The bedbox! I'd forgotten there were such things. I wait where I am and watch Winter Mist's silvery shadow bounce happily away from me. My throat goes dry. I wonder if there is anything uisghe baitha left. I need courage. I only been in a bedbox once or twice and didn't like it much. Too soft for comfort. It reeked like old pelts and I woke up with fleas. I thought of my hardy-hearted bride and me rolling in a dewy field tomorrow morning or maybe finding a place along the river where we could swim together and then...but a bedbox? And now? Not as if I ain't ready, though!

Baine brushes past me on her way out to be with 'Daig. She gives me a saucy wink. Maybe I could ask her - too slow, she's already gone. I don'know what I'd ask anyway.

Da snores. The little ones are snuffling in their wrappings by the fire, sound asleep. Keu has gone way back in the cave somewhere for the night. Now is the time for us. I'll forget its a bedbox. I'll pretend we're under that tree on the soft grass of Tara. I tiptoe 'cross the room so as not to wake any of them, gathering up our thrown-off clothes as I go.

My sidhe-wife hears me and calls out in a voice that makes me quiver all over. My wife, my ever surprising wife, shines in the darkness like stardust. She waits for me right in the middle of the bedbox. I see her smile flash as I climb in beside her. I reach out and find warm, sleek curves that feel perfectly fitted to my searching hands. My mouth searches out that smile. Her lips open just a little, inviting me in. After a long, delicious kiss she whispers a wish and how we can together make it come true.

Slowly we wrestle and roll this way and that way. The bedbox turns into the meadowgrass of Tara on a summer night. Winter Mist's skin tastes sweet and salty. Her braids have come undone and her hair smells like rain. I follow her, chasing her to match every kiss and caress. Finally the chase closes in. Our pounding heartbeats drum as one. I am on top of her and we are almost as close as a man and a woman can be - and that's when it happens!

Someone or something falls from a great height and crashes down on me. It knocks all the breath out of me and smashes me hard against Winter Mist. Before I can even gasp, there's a shrieking in my ear. "He's attacking her!"I feel a sharp lash across my bare arse.

There's the whisk of a horse-switch again and another stripe of pain. With a screech of my own, I fling off the whipper-snapper and fly from the bedbox in a bolt of terror. More terrifying still, I hear the slapping of feet on the cave floor in hot pursuit of me. What have I done, what have I done?!

Wild with fury and horror, I rush to the cave door thinking only to escape their wrath. I stumble over Da and it slows me down or else I might have got away. The biggest of the horde, a great furry beast, throws itself at me and brings me down just two paces from freedom.

I scream into the monster's drooling jowls. "How I rue the day I married a Sidhe-woman! Curse the day I wed the witch! And triple curse the night she lured me to bed! What evil has been unleashed on me from the black gates of the Otherworld? Curse you all back to the hell where you were born!"

Chattering, shouts and - laughter? The stinking beast rises off my chest. In all the confusion, I hear Da reciting the days of the week. I must have kicked him in the head when I stumbled. Maybe I knocked out the last wits of him. 'Daig thrusts a torch into my face and sneers down at me. Baine is weeping? And there - there is my wicked bride! The cunning creature is trying not to giggle but she can't help herself. She's pure EVIL and the cause of all my humiliation.

As my family settles back down in their night-places and the nasty brood of children is herded back to their nests, Winter Mist offers me her cloak. "So what? It's nothing the whole world hasn't seen yet!" I snap at her. I feel like throwing the cloak back at her but I fling it around my hips anyway.

"I know what you're thinking but I had nothing to do with this," she sighs. She has Toad, my innocent and loving gift to her, in one hand. With the other hand, she pulls me back into the bedbox room. I'm so confused and weary and sad, I don't know what to do but go with her.

Back in the bedbox, I move as far away from Winter Mist as possible. When she touches me I flinch. "I know what you're thinking but I had nothing to do with this," she sighs. I just want to sleep. She slithers away, then just as I'm falling to sleep I feel her breath on the back of my neck. I slide away until I feel the cool, wet wall of the cave against my face. Sure, there's no shame for a man to cry. Still, I don't want her to know. I shut my eyes against the burning tears.

Later I wake to the warmth of my Telltown wife tight against my back. Her arm is around me and our hands are entwined, resting against my aching heart. I smell a freshly kindled fire and maybe roasting hare. I turn slowly, not wanting to wake Winter Mist, but I'm greeted by a tiny smile.

There are other fires freshly a-kindle this morning. I can't resist kissing her but I can't let her draw me in again, not jus yet. At least not until the welts on my backside stop stinging. I spring from the bed and throw on my leathers, saving the breeks for last and slowly. Without looking back, I hurry to see what's to break my fast.