The mufed voice paused. Then it spoke again, a questioning inflection.
“I can’t understand you!” I said more loudly. .
Chade’s voice resumed, more excitedly, but no louder.
“I can’t understand you!” I shouted in frustration.
Footsteps outside my cell. “FitzChivalry!”
The guard was short. She couldn’t see in. “What?” I asked sleepily.
“What were you shouting?”
“What? Oh. Bad dream.”
The footsteps went away. I heard her laugh to the other guard and say, “Hard to imagine what dream could be worse than waking up for him.” She had an inland accent.
I went back to my bench and lay down. Chade’s voice had stopped. I tended to agree with the guard. I would not sleep again for a while, but would wonder what Chade had been so desperately trying to tell me. I doubted it would be good news, and I did not want to imagine bad. I was going to have to die here. At least let it be because I had aided the Queen’s escape. I wondered how far she was on her journey. I thought of the Fool, and wondered how well he would withstand the rigors of a winter journey. I forbade myself to wonder why Burrich was not with them. Instead, I thought of Molly.
I must have drowsed, for I saw her. She was toiling up a path, a yoke of water buckets on her shoulders. She looked pale and sick and worn. On top of the hill was a tumbledown cottage, snow banked against its walls. She stopped and set her water buckets down at the door and stood looking out, over the sea. She frowned at the fair weather and the light wind that only tipped the waves with white. The wind lifted her thick hair just as I used to and slid its hand along the curve of her warm neck and jaw. Her eyes went suddenly wide. Then tears brimmed them. “No,” she said aloud. “No. I won’t think of you anymore. No.” She stooped and lifted the heavy buckets and went into the cottage. She shut the door firmly behind her. The wind blew past it. The roof was poorly thatched. The wind blew harder and I let it carry me away.