Chapter 7

It was the end of the harvest and just a few days after the Equinox. The lion's share of the work was done and everyone was looking forward to a break and a chance to kick up their heels. Kristabell, Fenna, and Nessa had gone down to the large bathroom, with the huge boiler and big bathtubs, that was behind the kitchens. The people of this world were not like medieval peasants. They understood the importance of proper hygiene. Soap and hot water were always on hand for proper washing but in terms of bathing there wasn't the same full on preoccupation with it as what existed in Kristabell's world, and it was okay if a proper bath only happened a couple times a week, but tonight was a special occasion and a proper bath was a must. The three of them scrubbed each other’s backs and rinsed each other’s hair with diluted cider vinegar to make it clean. They cut their fingernails and made sure they were spotless then snuck up to Fenna's room to get dressed. 

They towelled their hair then brushed it until it was dry and shining except for Nessa who had a head full of copper curls which she carefully combed out and arranged while damp. Then it was time to actually get dressed. Generally speaking Kristabell liked the clothing from the trunk that had been brought down for her. It was comfortable, earthy and simple, yet beautifully worked. There was one dress that was nicer than the others, long cream linen with green embroidery. The colour wouldn't be great on Kristabell but it was nicely cut and it would still be pretty. In the end she never even got a chance to try it on. Fenna and Nessa giggled as they pulled a different dress out of the closet. It was a soft golden pink, fine linen dress with a full skirt that would reach her ankles. “This used to be my mother's.” Nessa told her. “She gave it to me to cut down for you last week. She said it was the dress that she wore the night our father asked her to be his wife.” 

This brought on an uncontrollable fit of giggling from all three of them. Even Nessa, who was usually so poised, was having a hard time regaining her composure. Kristabell had had a hard time warming up to Nessa the first week she'd been there, but she'd realized that there was no reason to be intimidated by the tall beautiful redhead with her sardonic manner. Sarcasm and dry wit were Nessa's forte, but she never directed them at Kristabell with the exception of once telling her, “If I didn't like you so much I would tell you that you were dull for giving me so little opportunity to make fun of you, but as it is I can't even think of a good insult to direct at my brother for fancying you. Oh, look. I've made you blush. Well, at least that's something.” 

Fenna helped Kristabell into the dress, doing up the laces at the back and firmly drawing in the waist that was heavily embroidered with gold, green, and costly indigo silk thread. It had gathered cap sleeves and the band of embroidery on the waist followed the line of the slightly plunging embroidered princess neckline. On the hem and sleeves was a narrow band of blue silk ribbon. Not enough to make the dress look fussy but enough to add to the over all quality of fineness. It was beautiful. Kristabell had never in her life had a reason to put on a dress so fine let alone own a dress so fine. Nessa did her hair leaving most of it loose but french braiding the front then looping the braid into a coronet and tucking pink wax-dipped rose buds into the braid. Fenna passed Kristabell a little pair of soft green, dyed leather slippers. “Here. I outgrew these before I wore them out.” Kristabell sat on Fenna's bed and slipped on the little shoes, then watched as Nessa did Fenna's hair in beautiful upswept braids that were  elegantly coiled on the crown of her head, then the sisters put on their own dresses. Fenna looked like a goddess in her heavily embroidered and pin tucked, cream on cream gown which made her eyes glow dark. She looked at least four years older with her hair up like that, and Nessa was like a regal forest dream in a fine moss green wool dress tied with a wide coppery red silk sash. Giddy and giggling they set out down the hall to have a look at themselves in Bronwen's full length glass mirror. It was one of only two in the whole castle. Fenna knocked.

“Come in,” Bronwen's voice drifted calmly from inside. Kristabell had never been in Fenna's parent’s rooms before. They were comfortable and elegant with an outer sitting room, a dressing room and a bed chamber. Bronwen was in her dressing room. Tall and fair with long golden brown curls and grey eyes Bronwen didn't look like either of her daughters. Kristabell wouldn't have called Bronwen beautiful, but she was so elegant that it didn't really matter. She sat and smiled as Fenna asked, “Mum, can we take a wee peak in your mirror?”

Bronwen laughed, “You can take more than a 'wee peak'. Stay and visit with me for a while. I feel like I've hardly seen you three all week.”

Kristabell felt her eyes tearing up as she walked into the room with the two young women that she was beginning to think of as her sisters. To be included by their mother only increased her feeling of love for these people. She wondered if Bronwen knew how much that 'you three' had meant to her. 

“Stand still, let me look at you,” Bronwen was saying to them and Kristabell found it difficult to stand still and be observed but when she looked into Bronwen's face it was as if time had stopped. The expression there made no sense to Kristabell. There was a wistfulness that Kristabell understood but behind that, veiled, was grief and sadness. An old loss and . . . compassion? Heartache? And then it was hidden once more, and, back to her usual elegant self, Bronwen rose and embraced each of them starting with Nessa and ending with Kristabell. “Thank you for the dress,” Kristabell mumbled as she was enclosed in a motherly embrace.

Bronwen leaned back and looked into Kristabell's face once again, “Well, it seemed fitting. But that dress does need a necklace.” And she released Kristabell and strode over to a dresser. Kristabell had put in the little moonstone earrings that she'd been wearing the day she'd come over to their world but the ring on its chain hadn't looked right with the dress, so she had tucked it into her bodice. Fenna and Nessa were both wearing beautiful pieces of jewelry, chalcedonies set in finely wrought silver with gold accents, but the necklace that Bronwen turned around with was something else entirely. On a solid gold chain hung a cut oval sapphire that caught the light and glowed a strange and distant blue. It was encased in a fine filigreed bezel and suspended from the chain, not from a single bail, but from either side on small filigree clasps. Then, suspended from the sapphire on a loop that was gracefully disguised as a leaf was a glowing baroque pearl. “It's from the old country. I want it to be yours,” Bronwen murmured as she clasped it around Kristabell's neck. “None of my children have blue eyes. This belongs on you. There. Go look,” Bronwen said closing the clasp and stepping back. Kristabell looked in the mirror. She hadn't known what to expect and she wasn't quite prepared for what she saw. She hadn't seen more than just her face in over a month and she'd been so busy that even then, she had only looked to make sure it wasn't dirty, but now . . .? The dress and the necklace brought out her eyes in a way that was truly beguiling. She stared at herself. She'd grown in the last month. Lost that little bit of baby fat around her face that had made her look so young. She would always be tiny but she didn't look like a child anymore. With the pearl glowing at her throat and the laces on the dress cinched tight so that the tops of her small breasts showed just a little, she looked . . . desirable. She'd never expected to see herself that way and two things struck her as she looked in that mirror. One, that she wasn't a child anymore. And two, if Rowan liked her for more than just her personality, then there was a good reason for it. Kristabell fingered the sapphire with its deep glow and whispered, “Thank you. Thank you so much.” 

After Fenna and Nessa had had a chance to have a good look in the big mirror, Bronwen sighed and said, “As much as I'd like to stay up here with you three all afternoon, I know that I'll be cross all evening if the tables aren't set up properly. Let us go down now and help set up the courtyard.” 

They spread good tablecloths over the tables that had been arranged according to Bronwen's specifications. The younger boys helped bring every chair, bench and stool that they could find out of the castle. When Gareth first spotted Kristabell he hooted and yelled, “When Rowan sees you he's gonna . . .” But that was as far as he got because Fenna had caught and muzzled him and was swiping at his bottom and saying, “Your brother will behave like a gentleman and so should you.”

As Fenna and Kristabell decorated the tables with arrangements of dried flowers, baskets of  apples and candles, Fenna looked at Kristabell seriously and told her, “A lieutenant from the king’s army showed up late last night. Apparently there's trouble. I wouldn't be surprised if Rowan has to leave in a day or two.”

It was the first time that Kristabell had felt the full impact of loving someone and then realizing that they might not always be there. Her heart, which had been so light, like a butterfly in the sunshine, sank like a pebble through dark water. She didn't want him to leave. She didn't want to stop seeing his face every day or stop feeling his hand under the table. She was too inexperienced to let her mind wander much passed this, but she didn't want whatever was happening between them to stop. Fenna saw her face fall and said, “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring you down. I should have kept my mouth shut till tomorrow.”

“It's alright,” Kristabell forced a smile, “I knew he would have to leave at some point, I just . . .” She trailed off not sure what else there was to say. She hadn't seen Rowan at dinner the night before and she hadn't seen him all day either. She was beginning to worry that he wouldn't make it to the gathering.

People were arriving from the village and the surrounding farms. People who Kristabell was beginning to know a little, although beyond the immediate household she had been introduced as a cousin from Bronwyn's side of the family. All of the families who had a hand and a stake in the wellbeing of the land were coming together to celebrate. It was more like a giant potluck at a hippie commune than a medieval feast and dinner was going full swing with beer and mead and all manner of delicious food being passed around by the time Rowan showed up. Kristabell had been having a nice time but she'd felt a little like she was all dressed up with no place to go without Rowan there. Like yesterday's party balloon, just a little deflated, and then he was there. She turned her head to see him standing there, watching her from a distance as she sat with Fenna at the end of a table. She put down her cup, rose from her seat, and went to him. He was dressed more finely than Kristabell was used to seeing him, and the cream coloured tunic he wore did the same incredible things to his eyes as the colour did to Fenna's. Rowan looked very serious. 

“I was worried that you weren't coming tonight,” Kristabell said softly.

“Not seeing you tonight would have been the greatest tragedy of my life. I could have stood here and looked at you all night and it would still be the best night of my life.” He leaned forward and kissed her. Kristabell didn't even think about the people watching as he put his arm around her and lead her back to the table. “I've never seen you like this before. You look like a dream,” he whispered in her ear.

“Tonight feels like a dream,” she answered. “A good one.”

They ate and danced and talked and really didn't have a care for anyone else that night. Kristabell laughed and screamed in Rowan's arms as he swung her around in the wild folk dances that Fenna had spent the week teaching her, and after the dancing there were torches lit and candles glowing on all of the tables. The beautiful blown glass lanterns that were hung at intervals throughout the courtyard contained lights that flickered and danced like magic. “How are the lanterns lit? They're so lovely,” Kristabell sighed. They were sitting close together in a quiet corner. The music was softer now and the tables had been moved back into the centre of the courtyard. The sky was dark and there were little nests of blankets all around the edges that contained sleeping small ones. Adults were seated around the tables, sampling the deserts, drinking and talking quietly but contentedly. Every so often a burst of raucous laughter would erupt from the group of youths huddled around a table at the other end of the courtyard. The evening was cooling off and she shivered as Rowan answered her in a low distracted voice. “Magic,” he said pulling her closer to him and looking into her eyes. Kristabell wanted to tell him that she had never been so happy, never felt so whole and wonderful as she did at that moment. She opened her mouth, and words completely failed her. “Rowan . . . I . . . Tonight . . .” She stammered and suddenly Rowan was very serious. He stood and, taking her hand, pulled her with him to the staircase at the corner of the courtyard and up to the gallery above from which the blown glass lanterns could still be seen. He turned to her, pulled her to him and then without beating around the bush told her, “Kristabell, I love you and I can't imagine leaving here without you.” He took a deep breath and then asked, looking intense and uncertain, “Would you be my wife?” The words rushed out of his mouth as if he couldn't keep them in another moment and Kristabell, who wanted to cry out, “Yes! Yes! A million times YES!” was having the exact opposite problem. She couldn't get a word out. She knew her answer. She had known for the last week that he was going to ask her and the truth was that it hadn't taken much thought in the end. The only true happiness that she had ever known was here in this world, with these people and, in particular, with Rowan. She wanted a life with him, whatever that would bring. She had pushed aside the part of herself from that other world that told her she was too young and that they were moving too fast. It was perfect, like a fairy tale. She wasn't a child, and this was what she wanted. She was sure of it.

Rowan’s arms were around her waist. She knew he was waiting for her to answer him. She tried to say “yes,” but her tongue was still frozen. She looked into his eyes, those dark beautiful eyes, and finally managed to nod and smile, and then she stood up on tip toe and kissed him and he kissed her back and they kissed . . . and kissed . . . and kissed. Rowan had pulled her against him. She had never felt anything like that before. It was like they were melting together and he smelled so good. Eventually they paused to draw breath and Kristabell blurted, “YES!” and they laughed breathlessly, maybe a little hysterically. 

Rowan drew her over to a bench. “I have something for you. It used to be my grandmother’s and it was the only ring in my mother's collection that I thought might be small enough for your fingers.” 

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring. It was a simple band of what looked like platinum—too bright to be white gold and too clean to be silver—with a channel of bright gold down the centre. He put the ring in Kristabell's hand. “I'm not sure which of your fingers it will fit.” 

She looked more closely at the little ring. There was a delicate engraving of scroll work and raven feathers in the gold. It was, she realized, the same pattern that decorated the archways and pillars inside the castle. She slipped the ring onto the third finger of her left hand. It was exactly perfect. Everything. The ring, the moment, sitting there with Rowan. And then, like it really was a perfect dream, Kristabell reached into the bodice of her dress and drew out the chain with the ring on it. She removed the ring from the chain, it was warm from being against her body, and she placed it in Rowan's hand. Kristabell had never worn the ring on her own hand for one simple reason. It was far too big. It was a man's ring. “I want you to have this,” she told Rowan. “It was my mother’s.” It was the only thing she had to give him, other than her love. 

Rowan looked at the ring. It was, in fact, somewhat similar to the ring that he had just given her only heavier, and opposite, gold with a channel of platinum. It too had an engraving on it and this was, of all things, rowan branches, leaves, and berries. Rowan looked at her, so many feelings mixed up there in his eyes, love, longing, a strange sadness that twisted her heart and made it ache for him. He slipped the ring onto the same finger on which she now wore hers. It fit. They sat for a moment, stunned, looking into one another's eyes, dark brown into deep blue, then Rowan took her hand and said gently, like a question, “Come with me?”