Let the Calling be announced well in advance, for people deserve a warning before the Skill Magic touches them for the first time. A Calling issued with no warning can induce great fear, for some who hold the potential for Skill will not know what it is, and fear that madness or worse has come upon them. So let riders be sent out well ahead of time. But do not tell when the exact day of the Calling will go forth. In the past, much time has been wasted trying to wake the Skill in some who came to Buckkeep, claiming to have heard the Call, when in fact all they wished to do was escape a life as farmers or bakers or rivermen.
Let the strongest coterie in the keep issue the Call, making it as far-reaching as possible. A Calling should be held no more often than every fifteen years.
I tried. But I could not help myself.
One month after Patience had departed, I gave in to an impulse. I sent a large pot of preserved wintergreen berries to Molly. I approached Riddle to act as my messenger. He seemed surprised that I even asked if he were busy, commenting that he had been told several weeks ago to consider himself at my disposal. Chade had undertaken a number of small changes on my behalf since I'd begun to take a more active role in Farseer matters. The pretense that I was an ordinary member of the Prince's Guard was fading, replaced with the unseen acceptance that I served the royal family in more confidential ways. Nominally, I was still Tom Badgerlock but I seldom wore the livery of a guard anymore, and the fox pin rode always on my breast. Riddle seemed bemused by the errand I gave him but carried the gift and delivered it nonetheless. "What did she say?" I asked him anxiously when he returned.
He looked at me blankly. "She said nothing to me. I gave it to the lad who came to the door. But I told him it was for his mum. Isn't that what you wanted me to do?" I hesitated, and then said, "Yes. That was exactly right. Yes."
The next month, I sent a missive saying that I thought Nettle was doing very well with her studies and becoming more comfortable at court. I told the family that Web had sent a bird to inform us that he and Swift would likely winter with the Duke and Duchess of Bearns. Web seemed well pleased with the boy, and I thought Molly would wish to know they were well and doing fine. My letter spoke only of her children. Along with the missive, I sent two jumping jacks and a carved bear and a sack of horehound candies. Riddle's report from that delivery was slightly more encouraging. "One of the little fellows said horehound was good, but not as good as peppermint."
The next month, a sack of horehound and a sack of peppermint candies, as well as nuts and raisins, accompanied my letter about Nettle. That won me a brief reply from Molly, written on the bottom of my own letter, saying she welcomed news of Nettle but would I kindly stop attempting to make the boys sick with sweets.
My next month's letter duly reported on Nettle and gave news of Swift, who had taken the blotch-fever along with all the other youngsters at Ripplekeep in Bearns, but had recovered well and seemed none the worse for it. The Duchess herself had taken an interest in the lad and was teaching him much about hawks. Personally, I wondered how much, but left that speculation out of my letter. Instead of sweets, I sent two pouches of baked clay marbles, an exceptionally nice hoofpick in a leather sheath, and two wooden practice swords. Riddle was amused to report that Hearth had clouted Just with one of the swords before he had even got off his horse, and refused to trade with Nimble for the bag of marbles that had been intended for him. I took it as a good sign that Riddle knew the boys by name now, and that they had all come out of the house to greet him. The note from Molly was less heartening. Just had suffered a considerable lump to the back of his head, for which she blamed me. The boys had also been disappointed at the lack of sweets with the letter, for which she also blamed me. The letters were welcome but I should stop disrupting her family with inappropriate gifts. There was also a note from Chivalry, stiffly thanking me for the hoofpick. He asked if I knew of a source of saff oil, for one of the mares had a stubborn infection in one hoof and he thought he recalled his father using saff oil.
I did not wait a month. I found saff oil immediately, and sent it back to Chivalry, with instructions to wash out all her hooves with vinegar, move her into a different stall, and then apply saff oil to all four hooves, inside and out. I further suggested that he put a good bed of hearth ash down in her old stall and leave it there for three days before sweeping it out and then mopping the stall with vinegar and letting it dry well before stabling any other horses in it. And with the saff oil and letter to Chivalry, I defiantly sent barley-sugar sticks, with the request that he ration them out so that no one suffered from bellyaches.
He returned a note, thanking me for the oil and saying he had forgotten about the vinegar portion of the remedy. He asked if I knew the correct proportions for a certain liniment that Burrich used to make, for his attempt at it had come out too runny. And he assured me that the barley sugar would only be distributed as it was earned. Molly sent a note, but it was clearly marked To Nettle.
"But Steady told me that they had actually all liked the peppermint better," Riddle informed me as he gave me Chivalry's missive. "Steady seems to me to be the quiet one. You know, the good lad who is often overlooked amongst rowdier boys." With a liar's grin, he added, "I was like that myself, as a lad."
"Surely you were," I agreed skeptically.
"Any response?" Riddle asked me, and I told him I needed some time to think about it.
It took me several days of experiments at the worktable to compound correctly the liniment. It made me realize how much I had forgotten. I made several pots of it and sealed them well. Chade paid one of his rare visits to the old workroom we once had shared. He sniffed the air speculatively and asked what I was concocting. "Bribes," I answered him honestly.
"Ah," he said, and when he asked no more, I knew that Riddle was still reporting to him, as well. "Made a few changes up here, I see," he added, looking about the room.
"Mostly with a broom and some water. I'd give a great deal to have a window."
He gave me an odd look. "The room next to this one is always left empty. It used to belong to Lady Thyme. I understand there are rumors she haunts it still. Strange odors, you know, and sounds in the night." He grinned to himself. "She was a useful old hag. I bricked up the connecting door years and years ago. It used to be behind that wall hanging. You could probably knock through the wall if you went about it quietly."
"Knock through the wall quietly?"
"It might be a bit difficult."
"A bit. I may try it. I'll let you know."
"Or you could move Nettle out of your old room down below and have the use of it."
I shook my head. "I still hope there may come a time when she would want to use that passage to come up and talk with me of an evening."
"But not much progress there yet."
"No. I'm afraid not."
"Ah, she's as hardheaded as you were. Don't trust her near the mantel with a fruit knife."
I looked at the one that still stood there, driven in as deep as my boyish anger could sink it. "I'll remember that."
"Remember too that you forgave me. Eventually."
I tried to send off the liniment by Riddle with a sack of peppermint drops, some spice tea, and a small marionette of a deer. "That won't do," he told me. "At least put in some tops, so there's something for each of them." And so it was done. He suggested pennywhistles as well, quite innocently, but I pointed out I was trying to win my way in, not provoke Molly to murder me. He grinned, nodded and rode off, and stayed away an extra two days because of a snowstorm.
He brought back letters, one for me and one for Nettle, and the news that he'd eaten with the family and spent the night in the stables after a half-dozen games of Stones with Steady each evening. "I spoke you well, when Chivalry asked after you. Said you spent your nights at your scroll work and were fair to turn into a scribe if you didn't watch yourself. So then Hearth asked, 'What, is he fat, then?' for I gather the scribe at their town is quite a portly man. So I said, no, quite the opposite, that I thought you'd lost flesh and grown quieter of late. And that you spent more time alone than was healthy for any man." I tilted my head at him. "Could you have made me sound any more pathetic?" He mimicked the tip of my head. "Is there any of it not true?" The note was from Chivalry, thanking me for the liniment and recipe.
I don't know what was in Molly's note to Nettle. The next morning, she lingered after the Skill-lesson. Dutiful called to ask if she was coming, for he and Elliania and Civil and Sydel intended to go riding, if she'd care to come. She told him to go ahead and she would catch up easily, for it didn't take her forever to primp her hair before riding out.
She turned back to catch me smiling, and said, "I speak him formal when others are about. It's only here that I talk to him like that."
"He likes it. He was elated when he first discovered he had a cousin. He said it was nice to know a girl who spoke her mind to him."
That stopped her cold, and I regretted the remark, for I thought I had put her off whatever it was she was about to say. But she met my eyes and, lifting her chin, set her fists to her hips. "Oh. And should I speak my mind to you?"
I wasn't sure. "You could," I suggested.
"My mother writes that she is well, and that my little brothers quite enjoy Riddle's visits. She wonders if you are afraid of my brothers, that you don't come yourself."
I slouched back in my chair and looked down at the tabletop. "I'm more likely to be afraid of her. Time was, she had quite a temper." I picked at my thumbnail.
"Time was, I understand you were excellent at provoking it."
"I suppose that is true. So. Do you think she would welcome a visit from me?"
She stood quite a time, not answering. Then she asked, "And are you afraid of my temper, as well?"
"A bit," I admitted. "Why do you ask?"
She walked to Verity's window and stared out over the sea as he used to. In that pose, she looked as much a Farseer as I did. She ran her hands back through her hair distractedly. Truly, she could have given a bit more care to "primping." Her shortened hair stood up like the hair on an angry cat's back. "Once, I thought we were going to be friends. Then I discovered that you were my father. From that moment on, you haven't much tried even to speak to me."
"I thought you didn't want me to."
"Perhaps I wanted to see how hard you'd try." She turned back to look at me accusingly. "You didn't try, at all."
I sat a long time in silence. She turned and started toward the door.
I stood up. "You know, Nettle, I was raised by a man among men. Sometimes, I think that is the greatest disadvantage a man can have when it comes to dealing with women."
She turned and looked back at me. I spoke from the heart. "I don't know what to do. I want you to at least know me as a person. Burrich was your father and he did well at it. Perhaps it's too late for me to have that place in your life. Nor can I find a place in your mother's life for me. I love her still, just as much as I did when she left me. I thought then that, when all my tasks were done, I would find her and somehow we would be happy together. And here we are, sixteen years later, and I still haven't managed to find my way back to her." She stood, her hand on the door, looking uncomfortable. Then she said, "Perhaps you are telling these things to the wrong woman." And she slipped quietly out of it, letting it close behind her.
A few days later, Riddle found me at the guards' table eating breakfast. He slid onto the bench opposite me. "Nettle has given me a letter to deliver to her mother and brothers. She said to take it whenever I made my next journey for you." He reached across the table and took a hunk of bread from my plate. He bit into it and asked with his mouth full, "Will that be soon?" I thought about it. "Tomorrow morning," I suggested. He nodded. "I thought it might be about then."
I rode Myblack down to the market in Buckkeep Town, chaffering with her all the way. She had had half a year with a stable boy whose idea of exercising her was to take her out and let her run as much as she wanted and then bring her back. She was willful and rude, tugging at her bit and ignoring the rein. I was ashamed of myself for neglecting her. I visited the winter market and rode home with sugared ginger and two arm lengths of red lace. I put them in a basket with a purloined bottle of dandelion wine. I sat all night with a piece of good paper in front of me and managed to find three sentences. "I remember you in red skirts. You climbed up the beach cliffs in front of me, and I saw your bare, sandy ankles. I thought my heart would leap out of my chest." I wondered if she would even remember that long-ago picnic when I had not even dared to kiss her. I sealed the note with a blotch of wax. Four times I unsealed it, trying to think of better words. Eventually, I entrusted it to Riddle as it was, and walked about for the next four days wishing I hadn't.
On the fourth night, I worked the lever that opened the door in Nettle's bedchamber. I did not go in and summon her, as Chade had me. Instead, I went halfway down those steep steps and left a candle burning there. Then I went back up and waited.
The wait seemed to last forever. I do not know which wakened her at last, the light or the draft, but I finally heard her hesitant tread on the stair. I had built up the fire well in the comfortable end of the room. She peered round the corner of the concealed door, saw me, but still came in cautious as a cat. She walked slowly past the worktable with the stained scrolls stretched out on it, and more slowly past the work hearth with its racks of tongs and measures and stained pans. She came at last to the chairs by the fireside. She had on a nightgown and a woven shawl across her shoulders. She was shivering.
"Sit down," I invited her, and she did, slowly. "This is where I work," I told her. The kettle was just on the boil and I asked her, "Would you like a cup of tea?"
"In the middle of the night?"
"I do a lot of my work in the middle of the night."
"Most people sleep then."
"I am not like most people."
"That's so." She stood up and studied the items on the mantel above the hearth. There was a carving of the wolf that the Fool had done, and next to it, the memory stone with a similar image turned face out. She touched the handle of the fruit knife embedded there and gave me a puzzled glance. Then she reached up and set her hand to the hilt of Chivalry's sword.
"You can take it down if you like. It was your grandfather's. Be careful. It's heavy." She took her hand away. "Tell me about him."
"I can't."
"Is it another secret, then?"
"No. I can't tell you because I never knew him. He gave me to Burrich when I was five or six. I never saw him, that I can recall. I believe he looked in on me with the Skill from time to time, through Verity's eyes. But I knew nothing of that, then."
"It sounds like you and me," she said slowly.
"Yes, it does," I admitted. "Except that I have a chance to know you now. If we are both bold enough to take it."
"I'm here," she pointed out, settling deeper into the chair. And then she fell silent and I could not think of anything to say. Then she pointed at the Fool's carving. "Is that your wolf? Nighteyes?"
"Yes."
She smiled. "He looks exactly like I thought you would. Tell me more about him." And so I did.
Riddle returned three days later, complaining of bad roads and the cold. A storm had followed him home. I scarcely heard him. I took the little roll of bark paper he offered me and carried it carefully up to my lair before I opened it. At first glance, it looked like a drawing. Then I realized it was a hastily sketched map. There were only a few words on the bottom of the page. "Nettle said you were having a hard time finding your way back to me. Perhaps this will help."
A deep wet snow was falling outside Buckkeep Castle. The clouds were heavy; I did not expect it would stop soon. I went to my workroom and stuffed a change of clothing into a saddlebag. I Skilled to Chade, I'll be gone for a while.
Very well. We can finish working on that scroll translation tonight.
You misunderstand me. I'll be gone several days at least. I'm going to Molly.
He hesitated and I could feel how badly he wanted to object. There was too much going on for me to leave. There were translations, the refinement of his powder that I'd been helping him with, and the Calling to arrange. The scrolls cautioned that the people of the kingdom had to be prepared for the Calling, lest parents or friends think those who heard voices in their heads were going mad. Yet it also cautioned that the exact day of the Calling be kept secret, to prevent charlatans from wasting the time of the Skillmaster. Irritably I pushed such considerations aside. I waited. Go then. And good luck. Have you told Nettle?
Now it was my turn to hesitate. I've told only you. Do you think I should tell her?
The things you ask my advice on! Never the ones I hope you'll ask me about, always the ones that… never mind. Yes. Tell her. Only because not telling her might seem deceptive.
So I reached out to my daughter and said, Nettle. I've had a note from Molly. I'm going to go visit her. And then the obvious occurred to me. Do you want to go along?
It's storming outside, with worse to come by the look of it. When are you leaving?
Now.
It isn't wise.
I've never been wise. The words echoed oddly in my mind, and I smiled. Go then. Dress warmly. I shall. Farewell.
And I went. Myblack was not pleased at being taken from her warm, dry stall to face the storm. It was a cold, wet, and tedious journey. The one inn I stopped at was full of trapped travelers and I had to sleep on the floor near the hearth wrapped in my cloak. The next night, a farmer allowed me to shelter in his barn overnight. The storm did not let up and the journey only became more unpleasant, but I pushed on.
Luck had it that the snow would stop and the clouds blow clear one valley before I reached Burrich's holding. As I pushed Myblack down the buried road toward the house, the place looked like something out of a tale. Snow was heaped on cottage and stable roof. Smoke curled up from the chimney into the blue sky. A path was already worn between the house and the barns. I pulled in Myblack and sat looking down on it. As I watched, Chivalry opened a barn door and then trundled out a barrow of dirty straw. I whistled to give him warning of a visitor and then rode Myblack down the hill. He stood unmoving, watching me come. In the yard before the house I pulled her in and sat still, trying to think of a greeting. Myblack tugged twice at her bit, and then threw her head back irritably.
"That horse wants training," Chivalry observed with disapproval. He came closer, then stopped. "Oh. It's you."
"Yes." The hard words. "May I come in?" He might be barely fifteen, but he was the man of these holdings now.
"Of course." But there was no smile with the words. "I'll take your horse for you."
"I'd rather put her up myself, if you don't mind. I've neglected her and it shows. I'll need to handle her a lot to undo it."
"As you will. This way."
I dismounted and glanced toward the cottage, but if anyone inside was aware of me, it did not show. I led Myblack and followed Chivalry into a well-ordered stable. Nimble and Just were mucking out stalls. Steady came in, carrying buckets of water. They all halted at the sight of me. I suddenly felt surrounded and the ghost of a memory floated to the surface of my mind. Nighteyes, standing at the outskirts of the pack's gathering. Wanting to go in, so badly, but knowing that if he approached them the wrong way they would drive him out. "I see your father's hands everywhere here," I said, and it was true. I knew at once that Burrich had built this building to meet his own demands. The stalls were larger than the ones at Buckkeep. When the storm shutters were opened, air and light would flood in. I saw Burrich in the way the brushes were stored and the tack put up. I could almost feel him here. I blinked and came back to myself, suddenly aware of Chivalry watching me. "You can put her in there," he said, gesturing to a stall. They went about their work as I cared for Myblack. I watered her and grained her lightly and left her clean and dry. Chivalry came to look over the door of the stall at her, and I wondered if my work would pass his inspection. "Nice horse," was all he said. "Yes. She was a gift from a friend. The same one who sent Malta to your father when he knew he wouldn't need her anymore."
"Now there's a mare!" Chivalry exclaimed, and I followed him down the stalls to look at her. I saw Brusque, a four-year-old stallion out of Ruddy that Chivalry had wanted to use to stud her. And I visited Ruddy. I think the old stallion almost remembered me. He came and rested his head against my shoulder for a time. He was old and getting tired.
"This will probably be the last foal he sires," I said quietly. "I think that's why Burrich wanted to use him. One last chance to get that cross of bloodlines. He was a fine stud in his day."
"I remember when he first came. Barely. Some woman came down the hill with two horses and just gave them to my father. We didn't even have a barn then, let alone a stable. Papa moved all the wood out of the woodshed that night so the horses wouldn't be left outside."
"I'll bet Ruddy was glad to see him." Chivalry gave me a puzzled look.
"You didn't know Ruddy was your father's horse, long before that? Verity gave him the pick of the two-year- olds. He chose Ruddy. He'd known this horse since the day his dam dropped him. The night the Queen had to flee Buckkeep for her life, Burrich put her on this horse. He carried her all the way to the Mountains. Safely." He was properly amazed. "I didn't know that. Papa didn't talk much about his days at Buckkeep." And so I ended up helping with the mucking out and the feeding before ever I went in to see Molly. I told stories of horses I had known and Chivalry walked me through the barns with pardonable pride. He'd done a good job of keeping it all up and I told him so. He showed me the mare with the infected hoof, sound now, and then I walked through the shed to the milk cow and the dozen chickens.
By the time Chivalry led me back to the cottage with the lads trooping behind us, I felt I had acquitted myself well with them. "Mother, you've a visitor," Chivalry called as he pushed open the door. I stamped snow and manure from my feet and followed him in.
She had known I was out there. Her cheeks were pink and her shortened hair smoothed back. She saw me looking at it and lifted a self-conscious hand to it. In that moment, we were both reminded of why it was shortened and Burrich's shadow stepped between us.
"Well, chores are done and I'm off to Staffman's," Chivalry announced before I could even greet her. "I want to go, too! I want to see Kip and play with the puppies," Hearth announced.
Molly bent down to the boy. "You can't always go with Chivalry when he goes to visit his sweetheart," she admonished him.
"He can today," Chivalry announced abruptly. He gave me a sideways glance, as if making sure I knew he was doing me a vast favor. "I'll put him up behind me; his pony can't deal with this snow. Hurry up and get ready."
"Would you like a cup of tea, Fitz? You must be cold."
"Actually, there's nothing like stable chores for warming a man after a long ride. But yes, I would."
"The boys put you to work in the stable? Oh, Chiv, he's a guest!"
"He knows his way around a shovel," Chivalry said, and it was a compliment. Then, "Hurry up, Hearth. I'm not going to wait all day for you."
There were a few moments of noisy chaos that seemed necessary for preparing a six-year-old boy to go anywhere, although no one but me was astonished at it. It made the guards' mess seem a calm place by comparison. By the time the two were out of the door, Steady had already retreated to the loft while Just and Nimble had seated themselves at the table. Nimble pretended to be cleaning his nails, while Just stared at me frankly.
"Fitz, please, sit down. Nimble, move your chair over, make room. Just, I could do with more kindling."
"You're just sending me outside to get me out of the way!"
"How perceptive of you! Now go. Nimble, you may help him. Clear some of the snow from the wood stack, and move some of it into the woodshed to dry."
They both went out, but not quietly or graciously. When the door had closed behind them, Molly took a deep breath. She removed a kettle from the fire, poured hot water over spice tea in a large pot and then brought it to the table. She set out cups for us, and a pot of honey. She sat down across from me. "Hello," I said. She smiled. "Hello."
"I asked Nettle if she wanted to come with me, but she didn't want to ride through the storm."
"I can't blame her. And I think it's hard for her to come home, sometimes. Things are far humbler here than at Buckkeep Castle."
"You could move to Withywoods. It's yours now, you know."
"I know." A shadow passed over her face and I wished I hadn't mentioned it. "But it would be too many changes, too fast. The boys are still becoming accustomed to the idea that their father is never coming back. And, as you see, Chivalry is courting."
"He seems very young for that," I ventured.
"He's a young man with a large holding. Another woman in the house would make things much easier for all of us. What should he wait for, if he's found a woman who loves him?" she countered. When I had no answer to that, she added, "If they marry, I don't think Thrift will want to move far from her parents' home. She is very close to her sister."
"I see." And I did. I suddenly saw that Molly was no longer someone's daughter, to be whisked off from her father's house and become mine. She was the center of a world here, with roots and ties. "Life is complicated, isn't it?" she said to my silence.
I looked at her, in her simple, somber-hued robe. Her hands were no longer smooth and slender; there were lines in her face that had not been there when she was mine. Her body had softened and rounded with the years. She was no longer the girl in the red skirts, running down the beach before me. "I have never wanted anything so much in my life as I've always wanted you."
"Fitz!" she exclaimed, glancing up at the loft, and I suddenly realized I had spoken the words aloud. Her cheeks glowed and she lifted both hands to cover her mouth with her fingertips.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I know it's too soon. You've told me that. And I will wait. I'll wait however long you want me to wait. I just want to be sure you know that I am waiting." I saw her swallow. She said huskily, "I don't know how long it will take."
"It doesn't matter." I stretched out my hand, palm up, on the tabletop. She hesitated, and then set hers in it. And we sat, not speaking, until the boys came in with a load of snowy kindling to be scolded by their mother for not wiping their feet.
I stayed until afternoon. We drank tea and I talked about Nettle at the court, and told the boys stories of Burrich when he had been a younger man. I saddled Myblack and bade them farewell before Chivalry and Hearth returned. Molly walked out to say good-bye and kissed me. On the cheek. And I rode three days back to Buckkeep Castle.
Riddle continued to carry letters between her cottage and Buckkeep Castle. They all came up for Spring Fest, and I managed to dance with Molly once. It was the first time I had ever danced with her, and the first time I'd attempted to dance in years. I danced with Nettle, afterward, who advised me never to attempt it again. But she smiled as she said it.
I saw Hap in the early days of spring. He and Sawtongue came through Buck at the beginning of their summer travels. Hap was taller and leaner and seemed content with his life. He'd seen a great deal of Bearns and now was off to Rippon and then Shoaks. He'd made two songs of his own, both humorous, and both seemed well received when he sang them for us at the lesser hearth. Web and Swift came back to Buckkeep later that month. Swift had widened through the shoulders and was more introspective than I recalled him. Web stayed at Buckkeep while Swift went home to spend a week with his family. He returned with news that Chivalry would be getting married in three months.
I went down for the wedding. Watching him stand before Thrift and pledge himself to her while she blushed and smiled, scarcely able to look at him, envy burned in me. It would be so simple for them. They met, they loved, they married. I suspected they'd have a baby in the cradle before the year was out. And I could get no closer to Molly than the touch of her hand and a kiss on the cheek.
Summer grew strong and hot. It was a good summer. Elliania was pregnant and the whole of the Six Duchies seemed abuzz with it. The crops seemed to grow before my eyes. Myblack learned the way to Molly's cottage and back. I helped Chivalry raise the beams on the extra rooms he was building, and watched Molly and Thrift cook companionably together. I watched her as she moved around the room at her simple tasks, watched her laugh and stir the soup and brush her lengthening hair back from her eyes. I had not been so fevered with desire since I was fifteen years old. I could not sleep at night, and when I did, I had to ward my dreams. I could see Molly and speak to her, but it was always in Burrich's house or with Burrich's sons clinging to her hands. There seemed no place in her world that I could claim, and I grew irritable with everyone. I went to see Patience and Lacey, as I had promised, making the long journey in the hot and dusty days of high summer, and Chade swore I was so fractious that he was glad to be rid of me for a time. I didn't blame him. Lacey had become frailer and Patience had hired two women to help care for her old servant. Walking in her gardens with Patience's worn hand on my arm, seeing how she had converted the bloody soil of Regal's King's Circle to a haven of greenery, beauty, and peace gave me the first rest I had known in a long time. She gave me some of my father's things from her clutter: a plain sword belt he had preferred, letters Burrich had sent to him that mentioned me, and a jade ring. The ring fit my hand perfectly. I wore it home.
Nettle lingered after our Skill-lesson the first morning I was back. Chade did also, but at a look from me, he sighed and left me alone with my daughter. "You were gone a long time. Weeks," she said. "I hadn't seen Patience in a long time. And she's getting old." She nodded. "Thrift is pregnant."
"That's wonderful news."
"It is. We're all very excited. But my mother says it makes her feel old, to know she'll be a grandmother soon." That gave me a moment's pause.
"She said to me, 'Time goes faster when you're older, Nettle.' Isn't that an odd thought?"
"I've known it for some time."
"Do you? I think women know it better perhaps."
I looked at Nettle directly and said nothing. "Perhaps not," she said then, and went away. Four days later, I saddled Myblack again and set out for Molly's. Chade sternly warned me that I must be back in time for the Calling and I promised him that I would be. The day was fine and Myblack well behaved and in good condition for the journey. The summer evenings were long and I made the journey in two days instead of three. I found myself very welcome, for Chivalry was replacing the posts in the paddock fence. Swift and Steady were helpful in pulling up the old rotted posts and Just and Hearth dug the holes bigger. Chivalry and I came behind, setting each pole straight and tall. He spoke to me about becoming a father and how exciting it was until he realized that my silences were growing longer and longer. Then he declared he was going to take the boys down to the creek and let them swim for a time, for he'd had enough of hot, sweaty work for the day. He asked if I'd come but I shook my head.
I was pouring a bucket of cool water from the well over my head when Molly came out with a basket on her arm. "Thrift is napping. The heat is hard on her. It is, when you're carrying. I thought we'd leave the house quiet for her, and perhaps find out if there are any blackberries ripe enough to be sweet yet." We climbed the gentle hill behind the house. The shouts of the boys splashing in the creek below faded. We went past Molly's neat straw hives, gently humming with the warm day. The blackberry tangle was beyond them and Molly led me to the far south side of it, saying the berries always ripened there first. Her bees were busy there too, some among the last blackberry flowers and some after the juice from the bursting ripe fruit. We picked berries until the basket was half-full. Then, as I bent a high prickly branch to bring it down so Molly could reach the top fruit, I offended a bee. It rushed at me, first tangling in my hair and then bumbling down my collar. I slapped at it and cursed as it stung me. I stumbled back from the berry bushes, batting at two others that were suddenly buzzing round my head.
"Move away quickly," Molly warned me, and then came to take my hand and hurry me down the hill. A second one stung me behind the ear before they gave off the chase. "And we've left the basket back there with all the berries. Shall I try to go back for it?"
"Not yet. Wait a time until they settle. Here, don't rub that, the stinger is probably still in it. Let me see." I sat down in the shade of an alder and she bent my head forward to look at the sting behind my ear. "It's really swelling. And you've pushed the stinger right in. Sit still, now." She picked at it with her fingers. I flinched and she laughed. "Sit still. I can't get it with my nails." She leaned forward and put her mouth on it. I felt her tongue find the stinger, and then she gripped it between her teeth and pulled it out. She brushed it from her lips onto her fingers. "See. You'd pushed it all the way in. Is there another one?"
"Down my back," I said, and in spite of myself, my voice shook. She stopped and looked at me. She turned her head and looked again at me, as if she had not seen me in a long time. Her voice was husky when she said, "Take your shirt off. I'll see if I can get it out."
I felt dizzy as her mouth once again touched me. She presented me with the second stinger. Then she set her fingers to the arrow scar on my back and said, "What was this?"
"An arrow. A long time ago."
"And this?"
"That's more recent. A sword."
"My poor Fitz." She touched the scar between my shoulder and neck. "I remember when you got this one. You came to my bed, still bandaged."
"I did."
I turned to her, knowing that she was waiting for me. It still took all my courage. Very carefully, I kissed her. I kissed her cheeks, her throat, and finally her mouth. She tasted of blackberries. Over and over, I kissed her, as slowly as I could, trying to kiss away all the years I had missed. I unlaced her blouse and lifted it over her head, baring her to the blue summer sky above us. Her breasts were soft and heavy in my hands. I treasured them. Her skirt slipped away, a blown blossom on the grass. I laid my love down in the deep wild grasses and sweetly took her to me.
It was homecoming, and completion, and a marvel worth repeating. We dozed for a time, and then woke as the shadows were lengthening. "We must go back!" she exclaimed, but, "Not yet," I told her. I claimed her again, as slowly as I could bear to, and my name whispered by my ear as she shuddered beneath me was the sweetest sound I'd ever heard.
We were abruptly guilty adolescents as the raised cries of "Mother? Fitz?" reached our ears. We scrabbled hastily back into our clothing. Molly ventured alone to retrieve our basket of berries. We dusted leaves and bits of grass from our clothing and hair, laughing breathlessly as we did so. I kissed her again. "We have to stop!" Molly warned me. She returned my kiss warmly, and then lifted her voice to call, "I'm here, I'm coming!"
I took her hand in mine as we went round the bramble and held it as we strode back down the hill to her children.