet, and she’ll need to get supper ready, in case I’m not back in time. I’ve left everything she’ll need in the kitchen.”
“All right.”
After Sagramore bought the wool, she saw him every time she went with Father to the castle. He was always polite and funny and charming, and Anne isn’t exactly sure how, but one day she ended up agreeing to ride with him if Father said yes. Father did.
It was a long ride, and evening had fallen by the time they came back to the stables. He asked her if she’d like to take supper with him, and she said yes because it seemed inevitable that she agree. So they ate together, and it was after that, while he was taking her home, that he fell ill.
Anne had never seen anything like it in her whole life. Sagramore fell to the ground like a stone falling from a hand, sudden and straight, with no attempt to catch himself. Then the seizures began, and her heart felt like a bird caught in someone’s fingers, fluttering wildly to break out and move, and held back.
She ran for help, and the midwife, Kate, helped her to carry him back to Father’s house. There Anne lay him in her own bed, and she and Kate watched over him until he woke up again and remembered her, his eyes flickering with recognition. She undressed him and bathed his cool dusky skin with a piece of cloth, cleaned him and gave him some of Father’s clothes to wear, and afterwards she was the one who helped him back to the castle.
The next day she went back again to be sure he was well, despite Mordecai’s protests. Sagramore was out of bed, and when he saw her he smiled, and that was the first time she felt that butter-softening of her heart when she looked at him. She tried to tease him to hide how glad she was.
When he eventually kissed her, Anne didn’t argue. It wasn’t what she would have chosen, if she had been able to choose exactly what kind of friends they would be, but she decided that he needed it, and it felt good to be wanted as something besides a mother for the first time in three years. He didn’t want her to mend or make supper, he didn’t have any trouble remembering her name the way Father did, he didn’t fret the way Mordecai did, and he knew so many things to talk about--he had been across the sea to Ireland and to Byzantium. He, too, knew how to read and write. All that was worth the fact that making love felt unnecessary, like an extra piece of cloth she had convinced someone to buy because it was inexpensive, not because it was needed.
“I’m glad you have time for me to-day,” he tells her. “It’s been--it’s been difficult. My lord’s been unwell.”
In his chamber, Anne makes soft, soothing noises, as if he were Naomi during one of her headaches, and rubs hard at the knots in the muscles of his shoulders and back. Sagramore groans and leans forward, making his spine concave to her touch.
“My poor sir,” she whispers. “My dear sir. It’s all right.”
Later his mouth finds hers, and she hitches her leg against the small of his back, letting his slim, long hands wander her body for the places that make her breath catch, feeling him stiffen in response to the noises she makes. He promises her everything, whatever she wants, countries and moons and wealth, and tells her how beautiful she is, like a queen, like a goddess, like a nymph.
But when Anne soothes him down from his climax, she breathes the smell of his dark curly hair and knows he’s already given her everything she could want from him. It doesn’t matter whether he asks her to marry him or not.
For years what she wanted most was a friend, someone to be excited about every time she hears the familiar step entering the house. And even though the children love him, no matter how much he babies them and plays with them, the reason he keeps coming back to Father’s house is for her. She’s the one he brings back to the castle to talk with about poetry and religion and tell his stories to.
She lies back against the mattress, breathing in the night air. Sagramore is facedown, sprawled in the blankets, his fingers still tangled in her hair, and Anne closes her eyes.
She can feel her heart drumming softly like fingertips on a windowpane, or rain on the streets, steady and safe, and she listens for Sagramore’s in the dark but she doesn’t hear it, only the hoarse sleep-sound of his breath in and out. She rolls over and wraps her arms around him, trying to hold him until they melt into one person and he gets an equal share of her health.
Sagramore mutters sleepily and calls her something in Hungarian.
Anne sighs, blinking the tears out of her eyes. She never saves anybody. Not Mother, not Father with his forgetting or Naomi with her headaches, not even Sagramore, when she’s even given him herself to try and make him better.
In the morning he wakes up before her; when she stirs it’s already light outside, and she starts guiltily.
“Oh, I have to go home,” she tells him, finding her clothes where she left them, folded neatly on a chair.
Sagramore is standing by the window, looking out, but when she gets out of bed he turns around and comes to her, and gives her his hands. “Lantmadár. --Anne. Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m all right,” she says. She frees her hands and reaches behind her to replait her hair.
“As long as you’re certain. I was afraid you were sad last night.” He rubs his eyes tiredly. “I thought I heard you weeping.”
“No, of course not.”
“I’m sorry. I have these dreams, you understand--it’s because I’ve been ill, it’s not your fault. Anne, I have a favour to ask you.”
Anne drops her braid and cups his rough cheeks. She’s tall for her age, and she doesn’t have to stretch far. Sagramore smiles at the touch, and puts his hand over hers. “What is it?”
“You don’t realise how much easier this is to bear with you. You’ve been gentle with me, when I’m an old, sick man--”
“You’re not so old.”
“But I am sick, and I’m certain I’ve done nothing for your reputation.”
Anne tosses her head. “What of my reputation?”
“Listen to me. I want to do something for you in return. When his Majesty King Arthur gets back, when this ends, when there’s peace again--I’d like you to marry me. In all likelihood I won’t live a great deal longer, but you’ll have my title when I’m gone, and all the money I have, and Mordred will take care of you because you’re my widow.”
“Shh, you’re not dead yet.”
“I want to be sure you’ll always be all right.”
“Of course I will.”
“Will you marry me?”
“If you ask Father and he agrees.”
“All right.” His serious expression turns into a smile for the first time, and Anne’s wretched heart starts humming again. “I’ll make a beautiful proposal, it’ll be splendid, even your wretched Mordecai will have to approve of me.” He slips his hands around her waist and lifts her up, and Anne has to catch her breath and grab his shoulders from surprise. When he sets her down he holds her close, as close as she held him last night, and with her cheek pressed against his chest she can hear the flutter of his heartbeat, uneven but there.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“Christ Jesu, don’t thank me. I’m the one who’s glad.”
Anne walks back to Father’s house by herself, despite the impropriety, her cloak wrapped tightly around her head to hide her long dark braid. It doesn’t matter whether she loves him or not. He’ll marry her, and she’ll be able to stay as long as she likes talking with him with no need to hurry home; she’ll find a doctor for Naomi, and won’t have to worry about money. Perhaps Sagramore can even teach Micah to be a knight.
Everything is going to be all right.
The sun, half-shrouded with pale clouds, looks like a piece of golden cloth hanging in the sky.
Title: Portions for Foxes
Fandom: Arthuriana
Characters/Pairings: Sagramore/OC
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Present for
mhari! Completely based on a throwaway comment Sagramore made during rp, because I am a nerd.Anne knows the moment he enters her father’s house.
It isn’t just the immediate cries and squeals from all the children, from Leah’s ‘Uncle!’ to Mordecai (the eldest boy, eighteen, two years younger than Anne herself) saying politely, “Good morrow, Sir Sagramore.” She’s grown used to the sound of Sagramore’s footstep, light and unsteady, on their earthen floor. She puts down the dough she’s kneading and comes out of the kitchen, wiping her hands down on her apron.
Sagramore is holding Leah in the crook of one arm while she pulls on his curls, and Micah is holding his sword, staring at it with delight. Sagramore smiles at Anne, and, as usual, her heart feels suddenly softened, like butter left out in the sunlight.
“Good morrow, sir.”
“How are you, lantmadár?” he asks.
“We’re all well.”
Anne has managed her father’s household since Mother died bearing the stillbirth three years ago. When the baby slipped out in a wash of blood, warm to touch but wrinkled and unmoving, Mother was already dead: the midwife who helped them had decided there was a better chance of saving it, not knowing that it was already dead in the womb. Anne had wept and wept, and when she stopped weeping she came out and began to take care of the house. Mordecai was clever, but he didn’t know how to sew or cook, and minding little Leah disconcerted him; and Anne was the only one besides Father who knew how to read and write, however little.
The midwife, Kate, helped her to learn the things Mother hadn’t taught her. She was wise with herbs and a little medicine, and it was she who taught Anne to use steeps of feverfew to manage Naomi’s headaches, and how to cook a pottage that could stretch a leg of lamb for a week of suppers.
But for the most part it’s Anne. She manages the money from Father’s scattered, illegible notes, and takes care of the children. When it comes to buying cords of firewood and arguing with merchants and shopkeepers on market-day, Anne’s the one who goes out at sunrise and comes back with as much for as little as she can get.
“Good,” Sagramore says, “good, I’m very glad. Are you busy?”
Anne is always busy, but she doesn’t say so. “No, no, I’m glad you came. How have you been?”
Sagramore is always ill, but he never says so, either. It’s just something Anne knows. “I’m very well, very well, thank you.”
Leah pulls his beard. “Have you brought us things?”
“Leah!” Anne says warningly.
“I’m afraid not this time. I’ve been busy with my Lord and haven’t had time to go to the market.” He tugs on one of her earlobes for retribution, and Leah makes an indignant sound, squirming in his arms. “Is there something special you’ve been wanting?”
“Don’t encourage her.”
“A kitten.”
“Oh, really, Leah, there are stray kittens everywhere in this city--the cat eating the mice in the dovecote just had a litter.”
“I want Sagramore to bring me one.”
Naomi, who is only a year older than Leah, agrees noisily.
Sagramore laughs. “I suppose it won’t trouble me particularly to find one for you. What colour would you like?”
“Black!”
“Orange!”
Anne first met him after Arthur Pendragon went to war. Since Lord Mordred made himself king, Sagramore has been his emissary from the castle; when deliveries of food and goods are made, he’s the one to receive them. Father needs her help as well as Mordecai’s when it comes to trading (he’s growing old, and his memory isn’t as strong as it used to be: he needs them to make sure the dealings run fairly. It makes Anne’s heart sting sometimes, when she thinks of how sharp his mind used to, and how only his tongue is these days), and he brings them both to the castle with him now.
Father is a cloth merchant, and Anne is good at selling the cloth. She holds it up to her body, tells people how beautiful it will look when it’s cut and sewn, talks about thicknesses for winter and summer, and sells the short ends of bolts for half the price to encourage customers. Sometimes Father tells her that she’s the best gift God ever gave him, and her always-feeling heart hums with joy.
The day she met Sagramore they were in the courtyard. He was looking over their merchandise when Anne found a warm yellow wool and laid it next to his arm.
“This is the finest colour for you, my Lord.”
He laughed. “Oh, lantmadár, you can’t coax me into spending my own purse.”
Anne smiled at him. “Perhaps I can coax you into spending Lord Mordred’s purse on your behalf, my Lord.”
“Good Christ, I can see you care more for your own profit than whatever punishment comes my way.”
“How else does a merchant sell his wares? I must care for myself.”
“So you must.”
He bought the wool, although truthfully there was no reason he should have.
Anne glances over at the door. The new raw wood of the lintel and posts that stand just outside still lets out a smell of fir. Those are his gift; he gives her money sometimes, whenever she tells him that they have need of it. She knows Father and Mordecai would be too proud to take it, so he gives it to her and she pretends to have made a good profit on their cloth, or to have done sewing for some of the neighbours.
Their house is a good house, made from sturdy stone walls, thatched with sweet-smelling grass and strong, tough straw, the earth floor solid and clean. There are three bedrooms: Father’s, one for the boys, and one for the girls. There is even a special sitting room separate from the kitchen and the supper room. Anne keeps it clean, although Miriam helps when she can be found. Anne is almost certain she has a stableboy up at the castle with whom she’s in love.
Anne isn’t sure whether she’s in love with Sagramore. What she knows for sure is that he’s nearly twice her age, and that he’s always tired and usually sick, and that he’s terribly in love with her.
The argument over the colour of the kitten has been resolved, because when she turns back to him Leah is back on the ground, squealing delightedly with Naomi over their future prize.
Sagramore takes her hands in his. “Will you come back to the castle with me for a little while?”
Mordecai scowls--he probably knows why she’s going, but Anne doesn’t care. She’s grateful for Sagramore’s favour, for the gifts of money and the books he has that he’s lent her to read.
Sometimes Miriam points out that to have the affection of Lord Mordred’s right-hand man is worth a great deal, and the possibility that he might offer to marry her.
Anne supposes she would agree if he asked. It would let her take care of him and Father without having to wait for him to come to her, and the children all love him, Leah and Naomi and Micah especially. Micah is always saying he wants to grow up to be a knight like Sagramore, and it’s probably possible, if Arthur Pendragon ever returns.
“Yes,” she tells Sagramore. “Mordecai can look after the little ones, and Miriam will be home soon.”
He crouches down beside Micah. “Well, gyerek, I’m afraid I’ve got to ask you if you’ll give my sword back. I’ll need it to protect your sister on the way to the castle.”
Micah nods solemnly and gives it to him. Sagramore tousles his rough black hair and gets back to his feet, buckling the sword back to his belt, and offering Anne his arm. She takes it.
“Mordecai, make sure Naomi has her feverfew to keep her head from hurting. And when Miriam comes back tell her the bread isn’t finished yet, and she’ll need to get supper ready, in case I’m not back in time. I’ve left everything she’ll need in the kitchen.”
“All right.”
After Sagramore bought the wool, she saw him every time she went with Father to the castle. He was always polite and funny and charming, and Anne isn’t exactly sure how, but one day she ended up agreeing to ride with him if Father said yes. Father did.
It was a long ride, and evening had fallen by the time they came back to the stables. He asked her if she’d like to take supper with him, and she said yes because it seemed inevitable that she agree. So they ate together, and it was after that, while he was taking her home, that he fell ill.
Anne had never seen anything like it in her whole life. Sagramore fell to the ground like a stone falling from a hand, sudden and straight, with no attempt to catch himself. Then the seizures began, and her heart felt like a bird caught in someone’s fingers, fluttering wildly to break out and move, and held back.
She ran for help, and the midwife, Kate, helped her to carry him back to Father’s house. There Anne lay him in her own bed, and she and Kate watched over him until he woke up again and remembered her, his eyes flickering with recognition. She undressed him and bathed his cool dusky skin with a piece of cloth, cleaned him and gave him some of Father’s clothes to wear, and afterwards she was the one who helped him back to the castle.
The next day she went back again to be sure he was well, despite Mordecai’s protests. Sagramore was out of bed, and when he saw her he smiled, and that was the first time she felt that butter-softening of her heart when she looked at him. She tried to tease him to hide how glad she was.
When he eventually kissed her, Anne didn’t argue. It wasn’t what she would have chosen, if she had been able to choose exactly what kind of friends they would be, but she decided that he needed it, and it felt good to be wanted as something besides a mother for the first time in three years. He didn’t want her to mend or make supper, he didn’t have any trouble remembering her name the way Father did, he didn’t fret the way Mordecai did, and he knew so many things to talk about--he had been across the sea to Ireland and to Byzantium. He, too, knew how to read and write. All that was worth the fact that making love felt unnecessary, like an extra piece of cloth she had convinced someone to buy because it was inexpensive, not because it was needed.
“I’m glad you have time for me to-day,” he tells her. “It’s been--it’s been difficult. My lord’s been unwell.”
In his chamber, Anne makes soft, soothing noises, as if he were Naomi during one of her headaches, and rubs hard at the knots in the muscles of his shoulders and back. Sagramore groans and leans forward, making his spine concave to her touch.
“My poor sir,” she whispers. “My dear sir. It’s all right.”
Later his mouth finds hers, and she hitches her leg against the small of his back, letting his slim, long hands wander her body for the places that make her breath catch, feeling him stiffen in response to the noises she makes. He promises her everything, whatever she wants, countries and moons and wealth, and tells her how beautiful she is, like a queen, like a goddess, like a nymph.
But when Anne soothes him down from his climax, she breathes the smell of his dark curly hair and knows he’s already given her everything she could want from him. It doesn’t matter whether he asks her to marry him or not.
For years what she wanted most was a friend, someone to be excited about every time she hears the familiar step entering the house. And even though the children love him, no matter how much he babies them and plays with them, the reason he keeps coming back to Father’s house is for her. She’s the one he brings back to the castle to talk with about poetry and religion and tell his stories to.
She lies back against the mattress, breathing in the night air. Sagramore is facedown, sprawled in the blankets, his fingers still tangled in her hair, and Anne closes her eyes.
She can feel her heart drumming softly like fingertips on a windowpane, or rain on the streets, steady and safe, and she listens for Sagramore’s in the dark but she doesn’t hear it, only the hoarse sleep-sound of his breath in and out. She rolls over and wraps her arms around him, trying to hold him until they melt into one person and he gets an equal share of her health.
Sagramore mutters sleepily and calls her something in Hungarian.
Anne sighs, blinking the tears out of her eyes. She never saves anybody. Not Mother, not Father with his forgetting or Naomi with her headaches, not even Sagramore, when she’s even given him herself to try and make him better.
In the morning he wakes up before her; when she stirs it’s already light outside, and she starts guiltily.
“Oh, I have to go home,” she tells him, finding her clothes where she left them, folded neatly on a chair.
Sagramore is standing by the window, looking out, but when she gets out of bed he turns around and comes to her, and gives her his hands. “Lantmadár. --Anne. Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m all right,” she says. She frees her hands and reaches behind her to replait her hair.
“As long as you’re certain. I was afraid you were sad last night.” He rubs his eyes tiredly. “I thought I heard you weeping.”
“No, of course not.”
“I’m sorry. I have these dreams, you understand--it’s because I’ve been ill, it’s not your fault. Anne, I have a favour to ask you.”
Anne drops her braid and cups his rough cheeks. She’s tall for her age, and she doesn’t have to stretch far. Sagramore smiles at the touch, and puts his hand over hers. “What is it?”
“You don’t realise how much easier this is to bear with you. You’ve been gentle with me, when I’m an old, sick man--”
“You’re not so old.”
“But I am sick, and I’m certain I’ve done nothing for your reputation.”
Anne tosses her head. “What of my reputation?”
“Listen to me. I want to do something for you in return. When his Majesty King Arthur gets back, when this ends, when there’s peace again--I’d like you to marry me. In all likelihood I won’t live a great deal longer, but you’ll have my title when I’m gone, and all the money I have, and Mordred will take care of you because you’re my widow.”
“Shh, you’re not dead yet.”
“I want to be sure you’ll always be all right.”
“Of course I will.”
“Will you marry me?”
“If you ask Father and he agrees.”
“All right.” His serious expression turns into a smile for the first time, and Anne’s wretched heart starts humming again. “I’ll make a beautiful proposal, it’ll be splendid, even your wretched Mordecai will have to approve of me.” He slips his hands around her waist and lifts her up, and Anne has to catch her breath and grab his shoulders from surprise. When he sets her down he holds her close, as close as she held him last night, and with her cheek pressed against his chest she can hear the flutter of his heartbeat, uneven but there.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“Christ Jesu, don’t thank me. I’m the one who’s glad.”
Anne walks back to Father’s house by herself, despite the impropriety, her cloak wrapped tightly around her head to hide her long dark braid. It doesn’t matter whether she loves him or not. He’ll marry her, and she’ll be able to stay as long as she likes talking with him with no need to hurry home; she’ll find a doctor for Naomi, and won’t have to worry about money. Perhaps Sagramore can even teach Micah to be a knight.
Everything is going to be all right.
The sun, half-shrouded with pale clouds, looks like a piece of golden cloth hanging in the sky.
