Eighteen
“GOOD MORNING, BRIALLEN. You’re up early. I trust you slept well.” Dama Wynn’s sly greeting had Briallen biting back a grimace. Going to bed with the dawn, only to wake before the morning was through was not the best idea anyone had ever had. Not that she had slept; she’d been too excited. Instead she’d held the hard bread close to her heart, wishing and hoping until the house started to stir.
Still, the tired ache in her head served as the perfect reminder of what she had to do. Having slept with the bread, her waking dreams unsurprisingly full of her dark-haired lover from the night before, she knew better than to reply to Dama Wynn’s greeting.
Certain sure, she highly doubted she’d marry anyone else, regardless of who she saw first once she stepped out of the door, but tradition was tradition, and she really didn’t wish to taunt the gods and ancestors over something so important. So she held her tongue and gave the old woman a vague smile.
“Wisht, leave her be, Dama,” Sira Wynn grumbled, clearly feeling the effects of imbibing the night before. “Can’t you see the Frost isn’t finished with her yet.”
“At her age?” Dama harrumphed, which made a chance from being called girl.
“Never too old for romance, hwegoll,” the old man replied, winking at Briallen.
She smiled at him and slipped thankfully out of the house. It was cold outside and quiet, a light frost shimmered over the ground. The wake fires still smoked sullenly in the yard, mixing with the morning mist to shroud the farm in mystery.
Nothing stirred, not even a robin chirruped to disturb the scene. Morning was growing old, but most people were still abed after the long night. Taking two steps away from the house, Briallen looked around and tried not to feel disappointed. The cold crept into her bones and she rubbed her shoulders, inwardly cursing foolish traditions. She knew they were mostly meaningless – the last year of her life had taught her that – but just once, this once, she’d wanted one to be true.
She’d slept with a loaf of bread in her hands, she’d thought of her man in a waking dream, she’d not said a word since rising, and now… where was he?
Why wasn’t he here? The first person she saw on stepping out of the house was supposed to be her future husband. When Elisud had handed her the bread she’d assumed he knew that. She’d assumed he be here.
She looked around again, staring hopefully at the smoky mist that clouded his house from view. Nothing. Not even a helpful wind gusted along to part the screen and reveal her lover. She was alone. He hadn’t come.
“Looking for someone?”
The whisper against her ear made her yelp, and she turned to thump Elisud’s chest with her fist. She was annoyed that he’d made her jump, but so pleased that he was here, that it was him. “Where have you been?”
Catching her against him, Elisud hugged her joyfully tight and rocked her from side to side. “Waiting for you,” he chuckled. “Where else would I be?”
“But I looked…” she began, then trailed off because it didn’t matter. None of it mattered now: he was here, he’d come. He was the first person she’d seen outside the house this morning. Sometimes traditions did work out right.
“You weren’t looking the right way,” he teased, and cupped her head in that sweet, tender hold of his that she knew he would use five, ten, maybe even twenty years from now. It was Elisud’s kiss; he would always kiss her this way.
Their lips met and all the worry, the disappointment and pain of the past year seemed to drain out of her. It didn’t matter where she’d been before, or where she’d go next, all that mattered was this moment. Him. He was here, he knew the tradition. He was hers.
“Marry me, Bria. Be with me. Stay with me. Share my family.”
“Yes.” She smiled against his mouth. “I will gladly marry you, and be with you, and stay with you. If you will live with me, laugh with me, love with me and grow our family between us.”
His smile was better than summer sunshine as he scooped her up and swung her around, laughing with sheer joy. “Yes, fy nghariad. Oh, yes to all and everything. Anything you want. You could never stop me loving you, beat of my heart. Rwy’n dy garu di. I love you.”
“I love you too.” Her feet might have touched the ground again, but she felt like she was flying. “You really do say the sweetest things.”
A glint appeared in his eye, one she’d only discovered recently, but had already become so familiar. “And when you’re tired of sweetness?”
She grabbed a handful of his lush, dark hair and pulled his head down to hers. “Then be wicked,” she whispered against his mouth. “Be wickedly sweet. But only with me.”
“Always with you,” he promised, and kissed her in the smoke and shadows of the winter morn.
“THERE, I TOLD YOU they’d get married.” Ceri’s voice was triumphant as she poked Demairo in the ribs as they huddled in their doorway. “Didn’t I say so? Haven’t I always said?”
She’d never said any such thing, at least not in his hearing, but Demairo knew better than to argue. Besides, he had other things on his mind. While Uncle Elisud kissed Briallen, then slipped away with her into the woods again, Demairo headed for the smoking remains of the wake fires.
“What are you doing?” Ceri asked, as he picked up a half-charred branch and used it to stir the ashes.
There, not far from the side facing their house, lay three stones marked with blobs of blue dye. Demairo stirred the ashes a little more, heart pounding, mouth dry, until finally he uncovered a fourth. Half-hidden beneath one of the others, their dyes stuck together, he’d mistaken them momentarily for one big stone. As it should be, now that Elisud and Briallen were getting married.
Turning his cousin, he smiled. “Just making sure.” She frowned, not understanding, so he laughed and gave her a hug. “Your Da’s going to marry Bria.”
Her excitement rekindled, Ceri squealed and the pair of them danced around the smouldering ashes, until Dama Wynn came out and dragged them inside. They had a wedding to plan.
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