Page 24 of Strange Grace
Rhun kisses her, slowly and shallowly, then kisses her nose and eyelids. “You should do that if I don’t survive too.”
Mairwen feels tears in her eyes again, angry tears for not knowing how to convince him he can’t go into that forest expecting to die. He touches his nose to her neck, breathing long and slow and thin down her collarbone. It slides under her shirt and over her breasts and she clears her throat gently. In her normal, though quiet, voice, she says, “I wish I could go in with you.”
He only laughs softly and whispers her name.
Arthur wakes up with the sun, on his pallet in the loft of the Sayer barn. It’s a small half room partitioned by old trunks and pieces of Rhun’s grandfather’s unfinished furniture. A square window faces northeast, though the tall pine trees on this side of the mountain block all but the most determined dawn rays. Other than weapons, Arthur has very little in the way of personal belongings.
Groggy from staying up most of the night with the other potential runners, he yawns and rubs his eyes. Their mood was too soft for his taste, all of them accepting their fate—or rather their lack of one. Rhun will be the saint.
Is it always so obvious? Arthur wonders. Did everyone know three years ago that John Upjohn would be the runner? Did they know it of Baeddan Sayer ten years ago? He casts his thoughts forward to the boys that will be teenagers in seven more years. Can he guess?
No. Arthur has no idea.
Hungry, he shoves off the quilt and pulls on a fresh shirt and boots and a thin knitted sweater handed down from Rhun Senior. He quietly climbs down the ladder to his long leather hunting coat, then picks his way over Sayer cousins and one of the Argall brothers—Per, he thinks it was, who followed him here last night. Outside, he grabs the well bucket and hooks it onto its rope before plunging it down. The water is cold but not yet freezing, and refreshing on his face. He runs wet fingers through his hair, shakes his head, and sends the bucket down again for water to take inside to Nona Sayer.
The front door is ajar and he knocks it open further with his foot. Saint Branwen sniffs at his hip while Llew stretches his long legs exactly in the most way of Arthur’s path.
Nona says, “Thanks for that; here’s bread,” and trades him the bucket for a hot crust. “Butter’s out too, today, and ham.”
He thanks her and spreads plentiful butter, sitting on one of the precarious three-legged stools while she pours the new water into her cauldron over the fire. “Rhun up?” he asks quietly.
“No.” The tightening of her mouth in disapproval suggests to Arthur she’s less happy with her son’s fate than she ever let on before.
“I...,” he starts, but doesn’t know how to show her any of his heart. It’s never been necessary before: Nona took him in when his mother left and his father couldn’t bear looking at him. She treated him hard but kindly, and doesn’t expect any thanks, she’s said often enough he believes her.
Nona faces her adopted son, studying him carefully enough as Arthur eats his entire breakfast under her stare. She’s handsome and tall, with the same warm brown skin and same eyes as Rhun, but hers are tinged with displeasure, as if the world will always disappoint her. Probably that’s why Arthur usually relaxes around her, feeling the same.
She says, “I’m glad to have to worry about only one of my sons tonight.”
Rather angry than touched, Arthur rises to his full height. “You’re so sure which one?”
Gesturing for him to lower his voice, Nona says, “No.”
It stuns Arthur. He crosses his arms over his chest. “You think it might be me?”
“I doubt it, here in a place like Three Graces. Out in the rest of the world, though, you would be the one.”
“Why?”
“The rest of the world appreciates ambition and fire.”
“Not you, though. You chose this place, knowing both worlds.”
Nona smiles her flat, no-nonsense smile. “It is a very good place, Arthur.”
“No it’s not. What kind of good place takes its best and throws it away?”
“We don’t throw it away. It’s a sacrifice. A hard one, and don’t you think otherwise. There’s no power in throwing something away, only in giving something up.”
Arthur clutches himself. “How can you do it? How can you just let this happen to Rhun?”
The older woman stares down her nose at him. “This is a better way than the way of the outside world.”
“How?” Arthur hears the ache in his own voice, the pitch of pleading.
Nona sighs hard enough to blow down a straw house. “In the rest of the world, Arthur, bad things take you by surprise. They knock down your door when you’re cooking dinner, they knock down your door when you’re sleeping, or sometimes they don’t even knock at all. You’re worried about it all the time. If I raised my sons out there, this danger might have found Rhun years ago, or if he survived this long, it might find him any day in his future. But here in Three Graces, we throw the door open wide and say, ‘Today is the day, trouble. Your only chance.’?” She takes Arthur’s wan face in her warm hands. “The dread today is hard, but the relief will be so much finer. I prefer to keep the devil on a schedule.”
Arthur feels his fire calming—no, not calming, but settling in deep, like the hottest embers in the heart of a log. It makes sense to him, on a profound level, to choose such a thing. To invite trouble when you’re ready for it. He is ready for it.
