The house was silent as the grave. Sleep eluded the woman, who lay stretched out upon the bed. She had become used to this particular bed. It was smaller than the one which she had shared with her husband. The idea that she missed the other bed was pointless and futile. She had no reason to think on it anymore, and it would only bring the weepy sorrow of nostalgia, so she pushed such thoughts away.
The window directly in front of her, as she lay on her side, was open to the warm, spring evening. A breeze, gentle and soft, danced through the room every minute or so, and the air was scented with the abundance of blooming things. Newly green grass, budding fruit trees, and demurely opened flower petals. It was a season that should have been spent in joy with the man she had loved. But it could not be so, and this thought also, was firmly brushed aside.
Without the welcomed escape of sleep, there was naught to do but think. She pushed herself up to a sitting position with a quiet grunt of pain. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed that the bandage she had applied was dark with blood.
Aeroden had nobly torn his robe when he found her along the road, and wrapped the wound hastily. After his departure from her home, she had removed his makeshift bandage and examined the cut more closely by turning her back to the looking-glass in the bedroom. The gash was ugly, and deep enough to leave her concerned, but it was a clean cut, at least. Stabbed with my own knife...she thought sourly.
Now, she padded through the house on bare feet. It was still difficult, to hear how silent the rooms were at night. No deep snoring, no groaning of the bedframe as a large body turned over in its dreaming. The silence was not peaceful to her. She despised it.
Loosing the laces at the front of her chemise, she tugged the thin, white fabric down over her arm, baring the afflicted shoulder. The bandage - a folded, white square of clean cloth - was gingerly peeled away. A deep sigh of relief escaped parted lips as she saw that the blood stain was old, and that the wound was no longer bleeding freely. She dropped the bloodied cloth into a pail of water to soak and be properly cleaned the next day.
Was it wicked that part of her wished that Aeroden had stayed? It was completely improper, of course, for a lady to allow a man into her home at night. She had apologized for clinging to him in her terrified hysteria, though he had reassured her in his gentle but firm way, that it was not inappropriate to seek comfort and safety after such an awful event. She could see the worry in his eyes as she related the unfortunate tale to him, and the confusion when she clammed up and refused to meet his gaze when he knelt down and took her hand and hovered close to her.
A fresh, folded cloth was pressed to the back of her shoulder, and its cool softness elicited a sigh of relief. She picked up the strip of linen that would bind it in place and began to awkwardly and tightly wrap it round her shoulder and beneath her armpit.
How long would the ghost of her faithfulness continue to hover over her head? Eliciting blushes and lowered eyes and stammered words whenever a man stepped too close? She had not been so before meeting her late husband. Was that woman still a part of her? The one who was proper and polite, but not afraid to look a man in the eyes and smile and speak her thoughts? The declaration of "I am not a married woman anymore" was terrifying. It felt wrong. The moment she became his wife, she had given up being anything else, throwing herself into their union wholeheartedly, fully believing that they would share their years together. How does the entity of two, united souls exist when one is torn away? Can that broken half left behind ever be made whole again?
Finished with the task of binding her wound, her hands dropped to her sides, and she stared at her reflection. Her own expression troubled her. It was so grim, so solemn. Not the face a young woman should bear.
A strange sort of tension took up a thrumming in her chest as she turned and walked back to the bedroom. It was time. Time to stop holding the world at arm's length, and her heart behind locked bars. There was nothing to be gained by forcing herself to walk through life under a veil of grief and solitude. As she pulled back the sheets and slipped beneath them, laying down carefully on her uninjured side, she knew that sleep would not come. She would stare at the wall until sunrise. Picking apart her thoughts, and even more mercilessly, her feelings.
