The four of them sat in a circle, Bronwyn opposite Yozef, Dellia and Cynwin flanking Bronwyn. His fleeting thought was that he faced a threesome.
“Yozef, I thought about what you said about marriages with more than one wife. At first, the idea seemed impossible, but the more I thought, the less impossible it seemed. Then, three days ago I went to my sister, and we talked.”
Dellia’s and Bronwyn’s hands reached out to each other as if magnetized. Dellia smiled softly at her sister.
“Dellia spoke with Cynwin, and the three of us have agreed with what you said. We are to be married. Dellia, Cynwin, and me.”
Dellia spoke for the first time. “Bronwyn and I have always loved each other dearly, even as young children. As happy as I’ve been married to Cynwin, I’ve missed her every day. When Bronwyn spoke to me about this, it seemed the right thing to do.”
Cynwin reached from the other side of Bronwyn and took her other hand. “Two wives are not something I ever thought of. Certainly not with a wife as good as Dellia, but we both love Bronwyn. And Dellia’s right, the more the three of us talked about this, the more natural it seemed. Dellia will have her sister with her. There will be more children and more parents to raise them. There’s also the farms. Both ours and Bronwyn’s are good farms, and by joining them together, it’ll be easier to tend the sum than both by themselves.”
From their body language, Yozef had already suspected what he had just been told. He sat quiet and ambivalent, though relieved that the inevitable end to the affair was easy for him and good for Bronwyn.
“Yozef,” said Bronwyn, “there’s something else. I’m with child. I suspected as much the last two sixdays when my time passed and I didn’t have the bleeding. Now there’re other signs, so I’m sure.”
Yozef sat immobile, his mind churning over the possible having become real. What did he feel? What should he be saying?
“We’ll raise the child in our new family, and it will have many brothers and sisters. It’ll also have four parents, since we hope you’ll always be part of the child’s family and our friend.”
They talked for another hour, mainly about the anticipation of the three, how Yozef would see the child as often as he liked, and Yozef pretending to take all of this in stride, while part of him watched the four of them like a disembodied observer. He remembered little of what he said in that hour, but whatever it was, the other three took it well. When he left to return to Abersford, a hundred yards from the house he turned from his saddle to look back. Three figures stood on the porch, arm in arm and waving. He waved and urged Seabiscuit into a grove of elms, as the farm disappeared from view. The road was dark most of the way, with enough light from the larger moon and the stars to let him and Seabiscuit stay on the road. There was little wind, all wildlife had settled in for the night, and everything was quiet, except for hooves on the dirt road. It took an hour and a half to get back to his house in Abersford. It was the loneliest hour and a half of his life.
Chapter 29: Could Be Worse
Yozef lapsed into a funk. He had thought the relationship with Bronwyn was only physical, but once it ended, emotional ties lingered.
No one asked, but his increased presence and the absence of Bronwyn told everyone he was once again solitary. As a palliative, he plunged with a vengeance back into projects delayed by the time diverted on the affair. Within a month, he slipped back into his life before Bronwyn. He spent most days in his shops, attended lectures at St. Sidryn’s, had talks and walks with Cadwulf, Sistian, Diera, and others at the abbey complex, drank beers with Carnigan and Filtin at the Snarling Graeko, and, to his initial consternation, deflected overtures from more widows.
Though his months with Bronwyn had awakened dormant physiologies, he was ambivalent about taking advantage of the obvious interest of three different Abersford widows. Ironically, the urge to go slow was reinforced by a failure to follow through with this reticence. Buna Keller was a widow and the owner of a clothing shop in Abersford that made pants, shirts, and a coat more to Yozef’s liking than the local styles. He would stand as the shop owner took his measurements. One such visit was for a formal suit of clothing, appropriate for meetings with the more prosperous merchants and higher-level officials.
Keller and her assistants had measured him in the past and kept records, but on this visit she insisted more accurate and newer measurements were needed, which should best be done in the back room. On this particular day, it had been two months since he and Bronwyn had last bedded. The seamstress wore a dress with bare shoulders and a plunging neckline. She was all business, taking the measurements from waist up, but when she moved to lower regions, her hands dallied and casually contacted parts that, to his embarrassment, reacted. Instead of her being offended, he erroneously thought she hadn’t noticed or ignored his condition. A subsequent invitation arrived by letter from Buna to attend a small dinner gathering of several prominent tradesmen, shop owners, and their wives. It was his first social occasion with most of the guests, and he enjoyed the business-oriented conversation as an opportunity to search for other potential enterprises. In spite of his hesitancy in becoming involved again so soon, the next morning he awoke in bed next to Buna. He remembered all of the details of how he’d ended up there and what had occurred. What he couldn’t remember was what had happened to his resolve after the third glass of wine.
Indecisive about getting involved again so soon, by default Yozef found himself at Buna’s house the next two nights. Relief came when he found her not interested in a child; she was past childbearing age and had two grown children. What she did have was a libido. Straightforward sex was simple, except he didn’t like her. She could be abrasive, they were a personality mismatch, and she had more hair than Yozef—and not just on her head. He was relieved when on the last morning, she told him not to come to her house again. She found him too different from Caedellium men. Although he was curious about the difference, he wasn’t curious enough to risk losing a quick exit. From that point, Yozef swore to himself, yet again, to keep his nether parts under better control.
The episode with Buna had been short enough not to impact his focus on new projects. The ether, ethanol, and soap enterprises required little ongoing input from him. He knew he fussed, and although his staff didn’t say it, their opinions were obvious: Please go away and let us do our jobs.
He needed new projects. The first new idea came to him while strolling among the village shops, and he came upon a stall selling writing paper. A customer could buy single sheets or tied packets of twenty, either a light-yellowish-brown rough texture or a smoother, whiter paper. The former was the only paper made in Abersford, while whiter, more expensive paper came from a larger papermaker in Caernford, the Keelan capitol. Yozef knew the basic procedure for making paper. Almost anything containing fibers would work, including cotton, cloth, straw, wood, and flax. The material was chopped as small as possible, then suspended in water and a screen passed through the mixture to catch pieces and fibers on the screen. Once dried, a single sheet of paper was peeled away and could be cut to different sizes and written on. Those were the basics, as confirmed to Yozef by Ser Myrfild, the man manning the paper stall, who also happened to be the Abersford paper maker. Yozef never learned his first name.
Over beers that evening, Yozef proposed new types of papers and Myrfild alternated telling him why it wouldn’t work and being enthused about novel ideas and products. By the end of the evening, they agreed to form the Abersford Paper Factory. Novel products included whiter papers than yet produced on Caedellium, colored papers, and poster-board for announcements. All found limited markets—enough to justify continued production, steady incomes, and market interest in other provinces. However, the jackpot products had nothing to do with literacy or communication and were afterthoughts from Yozef. While Myrfild was initially dubious that anyone would actually pay hard-earned coinage for such products, Yozef insisted, later annoyingly proud of himself for the brainstorms. Myrfild was amazed when, within two sixdays, orders poured in for toilet paper and sanitary napkins. The toilet paper immediately started taking the place of the customary moss or, when necessary, leaves, grass, old rags, hands, or nothing. The market was obvious—every human on Caedellium had bowel movements. Use of the new option started slowly, then spread to other provinces within a month.