She stood eye to eye with me, unmoving. 'Miles!' she called, and the boy leaped out. 'Go see what is wrong with that woman. Quickly now!'
The boy took off like a shot. I stood, with the guard standing squarely before me, and watched helplessly over her shoulder as Miles raced to Molly. When he reached her, he put an arm around her and took her basket on his other arm. Leaning heavily on him, gasping and near weeping, Molly came toward the gate. It seemed to take forever before she was through the gate and in my arms. 'Fitz, oh Fitz,' she sobbed.
'Come,' I told her. I turned her away from the guard, walked her away from the gate. I knew I had done the sensible thing, the calm thing, but I felt shamed and small from it.
'Why didn't you… come to me?' Molly panted.
'The guard would not let me. They have orders I am not to leave Buckkeep,' I said quietly. I could feel her trembling as she leaned against me. I took her around the corner of a warehouse, out of sight of the guards standing gaping in the gate. I held her in my arms until she quieted. 'What's wrong? What happened?' I tried to make my voice soothing. I brushed back the hair that hung about her face. After a few moments she quieted in my arms. Her breathing steadied, but she still trembled.
'I had gone into town. Lady Patience had given me the afternoon. And I needed to get a few things… for my candles.' As she spoke, her trembling lessened. I tilted her chin up so that she looked into my eyes.
'And then?'
'I was… coming back. I was on the steep bit, just outside of town. Where the alders grow?'
I nodded. I knew the spot.
'I heard horses coming. In a hurry. So I stepped off the road to make way for them.' She started to tremble again. 'I kept walking, thinking they would pass me. But suddenly they were right behind me, and when I looked back, they were coming right at me. Not on the road, but right at me. I jumped back into the brush, and still they rode right at me. I turned and ran, but they kept coming…' Her voice was getting higher and higher.
'Hush! Wait a bit. Calm down. Think. How many of them? Did you know them?'
She shook her head wildly. 'Two. I couldn't see their faces. I was running away, and they were wearing the kind of helm that comes down over your eyes and nose. They chased me. It's steep there, you know, and brushy. I tried to get away, but they just rode their horses right through the brush after me. Herding me, like dogs herd sheep. I ran, and ran, but I couldn't get away from them. Then I fell, I caught my foot on a log and I fell. And they jumped from their horses. One pinned me down while the other snatched up my basket. He dumped it all out, like he was looking for something, but they were laughing and laughing. I thought…'
My heart was hammering as hard as Molly's now. 'Did they hurt you?' I asked fiercely.
She paused, as if she could not decide, then shook her head wildly. 'Not like you fear. He just… held me down. And laughed. The other one, he said… he said, I was pretty stupid, letting myself be used by a bastard. They said…'
Again she paused a moment. Whatever they had said to her, called her was ugly enough that she could not repeat it to me. It was like a sword through me, that they had been able to hurt her so badly she would not even share the pain. 'They warned me,' she went on at last. 'They said stay away from the bastard. Don't do his dirty work for him. They said… things I didn't understand, about messages and spies and treason. They said they could make sure that everyone knew I was the Bastard's whore.' She tried just to say the word, but it came out with greater force. She defied me to flinch from it. 'Then they said… I would be hanged… if I didn't pay attention. That to run errands for a traitor was to be a traitor.' Her voice grew strangely calmer. 'Then they spit on me. And they left me. I heard them ride away, but for a long time I was afraid to get up. I have never been so scared.' She looked at me and her eyes were like open wounds. 'Not even my father ever scared me that bad.'
I held her close to me. 'It's all my fault.' I did not even know I had spoken aloud until she drew back from me, to look up in puzzlement.
'Your fault? Did you do something wrong?'
'No. I am no traitor. But I am a bastard. And I've let that spill over onto you. Everything Patience warned me of, everything Ch— everyone warned me about, it's all coming true. I've got you caught up in it.'
'What is happening?' she asked softly, eyes wide. Her breath suddenly caught. 'You said… the guard wouldn't let you out the gate. That you can't leave Buckkeep? Why?'
'I don't know, exactly. There's a lot I don't understand. But one thing I do know. I have to keep you safe. That means staying away from you, for a time. And you from me. Do you understand?'
A glint of anger came into her eyes. 'I understand you're leaving me alone in this!'
'No. That's not it. We have to make them believe that they've scared you, that you're obeying them. Then you'll be safe. They'll have no reason to come after you again.'
'They have scared me, you idiot!' she hissed at me. 'One thing I know. Once someone knows you're afraid of him, you're never safe from that person. If I obey them now, they will come after me again. To tell me to do other things, to see how far I'll obey them in my fear.'
These were the scars her father had left on her life. Scars that were a kind of strength, but also a vulnerability. 'Now is not the time to stand up to them,' I whispered. I kept looking over her shoulder, expecting that at any moment the guard would come to see where we had vanished. 'Come,' I said, and led her deeper into the maze of warehouses and outbuildings. She walked silently beside me for a ways, then suddenly jerked her hand from mine.
'It is time to stand up to them,' she declared. 'Because once you start putting it off, you never do it. Why should not this be the time?'
'Because I don't want you caught up in this. I don't want you hurt. I don't want people saying you are the Bastard's whore.' I could barely force the words from my mouth.
Molly's head came up. 'I have done nothing I'm ashamed of,' she said evenly. 'Have you?'
'No. But—'
''But.' Your favorite word,' she said bitterly. She walked away from me.
'Molly!' I sprang after her, seized her by the shoulders.
She spun and hit me. Not a slap. A solid punch in the mouth that rocked me back and put blood in my mouth. She stood glaring, daring me to touch her again. I didn't. 'I didn't say I wouldn't fight back. Only that I didn't want you caught up in it. Give me a chance to fight this my way,' I said. I knew blood was running over my chin. I let her look at it. 'Trust that given time, I can find them and make them pay. My way. Now. Tell me about the men. What they wore, how they rode. What did the horses look like? Did they speak like Buck folk, or Inlanders? Did they have beards? Could you tell the color of their hair, their eyes?'
I saw her trying to think, saw her mind veer away from thinking about it. 'Brown,' she said at last. 'Brown horses, with black manes and tails. And the men talked like anybody else. One had a dark beard. I think… It's hard to see face down in the dirt.'
'Good. That's good,' I told her, though she had told me nothing at all. She looked down, away from the blood on my face. 'Molly,' I said more quietly. 'I won't be coming… to your room. Not for a while. Because…'
'You're afraid.'
'Yes!' I hissed. 'Yes, I'm afraid. Afraid they'll hurt you, afraid they'll kill you. To hurt me. I won't endanger you by coming to you.'
She stood still. I could not tell if she was listening to me or not. She folded her arms across her chest, hugged herself…
'I love you too much to see that happen.' My words sounded weak, even to myself.
She turned and walked away from me. She still hugged herself, as if to keep herself from flying apart. She looked very alone, in her draggled blue skirts with her proud head bowed. 'Molly Redskirts,' I whispered after her, but I could no longer see that Molly. Only what I had made of her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR. Neatbay
THE POCKED MAN Is the legendary harbinger of disaster for the folk of the Six Duchies. To see him, striding down the road, is to know that disease and pestilence will soon come to call. To dream of him is said to be a warning of a death to come. Often the tales of him show him appearing to those deserving of punishment, but
