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Ędegard
"I shall blush about this in the morning, no doubt," Mellonin said, then fell silent, hugging her knees, closing in on herself.
Any other time Ędegard would have chuckled. You should build a family in the more traditional way. That was the very thing he could no longer do.
"You do not understand, Mellonin. I have been trained a wheelwright from my childhood; with but one hand I cannot do the work. I cannot keep a wife if I cannot do the work. Do I need to speak it any more plainly?" His voice had become sharp by the end of his words.
"Do you love Leafa?" Mellonin said into her knees, staring at the struggling flames.
"It matters not! Love does not put food on the board nor clothes on the back. Do you not see that?"
"The greatest is love," Raefindan murmured, himself staring into the fire; then he shut his mouth tight.
Mellonin looked at him with open curiosity. "Greatest?" she asked.
"I know not," Raefindan replied curtly. "It was a chance utterance. Think nothing of it."
"But it is a seemly thing to say, and think," Mellonin said. "I do think I like it. Who told it to you? Or did you make it up just now?"
Raefindan spread his hands wide and said nothing.
Ędegard looked him in the face. "Are you saying that I should take Leafa to wife no matter that I have lost a hand?"
"I say no such thing. I will say this, though. Why do you leave her no choice in the matter?"
Ędegard looked at Raefindan as if struck by a new thought for the first time.
"I know not." He turned and stared into the fire.
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