Chapter 15 Part 3 | Lovers and Beloveds | IHGK Book 1
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The next day, Warin waited at a hidden intersection in the garden among the late season flowers; Edmerka had taken to walking there alone, and when she passed, he fell in step beside her. She stiffened, but did not run. "How long do you intend to stay in mourning, sister queen?" he said.
"Until I am done, brother king," she answered. "It is tradition."
"Did you love your husband so very much?"
Her startling blue eyes pinned him through the veil. "I despised him even as I loved my father."
"Your father was a lighthearted man. I am sure he would have you put aside mourning. I myself look forward to seeing you in colors again."
"Do you," she said. She pulled a little curved knife from the tasseled belt at her hips, and began to cut the asters, white and violet, that spilled onto the graveled pathway.
Warin struggled for words. He couldn't see her face through the veil, though he recognized the way she stood, the slight tremble of frustration and temper that used to run through her at the cottage. "Emmae--"
"Don't call me that!"
"Very well, then, Your Majesty." He watched her hack at the flowers. "I...I am sorry."
"Indeed? For what?" she said, seemingly intent on her task.
"For not telling you who I am, or what had happened to you."
"You should be," she said, pointing the knife at him. "You should be very sorry!" She returned to butchering the flowers. The little knife was none too sharp, and crushed more than cut the stems; the air filled with their astringent, green and somewhat bitter smell.
Her trembling increased, though whether from fury or misery he couldn't tell; it wrung his heart, and broke his pride. "And how might I express that sorrow to you?" he said. "I will do anything you want, anything to earn your forgiveness and love. What must I do?"
"I don't know if there is anything you can do," she choked. She dropped the flowers and ran back to the Keep's courtyard, her long mourning veil tangling so badly in the rose bushes that she left it behind.
After a moment, Warin bent down and picked up the discarded flowers. He tried to untangle the veil, but in the end, he ripped it from the thorns and trod it underfoot as he stomped back to the Keep, through the courtyard to the tower stairs leading to the upper hall, and finally to pace and brood in his own quarters.
"Let her come to you again in her own time, Your Majesty," came a voice at his elbow.
"I don't think she will, Teacher," said Warin heavily.
"She is wounded, and you have let the wound fester. Show her your love, but be steadfast and patient."
Warin fingered the flowers in his hand. "I waited for her to heal from a wound I gave her once. I can do it again, but I wonder if she will heal a second time."
"It is the same wound, sire," murmured Teacher.
That night as she sat down to eat in her bower, the Dowager Queen found the flowers she had dropped, in a little nosegay tied up in simple ribbons and placed atop her tray. A note beside it read:
These are the ribbons I bought with our furs. They belong to you.
At first, the maidservant thought Edmerka would throw the flowers across the room. Instead, the Queen took one long breath in, let it out, and gave the nosegay to the maid to put in water. When the flowers died, Edmerka slipped the ribbons unseen into the silk purse she wore at her waist.
Warin let a day go by before he sent another gift: a tiny, delicate wooden rabbit, the twin of the one carved into her broomhandle, and clearly from the King's own hands. It, too, went into the purse with the ribbons. She gave no thanks, and when the King inquired of her women whether Edmerka had accepted the gifts, they told him truthfully they had no idea what she'd done with them.
Undaunted, Warin sent a gift every day. He sent her a rabbit fur pillow, stuffed with lavender from the bushes outside their old cottage, and her unfinished embroidery fetched on the same trip back through the silver tray. He sent her a length of silk for a new dress, the same color as the flowers she favored in the garden, with a note: "Asters are for patience." Many small gifts he sent, none returned, until finally he sent her the ring he'd bought with their furs in the village: a simple, golden band.
That night, the Dowager Queen joined the company at dinner for the first time. She sat at the King's left hand, as was proper, but said only, "Tolerably well, Your Majesty, thank you," when asked how she did. There was some small progress: she had exchanged black for gray and set aside her veil, though she kept her hair covered in a widow's coif. Her right-hand ring finger remained bare, where his promise to her should have shone in gold.
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