The Complete Tawny Man Trilogy Omnibus (266 page)

‘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 any more.’

‘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 favour. ‘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 going anywhere, for 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 centre 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, sombre-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 bid them farewell before Chivalry and Hearth returned. Molly walked out to say goodbye 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, afterwards, 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 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.