In Which Severin Is Not the Philosophical Type

September 15, 1164

It had been nine days. Nine long, painstaking days--and yet, only nine days. A bitter fact of life it was, this fine line between minutes and millennia, and how easy it was to flit back and forth across it at such a rate that one seemed to stand on both sides at once.

And that was just Severin's household; it went without saying that it was insurmountably worse at Nora's.

He couldn't claim to have known Jothein well. They'd spoken on occasion, if Jothein happened to stop by the castle for either his wife or his brother-in-law. Severin had also enlisted his services from time to time, as he had been both conveniently near and exceptionally talented. He'd always seemed a decent man, and Lord knew Nora loved him with every beat of her heart--still did. Perhaps she always would. As a man who had spent nearly twenty-nine years now loving the same woman, Severin might have been somewhat biased, but he saw no reason why the feelings should have to die with the body.

Ah, but perhaps that only made it even more unbearable! He prayed he would never know.

Nine days. Nine fucking days. Either Nora was itching for company, or she still needed plenty of space yet; there was no longer any such thing as good timing.

Poor girl had barely spoken a word to anyone other than her children--not that Severin blamed her. Her husband had been a model of good health, and then an odd run-in with a suspicious flower seller had left him bedridden with a fever of a most violent nature, slipping in and out of consciousness until he grew too weary to keep pulling himself back to life. It had both the sudden shock of Bernver's passing and the anxious dreading the inevitable of Riala's; it almost seemed less agonizing to die twice.

Severin pulled the key from his belt and unlocked the front door. If Nora asked him to leave, he would leave--no questions asked. He already had the answers, even if he knew nothing.

He found her on the couch, asleep. He supposed her daughter and son must have taken over the bed and she had grown uncomfortable. It didn't seem fair to expect a pair of young children who had just lost their father to be mindful of their mother's condition, but beneath the gray cloth of Nora's nightgown, her swelling stomach looked to him to be nearly an entity of its own; for her sake, he did not want anything to happen to this baby.

Nora's eyes flickered open, their brilliant blue bathing him like the light of a weak sunbeam. "My lord? What are you doing here?"

"Just checking up on you, darling," he assured her as she heaved herself upright. "If you want me to leave, I will."

She shook her head. "Please don't. It might be nice to talk to another adult."

Severin shrugged. "If you insist."

He set himself down beside her, then sent her a quick, wary glance. She was simply staring off into the empty space in front of her, blankly, blindly; if he were to spontaneously combust at any given moment, she may not have noticed. "So... you look... well."

Nora sighed, the angle between her chin and her neck decreasing. "Just trying not to think about it, mainly. Truth be told, I haven't cried since the funeral; I have to keep strong for Aldara and Cuthron, and for this little one here," she added as an afterthought, running a hand over the curve of her stomach.

A week without crying? That must have taken an incredible amount of self-control. True, he himself hadn't cried in a good long while, but he had never been given any reason to do so. Nora had all the reason in the world.

She seemed to sense his thoughts. "I'm used to not crying. I couldn't cry for Mother in front of my siblings, and I couldn't cry for Father in front of Mother. You get used to it."

"That may just be the saddest thing I've ever heard," he mused aloud, the words prancing about his mind like devils around a fire. You get used to it--not crying.

He found he could only close his eyes and sigh. "I'm sorry, Nora. Just... get some rest, all right? And take good care of that baby."

Once more, he could feel her eyes upon him. This time, they were puzzled--perhaps even alarmed. "My lord? Are you all right?"

What he wouldn't have done to drive all these thoughts of death and love and time and tears from his mind! "I'm fine. Just in a bit of a... philosophical mood."

"Odd," Nora stated, her brow furrowing. "I never would have taken you for the philosophical type."

Severin nodded in agreement. "I'm not--or, not usually, at any rate. Forgive me; I don't know what's come over me today."

"Maybe it's just the gloom. From my experience, it's contagious. And you would know, too--that nephew of her ladyship's who imposed himself on the two of you that time, how's he doing these days?"

Well, at least she was smiling, even if she did have to mention Searle. "According to the last letter from his wife, just as miserable as always, and for no particularly valid reason."

Nora gave a half-hearted attempt at a laugh; if anything, it was a decent first effort. "He'll learn at some point that it's worse when you do have a valid reason--so bad, in fact, that you have to take advantage of every minute you don't."

"So true."

Shaking her head, she leaned into him, resting herself against his side. "You know, sometimes... it doesn't even seem like Jothein's really gone, you know? I still feel him place his arms around me at night, hear him singing the children to sleep. Hell, when it gets to the hour he'd be coming home, I can even smell him--he always smelled like sawdust after a day's work. It's my favorite smell..."

A frown emerging from the depths of his mouth, Severin pulled her into a reassuring embrace. "Nora, I promise you... I'll get to the bottom of this. After hearing Jothein's description of the girl who gave him the roses, I have a theory, and if it's proven wrong, I'll come up with another one; I promise, I'll find out who did this to your husband."

"Thank you," she whispered, wrapping her arms around him to return the hug. She buried her face in his shoulder and did not remove it for quite some time; it wasn't until her tears had soaked through his tunic that he realized why.

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