I was silent for a bit. Then: “I’m sorry.” It seemed inadequate, and I reached out to pat her motionless hand. For a second it was almost as if I couldn’t feel her there, as if her pain had shocked her into an emotional numbness the equal of a Forged one. But then she sighed and I felt her presence again beside me. “You know,” I ventured, “perhaps the King himself does not know what to do either. Perhaps he is at as great a loss for a solution as we are.”
“He is the King!” Molly protested. “And named Shrewd to be shrewd. Folk are saying now he but holds back to keep the strings of his purse tight. Why should he pay out of his hoard when desperate merchants will hire mercenaries of their own? But, enough of this …” and she held up a hand to stop my words. “This is not why we came out here into the peace and coolness, to talk of politics and fears. Tell me instead of what you’ve been doing. Has the speckled bitch had her pups yet?”
And so we spoke of other things, of Motley’s puppies and of the wrong stallion getting at a mare in season, and then she told me of gathering greencones to scent her candles and picking blackberries, and how busy she would be for the next week, trying to make blackberry preserves for the winter while still tending the shop and making candles.
We talked and ate and drank and watched the late sun of summer as it lingered low on the horizon, almost but not quite setting. I felt the tension as a pleasant thing between us, as a suspension and a wonder both. I viewed it as an extension of my strange new sense, and so I marveled that Molly seemed to feel and react to it as well. I wanted to speak to her about it, to ask her if she was aware of other folk in a similar way. But I feared that if I asked her, I might reveal myself as I had to Chade, or that she might be disgusted by it as I knew Burrich would be. So I smiled, and we talked, and I kept my thoughts to myself.
I walked her home through the quiet streets and bid her good night at the door of the chandlery. She paused a moment, as if thinking of something else she wanted to say, but then gave me only a quizzical look and a softly muttered “Good night, Newboy.”
I took myself home under a deeply blue sky pierced by bright stars, past the sentries at their eternal dice game and up to the stables. I made a quick round of the stalls, but all was calm and well there, even with the new puppies. I noticed two strange horses in one of the paddocks, and one lady’s palfrey had been stabled. Some visiting noblewoman come to court, I decided. I wondered what had brought her here at the end of the summer, and admired the quality of her horses. Then I left the stables and headed up to the keep.
By habit my path took me through the kitchens. Cook was familiar with the appetites of stable boys and men-at-arms and knew that regular meals did not always suffice to keep one full. Especially lately I had found myself getting hungry at all hours, while Mistress Hasty had recently declared that if I didn’t stop growing so rapidly, I should have to wrap myself in barkcloth like a wild man, for she had no idea how to keep me looking as if my clothes fit. I was already thinking of the big earthenware bowl that Cook kept full of soft biscuits and covered with a cloth, and of a certain wheel of especially sharp cheese, and how well both would go with some ale when I entered the kitchen door.
There was a woman at the table. She, had been eating an apple and cheese, but at the sight of me coming in the door, she sprang up and put her hand over her heart as if she thought I were the Pocked Man himself. I paused. “I did not mean to startle you, lady. I was merely hungry, and thought to get myself some food. Will it bother you if I stay?”