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Chapter 16 – Hearth and Home
Metheus
Luella suspected that I was the answer to her prayers. Suspected. She could not be sure; I was confident about that, at least. What I was not ready for was the urge to confess to her who I was. What I really was.
It was tempting, just as she was tempting. It had never happened to me before, this spark of interest in feminine wiles. On my way to the fields the morning after our wedding night, I could still remember the curve of her body and the flush on her face as I undressed in front of her. Maybe she was the answer to my prayers; all those years that I wondered why no woman had ever aroused a particular passion in me. Suddenly, it came in full force. Or was that it?
Twenty-eight summers and I had never made love. Not even partaken in the rutting my companions chose over love. It was considered pitiful for a woman, but what about a man? I was no longer protected by the familiarity of Prozeus. I was in a land where I was a strange foreigner. They did not know how much odder I could get.
I knew what constituted lovemaking. I had seen it with my own eyes, heard the moans, and listened to my friends’ boasting. However, I knew that what one knew with their mind did not necessarily translate to what they could do.
My new wife knew more about letting her passions rule her. She also initiated the possibility. A woman like that would find my situation humorous. I did not think I could handle having her laugh at me when she realized my inexperience.
But the soil always gave in to me. It was a lover welcoming my touch every time. No complaints. No bitter sighs. Definitely no laughter there. Whenever nobody was watching, I would caress its surface and absorb the heat. In Arrowspear, it meant a voyage. I would unleash some heat on Ruzata’s inhabitants to give them warmth during their frigid winters.
This time, it was different. The heat was overwhelming, not just the soil’s but also Luella’s. I had nowhere to discard what I took. So, it kept on building inside me, and perhaps it was why I was beginning to feel things.
I needed to leave.
But I had a wife now, and leaving would be frowned upon. Perhaps I could visit Cathrona and the other northern domains if they had not yet been warmed by the drought.
“Metheus, I cannot wait to see Arrowspear. I have never been there,” Luella broke into my reverie. “I cannot believe that I will see it in a few days.”
But perhaps there was no opportunity to visit other domains.
We were walking in the courtyard because she insisted so. She said we had not courted, but we could do it even now that we were married. I tried to ignore her warm arm linked into mine as we walked, playing the part of the happily married couple. I was even dressed as a Mogochislenian, though she would not dare cut off my braids. They would remain, whether they displeased her or not. Mercifully, she did not seem to mind them and was delighted with my obedience in terms of clothing. I told her that Arrowspear men were not ashamed of their bare chests, but she embarrassed both by saying she alone should see me naked now that we were married.
Luella could not even control her mouth. And yet, people often referred to her as the quiet one. Mm.
My wife did not know just how much I wanted a beautiful married life, at least when I was young. My father and mother were very much in love.
They were my hearth and home, the fire that burned in my chest so that I did not need to take others’ own to make myself feel.
My thoughts returned to an ordinary day at home with my mother and father. Perhaps, it was not quite as ordinary because it was one of the last few happy ones we had together. My mother was heavily pregnant with Rowali, and we were all thrilled.
“I cannot wait to meet my sibling,” my teenage self had said.
“I believe you will be the best big brother in the world,” my mother predicted, rubbing her belly with pride. She had a beautiful, ruddy glow on her bronzed skin.
“Well, I am a lot older than most big brothers,” I quipped.
“My darling, our life would be so complete when the little one arrives,” my father said as he sat next to my mother in the solar. He edged towards her and embraced her with one arm. He placed his other hand on hers, the one caressing the swell of her belly.
It was our favorite place to stay, where we talked about everything. They treated me like a grown man even when I was very young.
Everything was like a fairy tale for my parents, King Doro and Queen Erani, until it was not. I remembered how my mother sat in front of the window by the solar. Her eyes had taken a faraway glaze as her slender fingers gripped the sill.
“Mother, what is it?”
“You are a good boy, Metheus,” she uttered, her voice taking on a distant sound.
“Mother, what is wrong?” I asked more insistently. There was something wrong, and I could feel it.
She started shaking, but her grip on the sill remained. With her head bent backward, her eyes rolled into the sockets. I was already much bigger than her then, but she frightened me. Whatever was happening to her chilled me to the bone.
“Father!” I screamed, but my feet were rooted in place. “Father!”
One of the guards heard me, and I ordered him to find my father. Soon, he was there, holding my mother close to his chest. Whatever it was began to abate, and she turned to me with a smile as if nothing had happened.
