Flann sees the secret

Flann took a short, sharp breath – and another, and another – until through short, sharp breaths she had filled her lungs and could not breathe.

Hurriedly she unwound the recent months, flinging loops of hours and entire coils of days off the skein, wondering: When? and How? Before or after she had dared pronounce the word? Before or after he had laughed at her heart’s desire?

Osh had not left her side since he had awoken. He could not have procured himself a ring on the way to the abbey. There was but one explanation: it was only a ring he chanced to have in his pocket, a happenstance, not meant for her.

Her breath poured out of her in a gust. The past three months of yearning trepidation lay heaped and tangled at her feet, and Osh might have seen the raw, bare love beneath if he had looked up at that moment.

But he and the Abbot were already profiting from her silence, already spinning off the uncertain future. Not until Aelfden turned to her and laid a hand on her arm did she fully realize that the future they were preparing was hers.

For a moment he only looked mournfully at her, and when he spoke she knew he was not saying what he wanted to say.

“There is no prior tie that binds you nor other impediment?” he asked softly in his slow Gaelic. “Liadan’s father…?”

Sometimes, in the first months of his absence, Flann had tried to comfort herself with the idea that Brude had in some way already bound himself to her – that once, among the Latin blessings she had scarcely heeded or the solemn Crosses he drew over her body, he had not sealed her away from him but rather to him.

Then she remembered, shuddering, that even if he had, the seal was broken. She was free.

“He is dead,” she breathed.

The Abbot inclined his head. His hand slid down her arm until it closed over her hand. “Have you any mortal sins to confess?” he whispered.

She understood then with a sudden, stabbing clarity that he was preparing her for a Sacrament.

She shook her head, and then, panicking, she hurriedly whispered her humble little penitent’s prayer, as she had used to pray before Brude, her head bent so close to the priest’s she felt his breath on her bare neck.

The Abbot released her hand to make the sign of the Cross over her with his. He spoke gravely, with none of the lilt of Brude’s Latin when he used to absolve her of the sins he helped her commit: “Ego absolvo te a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”

Liadan laughed excitedly for a moment, and Aelfden turned, smiling, to take her from Osh’s arms.

“What a grand time you shall have at Mass when you are older,” he murmured, “if you laugh every time you hear Latin.”

Flann choked and held her breath in superstitious fear that the Abbot would thereby guess Liadan’s father had been a priest. But his fond smile did not fail as he passed the baby on to her, reverently, as a man who was accustomed to handling sacred things.

“Mama must be holding you now,” he explained. “Osh and I need our hands, and all we shall ask of Mama is her finger.”

The ring! Flann bit her bottom lip to clench back a sob. She did not want the ring, but the ring was all she would have. Oh, she would sleep alone no more, and the men of the village would not whistle at her when she rode by; she would be warm and well-​​fed and protected; but her lonely soul would be left to shiver and starve by a husband who did not believe she had a soul at all.

After so many months of mild mockery of religion and grumbling about priests, she knew it had cost Osh no more to become a Christian than to put on a new cloak. It was only an extra layer of magic to shelter him against a demon enemy. The ring was a round piece of metal with nothing inside, like a coin with all its worth punched out of the center. The Sacrament of Matrimony was no more than a magical halter he might use to hold her if a demon came to take her away.

Osh slipped past the fire with his usual grace to stand at her side, but the blue of his eyes was hidden by his dark lashes. His mouth made him appear calm, but there were uncharacteristic wrinkles between his brows and across his forehead.

Flann felt her lungs filling solidly with air again, crushing her heart against her ribs. Perhaps it was not merely nothing to him – perhaps it was a sacrifice. Perhaps he was not taking the wife he wanted, but protecting a lady in distress – a coldly noble act – one she could never repay.

She longed to protest, but she could not breathe.

Meanwhile Liadan stretched and sighed and snuggled into her cloak, clutching a fold of it in her chubby hand, and breathing deeply as if she loved even its smell. The corners of her mouth were tweaked up into a contented smile that had always seemed wry when Brude still wore it.

The Abbot leaned close to the baby and murmured, “We shan’t be long, for we are all tired, dear one. We shall save the long wedding Mass for you, when you are grown.”

Flann was startled by Osh’s low voice at her ear. “I hope you will be there to marry her, Father.” She knew him well enough to hear his slyly teasing smile.

Aelfden lifted his head and looked up at him, still wearing the fond smile he had given the baby. Remarkably, it remained. “So do I.”

Osh explained, “Because I want to see whether you can make this long Mass and not smile, if Liadan is laughing every time you say a Latin word.”

At last Flann managed to let out a gasping breath.

Aelfden laughed softly and touched the baby’s head. “I shall be there, God willing – for I shall like to see whether you can give your daughter away and not cry.”

“Give her away?” Osh gasped. “Never. Some man will have to work very hard, a long time, to earn her. Seven years, like Jacob.”

“Ah,” Aelfden smiled, “you have been doing your reading after all.”

Flann did not understand. She twisted her head around to read Osh’s face behind her, but he only rolled his eyes and shrugged, as if he were ashamed to admit he had ever read anything at all.

“I only mean she is worth quite a lot.”

“So is her mother,” Aelfden said.

“I know it.”

“I do not give her to you lightly,” the Abbot continued. His eyes were still mild, but he no longer smiled. “She has no father to make you work seven years, but neither has she a father to protect her and care for her.”

“I know it.”

“You must not take her lightly.”

“I do not.”

“Very good. Then I ask you, Osh…”

The Abbot paused and bowed his head a moment, gathering his fraying thoughts all together in one smooth thread as he did before administering any Sacrament. Brude had once advised her to watch him then, for it was a beautiful and holy thing.

He looked up again and asked, “Will you have this woman to your wedded wife, to love and to honor, to care for and keep, in health and in sickness, keeping yourself to her only, as long as you and she shall live?”

At last the question had spun around again on the slow wheel, longer and grander now, and not from her lips, but the same. Flann’s breath panted in and out, rapidly shaking her into dizziness. She had sworn to herself she would never ask the question again. She had forgotten the priest would.

Osh’s low voice at her ear said, “I will.”

The priest nodded slightly and continued as if nothing extraordinary had happened. “Flann, will you have this elf to your wedded husband, to obey and to serve, to love and to honor, to care for in health and in sickness, keeping yourself to him only, as long as you and he shall live?”

Flann squeaked, “Aye…” Then, as Aelfden turned back to Osh, she remembered herself and gasped, “I will!”

Aelfden nodded and took her free hand into his for but a moment before placing it into Osh’s. For the first time since they had left the house, they stood face to face with nothing to do but each look into the eyes of the other.

Flann’s timid, defenseless love pressed itself far back into her shadows, fearful of being met only with fond indulgence, or polite respect, or simply scorn. Osh’s face was white and grave and noble, seeming to seek nothing in hers.

“Now you shall say as I say,” the Abbot instructed Osh. “‘I take you now, Flann, to be my wife, to love and to honor, in the name of the Lord.’”

Osh repeated after him, word for word, replacing only the priest’s inflections with those of his own gently purling elven accent. “I take you now, Flann, to be my wife, to love and to honor, in the name of the Lord.”

Aelfden separated their hands and immediately clasped them together again, closely enough this time that Flann felt the tip of Osh’s longest finger against the pulse of her wrist. She closed her eyes and turned her face aside in despair, for now he would know the frantic, panicked beating of her heart.

“Flann,” the priest said, “you shall say: ‘I take you now, Osh, to be my husband, to love and to obey, in the name of the Lord.’”

She could not lay the priest’s calm over her own words, and they gushed out, the English sounding almost incomprehensible to her own ears: “I take you now, Osh, to be my husband, to love and obey, in the name of the Lord.”

She was so confused that she bent her knee to curtsey in the middle of her speech, as if she and Osh were simply being introduced by a mutual friend. She was red and hot with mortification, but no one seemed to have noticed. Even the baby was quiet and grave.

The Abbot held out one spidery hand to Osh. “The ring, if you please?” he asked softly.

Osh dropped Flann’s hand and plucked a ring from his pocket with an ease and assurance that even the grace of his fingers did not fully explain.

Aelfden laid the ring upon his prayer book and bowed his head. “Oremus.”

Flann dutifully lowered her eyes, though she had scarcely glimpsed the ring. It had seemed only a plain golden band, fine and small enough for a woman’s hand – but it was only a ring. Perhaps he had traded some painted box or basket for it, to a man or lady who had no coin. It was only by chance he had it. It was not her ring. And she would never have another.

As Aelfden prayed on in softly-​​spoken Latin, Liadan began to pant and kick and reach for the book and ring. Flann opened an eye to peek at her and saw her smiling. She wondered what Brude would have thought of this great amusement taken in the Abbot’s fine Latin. Perhaps Osh was wondering too. When she peeked up at him, he was looking anxious and ill.

At the end of the blessing, after the last “Amen,” Liadan kicked up her legs and squealed merrily.

Even in the middle of a Sacrament, Aelfden paused to smile at her. He passed book and ring to his left hand for a moment so he could stroke her soft head with the other. “Bless you, child.”

Liadan squealed and smiled as broadly as Brude’s broad mouth could smile.

“Amen,” the Abbot said to her. “That was a fine, joyful prayer.”

Flann laughed weakly and looked up at Osh. His smile was weaker and more weary still, and almost before their eyes had met, Aelfden distracted him by putting the ring back into his hand.

As he explained to Osh what to say, Flann turned her attention to her baby, composing the fat limbs Liadan had splayed with her antics into a straight, neat bundle, just as the Abbot composed his thoughts.

Then she settled the baby on her right arm. Flann would need her left hand to receive the ring.

This time Osh took her hand without being helped by the priest.

He took a sharp breath and began, “With this ring I wed you, with my body worship you… with my… riches… endow you…” His voice was slowing and lowering, like a stream of water trickling out to nothing. Without looking, he slipped the ring onto the tip of her thumb. “In the name of…”

“The Father…” Aelfden prompted after an awkward silence.

“The Father…” Osh repeated softly. He pulled the ring from her thumb and passed it onto her first finger, snagging it gracelessly over each knuckle as he pushed it more than halfway down. At last he looked at their hands – or perhaps the floor.

“And of the Son…” Aelfden whispered.

Osh said nothing, but after a moment he looked up at Flann again. His eyes were wide with desperation and startlingly blue behind a thick sheen of tears.

Flann opened her mouth to give voice to the animal cry of her wounded heart, but by chance, by happenstance, she had just exhaled, and her lungs were empty. She could not breathe.

At last, she thought, Osh had realized what the Sacrament of Matrimony meant. It did mean something to him. It meant something he did not want to share with her.

“And of the Son…” Aelfden said aloud.

Osh slowly pulled the ring off her finger without repeating the words. The hand that held the ring dropped to his side, but the other did not let go of her hand.

The Abbot folded his own patient hands over his prayer book. Liadan began to squirm. Flann managed one ragged breath.

Suddenly Osh stepped back and lifted the ring to her head, holding it up before one of her eyes. She saw his face through the hole in the center – white and wet, exhausted and unshaven – seeming so unreachably distant at the end of his long arm.

Could it be that sweet, gentle Osh was taunting her with what she could not have? Could she have been as cruel to him in her anguish and her confusion as he was being to her now?

Now she thought she would have been glad to settle for the ring. She would have been glad to have his strong body sleeping beside hers – to have him to warm her and feed her and protect her. It would have been enough merely to have been allowed to love him. She could not bear to be without him now.

Osh said, “Look!” His voice was tense with agitation, but it was not cruel.

Flann tipped back her head until her one eye could focus on the ring itself, casting his distant face into a blue-​​white blur. The shaking of his fingers made the firelight dance over the gold, tracing every contour, but the rolling flashes of yellow light skipped over a tiny figure graven deeply into the inner surface of the ring. Gradually they revealed its form: two curved strokes coming together in a point at the bottom.

Into the empty space inside the ring – where it would be pressed against her finger, hidden from sight for as long as he and she would live – Osh had carved a heart.

He must have seen the recognition cross her face like a flash of light. He lowered the ring and looked into her eyes with nothing between them.

“There is a secret message for you to read. Only once I let it show.”

He could not have graven a heart into gold on their way to the abbey. As gradually as by the light, she understood that it was her ring.

She had not even had the time to dry her tears of heartache, and now her tears of happiness mingled with the last of them in her eyes and slipped together down the same wet traces over her cheeks.

Somehow Osh seemed to know the difference, however, for at last he smiled his old, funny smile, and he wiped her tears away with the backs of the fingers that still held the ring.

“Do not cry, now, my darling,” he said. “You will give Liadan some ideas.”

Flann giggled foolishly. “If Liadan cries we shall have Father say a Te Deum and that will be the end of that. I’m thinking it’s – ”

She hesitated, as her frail, defenseless love always did before it leapt. But it was Osh, she reminded herself. He loved her. It sufficed to trust in him.

She lifted her own hand and brushed the backs of her fingers over his cheek. He had not been crying, but his skin was flushed and damp.

“I’m thinking it’s your own self you fear will be crying if I keep it up.”

“Oh, no!” he groaned. “Do not say so to this Abbot. Every time I spend a quarter hour in a room with him, I end up to cry.”

Flann let her hand fall in surprise. She had not known Osh had ever spent a quarter hour in a room with the Abbot.

“And every time I say I shall not,” he added.

“You did not say so this time,” Father Aelfden pointed out.

“That is so,” Osh agreed. “But an elf has his pride all the same. Tell me, Father…”

He leaned his face close to Flann’s, and though he spoke to the Abbot, there was a twinkle of complicity in his eye for her, as though they had both been a little naughty.

“Do I spoil everything with my small interruption? Do we start from the start or from the middle again?”

“You may begin again with the ring,” Aelfden said.

“Then… you must tell me what to say again,” Osh said sheepishly. “I just forgot everything I ever learned right now.”

Immediately Aelfden said, “With this ring I wed you, with my body worship you, with my riches endow you, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

Osh gently touched his fingertips to Flann’s cheek, then to Liadan’s, then took Flann’s hand in his.

In that short time his funny smile softened into faint wistfulness, and his face smoothed into a look of such pure love that anyone could have read his secret message at that moment.

And Flann, to her blushing shame, was grinning until her cheeks ached. She bit her bottom lip between her teeth, turned her face this way and that, and even let a few hesitant tears spill over, but nothing could efface that smile.

“With this ring I wed you,” Osh said, “with my body worship you, with my riches endow you, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

This time the ring slipped easily from thumb to finger to finger, in spite of Liadan’s chubby hands snatching at it as it went.

Aelfden said, “Amen,” and Liadan immediately squealed and laughed at what was becoming, to her, a very funny joke.

The Abbot ignored her for the moment and began to pray in Latin. Liadan listened dutifully, but she reached for his hand as he made the sign of the Cross over her mother and new stepfather.

Osh had joined Flann in grinning like a fool, which was some relief to her, though not to her cheeks.

The Abbot switched to English to say, “May the God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel unite you, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

He paused, and they all looked at the baby. She grinned and squirmed, but she was dutifully silent.

“Amen,” Aelfden said quickly.

Liadan squealed, threw up her arms, and laughed her funny, panting laugh.