"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 pa.s.sage 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 Fa.r.s.eer 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. 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? 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. Nettle. I"ve had a note from Molly. I"m going to go visit her. And then the obvious occurred to me. And then the obvious occurred to me. Do you want to go along? 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 pa.s.s 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, ch.o.r.es 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.