But that did not stop Adelmar from coming nearer, her voice stern as she addressed him.
He did not immediately look up at her, but Renna noted how his eye closed and he took a measured breath, his mouth drawing firmly, his shoulders tensing.
Their unwelcome could not have been plainer.
Adelmar was speaking to him, the pretence of civility quickly dissipating as her voice rose and, to Renna’s horror, she reached out and flicked Machrus’s ear with her forefinger.
Renna took a step backward, waiting for Machrus to berate her in return. His eyes grew sterner, his face settling into a stony expression, but he did not yell, did not retaliate in any physical manner. Adelmar huffed out an angry breath, but she fell silent, though she pointed at Renna with an expectant look.
Renna simply wished to disappear.
He said something to Adelmar, his voice a low rumble, and she frowned, glaring at him for another moment before giving a low nod, her finger waggling in insistence.
Renna swallowed, knowing all of this had been a terrible mistake, and she flinched when Machrus approached, his hand settling on her forearm. He did not look at her, his grip did not in the least hurt, but it was apparent how much he resented this intrusion on his work.
This was not at all what she had intended. She just wanted to come to know a few of the Marzon women, hopefully finding that they could be as talkative as the female colonists, utilising their knowledge when her husband refused to share in his.
And instead they were harassing him into a terrible mood.
She looked down at the ground, at the grenpeets surrounding them, the larger ones giving suspicious glances at the newcomers and the rest, all wiggles and enthusiasm, seemed to find them a grand addition.
She supposed they were rather sweet in their way. If she stopped looking at them as a potential source of violence. It was strange viewing a creature like that, the Wastes housing nothing that would not maim or injure if a respectable distance was not observed.
“Better,” Adelmar affirmed, a smile overtaking her glower at Machrus. “You can understand, yes?”
Renna nodded, forcing herself to look up at the older woman. “We didn’t need to come here. We could have just...” she made a vague gesture between them, but suddenly felt foolish. She had only the barest comprehension of how this process worked, and perhaps a touch from Adelmar would not have proved sufficient.
Adelmar kept smiling at her, though this time it was a little pitying and Renna glanced away again. She didn’t want that. She only wanted to know her place here.
“Are the boots satisfactory? If you find them not to be, I will bring you something else.”
She wriggled her toes in her new boots. They were roomy, enough that if ever she had a pair of socks like Machrus’s they would fit comfortably for added warmth. But they were hers, and she loved them, even as a niggling of guilt went through her that the others would still have the limited resources they always did.
That was the choice they had made. They wanted land and safety and togetherness, and she would receive new boots and a husband that didn’t seem keen even to look at her.
“They’re lovely,” Renna assured Adelmar. “Please thank whoever made them.”
The woman beside her smiled and stood a little straighter. Machrus released a strange sound but when she looked at him, his face was as neutral as ever. “My husband is the crafter,” the woman said, glaring briefly at Machrus. “Lorken will be glad to hear that his new sister is pleased with them.”
Renna’s brow furrowed, not understanding. Adelmar cut in, shaking her head dubiously as she did so. “Have you told her nothing?” she asked seemingly to Machrus, who made no effort at a reply. She sighed deeply, forcing another smile on her lips. “They are brothers, you see, our husbands. Edlyn here is married to Lorken, the middle of them.”
Renna flushed. She had not thought to ask if he had any other siblings, and she hoped her ignorance had not proved an insult. But neither woman was glaring at her, those apparently reserved for the silent man beside her. “Edlyn,” she greeted, bowing her head. “I am sorry we did not meet before.” True and untrue. She was not the least bit sorry that Machrus had taken her here straight away that first night, but she would like to know more of his people. His brothers. She had yet to hear of any sisters, but already his family was larger than most she had known. Women gave birth to many, but few survived. She nibbled at her lip. Now was not the time to think of such things.
“I am working,” Machrus grumbled at the women, staring down at the grenpeets that were beginning to swarm again, their earlier trepidations beginning to fade.
Adelmar gave him an exasperated look. “We would not need you at all if you had—”
He abruptly dropped his hand away and took with him her ability to understand, Adelmar’s eyes narrowing further as she regarded them both. Her words were clearly angry, her eyes flashing and her hands clenched, and it was clear why she was the leader’s wife. She was tempted to touch Machrus so she could hear for herself, but he had clearly withdrawn for a reason and he already seemed disgruntled enough without adding her disobedience to it.
Edlyn was glancing at her with sympathy, her hands rubbing at her long skirt, the hem embroidered with delicate stitchwork of leaves and flowers. Renna looked down at her tunic and leggings, the cut fine and the fit fairly good, and wondered if she could ever learn to use a needle in such a way.
The argument seemed to abate, though their tempers were still high as her husband glared at Adelmar and she glowered back, but Machrus took hold of her wrist his grip soft enough, even if his annoyance was plain.
“We will not keep you,” Adelmar said regretfully. “We will return in a few days. Perhaps take you back with us for a time? There are many anxious to meet you.”
Renna glanced to Machrus, his jaw tightly clenched, his eyes settled on the grass. “I don’t...”
“We will come,” she insisted, her eyes returning to Machrus. A warning perhaps? “We will ask you again then, after you have had time to think upon it.”
Renna smiled a little thinly, her anxiousness mounting. She longed for company, more than she had ever thought she could, but she did not relish the thought of going with them to their trees, and she did not want Machrus upset with her either. But they could come and they could ask her, and she would be brave and be certain she had asked Machrus beforehand.
Assuming she could wheedle an answer from him by then.
The women said their goodbyes, both giving her searching glances before they departed, off to fetch their children and return to husbands that cared for them. Not for the first time, Renna felt a tinge of longing, an ache for what she would never have, and she felt suddenly colder. She wrapped her arms about herself, Machrus already having returned to his work, his focus entirely on the grenpeets about him.
She stood there, wondering if she should have returned with Adelmar and Edlyn, but she was here now, her attempt at giving him time alone thwarted at the other women’s guidance. She watched him for a time, the gentle yet firm care he took when handling the creatures, checking their legs and feet, rubbing away any clumps of dirt that clung to them.
She drew a shaky breath before approaching him. She did not kneel beside him, his greater height making it easy enough to reach out and touch the back of his neck, his hair falling forward enough to allow her access. He stiffened, but did not look at her, inspecting the underside of a small grenpeet, picking out a burr from the considerable fur.
“I am sorry they troubled you,” she told him. “I did not know they intended to find you.” He grunted, but said nothing more. “I tried to speak to them at the house but couldn’t.” She chastised herself for that last bit. He never did like it when she stated something obvious.
She could see just enough of his face to catch the grimace that crossed there. “You did no wrong,” he told her, though his tone was not terribly comforting.
“Why,” she found herself aski
ng, the words tumbling out before she could think better of them, “can I only understand when we’re touching? Why couldn’t I touch Adelmar?”
He was silent for a long while, enough for her to feel foolish for asking, for her to feel resentful of how he could ignore her every question. She sighed, about to withdraw, when at last he answered her. “It is... you will not be touched by another.”
She frowned. “What?”
He huffed out an annoyed breath, releasing the grenpeet with a pat and standing. She took a step backward, his presence suddenly too close, her hand coming to play with the hem of her tunic. He rubbed his neck where her fingertips had been, and she worried he found her touch repulsive. His expression did little to reassure her.
But he reached out and took her hand, and she almost wished he wouldn’t, not when their conversation only left her even more confused.
“She touched me when I first arrived,” she reminded him. It was only her cheek and barely a brush at that, but it had been a touch all the same.
He shook his head. “She should not have. Sladec would have reminded her of that by now.”
“Oh,” Renna answered, trying to decide how she felt about that. She was only permitted to touch Machrus? For always? It was a lonely thought given his aversion to her. No comforting hugs, no congratulatory pats. Nothing to signify friendship or solidarity. Just coldness.
He was frowning at her, his eyes ever watchful. “You are unhappy.” It was a declaration, not a question.
She shrugged. She wouldn’t lie to him, couldn’t bring herself to do that, but she did not have to state the truth harshly either. “I’m... lonely. I didn’t know what I was agreeing to when I married you. It hasn’t been what I expected.” He glanced away from her, his eyes flitting over the valley, and she suppressed the impulse to comfort him. To soothe away her truth until it resembled something nicer. But her words were anxious on her tongue, kept too long by their prolonged silence. “I know you did not want to marry me either,” she blurted. “I just... I thought it would be easier. To find what I was needed for and just... do it and stay out of your way. But you don’t need me, and neither do the others, so...” she sighed and shrugged again. “So what does that leave me to do?”
Machrus shifted ever so slightly, and she wondered if it was in some sort of discomfort at her words. “You wish... to be useful.”
She relaxed. Finally, something he had understood. She nodded adamantly. “I’m not sure why you’d want a useless wife.”
His eyes flashed to hers, piercing and green—was everything green here?—and she almost hoped he would look away again. “Do you wish for me to want you?”
Her mouth went dry and before she could think of the insult she might be giving, she was shaking her head in a fervent no. She halted immediately when she realised what she was doing, worried she had hurt him in some way. She could not tell, not from his expression, and not from his eyes, but she hurried to appease him all the same. “I’d only like to help. That’s all. Burdens are tiresome things, and I’d rather you found me... tolerable.” That was a safe enough word.
“Tolerable,” he repeated, his distaste for it obvious. “You think I find you otherwise?”
She sighed, wanting to pull away, wanting to trudge back into his home with the warm fire and the soft carpets and simply embrace the solitude. It did not have to be lonely. Not if she could find some way to occupy herself. But he was still holding onto her hand, and she did not want to find out how much force it would take to dislodge his grasp. “You do not speak to me. You do not want my help, or my company. What am I to think?”
This time Adelmar was not there to receive his glower, it was merely her, untrained unprepared, not at all knowing the man who still held her hand. “That perhaps I was fond of my solitude. That I had built a home away from the others so as to maintain that solitude. Yet my brother informs me that I have a duty, always a duty, to marry you and bring you here to live, and that perhaps I was not fully prepared for all that entailed!”
She closed her eyes, none of this coming as any sort of surprise. She wriggled her fingers, trying to get him to let go without forcing him to do so, but he held firm, tapping at her palm with his thumb until she opened her eyes and looked at him again. “That does not, however, mean that I find your company intolerable.”
She smiled, a sad, rueful thing that she was certain showed all the hurt she had tucked away. “Perhaps not,” she answered, glad that her voice hardly wavered, even if she could not manage to make it very loud. “But it certainly doesn’t make me feel welcome.”
He blinked at her for a while more, and finally she managed to extract her hand from his. She felt numb inside, the grenpeets not disturbing her, her feet already moving onward as he tried to grab hold of her attention once again.
He was all she would ever have. She knew that now. She had thought it a good thing to have a husband that did not want her, so she would hurt him less to know that she felt much the same. And yet as she returned to the house, not entering but simply burying herself in her blankets in her little camp, ignoring him when he eventually came and tried to speak with her, she wondered why it hurt so very much.
And why she wished that so much of this could be different.
7. Rebuke
She grumbled at the figure looming over her when she awoke in the morning. It was early, as it always was when Machrus left his home to begin his work, but she did not know why he felt the need to hover so. Her desire to speak with him had not grown overnight, and she opened one eye resentfully as she readied her glare.
Only to notice that it was not Machrus standing there.
She yelped, pulling at her blankets and smoothing at her hair, her eyes dry and full of sleep, and she furiously blinked to try to make out who was there. The morning light was sharp as it crested the horizon, and the angle was dreadful for viewing him.
He knelt, and she scrambled backward a bit more, thoroughly impeded by her bedding. She rubbed at one eye until finally it focused, and she could make out Sladec’s form. She forced herself to relax. “Morning,” she croaked, not caring that he wouldn’t understand. The leader was kneeling in her little camp, and it would be wrong not to address him. She fussed with her blankets again, embarrassed, though she was not entirely certain why.
It was likely because of his frown, the way he looked about him with such disbelief, and a sinking feeling settled in her belly. She didn’t know what to do, not when apparently it would be the deepest offence to ask for his hand so she could ask him directly what was wrong, so she sat in silence, hopeful—but not truly believing—that all of this might be some terrible dream.
She noted immediately when his expression shifted from dismay to anger, and she flinched when he stood suddenly, his strides long and purposeful as he made his way to the door. His fist made contact with the wood three times, a slight pause in between, and she wondered if the knock signified anything other than a brother’s, a leader’s, displeasure.
She climbed out of her bedding, her bones still as stiff as the first night she had laid there, foregoing putting on her boots. She kept them hidden under the edge of her blankets lest any thieves come and try to take them from her, and she spared a glance in their direction simply to ensure they were still covered properly.
The door opened, Machrus’s face showing no surprise, only his own rising ire as his brother immediately began to berate him. Renna stood, feeling awkward and uncertain what her part in this should be. She took a few careful steps forward, not wanting to intrude.
Only to stop short when Sladec gave Machrus a hard shove, pushing him back inside the house.
Renna wished Adelmar was there, with her sympathetic looks and kind smiles—someone to assure her that all would be well.
But there was no one, and her husband was arguing loudly with his brother, their words meaningless but the anger in them clear all the same.
She crept toward the doorway, ready to bolt if necessary. Sladec ha
d his hand on Machrus’s shoulder, his grip tight and restraining, Machrus glaring at him with every bit of loathing within him. She had to suppress another flinch, refusing to imagine what she would have to do to earn such a look herself.
She hadn’t meant to make a sound, didn’t really know that she had, but suddenly Sladec’s eyes flickered to hers, his expression softening if only marginally. He said something else to Machrus, his tone a bit more civil, before he pointed toward her. She took a step backward, wishing they would stop doing that to her—angering her husband and then trying to bring them together.
It was cold, the suns not yet warming the air even a little, and she wanted the warmth of Machrus’s home, of the fire. But there was nothing appealing about being in the confines of his dwelling when the two brothers were in such a temper.
Machrus approached her with one more resentful look at his brother, but she took another step back and then another. His lips thinned but he continued on, following her back outside. She wanted to run back to her bedding, to huddle there until this day disappeared and another took its place, but he seemed determined to follow his brother’s command—why should he begin now?—and she knew there was little point in fruitless running. She forced herself to stop, her own irritation mounting, so when he finally reached out and took her hand, she was ready to make a few protests of her own.
“I do not like that they order you to touch me.”
Machrus stared down at her, some of the fury leeching from his eyes at her apparently unexpected words. “They wish to speak with you.” He sighed, the resentfulness coming back into his voice. “This is how you are able.”
She grit her teeth, glaring down at the grasses, her heart still beating rapidly from the unexpected start to the day, from the way they had frightened her. “You could teach me,” she offered lamely. She doubted he would agree, not with the amount of time it would take. She was never a brilliant learner in any case. It had embarrassed her, before, when others grasped a concept quickly, while she felt slow and dumb in their wake.
Trade (Deridia Book 2) Page 9
