Ethelwyn sees a summer fire

Late one golden August afternoon, shortly after Lammas, Mouse answered a knock at her door. It was neither Durwyn, nor Snell, nor any of the other hands; not her sister, nor one of the local gossips, nor even one of her brother’s friends. It was the last person she was expecting, and the one person she most longed to see.

The raking light brought out the faint sheen of sweat on his cheek, and she thought he must have wiped his face after the climb and then hesitated before the door long enough to have begun sweating again. Indeed, he had been there long enough that the wind on the hill had flattened his curls eastward and northeastward, just as it had done with the tall grass of the meadow behind him.

He was therefore not quite as presentable as he would have liked to have been, and he was that much dearer to her in his imperfection. Of course, she reminded herself, he might simply have forgotten that he ever cared so much about his appearance – along with many other, more important things.

Certainly he was not making himself as presentable as he ought; he had neither the joyful smile of a man greeting his beloved, nor the awkward smile of a man greeting the girl who refused him, nor the polite smile of a man meeting a stranger. He did not smile at all, but only stared at her intently, as if she were not human, and he were alone in his attempt to decipher her.

She smiled broadly to make herself feel alive again. “Wyn! You’re home! I – I’m sorry.” She curtsied. “Ethelwyn. Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon, Mouse. I have been home for two days, but am only just coming across the river today. And it’s no matter about the name. I’ve been greeted as Wyn often enough by total strangers that it no longer troubles me. At least I know your name. That is… not your real name. And I know who you are. That is… I’ve been told…”

“Won’t you come in?” she asked, hoping this was only the awkwardness of the door.

“Thank you.” He followed her inside and looked all around the kitchen with that same look of concentration.

“Can I offer you a drink? You must be thirsty after that climb.”

“Thank you.”

“You do like our elderberry wine.”

“Thank you. It is quite comfortable to be constantly coming across people who already know what I like.”

“That is why friends are so comfortable to have.”

“Did you know I don’t like spinach, for example?” he asked with a small, cold smile.

“I remember!” She laughed, but she had to turn her back to him and busy herself with the cups to do it.

“I didn’t! Young Wulf made me eat his, yesterday dinner, and there was much shock and consternation at table when his stepmother learned of it. I found it quite palatable, however.”

“That’s funny!” she said, laughing indeed. “You must have had a secret grudge against spinach all these years.”

“It’s not the only thing I like that I previously did not. A very strange thing. Also the contrary,” he murmured.

Did he mean there were things he had once liked that he no longer did? Did he mean anything in particular? Anyone? She did not dare ask.

By now he had wandered all the way across the room. “Have I been here before?”

He spoke lightly, as if he did not feel the import of what he was saying. But the air was hot, golden, and heavy, and the question seemed to hang in it, neither sinking nor rising, ugly and wrong, like a spider drowned in a jar of syrup, spoiling everything. Meanwhile he held his head high, despite the disarray of his curls, and looked around the room with a cool detachment.

“Many times,” she said.

When she lifted the jug to return it to the shelf, she took advantage of her raised arm to wipe her eyes on her sleeve. He had not been here so very many times after all. He had been a busy man, and it was a long ride, and the daylight in winter was so short. He had come rarely enough that each occasion remained distinct in her mind, preserved in all its detail like a wasp in amber. And he remembered none of it! None of it!

When she turned to him with the cups, he was just bending over the pot of orange and crimson blooms that stood on the hearth.

“Summer fire,” he murmured.

“What did you say?” she gasped.

“Summer– What did I say?” He turned to her and smiled. “I meant summer flowers. I have the impression I said ‘summer fire.’”

She set the cups on the table and clasped her hands in delight. “You did!”

“What a funny thing to say.”

“No! You called it that because my little mother always called it that!”

“Did I know your mother?”

“No! But my little mother always liked to sit in her chair here by the fire, and in the summer, since she couldn’t have a fire, my sister and I used to bring her red and orange and yellow flowers and call it her summer fire. You remembered!”

“Do you think?” He turned back to the flowers and stroked his hand over the blooms as if they were an animal’s furry flank, or a girl’s head of hair.

“I’m certain!”

“I don’t remember anything else. I might have said that because they stand in the fireplace.”

“You might,” she admitted. “Don’t you remember anything else at all?” She wanted to ask, “Don’t you remember me?”

He turned back to the room and picked up one of the cups she had left standing on the table. “Thank you.”

“Please have a seat.”

“Thank you.”

They sat, and after complimenting her wine he said, “I remember almost nothing. I remember some parts of my boyhood – my mother, a dog I used to have… and when I went home I could not believe nor even understand they were both long dead. And I remembered some boys I used to know, and when I met them as men it was difficult to accept. In my mind they were still young.”

“It must be very painful for you,” she murmured.

He shrugged one shoulder and tossed his head, and one of the most northeasterly curls fell back into place.

“Less than you might think,” he said. “The hardest part has been learning that my mother is gone. I don’t remember what it’s like to know who I am, therefore I can’t compare. I suppose it must have been comfortable, after a fashion, unless there were things I would rather have forgotten.”

“I… I don’t think you were very unhappy.”

“I was told I was.” He held his cup before his eyes and inspected the scratches on the side of it with minute attention. “I was told I had a broken heart when I fell ill. Now I wake to a heart that is perfectly intact. One wonders whether I would not have chosen this fate for myself if one had offered it to me a month ago.”

He set his cup on the table and looked expectantly to her. Despite the hot air, she felt a chill down to her bones.

“I was told I asked you to be my wife, and you refused me. I was told you did not wish to leave your brother before he was grown; and you only told me that you did not wish to marry, because you did not think it fair to ask me to wait. But I have not yet heard your side of the story.”

“That is… that is the story,” she whispered.

“In short, you made the decision for me. I do not even know whether I would have waited or not, so I cannot tell you whether you erred. I gather you regretted it afterwards?”

She could only nod.

He sighed and turned his cup around so that a new set of scratches faced him. “I suppose I should thank you for it, however. It is rather awkward to wake up and find oneself living a life that one does not remember. But it must be infinitely more difficult to wake and find oneself with a wife one does not remember.”

Mouse took a sip of her wine so that she could swallow her tears.

“Now I am trying to determine what I owe you. Sir Egelric and his lady tell me I owe you nothing: you refused me, and we had not even spoken in months. Unless we were seeing one another secretly?”

She shook her head.

“And unless we – pardon me for asking – unless we did anything that might imply a… a commitment on my part…”

“No!” she gasped, suddenly understanding. “Nothing like.”

He seemed relieved. “Very good. Her Grace the Duchess, on the other hand, believes I owe it to myself, if not also to you, to try to remember how and why I loved you.”

He leaned his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand, and he leaned closer to her as if he were even then trying to see what he had seen in her. Mouse was petrified.

“You have very pretty eyes,” he finally said.

“Thank you!” she blurted. “But I suppose it was more than that!”

“I suppose it was. I do not seem to have been a shallow man, though I was rather vain and silly.”

“I wouldn’t say that…”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Imagine waking up in someone else’s body, Mouse. In someone else’s life. I could have been a king in a castle, but I also could have been a peasant, or an old man, or a prisoner, or worse. Instead I am rather young, rather strong, rather clever, rather handsome. I haven’t made much of my life so far, at least not compared to my brothers, but I suppose I have been given a second chance. Unburdened by… whatever it is that we accumulate in living.”

He flicked his long fingers at the golden air, as if to toss off a clinging web of the “whatever it was”.

Mouse’s eyes were prettier than ever with their sparkling tears. “But don’t you think you will remember someday?” she squeaked.

“I don’t know. I am not certain I want to. As I said, I had a broken heart, and now it is repaired. And I was a rather laughable character, was I not?”

“No!”

“Now, then!” he smiled. “The Duchess even told me that I loved you because you made me laugh at myself.”

“But that’s different…”

“Perhaps. I only observe that if I stay with Sir Egelric, I shall be obliged to learn all of the affairs of the manor all over again. As long as I am starting out fresh, I might as well start out doing something better, mightn’t I?”

“But there was nothing wrong with what you were doing before! There was nothing wrong with what you were before!”

“My dear, I do not believe you have met my brothers, but you must know that they are knights. They are not stewards – they have stewards.”

“You used to be very proud of what you were!”

“That must have made me all the more laughable.”

“No! Never! You had every reason to be proud!”

“My dear,” he smiled indulgently, “there is no cause to be upset. You need not be ashamed of having loved me, in any case. I am not ashamed of having loved you. I am certain you are a delightful young lady.”

Mouse scowled in sorrowful anger. She was beginning to think he had spent too much time with his brothers – she knew how they had always belittled him, though she doubted he knew that she knew, and so she could say nothing.

He shrugged. “I simply mean to make the most of my second chance.”

“Do you mean to go away?”

“I am considering it. I have no ties to this valley. Better to go someplace where everyone truly is a stranger to me.”

“You do have ties to this valley. You simply don’t remember them.”

“Perhaps I never shall.”

“And if you do?”

His wall of cool detachment finally began to slump and sag. He lifted a trembling hand to his mouth and said, “Sometimes I want to remember, and I am afraid I never shall. And then I don’t want to remember, and am afraid it will all come back to me at any moment.”

Mouse rose slightly from her chair and bent over him, and she stroked her hand down his arm as she would have done in past times.

She had already seen him cry, and he didn’t even know it. He didn’t know what she knew about him, though he must realize she knew more about him than he did himself. He had seemed stiff and cold all this time, but she saw now that he was only frightened and vulnerable. She saw that it had been brave of him to come at all.

“You must be afraid all the time, then.”

“I am! And alone! As far as I know, everyone I love is dead. I have only these kind strangers…”

“Don’t be afraid to remember. These kind strangers were your friends, and you were not alone. You were not unhappy.”

He pushed back his chair, away from her, and stood suddenly. “I am told I was.” He walked around her to put himself between her and the door.

“You needn’t have been.” Her eyes were brimming with tears again. “If you had asked me again, I would have answered you differently.”

“I wonder why I did not,” he murmured.

“I don’t know. But I was the one who should have gone to you, in any case.”

“I wonder why you did not.”

“I don’t know, but it was the biggest mistake I ever made. And I’ve made some big ones!”

“I hear that I have been responsible for a few interesting mistakes myself. But tell me – and pardon me for asking – shall I understand that you love me still?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Then this must be very difficult for you as well.”

Mouse could only nod.

“Nevertheless I shall presume to ask a favor of you before I go. It is very foolish, so you must not feel obliged to grant it.” He was backing slowly towards the door, as if to be ready to flee in case she refused – or in case she did not.

She took a step after him. “Anything.”

“It is very foolish, as you will see, and a strange thing to ask of a lady who is a stranger to one.”

He laughed awkwardly, blushing in anticipation of his own foolishness, as he had so often done when they had been together and happy. He already had one hand on the handle of the door behind him.

“Lady Gwynn told me that I should kiss you, and that might make me remember.”

“Oh!” she laughed.

“I am told Lady Gwynn reads too many fairy tales. But I promised her I would try – if you will permit me, that is – and I am told that I am a man who keeps his word when he gives it to ladies.”

“You are.”

They had not been together long, and his kisses had always seemed an attempt to get to know her better through her lips. His kiss was just the same as it had always been, with the same slight rasp of his chin, the same nose, the same breath on her cheek, the same arms around her back.

But she waited in vain for those arms to tighten around her and tell her that he had remembered. His kiss was the same, but even innocent she knew that there was nothing behind it. Even innocent she knew that men could kiss women they didn’t love. Twelve-​​year-​​old Lady Gwynn was innocent indeed if she believed that life was like fairy tales.

“Well, it seems it wasn’t a magic spell or a curse that made you forget,” she giggled.

She dared not open her eyes to look at him; she knew she would not be able to smile if she did.

She felt his hand come up to caress her cheek, but it was no more than the caress one gave to children because they cried, or simply because they were pretty.

“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “It was a foolish idea, and cruel to you, and I should have told her so.”

“No! It’s all right. Perhaps it will be the last – time – ” Her tightly closed eyes had been squinting back tears, but now they burst forth.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

He took her hand, and she wondered how he could not remember it when his was so ineffaceably familiar to her, so long and smooth… It even trembled as it had done when he had first told her he loved her.

But he only kissed her hand, as he would have kissed any lady’s, and said, “You are a very kind, very comfortable stranger. I should like to see you again, at least once before I go… If I go, that is… If you like…”

She nodded furiously.

“Good day, Mouse.”

“Good day,” she whispered.

He opened the door and went out into the wind and the raking sunlight. She closed it and came in to warm herself before her summer fire.