I did not know what to call him, but I had been given this tiny chance to leap from mortality and into his arms, and I dared not lose it, so I leapt with him not knowing where I might fall, only that it would be with the husband I had married thrice: once by law, once by vow, and once more by choice made in death.
To my startled surprise, he leaned me against the pillar of the pavilion and took his time unraveling my hair from the rest of its braid as ifthatwere the main concern rather than that it was cool and he was soaking wet and mostly unclothed. But he did not look cold as he combed his fingers through my hair and then asked me, “Would you wear my token in your hair, wife of mine?”
“I’ll wear whatever you like, my Bluebeard,” I said, scraping his rough beard with my fingernails boldly.
“I crave your touch, wife. Do you require further invitation?”
“I rather think I do,” I said shyly, watching his eyes as they warmed to me and the lines of his face as they tightened in a half-smile.
“Did I not vow to you the dedication of my body?” His eyes darkened as he watched me and his throat bobbed with a swallow. Was he — somehow — nervous, too? Though he was Bramble King now and resurrected from death?
“But was that you as a man, or you as a king, or you as a river, or you as a kelpie?” I asked. “And how many husbands am I to have, precisely?”
“Sixteen wives were required of me, and only one of my own desire,” he said, his expression turning sober, though I shivered when he said the word desire and licked his lower lip in emphasis. “Who are you to demand that you will be gifted fewer husbands?” He paused and made a sound like a growl before finishing his thought. “But know this, Izolda my wife, all of them will be me.”
“And what will these husbands do with me?” I asked boldly.
His grin was like lightning. It lit his face fast and violent. “Whatever I wish.”
And this time when he kissed my neck, he nipped me with his sharp teeth, and when I gasped he shifted so suddenly that his movement was more like a striking snake than a mortal man, and he caught the gasp of my lips in his, and laughed as he kissed me long and deep, trapping me against the pillar so that I must submit to his kisses and the strength of his steaming body against mine.
I was happy enough to allow him this, and to add to it my own embrace and another boldness as I ran my fingers lightly over his cheeks and up to the tips of his ears and then threaded them through his hair and when he gasped and shuddered and his eyes lit with delight, I caught his gasp and stole it back and looked him in the eye, as I demanded more kisses with urgent lips and drew him closer still into my embrace.
“I have waited long centuries for this, bound to one path and one passion,” he gasped when I finally allowed him to pull free, “and like my victory in all else, I have made plans to savor this, every moment, and every touch. So we must wait a little while longer, for many things require my sovereignty to set them right once more.”
“I thought you were master of time herself,” I gasped, lifting a leg to catch his hip and pull him back to me.
He laughed low and deep and bit his lip, “And so I am, wife of mine, but have you ever feasted a week long and learned to pace yourself a bite at a time? One small morsel of each delicacy?”
“I fear I have not,” I said wryly. “My life in the mortal world was far more frugal and your world has fed me only on pain and fear.”
“Then I shall teach you,” he said with a decadent smile that told of pleasures to come. “And you shall attend well and learn from me how to savor each taste to its full extent.”
I swallowed as he stepped back and the sight of him from head to toe made my cheeks hot. “I’m savoring now, I think.”
“But only for a moment, for I fear we both present poor rulers as we stand and must clothe ourselves more ably for what is next,” he said but he did not look ashamed of his current mode of dress as he strolled out across the pavilion and up the steps to the great rooted tower that presided over the waterfall. I followed him, admiring him as he walked and climbed, and worrying that perhaps I did not have his ability to savor a meal over many days for my own thoughts were hot and sharp and fast and very unbefitting of a virgin bride — if I could be such a thing now that I was seven years and one death married.
The tower was sparsely appointed, but he led me to the uppermost room and there we found three things. A pool, his mirror — which I had thought was gone forever — and a long empty bed with a ring set on it.
Bluebeard gestured to the pool and when I balked he said, “Surely, it will be more embarrassing to walk around smelling mortal than to bathe before your husband.”
I had no idea what it meant to smell mortal.
“Orderly thing of designations and logic, this must appeal to you,” he said lightly but he turned his back and bowed to his mirror. “We’ll be needing fitting accouterments, mirror.”
I stripped out of my homespun woolen dress and underthings as quickly as I could, taking advantage of his turned back. I was already briskly bathing myself in the warm pool when he began to dress, and I could not help it, my eyes roamed over him, admiring him as he outfitted himself in strange clothing — no underthings at all, because I supposed a king required no modesty, breeches made of something that seemed to be dragonfly wings woven into cloth. They fitted like fine silk and had he been less of a man or lower than a king he would reasonably feel shame in such strange attire.
The jerkin to follow was spiderweb and both it and the more scandalous portions of his breeches were masked by a crisscross of hand-thick belts that both accentuated his lithe figure and were used to sling various swords and knives and even a pair of curved sickles, about his person. His doublet — when it was produced — was lined with rabbit and sewn all over with what appeared to me to be the moment he was placed in the land of death, his wives surrounding him in the embrace of the jutting ribs. There was even a small Grosbeak picked out as a centaur and the brooding figure of Death.
I gasped at it and could not tear my eyes from it even as he cloaked it with a short cape made entirely of living moss, and then took out a sickle no larger than my finger and set to work trimming his beard until it was nearly clean shaven, revealing only enough of itself to remind us it had been there until moments ago. I was still staring when he turned his boyish grin to me and let his eyes light at the sight of me.
So enamored was I by the light in his eyes, that I forgot what he was seeing for a full breath before sense came over me and I felt the heat of my blush fill my face and climb up my ears.
“Shall I be dressed so gorgeously?” I asked, trying desperately to stay cool under his careful scrutiny.
“I care not,” he said, flicking an idle hand as if to dismiss what I might wear. “But I’ll not deny that it will delight me to know you wear this flesh beneath your garment, for I missed it when you wore the flesh of another.”
“The hand, especially,” I said dryly, flexing my flesh hand that once was a skeleton and stepping out from the pool to see what the mirror had spat out for me.
