Fool’s Assassin by Robin Hobb (6)

It is common knowledge that once a woman has passed her child-bearing years, she becomes more vulnerable to all sorts of ailments of the flesh. As her monthly courses dwindle and then cease, many women experience sudden flushes of heat or bouts of heavy sweating, often occurring in the night. Sleep may flee from them and a general weariness possess them. The skin of her hands and feet become thinner, making cuts and wounds to these extremities more common. Desire commonly wanes, and some women may actually assume a more mannish demeanour, with shrinking breasts and facial hair. Even the strongest of farm women will be less able than they were in the heavy tasks that they once accomplished with ease. Bones will break more easily, from a simple slip in the kitchen. She may lose teeth as well. Some begin to develop a hump on the back of the neck and to walk with a peering glance. All of these are common parts of a woman ageing.

Less well known is that women may become more prone to fits of melancholy, anger or foolish impulses. In a vain grasping at lost youth, even the steadiest of women can give way to fripperies and wasteful practices. Usually these storms pass in less than a year, and the woman will resume her dignity and calm as she accepts her own ageing.

Sometimes, however, these symptoms can precede the downfall of her mind. If she becomes forgetful, calling people by the wrong names, leaving ordinary tasks incomplete and, in extreme cases, losing recognition of her own family members, then her family must recognize that she can no longer be considered reliable. Small children should not be entrusted to her care. Forgotten cooking may lead to a kitchen blaze, or the livestock left unwatered and unfed on a hot day. Remonstrances and rebukes will not change these behaviours. Pity is a more appropriate response than anger.

Let such a woman be given work that is of less consequence. Let her sit by the fire and wind wool or do some such task that will endanger no one else. Soon enough, the body’s decline will follow the mind’s absence. The family will experience less grief at her death if she has been treated with patience and kindness during her decline.

If she becomes exceedingly troublesome, opening doors in the night, wandering off in rainstorms or exhibiting flashes of fury when she can no longer comprehend her surroundings, then administer to her a strong tea of valerian, one that puts her into a manageable state. This remedy may bring peace both to the old woman and to the family weary of caretaking for her.

On the Ageing of the Flesh, Healer Molingal

Molly’s madness was all the harder to bear in that she remained so pragmatic and sensible in all other parts of her life.

Molly’s courses had stopped flowing early in our marriage. She had told me then that she would not ever conceive again. I had tried to comfort her and myself, pointing out that we had a daughter we shared, even if I had missed her childhood. It was foolish to ask more of fate than what we’d been gifted with already. I told her that I accepted there would be no last child for us, and I truly thought she had accepted it as well. We had a full and comfortable life at Withywoods. Hardships that had complicated her early life were a thing of the past, and I had separated myself from politics and machinations of the court at Buckkeep Castle. We finally had time enough for each other. We could entertain travelling minstrels, afford whatever we desired, and celebrate the passing holidays as lavishly as we wished. We went out riding together, surveying the flocks of sheep, the blossoming orchard, the hayfields and the vineyards in idle pleasure at such a serene landscape. We returned when we were weary, dined as we would, and slept late when it pleased us.

Our house steward, Revel, had become so competent as to make me nearly irrelevant. Riddle had chosen him well, even if he had never become the door soldier that Riddle had hoped for. The steward met weekly with Molly to talk of meals and supplies, and he worried me as often as he dared with lists of things he thought needed repairing or updating or, I swear to Eda, changed simply because the man delighted in change. I listened to him, allocated funds and left it mostly in his capable hands. The estates generated enough income to more than compensate for their upkeep. Still, I watched the accounts carefully and set aside as much as I could for Nettle’s future needs. Several times she rebuked me for spending my own funds on repairs the estate could have paid for. But the crown had allocated me a generous allotment in return for my years of service to Prince Dutiful. Truly, we had plenty and to spare. I had believed that we were in the quiet backwater of our days, a time of peace for both of us. Molly’s collapse at that Winterfest had alarmed me, but I had refused to accept that it was a foreshadowing of what was to come.

In the year after Patience died, Molly grew more pensive. She often seemed distracted and absent-minded. Twice she had dizzy spells, and once she spent three days in bed before she felt fully recovered. She lost flesh and slowed down. When the last of her sons decided it was time to make their own ways in the world, she let them go with a smile for them, and quiet tears with me in the evening. ‘I am happy, for them. This is their beginning time. But for me, it is an ending, and a difficult one.’ She began to spend more time at quiet pursuits, was very thoughtful of me, and showed more of her gentle side than she had in previous years.

The next year, she recovered a bit. When spring came, she cleaned out the beehives she had neglected, and even went out and captured a new swarm. Her grown children came and went, always full of news of their busy lives, bringing her grandchildren to visit. They were happy to see that their mother had recaptured some of her old energy and spirit. Desire came back to her, to my delight. It was a good year for both of us. I dared to hope that whatever had caused her fainting spells was past. We grew closer, as two trees planted apart from one another finally find that their branches reach and intertwine. It was not that her children had been a barrier between us so much as how she had always given her first thought and time to them. I will shamelessly admit that I enjoyed becoming the centre of her world, and did all I could to show her, in every way, that she had always held that place in my life.

More recently, she had begun to put on flesh again. Her appetite seemed endless and as her belly rounded out, I teased her a bit. I stopped the day she looked at me and said, almost sadly, ‘I cannot be ageless as you seem to be, my love. I will grow older and fatter perhaps, and slower. My years of being a girl are long gone, as are my years of childbearing. I am become an old woman, Fitz. I only hope that my body gives out before my mind. I have no desire to linger on past a time when I don’t recall who you are or I am.’

So when she announced her ‘pregnancy’ to me, I began to fear that her worst fears and mine were coming true. She grew heavier in the belly. Her back ached and she walked more slowly. Her thoughts grew distant from our daily life, she neglected the tasks she had once enjoyed, and often I found her staring off into the distance, perplexed and yet wondering.

When a few weeks had passed and she persisted in believing she was pregnant, I tried again to make her see reason. We had retired to our bed, and she was in my arms. She had spoken, again, of a child to come. ‘Molly. How can this be so? You told me yourself …’

And with a flash of her old temper, she lifted her hand and covered my mouth. ‘I know what I said. And now I know something different. Fitz, I’m carrying your child. I know how strange that must seem to you, for I myself find it more than passing strange. But for months I’ve suspected it, and I kept silent, not wanting you to think me foolish. But it’s true. I felt the baby move inside me. For as many children as I’ve had, it’s not a thing I would mistake. I’m going to have a baby.’

‘Molly,’ I said. I still held her, but I wondered if she was truly with me. I could think of nothing more to say to her. Coward that I am, I did not challenge her. But she sensed my doubt. I felt her stiffen in my arms and I thought she would thrust herself away from me.

But then I felt her anger die. She eased out the deep breath she had taken to rebuke me, leaned her head against my shoulder and spoke. ‘You think I’m mad, and I suppose I can hardly blame you. For years, I thought I was a dried-up husk, never to bear again. I did my best to accept it. But I’m not. This is the baby we’ve hoped for, our baby, yours and mine, to rear together. And I don’t really care how it’s happened, or if you think I’m mad right now. Because, soon enough, when the child is born, you will know that I was right. And until then, you may think me as mad or as feeble-minded as you please, but I intend to be happy.’

She relaxed in my arms and in the darkness I saw her smile at me. I tried to smile back. She spoke gently as she settled back into the bed beside me. ‘You’ve always been such a stubborn man; always sure that you know what is really happening far better than anyone else. And perhaps, a time or two, that has been true. But this is woman’s knowing that I’m talking about now, and in this, I know better than you do.’

I tried a last time. ‘When you want a thing so badly for so long, and then it comes time to face that you cannot have it, sometimes—’

‘Sometimes you can’t believe it when it comes to you. Sometimes you’re afraid to believe it. I understand your hesitation.’ She smiled into the darkness, pleased at turning my own words against me.

‘Sometimes wanting what you can’t have can turn your mind,’ I said hoarsely, for I felt compelled to say the terrible words aloud.

She sighed a little sigh, but she smiled as she did so. ‘Loving you should have turned my mind long ago, then. But it didn’t. So, you can be as stubborn as you want. You can even think me mad. But this is what is true. I’m going to have your baby, Fitz. Before winter ends, there’s going to be a baby in this house. So tomorrow you had best have the servants bring the cradle down out of the attic. I want to arrange his room before I get too heavy.’

And so Molly stayed in my home and my bed, and yet she left me, departing on a path where I could not follow her.

The very next day, she announced her condition to several of the maid-servants. She ordered the Sparrow Chamber transformed into a nursery and parlour for herself and her imaginary child. I did not contradict her, but I saw the faces of the women as they left the room. Later, I saw two of them, heads together and tongues clucking. But when they looked up and saw me, they stilled their talk and earnestly wished me good day, never meeting my eyes.

Molly pursued her illusion with energy I thought long lost to her. She made small gowns and little bonnets. She supervised the cleaning of the Sparrow Chamber from top to bottom. The chimney was freshly swept and new draperies ordered for the windows. She insisted that I Skill the news to Nettle, and ask her to come and spend the dark months of winter with us, to help us welcome our child.

And so Nettle came, even though in our Skill-discussions we had agreed that Molly was deceiving herself. She celebrated Winterfest with us, and stayed until the snow started to slump and the bare paths to show. No baby arrived. I thought Molly would be forced to admit her delusion then, but she steadfastly insisted that she had but been mistaken as to how pregnant she was.

Spring came into full blossom. In the evenings we spent together she would sometimes drop her needlework and exclaim, ‘Here! Here, he’s moving, come feel!’ But every time I obediently set my hand to her belly, I felt nothing. ‘He’s stopped,’ she would insist, and I would nod gravely. What else could I do?

‘Summer will bring him,’ she assured us both, and the little garments she crocheted now were light rather than warm and woolly. As the hot days of summer ticked by to the chirping of grasshoppers, they became another layer of garments in the chest of clothing she had made for her imaginary child.

Autumn went out in a blaze of glory. Withywoods was lovely as it ever was in fall, with scarlet sprays of alder and golden birch leaves like coins and thin yellow willow leaves in curls, drifting down for the wind to push into deep banks at the edges of the carefully-tended grounds. We no longer went out riding together, for Molly insisted she might lose the child if she did so, but we went for walks. I gathered hickory nuts with her, and listened to her plan to move screens into her nursery to make an enclosed area for the cradle. As the days passed, the river that threaded the valley grew swift with rain. Snow arrived and Molly knit warmer things for our phantom baby, sure now that it would be a winter child, in need of soft blankets and woolly boots and caps. And just as the ice covered and hid the river, so did I strive to conceal from her the growing despair I felt.

But I am sure she knew it.

She had courage. Against the current of doubt that all others pressed her way, she swam. She was aware of the talk of the servants. They thought her daft or senile, and wondered that so sensible a woman as she had been could so foolishly assemble a nursery for an imaginary child. She kept her dignity and restraint before them and by that forced them to treat her with respect. But she also withdrew from them. Once she had socialized with the local gentry. Now she planned no dinners and never went out to the crossroads market. She asked no one to weave or sew for her baby.

Her imaginary child consumed her. She had little time for me or the other things that had once interested her. She spent her evenings and sometimes her nights in her nursery-parlour. I missed her in my bed but did not press her to climb the stairs and join me there. Sometimes of an evening, I would join her in her cosy room, bringing whatever translation I was working on. She always welcomed me. Tavia would bring us a tray with cups and herbs, and set a kettle to boil on the hearth and leave us to our own devices. Molly would sit in a cushioned chair, her swollen feet propped up on a small hassock. I had a small table in the corner for my work, and Molly kept her hands busy with knitting or tatting. Sometimes I would hear the ticking of her needles cease. Then I would look up and see her staring into the fire, her hands on her belly and her face wistful. At such times I longed with all my heart that her self-deception were true. Despite our ages, I thought she and I could manage an infant. I even asked her, once, what she thought of us taking in a foundling. She sighed softly and said, ‘Be patient, Fitz. Your child grows within me.’ So I said no more of it to her. I told myself her fancy brought her happiness, and truly, what harm did it do? I let her go.

In high summer of that year, I received the news that King Eyod of the Mountains had died. It was not unexpected but it created a delicate situation. Kettricken, the former Queen of the Six Duchies, was Eyod’s heir and her son King Dutiful in line after her. Some in the Mountains would hope that she would return to them, to reign there, even though she had often and clearly stated that she expected her son Dutiful to bring the Mountains under his rule as a sort of seventh duchy in our monarchy. Eyod’s death marked a transition that the Six Duchies must observe with gravity and respect. Kettricken would of course travel there, but also King Dutiful and Queen Elliania, the princes Prosper and Integrity, Skillmistress Nettle and several of the coterie, Lord Chade, Lord Civil … the list of those who must attend seemed endless, and many minor nobles attached themselves to the party as a way to curry favour. And my name was appended to it. Go I must, as Holder Badgerlock, a minor officer in Kettricken’s guard. Chade insisted, Kettricken requested, Dutiful all but ordered me, and Nettle pleaded. I packed my kit and chose a mount.

Over the year, Molly’s obsession had ground me down to a weary acceptance. I was not surprised when she declined to accompany me as she felt her ‘time was very close now’. A part of me did not wish to leave her when her mind was so unsettled, and another part of me longed for a respite from indulging her delusion. I called Revel aside and asked that he pay special attention to her requests while I was gone. He looked almost offended that I thought such a command necessary. ‘As ever, sir,’ he said, and added his stiff little bow that meant, ‘you idiot.’

And so I left her and rode away from Withywoods alone and quietly joined the procession of noble folk from the Six Duchies going north to the Mountains for the funeral rites. It was passing strange for me to relive a journey I had once made when I was not yet twenty, and had travelled to the Mountain Kingdom to claim Kettricken as bride for King-in-Waiting Verity. In my second journey to the Mountains, I had often avoided the roads and travelled cross-country with my wolf.

I had known that Buck had changed. Now I saw that the changes had happened all through the Six Duchies. The roads were wider than I recalled, and the lands more settled. Fields of grain grew where there had once been open pasturage. Towns sprawled along the road, so that sometimes it seemed one scarcely ended before the next began. There were more inns and towns along the way, though the size of our party sometimes overwhelmed the accommodations. The wild lands were being tamed, brought under the plough and fenced for pasture. I wondered where the wolves hunted now.

As one of Kettricken’s guardsmen, clad in her white and purple, I rode close to the royal party. Kettricken had never been one to stand upon formality, and her request that I ride at her stirrup was simply accepted by those who knew her. We spoke quietly, the jingling and clopping of the other travellers granting us a strange privacy. I told her stories of my first journey to the Mountains. She spoke of her childhood and of Eyod, not as king but as her loving father. I said nothing of Molly’s disorder to Kettricken. Her sorrow at the death of her father was enough for her to bear.

My position as a member of her guard meant that I was accommodated at the same inns where Kettricken stayed. Often that meant that Nettle was there as well, and sometimes we were able to find a quiet place and time for conversation. It was good to see her and a relief to discuss frankly with her how her mother’s illusion persisted. When Steady joined us, we were not as blunt, but that was Nettle’s choice of reticence. I could not decide if she thought her younger brother was too young for such tidings or if she thought it too much of a woman’s matter. Burrich had named his son well. Of all his boys, Steady wore most of Burrich’s features and his sturdy build, and shared too his deliberate way of moving and unflinching values for both honour and duty. When he was with us, it was as if his father sat at the table. I marked Nettle’s easy dependence on her brother’s strength, and not just for the Skill. I was glad he was so often at her side, and yet wistful. I wished he could have been my son, even as I was glad to see his father live on in him. I think he sensed how I felt. He was deferential to me, and yet there were times when his black eyes bore into mine as if he could see my soul. And at those times, I missed Burrich with a cutting sorrow.

In more private times, Nettle shared with me her mother’s monthly letters detailing the progress of a pregnancy that had now seemingly stretched over two years. It broke my heart to hear Molly’s words as Nettle read aloud of her mulling of names, and progress on her sewing projects for a baby that would never exist. Yet neither one of us had any solution other than to take a small comfort in the sharing of our worry.

When we arrived in the Mountains, we were given a warm welcome. The bright structures that made up Jhaampe, the Mountain capital, still reminded me of the bells of flowers. The older structures were as I recalled them, incorporating the trees they were built among. But even to the Mountains change had come, and the outskirts of that city were more like the towns of Farrow and Tilth, buildings of stone and plank. It made me sad for I felt that the change was not a good one, as if such structures were a canker growing over the forest.

For three days we mourned a king whom I had respected deeply, not with wild wailing and oceans of tears, but with quietly shared stories of who he had been and how well he had ruled. His people grieved for their fallen king but in equal measure they welcomed his daughter home. They were happy to see King Dutiful and the Narcheska and the two princes. Several times I heard people mention with quiet pride that young Integrity greatly resembled Kettricken’s brother and his late uncle, Prince Rurisk. I had not seen that resemblance until I heard it spoken, and then I could not forget it.

At the end of the time of mourning, Kettricken stood before them and reminded them that her father and King-in-Waiting Chivalry had begun the process of peace between the Six Duchies and the Mountains. She spoke of how wisely they had secured that peace with her marriage to Verity. She asked that they look at her son King Dutiful as their future monarch and recall that the peace they now enjoyed should be viewed as King Eyod’s greatest triumph.

With the formalities of King Eyod’s funeral over, the true work of the visit commenced. Daily there were meetings with Eyod’s advisors, and there were lengthy discussions on the orderly handing over of the governance of the Mountains. I was present for some of it, sometimes standing at the side of the room, as Chade and Dutiful’s extra eyes and ears, and sometimes sitting outside in the sun, my eyes closed but Skill-linked to both of them in the higher-level meetings. But in the evenings, I was sometimes released to have time on my own.

And so it was that I found myself standing outside an elaborately carved and painted door, looking wistfully at the work of the Fool’s hands. Here was the house where he had lived when he thought he had failed to fulfil his fate as the White Prophet. On the night King Shrewd had died, Kettricken had fled Buckkeep and the Fool had gone with her. Together they had made the arduous journey to the Mountain Kingdom where she believed she and her unborn child would be safe in her father’s home. But there fate had dealt the Fool two blows. Kettricken’s child did not live, and news of my death in Regal’s dungeons reached him. He had failed in his quest to ensure there was an heir to the Farseer line. He had failed in his quest to bring about his prophecy. His life as a White Prophet was over.

When he believed me dead, he had stayed in the Mountains with Kettricken, lived in this small house and tried to make a little life for himself as a wood carver and toy maker. Then he had found me, broken and dying, and brought me here to the dwelling he shared with Jofron. When he took me in, she had moved out. When I was recovered, the Fool and I accompanied Kettricken on a hopeless quest to follow her husband’s cold trail into the mountains. The Fool had left the little house and all his tools for Jofron. By the colourfully-painted marionettes dangling in the window, I suspected she still lived there and still made toys.

I did not knock on the door but stood in the long summer evening and studied the carved imps and pecksies that frolicked on the trim of the shutters. Like many of the old-fashioned Mountain dwellings, this structure was painted with bright colours and details as if it were a child’s treasure box. An emptied treasure box, my friend long gone from it.

The door opened and yellow lamplight spilled out. A tall, pale lad of about fifteen, fair hair falling to his shoulders, stood framed there. ‘Stranger, if you seek shelter, you need but knock and ask. You are in the Mountains now.’ He smiled as he spoke and opened wide the door, stepping aside to gesture me in.

I walked slowly toward him. His features were vaguely familiar. ‘Does Jofron still live here?’

His smiled widened. ‘Lives and works. Grandmother, you have a visitor!’

I moved slowly into the room. She sat at a workbench by the window, a lamp at her elbow. She was painting something with a small brush, even strokes of goldenrod yellow. ‘A moment,’ she begged without looking up from her task. ‘If I let this dry between strokes, the colour will be uneven.’

I said nothing but stood and waited. Jofron’s long blonde hair was streaked with silver now. Four braids trapped it away from her face. The cuffs of a brightly-embroidered blouse were folded back to her elbows. Her arms were sinewy and flecked with paint, yellow, blue and a pale green. It was much longer than a moment before she set down her brush and leaned back and turned to me. Her eyes were just as blue as I recalled them. She smiled easily at me. ‘Welcome, guest. A Buckman, by the look of you. Come to honour our king’s final rest, I take it.’

‘That is true,’ I said.

When I spoke, recognition flickered and then caught fire in her eyes. She sighed and shook her head slowly. ‘You. His Catalyst. He stole my heart and lifted my spirit to search for wisdom. Then you came and stole him from me. As was right.’ She lifted a mottled cloth from her work desk and wiped vainly at her fingers. ‘I never thought to see you under this roof again.’ There was no enmity in her voice, but there was loss. Old loss.

I spoke words that might comfort her. ‘When he thought our time together was over, he left me as well, Jofron. Close to seventeen years ago we parted company, and never a word or a visit have I had from him since.’

She cocked her head at that. Her grandson closed the door softly. He ventured to the edge of our conversation and cleared his throat. ‘Stranger, may we offer you tea? Bread? A chair to sit on or a bed for the night?’ Plainly the lad longed to know what connection I had to his grandmother, and hoped to lure me to stay.

‘Please bring him a chair and tea,’ Jofron told him without consulting me. The lad scuttled off and returned with a straight-back chair for me. When her blue eyes came back to me, they were full of sympathy. ‘Truly? Not a word, not a visit?’

I shook my head. I spoke to her, thinking here was one of the few people in my life who might understand my words. ‘He said he had lost his sight of the future. That our tasks together were done, and that if we stayed together, we might unwittingly undo some of what we had accomplished.’

She received the information without blinking. Then very slowly, she nodded.

I stood, uncertain of myself. Old memories of Jofron’s voice as I lay on the floor before that hearth came to me. ‘I do not think I ever thanked you for helping me when the Fool first brought me here, all those years ago.’

She nodded again, gravely, but corrected me, saying, ‘I helped the White Prophet. I was called to do so and have never regretted it.’

Again the silence stretched between us. It was like trying to converse with a cat. I resorted to banality. ‘I hope you and your family are well.’

And like a cat, her eyes narrowed for just an instant. Then she said, ‘My son is not here.’

‘Oh.’

She took up her rag again, wiping her fingers very carefully. The grandson returned with a small tray. A little cup, smaller than my closed fist, held one of the aromatic tisanes of the Mountains. I was grateful for the distraction. I thanked him and then sipped from it, tasting wild currant and a certain spice from a Mountain tree bark that I had not tasted in years. It was delicious. I said so.

Jofron rose from her work bench. She walked across the room, her back very straight. One wall of the room had been shaped in a bas-relief of a tree. It must have been her work, for it had not been that way the last time I had stayed here. Leaves and fruit of all sorts projected from its carved branches. She reached over her head to a large leaf, gently eased it aside to reveal a small cubby-hole and brought out a little box.

She returned and showed it to me. It was not the Fool’s work, but I recognized the hands curved protectively to form a lid over the box’s contents. Jofron had carved his hands as a lid for her box. I nodded at her that I understood. She moved her fingers and I heard a distinctive ‘snick’ as if a hidden catch had given way. When she opened the little box, a fragrance came from it, unfamiliar but enticing. She was not trying to hide its contents from me. I saw small scrolls, at least four and possibly more concealed under them. She took one from the box and closed the lid.

‘This was his most recent message to me,’ she said.

Most recent. I knew a moment of the sharpest, greenest envy I had ever felt. He had not sent me as much as a bird message, but Jofron had a small casket of scrolls! The soft brown paper was tied closed with a slender orange ribbon. She tugged at it and it gave way. Very gently she unrolled it. Her eyes moved over it. I thought she would read it aloud to me. Instead she lifted her blue gaze and met my eyes in an uncompromising stare. ‘This one is short. No news of his life. No fond greeting, no wish for my continued health. Only a warning.’

‘A warning?’

There was no hostility in her face, only determination. ‘A warning that I should protect my son. That I should say nothing of him to strangers who might ask.’

‘I don’t understand.’

She lifted one shoulder. ‘Nor do I. But understanding completely is not necessary for me to take heed of his warning. And so I tell you, my son is not here. And that is all I will say about him.’

Did she think me a danger? ‘I did not even know you had a son. Nor a grandson.’ My thoughts rattled like seeds in a dry pod. ‘And I did not ask after him. Nor am I a stranger to you.’

She nodded agreeably to each of my statements. Then she asked, ‘Did you enjoy your tea?’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘My eyes tire easily these day. I find sleeping helps, for then I wake refreshed, to do my best work in the early dawn light.’ She spindled the little brown paper, and looped the orange ribbon round it. As I watched she returned it to the box. And shut the lid.

The Mountain folk were so courteous. She would not tell me to get out of her house. But it would have been the worst of manners for me to attempt to stay. I rose immediately. Perhaps if I left right away, I could come back tomorrow and try again to ask more about the Fool. I should go now, quietly. I knew I should not ask. I did. ‘How did the messages reach you, please?’

‘By many hands and a long way.’ She almost smiled. ‘The one who put this last one into my hands is long gone from here.’

I looked at her face and knew that this was my final chance for words with her. She would not see me tomorrow. ‘Jofron, I am not a danger to you or your family. I came to bid farewell to a wise king who treated me well. Thank you for letting me know that the Fool sent you messages. At least I know that he still lives. I shall keep that comfort as your kindness to me.’ I stood up and bowed deep to her.

I think I saw a tiny crack in her façade, the smallest offer of sympathy when she said, ‘The last message arrived two years ago. And it had taken at least a year to reach me. So as to the White Prophet’s fate, neither of us can be certain.’

Her word brought cold to my heart. Her grandson had gone to the door and opened it, holding it for me. ‘I thank you for your hospitality,’ I said to both of them. I set the tiny cup on the corner of her work table, bowed again, and left. I did not try to return the next day.

Two days later, King Dutiful and his retinue departed from the Mountains. Kettricken remained behind to have more time with her extended family and her people and to assure her people that she would more often visit there as they began the long transition to becoming the seventh duchy under King Dutiful.

Unnoticed, I remained behind as well, lingering until the last of the king’s company were out of sight, and then waiting until late afternoon before I departed. I wanted to ride alone and think. I left Jhaampe with no care or thought as to where I would sleep that night or how.

I had believed I would find some sort of serenity in the Mountains. I had witnessed how gracefully they surrendered their king to death and made room for life to continue. But when I departed, I took more envy than serenity with me. They had lost their king after a lifetime of his wisdom. He had died with his dignity and his mind intact. I was losing my beloved Molly, and I knew with dread that it would only get worse, much worse, before the end. I had lost the Fool, the best friend I had ever had, years ago. I thought I had accepted it, become immune to missing him. But the deeper Molly ventured into madness, the more I missed him. Always he had been the one I turned to for counsel. Chade did his best, but he was ever my elder and mentor. When I had visited the Fool’s old home, I had thought only to look at it for a time and touch the stone that once I had had a friend who had known me that well and still loved me.

Instead, I had discovered that perhaps I had not known him as well as I had thought. Had his friendship with Jofron meant so much more to him than what we had shared? A startling thought pricked me. Had she been more to him than a friend or follower of the White Prophet?

Would you have begrudged him that? That for a time, he lived in the now and had something that was good when all hope had left him?

I lifted my eyes. I wished with all my heart to see a grey shape flitting through the trees and brush beside the road. But of course, there was not. My wolf was gone these many years, gone longer than the Fool had been gone. He lived only in me now, in the way his wolfness could suddenly intrude into my thoughts. At least I still had that of him. It was thin soup.

‘I would not have begrudged him that,’ I said aloud, and wondered if I lied so that I need not be ashamed of myself. I shook my head and tried to put my mind into the now. It was a beautiful day, the road was good, and while problems might await me when I returned home, they were not here with me now. And truly, my missing the Fool today was no different from how I had missed him on any of the yesterdays I’d spent without him. So he had sent missives to Jofron and not to me? That had been true for years, apparently. Now I knew of it. That was the only difference.

I was trying to persuade myself that knowing that small fact made no difference when I heard hoofbeats on the road behind me. Someone was riding a horse at a gallop. Perhaps a messenger. Well, the road was wide enough that he could pass me effortlessly. Nonetheless, I reined my mount more to one side and glanced back to watch him come.

A black horse. A rider. And in three strides, I knew it was Nettle on Inky. I thought she had gone on with the others, and then realized she must be hurrying to catch up with them after being delayed for some reason. I pulled in my horse and waited for her, fully expecting her to pass me with a wave.

But as soon as she saw I had halted, she slowed her mount and by the time she reached me Inky had reduced her pace to a trot. ‘Ho!’ Nettle called to her, and Inky halted neatly beside us.

‘I thought you were going to stay another night, and then when I realized you were gone, I had to race to catch up with you,’ she announced breathlessly.

‘Why aren’t you with the king? Where are your guards?’

She gave me a look. ‘I told Dutiful I’d be with you and needed no other guard. He and Chade both agreed.’

‘Why?’

She stared at me. ‘Well, among them, you do have a certain reputation as a very competent assassin.’

That silenced me for a moment. They still thought of me that way when I did not? I put my thoughts back in order. ‘No, I meant, why did you stay to travel with me? Not that I’m not glad to see you, I’m just surprised.’ I added the last as her glance at me darkened. ‘I had not even realized anyone had noticed that I had not remained with the main party.’

She cocked her head at me. ‘Would you have noticed if I were not there?’

‘Well, of course!’

‘Everyone noticed when you quietly withdrew. Dutiful spoke to me several days ago, saying that you seemed even more morose than one might expect you to be at a funeral and perhaps it was best if you were not left alone. Kettricken was a party to his words, and she added that this visit might have stirred old memories for you. Sad ones. So. Here I am.’

And indeed, there she was. I was almost annoyed at her for spoiling my perfectly good sulk. And that was when I realized that was what I had been doing. I’d been sulking because the Fool had sent letters to Jofron and not to me. And like a child, I’d been testing the people who loved me, pulling away from them almost for the sole reason of seeing if anyone would come after me.

And she had. I felt thwarted in my petulance, and as foolish as I knew that to be, it still stung when Nettle laughed at me. ‘I wish you could see the look on your face!’ she exclaimed. ‘Come. Will it be so terrible that after all these years, you and I finally will have a few days and nights of being able to talk to one another, without disasters or small boys interrupting us?’

‘It would be good,’ I conceded, and just that simply, my mood lifted. And our homeward journey together began.

I had never travelled in such indulgence. I had brought few supplies, thinking I would live rough on the way home. Nettle was likewise travelling light, save for a wallet full of silvers. The first time I proposed that if we were going to camp for the night, we should begin to look for a likely place, she stood up in her stirrups, looked all around and then pointed to smoke rising. ‘That’s a house at the least, and more likely a village with an inn, however humble. And that is where I intend to stop tonight, and if there is a hot bath to be had, it will be mine. And a good meal!’

And she was right. There were all three of those things, in fact, and she put silver out for me as well as herself, saying, ‘Chade told me not to let you do anything to punish yourself for being sad.’

For a few quiet moments, I handled her words, trying to see if they truly applied to me. They didn’t, I was sure, but I could think of no defence. She cleared her throat. ‘Let’s talk about Hap, shall we? Did you know that there is rumour that despite being a minstrel, and a wandering one at that, he has a sweetheart at Daratkeep, and he is true to her? She is a weaver in the town there.’

I had not known that, or much of the other gossip she shared with me. That evening, although there were several other minor nobles occupying the same inn, Nettle kept company with me. And we remained long by the hearth fire in the central room after the others had sought their beds. From her, I learned that Buckkeep politics were as tangled and the intimate royal gossip as thorny as ever. She had quarrelled with King Dutiful, for she feared for the safety of the adolescent princes, too often off to the OutIslands with their mother. He had dared to tell her it was none of her business and she had replied that if it was his business that she could not wed because he consistently exposed his heirs to danger, then she had a right to add her thoughts on it. Queen Elliania had recently suffered a miscarriage: it had been a girl child, the child she had dreamed of; it was a terrible loss as well as a bad omen to her mothershouse. When they had departed so hastily for Buckkeep, it was so that Elliania could take the princes for yet another long visit to her homeland. Some of the dukes had begun to grumble about how often the lads were away. King Dutiful was caught between his dukes and his queen, and seemed able to find no compromise.

When I asked after Riddle, Nettle said he was well the last time she had seen him and then decisively steered our conversation away from that. She seemed to have given up all hopes of ever gaining King Dutiful’s permission to wed, and yet I had never seen her evince interest in another man. I longed to know what was in her heart, and wished she were more inclined to confide in me as she once had in her mother.

Instead she turned our talk to other problems brewing along our border.

Dragons were ranging over Chalced, preying where they pleased, and they had begun sometimes to cross the border and ravage the herds of Shoaks and even Farrow. The Six Duchies folk expected the Skill-coterie of the king to turn back the dragons or at least negotiate with them. But the concept of diplomacy and compromise was laughable to a dragon. If they laughed, which both Nettle and I doubted.

We pondered if one could negotiate with dragons, and what the repercussions would be of slaying a dragon, and if paying tribute to dragons with slaughter herds were cowardly or simply pragmatic.

Some of her news was not political but of family. Swift and Web had recently visited Buckkeep. Swift’s bird-partner was healthy and strong. But Web’s gull was so poorly that Web had taken a room in Buckkeep Town that overlooked the water. The bird mostly lived on his windowsill; he fed her, for she flew little now. The end was coming and they were both awaiting it. While Nettle herself was not Witted, through me and her brother Swift she understood what it was to lose a Wit-partner.

But it was not only gossip we shared. We talked of food, and music we enjoyed, and which old tales were our favourites. She told me stories of her childhood, mostly of the mischief she and her brothers had perpetrated. In turn, I spoke of my days as a boy in Buckkeep, and how different both castle and town had been then. Burrich figured much in all our tales

On our last evening together, before we left the River Road to follow the narrower road that led to Withywoods, she asked me about Lord Golden. Had he truly once been a jester for King Shrewd? Yes, he had. And he and I had been … very close? ‘Nettle,’ I said, as she rode looking straight ahead. I waited until she turned to look at me. Her tanned cheeks were a bit more flushed than usual. ‘I loved that man as I have loved no one else. I do not say I loved him more than I love your mother. But that the way I loved him was different. But if you have heard there was anything improper in our bond, there was not. That was not what we were to one another. What we had went beyond that.’

She did not meet my eyes but she nodded. ‘And what became of him?’ she asked in a softer voice.

‘I do not know. He left Buckkeep while I was still lost in the stones. I never heard from him again.’

I think my voice told her far more than my words did. ‘I am so sorry, Da,’ she said quietly.

Did she know that it was the first time she had honoured me with that title? I held a very careful silence, savouring the moment. And then we crested a slight rise, and the village of Withy was before us, cupped in a gentle valley beside a river. And I knew we would reach Withywoods before the afternoon was old. I found I suddenly regretted how soon our journey together must end. Even more, I dreaded what she would think of her mother and how far her delusions had carried her away from us.

And yet the visit began well. When we arrived, Molly hugged me warmly and then turned delightedly to her eldest child. She had not expected me to return so soon, and had not expected to see Nettle at all. We had arrived shortly after noon and were both ravenous. All three of us retired to the kitchen where we merrily dismayed the household staff by insisting on raiding the pantry for a simple feast of bread, cheese, sausage and ale instead of waiting for them to prepare something more elaborate for us. When Cook Nutmeg put her foot down and chased us out of her kitchen, we picnicked at one end of the great dining table. We told Molly all about our journey, the simple but moving ceremonies that had preceded the king’s interment, and of Kettricken’s decision to stay for a time in the Mountains. And as there is from any journey, no matter how solemn the destination, there were humorous stories to tell that set us all laughing.

Molly had stories of her own to share with us. Some goats had managed to get into the vineyards and done damage to some of the oldest vines there. They would recover, but most of this year’s grapes from that section of the vineyard were lost. We’d had several major incursions of wild pigs into the hayfield; the major damage they did was trampling the hay to where it was almost impossible to harvest it. Lozum from the village had brought his dogs and gone after them. He’d killed one big boar, but one of his dogs had been badly ripped in the process. I sighed to myself. I was sure that would be one of the first problems I’d have to tackle. I’d never enjoyed boar hunts, but it would be necessary now. And Tallman would once again renew his plea for hounds of our own.

And somehow, while I was silently wool-gathering on boars and dogs and hunting, the topic changed, and then Molly was tugging at my sleeve and asking me, ‘Don’t you want to see what we’ve done?’

‘Of course,’ I replied, and arose from the pitiful remains of our haphazard meal to follow my wife and my daughter.

My heart sank when I realized she was leading us to her nursery. Nettle glanced back at me over her shoulder but I kept my expression bland. Nettle had not seen the room since Molly had taken it over. And when she opened the door, I realized I hadn’t, either.

The room had originally been a parlour intended for greeting important guests. In my absence, it had become a carefully-appointed room, rich with every luxury that a gravid woman could wish for her child to come.

The cradle in the centre of it was of mellow oak, cunningly fashioned so that if one stepped on a lever, it would gently rock the child. A carved Farseer buck watched over the head of the cradle. I believe Lady Patience had had it built in her early days at Withywoods, when she still hoped to conceive a child. It had waited, empty, for decades. Now the cradle was heaped with soft bedding, and netted with lace so that no insect might sting the occupant. The low couch now boasted fat cushions where a mother might recline to feed her child, and there were thick rugs underfoot. The deep windows looked out onto a garden cloaked in the first fall of autumn leaves. The thick glass was curtained first with lace, and then translucent silk, and finally with a tightly-woven curtain that would keep out both bright sunlight and cold. There was a painted glass enclosure Molly could put around the lamp to dim its light as well. Behind a fanciful screen of flowers and bees wrought in iron, the low fire danced for her in the large hearth.

She smiled at our amazement. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’ she asked quietly.

‘It’s … beautiful. Such a peaceful room,’ Nettle managed to say.

I tried to find my tongue. I’d been holding Molly’s fancy at a distance; now I had stepped into her delusion. The stupid wanting that I thought I had smothered roared up like a fire through charred twigs. A baby. How sweet would it have been, to have our own little baby here, where I could watch him grow, where I could see Molly be mother to our child? I feigned a cough and rubbed my face. I walked to the lamp and examined the painted flowers on the screen with a scrutiny they didn’t merit.

Molly went on talking to Nettle. ‘When Patience was alive, she showed me this cradle. It was up in the attic. She’d had it made in the years when she and Chivalry lived here, when she dreamed it was still possible she might conceive. All those years, it has waited. It was far too heavy for me to move by myself, but I called Revel and showed it to him. And he had it carried down here for me, and once the wood was polished, it was such a lovely thing that we decided we really needed to make the whole room as fine a nursery as the cradle deserved.

‘Oh, and come here, just look at these trunks. Revel found them in a different attic, but isn’t it wonderful how close a match the wood is? He thought that perhaps the oak was grown right here at Withywoods, which could explain why the colour is so close to the cradle. This one has blankets, some of wool for winter months and some lighter, for the spring. And this entire trunk, I’m shocked to say, is all clothing for the baby. I had not realized how much I’d actually sewn for him until Revel suggested we put it all in one place. There are different sizes, of course. I wasn’t as foolish as that, as to make all the little gowns for a newborn.’

And on. The words poured out of Molly, as if she had longed for months to be able to speak openly about her hopes for her child. And Nettle looked at her mother and smiled and nodded. They sat on the couch and took clothing from the trunk and laid it out to look at it. I stood and watched them. I think that for a moment, Nettle was caught in her mother’s dream. Or perhaps, I thought to myself, it was the same longing they shared, Molly for a child she was long past bearing and Nettle for a child she was forbidden to bear. I saw Nettle take up a little gown and lay it across her breast as she exclaimed, ‘So tiny! I had forgotten how small babies were; it has been years since Hearth was born.’

‘Oh, Hearth, he was almost the biggest of my babies. Only Just was larger. The things I’d made for Hearth he outgrew within a few months.’

‘I remember that!’ Nettle exclaimed. ‘His little feet hung out of the bottoms of his gown and we’d cover him, only to have him kick all his blankets off a moment later.’

Purest envy choked me. They were gone, both of them, back to a time when I hadn’t existed in either of their lives, back to a cosy, noisy home full of children. I did not begrudge Molly her years of marriage to Burrich. He had been a good man for her. But this was like a slow knife turning in me, to watch them recollect an experience I would never have. I stared at them, the outsider again. And then, as if a curtain had lifted or a door opened, I realized that I excluded myself. I went over and sat down beside them. Molly lifted a tiny pair of knit boots from the chest. She smiled and offered them to me. Without a word, I took them. They scarcely filled the palm of my hand. I tried to imagine the tiny foot that would go into one, and could not.

I looked over at Molly. There were lines at the corners of her eyes and lines framing her mouth. Her rosy, full lips had faded to pale pink arcs. I suddenly saw her not as Molly, but as a woman of some fifty-odd years. Her lush dark hair had thinned and grey streaked it. But she looked at me with such hope and love, her head turned just slightly to one side. And I saw something else in her eyes, something that had not been there ten years ago. Confidence in my love. The wariness that had tinged our relationship was gone, worn to nothing by our last decade together. She finally knew that I loved her, that I would always put her first. I had finally earned her trust.

I looked down at the little booties in my hand and slipped my two fingers inside them. I stood them up on my palm. I danced them a couple of steps on my hand. She reached to still my fingers, and slid the soft grey boots away. ‘Soon enough,’ she told me, and leaned against me. Nettle looked up at me and such gratitude shone in her eyes that I felt I had suddenly won a battle I had not even known I was fighting.

I cleared my throat and managed to speak without huskiness. ‘I want a hot cup of tea,’ I told them, and Molly sat up, exclaiming, ‘You know, that would be exactly what I want right now, myself.’

And despite our weariness from travel, the afternoon passed pleasantly. Much later that night, we shared a dinner that met Cook Nutmeg’s standards, and a jot of brandy that exceeded mine. We had retired to the estate study, where Nettle had refused to look at my careful book-keeping, saying she was certain all was well. Nettle had insisted she must leave in the morning. Molly had tried to dissuade her to no avail. I was nearly dozing in a chair by the fire when Nettle spoke softly from her corner of a settee. ‘Seeing it is much worse than hearing about it.’ She sighed heavily. ‘It’s real. We are losing her.’

I opened my eyes. Molly had left us, saying she wished to see if there was any of that pale sharp cheese left in the larder, as she suddenly fancied it. She’d put her desire for it down to her pregnancy, and Molly-like, had disdained the idea of ringing for a servant at such a late hour. She was beloved by our servants simply because she spared them such thoughtless abuse.

I looked at the place where Molly had been sitting. The imprint of her body was still on the cushions and her scent lingered in the air. I spoke softly. ‘She’s slowly sliding away from me. Today was not too bad. There are days when she is so focused on this “baby” that she speaks of nothing else.’

‘She makes it seem so real,’ Nettle said, her words faltering away between wistfulness and dread.

‘I know. It’s hard. I’ve tried to tell her it’s impossible. And when I do, I feel like I’m being cruel. But today, playing along … that feels crueller now. As if I’ve given up on her.’ I stared at the dying fire. ‘I’ve had to ask the maidservants to indulge her. I’d seen them rolling their eyes after she’d passed by. I rebuked them for it, but I think it only—’

Angry sparks sprang in Nettle’s eyes. She sat up straight. ‘I don’t care if my mother is mad as a hatter! They must be made to treat her with respect. You can’t indulge them in any smirking “tolerance”! She is my mother and your wife. Lady Molly!’

‘I’m not sure how to deal with it without making it worse,’ I confided to her. ‘Molly has always taken care of the running of the household. If I step in and start disciplining the servants, she may resent me usurping her authority. And what can I say to them? We both know your mother’s not pregnant! How long must I order them to maintain this pretence? Where does it end? With the birth of an imaginary child?’

Nettle’s face went pale at my words. For a moment, the planes of her face were white and stark like the frozen flanks of a mountain under snow. Then she abruptly dropped her face into her hands. I looked at the pale parting in her gleaming dark hair. She spoke through her fingers. ‘We’re losing her. It’s only going to get worse. We know that. What will you do when she no longer knows you? When she cannot take care of herself any more? What will become of her?’

She lifted her face. Silent tears gleamed in streaks down her cheek.

I crossed the room and took her hand. ‘I promise this. I will take care of her. Always. I will love her. Always.’ I steeled my will. ‘And I will speak to the servants privately, and tell them that regardless of how long they have worked here, if they value their positions, they will treat Lady Molly as befits the mistress of this household. No matter what they may think of her requests.’

Nettle sniffed and drew her hands free of mine, to wipe the backs of her wrists across her eyes. ‘I know I’m not a child any more. But just the thought of losing her …’

She let her words trail away, her voice stilling as she did not utter the words we both knew welled up her. She still mourned Burrich, the only real father she’d ever known. She did not want to lose her mother as well, and even worse would be to have Molly look at her and not know her.

‘I’ll take care of her,’ I promised again. And you, I thought to myself. And wondered if she would ever let me step into that role. ‘Even if it means pretending for her that I believe she has a child growing inside her. Though it makes me feel false to her when I do so. Today …’ I faltered, guilt welling up in me. I had behaved as if Molly were truly pregnant, indulging her as if she were a fanciful child. Or a madwoman.

‘You were being kind,’ Nettle said quietly. ‘I know my mother. You won’t convince her to give up this delusion. Her mind is unsettled. You may as well be—’

Molly set down the tray with a solid clack on the table. We both jumped guiltily. Molly stared at me, her eyes black. She folded her lips tightly and at first I thought she would yet again ignore our disagreement. But Nettle was right. She stood her ground and spoke plainly. ‘You both think me mad. Well. This is fine, then. But I will tell you plainly that I feel the child move within me and my breasts have begun to swell with milk. The time is not far when you will both have to beg my pardon.’

Nettle and I, caught in our secret worrying, sat dumbstruck. Nettle had no reply for her mother, and Molly turned and stalked from the room. We looked at one another, guilt-stricken. But neither of us went after her. Instead, we soon after sought our beds. I had looked forward, on my ride home, to a sweet reunion with my wife and a shared night. Instead, Molly had sought out the couch in her nursery. I went alone to our bedchamber, and it seemed a cold and empty place.

The very next day, Nettle left, before noon, to return to Buckkeep Castle. She said she had been long away from her Skill-apprentices and that there would be all sorts of neglected work awaiting her. I didn’t doubt her, but neither did I believe that was her prime reason for leaving. Molly hugged her farewell, and a stranger might have thought all was well between mother and daughter. But Molly had not mentioned the baby since she had left us the evening before, nor asked if Nettle would return for the birth.

And in the days that followed, she no longer spoke of her phantom child to me. We ate breakfast together; we spoke of the matters of the estate, and over dinner shared the events of our days. And each of us slept alone. Or, in my case, did not sleep. I did more translation work for Chade in the late-night hours than I had in the previous six months. Ten days after the incident, one late evening, I made bold to seek her in her nursery. The door was closed. I stood before it for several long moments before deciding that I should knock rather than walk in. I tapped, waited, and then knocked more loudly.

‘Who is it?’ Molly’s voice sounded surprised.

‘It’s me.’ I opened the door a crack. ‘May I come in?’

‘I never said you couldn’t,’ she replied tartly. The words stung and yet a smile tugged at my face. I turned slightly away from her lest she see it. Now there was the Molly Redskirts I knew.

‘That’s true,’ I said quietly. ‘But I know that I hurt your feelings, badly, and if you wanted to avoid me for a time, I thought I should not intrude.’

‘Not intrude,’ she said quietly. ‘Fitz, are you certain you are not the one who has been avoiding me? For how many years have I awakened at night to find your side of the bed cool and empty? Slipping out of our bed in the dead of night, to hide away in your dusty little scroll-hole, scribbling until your fingers are all ink?’

I bowed my head to that. I had not realized she was aware of those times. I had been tempted to point out that she had left our bed for this nursery. I put that barb down. It was not time to begin a battle. I was inside her door now, and felt like the wolf the first time he had ventured inside a house. I wasn’t sure where I should stand or if I could sit. She sighed, and sat up on the divan where she had been reclining. She was in her nightrobe, but she moved a half-finished bit of embroidery to make room for me. ‘I suppose I do spend too many hours there,’ I apologized. I sat down beside her. Her scent reached me and I suddenly said, ‘Whenever I smell you, I always want to kiss you.’

She stared at me in astonishment, laughed and then said sadly, ‘Of late, I wondered if you even wanted to be near me at all any more. Old and wrinkly, and now you think me mad …’

I gathered her close before she could say more. I kissed her, the top of her head, the side of her face and then her mouth. ‘I will always want to kiss you,’ I said into her hair.

‘You don’t believe I’m pregnant.’

I didn’t let go of her. ‘You’ve been telling me for over two years that you are pregnant. What am I to think, Molly?’

‘I don’t understand it myself,’ she said. ‘But all I can tell you is that I must have somehow been mistaken at first. I must have thought I was pregnant before I was. Perhaps I knew, somehow, that I was going to be pregnant.’ She leaned her brow on my shoulder. ‘It has been hard for me, to have you gone for days at a time. I know that the maidservants giggle about me behind their hands. They know so little of us. They think it scandalous for a man as young and hale as you to be married to an old woman like me. They gossip that you married me for my money and position! They make me feel an old fool. Who do I have who understands who we are and what we have been to each other? Only you. And when you abandon me, when you think me as foolish as they do, then … Oh, Fitz, I know it’s hard for you to believe it. But I have believed much harder things for your sake and with only your word to go on.’

I felt as if the whole world went still around me. Yes. She had. I’d never stopped to see it from that perspective. I bent my head and kissed her salt-tear cheek. ‘You have.’ I took a breath. ‘I will believe you, Molly.’

She choked on a laugh. ‘Oh, Fitz. Please. No, you won’t. But I’m going to ask you to pretend that you do. Only when we are in here, together. And in return, when I am not in this room, I will pretend I am not pregnant, as best I can.’ She shook her head, her hair rubbing against my cheek. ‘I am sure that will be much easier for the servants. Except for Revel. Our steward seemed absolutely delighted to help me construct this nest.’

I thought of Revel, tall, almost gaunt in his thinness, always grave and correct with me. ‘Was he?’ It didn’t seem believable.

‘Oh, yes. He found the screens with the pansies on them, and had them cleaned before he even told me. I came in here one day, and they were set up around the cradle. And the lace over it, to keep insects away.’

Pansies. From Patience, I knew they were sometimes called heart’s ease. I owed Revel.

She stood, pulling herself out of my arms. She stepped away from me, and I looked at her. Her long nightgown was scarcely revealing, and she had always been a woman of curves. She went to the hearth and I saw that there was a tray set on a stand with tea things on it. I studied her profile. She looked little different to me than she had five years ago. Surely if she were pregnant, I’d be able to tell. I measured the slight swell of her belly, her ample hips and generous breasts and suddenly I was not thinking of babies at all.

She glanced over at me, asking, teapot in hand, ‘Would you like some?’ Then, as I stared at her, her eyes slowly widened and a wicked smile curved her mouth. It was a smile worthy of a naked girl wearing only a holly crown.

‘Oh, indeed I would,’ I replied. As I rose and went to her, she came to meet me. We were gentle and slow with one another, and that night we both slept in her bed in the nursery.

Winter found Withywoods the next day, with a fall of wet snow that brought down the remaining leaves on the birches and lined their graceful branches with white. The stillness that the first snowfall always brings settled like a mantle over the land. Within Withywoods Manor, it suddenly seemed a time for wood fires and hot soup and fresh bread at noon. I had returned to the manor’s study and a clear-flamed fire of apple wood was crackling on the hearth when there was a tap at the door.

‘Yes,’ I called, looking up from a missive from Web.

The door opened slowly and Revel entered. His fitted coat hugged his wide shoulders and narrow waist. He was always impeccably attired and correct in his manners. Decades younger than me, he had a bearing that made me feel like a boy with dirty hands and a stained tunic when he looked down at me. ‘You sent for me, Holder Badgerlock?’

‘I did.’ I set Web’s letter to one side. ‘I wanted to speak to you about Lady Molly’s chamber. The screens with the pansies on them …’

The expectation of my disapproval flickered in his eyes. He drew himself up to his full height and looked down on me with the dignity that a truly good house steward always radiates. ‘Sir. If you please. The screens have not seen use in decades, and yet they are lovely things worthy of display. I know I acted without direct authorization, but Lady Molly has seemed … dispirited of late. Before you departed, you had directed me to see to her needs. I did. As for the cradle, I came upon her sitting at the top of the stairs, all out of breath and near weeping. It is a heavy cradle, sir, and yet she had managed to move it that far on her own. I felt shamed that she had not come to me and simply told me what she wished me to do. And so, with the screens, I tried to anticipate what she would wish. She has always been kind to me.’

He stopped talking. Plainly he felt there was much more he could have said to someone as thick-witted and rock-hearted as I apparently was. I met his gaze and then spoke quietly.

‘As she has to me. I am grateful for your service to her and to the estate. Thank you.’ I had called him in to tell him that I had decided to double his wages. While the gesture still seemed correct, speaking aloud of it suddenly seemed a mercenary thing to do. He had not done this for money. He had repaid a kindness with a kindness. He would discover our largesse when he received his month’s wages, and he would know what it was for. But money was not what would matter to this man. I spoke quietly. ‘You’re an excellent steward, Revel, and we value you highly. I want to be sure you know that.’

He inclined his head slightly. It wasn’t a bow, it was an acceptance. ‘I do now, sir.’

‘Thank you, Revel.’

‘I’m sure you’re welcome, sir.’

And he left the room as quietly as he’d come.

Winter deepened around Withywoods. The days shortened, the snow piled up, and the nights were black and frosty. Molly and I had made our truce and we both kept it. It made life simpler for both of us. I truly think peace was what we most desired. Most early evenings I spent in the room I had come to think of as Molly’s study. She tended to fall asleep there, and I would cover her well and then creep away to my own disorderly den and my work there. So it was, very late one night as we were drawing close to midwinter. Chade had sent me a very intriguing set of scrolls, in a language that was almost OutIslander. There were three illustrations in them, and they seemed to be of standing stones, with small notations at the side that could have been glyphs. This were the sort of puzzle that I dreaded, for I did not have enough clues to solve it, and yet I could not leave it alone. I was working on the scrolls, creating a page beside the first one that duplicated the faded illustrations and substituting the words I could translate and leaving room for the others. I was trying to gain a general idea of what the scroll was about, but was totally mystified by the apparent use of the word ‘porridge’ in the title.

It was late, and I believed myself the only one awake in the house. Wet snow was falling thickly outside and I had closed the dusty curtains against the night. When the wind blew, the wet snow splatted against the glass. I was half-wondering if we’d be snowed in by morning and if the wet snow would put an ice glaze on the grapevines. I looked up abruptly, my Wit-sense stirred and a moment later the door eased open. Molly peered around it.

‘What is it?’ I asked, sudden anxiety making my query sharper than I intended. I could not recall the last time she had sought me out in my study.

She clutched at the door frame. For an instant she was quiet, and I feared I had injured her feelings. Then she spoke through a held breath. ‘I’m here to break my word.’

‘What?’

‘I can’t pretend I’m not pregnant any more. Fitz, I’m in labour. The baby will come tonight.’ A faint smile framed her gritted teeth. An instant later, she took a sudden deep breath.

I stared at her.

‘I’m certain,’ she replied to my unasked question. ‘I felt the first pangs hours ago. I’ve waited until they were strong and closer together, to be sure. The baby is coming, Fitz.’ She waited.

‘Could it be bad food?’ I asked her. ‘The sauce on the mutton at dinner seemed very spicy to me and perhaps—’

‘I’m not sick. And I didn’t eat dinner, not that you noticed. I’m in labour. Eda bless us all, Fitz, I’ve had seven children that were born alive, and two miscarriages in my life. Don’t you think I know what I’m feeling now?’

I stood slowly. There was a faint sheen of sweat on her face. A fever, leading her delusion to deepen? ‘I’ll send for Tavia. She can go for the healer while I help you lie down.’

‘No.’ She spoke the word bluntly. ‘I’m not sick. So I don’t need a healer. And the midwife won’t come. She and Tavia think me just as daft as you do.’ She took a breath and held it. She closed her eyes, folded her lips, and her grip on the door’s edge grew white-knuckled. After a long moment she spoke. ‘I can do this alone. Burrich always helped me with my other births, but I can do this alone if I must.’

Did she mean that to sting as much as it did? ‘Let me help you to your nursery,’ I said. I half-expected her to swat at me as I took her arm, but instead she leaned on me heavily. We walked slowly through the darkened halls, pausing three times, and I thought I might have to carry her. Something was deeply wrong with her. The wolf in me, so long dormant, was alarmed at her scent. ‘Have you vomited?’ I asked her. And ‘Do you have fever?’ She didn’t answer either question.

It took forever to reach her chamber. Inside, a fire burned on the hearth. It was almost too warm in the room. When she sat down on the low couch and groaned with the cramp that took her, I said quietly, ‘I can bring you a tea that would purge you. I really think—’

‘I labour to bring forth your child. If you won’t be any help, then leave me,’ she told me savagely.

I couldn’t stand it. I rose from my seat beside her, turned and walked as far as the door. There I halted. I will never know why. Perhaps I felt that joining her in madness would be better than letting her go there alone. Or perhaps that joining her would be better than remaining in a rational world without her. I changed my voice, letting my love rule it. ‘Molly. Tell me what you need. I’ve never done this. What should I bring, what should I do? Should I call some of the women to attend you?’

Her muscles were tight when I asked; it was a moment before she answered. ‘No. I want none of them. They would only titter and simper at the foolish old woman. So only you would I have here. If you can find the will to believe me. At least within this room, Fitz, keep your word to me. Pretend to believe me.’ Her breath caught again and she leaned forward over her belly. A time passed, and then she told me, ‘Bring a basin of warmed water to bathe the child when he comes. And a clean cloth to dry him. A bit of twine to tie the cord tight. A pitcher of cool water and a cup for me.’ And then she curled forward again, and let out a long, low moan.

And so I went. In the kitchen I filled a pitcher with hot water from the simmering kettle always kept near the hearth. Around me was the comfortable, familiar clutter of the kitchen at night. The fire muttered to itself, crocks of dough were slowly rising for the next day’s bread; a pot of brown beef stock gave off its fragrant aroma near the back of the hearth. I found a basin, and filled a large mug with cold water. I took a clean cloth from a stack there, found a big tray to put it all on and loaded it. I stood for a long moment, breathing in the serenity, the sanity of an organized kitchen in a quiet moment. ‘Oh, Molly,’ I said to the silent walls. Then I bared my courage as if I were drawing a heavy blade, hefted the tray, balanced it, and set off through the quiet halls of Withywoods.

I shouldered the unlatched door open, set the tray down on a table and walked around to the divan by the fireside. The room smelled of sweat. Molly was silent; her head drooped forward on her chest. After all this, had she fallen asleep sitting in front of the fire?

She sat spraddled on the edge of the couch, her nightrobe hiked to her hips. Her cupped hands were between her knees and the tiniest child I had ever seen rested in her hands. I staggered, nearly fell, and then dropped to my knees, staring. Such a small being, streaked with blood and wax. The baby’s eyes were open. My voice shook as I asked, ‘It’s a baby?’

She lifted her eyes and stared at me with the tolerance of years. Stupid, beloved man. Even in her exhaustion, she smiled at me. Triumph in that look and love I did not deserve. No rebuke for my doubts. She spoke softly. ‘Yes. She’s our baby. Here at last.’ The tiny thing was a deep red, with a pale thick umbilical cord coiling from her belly to the afterbirth on the floor at Molly’s feet.

I choked as I tried to take in a breath. Utter joy collided with deepest shame. I had doubted her. I didn’t deserve this miracle. Life would punish me, I was sure of it. My voice sounded childish to me as I begged, against all odds, ‘Is she alive?’

Molly sounded exhausted. ‘She is, but so small. Half the size of a barn cat! Oh, Fitz, how can this be? So long a pregnancy and so small a child.’ She took in a shaky breath, refusing tears for practicality. ‘Bring me the basin of warm water and the soft towels. And something to cut the cord.’

‘Right away!’

I brought them to her and set them at her feet. The baby still rested in her mother’s hands, looking up at her. Molly ran her fingertip across the baby’s small mouth, patted her cheek. ‘You’re so still,’ she said, and her fingers moved to the child’s chest. I saw her press them and feel for a heart beating there. Molly looked up at me. ‘Like a bird’s heart,’ she said.

The infant stirred slightly and took a deeper breath. Suddenly she shivered and Molly held her close to her breast. She looked into the little face as she said, ‘So tiny. We’ve waited for you so long, we’ve waited years. And now you’ve come, and I doubt that you will stay a day.’

I wanted to reassure her, but I knew she was right. Molly had begun to tremble with the fatigue of her labour. Still, she was the one to tie the cord and cut it. She leaned down to test the warm water, and then to slide the baby into it. Gently her hands smoothed the blood away. The tiny skull was coated with downy pale hair.

‘Her eyes are blue!’

‘All babies are born with blue eyes. They’ll change.’ Molly lifted the baby and with an easy knack I envied, transferred her from towel to soft white blanket and swaddled her into a tidy bundle, smooth as a moth’s cocoon. Molly looked at up me and shook her head at my numb astonishment. ‘Take her, please. I need to see to myself now.’

‘I might drop her!’ I was terrified.

Molly’s solemn gaze met mine. ‘Take her. Do not put her down. I do not know how long we may have her. Hold her while you can. If she leaves us, she will leave as we are holding her, not alone in her cradle.’

Her words made the tears course down my cheeks. But I obeyed her, completely meek now in the knowledge of how wrong I had been. I moved to the end of her couch, sat down, and held my new little daughter and looked into her face. Her blue eyes met mine unflinchingly. She did not wail, as I had always believed newborns did. She was utterly calm. And so very still.

I met her gaze; she looked to me as if she knew the answer to every mystery. I leaned in closer, taking her scent in and the wolf in me leapt high. Mine. Suddenly she was obviously mine in every way. My cub, to protect. Mine. From this moment, I would die rather than see harm come to her. Mine. The Wit told me that this little spark of life burned strong. Tiny as she was, she would never be prey.

I glanced at Molly. She was washing herself. I set a forefinger to my child’s brow and very carefully, I extended my Skill toward her. I was not certain of the morality of what I did but I pushed away all compunctions about it. She was too young to ask her permission. I knew clearly what I intended. If I found something wrong with the baby, something physical, I would do whatever I could to mend it, even though it might task my abilities to their limit and might use all the small reserves of strength she had. The child was calm, her deep blue eyes meeting mine as I probed her. Such a tiny body. I felt her heart pumping her blood, her lungs taking in air. She was tiny, but if there was aught else wrong with her, I could not find it. She squirmed feebly, puckering her tiny mouth as if she would cry, but I was firm.

A shadow fell between us. I looked up guiltily. Molly stood over us in a clean, soft robe, already reaching to take the child back from me. As I handed her over, I said quietly, ‘She’s perfect, Molly. Inside and out.’ The baby settled into her embrace, visibly relaxing. Had she resented my Skill-probe? I looked aside from Molly, ashamed of my ignorance as I asked, ‘Is she truly so small for a newborn?’

Her words struck me like arrows. ‘My love, I’ve never seen a baby this small survive more than an hour.’ Molly had opened the baby’s wrappings and was looking at her. She unfolded the tiny hand and looked at her fingers, stroked the small skull, and then looked at her little red feet. She counted each toe. ‘But maybe … she didn’t come early, that’s for certain! And every part of her is formed well; she even has hair, though it’s so blonde you can barely see it. All my other children were dark. Even Nettle.’

The last she added as if she needed to remind me that I had fathered her first daughter, even if I had not been there to see her born or watch her grow. I needed no such reminder. I nodded and reached out to touch the baby’s fist. She pulled it in close to her chest and closed her eyes. I spoke quietly. ‘My mother was Mountain-born,’ I said quietly. ‘Both she and my grandmother were fair-haired and blue-eyed. Many of the folk from that region are so. Perhaps I’ve passed it on to our child.’

Molly looked startled. I thought it was because I seldom spoke of the mother who had given me up when I was a small child. I no longer denied to myself that I could recall her. She’d kept her fair hair bound back in a single long braid down her back. Her eyes had been blue, her cheekbones high and her chin narrow. There had never been any rings on her hands. ‘Keppet’ she had named me. When I thought of that distant Mountain childhood, it seemed more like a tale I had heard than something that belonged to me.

Molly broke into my wandering thoughts. ‘You say she is perfect, “inside and out”. Did you use the Skill-magic to know that?’

I looked at her, guiltily aware of how uneasy that magic made her. I lowered my eyes and admitted, ‘Not only the Skill but the Wit tells me that we have a very small but otherwise healthy child here, my love. The Wit tells me the life spark in her is strong and bright. Tiny as she is, I find no reason that she will not live and thrive. And grow.’ A light kindled in Molly’s face as if I had given her a treasure of inestimable value. I leaned over and traced a soft circle on the babe’s cheek. She startled me by turning her face toward my touch, her little lips puckering.

‘She’s hungry,’ Molly said and laughed aloud, weakly but gratefully. She arranged herself in a chair, opened her robe and set the babe to her bared breast. I stared at what I had never seen before, moved far past tears. I edged closer to her, knelt beside them on the floor and carefully set my arm around my wife and looked down at the suckling infant.

‘I’ve been such an idiot,’ I said. ‘I should have believed you from the start.’

‘Yes. You should have,’ she agreed, and then she assured me, ‘No harm done,’ and leaned into my embrace. And that quarrel was ever done between us.