Page 3 of Tending the Ache

"That's Misty," Dagny says. "She hates everyone."

"She does not hate everyone." Ingrid reaches up to scratch the cat's chin. Misty allows this for precisely two seconds before swatting her hand away with a velvet paw. "She is simply discerning."

They settle Indrie in a small guest room at the back of the house. It is barely wider than his outstretched arms, but there is a bed with a real mattress stuffed with straw and wool, a pillow that gives when he presses his hand into it, and a quilt stitched in blue and grey that matches the cloth on the loom. A window, small but actual glass, looks out onto the back garden where the last of the summer herbs are going to seed.

After the bunk on the ship, it is the finest sleeping arrangement he has ever had. In Kalkoa his mat lay directly on stone, thin enough that every ridge and crack in the floor pressed into his spine, and his blanket was a single coarse sheet that did not cover his feet. He had no pillow. He had no window. His room was a closet with no door, adjacent to the king's quarters, close enough that Armond could summon him at any hour by rapping his cane against the wall.

This room is small, but it was built for comfort. It has softness in it. Someone chose the colors of the quilt.

He has to stand there for a moment and breathe through the tightness in his throat before he can go in.

Ingrid brings him clean towels and a basin of warm water and tells him supper will be ready soon. Her smile is gentle and she does not linger, does not hover to see whether he is crying, which he is grateful for, because he is closer to it than he would like to admit. Dagny appears behind her, peering over her shoulder, and points at the foot of the bed.

"Extra blankets there, if you get cold. Outhouse is behind the garden. Watch your footing on the path when it rains, it's treacherous."

"It is not treacherous," Ingrid says.

"I broke my wrist on a goat, Ingrid. I know treacherous." Dagny nods at the door. "We'll be in the kitchen. Come out whenever you're ready."

They leave him. The door closes softly.

Indrie washes the salt and travel grime from his skin slowly, the warm water turning grey in the basin as weeks of ocean spray and sweat and sleepless nights sluice away. He washes his hair, works his fingers through the tangles, wrings it out over the basin and drapes it over one shoulder. He changes into the one clean set of clothes he has beyond what he set sail in, which are Eskil's clothes, because they are the only clothes he has. A linen shirt so large it slips off one shoulder. Trousers cinched at the waist with a length of rope, the hems rolled twice at his ankles.

He catches his reflection in the basin water. A dark-eyed young man in a king's clothes, looking lost.

He smooths the shirt down, tucks it in as best he can, and goes to supper.

Supper is a hearty root vegetable stew with chunks of carrot and parsnip and something earthy and golden that Ingrid calls turnip, and it is leagues better than anything Gunnar ever produced.

Indrie watches Dagny and Ingrid together.

The way Dagny's hand rests on Ingrid's lower back when she passes behind her to reach for the bread. The way Ingrid leans into Dagny's shoulder while she eats, a subtle tilt that speaks of a gravity between them. The way Dagny cuts the bread and butters the first slice and puts it on Ingrid's plate without being asked, and the way Ingrid smiles at her for it, quiet and luminous, as though she has been handed something precious instead of a piece of bread.

Ingrid says something in rapid Rengaran and Dagny throws her head back and laughs, and Ingrid's smile widens and she touches Dagny's cheek with the backs of her flour-dusted fingers.

Indrie realizes, slowly, that Ingrid is not Dagny's friend or her sister.

She is her wife.

He watches them and aches with something that is not quite envy and not quite grief but lives in the space between the two. He thinks about strong hands on his face in a lamplit cabin, about a rough voice saying you are not mine, and the ache deepens until he has to put his spoon down.

He wants this. He wants it so badly the wanting has a taste, sharp and bright and terrible, like biting down on something too hot and refusing to spit it out.

After supper, Dagny pours three cups of something warm and golden.

"Mead," she says. "Honey. Drink it slowly or you'll be face down in the garden."

"Is that a warning or a memory?"

"Both," Ingrid says, before Dagny can answer.

They sit by the fire. Misty descends from her bookshelf to investigate Indrie's lap, sniffs his hand with elaborate disdain, then curls up on his thigh and falls asleep.

"She likes you," Ingrid says, sounding genuinely surprised.

"Everyone likes Indrie," Dagny tells her. "Don't take it personally."

Indrie strokes the soft grey fur and feels the rumble of her purring travel up through his leg, and thinks that he could live here. That he could learn to live somewhere a cat falls asleep on you and nobody takes it away.