With a Tangled Skein Read Online Free PDF Page A

kiss, and runs to tell her mother.
    She does a very foolish thing; she'll never get another!"
     
    Cedric, high as he was, laughed with agreement.
     
    Then she leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. He looked startled. He glanced around, leaned forward, and vomited on the ground.
     
    Oh, no! He had had too much, and gotten sick. He was in no particular distress at the moment, but Niobe knew that this evening, too, was finished.
     
    She managed to get him inside, and cleaned up, and onto the bed to sleep it off. This time she slept by the hearth.
     
    In the morning, grim with hangover, Cedric picked up the bottle and stared at the remaining wine. "It looks exactly like urine!" he said savagely, and went to the door and flung it outside. He simply wasn't cut out to be a jolly coachman.
     
    That evening Niobe tried again. She sat him on the bed beside her, took his hand, and asked him to sing again. She sang with him, and the magic surrounded them, and it was very like love. But when it was time to complete the act of love, Cedric could not. The magnitude of the task rendered him impotent. He was chagrined, but she was in her secret heart relieved; she had tried her very best, and failed. It just did not seem to be time.
     
    "But Cedric," she said. "You must sleep without clothing in this bed from now on, and I will too."
     
    He stared at her with dismay. "But-"
     
    "So we can honestly say we slept together," she explained. "Would anyone believe that was all there was to it?"
     
    Slowly he smiled, as relieved as she. He joined her, naked, in the bed. It was a cheap compromise, but it would have to do. In the fall Cedric went to the local college. It was not far distant, but inconvenient to commute to by foot, and it would have been complex to arrange for a horse. A magic carpet would have been ideal, but reliable ones were still so expensive that it wasn't expedient for this situation. It was best, all things considered, for him to board-and romantic incompatibility did not even enter the picture.
     
    Niobe sent him off with a kiss and a tear and watched him march away with his knapsack full of clothing. He would buy his books there and pay tuition and board; they had budgeted for it and had a comfortable margin.
     
    She was depressed when he departed and sorry they had not been able to make their marriage work. Cedric was certainly a fine boy with wonderful magic, and she had become quite fond of him. Of course no one knew about the failure of the marriage-or at least the relatives were too discreet to mention any suspicions. With luck, things would work out better after Cedric had matured a year or two in college, and no one would ever know. As a last resort, she could buy a love potion and take it herself; but if Cedric caught on, he would react negatively, and she really didn't want to deceive him anyway. Love was not really the problem.
     
    Meanwhile, she was lonely. She could have gone home to her parents for the term, but knew that, if she did, her mother would worm the truth out other, and she couldn't stand the mortification.
     
    She made do alone. Running the house was simple enough, and she did a great deal of reading and weaving in the days and cultivated the acquaintance of the dryad of the water oak in the swamp. It was an acceptable existence, for the time being.
     
    She arranged the cabin to suit herself precisely, and it was very comfortable. She worked on the yard, and that was comfortable too. When she had the near portion of the swamp nicely policed, she decided it was time to visit Cedric.
     
    She rented a horseless carriage for the occasion. This was considerably cheaper than a carpet, but slower, and the wheels bumped over the rutted track, jolting her uncomfortably. Nevertheless she arrived after a day, reaching the college in fair order, though her prim traveling dress was dusted with grime. I
     
    She spied Cedric walking along a pathway between the dormitory and a classroom building.