Chapter Thirty-Four
It had been three weeks since they had returned to Beharra. Lyall watched her everywhere she went, like a hawk. He was always with her, as if she could not be trusted, alone with her thoughts, even for a moment. How sad and edgy he was, his constant vigilance was taking its toll on him.
She had chosen life, but Lyall did not quite believe it.
‘Lyall is a good man.’ Ravenna’s soft words brought Giselle out of her worries, as they walked along the river. The grass was stiff with frost, enduring the autumn chill and waiting for spring to come.
‘You think I don’t know what kind of man he is, Ravenna? He has been so kind, so very patient with me. He asks for nothing, he expects nothing, and that is what he gets. In return for all he has done for me, I cannot even give him the rights of a husband.
‘Don’t speak so bitter, Giselle. Can you not be with him at all?’
‘It is painful to speak of this.’
‘Perhaps it is better that you do speak of it, and not have your pain festering inside of you. It will only get worse, and you and Lyall will grow further apart.’ Ravenna took hold of her hand in a hard grip. ‘Giselle, you have my admiration. I once thought you a weak chit of a girl, soft and cossetted. But now, I think you are one of the strongest women I know and the bravest.’
‘And yet I wound my husband every day when I reject him. What am I to do, Ravenna?’
‘Lie with Lyall, no matter how difficult it is, even if you have to force yourself. Do it, until you think of Banan no more. He is ashes, but you are living and beautiful, with a good man by your side. If you do not banish his ghost, it will haunt you forever. You must go on, until the load of your memories starts to lighten, and happiness trickles back into your life.’
‘Lyall so deserves to be happy, yet I fear I cannot make him so.’
They were silent for a while before Ravenna spoke again.
‘The past once stopped me from loving Cormac,’ she said.
‘How?’
‘There was a man before him. Brandan. How strange it is to say his name, for I haven’t spoken it aloud for years. And you must never speak of this to Cormac. Never.’
‘I swear I will not,’ said Giselle.
‘I am telling you this because I think we understand each other and we both know what suffering is, in a way many people do not.’
‘What happened Ravenna?
‘It is a sad and sorry tale, and, one day, I will tell you all of it. Suffice to say, I loved Brandan with all my heart, or I thought I did. He became lost to me, and I thought I would die from the pain of it. I was sure that I could never love another, and certainly not the big, wild man from an enemy clan I was forced to marry.’
‘But now, you love Cormac, and you have tamed him,’ said Giselle.
‘Aye, in part, but he is still wild, where it matters, that is.’ She grinned.
Giselle felt a shiver of fear, as she often did, at the thought of men’s wildness.
Ravenna frowned. ‘Perhaps wild does not suit you, Giselle. Forgive me.’
‘I would prefer kindness.’
Ravenna took Giselle’s hands in her own. They were chill. ‘Know this as a certainty. It will get better for you. I was once determined to hate Cormac forever. But that first love, which tore my heart in two, well, I can barely picture Brandan’s face now. What I mean to say is, he’s a ghost too, and every day I put him further and further behind me. I look to the future, and the love I have in my heart now. That is all that matters on this earth, Giselle, where we are now, not past wrongs or past loves.’
The rest of the path back to Beharra was taken in silence. Giselle’s mind was a whirl of fear, but slowly she was reaching a certainty. Feelings that she could scarce acknowledge had been getting a grip on her these last weeks. A soft feeling in her stomach made her stop dead. Ravenna moved on in front of her and did not notice.
There it was again, gentle, strange and wondrous. In her mind’s eye she saw a tiny hand reaching out in a fragile grasp at life. Giselle felt love flood her heart for the tiny person inside her belly. She did not hate it. She did not resent it any more, quite the opposite - she wanted this child.
Giselle hurried to catch up with Ravenna. When they got to Beharra, Lyall was standing at the gates with his usual worried look on his face. Before he had a chance to say anything, Giselle rushed to him and flung her arms around him. She didn’t care that Ravenna was looking on, for she could not contain her love for him. At first, Lyall did not respond, but then he wrapped his strong arms around her and held on tight.
When Giselle pulled back and smiled up at him, her heart was hammering, and her knees were shaking. Lyall smiled at her in confusion, with no idea what it had cost her to do such a simple thing.
‘Are you alright?’ he said.