It is done

Matilda’s body lay as if she had already quit it. He was still on top of her, still inside of her, but the sea-​​like ebb and rise of his breathing had slowed in her ear.

Still, he supported his weight on his arms. He did not sleep. If he slept, if he sank down upon her, he would suffocate her, she thought, and she would die.

Even so, she thought she felt her life draining out of her. She had lived again for a little while, but now she felt herself bleeding away. It was as the knights said – a rush of warmth at first, and then one grew cold, and then dizzy, and then sleepy. Sleep would be the end.

It was done. A great calm lay over her like his body. It was the blank peace of surrender. It was the calm of despair.

He would sleep; his body would lie over her like a great calm, and she would die. Sleep would be the end.

“God, don’t let me sleep,” Leofric muttered.

He rolled onto his back and pulled her with him so that she lay along his side.

“What?” she asked in alarm. This was not how it was supposed to end.

He chuckled and stroked a hand down her back. “I believe you already were.”

“What?”

“Sleeping. Didn’t you hear the bell?”

“What bell?” She struggled against him in her confusion.

“Shhh,” he soothed and tried to stroke her into her repose again. “Lauds,” he whispered. “It will soon be dawn.”

“No!” she gasped. But dawn would come again. She saw that it wouldn’t end.

“Shhh.”

He smiled down at her, and his eyes were like her father’s eyes – soft and pale and shining, and with deep folds at the corners from squinting many years into the sun.

He took her chin between his finger and his broad thumb. “Are you cold, my dove?” he asked, feeling her tremble.

“Yes,” she lied.

“Let us get you dressed and send you off to your bed. I want you to sleep a while.”

“I want you to sleep,” she said – but it wouldn’t matter now if he did.

“Not tonight, I think. But you shall.”

“No,” she said, petulant as a child.

“Yes,” he said with the indulgent smile of a father. “You don’t want to go?”

“No.”

He pulled her head down onto his chest and squeezed her. “You shall see me tomorrow night.”

“I shall?”

“You shall.”

She relaxed against him, calm at last. She saw it wouldn’t end tonight. Tomorrow night it would begin again.