rmand should have been happy.  Brigit drowsed in his arms as dawn’s pink glow illuminated her delicate face.  He would have continued sleeping were it not for the nagging feeling of doubt that haunted his every moment of contentment.  He had always considered himself lucky not to be racked by pangs of guilt like his more sensitive acquaintances.  That morning he realized he had not escaped the cold shackles of shame after all.

At the heart of his discomfiture was his delight in having the little cottage all to himself, or more precisely, Brigit.  Now that he had his desire, he realized that it also meant, to some degree, he was glad his best friend was gone.  Not only gone, but lost gods knew where in the dead of winter.  Mog could be dead, for all they knew.  Perhaps Brigit’s occasional disappointment with his childish bouts of selfishness was warranted.  Even he was beginning to feel a modicum of disgust with his darker tendencies.

Then again, she was a better human being that he would ever be.  Armand loved her for that, and to some degree he was also jealous that she had enjoyed a normal childhood and her parents would become grandparents to their children.  It was a promise that had been denied him.  With every maternal tenderness Neave lavished upon him in her absent way, he recalled the sweetness of his own mother stolen from him while he was still young and tender.  Even blustering Anluan had won a place in his normally impervious heart.

“Did you sleep at all?” Brigit croaked, squeezing his hand where it lay against her belly.  She stretched and he leaned over to kiss her freckled cheek softly.

“A little.”

“I just need to tire you out more,” she giggled, pinching his thigh playfully under the blankets.  It had the desired result and they fell to kissing until forced to get out of bed and attend to the needs of their bodies.  The bitter cold of the room removed any trace of desire and they were all business for the next hour as they renewed the fire from its banked pile of embers and bathed quickly with a pan of water heated over the flames.  By the time they were dressed and warm, it was time for breakfast at her parent’s house.  They bundled up in their heavy furs and woolen jackets to make the short journey over the hard crusted snow.

As on the other mornings they passed Maeve standing near the gate of the village gazing forlornly up over the snow covered path that led back to Yak’s Bend. Oddly, it annoyed him.  Mog was his friend, after all, and the woman’s constant seeking for him stirred a mixture of shame and anger that he did not show the same level of concern or devotion.  Mog had never spoken of Maeve in all the years he had known him.  As far as he knew, the only love interest in his friend’s rambling lifetime had been a vague fondness for Dotty and his ill-fated mooning after Sister Lemony.

Maeve’s ardor for Mog was unsettling.  How could she possibly have fallen so deeply and possessively in love with someone whose most notable trait was that of throwing up in her parlor during Wintersday?  It seemed unlikely and unnatural.  Armand did not like it one bit.  Brigit, who lacked his mesmeric senses, gazed upon the woman with a mixture of pity and fondness.  She thought it was sweet and romantic.

“She’s like a dog waiting for its master,” he muttered angrily, “She probably licked his face a few times and now she’s all over him.”

“Army!” Brigit hissed, hushing him and turning a very specific shade of red that indicated he had wandered onto thin ice, “That was a very unkind thing to say.”

He shrugged, clumsily stepping back from the brink of a fight in his usual inept way. Against his better judgment he tried to defend his statement.

“They hardly know each other.  What does she want from him?”

“You’re such an insensitive toad!” she snapped, “If you’re going to be like that about my friend you can bloody well sleep on the floor tonight.”

Now he felt stupid.  Brigit had known Maeve for many years.  The woman was considered part of her family, even if she was catlike in her aloofness.  Regardless, Armand did not like what he sensed about Maeve.  She was closed to him, secretive, even evasive to the point of mistrust.  In his experience, people only acted that way when they had something to hide.  He did not want someone like that around his friend.  Mog deserved better.

He had little time to contemplate how he was going to win his way back into Brigit’s good graces for Neave came out onto the door stoop to greet them with a hearty good morning.

“Why so glum, duckling?” she said gently to Brigit and Armand winced as Brigit brushed past him with a snort of anger.  Neave glanced at him and shook her head, a hint of malice in her blue eyes as if to warn him not to harm her precious daughter.  Good gods, all he needed now was Anluan on his case.

“Take this out to Maeve, would you dear?” Neave asked.  Armand knew he had no better recourse than to obediently nod and deliver the heavy woolen shawl to the forlorn figure at the gate, “Tell her to come in for breakfast.  She’ll catch her death out there.”

“Aye,” Armand replied, forcing a smile as he faced into the bitter wind like a dutiful future son-in-law.  As he crunched over the hard crust of snow, his eyes tearing and his ears going numb, he decided it was preferable to facing an angry Brigit.  He was optimistic enough to hope her quick-fire temper would blow over by the time he reached the breakfast table.

Maeve turned to gaze upon him, pale and aching with grief.  He knew the landscape of despair all too well and was loath to set foot there again.  Her misery washed over him and he was confronted once more with its unnatural intensity.  Anger curled from him all too easily, a familiar shield that had served him well.

“If it’s any comfort, he probably isn’t suffering as badly as you,” he said, proffering the shawl with a nonchalant gesture.  Her gray eyes sharpened as she focused upon him with the intensity of a hawk.  A bitter laugh came from her lips and she wrapped the shawl around her shoulders, turning away from him.

“Mog Ruith is more than he seems,” she said, pausing for a moment with her back to him, “You believe you know him, but you know only what he wishes you to see.”

Armand stared at her retreating form flabbergasted.  She was insane; it was the only explanation that made sense.  He rushed after her, annoyed.

“I have known him since I was a boy and he has known you for what… three months?  I’ll find him, never you fear, but once I do, you had better keep your paws off of him.”

She rounded on him, all fierceness and rage, her eyes gleaming in the dawn with tears and madness.  Her voice pierced the air like the shrieks of the lone owl that had greeted Mog’s arrival.

“How dare you seek to sever the ties that were bound by Lyssa?  A curse upon your arrogance, you blind man-child.  You sew seeds of discord in the garden of love and that shall be your undoing.”

Her breath hovered in the air around her face, an unearthly veil of ice that shimmered and flared like fire in her wake as she stormed away from him.  He stood there trembling like a scolded child, the wind knocked from him by the intensity of her words and emotions.

“Great, I’ve managed to infuriate three women before breakfast,” he thought bitterly as he moved slowly toward the childhood home of his beloved. 

“Who does Maeve think she is, anyway?” he thought, pausing at the rough wooden door and steeling himself for what lay within.  He felt like a mouse preparing to step inside a room full of hungry cats.

“What if she does actually know Mog?” asked a more sensible voice in his head, “If you’ve got it all wrong and they were lovers in the past, you’ve made yourself look like the world’s most insensitive prat.”

“Oh gods,” he sighed.  Maybe Mog had kept some things from him.  It was an odd sensation to realize that there might be some truth in what she had said.  He felt awkward, even a little betrayed. He had spilled his guts to his long time friend, laid bare every hurt and shared secrets he had never dared to burden Brigit with.  What he had felt in Maeve’s rage was not the raving of a mad woman, but an old and potent wound.  She was telling the truth.

That meant Mog had lied to him by omission.

“Oh, I’ll find you alright,” he grumbled, “and when I do, you’d better tell me what in the name of the five gods you got up to in that temple.”