White as ice. Eyes the same colour. Hair the same colour. They come but seldom, maybe once in every third generation. Or four. But we remember them. They walk among us, and choose one of us. Not as servant or friend, but as a tool to shape a future only that one can see. If (no idea how to translate this word) then they all of one colour.
Of a time, they breed upon (phrase obscured by stain) either a man or a woman, of their own kind or one of ours. But their offspring are not of a term that matches our own. So they may leave and it is years later that (this portion of the scroll so badly holed by insects that I can add only isolated words and phrases to it) elderly (a large gap) pale (a gap of I estimate seven lines of text followed by) older than its years. (Another large gap of at least two lines, ending with) more merciful to kill it. (The rest of the scroll scorched away.)
Partial translation from my father’s desk
So, in that one day and a night and the next, my life changed. I remember how angry I felt about all of it. So many changes, and they all affected me, yet no one asked me if I wanted any of them.
No one ever asked me anything in those days.
First there was Shun, put for now in a room but two doors away from my own and my father’s, until grander chambers could be prepared for her. My father had ordered that the Yellow Suite be renovated for her. She would have a bedchamber, a small sitting room, a room for her maid, and another room ‘to do whatever she wanted with’ as my father put it. I had always loved the Yellow rooms and had often crept in there to play. No one thought to ask me if I would have liked to have a set of rooms like those. No. A single bedchamber and a tiny adjoining room for a nonexistent nursemaid were considered enough for me. Yet a stranger came to our home, and my father brought in a whole army of carpenters and stonemasons and cleaning staff, and even a maid to wait only on Shun.
Then, there was the peculiar stranger he had put into the little room that opened to mine. He did not ask if he might put her there, he had simply done it. I had told him I understood why, and thought that he might thank me for being so understanding of how rude he had been. Instead he had just nodded curtly as if he expected me to simply accept anything he did. As if I were his conspirator in some plot rather than his own daughter. Certainly he expected me to support his lies to Riddle and Shun. And to obey him precisely after he discovered that I had told him the exact truth; the butterfly girl was gone.
And I did. I obeyed him without question that evening. He worked quickly, taking a blanket from my chest and handing me an armful of my mother’s scented candles. He made me walk in front of him where he could see me, and so I led him to his private study. He hurried me there, halting me twice with a grip on my shoulder to pull me aside from where a passing servant might see me.
When we reached his private study, he shut the door immediately, bolted it, and went straight to the false hinges. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked him.
‘Hiding you,’ he replied, He did not speak sharply but with a finality that brooked no questions. He lit one candle for me at the fading fire in the hearth. ‘In you go,’ he told me. And then he followed me in, as if to make sure no spy had penetrated our secret place. I saw his brows lift in surprise at the changes I had made. ‘You’ve been busy,’ he said with grudging admiration.
‘You seemed to have little time for me, so I found something to do.’ I wanted to rebuke him for how he had ignored me, but his smile at the changes I had made warmed me too much. He was proud of me. I could not be as stiff as I wished to be.
‘You’re clever. All of this is well thought out.’ He pushed the lit candle into my holder. Some tension seemed to go out of him. ‘You’ll be safe here until I am sure that there is no danger to you. I have to leave you here now, but I’ll be back as quickly as I can.’
‘Will you have to check every room in Withywoods?’
His eyes darkened as he saw that I understood what he feared. ‘I can do it.’
I doubted that was possible. ‘So many strangers have come in and out in the last few days. Why do you fear this one so much?’
‘There’s little time to talk, dear. The sooner I’m about this, the faster I can come back for you. But I fear her because I trusted her far too quickly, without thought. She might not be a danger, but danger may have followed her. I was careless. I won’t be again.’ He left me, backing from the small chamber into the narrow corridor. ‘I have to latch the door behind me. But don’t fear. I’ll be back.’
I would have feared, if I had not already prepared my own bolt-hole through the pantry. I watched him go, and then I put my eye to the peephole and watched him close the secret panel. He turned and looked right at me and gave a nod before he left his den.
So. There I was. I was glad I had thought to provision my hiding place. I sat for a time, mulling over everything that had happened. It was too much for such a short time. Shun. I didn’t like her. My dream-trance. I wondered if I should have been frightened by it instead of exhilarated. Why had I felt that way? I tried to make comparisons for myself. I was like a plant that had bloomed for the first time. No. More like a baby when it first discovers it can reach out with a hand and seize something. A part of me had been growing and today it had finally worked exactly as it was meant to. I hoped it would happen again soon. I wondered why I had had to explain it to my father. Did not all people have dreams, and thus have dream-trances? I tried to remember who had taught me that dreams were important, that they must be recorded, and that the most important dreams would seize me and hold me until they were fulfilled. I laughed aloud when I realized when I had learned that. I’d dreamed it.
I soon began to wish that I had thought to provide myself with some sort of pastime. I took out my journal and wrote a fair account of the last day, but that was done quickly enough. On the best piece of paper I had wrote an account of the butterfly dream, a much more detailed account than I had ever written before. I set it and my journal back on its little shelf and watched my mother’s candle burn. It was exceedingly boring. I thought back to what Wolf Father had told me, and my promise. What had my father meant when he told me to stay here? Why, only that I must stay hidden in the wall labyrinth. I assured myself of that several times.
Then I took a bit of my chalk and wrote on the wall that my father should not worry, I had gone to explore the corridors a bit, and that I would take chalk and an extra candle and mark my way.
I went first to the peephole that looked into my room, hoping again to find some secret entrance. Again, there was nothing I could discover. I had begun to understand the passages and how they wound their ways through the walls of the house. They were best in the oldest part of the house, as if a builder had planned them there. In other places, they went only a short way and were almost impossibly narrow or so low that my father would have had to crawl. I worked my way through the one that went past my room and was disappointed to find that there was no peephole into the room that had been temporarily given to Shun. I pressed my ear to the panelling, but could hear little. Maybe someone was weeping in the room. Maybe I was imagining it. I wondered if she was even in the room right now. I had been a bit frightened when my father had first spoken of bringing someone into our home. Now I wasn’t frightened. I was angry. I didn’t like her, I decided in that moment, and justified it by deciding that she didn’t like me, and that she wanted my father’s attention. I wasn’t sure why that made me uneasy, but it did. I needed my father now, more than ever, and it wasn’t right for her to come into our home and take up his time.
Locating the Yellow Suite was more difficult, but eventually I made my way there. When I judged I was near I held my candle high and was rewarded by the sight of a little door that could be swung to one side. A peephole cover. But when I moved the door, all I found was a small glob of damp plaster pressed through what had been a peep hole. The most recent round of repairs to the rooms had involved some plastering. They had covered over the peephole. Now, I decided, was not the time to tamper with it. The plasterers might be back the next day and I did not wish to call their attention to the hole. I would let it dry and later I would return, and cut it out like a plug.
I wandered the hidden maze a bit longer. I visited my pantry exit to be sure it was still as I had left it. While I was there, I filched some dried apples and plums for my hoard. I had climbed onto a barrel to reach the pepper sausages when one of the kitchen cats wandered in. I ignored him. Stripy Cat was not really his name, but it was how he was called. I became aware of his stare as I was trying to clamber on top of the boxes of salt-fish to reach the higher shelves in the pantry. I looked down from where I teetered to find him gazing up at me with round yellow eyes. He stared hard at me, as if I were one of the rats he was supposed to kill. His look froze me. He was a big cat, heavy-bodied and thick-limbed, a cat for the ground rather than a climbing cat. If he chose to leap on me and attack me, I would not be the winner. I imagined those sharp claws sunk into my shoulders and his hind legs ripping at my back. ‘What do you want?’ I whispered to him.
His whiskers perked forward and his ears tipped toward me. Then he shifted his gaze to a row of bright red sides of smoked fish hanging from a string stretched across the pantry. I knew why they were hung so high; it was so cats could not get at them.
But I could reach them.
I had to stand on my tiptoes to break one free. The flaps of salt-glazed fish had been threaded onto the string like peculiar beads. Once I had my hands on one, I bent it until it broke. When it gave way, I lost my precarious balance and fell from the top of the boxes to the pantry floor. I landed hard on my hip and side, but managed to keep from crying out. I lay for a time, clutching the stolen fish and sausage while breathing past my pain. Slowly I sat up. Bruised, but not much more than that.
Stripy Cat had retreated to a corner of the pantry but hadn’t fled. He watched me, or more specifically, he watched the fish that I still clutched. I caught my breath and spoke softly. ‘Not here. Follow me.’
I stood, hissing at my hurts, and gathered up my dried fruit and pepper sausage. Then, clutching my trove, I dropped to my knees and crawled behind and under my barricade of boxes to where my secret hatch was ajar. Once inside, I moved out of the way and waited. After a few long moments, a whiskered face appeared in the dim circle of light. I moved my candle back and beckoned to him.
Some people talk to cats. Some cats talk to people. It never hurts to try. ‘If you will follow me in here and spend a day killing rats and mice back here, I will give you this whole slab of fish.’
He lifted his striped face, opened his mouth and turned his face from side to side, taking in the scents of my warren. I know it smelled mousey to me. He made a low noise in his throat and I felt he approved the prospect of hunting as well as the fish.
‘I’m going to put this up in my den. When you’ve killed the rats and mice, come tell me. I’ll give you the fish and then let you out again.’
His round yellow eyes met mine and I had no doubt that he understood our bargain well. He brushed past me, head down, tail straight. Once his tail was well clear of the hatch, I pulled the small door until it was almost entirely closed. I picked up my candle and took the fish, sausage and fruit back to my den.
But even with my explorations, I spent a long and dull afternoon behind the walls. I wished I had stolen more of my father’s old writings to read. I wrote about the cat, took a nap bundled in my blanket, ate some fruit and drank some water, and then waited. And waited. When finally my father returned to open the door for me, I was stiff and sore from being still so long. I had been watching for him, and as soon as he opened the panel, I was out. ‘All safe?’ I asked him, and he nodded wearily.
‘I think so,’ he amended. ‘There is no sign of her anywhere in the house. Though, as you know, it’s a big house with many rooms. None of the servants have commented on seeing her. It’s as if she vanished.’ He cleared his throat. ‘So, the servants know nothing of the missing girl. And I’ve insisted to Shun and Riddle that she left.’
I followed him out of the secret den and out into the corridors of Withywoods. I was silent. I knew hundreds of places to hide in our house. My father could not possibly have searched them all. Surely he knew that. I walked for a time at his side. I thought carefully and then said, ‘I should like a knife and a sheath, please. Like my mother always wore.’
He slowed his stride and I no longer had to hurry. ‘Why?’
‘Why did my mother always have a knife?’
‘She was a practical woman, always doing things. She had a knife to cut a bit of string, or trim back a bush or cut flowers, or cut up fruit.’
‘I can do all those things. Or could, if I had a knife.’
‘I’ll see about getting you one, and a belt sized for you.’
‘I should like to have a knife now.’
He stopped then and looked down at me. I looked at his feet.
‘Bee. I know that you are a bit afraid. But I will keep you safe. It’s right that you should have a knife, for you are old enough to be sensible with it. But …’ He halted, floundering.
‘You don’t want me to stab someone if they’re threatening me. Neither do I. But I don’t want to be threatened and not have anything at all to protect myself.’
‘You’re so small,’ he said with a sigh.
‘Yet another reason why I need a knife!’
‘Look at me.’
‘I am.’ I looked at his knees.
‘Look at my face.’
Unwillingly, I shifted my gaze. My eyes wandered over his face, met his eyes for a moment and then I looked aside. He spoke gently. ‘Bee. I will get you a knife, and a sheath, and a belt for it that you can wear. More than that, I will teach you to use it, as a weapon. It’s not going to happen tonight. But I will.’
‘You don’t want to.’
‘No. I don’t. I wish I could feel like it was something you didn’t have to know. But I suppose you do. And perhaps I have been remiss in not teaching you before this. But I didn’t want you to live that sort of a life.’
‘Not being prepared to defend myself doesn’t mean I’d never have to fight for my life.’
‘Bee, I know that is true. Look. I’ve told you what I’ll do, and I will do it. But for now, for tonight, can you trust me to protect you? And let this be?’
Something tightened in my throat. I spoke to his feet, my voice gone hoarse and strange. ‘How can you protect me when you are going to be looking after her and keeping her safe?’
He looked shocked, then hurt and then tired. I watched out of the corner of my eyes as the expressions flitted across his features. He composed himself and spoke calmly. ‘Bee. You have nothing to be jealous about. Or to worry about. Shun needs our help, and yes, I will protect her. But you are my daughter. Not Shun. Now let’s go. You need to brush your hair and wash your face and hands before we go to dinner.’
‘Will Shun be there?’
‘Yes. And Riddle.’ He wasn’t trying to make me trot, but my legs were short. When he walked at his normal stride, I always had to hurry to keep up. I noticed that the house was quieter. I surmised that he had sent the workmen home for the evening.
‘I like it when the house is quiet again.’
‘I do, too. These repairs will take some time, Bee, and we will have to put up with noise and dust and strangers in our house for a while. But when they have finished, things will go back to being quiet and calm.’
I thought about dinner tonight. Shun and Riddle at the table with us. And breakfast the next day. I thought about walking into a room in my home and finding Shun there. Would she walk in the garden rooms? Would she read the scrolls in the library? Now that I thought of her wandering through my home it suddenly seemed as if I could never be unaware of her presence. ‘How long will Shun be here?’ Somehow I doubted that quiet, calm and Shun would dwell in the same house.
‘As long as she needs to be here.’ He tried to speak firmly but now I heard the dread in his voice. Clearly he had not asked himself that question. I liked that he disliked the answer as much as I did. It made me feel better.
He escorted me to my room. I washed, combed my hair and when I left the room to go down to dinner, he was outside the door waiting for me. I looked up at him. ‘I like that you shaved off your beard,’ I said. I had noticed it that morning, but not commented on it then. He glanced at me, nodded once and we walked down to the dining room together. The servants had put us in the big dining hall, but had only lit a fire in the nearest hearth. The other end of the room was a dim cave. Riddle and Shun were already seated at the table, talking, but the vast space of the room devoured their words. ‘And here we all are,’ my father announced as we came in. He had good control of his voice. He sounded pleased that all of us were there.
He seated me at his right hand, as if I were my mother, drawing out my chair for me and then pushing it in when I perched on it. Shun sat to my right and Riddle to his left. Her hair was pinned up and her dress looked as if she had expected to meet the queen in our dining room. Her face was freshly scrubbed but cold water had not bleached all the pink from her eyes. She had been crying. Riddle looked as if he wanted to cry but had a smile hooked to his cheeks instead.
As soon as we were seated and my father had rung the bell for the food to be brought in, Shun spoke. ‘You didn’t find any other sign of the stranger?’
‘I told you, Shun, she left. She was an injured traveller, no more than that. Obviously she didn’t feel safe, even here, and as soon as she could move on, she did.’
Two men I didn’t know came into the room carrying platters. I looked at my father. He smiled at me. They served us soup and bread and then stood back. ‘Cor, Jet, thank you.’ As soon as my father spoke the words, they bowed and went back to the kitchen. I stared at him in consternation.
‘I hired more staff, Bee. It’s time we did things a bit more properly here. You’ll soon get to know them and be comfortable with them. They are cousins to Tavia’s husband, and highly recommended.’
I nodded but I still felt unhappy about it. The meal went in stages, and my father was careful to speak to Riddle and to Shun, as if conversation was something he had to share evenly with everyone at the table. He asked Shun if her room suited her, for now. She replied stiffly that it would be fine. He asked Riddle what he thought of the soup, and Riddle said it was as good as that served at Buckkeep Castle. Throughout the meal, he and Riddle only spoke of very ordinary topics. Did he think it would snow more tomorrow? My father hoped the snows would not be too deep this year. Riddle said it would be good if they were not too deep this year. Did Shun enjoy riding? There were some fine riding trails at Withywoods, and my father thought her horse looked like a good one. Perhaps she would like to explore the estate of Withywoods a bit tomorrow?
Riddle asked if my father still had the grey mare he had used to ride. My father said that he did. Riddle asked if they might go look at her after dinner. He had been thinking of asking my father if she would carry a foal from a certain black stud at Buckkeep for him.
It was such a transparent excuse for getting my father alone to talk to him that I almost couldn’t stand it. After dinner, we went to a little room with comfortable chairs and a nice fire in the hearth. Riddle and my father left to walk out to the stables. Shun and I sat and looked at each other. Tavia came in with tea for us. ‘Camomile and sweetbreath, to ease you to sleep after your long travels today,’ she said to Shun with a smile.
‘Thank you, Tavia,’ I said after the silence had fallen and Shun had made no response to her.
‘You are very welcome,’ she replied. She poured tea for each of us, and left.
I took my teacup from the tray and went and sat on the hearth. Shun looked down at me.
‘Does he always let you stay awake and be with the adults?’ She obviously disapproved.
‘Adults?’ I asked, looking around me. I smiled at her as if puzzled.
‘You should be in bed by now.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s what is done with children in the evening. They go to bed so that adults can have conversations.’
I thought about that, and then looked into the fire. Would my father start sending me to bed in the evening so that he and Shun could stay awake and talk? I took up the poker and hit the burning log with it firmly, sending up a shower of sparks. Then I hit it again.
‘Stop that! You’ll make the fire smoke.’
I hit it one more time, and then put the poker back. I didn’t look at her.
‘I suppose it’s as well that you are not wearing skirts. You’d dirty them down there. Why are you sitting on the hearth instead of in a chair?’
The chairs were too tall. My feet dangled. I looked at the newly swept bricks. ‘It’s not dirty here.’
‘Why are you dressed like a boy?’
I looked down at my tunic and leggings. I had a few spiderwebs on my ankle. I picked them free. ‘I’m dressed comfortably. Do you like wearing all those layers of skirts?’
Shun flounced them out around herself. They were pretty, like the spread petals of a flower. The outer skirts were a blue that was one shade lighter than Buckkeep blue. The petticoat beneath was an even lighter blue, and the lacy edge of it showed deliberately. It matched the pale blue of the bodice of her dress, and the lace was the same as the lace at her throat and cuffs. That dress and petticoat had not come from any crossroads market. They’d probably been made especially for her. She smoothed them with satisfaction. ‘They’re warm. And very pretty. They were expensive, too.’ She lifted her hand and touched her earrings, as if I could have failed to notice them. ‘So were these. Pearls from Jamaillia. Lord Chade got them for me.’
I wore a simple tunic, sewn by my mother and made long enough to be modest, over a long-sleeved wool shirt. My tunic was belted at my waist with a leather belt and came to my knees. Below it, I wore only my woollen leggings and slippers. No one had ever suggested before that I was dressed like a boy but now I recalled how the stable-boys dressed. Not so different from me. Even the kitchen-girls wore skirts, all the time. I looked at the cuffs of my sleeves. They were soiled with cobwebs and chalk from my earlier adventure. The knees of my leggings were dirty, too. I suddenly knew that my mother would have made me change my clothes before I came down to dinner with guests, into my red skirts perhaps. She would have put ribbons in my hair, too. I lifted my hand to my hair and smoothed down what was left of it.
Shun nodded. ‘That’s a little better. It was standing up like feathers on a bird’s head.’
‘It’s too short to braid. I cut it because my mother died.’ I looked at her directly for one instant.
Shun met my gaze coldly. Then she said, ‘I can only wish my mother were dead. I think it would make my life easier.’
I stared at her knees. Her words cut me and I tried to understand why. After a moment, it came to me. She considered her pain more significant than mine. I felt she had said that her cruel mother’s life going on was a greater tragedy than my mother’s death. In that moment, I hated her. But I also discovered another important thing. I could do as my father did, that is, lift my eyes and meet her gaze and let nothing of what I was thinking show in my face.
That thought surprised me. I studied her, saying nothing, and realized that she did not share my ability. Everything she felt at the moment was writ broad and plain on her face. Perhaps she thought I was too young to read her face, or that it was unimportant if I could. But she was not trying to hide anything from me. She had known her callous words would hurt me. She was miserable and resented being in my home and was irritated by being left with me. And in her misery, she was striking out at me because I was there. And because she thought I could not strike back.
I did not feel pity for her. She was too dangerous for me to pity. I suspected that in her thoughtless wretchedness she could employ cruelty such as I had never experienced from an adult. I suddenly feared that she could destroy all of us, and take whatever little peace my father and I had found. She sat there in her pretty clothes and pearl earrings and looked at me, so small and, she thought, very young, and dirty and common. Of course. She thought me the daughter of commoner Tom Badgerlock. Not the lost princess of the Farseer family! Just the daughter of Withywoods’ widowed caretaker. Yet I had a home and a father who loved me and memories of a mother who had cherished me. None of that seemed fair to her.
‘You’ve gone quiet,’ she observed intently. She was like a bored cat poking at a mouse to see if it was dead all the way.
‘It’s late, for me. I’m a child, you know. I go to bed quite early on most nights.’ I yawned for her, not covering my mouth. In a softer voice, I added, ‘And self-pitying tales of woe always bore me, which makes me sleepy.’
She stared at me, her eyes going greener. She reached as if to tidy her hair and pulled out one of the long pins that secured it. She drew it between her thumb and forefinger as if to deliberately call my attention to it. Did she think to threaten me with it? She stood abruptly and I jumped to my feet. I bet I could outrun her, but dodging past her to the door might be a challenge. I heard a murmur in the hall and an instant later Riddle opened the door. My father was behind him. ‘Goodnight!’ I called cheerily to them. I ran past a glowering Shun to hug my father briefly and then step back hastily. ‘It’s been such a long day, and so full of unexpected events. I’m quite weary. I think I shall take myself to bed now.’
‘Well …’ My father looked astonished. ‘If you’re tired. Shall I see you to your room?’
‘Yes,’ Riddle said strongly before I could reply. Shun was tidying her hair, smiling as she slid the pin back into her bound tresses. ‘She didn’t feel well earlier. You should see that she is tucked in warmly and that a nice fire is on her hearth.’
‘Yes. I should.’ He agreed. He was smiling and nodding, as if it were perfectly normal that I seek my bed at such an hour. Usually we stayed up late together, and often I fell asleep on the hearth in his study. Now he begged his guests to excuse him briefly, promised to return and then took my hand as we left. I did not pull it free of his grip until the door was closed behind us. ‘What are you up to?’ He demanded as we made our way toward the stairs and my bedchamber.
‘Nothing. It’s night. I’m going to bed. It’s what children do, I am told.’
‘Shun’s face was flushed.’
‘I think she was sitting too close to the fire.’
‘Bee.’ My name was all he said but there was rebuke in the word. I was silent. I did not feel I deserved it. Should I tell him of her hairpin? Doubtless he would think me silly.
We reached my door and I seized the door handle before he could. ‘I want only to go to bed tonight. Doubtless you need to hurry back to talk to the other adults.’
‘Bee!’ he exclaimed, and now my name meant that I had struck him, hurting him and also provoking a bit of anger. I didn’t care. Let him go fuss over poor pitiful Shun. She needed his sympathy, not me. His face went still. ‘Stay here while I check your room.’
I did as he told me, waiting by the open door. But the moment he came out, I slipped in through the door and shut it behind me. I waited, holding onto the doorhandle, waiting to see if he would try to come in and talk to me.
But he didn’t. I knew he wouldn’t. I walked across the room and put another log on the hearth fire. I wasn’t sleepy.
I peeled off my clothing, bunched it up and sniffed it. Not just dirty, but definitely a mousy smell to it, probably from the spy-corridors. I thought of Stripy patrolling for rats and mice. I thought of stealthily leaving my room and going to my father’s study to see if the cat wanted to come out yet. But I would have to get dressed again, and if my father caught me wandering the halls tonight he would be angry. I’d get up very early, I decided. Both my winter nightshirts smelled a bit fusty. When my mother was alive clothing always smelled like cedar and herbs if taken right from the chest, or sunlight and lavender if freshly washed. I had suspected that the household staff had become more lax about their chores since my mother’s death, but this was the first time I had realized how directly it would affect me.
I blamed my father. Then I blamed myself. How could I even begin to imagine that he could know these things? He probably had no idea that it had been weeks since I had bathed my whole body or washed my hair. True, it was winter, but my mother had always made me wash my whole body in a tub at least once a week, even in winter. I wondered if the extra servants he had hired would mean that things would go back to the way they had been. I rather thought not. I doubted it would until someone took the reins.
Perhaps Shun would? The thought made steel of my spine. No. Me. This was my household, really. I was the female here, standing in my sister’s stead, in my sister’s house. I imagined that the servants my father had always supervised were doing their work as they always had. Revel looked over his shoulder for those ones. But my mother had overseen the household staff. Revel was good at making things fancy, but I didn’t think he supervised the daily washing up and dusting and tidying. I would have to step up to that now.
I pulled on my least smelly nightshirt. I looked at my feet, and used what water was left in my ewer to wash my face, hands and feet. I built up my fire and clambered into my bed. There was so much to think about that I thought I would never be able to fall asleep.
But I did because I awoke to the colourless girl standing over my bed. Ruby tears were on her cheeks. Pink blood was frothing on her lips. She stared at me. ‘The message,’ she said, spitting blood with the words and then she fell upon me.
I shrieked and struggled out from under her. She clutched at me but I was off the bed and heading for the door in less than a breath. I was screaming but no sound was coming out. The door latch jiggled in my fumbling panic and then it swung open and I raced out into the dark hall. My bare feet slapped the floor and I was making little shriek-noises now. What if my father’s bedroom door was latched, what if he wasn’t there but down in his study or somewhere else in the house?
‘Pa-pa-pa-pa,’ I heard myself stuttering but I could not get any volume from my voice. His door opened at my touch and to my shock he was on his feet, a knife in his hand before I could even reach his bed. He was barefoot and his shirt was half-open, as if he’d been getting ready for bed. He snatched me up in his free arm, twisted his body so that I was almost behind him and his knife menaced the open doorway. He spoke without taking his eyes from it.
‘Are you hurt? What is it, where?’
‘My room. The girl.’ My teeth were chattering with such terror that I do not imagine I spoke clearly. He still seemed to understand. He dropped me almost gently to the floor and began to move.
‘Behind me. Close behind me, Bee.’
He didn’t look back to see if I obeyed. He went, running, knife in hand, and I had to race after him, going back to the last place in the world I wished to be. With no knife in my hand. If I lived through tonight, I promised myself that would never happen again. I’d steal a knife for myself from the kitchen and keep it under my pillow. I would.
We reached my room and he angrily gestured me back from the door. His lips were pulled back from his teeth and his eyes were dark and wild. Wolf Father was in them, and his anger was a killing anger that anything would threaten his cub. He halted at the threshold, and stared into the room that was lit only by the dying flames of the hearth. His nostrils were flared and he moved his head from side to side. Then he went very still. He advanced so slowly on the sprawled figure on my bed that it was as if only one small part of him moved at a time. He glanced back at me. ‘You defended yourself? You killed her?’
I shook my head. My throat was still dry with terror but I managed to say, ‘I ran.’
A terse nod. ‘Good.’ He drew closer to my bed and stared down at her.
He stiffened suddenly, lifting his knife to the ready, and I heard her wet whisper. ‘The message. You must hear the message. Before I die.’
His face changed. ‘Bee. Bring water.’
There was only a bit left in my ewer. I went into the room where we had left her, and found the tray with the untouched food. There was water for tea in a pot, gone cold. I brought it to my father. He had arranged her on my bed. ‘Drink a little,’ he urged her, and held the cup to her lips. She opened her mouth but could not seem to swallow what she took. It ran out of her mouth and over her chin, washing the pink even paler. ‘Where did you go?’ My father demanded of her. ‘We could not find you.’
Her eyes were opened to slits. The lids looked dry and crusty. ‘I was … there. In the bed. Oh.’ She suddenly looked even sadder. ‘Oh. The cloak. It was the cloak. I was cold and pulled the cloak over me. It vanished me.’
I had ventured closer to the bed. I did not think she was aware of me; I thought perhaps she was blind now. My father and I exchanged sceptical looks. She moved her hand in a vague gesture. It reminded me of a slender willow leaf moving in the wind. ‘It takes on the colours and shadows. Don’t lose it … very old, you know.’ Her chest rose slowly and then fell. She was so still I thought she was dead. Then she cried out as if pained by the words, ‘The message.’
‘I’m here. I’m listening.’ My father took her narrow hand in his. ‘Too warm,’ he murmured. ‘Much too warm.’
‘So hard to think. To focus. He made it … a pattern. Easier to remember. Not safe to write it down.’
‘I understand.’
She sniffed in a breath. When she breathed out, little pink bubbles formed along her lip. I didn’t want to look at them and couldn’t look away.
‘By four things, you will know I am a true messenger from him and trust me. Ratsy was on his sceptre. Your mother’s name was never said. You served a man behind a wall. He took his fingerprints from your wrist.’ She paused, breathing. We waited. I saw her swallow and she turned her face toward my father. ‘Satisfied?’ she asked him faintly. ‘That I am a true messenger?’ I was right. She could not see his face.
He jerked as if stuck with a pin. ‘Yes, yes, of course. I trust you. Are you hungry? Do you think you could drink some warmed milk or eat something?’ He closed his eyes for a moment and went very still. ‘We would never have neglected you so if we had known you were still here. When we could not find you, we thought you had felt well enough to travel and left us.’
He did not mention that we had wondered if she was hiding somewhere in the house, hoping to kill us.
Her breath made a sound on every intake. ‘No. No food. Too late for food.’ She tried to clear her throat and the spill of blood on her lips went redder. ‘Not time to think of me. The message.’
‘I can still send for a healer.’
‘The message,’ she insisted. ‘The message and then you can do whatever you wish.’
‘The message, then,’ my father capitulated. ‘I’m listening. Go on!’
She strangled for a moment and then pink slid over her lip and down her chin. My father wiped it tenderly away with the corner of my blanket. I decided I would sleep in his bed tonight. When she could, she took in air and said on a breath. ‘He told you. The old dream prophecies foretold the unexpected son. The one who sent me once interpreted them to mean you. But now, he thinks perhaps not. He believes there could be another one. A son, unlooked for and unexpected. A boy left somewhere along the way. He does not know where, or when, or who mothered him. But he hopes you can find him. Before the hunters do.’ She ran out of breath. She coughed, and spluttered out blood and spit. She closed her eyes and for a time, just tried to breathe.
‘The Fool had a son?’ My father was incredulous.
She gave a short, sharp nod. Then she shook her head. ‘His and yet not his. A half-blood White. But it’s possible he appears as a full White. Like me.’ Her breathing steadied for a time and I thought she had finished. Then she took a deeper breath. ‘You must search for him. When you find the unexpected son, you must keep him safe. Tell no one you have him. Speak of your quest to no one. It’s the only way to keep him safe.’
‘I’ll find him,’ my father promised. She smiled faintly, her teeth showing pink. ‘I’ll send for a healer now,’ my father said, but she moved her head in a feeble shake.
‘No. There’s more. Water, please.’
He held the cup to her mouth. She didn’t drink, but sloshed the water in her mouth and let it run out over her chin. He wiped her face again.
‘Hunters will come. Acting friendly, maybe. Or in disguise. Making you believe they are friends.’ She spoke in short bursts, breathing in between. ‘Trust the unexpected son to no one. Even if they say they have come for him, to take him where he belongs. Wait for the one who sent me. He will come for him, if he can. So he said, when he sent me. So long ago … why did not he get here before me? I fear … No. I must believe that he’s still journeying. He escaped but they will hunt him. When he is able to, he will come. But slowly. He has to evade them. It will take him time. But he will get here. Until then, you must find him and keep him safe.’ I was not certain she believed her own words.
‘Where should I look?’ My father asked her urgently.
She shook her head slightly. ‘I don’t know. If he knew, he gave me no hints. So if they captured me and tortured me, I could not betray him.’ She moved her head on the pillow, her blind eyes seeking for him. ‘Will you find him?’
He took her hand and held it carefully. ‘I’ll find his son and keep him safe until he gets here.’ I wondered if he lied to make her feel better.
Her eyes closed until only a pale grey moon showed under the lids. ‘Yes. So valuable. They will want him badly. Enough to kill. If they take hi …’ Her brow wrinkled. ‘Like I was treated. A tool. No choices.’ Her eyelids fluttered open and her queer, colourless stare seemed to meet his gaze. ‘I’ve borne three children. Never seen or held any. They take them. As they took me.’
‘I don’t understand,’ my father said, but at her desperate look, he amended it to, ‘I understand enough. I will find him and I will keep him safe. I promise. Now, we will make you comfortable and you will rest.’
‘Burn my body,’ she said insistently.
‘If it comes to that, I will. But for no w—.’
‘It will come to that. My companion searched the wounds. I told you. What went in won’t come out.’
‘A poison?’
She shook her head. ‘Eggs. They’ve hatched now. They’re eating me.’ She winced and coughed again. ‘Sorry. Burn bedding. With me.’ Her eyes opened and her blank gaze wandered over the room. ‘You should put me outside. They bite and burrow. And lay eggs.’ She coughed pink. ‘Punishment for traitor.’ She blinked and drops of red oozed from the corners of her eyes. ‘Treason is unforgivable. So punished with unstoppable death. Slow. It takes weeks.’ She shuddered and then squirmed. She looked up at my father. ‘The pain is building. Again. I can’t see. They’re eating my eyes. Are they bloody?’
I heard the sound of my father swallowing. He sank down beside the bed until his face was on a level with the girl’s. A stillness had taken his face; I could not tell if he felt anything. He asked quietly, ‘Are you finished, then? That was the whole message?’
She nodded. She rolled her head to meet my father’s gaze but I knew she could not see him. Blood in ruby drops clung to her eyelashes. ‘I’m finished. Yes.’
My father lurched to his feet. He turned as if he would run from the room. Instead he snatched up the empty ewer. He spoke sternly. ‘Bee. I need cool fresh water. And bring some vinegar in a cup. And …’ He paused to think. ‘Go to Patience’s garden room. Bring me two double handfuls of the mint that grows closest to the statue of the girl with the sword. Go.’
I took the ewer and a candle in a holder and went. The darkness made the corridors longer. The kitchen was a place of lurking shadows. The vinegar was in a large crock and the containers to carry it all up out of my reach. I had to push benches and climb. I left the heavy ewer of water and the vinegar and threaded my way through the sleeping house to Patience’s garden room. I found the mint and tore at the plants recklessly, filling a fold of my nightshirt with the aromatic leaves. Then I trotted back to the kitchen, candle in one hand and the other holding my hiked up nightshirt with the mint. In the kitchen, I tied up the mint in a clean cloth, and gripped the knot in my teeth. I abandoned my candle, to clutch the heavy ewer in one arm and the vinegar in my other hand. I hurried as fast as I could, trying not to think of maggots eating me from the inside. By the time I reached the door of my room and set everything down to open the door, I was out of breath. I felt as if I had been running for the whole night.
A horrifying sight met my eyes. My featherbed was on the floor. My father knelt beside it. He had his boots on, and his heavy cloak was on the floor beside him, so he must have gone back to his room. He had torn one of my coverlets into strips and was using them to tie the bundle he was making. His face was grey when he looked up at me. ‘She died,’ he said. ‘I’m taking her outside to burn her.’ He had not paused in his feverish bundle making. My featherbed was taking on the shape of an immense cocoon. There was a dead girl inside it. He looked away from me and added, ‘Strip to the skin, here. Then, go to my room. You can find one of my shirts to sleep in. Leave your nightshirt here. I’m going to burn it with her.’
I stared at him. I set the ewer down, and the vinegar. The bundled mint fell from my shirt to the floor as I let it drop. Whatever medicine he had intended to make, it was too late now. She was dead. Dead like my mother. He pushed another strip of blanket under the bundle, brought up both ends and snugged it tight in a knot. My voice came out very little. ‘I’m not going naked through the corridors. And you can’t do this all alone. Should I get Riddle to help you?’
‘No.’ He squatted back on his heels. ‘Bee. Come here.’ I went to him. I thought he was going to hug me and tell me it would be all right. Instead, he had me bend my neck and he looked all through my shorn hair. Then he rose, crossed to my clothing chest and opened it. He took out last year’s wool robe. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said when he came back to me. ‘But I have to keep you safe.’ He took the hem of my nightshirt and stripped it off me. Then he looked at me, all over, under my arms and at my bottom and between the toes of my feet. We were both very red in the face before he was finished. Then he gave me the wool robe and took my nightshirt to add to his bundle. ‘Pull on your boots and a winter cloak,’ he told me. ‘You’ll have to help me. And no one can ever know what we do tonight. No one can know the message she brought. Or even that we found her again. If other people know, that child will be in greater danger. The boy she spoke about. Do you understand that?’
I nodded. In that moment, I missed my mother more than I ever had before.