The Warrior and Calissande

Chapter 2: May I Leave?

I head into the stables, waving off Braden, the stablemaster. I need no help, nor do I want it, from this man or any man. In minutes, I'm leading my stallion, Sir Neigh, out of the barn and I quickly mount up. Here is the one male I enjoy wholeheartedly; he has never broken my heart or sought out another. I was present at his birth six years ago, a beautiful chestnut, wobbly-legged foal, and I raised him. My father gave him to me and no one else has ever seated him. The fact that he is mine and mine alone comforts me. At least I do not have to share him.

Braden yells after me when he sees me take off, no guard in sight. He thought I'd come to groom my boy, not go riding. He is used to me riding only in the mornings, never in the late afternoon near the evening meal.

However, I plan on missing the meal tonight and all nights going forward so I do not have to watch her  watching my husband in the common room any longer.

It hurts. It hurts me so badly. I always wonder if my parents knew, when they married me off to the warrior, that his peoples' tradition included the males keeping and flaunting their mistresses. Knowing my parents, and the great love between the two of them, and just the two of them, I cannot imagine they did or they would not have given me over to him.

When I am out of sight of the stables, I decide on a different course and change direction, urging Sir into a gallop, leaning low over his neck, letting him have his head. We fly over to the river, where I slow him down and allow him to walk in the shallows of the water for several miles. He's always enjoyed that and the sound of the water soothes me.

As he picks his way through the river, I pour out my woes to him, my words bleeding out of my mouth and into his twitching ears. Everything comes out, the pain, the humiliation, the anger, the sorrow, the hopelessness, the utter devastation. I can't return to my parents' home because my father would return me not out of malice but because a wife belongs with her husband. He would give me sanctuary if I had been physically mistreated, but since I am not, he has no reason to protect me.

I sigh as I realize I have no choice but to continue to live here, my heart dying a little more every day as I sleep alone in my bed, the warrior not alone in his. He is with her. My only hope is that someday he will allow me to live away from him at one of his other estates. Since he doesn't seem to care about family, maybe once he has his heir, he will let us go.

Defeat is hard for me to accept, and as soon as I think that thought, my anger at myself grows. Who says I have to accept my lot? What if I were to run away? I had some money my mother slipped into my trunk before we left.

"A woman should always have her own money," she'd whispered and I'd nodded my understanding. "Unpack it when you get home and hide it well in case there is ever need for it."

She was assuming in case we were ever overrun with raiders, I could use it to ransom my husband if he were ever taken.

I also had jewelry I could sell.

Thinking back to the first – and only – time he had given jewelry to me, I frown. It was the day we had arrived at Bellford and I discovered...her.

A servant had summoned me to his library and the warrior waited in there for me, holding a velvet bag in his hand.

I'd walked into the room, keeping my eyes to the floor, even after I heard the servant bow out and close the door.

"I have made arrangements for Mrs. Kelly to give you a tour of the estate and to go over household matters with you. Bellford Keep has been without a mistress since the old lord and lady died."

I continued to stare at the ground and I did not acknowledge that I heard him. His boots came into my view after a few moments of silence.

"Are you well, my lady wife?"