Flann looks into the mirror

Flann tossed back the blanket and sat up. She was not the sort of woman who used sex to bend her husband to her will, but if the Good Lord had made the female body so attractive to the male eye, it was surely no sin to use it to attract male attention.

Osh slowed, and his course veered off from its direct line to the cradle and stopped at the foot of their bed. His face was all in shadow, so Flann could not follow his gaze. But she could see from the curve of his cheek that he smiled. He was watching. 

She dropped back onto her elbows, which practically obliged her to arch her back. If the Good Lord had made the female bosom to protrude so noticeably from the female torso, there was not much she could do about it, no more than about Waerburh and her talent for cutting and piecing nightgowns.

Her bodice drew tight, and Flann stretched against it, lifting and flattening her breasts. Her nipples tingled as they hardened beneath the taut fabric. She tipped back her neck…

No, no, no, this would not do – she was not the sort of woman who let sex distract her from her purpose. She relaxed her shoulders and lifted her head. But not knowing what part of her body Osh was admiring made her feel as if his gaze ran all over her at once, like hands stroking her up and down. She clamped her knees together beneath her long skirt.

Osh murmured, “Why, Flann…”

He still smiled, but he spoke with his bedroom voice: soft as his speech of every day, but deep as his grumbling when he was angry. Flann thought it the manliest of sounds.

She braced herself for whatever he would say next. Her legs shook from being pressed together. Would it not be pleasant, after all, to lie back on her pillows, let her knees fall open, and wait for him to come crawl over her? She could talk to him in the morning, or tomorrow night.

But Osh only said, “What on earth have you done to your hair?”

Flann laughed. With the tension suddenly lifted, she hopped off the foot of the bed like a spring uncoiling and crashed into him, breast against breast.

“I couldn’t sleep, so I braided it!”

He tweaked a lock of hair that dangled from one of the rolled braids. “Is ‘braided’ what you call this?”

“Fie!” she giggled, all out of breath. “I did it sitting up in bed, and I could not spy the mirror from where I sat, so it’s no wonder if it’s lopsided!”

Osh stepped behind her and pointed her at the mirror.

“Lopsided? No. It is quite the same catastrophe on either side.”

Flann laughed until she was obliged to clap a hand over her mouth to avoid waking Liadan. Osh leaned over her shoulder, and she felt his silent laughter in soft puffs of breath on her bare neck. When she tried to stand straight, her body curled into the warm curve of his, and he wrapped his arms around her waist, just beneath her breasts. This would not do at all.

She arched her back until his arms slipped away, and babbled to distract him. “When I was a girl, I would be washing my hair just before bed and braiding it wet!”

Osh wrinkled his nose and turned her towards the light so he could find the tucked-​​in ends of her coils of hair.

“Braiding it wet? That is not good for hair.”

“That’s what Gorman always said! She would be spanking me with my hairbrush when she caught me! But I wanted pretty waves and curls, such as Cat and Eithne and Connie have.”

Osh sighed. “And Connie cries for hair which is straight and smooth like yours. It is something about girls I never understand. If you stop to try to look pretty like other girls, and try instead to look pretty as you are, you will be twice beautiful in one half time. Do I make the same braids for you and Rua?”

“No…”

“That is why. Flann’s hair is not Rua’s hair. Flann’s face is not Rua’s face.”

He dropped her braid and laid a finger alongside her jaw to tip her face into the light. Flann could not stop a smile.

“This, I like.” He lifted one of the stray locks away from her cheek and let it lightly fall back. He traced the slope of her chin with his fingertip. “Sharp face, soft hair.”

Flann dipped her head out of stupidly grinning shyness. Osh’s hand returned to the unraveling end of her braid. His fingers were freshly stained sallow and vermilion. He was painting again, and that was one sign that things were coming right with the world.

“In the night,” he added in a warning tone. “If some other elf sees these braids, my reputation is ruined.”

Flann laughed, and Osh finally stopped pretend-​​scowling long enough to give her one of the funny smiles she had fallen in love with.

“Ach, Osh…” She touched his bare arm, and his skin prickled with gooseflesh beneath her fingers. She looked up into his face.

His expression was serious now, and his gravity was not pretend. He shook out the last of her braid on one side of her head, and his hand combed through her hair, deliberately caressing her cheek and neck as it slid by. His palm was hot and lingering. This would not do, not at all.

“Osh!”

He drew back his hand and lifted the braid on the other side. “Mmm?”

“May I ask you something?”

Flann made her voice soft and small, and Osh responded by making his grave and deep.

“Is this the something who prevents you to sleep?”

“Aye.”

He unraveled the last of her braid. This time he did not stroke her cheek. “You may ask.”

“First I want to tell you something, and please don’t be angry at me.”

His gaze skimmed over her eyes like the shadow of a cloud, but he did not hasten to assure her that he could never be angry at her, as she had thought he might.

She quavered, “I went to see Cat today.”

He turned her towards the mirror and fluffed out her hair on both sides of her head, scrutinizing the effect to avoid meeting her eyes. “I would not be angry at you for going to see your sister, Flann.”

“I know… but because I never told you till now…”

“I knew. I asked Aengus to offer to take you, if he had the time.”

“You… you did?”

“Do not be angry, because I did not tell you.”

“I’m not… But why did you ask Aengus?”

She spoke ever more quietly, and he responded by making his voice quieter still, in a race to a whisper.

“I do not want to prevent you to see your sister.”

“But why don’t you take me, Osh?”

“Ah!” He stepped back with one foot, turning his body away from her.

“The poor heart of her is breaking,” she said. “Paul will never see their baby, and she’s fearing you never will either…”

“I shall see her baby, and I shall see her any time she likes, so long as he is not there. She knows that.”

“But she wants you to see Paul, too! That’s being the most important thing, to her! It’s been over a week now – ”

“Ah! A week!” He stepped back until he ran into the painted footboard of the bed, and then he crossed his arms and leaned on the edge of it, as if he expected to be there a while.

“Osh! Your own son!”

Osh’s face hardened, and his voice with it. “I do not forget I am his father.”

“You cannot refuse to see him forever!”

“I do not say forever.”

“But when, Osh? When? What must he do?”

“I do not know when. I do not know what must he do. But he must do it alone. I will not help him.”

“But, Osh! Your son!”

“Ah!” He flung up a hand between his face and hers. “Mí níma! I know he is my son! I have a daughter, also! I was certain – certain she would die!”

He held out both arms before him, curled around an imaginary weight. He still leaned steeply against the bed, and Flann could sense the muscles of his belly and chest tensing beneath his shirt to counterbalance the broad gestures of his arms.

She could see drum-​​taut tendons ridging the backs of his hands and arms, too, and she knew he was straining inside to counterbalance a surge of anger she could not see. She understood she had spoken too soon.

“He knows, Osh,” she soothed. “He’s grieving sore for what he’s done…”

“Ah! For what – for what he’s done – ”

Osh lifted one of his hands to his forehead. His entire arm shook until he clamped his hand over his face, and then he squeezed his temples with such force that Flann feared he would crack his own skull.

He choked. “Not for – what happens!”

He hissed through his teeth, and his face went from red to purple. Flann wondered how she might intervene without provoking an explosion. Just when he looked as if he would burst, he sighed shakily and folded his arms again. His face drained to pink. His leaning body swayed with the liquid rigidity of a snake lifting its head.

In his deepest, manliest voice he said, “I explain to you about Paul. I know how he feels now. He is suffering. He cannot live with himself. And I know what he wants. He wants to be scolded and punished. He wants to hear some excuses for him. He wants forgiveness. He cannot live until after this… this ceremony thing he makes me do. And then!”

Osh tossed his head and pretended to dust off his hands. The bed frame creaked and wobbled from his jerky gestures.

“Nothing! Same as before. Do you understand?”

Flann murmured, “You mean he doesn’t learn from his mistakes…”

“No! Worse than. He does not get wise. His heart – it does not get heavier with every time. Every time, after he suffers a while–he suffers – he feels clean.”

“He has a clean conscience.”

“Yes!” He squeezed her shoulder, and Flann sighed in relief at having been of some help. “That is the good word! That is what he wants from me.”

He lifted his hand, folded his arms again, and looked away. His voice sank back into its cold and lordly depths.

“But I will not give it this time. He lied to me. He made me watch my daughter dying. And while I watched, already he only thought of himself and his punishment. Even now, it is all he thinks.” He shook his head. “I will not clean his conscience this time so he can think of other things, as if nothing happened. He must learn how to live with himself now.”

Flann nodded and stroked his arm with her palm. She did not raise gooseflesh this time. His muscles were hot and rigid, and swollen veins snaked up the back of his arm. Flann still worried about her sister, but Cat would have to wait. Now she had a husband to calm.

She whispered, “I understand.”

Osh stared past her. “He must learn how to live with the monster he became.”

Flann shuffled her bare feet over the tiles and straightened her shoulders, lifting her breasts high in her bodice. Osh did not look.

“He might be lucky to be blind,” he said, speaking as if to someone who was not there. “He does not have to see himself in the mirror.”

Flann turned her head to follow his gaze and saw that he had been staring into his own reflection all along.

“Osh!”

He looked at her, but he did not seem to see her. He blinked a few times, and the eyes that had stared through her finally focused on her face.

Flann shifted her shoulders and twisted her hips just enough to feel her nightgown clasp her curves. She wanted to remind herself of her own warmth and solidity, as much as to remind him.

He lifted her hair from her shoulder and let it slip through his fingers. “Smooth as water,” he whispered. “Beautiful.”

Flann choked on a sobbing laugh and wrapped her arms around his back. Osh gently enfolded her in his. He still leaned against the footboard, and all down the length of her body she felt the trembling tension in his muscles, holding them both upright.

She leaned, and his strength absorbed her weight. She lifted one foot off the ground, then both. The bed frame creaked, but he simply leaned farther back so that she would not slide.

Then she pressed her face against his neck and pinched his earlobe between her lips. He took such a deep breath that her arms were loosened, and he drooped slowly backwards as he sighed.

The bed frame squawked a last time, and they flopped onto the deep pile of horsehair mattresses, feather beds, and thick robes of knitted wool. Flann giggled and shivered until he pulled her head firmly down and kissed her.

Even lying flat on his back, the muscles of his abdomen were taut and hard. Even as he gently smoothed her hair out over her back, Flann could feel the coiled-​​up strength in his arms.

Once, months ago, she had nearly released it. Even now, when he made love to her, she thought could feel its tension rippling through his body. One might have said he kept a monster caged inside. At times it almost frightened her. It excited her, too.