The man holding the axe drew his filthy, bare forearm across his brow, wicking away a thin sheen of sweat. His dark eyes squinted, pulling his lips back from his teeth in a breathless grimace while he regarded the sun overhead. The brisk air could not stop the heat from broiling beneath his skin as he worked, but it gave a measure of relief to the slick moisture that insisted on lingering over his face.
The peaceful charm of the village was strange to him. He missed the clamor of mens' voices, the uneven tempo of axes striking in tandem, and the endless growl of sawblades tearing through the flesh of trees. Here at the woodcarver's cottage, he had been granted dominion over the small house and the wide, sloping yard with its carved statues and towering elms. He was a prince of idyllic domesticity. A lord of birdsong and hedge trimming. His domain was a green lawn, a hearty woodpile, a sitting room cluttered with half-finished projects.
He swung the small hand-axe again, bringing it down to split another log cleanly in twain. The pieces scattered over the ground were more than enough, but he had little else to do with his time now. And the mindless motions of splitting wood helped to quiet his thoughts, or so he believed.
The previous evening would not stop niggling at him, like a swarm of midges whining in one's ear. The tavern had been empty for most of his visit, and his supper of sausage and squash enjoyed without molestation. The old tavern keep, Goldnettle, seemed to know when a guest preferred to chat and when he didn't, and for that alone, the man would continue to give his patronage to the place.
But when his meal was consumed, and his feet propped on an empty chair before the crackling fire, the door opened, and another soul entered. The man thought little of it until he heard a familiar voice, low and sweet. He thought little still as she asked for a bowl of something-or-other, and even when she came near and looked at him cautiously, like a pup wondering if it might approach a man's hand for a pat.
Another log cracked in half, the pieces scattered over the sides of the tree stump. He did not wish to replay this scene in his mind again, and yet it would play despite his distaste for it and the sensations it spawned within him.
When he lifted a hand to the young woman in the tavern, he did not know if his fingers would dismiss her or beckon her near. The moment had seemed strangely surreal, and he felt a twinge of alarm to see his own hand motioning for her to approach him. He felt it because something had been brewing quietly within his skull and his breast for weeks. She knew nothing, suspected nothing. The whispers began the first time he met her, but he had silenced them swiftly after departing her presence. When Fate chanced their paths to cross a second time, oh, how the whispers grew loud in his ears that night. But he left her again, as quickly as he could, and in the days following he managed to forget that she existed on some level.
She sat on a stool across from him in the tavern and smiled. She asked how he had been. He watched the way her small hands laced together on her thighs. He managed to say a few appropriate things despite the piercing of her green eyes into his brain. How sweetly she remained ignorant of the musings writhing and twisting about inside his head, like a knotted ball of male serpents all seeking to conquer the solitary female in their midst.
He could not comprehend why this one, this woman, had stirred the beast. It had been slumbering for many months despite the fair visage and company of other women. With them, he was polite, he was proper, he was at the very least, socially acceptable. He suspected the culprit to be many things. The sweetness of her smile. The innocence that fairly exuded from her when she laughed. That perfect shade of green in those eyes that made him think of another from his past.
A sudden, sharp snarling drew him from his fugue, and he heard the axe crack loudly against the stump. There was no wood there. Anyone who might have happened past the cottage would have seen a crazed behemoth of a man, hacking wildly at nothing for untold minutes.
He stood up straight, rolling his shoulders to dispel the quivering of his muscles. The axe was set into the stump with a deep *thunk*, and he turned to lumber back towards the house with his face in his hands.
