Their gazes met and locked, but they did not speak to each other.
It was as before, when she watched him and he noticed her watching.
By the time she finally felt as if she trusted herself to visit him above the stables, she was stunned to find that there was a guard at the door of the stables, a man from the village named Nardion, who was sleeping stretched out just inside the doorway when she opened it.
She shut the door quickly and quietly so as not to wake him.
She backed away and she looked up to see Dathor in thewindow above the stables, looking down at her.
This was why he had never come in to see her for all these months, she realized. He could not get past the door of the stables at night.
The following day, she was sitting out in the sun as Dathor went to and fro between the barns and the stables, calling out to the other servants there. At one point, he stopped directly in front of her. He didn’t look at her, but he called, very loudly, “I’ll go and check to see how the east field looks, then.”
He turned to look at her, and she knew this was a communication.
He disappeared.
She waited.
Finally, after she felt no one would notice what she did, she got up and made her way to the east field. She was still limping a bit, her ankle quite stiff in the mornings and evenings. Celedin thought it was funny, saying that a lame wife was just as good as one with two good legs, that all the important parts of a woman were still intact, and that he might like it if she had trouble running away, anyhow.
Celedin chortled, “Easier to make her hold still, hmm?”
“Don’t speak, Celedin,” said the steward. “This is why I said you must wait to marry her. You talk like a stupid, disgusting boy. Grow up, would you?”
Celedin would narrow his eyes and gaze at the steward with hatred writ all over his face, and the steward would be too interested in cutting his meat to even notice.
When Dathor saw she was unsteady on her feet, he came over and offered his arm. “Sorry,” he said. “I should not have made you walk so far. It was broken, was it?”
“The doctor said it hardly mattered if it was or not. I must stay off it regardless,” she said.
Dathor looked around, at the keep in the distance, at the field in front of them, which was in dire need of weeding, and then into her eyes. “I would have come to you.”
“No, I saw last night that you could not get out.”
“He always falls asleep,” said Dathor. “I have thought,often, I might step over him and he would never wake. But then I must get all the way into the keep without disturbing anyone, and—”
“No, it is all right,” she said.
“I’m glad you’re healing,” he said.
“What did they do to you?”
He shrugged, looking away. “It wasn’t that bad, actually. Just a beating. And now, there is some ledger somewhere where the steward keeps track of how much I cost him as a boy, and how I must work it all off. Supposedly, if I ever make it there, I’ll be paid a wage.” He laughed under his breath, but he didn’t sound amused, only bitter.
“You could go,” she said. “Without me, I mean. You could leave and set off on your own—”
“No,” he said.
“Well, if you are waiting for me—”
“No, no,” he said, shaking his head. “No, we’re not going anywhere.”
She seized his hand. “We cannot stay. My father has all but sold me to Celedin. The steward says we’ll wait until he is twenty, which is three and half years or thereabouts, so we have time to plan—”
“Stop this.” He gently tugged his hand out of hers. “This isn’t why I asked you to come and see me.”
She eyed him. “You’re still angry with me for the things I said out there? I was only hungry, and it was a very long time ago. You cannot hold that against me.”
