“Is the fourth annex haunted, Maman?”
     Wren looked at the child — second wife's third daughter — in surprise. How long had it been since she'd even thought about the fourth annex and its missing occupant. Years, anyway. In the beginning she had been a frequent visitor, bringing fresh flowers, opening windows, wiping away the dust on the personal items left behind. Preparing for the prodigal to return. Knowing she never would.
     “No. Not haunted. Lonely and empty.” Like herself.
     She sent the child away and activated the scribe. The tale needed told and, though it was not hers, she had played a part and would be the storyteller for the lack of any better.

     The sunshine caressed her skin and sparkled through her closed lids to dance in red and gold in her vision. The drawing pad laid discarded, rough sketches of the grain heads, heavy with immature kernels and the long hairs of pre-ripeness.
     The grain would ripen, as would the corn and vegetables, and the other produce of the first wife's farm. The other wives' bellies burgeoned, bearing fruit for the husband, but hers remained barren — flowerless, fruitless and flat.
     Still — the sun shone warmly, her pottery demanded a good price, her husband understanding, and his other wives polite and, sometimes, sociable — her blessings were many. “Look,” a man's deep voice startled her. “A wren has made her nest in my field.”
     Wren blushed and reached for her shift, but Maxim knelt down, pinning the light garment to the matted stalks with his foot.
     He kissed her hip. “No. Do not cover.”
     His clever hands touched her bronzed skin, finding places that caused her to tremble in spite of the late summer air.
     “All over brown, little bird.” Her husband's lips tickled and explored. The sheen of sweat became discrete droplets and he licked them from her breasts and belly and, lastly, her thighs and between. She lay transfixed by his tongue and the sensations wrought where he met she. His shadow blocked the sun, suddenly. She arched to meet him, and then wrapped her legs to welcome him deeper.
     Her small noises, escaping her throat as his manhood plowed a furrow inside her, made him laugh aloud. “You even sound like a wren.”

     Maxim lay back in the grasses and Wren looked at the deepening color of the sky. The sun had passed beyond the tops of the nearby copse of trees. She shivered in the shade and Maxim covered them both with his shirt and drew her closer.
     “That was better for you, I think.”
     Wren nodded. Something profoundly right had happened, which, though her husband was a kind lover, hadn't before.
     He rolled toward her and rubbed one brown nipple with his rough-skinned thumb, smiling at her quivering response.
     “I was looking hard for you, all afternoon.”
     “You found me, I think. Hard, I know.”
     He laughed at her boldness; so uncharacteristic of this third wife, and then again when she blushed.
     “Not for this, though I will give thanks for the blessing. I may disappoint second wife later, however.”
     “With or without, sharing your bed is enough.”
     He shrugged. “You don't know her like I do. Enough is when she says it is.”
     Both fell silent, leaving the far too personal topic to wither.
     “You were looking for me?” Wren asked, finding a better subject for discussion.
     Both watched the doves returning from the winnowing grounds to their covies under the trees. Bees buzzed by with golden packs of pollen shimmering on hind legs. A premature cricket announced the start of evening and the last moments of day.
     Tiny Astrid, the moon of twilight, started her journey, glimmering like a diamond from her place in heaven. Yes, evening time.
     “We finished the fourth annex, today.” Maxim said at last.
     Ah! But why tell her? It was first wife's place to welcome a new woman.
     “First wife…?” Wren whispered.
     “She is too — busy. With the harvest, and her pregnancy.” He saw Wren's wince and smoothed her tousled brown-black hair, topping her head with a fond kiss. “I have children, little bird. Whether you fill my nest further is not as important as you being in my nest.” A kind thing for him to claim, true or not.
     First wife also had a cold way about her, which served them all well in her shrewd business dealings but made living near her occasionally less than comfortable.
     “I want you to be the mentor. Calista is also an artisan. Glass blowing.”
     “Will she take me as guide?”
     Maxim grimaced. “She is — different. I doubt she'll realize the significance. Calista has not had a traditional upbringing.”
     Wren said nothing but wondered about the things Maxim had not said. Untraditional?
     “She is an only child of a single wife.”
     “Oh.” Untraditional. “Why you?”
     Her husband sighed. “There are few men willing to commit to a woman who may prove to be a disruption.”
     “But you did?” she asked.
     “Her dowry will expand our lands and resources… Greatly.”
     “I see.” But there was more, she knew.
     “And Calli is lovely.” His words were whispered, worried about her opinion of a man who chose a horse for its color instead of its paces.
     Ah! Lovely. As none of his other wives were — all married for talent and practicality. Not desire or a man's lustful longings. Wren wondered if he had imagined that loveliness as he had taken her plainness in the grass.
     “I rely on you, third wife.” His statement was more a question than an order.
     “Of course.”
     He smiled his relief and his hands stroked the still warm silk of her skin. Maxim sucked the now dry salt from one breast and then the other. She could feel his cock fill with the steel of desire. What did it matter whose face he saw as long as it was her fields that he plowed with such enthusiasm? Second wife was going to be very disappointed.

     Calista, indeed, was lovely. Beautiful, even. Auburn hair flowed down over her slender shoulders in manageable waves, unlike Wren's tangled mop. Half a deca taller, with a tucked-in waist, wide hips and with a bosom to match, she looked like Diana made flesh. Her impossibly dark blue eyes welled with tears at Wren's welcome. The trucks carrying her belongings continued down the work-lane to fill her annex with the furniture from her dowry. When they left, the lane would be planted with grass seed and flowers, as was custom, from her father's garden.
     Tiny scars, white spots on peach skin, marred the backs of her hands — burns from hot glass fragments, Wren supposed — and one light brown mole on her cheek saved Calista from perfection. Human beauty lies in such minor imperfections, which prevent a parody.
     To pass the time before her quarters were ready, Wren showed the girl the compound.
     Winnowing grounds, silos, barns, the second wife's school and sewing room were arranged in a semi-circle before the house. Behind the residence, between the third and fourth annexes, stood the kiln and pottery studio. Wren checked the temperature of the kiln as they passed, reminding herself to add more lime to the walls before the next firing.
     “Do you enamel?” Calista asked.
     “I haven't found a mixture that I like. I use paints and etchings. Just a clear-coat as sealant.” Wren didn't explain her preference for the tans and browns of the natural clay.
     “I know glass. May I help?”
     Wren nodded, reluctantly but politely, and waited while the bride-to-be examined the shelves of finished and drying pottery.
     “Or perhaps not,” she said. “Your colors suit your style and design.” Calista glanced at Wren. “Maybe, I could use a bit of space in your kiln to make jewelry, instead? Enamel on silver or bronze?”
     “Perhaps.” Wren was relieved. She pointed to an adjacent plot of land. “Your workspace could be there, if you wish. Maxim would see to the building, but your wishes would matter.”
     Calli sat down on a bench and gazed out across the valley. The lowing of the cattle, coming in for milking, sounded mournful.
     The heads of ripening barley bobbed and quivered in the light breeze. Wren watched the play of light on the ever-changing patterns.
     “What is he like? Your master?” Tears streamed down both Calli's cheeks, and Wren realized the girl was terrified.
     “I have no master. He is a husband. A good man.” She tried to think of something comforting but had no understanding of this odd viewpoint. “He isn't…” She had no words to finish that thought. It had never occurred to her to fear him, though she frequently worried about being put-aside or relegated to concubine because of her infertility. “He is a good man.”
     “Do you love him?”
     Wren puzzled this question. What had love to do with marriage?
     “I respect him,” she said. Untraditional? Or heretical?
     “That's not what I asked.” The girl's bright eyes demanded more. Well, thought Wren perplexed, that was the only answer she had.
     “He would be an easy man to love.” An evasion, perhaps, but one that satisfied the inquisitor.
     Wren had caught sight of Maxim, several times, moving purposefully around the compound. She snorted. Moving purposefully, maybe. But his purpose was to spy on them, and not in pursuit of any of his usual tasks.
     “Yes. Very easy to love.”

     As likeable as Calista was — she seemed unaware of her beauty and attended to it no more than Wren — she was difficult to be around. Her questions disconcerted harmony and Wren saw the results in the number of failed pieces littering the shop. The materials for the new shop had been accumulating — brick and beam, mortar and shingle — but not a shovelful of soil had been disturbed, awaiting blueprints.
     First wife had set the wedding date for the end of harvest for her convenience, ignoring Maxim's. Second wife pouted at Maxim's distraction and used her pregnancy to banish him from between her thighs. Wren welcomed his fantasies because he visited her bed — or grass bower or studio or wherever he could in private — more often than not bursting with passion — if not for her then spent with her.
     Once he cried out another name while his cock filled Wren's belly with his seed. He realized his misspoken word and, ashamed, apologized.
     “Wren… I'm — sorry. That's not enough, I know.” He buried his face in her neck to hide from her hurt eyes.
     Wren wrapped her arms around him and shushed him.
     “She is in my mind — always. I cannot think of else. I cannot eat or sleep — or draw a plan for her damned studio.”
     In the slow, full way ideas had of blooming in Wren's mind, a plan formed.
     “Send her away awhile.”
     Maxim pulled away far enough to look into her eyes. “She is here to become familiar with me.”
     “You will break vow,” Wren commented. “Which is the greater evil?” Sending her away would place the source of his temptation beyond the possibility of premarital congress. Bend tradition or break a sacred vow. Broken vows had ways to wreck revenge and become phantoms to torment those who broke them. Bent traditions rarely became haunts. One or the other — he'd never survive his vow until the wedding night even with his frequent liaisons with his accommodating third wife.
     “Where?” he asked, accepting the idea before realizing he had.
     “A short apprenticeship? To learn to make jewelry? She would be grateful for the opportunity and think well of you for it.” A long speech for his quiet henbird, and he grinned as she bit her lip, aware of his disbelief.
     “I will do it,” he said, his relief palatable. “You, my little owl, will go along and return her to me.”
     Wren nodded. She'd known it would be so.

     The jeweler lived near the Great Ocean. Wren spent hours on the stony beaches, watching the waves carve patterns in the layer of rough sand, enjoying the sun but regretting even the swatches of clothing required by public modesty, and gathering pebbles and the shells of sea-creatures. The jeweler apprentices eagerly confiscated her finds and incorporated them into combs, necklaces, and buttons. Some were given to her in payment for the raw materials she'd provided.
     One young man showered his creations on Calista, which she accepted with a smile. He'd arrange the combs in her burnished tresses and remove them, unsatisfied, to replace them. Vorchov was handsome, Wren thought, but weak. His fingers were delicate and fragile-looking, but he made equally delicate and fragile jewelry, which was a fitting symmetry in her estimation.
     Their friendship seemed innocent enough but Wren became adept at finding ways to separate them and intrude on private moments.

     “I've never heard the name Wren before,” Calista said. She sat beside the quiet woman and watched some of the others splashing in the surf. Her linen shift clung damply to her curves, revealing more than it concealed. Her hair frizzed in the humid salt air and her face was grubby from sand and sweat. Still lovely.
     “A petname,” Wren replied a while later. The morning haze had given way to a blazing day, too hot to spend indoors — or so the master claimed as he ordered a picnic for the beach. Driftwood had been collected and waited for a bonfire at dusk. Mollusks had been dug and were steaming in a large pot. Vegetables had been tucked in the coals beneath and the aromas had begun to torment the appetite of the crowd.
     “Why Wren?”
     Wren sighed and sat up. She glanced up the rock ascent and saw Vorchok picking his way down carrying flagons of the jeweler's strong beer.
     “I'm small and brown and content with so little.”
     Calista followed the direction of her gaze. “That sounds more like an insult than an endearment.” She used a corner of towel, dampened with spit, to wipe her face but smeared more than she removed.
     Wren shrugged and took over the task.
     “What's your given name?”
     “Cornelia.”
     Calista smiled up at Vorchok and took the bottle he offered. He lifted one tangled lock of her hair and laughed before moving on with his refreshments.
     “I'll fix your hair if you fix mine,” Calista said, her eyes never leaving the affable youth, “Nell.” Nell was better than Cornelia but being Wren had never bothered her.
     Wren detangled the heavy hair with gentle strokes and pulled it into a single tail that bounced with every nod or toss of the girl's chin. Shell combs restrained the wisps and glittered in the setting sun.
     “You have marvelous hair,” Calista exclaimed as she fulfilled her part of the bargain. Wren had almost released her from the debt but reckoned the time well spent if Vorchok kept his distance.
     “No.” A tangled mop, her hair defied all efforts of matronly restraint.
     “Yes.” The girl twisted and braided and finally fastened the plait with a barrette with red enamel design. Loose curls fluttered around her cheeks but none hung in her eyes despite the vagaries of the stiff ocean breeze. Someone passed the word that dinner was ready and they joined the queue.

     In the darkness, Wren lost track of Calli. Guided by something other than logic, maybe by duty or a sense of trouble, she found her — them — in an embrace. The state of their clothing spoke of a beginning of a liaison rather than the end, a fact for which she was grateful.
     “This cannot be,” Wren whispered, startling the pair. They had been oblivious to everything save each other. “This is not yours to take, and this is not yours to give.”
     Vorchok accepted her censure with a nod, but Calista shook her head.
     “Why not, Nell? Is this not the only thing I have which is truly mine to give?” She caught at her lover's hand and pleaded. “Why must I give myself to a man with more wives than love? Why can't I have happiness as my mother did?” Vorchok kissed her hand as he pulled away. He slipped by Wren with a backwards glance.
     Calli sobbed and, when Wren sat beside her, leaned into the brown arms and wept until Wren's sweater was damp with tears.
     Wren watched Diana rise from the sea, her light bright enough to drown the stars nearest to the orb.
     “I want him — and him alone.”
     “Your selfishness denies other women their due.” Wren said.
     Calista sniffed and raised her head, curious. “What women?”
     Wren hated speaking. To her own ears her voice sounded like a bird's chirp. Ridiculous.
     “Our world is Demeter and she has exacted a toll on humans for enslaving her to our purposes. She steals our male fetuses to raise them for herself in the darkness below.”
     Calli's eyes laughed at the old superstition.
     “It is the truth. One male born for every female would be the statistical probability and, in the first generations a thousand years ago, was the way of it.”
     “No. There are four baby girls for each boychild come to term.”
     “Now.” Why burden the girl with the obvious? Maxim had six daughters and one son. Demeter had altered her demands again. Already there was talk of shifting the requirement from four wives to five. The other statistics — more barren women and stillbirths — had forestalled the legislation.
     “I cannot love Maxim.”
     Wren shrugged. What did love have to do with marriage?

     Maxim welcomed them back with a fire unquenched by his fiancé's absence. He proudly displayed the finished studio and the barrage of gifts for the coming nuptials. Wren saw the frantic fear in Calli's face even though Maxim had not.

     The fields were sad-looking shorn of their tresses. The calves, foals, and lambs had passed through the baby phase and romped in gawky adolescence in the paddocks and pastures. Males aplenty in the lower mammals, Demeter's anger saved for the lords of space and not their chattel, Wren thought.
     She saw Calli's restless wandering and followed occasionally. The girl would sit crying in a lonely glade on a pile of stones and Wren would creep away, unable to console and unwilling to explain.

     The wedding day dawned with a hazy mist swirling in the valley. The minister spoke the binding words and the witnesses watched the chaste kiss of promise. Wren saw Calista glance over the crowd and the bridal blush deepening. On a rise, beneath a stand of silver birch, sitting on one of the headstones in the family plot, waited Vorchok. A guest blocked Wren's view momentarily and when she looked again he was gone.
     The guests danced and partook of the bounty of a fruitful harvest. The gifts, displayed prominently, were admired and silently judged. Wine, served in Calista's fine goblets, fueled passions. Couples, husbands and wives, locked in embraces sought privacy in the numerous small tents. Many pregnancies were kindled at weddings.
     Wren had volunteered to prepare the bride, who had been sequestered following dinner. She knocked once and entered. She stopped at the scene within, but discovered no revelation.
     Vorchok sat on the windowsill and held a valise. Calista paused in the buttoning of her heavy wool jacket. Her face was flushed and lovebites burned fiercely on the soft, pale neck. She had the air of a woman well-used and well-pleased.
     She started to speak but Wren raised her hand, demanding silence.
     “Tell me nothing. I do not wish to choose between a lie and betrayal. Tell me nothing so I can remain silent.”
     “I love you, Nell,” Calli whispered as Vorchok helped her through the window.
     Wren nodded.

     Wren waited and was unsurprised when Maxim burst into her quarters.
     “She's gone,” he shouted… So angry. She hadn't realized how passionate he could be. “What do you know?”
     “Nothing useful.”
     “I will find her and bring her back.” Her solemn expression stopped his words.
     “She will run away again?”
     Wren nodded. His anger crumbled and his tears began.
     “Why?”
     “Some are happy with contentment. Others can only be content with happiness.”

     True enough. But not the reason Wren dissuaded him. Calista was right. One man — one woman made more sense but was unworkable in practice. Four wives — or more — made no sense but was workable, but only barely. It required that Maxim love none of his wives more than another. His passion for Calista would have disrupted the harmony and the discord would have destroyed any contentment.
     He never set Calli aside, nor sought a fifth wife when that became an option. Better he put Wren aside for infertility and find another quiet bird to fill his nest, but he didn't though she had suggested it.
     The fourth annex became a shrine and the fourth wife a tale of…

     “Nice story, Wren.” Maxim's voice startled her into silence. “But not quite how I remember it.” His face looked haggard and she realized he had heard every word.
     “Better it be told this way,” she said, reaching to turn off the device. His hand covered hers and raised her fingers to his lips.
     “You think so? Not the truth?”
     Wren closed her eyes and recovered the truth. He had rejected her council, maddened by the virgin blood staining the sheets where they had lain mocking his rights as husband. He shook the truth from her — of where had they gone — and pursued his errant wife and her lover, catching up as they coupled, lost in each other, in the secret glade.
     Wren had followed. She had witnessed Vorchok falling senseless to Maxim's hard fist, and heard Calista's screams as his cock ripped her tender flesh asunder — the gentleness he would have shown his beloved bride replaced by violence for a faithless whore — and how she fell silent as his hands choked the life from her throat.

     Yes, far better Wren's lies than Maxim's truth.

     “You are a good man. You should not be punished for a moment of madness.”
     He rested his chin on her head and circled her tanned neck with his strong fingers. “What of you, my fierce little bird. What of you? Better you'd left the boy stop me or did I serve your jealousy too well?” Not jealousy, but she wouldn't quibble.
     In her mind she could hear the sound the rock made on Vorchok's skull as she lifted it again and again. Bound together, the slain and slayers both, by murder to a silent strange sort of marriage — but one that would last longer than the fourth wife's.

     There was still a pile of rocks in the glade. It could be just a pile of rocks but was, instead, a cairn. She found fresh flowers each time she visited.

     “Is the fourth annex haunted by their ghosts?” he murmured, letting his hands slide from her neck to her shoulders. One slipped beneath her shirt and stirred her desire as he stroked her breast and nuzzled her ear. She let him dream of beauty lost and rejoiced in his fantasies as he spent them on her. No matter what name he cried out, it was her body he cried it over, not Calli's.

     “No,” she said, knowing more but, as usual, choosing to say less.

     Haunted? Perhaps — but by a vow broken, Maxim's lost soul and, now, the Tale of the Fourth Wife.

The End