Page 33 of Heart of Winter
Leif dropped back to ride beside her. “Do you like it?” he asked, quietly, and she understood why. With the pines towering overhead, the forest path had the air of a cathedral about it; someplace holy and untrammeled by humans.
“It’s wonderful,” she breathed, turning to smile at him – and, oh, he was lovely, the refracted light glinting in his golden hair, breath steaming in the cold, large hands light and deft on the reins.
She glanced away just as he did, but not before she saw the pink on his cheekbones deepen.
“The trees back home are much smaller,” she said, because trees were a much safter topic of conversation than the way her chest felt all fluttery inside. “They don’t hold as much snow.”
“Do you get snow down there?” he asked, and sounded genuinely curious.
“Not like here. Some. One time even a foot, when I was very small. I remember…” It came back to her, in the soft, muted colors of early childhood memories, when it was the way something made you feel rather than all the particulars of it that left you smiling. “There was this snow bank along the outside of the stables, where the wind had piled it up, and my brother, John, would lift us up and throw us into it. Amelia hit her head on a barrel we hadn’t known was buried there, and her face bledeverywhere, all over the snow, all over her clothes.” She giggled. “I’ve never seen my mother so cross with anyone. She smacked him with her embroidery hoop.”
Leif chuckled. “Sounds like she would get along famously with my mother.”
“John kept saying he was sorry, over and over, but he couldn’t stop laughing, and that just made her angrier. Poor Ollie tried to take the blame, but Mother knewthatwasn’t true. John was the sort of brother who would wrestle in the dirt with you, and Oliver was the sort of brother who would help you clean up your hurts and mend your dress afterward.”
She’d not spoken about John yet, not since his passing. Remembering him young, and laughing, and whole sent a dark shaft of hurt through her. She felt her smile slipping.
But then Leif said, “He was raised as your brother, then? Oliver.”
“Oh, yes.” She leapt onto the new subject, relieved to leave John behind. She didn’t want to start crying. “Mother liked to remind us that he was actually our cousin.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t think she ever truly disliked him, but she wanted us to know what was what; that Oliver wasdifferent. “Uncle Alfred was worse. He was always ashamed of him. Embarrassed.” She heard the angry, sour note in her voice.
“Because he’s a bastard?”
“No, not at all. Because he thought he was weak.” A sideways glance proved that Leif was watching her, listening intently. She didn’t like the thought of talking about Oliver behind his back, but maybe this was a chance to sow some goodwill – maybe even some that would make its way back to the king.
“Oliver looks a lot like his father, actually,” she continued. “Slender. They have the same face and eyes. But Alfred was a splendid warrior – if he wasn’t drinking or carousing, he was throwing himself at some fight or other. And he had a mean streak – he wasn’t a famous villain or anything, don’t get me wrong. But he wasn’tkind, not like Oliver. He didn’t care about people. Uncle William said it was because his wife died in childbirth – his son was lost, too – and that he was never the same after. But I don’t know. I think…” It was a terrible thing to say about the dead, about her own family.
“What?” Leif prompted, quietly.
“He lost a son, and his wife, but Oliver was his son, too. He should have loved him.”
“Well. Um,” he hedged. “Some people show love differently, don’t they? My uncle is…well, you’ve met him.”
She bit her lip, then turned to gauge his expression. “Have you ever doubted, though? Have you ever looked at your uncle and thought him loveless toward you?”
He made a face. “No.”
“He liked John, but he saw John as useful. John was a good soldier. John was legitimate – he could carry on the family name and legacy.” She drew in a breath, surprised by the way it shook. She was making herself far more upset than she’d expected. “I’m sorry,” he said, toying with a lock of her horse’s mane. It slid like silk through her gloved fingers. “I don’t ever talk about this and it’s…it’s difficult.”
“No, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that your family…” He trailed off.
And she shot him a rueful smile, one he returned, if uncertainly.
“Thank you. It’s fine.” She faced forward again, between the horse’s relaxed ears, the view of fluffy snow, and Rune’s horse plunging through it ahead, leaving tracks deep as Yule Festival puddings.
After a moment, Leif said, “You can tell me to step off – it’s none of my business. But when you say that Oliver couldn’t become a warrior because of his health…” He left it open-ended.
Tessa frowned to herself for a moment, weighing Oliver’s privacy against her previously-hoped-for goodwill fostering. She decided to do what she never normally did, and run her mouth.
“When Oliver was little, during the Second Great War with the Sels, Uncle Alfred took him to meet my father at the coast. That was when my father and your uncle agreed to their alliance. Oliver was only little, but Uncle Alfred wanted him to see war – nevermind that it wasn’t war at all, but only a war camp, and a campaign tent. They had to pass through the Neven Marshes to get there, and by the time they got back home, Oliver had come down with a fever. We thought it was only the flu, at first, but then, next year, the fever came back.”
“Marsh fever,” Leif said, as understanding dawned. “Shit – oh, I mean–”
She chuckled, and found him blushing when she glanced over.
He cleared his throat. “He still has it?”
“Far less frequently. If he wraps up in the cold, and doesn’t overtax himself too harshly – he can ride, and go for long walks, and swim in the lakes in summer. But it does still return, from time to time. Especially under great stress.”
