Paul considers the season

Paul tried to creep silently out of the bed, but it seemed as if Cat had grown elf ears since the baby’s birth. Now she woke at the merest whimper, and she could hear the baby squirming in her swaddling from all the way across the room. Perhaps farther, since she and Una had never yet been separated by a greater distance than that.

Certainly there was no hope for a big elf rustling over the mattress right next to her.

“Paul?” she quavered. Then a hint of panic entered her voice and her head lifted off the pillow. “Una?”

“Una’s fine, Mina, by God’s grace. She’s sleeping. Go back to sleep.”

He climbed over the foot of the bed and felt around for his clothes. Somehow everything in the room had changed place since the baby had arrived.

“Where are you going?” Cat mumbled drowsily.

“Downstairs. Vash is here again.”

“Vash? What does he want now?”

Paul found his clothes and pulled on his pants. “I don’t know, probably forgot something. Go back to sleep now, or you’ll wake Una, and then you’ll be sorry.”

Cat rolled over beneath the blankets, grumbling herself to sleep.

Paul dressed in haste, but he paused beside the cradle to lay his hand on his daughter’s swaddled body. He wanted to warm himself with the love he felt in her presence: to kindle his heart with it and carry it downstairs like a torch, for he did not believe Vash had merely left something behind.

He stood until his heart glowed, but the chill of fear closed around him again as soon as he broke away to hurry downstairs.

It was too early for Vash to have returned home and quarreled with his father. He was supposed to stay out all night, pretending to be at the lake.

Had he gone to the lake after all? Had he seen the Bright Lady? Had she told him something about Una?

Paul rushed down the stairs, heedless of any toys, boots, or prowling cats that might have been standing on a tread. By the grace of God his little dew-​baby had survived her three seasons in the womb—surely there could be no more danger now!

He skidded out onto the rug in time to hear Edina crow, “There he is! I told you he’d hear Vash’s voice and come down himself, and it wouldn’t be worth me getting dressed over, but what do I know, I’m sure!” She flapped her hands against her hips and sighed.

This gusty comment, Paul concluded by process of elimination, was directed at the guard who had let Vash in. Vash had been chatting with the two of them before Paul had come down, but that meant nothing. Making polite conversation was a duty princes did.

What troubled Paul was Vash’s failure to call out a sheepish greeting now that he was here. Vash had not simply forgotten his gloves upstairs.

Paul started across the rug, feeling for members of Noah’s scattered wooden flock with his toes.

“Vash?”

Vash did not answer. O God, what had happened? Paul found the back of the bench with his waving hand. He was almost there.

And then Paul’s father breezed in from the opposite stairs. “Why, Vash!” he said dryly. “Decided to stay the night after all?”

Vash laughed. He turned his back to Paul just as Paul stepped up behind him.

“Osh! I didn’t mean to wake you. Only Paul.”

“You forget Paul has a baby who can do that now.” Then his voice softened, and Paul heard him pull Vash into a hug. “Eh, my boy?”

Vash laughed again, but it was a little too high-​pitched, a little too rapid, like the breathing of an injured animal trying to hide its wound.

“I didn’t forget. I even hoped he might be awake.” Vash pulled out of the hug abruptly. “I’m sorry to have woken you. I only wanted to talk with Paul.”

Paul’s father hesitated a moment too long before answering, leaving Paul to conclude that he was studying Vash’s expression, or exchanging some sort of look.

“In that case,” he finally said, “I believe I shall go find a dog who wants to take a walk. Dina, would you like to go with me?”

“Might as well,” Edina said, “seeing as I’m already up and dressed.”

She padded out of the corner, casting a brief chill as she passed between Paul and the fire.

“It is lucky for you,” Vash said to Paul’s father, “she did not hear that question as it sounded to me.”

He was trying to joke, but his breath was jerky, and Paul heard a quiver run over his bottom lip.

And he heard his father turn towards the door, either unaware of Vash’s distress, or graciously pretending to be.

“Finding a dog to walk?” Paul’s father asked as he and a cackling Edina went out together. “I could not even think that as it sounded. I do not know who will be more happy to walk out with Dina, I or the dog. What do you think?”

Edina said, “That depends which one of you I put the leash on.”

Vash laughed weakly as the two of them went out through the great door.

“She’s a funny little thing, isn’t she?” he asked Paul. “Reminds me of Dara and her mother.”

Paul only whispered, “Vash?” and touched his friend’s back.

He scarcely had the time to feel Vash’s coat strained tight over his shoulders before Vash whirled around and clenched him in a crushing hug.

What had happened? Vash had been so pleased and so affable only a few hours before. Paul had not reached the summit of his happiness over Una’s birth until his dearest friend had held her in his hands and pronounced her beautiful.

Now Vash was back. Now his coat smelled like must and mold, and his hair smelled like a swamp. Now he was digging his chin into Paul’s shoulder and gripping handfuls of Paul’s shirt until the seams creaked and strained. Paul felt no sympathy for himself in that desperate embrace. He felt an animal writhing in pain.

Then Vash barked a laugh and pushed him off. “Sorry. There were so many people here.”

“Vash…”

“Did I wake you? I’m sorry.” His voice was turned away now, towards the fire, and Paul could almost hear the hair falling down to hang before his face. “How are your girls?”

“They’re well. They’re sleeping. Vash…”

Paul kept trying to touch him, and Vash kept shying away.

“May I add a log to the fire? Might we sit here a while?”

“Of course. Vash, where have you been? You smell like bog water.”

Vash stooped over the fire just in time for Paul’s hands to pass helplessly over his head. “I went swimming,” he said from knee-​level.

“In a bog?”

“No, in a pond.”

A log thunked onto the fire, and sparks hissed upwards. The shattered embers threw out an agreeable heat, and Paul considered the season. It was only three days past the start of spring. Even the shallowest ponds were still frigid, and slimy with frog eggs besides.

“That can’t have been pleasant,” he grumbled.

“It wasn’t.”

The next thump Paul heard was Vash flopping down on the rug before the fire. Paul lifted his foot and prodded the smoking log into place before stepping over Vash’s legs and sitting down beside him.

At last Vash did not pull away from him. They sat close together, Paul’s bare shoulder brushing Vash’s coat sleeve, and Vash’s knee bumping Paul’s thigh. A cool shadow of regret passed over Paul’s heart, in spite of the blazing love it bore for the two ladies upstairs. This should have been his place in life: here at Vash’s right hand.

“And you came back to tell me all about it,” Paul prompted gently.

Vash started up straight and shoved his hand into his coat. “Yes,” he said, rustling around. “I wanted to—to ask you a favor.”

He laid a folded cloth in Paul’s lap. Paul picked it up and felt it over. It was wool from the men’s sheep, but it was very fine. It was too small to be a garment, at least for a grown person. O Lord, not another baby blanket to join Cat’s mountainous collection? Paul did not understand.

“What is it?” he asked.

He lifted it to his nose and scented a chastely floral perfume that brought Lady Gwynn to mind.

Vash said, “The elf Iylaina’s scarf. I wish you would return it to her.”

Paul’s hands flopped into his lap. Iylaine’s scarf.

“What are you doing with it?” he asked warily. “I thought you…”

He’d thought Vash had burned all his sad little mementos. He had not even known Vash possessed such a treasure as Iylaine’s scarf.

“She dropped it on the downs,” Vash said quietly.

“And you found it.”

“I went back for it.”

“You—”

Paul’s mind caught up with his mouth, and he stopped himself and sighed. He folded the scarf over once more and tossed it up onto the bench behind him.

“You met the elf Iylaina tonight.”

Vash was picking at something with a thumbnail: his boot cuff or the seam of his pants. Paul laid his head down on the cushion and waited.

Finally Vash muttered, “I did not expect it either. If I had known…”

Then he sighed and rubbed his long hand over his face. Paul heard the rasp of his stubble, and he revised the picture he held in his head. This was not the natty, smiling Vash of a few hours before, but a haggard, careworn face, whose creases in certain lights already made him the shadow-​twin of his father. Paul would not need eyes to watch Vash growing old.

“…I would have gone anyway,” Vash concluded in a hoarse whisper. “Because I was able to take her home afterwards. The old woman is with her now. Paul—”

He glanced back, and his voice steadied, as if he had just remembered he wasn’t alone.

“You must talk to Alred,” he said. “The old woman is with her tonight, but someone must watch over her. She took me to the barn, you see. To the barn…”

He took a gasping breath, but he seemed unable to go on. Paul lifted his hand from the cushion and stroked his thumb up and down a seam on the back of Vash’s coat. It felt dry and dusty. From this unspeakable barn, he supposed.

“…to the barn where her mother Elfleda hanged herself,” Vash finished in a gust. Then, in another voice, he whimpered, “I didn’t know. I knew how she died, but… I didn’t know. I didn’t know where.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Paul soothed.

“And she climbed into the loft, and she was playing with the ropes that were hanging there, and she—she wasn’t herself, Paul. Somebody needs to tell Alred. He will understand. He will know what to do.”

Paul squeezed Vash’s shoulder and scooted his head a little closer on the cushion. “You’re worried about her, aren’t you?”

“Yes! Very worried!” Vash gasped out.

Paul sighed. The bond was broken, but it would take some time for Vash merely to get over the habit of caring so much about Iylaine. And Vash had a compassionate soul. He would have been equally distraught if any of his cousins or friends had seemed suicidal. But he might not have felt it so personally.

“Do you want to tell Alred yourself?” Paul asked. “We could go tonight.”

Vash didn’t answer. Instead he hugged his leg and rocked himself against the bench.

“He would want us to wake him,” Paul pointed out.

“I cannot tell him,” Vash whispered. “I know I should, but I cannot.”

“Well, in that case…”

Paul yawned, suddenly aware of how exhausted he was. When was the last time he’d had a full night’s sleep?

Still, he would do anything if it would help Vash feel better. For that matter, he felt sorry for Iylaine. In the space of one season she’d been left by the three men she loved.

“I shall go after you leave,” Paul offered, “or send my father when he returns. What did she say to you? Did she say anything in particular?”

Vash lurched with a crack of bitter laughter, startling Paul into lifting his head from the cushion.

“She said she loved me! Through all these moons—even after last summer—she still loves me. She’s always loved me.”

Vash chuckled, but it was a lurid sound that made Paul’s skin creep.

“There. Is that particular enough for you, Paul?”

Paul sat very still, like an elf approaching a wounded animal in stages. Vash picked and snapped at something he held or wore. Paul could not see what, but he could feel the angry jerks of Vash’s body through the cushion against which they both leaned.

“She didn’t even ask me how I felt!” Vash said. His attempt at a belligerent tone was spoiled by the quivering of his lip. “She didn’t—listen—to anything I said.” Vash gasped and spluttered and tried not to sob.

Paul finally dared to lift one arm and stroke Vash’s hair. It was coarse and grimy from dried pond water.

“She had her things she wanted to say, I suppose,” he whispered, stroking and soothing. “She never got a chance to talk with you. She had her things she wanted to say to you.”

Vash doubled over and jerked his head out from beneath Paul’s hand.

“And her things she wanted to do to me!” he countered.

Paul froze again, out of shock this time. No! He refused to think of it.

But he could refuse as much as he liked with his head—the chilling suspicion was stealing through his body, standing his hair on end, turning his stomach.

Not Vash. He knew what the men liked to do in their dusty hay lofts, besides hanging themselves. But not Vash. O Lord, not Vash. Not like that.

The snapping had stopped, and Paul could sense no more movement through the cushion. He felt so blind. His heart began to pound, dreading some sort of explosion. But Vash’s next words were spoken in the tiny, shivering voice of an overgrown child—an innocent creature thrust into the body of a man.

“It was awful, Paul. It was awful. It was awful.”

Paul crept off the cushion to wrap his arms around Vash’s shoulders. Vash wilted against him, collapsing in a heavy heap.

“It’s over now,” Paul said. “It’s over now. You’re here with me.”

“Yes,” Vash whimpered. “And when I was in that loft, I was there with him.”

O Lord. O God.

Vash waited, breathing heavily through his open mouth like a tearstained toddler, sniffling in spasms.

“Who was?” Paul finally asked. But he only asked because it seemed Vash needed that to go on.

Vash’s head lolled back against Paul’s shoulder. Paul rested his cheek on his dirty hair.

“The strangest thing about him,” Vash said—and his attempt to make his quavering voice sound matter-​of-​fact smote Paul’s heart more painfully than any sob—“was how cold his breath was. His breath was colder than the air. And his m-​mouth was so hot.”

“I know,” Paul whispered.

It had been so long since they had talked about this. They had never mentioned it again. Not even when Dre had attacked Cat in her bed. Not even when he’d stolen poor little Eithne and showed another of his faces to Flann.

“He would… he would talk to me,” Vash explained. “About what I would do with my wife, when I finally got her. With Iylaina. To make me…”

Vash writhed with the effort of forcing out his phrases. Paul tried to spare him.

“I know, Vash. You don’t have to tell me.”

“I know, I know. But tonight—what I’m trying to tell you—tonight, every time a cold draft blew through that loft, by my mother, he was there whispering to me again. Whispering what she would do to me. Only this time she was there doing it. And it was so much worse.”

The words were coming more easily now, but Vash’s voice was thick with tears. Paul could not tell whether he was letting them fall or drying them behind his eyes as he so often did.

He stroked Vash’s hair back out of his face, trying subtly to feel his cheek. Vash slumped ever farther down on the rug, but he let his heavy head lay on Paul’s shoulder, turning in towards the stroking hand. So Paul kept stroking.

“I didn’t want to do it,” Vash whispered. “I couldn’t stop it. I never could.”

He sounded so lost, so tired. And Paul could hold him no closer.

“Remember?” Vash snorted in feeble amusement. “I told you I wanted to cut it off, after I got away from him. And now I wish I had.”

“Don’t think like that, Vash. It’s a part of you. You must learn to live with it. And you will. I promise you.”

Three years ago he had been bluffing when he’d made the same promise, but now he knew it was possible. With enough love, with enough gentle patience, miracles could be done. His little Una was proof of just such a miracle.

Una. Born two days after the beginning of spring. Paul considered the seasons. Spring, Summer, Autumn. It would be the beginning of winter. O Lord. O God.