The morning was cool and damp, with puffs of fog lurking between the dark timbers of the houses along the street. Thick, silver clouds had muted the dawn, leaving the town under a haze of subdued colors that the young woman found enchanting. The air was perfectly still, and sounds were sharper than normal, carried over the invisible droplets of moisture; the barking dog, the closing of a door, all sounded so wonderfully clear and close. She fancied that she could hear every tiny pebble crunching beneath her soft-worn leather shoes as she walked the quick, familiar path to the stable.
All but one of the stalls stood empty today. A lone mare, pale and ghostly behind the misty veil of the air, looked out at the approaching woman and nickered softly in greeting.
Brynleigh stopped and put a fist to her right hip. "They took all your friends today, hmm?" she mused aloud. Chuckling, she brushed the long plait of flaxen hair from her shoulder so that it tumbled to the center of her spine. Her hands tugged lightly at her simple, dark-green tunic, and she strode forward into the stable to pick up an empty wheelbarrow. "I suppose they need them more often these days, don't they," she went on, talking to the pale mare as if she were another person. The horse turned her head towards the woman, ears pricked forward, giving all the appearance of listening politely.
A gentle humming began in the woman’s throat as she rolled the barrow along the line of stalls. A shovel was plucked from against the wall, and thrust into the lumpy mounds of straw within the first compartment. Piles of soiled bedding plopped into the trough in time with the song that thrummed in her chest, the volume rising with each new shovel-thrust. Now and then, the hum slipped into softly sung words, murmured under her breath like the rippling of a creek.
“What care I for my house and land? What care I for my money, O?”
As she worked steadily, bent over, her braid swinging pleasantly against her shoulder, she thought abruptly of a conversation that had been had a few days before. Though she couldn’t quite understand what drove it so suddenly into her mind.
“I cross by your street sometimes, by the stables on my way back from the Meadhall. 'I don't bother you, as you're working. I just wait a bit in case you turn. But you're too focused on your tasks. You pause sometimes, and I think... now she'll turn, but you never do. You just grip on your shovel tighter. And tighter. And go on."
A strong urge arose, to turn and look over her shoulder. Immediately, in tandem with this sensation, was the knowledge that it was foolish, and almost superstitious. She chuckled breathily and shook her head, and returned to mucking the stall.
Her thoughts, however, were infamously persistent, as they always were.
What was it about him, that made him so interesting? He was brusque and growlish. He said little, and what little he did say was often hard to follow and seemed to take wandering paths that were hard to connect. He certainly wasn’t handsome. Their scattered conversations had hinted at a troubled past, and this was only confirmed by the presence of a child without a mother.
“What care I for a goose-feather bed? With the sheet turned down so bravely, O!”
The sweetly murmured song brought a little respite from these musings. The stalls were finished, the wheelbarrow set aside to be hauled away later. She took down the curry comb from the hook on the wall and set about giving the mare a good pampering, as she was the only charge to be cared for. The low, steady scrape of teeth through hair was comforting and reliable. Unlike the pressing, nagging voices in her mind.
What was this feeling that arose in her breast, when he spoke certain things? Was it pity? Was it flattery? It was something familiar and yet alien at the same time. Her smooth white brow tensed slightly as she continued to work over the mare’s snowy coat.
A certain thought had been brewing, deep within her. She had ignored it, and wished to continue to ignore it. But it would not be silent. She valued honesty and truth above all things, and the truth was that he reminded her of someone else.
He reminded her of her late husband.
Distracted now, her diligently working hands slowed down and came to a halt, lingering on the horse’s shoulder. Beyond the stable door, the fog seemed to be deepening, pressing in more thickly as it billowed along the narrow street. She felt closed-in. Trapped with herself. With her feelings.
What was different about this man? He was not charming. He was not genteel or soft or smiling. He was dirty, he often smelled of sweat and aurochs’ manure and the reek of working long hours without a bath. He barked at his own daughter. He lacked the warmth of Gamferth, the chivalry of Firithain.
The frown upon her forehead deepened. The mare swung her head around to see why the pleasing brushing had stopped.
Why, then, did she feel so comfortable in his presence? He was unpredictable and odd. He would say one thing and not explain it for half an hour, long after she’d given up trying to comprehend him.
A memory flickered then. She was standing in the Snowbourn tavern, a mug in her grasp. He was sitting by the counter with two others. She would not interrupt or insert herself into their conversation. They barely knew each other's’ names, after all. She was nothing to him but a wandering Rohir from the north. He looked over at her and gave the slightest jerk of his head towards the empty stool beside himself. In that moment, she felt that he was kinder than anyone gave him credit for. Such a tiny gesture, so full of meaning.
The mare turned her head a little further, and bumped Bryn’s hand with her velvet muzzle. “Ah, sorry!” she whispered, smiling and hastily scratching beneath the horse’s jaw for a moment, before taking up the combing again.
She thought of the way he sought her help when he lost the aurochs calf, and again when he couldn’t find his daughter. The way he bluntly told her what he thought, or asked for what he wanted, while somehow maintaining a hardened wall around his life and his past. When he accidentally pricked her grief and brought her close to tears, he didn’t reach out to comfort her or coddle her, but somehow made it known in his own understated way that he was sorry. And the curiously bashful, distant manner in which he let slip that he sometimes walked past the stable and hoped that she would notice him.
The warmth that throbbed in her breast bothered her now. It was foolish and silly. Wasn’t it? Of course it was. But the more she ruminated on it, stubbornly rolling the thought around and around in her head like a cow with its cud, the more she understood. It was the sweetness of feeling needed by another. The thought that she could fulfill a longing in a troubled soul, even with just a turn of her head and a glance of her eyes. He wasn’t trying to give her anything, he wasn’t hoping to pour comfort into the gaping wound in her heart, or patch up her grief with well-meaning words and embraces and smiles. After all, she had never been a taker; she was the giver. She felt the most happy, the most fulfilled, the most purposeful, when she was the one giving to others. She had never asked for anyone to soothe her pain. And now she understood that her own suffering was best tended by finding another person to comfort.
She worked her way along the curve of the mare’s spine, the brush strokes perhaps a little too intense in her distracted state. The horse gave a grunt and flinched, her pale hide twitching.
But he wasn’t her late husband. He wasn’t, he would never be. It was reckless to even dare to make a comparison. He was a cautious, careful friend. An acquaintance. Barely more than a stranger.
A deep, heavy sigh sounded strangely loud and oppressive to her own ears. She gave the mare a gentle pat to apologize for her lack of focus. The humming struck up once more in her throat, enriching the still, morning air with the familiar strains of the song. It felt forced, but she didn’t care, for it was better than sighing.
As she worked her way around the horse’s backside and along the ribs of the other side, she finally allowed herself to cast her eyes towards the dim, misty street. The lamps were still lit, the sun not yet broken through the clouds, but the golden pools of lamplight were empty. He wasn’t there. Had she really expected him to be?
She heard a soft, low chuckling, and realized it was coming from her own lips. The mare flicked an ear and turned a large, brown eye to her caretaker.
“I know,” Brynleigh murmured to the animal. “I know. But we’re allowed to be foolish once in a while, aren’t we?”
