’s Errand

FOUR The Hedge-Witch

There was a hedge-witch in those parts, Silva Copperleaf by name, whose charms were of such a strength that their potency lasted not just from year to year, but continued to protect the folk who possessed them for generations. It is said that she made for Baldric Farseer a marvellous sieve such that it purified all waters that passed through it. This was a great boon for a king so often threatened by poisoners.

Above the gate of the walled town of Eklse, she hung a charm against pestilence, and for many years the grain bins were free of rats and the stables clean of fleas and other vermin. The town prospered under this protection, until the town elders foolishly built a second gate in their walls, to admit more trade. This opened a way for pestilence to enter the town, and all there perished from the second wave of the Blood Plague.

Selkin’s Travels in the Six Duchies

High summer found Hap and me just as it had found us for the last seven years. There was a garden to tend, poultry to mind, and fish to salt and smoke against winter’s need. Day followed day in its round of chores and meals, sleeping and waking. Starling’s departure, I told myself, had effectively quenched the restlessness that Chade’s visit had sparked. I had spoken to Hap, in a desultory way, of putting him out to an apprenticeship. With an enthusiasm that surprised me, he told me of a cabinetmaker in Buckkeep whose work he had greatly admired. I balked at that, having no desire to visit Buckkeep Town, but I think he suspected I could not pay such a high prentice fee as a fine workman like Gindast could demand. In that, he was likely correct. When I asked him of any other woodworkers he had noticed, he stoutly replied that there was a boatbuilder in Hammerby Cove whose work was often praised. Perhaps we might try there. This was a far humbler master than the cabinetmaker in Buckkeep. I uneasily wondered if the boy was not tailoring his dreams to the depths of my pockets. His apprenticeship would determine the course of his life’s work. I didn’t want my lack of coin to condemn him to a trade he found merely tolerable.

Yet despite the boy’s interest, the apprenticeship remained a topic for late night talks by the hearth and little more. Oh, I set aside the small store of coins that remained to me against a prentice fee. I even told the boy that we would make do with fewer eggs for meals if he wished to let the hens set some. There was always a market for chickens, and whatever he got for them he could save towards his fee. Even then, I wondered if it would be enough to buy him a good place. Willing hands and a strong back could buy a lad an apprenticeship, it was true, but the better artisans and craftsmen usually demanded a fee before they would take a likely boy into their shops. It was the way of Buck. The secrets of a man’s trade and the good livelihood he made at it were not to be carelessly given to strangers. If parents loved their children, they either raised them in their own trades, or paid well to see them apprenticed to those who had mastered other arts. Despite the humbleness of our fortunes, I was determined to see Hap well placed. That, I told myself, was why I delayed, to muster more coin. It was not that I dreaded parting with the boy. Only that I wished to do well by him.

The wolf did not ask me about the journey I had earlier proposed. I think that, in his heart, he was relieved to see it postponed. There were days when I felt that Starling’s words had made an old man of me. Years had done that in truth to the wolf. I suspected he was very old for his kind, though I had no idea how long a wild wolf usually lived. I wondered, sometimes, if our bond did not lend him an unnatural vitality. Once it even crossed my mind that perhaps he used up my years to lengthen his own. Yet that thought came not with any resentment that he might borrow my days but with hope that we might still have a good long span together. For once the boy was apprenticed out, whom else did I have in the world besides Nighteyes?

For a time, I wondered if Chade might come to call again, now that he knew the way, but the long days of summer simmered away and the trail to our cabin remained empty. I went to market with the boy twice, taking fledged chickens and my inks and dyes and such roots and herbs as I thought might be unusual there. Nighteyes was as pleased to remain at home, for he disliked not only the long walk to the trade crossroads but the dust and noise and confusion of the crowded market. I felt much the same about it but forced myself to go anyway. We did not do as well as I had hoped, for folk at the small market we frequented were more accustomed to trade in goods than to buy with coin. Still, I was pleasantly surprised at how many folk recalled Tom Badgerlock, and commented that it was good to see me come to market again.

It was the second time we went to market that we chanced to meet Hap’s hedge-witch from Buckkeep. We had set our wares out on the tail of our pony cart in the market. Midway through the morning, she found us there, exclaiming with pleasure at seeing Hap again. I stood quietly to one side, watching them talk. He had told me Jinna was pretty, and so she was, but I confess I was startled to find her closer to my age than his. I had supposed her a girl who had turned his head when they met in Buckkeep. Instead she was a woman nearing her middle years, with hazel eyes, a scattering of freckles, and curly hair that shaded from auburn to brown. She had the round and pleasant figure of a mature woman. When he told her that her charm against pickpockets had been stolen from him before the day was out, she laughed aloud, an open hearty laugh. Then she calmly replied to him that that was exactly how the charm was intended to work. His purse had been protected when the thief took the charm instead of it.

When Hap glanced about to include me in the conversation, her eyes had already found me. She was regarding me with that expression parents usually reserve for possibly dangerous strangers. When I smiled and nodded to Hap’s introduction and offered her good day, she relaxed visibly and her smile expanded to include me. She stepped closer as she did so, peering up at my face, and I realized her eyesight was not keen.

She had brought her wares to market, and spread her mat in the shadow of our cart. Hap helped her arrange her charms and potents, and the two of them made a merry day of our marketing after that, exchanging news since Springfest. I listened in as Hap told her of his apprenticeship plans. When he spoke to Jinna, it became very clear to me just how much he had wished for the cabinetmaker in Buckkeep rather than the boatbuilder in Hammerby Cove. I found myself pondering if there was yet some way it might be arranged, not only the higher fee but for someone other than myself to negotiate the apprenticeship on his behalf. Could Chade be persuaded to help me in such an endeavour? From there my mind wandered to what the old man might ask of me in return. I was deep in such thoughts when Hap’s elbow in my ribs jolted me from my wandering.

‘Tom!’ he protested, and I instantly perceived that in some way I had embarrassed him. Jinna was looking at both of us expectantly.

‘Yes?’

‘See, I told you it would be fine with him,’ Hap crowed.

‘Well, I do thank you, as long as you are sure it would be no trouble,’ Jinna replied. ‘It’s a long road, with inns both far-spaced and expensive to one such as myself.’

I nodded my agreement to the statement, and in the next few minutes of conversation, I realized that Hap had extended the hospitality of our cottage to her the next time she happened to pass our way. I sighed privately. Hap loved the novelty of our occasional guests, but I still regarded any new stranger as a potential risk. I wondered how long I would have to live before my secrets were so old that they no longer mattered.

I smiled and nodded as they conversed, but added little. Instead, I found myself studying her as Chade had taught me but I found nothing to suggest she was anything other than the hedge-witch she claimed to be.

Which is to say that I knew very little of her at all. Hedge-witches and wizards are fairly common at any market, fair or festival. Unlike the Skill, common folk attach no awe to hedge-magic. Unlike the Wit, it does not mark the practitioner for execution. Most folk seem to regard it with both tolerance and scepticism. Some of those who claim the magic are complete and unapologetic charlatans. These are the ones who pull eggs from the ears of the gullible, tell fortunes of vast riches and lofty marriages for milkmaids, and sell love potions that are mostly lavender and chamomile, and peddle luck charms made from dismembered rabbits. They are harmless enough, I suppose.

Jinna was not, however, one of those. She had no friendly patter of talk to attract the passing folk, nor was she dressed in the gaudy veils and jewellery that such frauds usually affected. She was clad as simply as a forester, her tunic shades of green over brown buckskin trousers and soft shoes. The charms she had set out for sale were concealed within the traditional bags of coloured fabric: pink for love charms, red to rouse lagging passions, green for good crops, and other colours whose significance I did not know. She offered packets of dried herbs as well. Most were ones I knew and they were correctly labelled as to their virtues: slippery elm bark for sore throats, raspberry leaves for morning sickness and the like. Mixed amongst the herbs were fine crystals of something which Jinna claimed increased their potency. I suspected salt or sugar. Several pottery dishes on her mat held polished discs of jade or jasper or ivory, inscribed with runes for luck or fertility or peace of mind. These were less expensive than the constructed charms, for they were merely general good wishes, though for an extra copper or two Jinna would ‘hone’ the pocket stone to the individual customer’s desire.

She did a fairly lively trade as the long morning ventured towards afternoon. Several times customers enquired about the covered charms, and at least three made purchases with good silver. If there was a magic to the gadgets she sold them, it was one that neither my Wit nor my Skill could detect. I caught a glimpse of one of the charms; it was an intricate assembly of glittering beads and small rods of wood and, I thought, a tuft of feathers. She sold it to a man wishing to attract good fortune to himself and his home as he sought a wife. He was a broad man, muscled as a ploughman and homely as a sod roof. He looked about my age, and I silently wished him well in his quest.

The market was well into its day when Baylor arrived. He came with his cart and ox, and six trussed piglets to sell. I did not know the man well, despite the fact that he was as close to a neighbour as Hap and I had. He lived in the next vale and ran his hogs there. I seldom saw him. In the autumn, we sometimes made a trade, a slaughter-pig in exchange for chickens or labour or smoked fish. Baylor was a little man, skinny but strong, and ever suspicious. He gave us a glare for a greeting. Then, despite the close quarters, he forced his cart into place alongside ours. I did not welcome his company. The Wit gives one an empathy for other living creatures. I had learned to shield myself from it, but could not close it off completely. I knew that his ox was rubbed raw by the badly-fitting harness, and felt the terror and discomfort of the immobilized and sun-scorched piglets in the cart.

So it was as much self defence as neighbourliness for me to greet him with, ‘Good to see you again, Baylor. Fine litter of piglets. Best get some water into them to make them lively, and they should fetch a good price.’

He gave them a careless glance. ‘No sense stirring them up, or taking the chance they’ll get loose. Like as not they’ll be meat before the day is out anyway.’

I took a breath, and with an effort kept from speaking. The Wit is more curse than gift, I sometimes think. Perhaps the hardest part of possessing it is witnessing so completely the casual cruelty of humans. Some speak of the savagery of beasts. I will ever prefer that to the thoughtless contempt some men have towards animals.

I was willing to let our conversation end, but he came to inspect our trade goods. He made a small disparaging noise, as if surprised we had bothered to come to market at all. Then, catching my eye, he observed heavily, ‘These are good piglets, but there were three more in the litter. One was bigger than these.’

Then he paused, waiting. His eyes never left my face. Uncertain of what he expected, I replied, ‘Sounds like a nice, big litter.’

‘Aye. It was. Until the three disappeared.’

‘A shame,’ I rejoined. When he kept his stare on me, I added, ‘Lost while ranging with the sow, were they?’

He nodded. ‘One day there were ten. The next day, seven.’

I shook my head. ‘A shame.’

He took a step closer to me. ‘You and the boy. You wouldn’t have happened to see them? I know sometimes my sow ranges almost to your stream.’

‘I haven’t.’ I turned to Hap. The boy had an apprehensive look on his face. I noticed that Jinna and her customer had fallen silent, their interest caught by Baylor’s intent tone. I hated to be the centre of such attention. I felt the blood begin to rise in me, but I pleasantly asked my boy, ‘Hap, have you seen any sign of three of Baylor’s piglets?’

‘Not so much as a track or a pile of dung,’ he replied gravely. He held himself very still when he spoke, as if a sudden movement could precipitate danger.

I turned back to Baylor. ‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Well.’ He observed heavily, ‘That’s strange, isn’t it? I know you and your boy and that dog of yours range all about those hills. I would have thought you’d have seen something.’ His remark was oddly pointed. ‘And if you saw them, you’d know them for mine. You’d know they weren’t strays, free for the taking.’ His eyes had never left my face.

I shrugged, trying to keep my calm. But now other folk were pausing in their business, watching and listening. Baylor’s eyes suddenly ranged round the audience, and then came back to me.

‘So you’re sure you haven’t seen my pigs? Not found one stuck or hurt somewhere? Not found it dead and used it for dog meat?’

It was my turn to glance about. Hap’s face had gone red. Jinna looked distinctly uncomfortable. My anger surged that this man would dare to accuse me of theft, no matter how indirect his words were. I took a breath and managed to hold my temper. In a low, gratingly civil voice, I replied, ‘I haven’t seen your pigs, Baylor.’

‘You’re sure?’ He took a step closer to me, mistaking my courtesy for passivity. ‘Because it strikes me odd, three disappearing all at once. A wolf might take one, or one the sow might misplace, but not three. You haven’t seen them?’

I had been leaning on the tail of the cart. I stood up straight, to my full height, my feet set solidly wide. Despite my effort at control, I could feel my chest and neck growing tight with anger.

Once, long ago, I had been beaten badly, to the point of death. Men seem to react to that experience in one of two ways. Some become cowed by it, never to offer physical resistance again. For a time, I had known that abject fear. Life had forced me to recover from it: I had learned a new reaction. The man who becomes most efficiently vicious first is most likely to be the man left standing. I had learned to be that man. ‘I’m getting tired of that question,’ I warned him in a low growl.

In the busy market, a quiet circle surrounded us. Not only Jinna and her customer were silent, but across the way the cheese merchant stared at us, and a baker’s boy with a tray full of fresh wares stood silent and gawking. Hap was still, eyes wide, face gone to white and red. But most revealing was the change in Baylor’s face. If a snarling bear had suddenly towered over him, he could not have looked more cowed. He fell back a step, and looked aside at the dust. ‘Well. Of course if you haven’t seen them, well, then –’

‘I haven’t seen them,’ I spoke forcefully, cutting him off. The sounds of the market had retreated into a distant hum. I saw only Baylor. I stalked a step closer.

‘Well.’ He backed another pace, and dodged around his ox so the beast was between us. ‘I didn’t think you had, of course. You’d have chased them back my way, for certain. But I wanted to let you know about it. Odd, isn’t it, for three to go missing at once? Thought I’d let you know, in case you’d had chickens disappearing.’ From conciliating his voice went suddenly to conspiring. ‘Like as not we’ve had Witted ones about in our hills, thieving my beasts as only they can. They wouldn’t have to chase it down, just spell the sow and the piglets and walk right off with them. Everyone knows they can do that. Like as not –’

My temper flared. I managed to divert it into words. I spoke quietly, biting off each word. ‘Like as not the piglets fell down a creek bank and were swept away, or got separated from the sow. There’s fox and cats and wolverine in those hills. If you want to be sure of your stock, keep a better watch on them.’

‘I had a calf go missing this spring,’ the cheese merchant suddenly said. ‘Cow strayed off pregnant, and came home two days later, empty as a barrel.’ He shook his head. ‘Never found a trace of that calf. But I did find a burnt-out firepit.’

‘Witted ones,’ the baker’s boy chimed in sagely. ‘They caught one over to Hardin’s Spit the other day, but she got away. No telling where she is now. Or where she was!’ His eyes gleamed with the joy of his suspicions.

‘Well, that explains it then,’ Baylor exclaimed. He shot a triumphant look my way, then hastily looked aside from my expression. ‘That’s the way of it then, Tom Badgerlock. And I only wanted to warn you, as neighbours do for one another. You keep good watch on those chickens of yours.’ He nodded judiciously, and across the way, the cheese merchant nodded as well.

‘My cousin was there, at Hardin’s Spit. He saw that Wit whore just sprout feathers and fly. The ropes fell away from her and off she went.’

I didn’t even turn my head to see who spoke. The normal movement and noise of the market had resumed around us, but now the gossip hummed with jolly hatred of the Witted. I stood isolated, the warm summer sun beating down on my head just as it did the hapless piglets in Baylor’s cart. The surging of my heart was like a shaking inside me. The moment in which I might have killed him had passed like a fever breaking. I saw Hap wipe sweat from his brow. Jinna put a hand on his shoulder and said something quietly to him. He shook his head, his lips white. Then he looked at me and gave me a shaky smile. It was over.

But the gossip in the market went on. All around me, the market chuckled along, healed by the prospect of a common enemy. It made me queasy, and I felt small and shamed that I did not shout out at the injustice of it all. Instead, I took up Clover’s lead. ‘Mind our trade, Hap. I’m going to water the pony.’

Hap, still silent and grave, nodded to me. I felt his eyes on me as I led Clover away. I took my time at the task and when I came back, Baylor made a point of smiling and greeting me. All I could manage was a nod. It was a relief when a butcher bought all Baylor’s piglets on condition that he deliver them to the man’s shop. As the sore ox and the miserable piglets left, I let out a sigh. My back ached with the tension I’d been holding.

‘Pleasant fellow,’ Jinna observed quietly. Hap laughed aloud, and even I broke a sour smile. Later we shared our hard-boiled eggs, bread and salt fish with her. She had a pouch of dried apples and a smoked sausage. We made a picnic of it, and when I laughed at some jest of Hap’s, she made me blush by saying, ‘You look a vicious man when you scowl, Tom Badgerlock. And when you knot your fists, I’d not want to know you. Yet when you smile or laugh aloud, your eyes put the lie to that look.’

Hap snickered to see me flush, and the rest of the day passed in good companionship and friendly barter. As the market day wound to a close, Jinna had done well for herself. Her supply of charms had dwindled measurably. ‘Soon it will be time to go back to Buckkeep Town, and turn my hand to making. It suits me better than the selling, though I do like travelling about and meeting new folk,’ she observed as she packed up what was left of her wares.

Hap and I had exchanged most of our goods for things we could use at home, but had gained little in actual coin for his apprenticeship fee. He tried to keep the disappointment from his face but I saw the shadow of his worry in his eyes. What if our coins were not sufficient even for the boatbuilder? What then of his apprenticeship? The question haunted me as well.

Yet neither of us voiced it. We slept in our cart to save the cost of an inn and left the next morning for home. Jinna came by to bid us farewell and Hap reminded her of his offer of hospitality. She assured him she would remember, but her eyes caught at mine as she did so, as if uncertain of how truly welcome she would be. Perforce I must nod and smile and add my hope that we would see her soon.

We had a fine day for the journey home. There were high clouds and a light wind to keep the summer day from being oppressive. We nibbled at the honeycomb that Hap had received for one of his chickens. We talked of nothing: that the market was much larger than the first time I had been there, that the town had grown, that the road was more travelled than it had been last year. Neither of us spoke of Baylor. We passed the fork in the road that once would have taken us to Forge. Grass grew on that trail. Hap asked if I thought folk would ever settle there again. I said I hoped not, but that sooner or later, the iron ore would bring someone with a short memory there. From there, we progressed to tales of what had happened at Forge and the hardships of the Red Ship war. I told them all as tales I had heard from another, not because I enjoyed the telling of them, but because it was history the boy should know. It was something everyone in the Six Duchies should always recall, and again I resolved to make an attempt at a history of that time. I thought of my many brave beginnings, of the stacked scrolls that rolled about on the shelves above my desk and wondered if I would ever complete any of them.

An abrupt question from Hap broke me rudely from my musing.

‘Was I a Red Ship bastard, Tom?’

My mouth hung ajar. All my old pain at that word shone fresh in Hap’s mis-matched eyes. Mishap, his mother had named him. Starling had found him, a scavenging orphan that no one in his village would claim. That was as much as I knew of him. I forced honesty. ‘I don’t know, Hap. You could have been raider-born.’ I used the kinder term.

He stared straight ahead now, walking steadily as he spoke. ‘Starling said I was. I’m an age to be one, and it might be why no one save you would take me in. I’d like to know. I’d like to know who I am.’

‘Oh,’ I finally said into the dangling silence.

He nodded hard, twice. His voice was tight when he added, ‘When I said I’d have to tell you about her, Starling said I had the same Forged heart as my raping father.’

I suddenly wished he were smaller, so I could catch him up mid-stride and hug him. Instead, I put my arm around his shoulders and forced him to a halt. The pony ambled along without us. I didn’t make him meet my eyes nor did I let my voice become too grave. ‘I’m going to give you a gift, son. This is knowledge it took me twenty years to gain, so appreciate that I’m giving it to you while you’re young.’ I took a breath. ‘It doesn’t matter who a man’s father is. Your parents made a child, but it’s up to you to make the man you’ll be.’ I held his gaze for a moment. Then, ‘Come on. Let’s go home.’

We walked on, my arm across his shoulders for a time, until he reached up to clap me on the shoulder. I let him go then, to walk on his own and silently finish his thinking. It was the best I could do for him. My thoughts of Starling were not charitable.

Night caught us before we reached the cottage, but there was a moon and both of us knew the road. The old pony meandered along placidly and the clopping of her hooves and the creaking of the two-wheeled cart made an odd sort of music. A summer rain began to fall, damping the dust and cooling the night. Not far from home, Nighteyes came nonchalantly to meet us, as if mere chance had brought him out upon the road. We journeyed companionably together, the boy in silence, the wolf and I in the effortless communion of the Wit. We absorbed the other’s experiences of the day like an in-drawn breath. He could not grasp my worry for the boy’s future.

He can hunt and he can fish. What more does he need to know? Why send one of our own off to another pack, to learn their ways? We are diminished by the loss of his strength. We grow no younger, you and I.

My brother, that is perhaps the strongest reason why he should go. He must begin to make his own way in the world, so that when the time comes for him to take a mate, he can provide well for her and their children.

What of you and me? We will not help him in that providing? We will not watch the cubs while he hunts, or bring back our kill to share? Are we not pack with him?

Among human pack, this is the way of it. It was an answer I had given him many times in our years together. I knew how he interpreted it. It was a human custom that made no sense, and he need not waste time trying to understand it.

What of us, then, when he is gone?

I’ve told you. Perhaps we shall travel again.

Ah, yes. Leave a cosy den and a predictable food supply. That makes as much sense as sending the boy away.

I let his thought hang unanswered, for he was right. Perhaps the restlessness Chade had stirred in me had been the last gasping of my youth. Perhaps I should have bought that wife-finding charm from Jinna. From time to time I had considered the idea of looking for a wife, but it seemed too perfunctory a way to take a mate. Some did so, I knew, merely seeking out a woman or man who had similar goals and no excessively irritating habits. Such partnerships often grew into loving relationships. But having once experienced a relationship not only founded on years of knowing one another but blessed with the heady intoxication of genuine love, I did not think I could ever settle for anything else. It would not be fair to ask another woman to live in Molly’s shadow. In all the years that Starling had intermittently shared herself with me, I had never thought to ask her to marry me. That thought gave me pause for a moment: had Starling ever hoped that I would? Then the moment of wondering passed and I smiled grimly to myself. No. Starling would have found such an offer baffling, if not laughable.

The last part of our journey was darker, for the track to our cottage was narrow and overshadowed on both sides by trees. Rain dripped from the leaves. The cart jounced along. ‘Should have brought a lantern,’ Hap observed, and I grunted agreement. Our cottage was a darker hummock in the shadowed hollow we called home.

I went inside and kindled a fire and put our traded goods away. Hap took a light and settled the pony. Nighteyes immediately sighed down onto the hearth, as close to the fire as he could get without singeing his coat. I put on the kettle and added the few coins we had gained to Hap’s small hoard. It wasn’t going to be enough, I grudgingly admitted. Even if Hap and I hired ourselves out the rest of the summer to bring in hay and other crops, it still wouldn’t be enough. Nor could we both work that way, unless we were resigned to our own chickens and garden perishing from neglect. Yet if only one of us hired out, it might be another year, perhaps longer, before we had saved enough.

‘I should have started saving for this years ago,’ I observed sourly as Hap came in from outside. He set the lantern on its shelf before dropping into the other chair. I nodded at the pot on the table and he poured himself a cup of tea. The stacked coins on the table were a pitiful wall between us.

‘Too late to think that way,’ he observed as he took up his cup. ‘We have to start from where we are.’

‘Exactly. Do you think you and Nighteyes could manage here for the rest of the summer while I hired out?’

He met my gaze levelly. ‘Why should you be the one to hire out? The money would go for my apprenticeship.’

I experienced an odd little shift in perception. Because I was ‘bigger and stronger and could earn more’ was no longer true. His shoulders were as wide as mine, and in any test of endurance, his young back would probably hold out better. He grinned sympathetically as he saw me grasp what he already knew. ‘Perhaps because it is something that I’d like to give you,’ I said quietly, and he nodded, understanding what those words really meant.

‘You’ve already given me more than I could ever pay back. Including the ability to go after this for myself.’

Those were the words we went to bed on, and I was smiling as I closed my eyes. There is monstrous vanity in the pride we take in our children, I told myself. I had bumbled along with Hap, never really giving much thought to what I was or was not teaching him about being a man. Then one evening, a young man meets my eyes and tells me that he can fend for himself if he needs to, and I feel the warm flush of success. The boy had raised himself, I told myself, but I still smiled as I fell asleep.

Perhaps my expansive mood left me more open than usual, for I Skill-dreamed that night. Such dreams occasionally came to me, more taunting my addiction than assuaging it, for they were uncontrollable things that offered brief glimpses with none of the satisfaction of full contact. Yet this dream was tantalizing with possibility, for I felt that I rode with an individual mind rather than sampling the stray thoughts of a crowd.

It seemed as much memory as vision. In the dream, I ghosted through the Great Hall at Buckkeep. Scores of elegant folk decked out in their finest clothes filled the hall. Music wafted through the air and I glimpsed dancers, but I moved slowly through standing folk conversing with one another. Some turned to greet me as I passed, and I murmured my responses, but my eyes never lingered on their faces. I did not wish to be here; I could not have been more uninterested. For a moment, my eye was caught by a fall of gleaming bronze hair. The girl’s back was to me. Several rings rode on the slender hand that lifted to nervously tug her collar straight. As if she felt my gaze, she turned. She had caught my eyes on her, and she blushed pink as she curtseyed deeply to me. I bowed to her, proffered some greeting and moved on through the crowd. I could feel her looking after me; it annoyed me.

Even more annoying was to see Chade, so tall and elegant as he stood on the dais beside and slightly behind the Queen’s chair. He, too, had been watching me. He bent now to whisper something in her ear, and her eyes came unerringly to me. A small gesture of her hand beckoned me to join them there. My heart sank. Would I never have time that was my own, to do as I pleased? Bleakly and slowly, I moved to obey her.

Then the dream changed, as dreams will. I sprawled on a blanket before a hearth. I was bored. It was so unfair. Below, they danced, they ate, and here I was … A ripple in the dream. No. Not bored, simply not engaged with anything. Idly I unsheathed my claws and inspected them. A bit of bird down was caught under one of them. I freed it, then cleaned my whole paw thoroughly before dozing off before the fire again.

What was that? Amusement tinged the sleepy thought from Nighteyes but to reply to him would have required more effort than I was willing to make. I grumbled at him, rolled over and burrowed back into sleep.

In the morning I wondered at my dream but briefly, dismissing it as a mixture of errant Skill and my own boyhood memories of Buckkeep mingling with my ambitions for Hap. As I did the morning chores, the dwindling firewood stack caught my attention. It needed replenishing, not only for the sake of summer’s cooking and night comfort, but to begin a hoard against winter’s deep cold. I went in to breakfast, thinking I would attend to it that day.

Hap’s neatly packed carry-sack leaned beside the door. The lad himself had a freshly washed and brushed air to him. He grinned at me, suppressed excitement in his smile as he dolloped porridge into our bowls. I sat down at my place at the table and he took his place opposite me. ‘Today?’ I asked him, trying to keep reluctance from my voice.

‘I can’t start sooner,’ he pointed out pleasantly. ‘At market, I heard the hay was standing ready at Cormen. That’s only two days from here.’

I nodded slowly, at a loss for words. He was right. More than right, he was eager. Let him go, I counselled myself, and bit back my objections. ‘I suppose there’s no sense in delaying it,’ I managed to say. He took this as both encouragement and an endorsement. As we ate, he speculated that he could work the hay at Cormen, and then perhaps go on to Divden and see if there was more work to be had there.

‘Divden?’

‘Three days past Cormen. Jinna told us about it, remember? She said their barley fields looked like an ocean when the wind stirred the growing grain. So I thought I might try there.’

‘Sounds promising,’ I agreed. ‘And then you’d come home?’

He nodded slowly. ‘Unless I heard of more work.’

‘Of course. Unless you heard of more work.’

In a few short hours, Hap was gone. I’d made him pack extra food, and take some of the coins with him in case of extreme need. He’d been impatient with my caution. He’d sleep by the roadside, he told me, not in inns. He told me that Queen Kettricken’s patrols kept the highwaymen down, and that robbers would not bother with poor prey like himself. He assured me that he would be fine. At Nighteyes’ insistence, I asked him if he wouldn’t take the wolf with him. He smiled indulgently at this, and paused at the door to scratch Nighteyes’ ears. ‘It might be a bit much for the old fellow,’ he suggested gently. ‘Best he stays here where you two can look after one another until I get back.’

As we stood together and watched our boy walk down the lane to the main road, I wondered if I had ever been so insufferably young and sure of myself, but the ache in my heart had the pleasant afterglow of pride.

The rest of the day was oddly difficult to fill. There was work to be done, but I could not settle into it. Several times I came back to myself, realizing I was simply staring off into the distance. I walked to the cliffs twice, for no more reason than to look out over the sea, and once to the end of our lane to look up and down the road in both directions. There was not even dust hanging in the air. All was still and silent as far as I could see. The wolf trailed me disconsolately. I began half a dozen tasks and left them all half-done. I found myself listening, and waiting, without knowing for what. In the midst of splitting and stacking firewood, I halted. Carefully not thinking, I raised my axe and drove it into the splitting block. I picked up my shirt, slung it over my sweaty shoulder and headed towards the cliffs.

Nighteyes was suddenly in front of me. What are you doing?

Taking a short rest.

No, you’re not. You’re going down to the cliffs, to Skill.

I rubbed the palms of my hands down the sides of my trousers. My thoughts were formless. ‘I was just going there for the breeze.’

Once you’re there, you’ll try to Skill. You know you will. I can feel your hunger as plainly as you do. My brother, please. Please don’t.

His thought rode on a keening whine. Never had I seen him so desperate to dissuade me. It puzzled me. ‘Then I won’t, if it worries you so.’

I wrenched my axe out of the chopping block and went back to work. After a time, I became aware I was attacking the wood with ferocity far beyond the task’s need. I finished splitting the tumble of logs and began the tedious chore of stacking it so it would dry and yet shed rain. When that was done, I picked up my shirt. Without thinking, I turned towards the sea cliffs. Instantly the wolf was blocking my path.

Don’t do this, brother.

I already told you I wouldn’t. I turned aside from him, denying the frustration I felt. I weeded the garden. I hauled water from the stream to replenish the kitchen barrel. I dug a new pit, moved the privy, and filled the old pit with clean earth. In short, I burned through work as a lightning fire burns through a summer meadow. My back and arms ached, not just with weariness but with the complaints of old injuries, and still I dared not be still. The Skill-hunger tugged at me, refusing to be ignored.

As evening came, the wolf and I went fishing for our supper. Cooking for one person seemed foolish, yet I forced myself to set out a decent meal and to eat it. I tidied up and then sat down. The long hours of the evening stretched before me. I set out vellum and inks, but could not settle to the task of writing anything. My thoughts would not order themselves. I finally dragged out the mending and began doggedly to patch, sew or darn every garment that needed it.

Finally, when my work began to blear before my eyes, I went to bed. I lay on my back, my arm flung over my face, and tried to ignore the fishhooks that were set and dragging at my soul. Nighteyes dropped beside the bed with a sigh. I trailed my other arm over the side of the bed, resting my hand on his head. I wondered when we had crossed the line from solitude to loneliness.

It’s not loneliness that eats at you like this.

There seemed nothing to say to that. I passed a difficult night. I forced myself out of bed shortly after dawn. For the next few days, I spent the mornings cutting alder for the smokehouse, and the afternoons catching fish to smoke. The wolf gorged himself on entrails, but still watched greedily as I salted the slabs of red fish and hung them on hooks over the slow fire. I put more green alder on to thicken the smoke and shut the door tightly. Late one afternoon, I was at the rain barrel, washing slime, scales and salt from my hands when Nighteyes suddenly turned his head towards the lane.

Someone comes.

Hap? Hope surged in me.

No.

I was surprised at the strength of my disappointment. I felt an echo of the same from the wolf. We were both staring down the shaded lane when Jinna came in sight. She paused a moment, unnerved perhaps by the intensity of our gazes, then lifted a hand in greeting. ‘Hello, Tom Badgerlock! Here I am, to take up your offer of hospitality.’

A friend of Hap’s. I explained to Nighteyes. He still hung back and regarded her warily as I went to meet her.

‘Welcome. I didn’t expect to see you so soon,’ I said, and then heard the awkwardness of my words. ‘An unexpected pleasure is always the most welcome,’ I added to mend the moment, and then realized that such a gallantry was just as inappropriate. Had I completely forgotten how to deal with people?

But Jinna’s smile put me at ease. ‘Seldom do I hear such honesty harnessed with such fair words, Tom Badgerlock. Is that water cool?’

Without waiting for an answer, she strode up to the rain barrel, unknotting the kerchief at her throat as she did so. She walked like a woman used to the road, weary at the end of the day, but not overly taxed by her journey. The bulging pack high on her back was a natural part of her. She damped her kerchief and wiped the dust from her face and hands. Moistening it more generously, she wiped the back of her neck and her throat. ‘Oh, that’s better,’ she sighed gratefully. She turned to me with a smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. ‘At the end of a long day’s walk, I envy folk like you with a settled life and a place to call your own.’

‘I assure you, folk like me just as often wonder if life would not be sweeter as travellers. Won’t you come in and be comfortable? I was just about to start the evening meal.’

‘Many thanks.’ As she followed me to the door of the cabin, Nighteyes shadowed us at a discreet distance. Without turning to look at him directly, she observed, ‘A bit unusual, a wolf as a watchdog.’

I often lied to people, insisting that Nighteyes was merely a dog that looked like a wolf. Something told me this would be an insult to Jinna. I gave her the truth. ‘I adopted him as a cub. He’s been a good companion to me.’

‘So Hap told me. And that he does not like to be stared at by strangers, but will come to me when he’s made up his mind about me. And as usual, I’m telling a tale by starting in the middle. I passed Hap upon the road a few days ago. He was in high spirits, with every confidence that he will find work and do well. I do believe he will; the boy has such a friendly, engaging manner that I cannot imagine anyone not welcoming him. He assured me again of a warm welcome here, and of course he spoke true.’

She followed me into my cabin. She slung her pack to the floor and leaned it up against the wall, then straightened and stretched her back with a relieved groan. ‘Well. What are we cooking? You may as well let me help, for I’m never content to sit still in a kitchen. Fish? Oh, I’ve a wonderful herb for fish. Have you a heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid?’

With the ease of the naturally gregarious, she took over half the dinner chores. I had not shared kitchen tasks with a woman since my year among the Witted folk, and even then, Holly had been a near-silent companion at such times. Jinna talked on, clattering pots and pans and filling my small home with her bustle and friendly gossip. She had the rare knack of coming into my territory and handling my possessions without me feeling displaced or uneasy. My feelings bled over to Nighteyes. He soon ventured into the cabin, and assumed his customary attentive post by the table. She was unruffled by his intent stare, and accepted his adeptness at catching the fish trimmings she tossed his way. The fish was soon simmering in a pot with her herbs. I raided my garden for young carrots and fresh greens while she fried thick slabs of bread in lard.

It seemed that dinner appeared on the table with no real effort from anyone. Nor had she neglected to prepare bread for the wolf as well, though I think Nighteyes ate it more out of sociability than hunger. The poached fish was moist and savoury, spiced as much with her conversation as the herbs. She did not chatter endlessly, but her stories encouraged responses, and she listened with as much appreciation as she gave to the food. The dishes were cleared from the table with as little effort. When I brought out the Sandsedge brandy, she exclaimed delightedly, ‘Now, this is the perfect end to a good meal.’

She took her brandy to the hearth. Our cooking fire had burned low. She added another piece of wood, more for light than warmth, and settled herself on the floor beside the wolf. Nighteyes didn’t even twitch an ear. She sipped her brandy, gave an appreciative sigh, then gestured with her cup. My scroll-cluttered desk was just visible through the open door of my study. ‘I knew you made inks and dyes, but from what I see, you employ them as well. Are you a scribe of some kind?’

I gave a desultory shrug. ‘Of sorts,’ I admitted. ‘I do not attempt the fancy work, though I do simple illustration. My lettering is no better than passable. For me, there is a satisfaction in taking knowledge and committing it to paper, where it is accessible to all.’

‘To any who can read,’ Jinna amended my words.

‘That is true,’ I conceded.

She cocked her head at me and smiled. ‘I don’t think I approve.’

I was startled, not just that she disagreed with such a thing, but that she could do it so pleasantly. ‘Why not?’

‘Perhaps knowledge should not be available to all. Perhaps it should be earned, parcelled out from master to worthy student only, rather than committed to paper where anyone who chances upon it may claim it for himself.’

‘I confess to some of the same doubts myself,’ I replied, thinking of the Skill-scrolls that Chade now studied. ‘And yet I have known of cases in which a master died an untimely death, and all she knew went with her, before it could be passed on to her chosen pupil. Generations of knowledge were lost in one death.’

She was silent for a time. ‘Tragic,’ she admitted at last. ‘For though masters of a skill may share a great deal of knowledge, each has his own secrets, destined only for his own apprentices.’

‘Consider someone such as yourself,’ I went on, pushing my advantage in the discussion. ‘You practise a trade that is as much an art, woven of secrets and skills shared only by those others who practise hedge-magic. You have no apprentice at all that I have seen. Yet I would wager there are aspects of your magic that are yours alone, ones that would die with you if you perished tonight.’

She looked at me for a still moment, then took another sip of her brandy. ‘There’s a chill thought to dream on,’ she replied wryly. ‘Yet there is this also, Tom. I have no letters. I could not put my knowledge in such a form, unless someone such as yourself aided me. And then I would not be certain if you had truly put down what I know, or what you thought I had told you. That is half of teaching an apprentice: making sure the youngster learns what you said, not what she thinks you said.’

‘Very true,’ I had to agree. How often I had thought I understood Chade’s directions, only to come to disaster when I tried to mix the concoction on my own? Another little ripple of uneasiness went through me, as I thought of Chade trying to teach Prince Dutiful from the scrolls. Would he teach what some forgotten Skillmaster had committed to paper, or only his understanding of it? I pulled my thoughts back from the unsettling notion. I had no duty there. I had warned him; that was as much as I could do.

Conversation lagged after that, and Jinna soon sought rest in Hap’s bed. Nighteyes and I went out to shut up the chickenhouse for the night and make our evening round of our smallholding. All was well and calm in the peaceful summer night. I cast one longing look towards the cliffs. The waves would be lace-edged silver tonight. I forbade it to myself and felt Nighteyes’ relief at my decision. We added more green alder branches to the slow fire in the smokehouse. ‘Bedtime,’ I decided.

On nights such as this, we used to hunt together.

That we did. It would be a good night for hunting. The moon will make the game restless and easy to see.

Nevertheless, he followed me as I turned back towards the hut. Regardless of how well we both recalled it, neither of us were the young wolves we once had been. Our bellies were full, the hearth was warm, and rest might ease the dull ache in Nighteyes’ haunches. Dreams of hunting would have to suffice tonight.

I awoke to the morning sounds of Jinna ladling water into a kettle. When I came out into the kitchen, she had already set the kettle to boil over the stirred fire. She looked over her shoulder as she was slicing bread. ‘I hope you don’t feel that I’ve made myself too much at home,’ she offered.

‘Not at all,’ I replied, but it did feel a bit odd. By the time I had seen to my animals and returned with the day’s eggs, hot food was steaming on the table. When we had eaten, she helped with the tidying up.

She offered me thanks for the hospitality, and added, ‘Before I go, perhaps we might do a bit of trading. Would you consider a charm or two from my stock in exchange for some of your yellow and blue inks?’

I found that I was glad to delay her leaving, not only because her company was pleasant, but because I had always been intrigued by hedge-magic. Here was an opportunity, perhaps, for a closer look at the tools of her trade. We went first to my workbench in the shed, where I packaged up pots of yellow, blue, and a small quantity of red ink for her. As I sealed the pots with wooden stoppers and wax, she explained that using colours on some of her charms seemed to increase their efficacy, but that this was an area in which she was still making discoveries. I nodded to her words, but much as I longed to, I refrained from asking more details. It did not seem polite.

When we returned to the house, she set the pots of dye on the table, and opened her own pack. She spread a number of her bagged charms on the table. ‘What will you choose, Tom Badgerlock?’ she asked with a smile. ‘I have charms for verdant gardens, for hunter’s luck, for healthy babes – that’s small use to you, let me put that one back. Ah. Here’s one you might find useful.’

She whisked the cover off a charm. As she did so, Nighteyes let out a low growl. His hackles stood as he stalked to the door and nosed it open. I found myself backing away from the object she revealed. Short rods of wood marked with shrieking black symbols were fastened to each other at chaotic angles. Ominous beads were dangerously interspersed with them. A few tortured tufts of fur, twisted and fixed with pitch clung to it. The object both offended and distressed me. I would have fled if I had dared take my eyes off it. I abruptly felt the wall of the cabin against my back. I pressed against it, knowing that there was a better path to escape, but unable to think what it was.

‘I beg your pardon.’ Jinna’s gentle words came from a vast distance. I blinked, and the object was gone, mantled in cloth and hidden from my sight. Outside the door, Nighteyes’ low growl rose to a whistling whine and ceased. I felt as if I had surfaced from deep waters. ‘It had not occurred to me,’ Jinna apologized as she thrust the charm deep into her pack. ‘It’s intended to keep predators away from chickenhouses and sheep-pens,’ she explained.

I got my breath back. Her gaze did not meet mine. Apprehension hung like a miasma between us. I was Witted, and now she knew it. How would she employ that knowledge? Would she merely be disgusted? Frightened? Scared enough to bring destruction down on me? I imagined Hap returning to a burned-out cabin.

Jinna suddenly looked up and met my eyes as if she had overheard my thoughts. ‘A man is as he is made. A man can’t help how he’s made.’

‘That’s so,’ I muttered in response, shamed at how relieved I felt. I managed to step away from the wall and towards the table. She didn’t look at me. She rooted through her pack as if the incident had never occurred.

‘So, then, let’s just find you something a bit more appropriate.’ She sorted through her bagged charms, stopping sometimes to pinch at the contents to freshen her memory of what was inside. She chose one in a green pouch and placed it on the table. ‘Will you take one to hang near your garden, to encourage your green things to prosper?’

I nodded mutely, still recovering from my fear. Moments ago, I would have doubted the power of her charms. Now I almost feared their potency. I clenched my teeth as she unveiled the garden charm, but as I stared at it, I felt nothing. When I met her eyes, I found sympathy there. Her gentle smile was reassuring.

‘You’ll have to give me your hand so I can tune it to you. Then we’ll take it outside and adjust it for your garden. Half this charm is for the garden, and half for the gardener. It’s that which is between the gardener and his bit of soil that makes a garden. Give me your hands.’

She seated herself at my table and held her own hands out to me, palms up. I took the chair opposite hers and, after an awkward hesitation, placed my palms on top of hers.

‘Not that way. A man’s life and ways are told in the palms of his hands, not the backs.’

Obediently, I turned my hands over. In my apprentice days, Chade had taught me to read hands, not to tell fortunes, but to tell a man’s past. The calluses of a sword differed from those of a scribe’s pen or a farmer’s hoe. She bent close over my hands, staring at them intently. As she scanned my palms, I wondered if her eyes would discover the axe I had once borne, or the oar I had wielded. Instead, she studied my right hand intently, frowned, then transferred her gaze to my left. When she looked up at me, her face was a picture. The smile that twisted her face was a rueful one.

‘You’re an odd one, Tom and no mistake! Were they not both at the ends of your arms, I’d say these were the hands of two different men. It’s said that your left hand tells what you were born with, and your right hand what you have made of yourself, but even so, such differences in a man’s two hands I’ve seldom seen! Look what I see in this hand. A tender-hearted boy. A sensitive young man. And then … Your lifeline stops short on your left hand.’ As she spoke, she let go of my right hand. She set her forefinger to my left palm, and her nail traced a tickling line to where my life ended. ‘Were you Hap’s age, I’d be fearing I was looking at a young man soon to die. But as you’re sitting there across from me, and your right hand bears a nice long lifeline, we’ll go by it, shall we?’ She released my left hand, and took my right in both of hers.

‘I suppose so,’ I conceded uncomfortably. It was not only her words that made me ill at ease. The simple warm pressure of her hands gripping mine had made me suddenly aware of Jinna as a woman. I was experiencing a very adolescent response to it. I shifted in my chair. The knowing smile that flickered over her face discomfited me even more.

‘So. An avid gardener, I see, one devoted to the knowing of many herbs and their uses.’

I made a neutral noise. She had seen my garden, and could be speculating based on what grew there. She studied my right hand a bit more, sweeping her thumb across it to smooth the lesser lines away, and then cupping my fingers in her own and encouraging my hand to close slightly to deepen the folds. ‘Left or right, it’s not an easy hand to read, Tom.’ She frowned to herself, and compared the two again. ‘By your left hand, I’d say you’d had a sweet and true love in your short life. A love that ended only in your death. Yet here in your right hand, I see a love that wends its way in and out of all your many years. That faithful heart has been absent for a time, but is soon to return to you again.’ She lifted her clear hazel eyes to mine to see if she had scored true. I shrugged one shoulder. Had Hap been telling her tales of Starling? Scarcely what I would call a faithful heart. When I said nothing, she returned her attention to my hands, her gaze going from one to the other. She frowned slightly, raising a furrow between her brows. ‘Look here. See this? Anger and fear, shackled together in a dark chain … it follows your lifeline, a black shadow over it.’

I pushed aside the uneasiness her words roused in me. I leaned forwards to look into my own hand. ‘It’s probably just dirt,’ I offered.

She gave a small snort of amusement and shook her head again. But she did not return to her ominous peering. Instead she covered my hand with her own and met my eyes. ‘Never have I seen two palms so unlike on the same man. I suspect that sometimes you wonder if you even know who you are yourself.’

‘I’m sure every man wonders that from time to time.’ It was oddly difficult to meet her near-sighted gaze.

‘Hm. But you, perhaps, have more honest reason to wonder it than others. Well,’ she sighed. ‘Let me see what I can do.’

She released my hands, and I drew them back. I rubbed them together under the table as if to erase the tickling of her touch. She took up her charm, turned it several times, and then unfastened a string. She changed the order of the beads on the string, and added an extra brown bead from her pack. She re-tied the string, and then took out the pot of yellow ink I had traded her. Dipping a fine brush in it, she outlined several black runes on one of the dowels, bending close over it to peer at her work. She spoke as she worked. ‘When next I come to visit, I expect you to tell me this has been your best year ever for plants that bear their fruits above ground where the sun ripens them.’ She blew on the charm to dry the ink, then put away both pot and brush. ‘Come, now, we have to adjust this to the garden.’

Outside, she sent me to find and cut a forked branch at least as tall as myself. When I returned with it, I found she had dug a hole at the southeast corner of my garden plot. I set the pole in it as she directed, and filled in the hole. She hung the charm from the right fork of the branch. When the wind stirred it, the beads rattled gently and a small bell chimed. She tapped the bell with a fingertip. ‘It discourages some birds.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome. This is a good spot for one of my charms. It pleases me to leave it here. And when next I come, I shall be interested to see how well it has worked for you.’

It was the second time she had mentioned visiting again. The ghost of my court manners nudged me. ‘And when next you come, you shall find yourself as welcome as you were this time. I shall look forward to your visit.’

The smile she gave me dimpled her cheeks more deeply. ‘Thank you, Tom. I shall certainly stop here again.’ She cocked her head at me and spoke with sudden frankness. ‘I know you are a lonely man, Tom. That won’t always be so. I could tell that, at first, you doubted the power of my charms. You still doubt the truth of what I can see in the palm of a man’s hand. I don’t. Your one true love is stitched in and out and through your life. Love will return to you. Don’t doubt that.’

Her hazel eyes met mine so earnestly that I could neither laugh nor frown at her. So I nodded mutely. As she shouldered her pack and strode off down the lane, I watched her go. Her words tugged at me, and hopes long denied struggled to grow. I thrust them away from me. Molly and Burrich belonged to one another now. There was no place for me in their lives.

I squared my shoulders. I had chores to do, wood to stack, fish to put by, and a roof to mend. It was another fine summer day. Best use it while I had it, for while summer smiles, winter is never far away.