BLOW, NORTHERNE WYND!

OE hwīt adj.; OE rōse n. – white rose: “Lette us walke in a newe wyne yerde, and lette us make us a gay gardon in the monythe of marche with thys fayre whyte ros and herbe, the Erle of Marche.” – said about Edward, the Earl of March, son of Richard, Duke of York; later King Edward IV, who adopted the White Rose as the heraldic badge of the House of York.

The tenants had brought the geese up to the Abbey today.

It means Michaelmas was soon upon them, the end of harvest celebration, the turning of the wheel. In the old days, they had called this time of year Mabon – in some parts, they still did. Mabon, hero of the Mabinogion. Mabon, son of the mother. Mabon, a child born into light and taken into darkness.

To Mary, this time of year simply marked one thing: days had turned into weeks, time passing like liquid colours melting into one another. It was all the same to her. Time had lost its meaning, and her colours were all grey.

What did it matter, then, that two weeks had passed since Matthew's last breath on this earth?

It mattered.

It mattered because her husband's last breath became her son's first.

It should matter. But where Robert felt as if he were speaking to his daughter through a stone wall, his daughter was yet trapped in a veil through which there was no partaking in a world that continued as normal. The entanglement was of her own making; and through the haze of grief, everything seemed a little farther away. Even her son.

Especially when even her son and even without Matthew became synonymous in her thinking. Rationally, she knew it was a distressing, even dangerous road to be on; but the sheer, desperate exhaustion of grief was to reason as fever to the body: a draining to be endured, without the power to stop it.

@hasopinions

It was the most curious thing, how one moment could so neatly divide life into a Before and After. Mary felt as though the very earth reverberated with the aftershock of her father's one-of-a-kind announcement. The hand tucked into the crook of Matthew's arm gripped him tighter, as though she could steady herself into a passing sense of reprieve from what they all had to face now – whatever it was that came next.

"Heavens – what a ghastly thing!"

She could scarcely school her face into a mask of restraint before she met Matthew's blank stare – all the harder an exercise for the simple fact that a mere moment ago, she had been so terribly happy. Things had been – were – settled between them, at long last, and now…

…and now, was she to watch him ride off into war, now?

Was this what it had come to?

The question lay unspoken between them, a chasm widening with increasing speed. Perhaps the earthquake had been a private rather than a collective one.

War, then.

It was a beast she had been too afraid to look into the eyes until now, even though they had all known how likely it was going to come sooner or later. Now that it had, Mary willed it back into the Pandora's box it had escaped from, ere more evil could be unleashed. Everyone knew, after all, that war was but one of the four horsemen. And they seldom rode alone.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that–"

He had to raise his voice over the noise level in the bar. And what a bar it was: After York, Thomas had thought his eyes had been opened, but compared to the glitz and glamour of a London underground jazz club, their local den of purported debauchery seemed tame, indeed.

To the off-beat crescendo of a blues band, there were men dancing with men all around them. Men of young age, men of old age; pot-bellied men and lanky, beanstalk-esque men. Men in gray vests and men with flashing red scarves around their necks. And, in some notable instances, men in heels.

In the midst of all this flashing glory, who would ever look twice at two middle-aged men dressed in modest suits sharing a pint in a corner?

Oh, to talk like this in public.

To be seen like this.

It was a shame there was no mirror nearby; Thomas would have scarcely believed the glow in his own eyes. Richard Ellis would have to marvel at it for the both of them, and it would have to suffice – even if, with how young and fresh their acquaintance yet was, Thomas hadn't had the time or courage yet to open his chest in a way as to divulge his entire life's story. It might have underscored it all the more, how demonstratively unlike Thomas Barrow it was to be left in childlike, starry-eyed excitement.

It made him want to wear his heart on his sleeve, so it did.

"You've wounded me plenty since last July. I could scarcely think of owt but you."

Did he dare – could he?

He discovered that he could.

The table between them was no more than fifteen inches in width; it was a distance easily breached. Thomas rested his hand palm-up, for the taking.

For all to see.

He glanced at his hand. He had offered him the unblemished one. For the scars he had in mind were of a different nature– a lopsided smile curled around Thomas' lips. Blimey, he'd smiled more in the last twenty-four hours than he might have all year, not so long ago!

"And don't I know it," Thomas scoffed. "Thirty-four years and counting, I've honed my skillful ways of shutting your gob, Mr Ellis."

They were alone, on the porch of their sheltered little garden, with naught but tea and birdsong for company. Of course Thomas let his words be followed by deeds – and leaned in to seal his boast with a peck to Richard's lips.

Thirty-four years.

"Do you remember what you told me back then?"

He was still leaning in, his blue eyes searching for a spark of remembrance in Richard's grey ones.

"When I asked you if they'd ever see it our way…"

Because he remembered it like yesterday, he did. The week, the night that had changed his life – for the better, and irrevocably so. Indeed, sometimes Thomas did wonder if he wasn't a different person altogether – if by the love of Richard Ellis, he had somehow allowed the blossoming of a new soul in place of the shrivelled, lonely husk he had become before.

Fifty years ago, who'd have thought man could fly?

And look at the world now – a Russian the first man to journey to outer space. The moon within reach. The stars a trail of breadcrumbs to guide him home. Thirty-four years ago, who'd have thought man would fly around the Earth?

Thomas did not sit back up. Instead, he leaned further in, forehead to forehead, slow, lest the old bones in his body creaked too much. The deep and deepening lines on his face, he could deal with. The weariness in his bones, less so. All else stripped away, he was still a greedy man: thirty-four years and he wanted more.