9.1

Havel looked up at his wife.

He could not say he actually disliked the view, there was a lot he loved about Lenka. And a lot of it could in fact be appreciated looking up at her with his brow not even reaching above her hips.

It was however disorienting and had made quite a lot of familiar moments foreign and strange or outright impossible. They could not embrace the way they once did. He couldn't lean over her shoulder and squeeze her with his hands clasped in hers anymore. He could not rest his head in her hair and just breath deeply as they stood together anymore.

And then there was the undeniable fact that he had been unmanned. More deeply and utterly then even a mere ‘wound to the thigh’ as some of the tales put it.

It wasn't fair!

He’d courted Lenka since either of them were old enough!

And now barely into their second year of marriage he was cursed, disgraced and tossed out. A season’s pay in silver would go a while but what was he going to do after?!

The only work he knew how to do was shoveling shit out of cesspits for his father’s trade and being a footman! He’d married Lenka on vow to Stribog that they would have children and riches for their union!

“Oiy! Foolish husband! Stop brooding!”

He denied it but knew she would see the truth in his traitorous face.

“I w-wasin’t brooding wife!”

Havel could not stop the scowl from washing over his face before it was followed by a wince and then the damnably unstoppable tears.

It was the subtlest but cruelest of violations of his curse that.

Havel’s face was not his own.

Beyond just the look and feel it did not obey him!

Every feeling, every thought, a passing fancy, a moment of joy.

Everything that Havel felt got splayed out all over his face for anyone to see! When he could have kept his thoughts to himself, spared his wife from the weight of concerns or the pain he had after a rough spar now every single one of those acts were denied him!

He’d spent years learning to hold firm and noble and stoic for his duty and all those years of discipline were now lost!

All of that gone, replaced with the incontinent and shameful tears and squirming roiling flesh of his face that refused to not scream to everyone with eyes every single secret he coveted, every moment of weakness he tried to push past, every flicker of cowardice!

Before he could even try to get control of his face suddenly there were arms around him, there was a bosom against his cheek and a soft shushing voice in his hair. His Lenka had dropped down to kneel next to him so that she could hold him in her arms like she once did.

They were home, this was his wife that at least for the moment was willing to pretend the way he no longer could!

His hair was too long and it came in sprouts that each felt and hung differently but the fingers running through it soothed some.

“Hush you foolish, foolish, husband of mine.”

Even if he could not keep his brows from furrowing, his cheeks sinking deep scowling lines of grief. The water poured from his clenched lids.

He hid the traitorous face that spilled his every thought to the world in Lenka’s chest and finally stopped trying to fight the overwhelming sorcery of his curse. His poor wife held him. Running her fingers through his hair and rubbing his back in small circles.

And he howled with a voice that was far too shrill and childlike. Smothering it into the cloth of her dress to somewhat muffle the shame.

He wanted to stop, that cloth was expensive, and they needed to save. Washing women was not going to be so easy an expense to afford now! But he couldn't! He couldn't do anything but howl and cry into the front of his wife’s dress until it was sopping with tears and snot that stuck to his face and slipped in salty rivulets into his too small mouth.

He didn't deserve her, Lenka bore his disgusting cries and ruining of her clothes.

She hushed his infantile tears.

Finally the sobs stopped, his chest felt empty, his throat was raw from howling into Lenka’s clothes. His face was a disgusting mix of sticky, slimy and faintly crusted effluvium.

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Her dress was a disaster.

But he felt like he could pull away, his awful face was still, slack on his skull.

At least until he finally looked up at Lenka. And then he could feel things happening around his eyes, he could feel the corners of his mouth curl before he even knew why.

She beamed down at him with some of her own hair out of sorts and a redness to her eyes he’d not expected and immediately made him start to grimace, the writhing muscles stopped by a sudden strike to his nose!

“Oiy! None of that you were JUST starting to smile at how beautiful your wife is ya fool man!”

The smarting pain brought what seemed impossible, a new sheen of wetness to his oversized eyes. But then she said that one word and his smile was so wide he must have looked like a fool.

She called him a man.

Before he could say anything she was talking over him again.

“There, that’s better. Now if you're feeling better just what fool thing has snarled up in my idiot husband’s heart?”

He couldn't take it, she kept saying words like that. Calling him what he’d been robbed like she couldn't see the thing that beast of a countess had made of him! His voice was raw, it was angry but even when ragged and croaking he still sounded far too young, far too fair in voice.

“I’m not your husband anymore Lenka. You don’t have to call me tha-”

The slap was hard, it actually laid him out on his ass, but despite the force and the distance he fell it only stung his face.

“Oh sod that you fool of a shit hauler’s son! Are you trying to call down three more curses on both our heads with talk like that?!”

His traitorous face for once did not move, just hung there like he wanted it too. But soon his brow was coming together and the snarl of his anger was twisting up. Churning over his lips and nose.

“You married a man! We made our vow as a man and a woman! But this curse has stripped me of everything! How can I be your husband Lenka?! look at me!”

Lenka huffed and stood up, loomed over him like a giant. Hands planted on her hips, the way her dress was soaked through accenting some of her finer features in a way that was just distracting enough his traitorous face flushed and squirmed.

But he kept his eyes mostly on her face. Attentive to her words.

“I remember our vows to the god of bounty, coin and sowing seeds! Do you?!”

He stared, of course he remembered!

The words rose from his throat even as he was still propped up on the floor of their modest apartment.

“Stribog, Lord and star of the Fickle North Wind. I, Havel Nightmanson, vow to you a palm of seeds scattered every tenth day sunset and your light upon my first born. So you may bless us a family secure in wealth, health and prosperity. In this marriage to my wife Magdalena.”

Lenka nodded down so his eyes met hers, wet but bright and fierce. Speaking the words she had said under the star of a god of wind and change. The only one who had come for the marriage of a simple gong farmer’s son and a spinster’s daughter.

“Stribog, Light of the clever North Wind. I, Magdalena Weaverdottir, vow to you a rope wound of my hair each year. Burnt in your name and your light upon my first born. So you may bless me with patience, my children with wisdom and my love safety. In this marriage to my husband Havel.”

He stared at her; he could not stop the slight curl of a smile, and he saw a mirror of it if more minute on his wife’s face.

But her smile soured as his faded. Havel spat the words.

“That’s it though! That was a vow to a husband! How can I be your husband if I’m not even a man?!”

Lenka snarled down at him.

“You're my husband if I say you are and unless Stribog himself comes down to say otherwise we are married husband and wife and our vows still hold! Do you want to call down a god?! Do we need to go to the temple and pay the coin for it? Is that what it’s going to take to prove you are still mine and I’m still yours?!”

Her voice was shrill, she had a fury almost as plain on her face as his was.

But at the same time.

If there was a chance that the gods themselves still saw him as a man?

Maybe it would be enough to cure this curse?

Lenka stared down at him and he wished he could stop the way his face betrayed his every thought as she laughed at him, there were still tears in her eyes, she was still flushed and honestly he wished he could keep how that made him feel from his face as well.

But even so she spoke before he could master his own newfound and cursed weakness.

“Oh fine! If it takes three grosz in silver to get my fool husband to see sense that price will be cheap.”

Her tone was light but he winced at that. It was not a small sum for a disgraced footmen with just some savings and a last season of pay.

But his heart and face refused to stay dimmed.

He could not conceal the hope he felt welling inside anymore than the fear.

Stribog would either declare him unmanned entirely and in doing so free his dear Lenka to stop forcing herself to care for a useless waste of flesh.

Or...

Havel couldn't quite even think of it.

His face was betraying him enough as it was.