“I think . . . the princess was helped,” whispered Abasio.
“I meant the . . . little one,” said Blue, gazing at Abasio’s face, which held a strange expression, something with traces of amazement and fear and gratification. People had such trouble with their faces. They often said too little or too much.
Abasio took a deep breath. “She has done what she had to do, just in time.”
“We came as fast as we could.”
“I know. I think this was the night we needed to be here. It’s just . . . I didn’t realize the person they spoke of was a child.”
Blue did not reply for a moment. “Perhaps so. People don’t always tell everything, you know. Mostly they don’t. Who was the person who told you to come here, anyhow?”
“You saw him. He was also Tingawan, I think. That part fits.”
“I thought he was rather ordinary looking, but you said he was strangely compelling.”
“We would hardly have made this journey had he not been.”
“You said she did whatever it was just in time?”
“Yes,” said Abasio, wiping tears from his face. “I’m sure it was.”
“But you’re troubled. Why?”
“Blue, I don’t know. She went to find something, she found it, brought it back, was told to swallow it. None of my business, but there I was, urging her on to swallow it because I heard this voice . . . tortured, it was. But so . . . determined, needful, imperious! As though the fate of the world hung on it.” He laughed, shaking his head.
“The younger one swallowed it?”
“Yes. And once she had done it, there was a kind of peace that came, exalted, ecstatic, whatever. All I can compare it to . . . think how one feels at the end of a dreadful day. You know: fighting bandits, maybe wounded, bleeding, stung by flies, everything happening in a half-frozen marsh where you can’t sit or stand or lie down, and every time you dispose of one enemy, two others pop up, and you’re soaking wet, and shaking with cold, and then somehow at the end of the day you’re brought to a warm room with a place to wash, with food and a jug of something soothing to drink, and you can lie down on a comfortable bed and it’s safe to sleep. You know that feeling.”
“Except for the jug, yes. Substitute oats, add a groom with a curry comb, and I know exactly.”
“Well, that’s how she felt, and I knew it, and it made me incredibly sad.”
“Sad? Why?”
“We’ll probably know by morning.”
Xulai had gone up the stairs, two floors above the place where the Woman Upstairs slept, and there she examined the box that the strange thing had come in. It was tiny, beautifully carved all over with designs of fish and shells and seaweed and waves. The hinges were invisible and the handle was carved in the shape of a leaping dolphin. Now it was empty. After a moment’s thought, she took her handkerchief from her pocket and unfolded it to disclose the long, black hairs within. There were a dozen of them, perhaps more; the duchess’s hair, with little bulbs of tissue at the roots. She placed the handkerchief in the box, wrapped the box in a scrap of linen from her quilt bag, and thrust it into a niche behind a tapestry where she kept her private treasures.
“Now I can quit being afraid,” she said firmly as she sat upon her bed and unlaced her shoes. “It’s done. There’s nothing else I’m afraid of. She won’t ask me to do anything else, and now it’s done, she’s feeling better.”
“Many things you’ll be afraid of,” said the chipmunk, who was now sitting on the foot of her bed. “But, as you proved tonight, with thought, with concentration, fear can be overcome.”
Though the creature had spoken several times, she thought the words were only in her mind. Little animals did not speak. They were too timid, perhaps, as she was, but she was too tired to worry about it. She struggled to keep her eyes open long enough to take off her cloak and lay it across the bed. If chipmunk wanted to wander, let chipmunk wander. The cats slept in the kitchen where it was warmer. The covered jar on her table still had one nut cake in it. She put a piece of it into the cloak pocket, somewhat reluctantly. If chipmunk was hungry, let chipmunk eat, though it hardly deserved such generosity. Why did it have to tell her she was going to be afraid all over again when she’d just conquered a present fear! It wasn’t her fault she was timid! Everyone, all the time, told her to be timid!
“What does that mean?” the chipmunk asked from her pillow. “Timid? As timid as a chipmunk perhaps?”
“I suppose,” she said, so near to sleep that she could as well have dreamed the conversation.
“Really? When those people came toward us in the woods, I took refuge under your hand. Would you say that was timid? Or would you agree that it was a sensible reaction to a very real threat? Would you have preferred me to be brave? I might have challenged that big man to battle, chittered at him in my most threatening tones, and kicked pebbles at him with both back feet! Oh yes, one knows very well how that would have come out!”
Xulai dreamed that she giggled, very slightly.
“Timidity has its place,” said the chipmunk in a didactic tone. “Hiding in a hole in a rock or tree, staying in darkness and shadows, hiding behind or under things is an excellent tactic, particularly good for small and inoffensive creatures. Step number one in survival training is always hiding. More active tactics come later.”
“Like what?”
“Fading into the background. Protective coloration. Misleading the eye. Oh, many, many other things. Believe me, there are more ways than
