Men of the Mark

The sweetest moments of a day are the dawn, where you wake up refreshed after a dreamless and peaceful sleep. As the night kisses me goodbye and the morning embraces me as an old friend, I rise up with a vigour I have not felt for some time now.

Waelden had asked for his sword to be brought to him. I had done so, carrying it in its scabbard from his weapon rack upstairs. I passed it into his hands as he sat on one of the two chairs, by the unlit fire. 

“Thank you, dear.”

And for this I but repeat Ethel’s own words, as she told it to me:

That first week we had Waelden in the bed at home, Ethel and I would sit near him in the evening and talk about all sorts of things. In part it was to soothe our own anxiety over how well his foot would heal. It was to give him some sound in the background he could choose to listen to, or not. And it was to strengthen the bond between us all.

((Follows from 'How to Break a Rider' by Waelden ))

“Keep up that shrieking, woman, and I will slice both you and your brat’s throats,” the man, Ceadda, shouted. “Your husband should have let me kill you both back at the inn.”