Fool’s Assassin. Робин Хобб

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