Nights of Villjamur - Mark Charan Newton [152]
Eventually, Jeryd spoke up. “Cross and Sickle, you say? When was this?”
“Two days ago,” Tryst replied. “It was fairly early in the night—I’d say about the eighth or ninth bell. Is everything all right, Jeryd? You look a bit worried.”
Jeryd said, “Yes … Yes, well, it’s just that she told me she was out with a friend, that’s all.”
Tryst leaned back, stretching his legs before the flames. “Oh, well then. Nothing to it.”
“What did he look like?” Jeryd said.
“Tall, dark rumel, but no one I knew of. A swarthy chap, with a decent set of robes on him. They seemed like good friends, anyway. There was a lot of laughing, you know, like people who go a long way back. Old friends.”
Jeryd said, “Doesn’t sound like any of her old friends that I know of. Anyway, she told me she would be meeting a woman.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much. Probably a chance encounter. You know what people are like.”
“Right …” Jeryd said. What Tryst just said had made things worse.
Tryst stood up. “Now I’d better get back to watching Tuya.”
The rumel watched Tryst leave the room and was left alone with the crackling fire. He became increasingly lost in his thoughts, his suspicions.
That evening he arrived home early to the smell of warm bread. It should’ve filled him with anticipation, but he possessed little appetite.
He took off his cloak, shook the snow from his boots, and placed them by a fire in the kitchen, where Marysa was busy baking. She was humming one of those popular tunes from ten years back, the sort they would be singing in all the bars, and that poignant memory seemed to unbuckle time in his mind.
“You’re home early,” she observed as she kissed him on the cheek.
Is she surprised? Was she expecting someone else?
“Yes, I couldn’t seem to get any work done today, so decided I needed time off to think.”
She returned to kneading dough. “I’ll be finished quite shortly. I just want to make a few more rolls. It makes a change from all my other work.”
“Great,” he said halfheartedly, then left the room only to berate himself. Why was he feeling so negative toward her? He didn’t know anything for certain, yet he was already being short with her. What would he be like if something really was going on? He took a step back to watch her, but far enough away so that she couldn’t see him in the shadow of the doorway. And he watched her, as if for the first time, because it seemed important now, to think of these little things.
Slender for her age, she had kept her figure well, and was certainly attractive. Other men would be interested in her. Jeryd’s mother had always said that if anyone, male or female, wanted a good night’s sleep, then they should choose a plain-looking partner, but he rarely shared opinions with his mother on matters like that.
Maybe Tryst was mistaken, maybe it wasn’t Marysa that he had seen.
Jeryd couldn’t help but feel a deep pain when he thought about her with another man. It made him feel weak, vulnerable, angry. Had it been months earlier, when she was no longer living with him, it wouldn’t have been so difficult. But it was the fact that she had come back to him, and he loved her with an intensity greater than he could remember.
He deliberately clunked against the door frame, and Marysa glanced his way before returning her concentration to the rolls. “Everything okay, Jeryd?”
He stepped back into the kitchen. “I never asked about your evening with Layna.”
“We had a nice time, thanks. I hadn’t seen her for far too long.”
“Where did you end up?”
“We stayed at her house, because she didn’t fancy venturing out into the snow.”
“Tryst thought he saw you at some tavern.”
He thought he noticed a small change in her posture, some tension there perhaps, or a little uncertainty.
She said, “On the way to her place, you mean?”
“I’m sure he said you were in a tavern, but he could’ve been mistaken.”
“Oh, it couldn’t have been me. I was at Layna’s all the