creditors come knocking. I lost everything. Should I have come to you as a beggar, hoping you'd take me in? I'd thought that you'd cared about me. I believed that you wanted… El damn you, why do I have to admit this to you!' Her words rattled against me like flung stones. I knew her eyes were blazing, her cheeks flushed. 'I thought you did want to marry me, that you did want a future with me. I wanted to bring something to it, not come to you penniless and prospectless. I'd imagined us with a little shop, me with my candles and herbs and honey, and you with your scriber's skills… And so I went to my cousin, to ask to borrow money. He had none to spare, but arranged for my passage to Siltbay, to talk to his elder brother Flint. I've told you how that ended. I worked my way back here on a fishing boat, Newboy, gutting fish and putting them down in salt. I came back to Buckkeep like a beaten dog. And I swallowed my pride and came up here that day, and found out how stupid I was, how you'd pretended and lied to me. You are a bastard, Newboy. You are.'
For a moment I listened to an odd sound, trying to comprehend what it was. Then I knew. She was crying, in little catches of her breath. I knew if I tried to stand and go to her, I'd fall on my face. Or I'd reach her, and she'd knock me flat. So stupidly as any drunk, I repeated, 'Well, what about Jade, then? Why did you find it so easy to go to him? Why didn't you come to me first?'
'I told you! He's my cousin, you moron!' Her anger flared past her tears. 'When you're in trouble, you turn to your family. I asked him for help, and he took me to his family's farm, to help out with the harvest.' A moment of silence. Then, incredulously: 'What did you think? That I was the type of woman who could have another man on the side?' Icily. 'That I would let you court me, and be seeing someone else?'
'No. I didn't say that.'
'Of course you would.' She said it as if it suddenly all made sense. 'You're like my father. He always believed I lied, because he told so many lies himself. Just like you. `Oh, I'm not drunk,' when you stink of it and you can barely stand. And your stupid story: `I dreamed of you at Siltbay.' Everyone in town knew I went to Siltbay. You probably heard the whole story tonight, while you were sitting in some tavern.'
'No, I didn't, Molly. You have to believe me.' I clutched at the blankets on the bed to keep myself upright. She had turned her back on me.
'No. I don't! I don't have to believe anyone anymore.' She paused, as if considering something. 'You know, once, a long time ago, when I was a little, little girl. Before I even met you.' Her voice was getting oddly calmer. Emptier, but calmer. 'It was at Springfest. I remember when I asked my daddy for some pennies for the fair booths, he slapped me and said he wouldn't waste money on foolish things like that. And then he locked me in the shop and went drinking. But even then I knew how to get out of the shop. I went to the fair booths anyway, just to see them. One was an old man telling fortunes with crystals. You know how they do. They hold the crystal to a candle's light, and tell your future by how the colors fall across your face.' She paused.
'I know,' I admitted to her silence. I knew the type of Hedge wizard she meant. I'd seen the dance of colored lights across a woman's close-eyed face. Right now I only wished I could see Molly clearly. I thought if I could meet her eyes, I could make her see the truth inside me. I wished I dared stand, to go to her and try to hold her again. But she thought me drunk, and I knew I'd fall. I would not shame myself in front of her again.
'A lot of the other girls and women were getting their fortunes told. But I didn't have a penny, so I could only watch. But after a bit the old man noticed me. I guess he thought I was shy. He asked me if I didn't want to know my fortune. And I started crying, because I did, but I didn't have a penny. Then Brinna the fishwife laughed, and said there was no need for me to pay to know it. Everyone knew my future already. I was the daughter of a drunk, I'd be the wife of a drunk, and the mother of drunks.' She whispered, 'Everyone started laughing. Even the old man.'
'Molly,' I said. I don't think she even heard me.
'I still don't have a penny,' she said slowly. 'But at least I know I won't be the wife of a drunk. I don't think I even want to be friends with one.'
'You have to listen to me. You're not being fair!' My traitorous tongue slurred my words. 'I—'
The door slammed.
'— didn't know you liked me that way,' I said stupidly to the cold and empty room.
The shaking overtook me in earnest. But I wasn't going to lose her that easily again. I rose and managed two strides before the floor rocked beneath me and I went to my knees. I remained there a bit, head hanging like a dog. I didn't think she'd be impressed if I crawled after her. She'd probably kick me. If I could even find her. I crawled back to my bed instead, and clambered back onto it. I didn't undress, but just dragged the edge of my blanket over me. My vision dimmed, closing in black from the edges, but I didn't sleep right away. Instead, I lay there and thought what a stupid boy I had been last summer. I had courted a woman, thinking that I was walking out with a girl. Those three years difference in age had mattered so much to me, but in all the wrong ways. I had thought she had seen me as a boy, and despaired of winning her. So I had acted like a boy, instead of trying to make her see me as a man. And the boy had hurt her, and yes, deceived her, and in all likelihood, lost her forever. The dark closed down, blackness everywhere but for one whirling spark.
She had loved the boy, and foreseen a life together for us. I clung to the spark and sank into sleep.
CHAPTER FOUR. Dilemmas
AS REGARDS THE Wit and the Skill, I suspect that every human has at least some capacity. I have seen women rise abruptly from their tasks to go into an adjacent room where an infant is just beginning to awake. Cannot this be some form of the Skill? Or witness the wordless cooperation that arises among a crew that has long tended the same vessel. They function, without spoken words, as closely as a coterie, so that the ship becomes almost a beast alive, and the crew her life force. Other folk sense an affinity for certain animals, and express it in a crest or in the names they bestow upon their children. The Wit opens one to that affinity. The Wit allows awareness of all animals, but folklore insists that most Wit users eventually develop a bond with one certain animal. Some tales recount that users of the Wit eventually took on the ways and finally the form of the beasts they bonded to. These tales, I believe, we can dismiss as scare tales to discourage children from Beast magic.
I awoke in the afternoon. My room was cold. No fire at all. My sweaty clothes clung to me. I staggered downstairs to the kitchen, ate something, went out to the bathhouse, began trembling, and went back up to my room. I got back into my bed, shaking with cold. Later someone came in and talked to me. I don't remember what was said, but I do remember being shaken. It was unpleasant, but I could ignore it and did.
I awoke in early evening. There was a fire in my hearth, and a neat pile of firewood in the hod. A little table had been drawn up near my bed, and some bread and meat and cheese was set out on a platter atop an embroidered cloth with tatted edges. A fat pot with brewing herbs in the bottom was waiting for water from the very large kettle steaming over the fire. A washtub and soap were set out on the other side of the hearth. A clean nightshirt had been left across the foot of my bed; it wasn't one of my old ones. It might actually fit me.
My gratitude outweighed my puzzlement. I managed to get out of bed and take advantage of everything. Afterward I felt much better. My dizziness was replaced by a feeling of unnatural lightness, but that quickly succumbed to the bread and cheese. The tea had a hint of elfbark in it; I instantly suspected Chade and wondered if he was the one who'd tried to wake me. But no, Chade only summoned me at night.
I was dragging the clean nightshirt over my head when the door opened quietly. The Fool came slipping into my room. He was in his winter motley of black and white, and his colorless skin seemed even paler because of it. His garments were made of some silky fabric, and cut so loosely that he looked like a stick swathed in it. He'd gotten taller, and even thinner, if that were possible. As always, his white eyes were a shock, even in his bloodless face. He smiled at me, and then waggled a pale pink tongue derisively.
'You,' I surmised, and gestured 'round. 'Thank you.'
'No,' he denied. His pale hair floated out from beneath his cap in a halo as he shook his head. 'But I assisted. Thank you for bathing. It makes my task of checking on you less onerous. I'm glad you're awake. You snore abominably.'
I let his comment pass. 'You've grown,' I observed.
