Legend of the Storm Hawks

A Garden

A Garden~

Sethlyan Callan

Glenayre, Aleron

Seth returned well past midday, his stomach rumbling. He found the usually busy kitchen deserted and followed the sound of laughter outside. He found half his household gathered in the garden.

On the day they met, Isobel told him she wanted a garden of her own. In the months before the wedding, Seth doubled the size of the modest plot beneath their chambers. No small feat, considering it meant terracing a mountainside. Seeing her in it now, pink-cheeked and vibrant beneath a floppy straw hat, laughing at a collie pup rolling in fresh-turned dirt, was worth every rock he hauled into place.

Ashlon and Milo were listening with convincing interest as Isobel chattered on about the culinary delight of some herb she was planting. Children darted about with water ladles, and servants queued with sprigs from the potting tray, taking her direction on which needed a bit of shade and which was prone to encroach on its neighbors. On the wall above, most of Glenayre’s guard had gathered to watch her.

A twinge of possessiveness prodded him to make his presence known.

“Good day, Isobel,” he called.

She spun like a child caught at mischief. It was enough to slow his steps, but she recovered her nerve and met him halfway.

“Thank you, my lord,” she said. “For the garden, I mean.”

He almost reached to brush a smudge of dirt from her cheek, but making her flinch while his entire household watched was not his best idea.

“It matters to me that you are content.”

“Contentment is a choice,” she said and blushed again. “I’m sorry. That sounded flippant. I tend to spout Daor Ranald’s pearls of wisdom at the most inappropriate times.”

Apologies sprang readily from her, as if she were accustomed to being found at fault.

“I’m sorry I missed sharing supper last night,” she said. “I didn’t intend to fall asleep before—”

“I was out later than I intended,” he said. “We will dine together tonight instead. Enjoy your gardening.”

Seth left before he could prompt another stream of apologies. Staying meant chancing another misstep while everyone was watching. He would be prompt to supper this time. They would talk. No, she would talk, and he would listen. Maybe he would play for her. Naught frightening about a man strumming a geddar.

He had the best of intentions.

But as evening fell, he sent word he would not be dining with his wife. A mare bred to Gambit was foaling early, and he spent the next several hours in the stable. By the time he left the foal, the candle flickering in the window of their bedchamber had gone dark.

Once again, he sought out another bed.

# # #

Restlessness dogged him the next morning. Sensing some sort of explanation was in order, he went looking for his wife. He found her in a storeroom, surrounded by more of her seemingly endless blue-and-gold crates.

Renny was sorting through the riotous abundance for who knew what. Isobel was nimbly climbing a ladder. She balanced on one foot and reached into the deep recesses of a top shelf.

“What are you doing? Come down from there.”

His tone flattened her against the rungs like a kitten realizing it had climbed too high in a tree.

“Stay put,” Renny countermanded. “M’lady is taking stock of the dinnerware. She brought a fine dowry with her.”

Dowry. Seth recalled wives came with bounty. Iverach wives came with considerably more bounty than most. Still, Glenayre was his. Modest, but it was his. Ours.

“You can’t throw this out.” He rescued a mug from a box of discards. “I like this one. Holds its ale well.”

Isobel started down with less confidence than on the climb up. He set the old mug aside and steadied the ladder. She took a few deliberate steps more and stalled. He plucked her off the rungs.

“I’m sorry, my lord.” Apologies flowed the moment he set her down. “I didn’t intend to throw it out.”

“If ye asked, she’d tell ye,” said Renny. “She’s giving it to someone who has more need of it than ye, m’lord.”

“Ebben Dael,” Milo said from the doorway. The scowling cook was leaning against the doorframe. The wooden leg and taut black headscarf made him look more pirate than cook.

Even one-legged, Milo would’ve been better at tracking the bear, but Seth wouldn’t ask it of him. A deserter from the Laradish navy, Milo seldom talked about the life he lived before hiding in the mountains of Aleron. He’d been assigned to a slaver ship, and Larad had used his incomparable skill to track runaways until what the duty demanded of him drove his conscience past its breaking point.

“The young Ebben, he is to marry soon,” said Milo. “My lady shares what my lord does not need.”

Seth would be hard-pressed to find fault with her intentions. He glanced around again at the crates full of jewel-cut crystal, silver cutlery, and gold-rimmed porcelain. He supposed he could grow accustomed to it, for Ebben’s sake.

“Sounds reasonable,” he said. “I leave you to your inventory.”

“You are welcome to stay, my lord,” said Isobel.

Seth could almost imagine she wanted his company, but hours of sorting through dishes and goblets struck him as unappealing. Besides, it was keeping her occupied.

“A fence needs mending,” he said. “Maybe another time.”

Chapter 27