“But you don’t provide me with what I need,” she said.
The spark of anger in his eyes flared. “I will not get you with child.”
“Then if you do not give me what I need, why should I provide you with what you need?” she challenged.
“Be careful with your words, wife. I will only tolerate so much from you,” he warned.
“It is a fair question,” she argued.
Rannick laughed. “You think this marriage of ours will be a fair one? I did not ask for it. I did not want it. But it is upon me, and you will follow what I dictate.” He returned to cleaning his sword.
He angered her and she rarely if ever got angry, but then her life had been hers. Now that she was his wife, it was no more. At that moment, she realized how much she had sacrificed for her sisters and how she might fail them. It had her speaking up.
“You may think you dictate, but it will be the curse who that has the final say.”
Rannick got to his feet so fast that the bench he was sitting on fell over. He reached her in an instant, his hand rushing out to capture her chin. “You made your choice. You not only chose me… you chose death.” He didn’t expect the words she threw back at him.
“Then honor my bargain and let me give you a bairn before the curse claims me.”
He shoved her away from him, fury racing through him. “I may not have loved my first wife but seeing the agony she suffered in childbirth only to die, and my son not even take a breath is something I will never see happen again. If the curse wants you, it will have to take you another way.” He stormed out of the cottage into the rain.
Bliss went to the door he had left open and stared after him. He stopped before he reached the woods, threw his head back and roared like a mighty beast. She could not help but think there were two men in Rannick, one a good man and one so fraught with so much pain that it turned his heart cold making him appear evil. His heart needed to heal so that the good man could finally be free. She hoped she was strong enough to help heal him and brave enough to challenge the curse and survive.
Bliss avoided speaking about the witch or the curse the next day, realizing it would do little good. He had suffered enough due to both, and it would serve no good purpose to dwell on it. It was more important to focus on the present and what could be done from here on.
It had been a busy morning. With the clouds gone and a clear sky overhead, she had gotten busy washing his shirt she had worn, another shirt of his, and her tunic. She had hung them on branches to dry since early morning, and she would move them before nightfall to finish hanging in front of the hearth.
She watched as he stood scanning the edge of the woods as if he expected someone to emerge from there. But if he thought that imminent, he would have sent her in the cottage. She could understand why people feared him. He was a formidable warrior, his confident stance alone a warning and his cold, scowl threatening. There was no joy in his laughter, as rare as it was, it more scorned. She wished she could have seen the man he had been before the curse had inflicted such pain on him.
It was not always easy to determine how to treat an illness. Kendesa had told her that wounds on the outside were easier to treat than wounds on the inside. Outside wounds you could clearly see, not so inside ones. The most difficult wounds, she had warned, were the wounds that damaged the soul. Those wounds, Kendesa had said, required patience, a kind heart, and endless love, and still, she had warned, the person might not heal.
He turned to completely face her, and Bliss thought she caught a slight lift of his lips as if a smile tried desperately to escape, but it was so quick she couldn’t be sure. It did not matter since her smile came easily and quickly.
She walked over to him. “Would you take me into the woods today? It is a good time to collect some roots of healing plants.”
“Aye, get a basket and we will go now while the sky remains clear,” he said and followed behind her into the cottage.
She grabbed a basket and dropped two clean cloths in it, then she slipped her healing pouch onto her cloth belt. A healer never went anywhere without it, and it was time she began wearing it again. Watching Rannick slip daggers into the sheaths inside each of his boots and add one more to the one already at his waist and one in the back of his waist, made her realize that he was prepared for any attack. That knowledge put her at ease, though she worried what would happen if more than two men attacked.