“I’m . . . I know I’ve been less welcoming than I might. Than I should have been. I’ve been . . . anxious about things, sure and I have, and more things than one. And the Lady is taking me out from under the dominion of the Moon now, into the Wise One’s hands and near to my croning.”

That puzzled Asgerd for an instant; her people didn’t have a formal ceremony for that, as they did for coming of age. Then she nodded understanding.

“All of which I offer as some poor excuse,” Melissa said.

“Good mother, I didn’t expect a dance of joy when your son came home with a stranger, a foreign bride. You don’t know me or my kin or my very folk. I could have been an ill sort, one who did him no credit. I’m not like that, but I expected to have to prove . . . Well, if a man of my kindred, say one of my brothers, had come back with a Mackenzie maid for handfasting, it wouldn’t have been all hot mead and kisses at first from the women of my kindred either!”

“It’s been hard, with Edain away, hearing nothing but the odd letter, and those often of some battle or peril he’d been in and me not even knowing,” Melissa said softly, her eyes seeming to look beyond the wall.

“I can see that. I’ve been frightened for him more than once myself, even there with him! Though it was a comfort to have Artos King on hand.”

Melissa nodded. “Rudi . . . Artos . . . is a great hero, one whose song will live forever. Yet it’s perilous to stand too close to a hero in a tale! He’s been in and out of this house all his life, and I love him too; Lady Juniper was my sponsor in the Craft, and . . . But Edain is mine, my first son, the babe I bore beneath my heart and carried in my arms, new life in those years when it seemed death had swallowed all the world.”

“And he always will be your son,” Asgerd said. “You and the good father raised him to be a fine man, strong and kind both. My man, the one I will walk beside all my days, shipmates through life, and who will be the father of my children. The grandchildren I will lay in your arms, good mother.”

“I would like that, sure and I will like it very much indeed,” Melissa said.

Then unexpectedly, she chuckled. “Though with twins only two years old myself . . . I hadn’t expected that, after twelve years without a hint and not for want of trying. There’s a good many infants around this house the now!”

“The twins are fine children!” Asgerd said, with genuine enthusiasm. “So strong already, like little Ratatoskr-squirrels for dashing and climbing, so bold and fearless!”

“So hard to keep out of everything that might burn, cut, drown, crush or poison them!” Melissa said. “The great thing with grandchildren is that you can hand them back to their parents and get a moment’s rest now and then!”