There was but one cure for her sadness, Grethe soon discovered, and it was a cure her husband was miserly about dispensing. When she woke screaming from a nightmare—when their talk turned to her family, or to the subject of death—when he came home at night to find her sobbing over the onions for their stew—he would fold her up in his powerful arms until she had cried herself out, and then, when she was emptied out from guilt and sorrow, he would pull her into his lap and kiss the tears from her face, and fill the aching hollow in her breast with something warm and pure. If she tried to kiss him at any other time, he would somehow elude her without even seeming to move and she would catch only his cheek or chin. Beyond kisses they never ventured. Bard would not even sleep in the bed with her; the morning after a nightmare, Grethe always woke alone, even if her husband had spent an hour or more consoling her in the dark.

During the day Grethe could keep herself busy enough to pretend she didn't mind this, but at night she had no barriers. It did not help that she dreaded sleep, and would do anything to put it off. By the time they had been married six months, she was sure her looks must be going, for she'd not had more than one or two full nights' sleep per week since before the wedding. She wouldn't have minded so much if he wouldn't leave her to wake up alone, still in her shift and shawl.

But her days were full and busy. It was hard work, to be sure, and the material comforts she had always taken for granted were rarely available to her now, and never for free. But she liked to be useful; she liked making money, and gradually neatening up their house, and learning to cook. And she was sought almost as often as Sally Ague for her doctoring, and learned as much from the old woman as she ever had from an herboire.

In the first few months the townspeople distrusted her outright, but eventually became cautiously accepting, on the basis of her hard work and her being a transplant from the Southpier and therefore equipped with rare knowledge of all things fashionable. Some would always cut her when they encountered her on the walks, crossing over the canal to conspicuously deny her welcome; but most liked her well enough, if they thought of her at all.

In the springtime the sun began to thaw the town and the odors that the winter chill had kept down billowed out of everything. Grethe and Bard both bathed daily and washed their underthings every Sunday, as did nearly everyone else in town; but they were more lax about laundering the bulky outer items which could not easily be scrubbed in a bucket on the boardwalk. So on the second day of May, while the upper crust were recovering from their first-of-May celebrations the day before, Grethe gathered all the linens in the household, all her clothes and Bard's and his Da's, and every towel and rag and sheet and blanket she could find, and Bard rowed her across the Lake along with everyone else in town too poor to have servants do their laundry for them. A full third of the population turned out. The men carried the clothes to the Laundry Pool for their wives and sisters and mothers, then vanished to chop and stack wood, hunt, and tend their gardens in shirts and boots and precious little else.

Grethe had always known of Laundry Day, for it had always been spoken of with scandalised horror by her mother's friends. It was a day when morals were loosened and men and women ran around half-naked and dripping—or so people who had never once been to a Laundry Day confidently asserted.

"At any rate," Mama had always said, "they're sure to catch their deaths, revelling in their unders like that. But I suppose it must feel very bracing."

And now it was Grethe's lot to join them. Not at all to her surprise, Laundry Day was a day not of immoral cavorting but of hard work, and plenty of it. The Laundry Pool was a large, round, shallow hollow in a clear stream, where the water flowed continuously but not quickly over small smooth stones, and everyone could fit themselves and all their linens. Grethe staked out a spot between Sally Ague and Young Bettine, and soaped her clothes and beat them against a flat rock half-submerged in the stream. At first she concentrated so intently on getting all the soap out that she paid attention to little else; but after a while, she found the rhythm of it and began to listen to the chatter of her companions.

"An' how're ye likin' the marrit life, Young Bettine?" Sally asked. "Is yer Frain as good with his hands as he is with his fishing pole?" Several women laughed loudly.

"And what do Frain's hands have to do with marrit life?" Young Bettine asked unsuspectingly. There were sympathetic hisses all around. "I admit, much as I do like bein' mistress o' the house, I didna think the marriage bed would lose its shine so very quick-like. Sometimes I pretend to be asleep when I'm not." Young Bettine was very forthright.

"Pop out a few babes," crowed a woman further down the line, "and yer tits'll sag so it loses its shine for Frain, too."

"Aye, but ye'll not have a moment's rest with babes in the house," supplied another.

"Either way, ye never get a wink o' sleep," said Sally. "Come to me sometime, an' I'll give ye a pinch o' somethin' to help."

"To help me, or to help him?" asked Young Bettine. There was more laughter.

"An' how about you, Mistress Grethe?" called Edwina, Cidery Pummas's wife. She had once walked into the house without knocking and interrupted Bard when he happened to be industriously comforting his wife after a crying spell, and seemed to find endless hilarity in this fact. "D'ye like bein' marrit to Mad Bard as much as ye did three month ago?"

"From the hollow look o' her eyes," suggested Auld Bettine, "I'd say she likes it a great deal, or not at all!"

"And how's Mad Bard's shootin'?" asked Nan the fishscraper. "Do tell us, for we've more than one of us wondered. He may be not all there, but then it en't as if a fellow needs a full head o' wits to hit a mark. I don't know but the lacky-brained ones are the readiest to try for the bullseye."

Grethe thought of the haybale he'd exploded with the the Black Arrow, though she knew that was not what Nan had been asking. "His aim is true," she said honestly. She bent her head to her work and tried to block out the sound of laughter.

"Don't take it to heart, Grethe," said Young Bettine in a low voice. "I wish Frain would look at me just once the way Bard is always looking at you. How do you make him do it?"

"Do what?"

"Want you so much." Young Bettine slapped a pillowcase wistfully against a rock.

"I think you've got it wrong," said Grethe. "When he kisses me, I think he must want me after all; but then it's so easy for him to stop, and so hard for me to. I think maybe he's just very patient."

"Patient, my furry turret!" cawed Auld Bettine, who had heard this. "He's mad, not dead!"

"Do tell us, for we're curious, Mistress Grethe: have ye named all the fleas in his bed yet, or haven't ye got round to all of them?" Edwina's voice was vicious.

Fortunately for Grethe—or perhaps for Edwina—Sally took pity on her young protege and changed the subject.

The day had started early, and by midafternoon the last of the laundry was hanging from poles in the Fairgrounds, flapping and fluttering in a fortuitous wind. The women made preparations for the supper feast while the shifts they'd worn to do the washing in dried. Grethe helped carry water and set it to boil, and chopped vegetables and brewed tea.

When the clothes on the poles (and their bodies) were dry, the women helped each other into corsets and dresses, and took down the laundry to fold while the men trickled back bearing new vegetables from their mainland gardens, and good fresh meat. Grethe's heart leaped with pride to see Bard bearing the front end of a young buck, its neck punctured by a hole of such size it could only have been caused by the Black Arrow. She watched him hang it to bleed, saving the blood of course, and then truss it well and lay it on the Sindra.

"Red Bertrid was none too pleased that I brought it down," he said to Grethe who hovered curiously nearby. "He loosed an arrow at it and missed, and startled it into the underbrush. I shot it while it was running away."

"That must have been a difficult shot," said Grethe.

"Mm," said Bard. "Bertrid claimed as it was his, since he'd seen it first, and I said if first sight was grounds for ownership, he had no business bein' married to anyone but the midwife who birthed him."

"I can't imagine he liked that any," said Grethe.

"Nor did he. I've already sold the buck to Walburga who supplies the Master's table. I want to ferry it over to the Master's house now and get a receipt, afore Bertrid has a chance of stealing the antlers or marring the hide."

"Are you not staying for stew and music?" asked Grethe, dismayed.

"I never do," said Bard. "I don't like to be in company when the ale's flowing. But I've not forgot you, lass. Sorgen's promised he'll see ye safe home."

"I'd rather go back with you," said Grethe.

"And miss your share of the party?" Bard seemed truly surprised.

"Their singing'll be nothing to yours."

"You wouldn't rather stay here and dance?"

"Not if you aren't. Who would I dance with, anyway? Gentle Lou?"

Bard finished securing the buck to the barge. He looked up at her a bit sadly. "I do wish you might've had your share of pleasant things," he said.

"You're the most pleasant thing I can think of," Grethe declared . "After you've delivered the deer and I've put away the laundry, we can have a bit of leftover potato pie and a drop of the clover mead Sally gave us for a wedding gift." Perhaps she could convince him to kiss her when she hadn't been crying.

"Are you sure? You've had so few outings since…"

"I'm quite sure. Nothing could make me happier."

He still seemed indecisive, so Grethe walked over and sat herself between the buck and the laundry, to make his mind up for him. Bard shrugged, and stepped into the barge, and began to row them back to town.

Bard dropped Grethe at the empty house with the laundry before he delivered the buck to the Master's house. She built up the fire and put the leftover potato pie on the grate to warm, spread the sheets and blankets on the beds, and put the folded laundry away. She spread a cloth she had embroidered on the table, and laid out plates and clean cups. She even planted a little posy of wildflowers she had gathered at the fairgrounds in a cup of water.

When Bard returned, he had his own surprise for her.

"Strawberries!" Grethe exclaimed, taking the overflowing wicker basket from his hands and placing it on the table. "I've not had fresh strawberries since I don't know when! Where did you get them?"

"I found a stand of wild ones in the woods. I sold most of them to Walburga with the buck, but she wanted only the flawless ones for the Master's table. None of them are rotten, only crushed a bit. I hope you don't mind." His black brows lifted endearingly, and Grethe kissed his cheek in thanks.

"They're perfect," she said. "With them and the mead, we'll eat like lord and lady. Now go wash up, you've blood under your nails."

"That's strawberry juice."

"It's red," said Grethe, "so clean it up. Hurry now, I'm hungry."

They made a merry meal of their meager provisions. After supper, they sat and told each other stories. Bard sang her a song he had made of Lallyon, first Lady of Dale.

Of Lallyon the tales do tell,

who was a lady fierce and strong.

In Erebor's shadow she did dwell

before the days of song.

.

The dawning of the world was seen

when first she opened up her eyes.

In solitude she danced between

bare lands and empty skies.

.

In her did the Old Magic linger;

nature obeyed every request.

She was both audience and singer;

her word was manifest.

.

For years she knew not human ways,

living as she did all alone,

till a traveler spied her in amaze

and fell at her feet prone.

.

'Come here to me!' he did demand

'And in my home keep company!

I'll be your amorous ally, and

you'll be my worshiped queen!

.

'You should not make this strange request,'

Bright Lallyon reprimanded.

'I will not leave my childhood nest,

and from my home be stranded.'

.

'But you are lovelier,' he said,

'than any maiden I have known.

I'll take you now alive or dead

somehow you'll be my own.'

.

But Lallyon was not thus cowed

And in her heart now wrath was stirred.

She stood up tall and stern and proud

and spoke a single word.

.

Though never once in the mountain's lee

did the Lady become a Wife,

from her suitor's blood sprang root and seed;

his death was the fount of life.

.

When one small word she did deliver,

her will was swiftly done:

the man's blood formed a mighty river,

for the word she'd said was 'Run.'"

Grethe sat watching the dancing flames on the grate enact the lay of Lallyon, the virginal mother of the Running River and all life in the shadow of the Lonely Mountain. She had of course grown up knowing of Lallyon, and the suitor whose sacrifice was the source of all her homeland's vitality. But no telling of the story had ever made her feel like this, strong and defiant as Lallyon, wanton and weak as her supplicant. Bard's voice pulsed through her veins stronger than the mead, till the hair stood up on her scalp and a thrill ran down her spine.

"I think the suitor cannot have been very much like you," she said irreverently, "or he would not have been denied."

"I hope he was not like me. I think I would have more sense than to make lewd threats to a goddess. But in one way we are alike," he added bitterly, "for he was a worthless knave and completely undeserving of the thing he asked." He turned away from Grethe, and swallowed the last of his mead.

"Bard…"

"It is very late," he said. "And you've had a hard day."

"I'm not so tired, Bard."

"Aye, well, I am. I'll bid you goodnight, lass." He shot up the ladder as if his boots were on fire, leaving her alone.

A/N: Sorry for the long wait, I was on vacation. Next chapter will come sooner, I promise!