“When last I saw you, Morcaer of Fenmarch, you were taller and your hair fairer, and you held yourself high with pride.”
“That may be so, lady, but many men are colored by their deeds, and in the light of day I am yet a bolder man and braver. The sun once shined on me kindly, but no longer, and now all good fortune has forsaken me. All that I loved, I have left behind.”
Bitter words were they, shared with the lady Saethryd of Fylstott, the estranged wife of the former thane. Bitter but not untrue, as little cold comfort as the truth could offer Morcaer over the long road. Across the Eastfold he had ridden, until Swiftwater could carry him no more and his own place in the saddle was worn and sore. Now he stared listlessly into a helm that barely fit to his head, and to whose reflection it did not belong.
It used to be polished to a shine, but now the grime of the road was left to coat the once-proud and gleaming helm. Morcaer reached out to brush his thumb against the helmet, but as soon as flesh met metal, he froze—remembering why he had let the dirt build.
He thought, of course, about the village dog that he had buried alongside his lover. The beast had been a good hunter, loyal and glad to be alive—glad that it was here. One day, it simply wasn’t.
They had not been able to bury it in the bounds of Fenmarch, for the waters surrounding it would surely lift the body out of the mud when the weather warmed. They had seen it before: the dead-eyed overturning of a corpse, a wakefulness that left everyone ill at ease. Instead they had traveled to the edge of the hills to bury the dog, somewhere the Entwash couldn’t reach.
Still, Morcaer thought bitterly, how much luckier the dead to be buried, and how much luckier those I left in Fenmarch, who need only fear the summer floods to see unwelcome, familiar faces.
His lover had been watching him from the corner since he’d entered the room, and only then did he see the second face staring back at him in the reflection of the helmet. Morcaer thought again of the dog, and how glad it had been to be alive.
He threw the helmet towards the bed, not looking to see where it fell, though he heard it thump helplessly against the furs and the blankets. Morcaer buried his head in his hands, trying to blink away the vision.
It should have been me, he told himself. It should be me deep in the earth. I would be no wakeful corpse; no waters would reach me, for I would have been buried by a dutiful lover, who would want me to rest easy.
