“That’s wonderful news.”
“It is. We’re all very excited. But my mother says it makes her feel old, to know she’ll be a grandmother soon.” That gave me a moment’s pause.
“She said to me, ‘Time goes faster when you’re older, Nettle.’ Isn’t that an odd thought?”
“I’ve known it for some time.”
“Do you? I think women know it better perhaps.”
I looked at Nettle directly and said nothing. “Perhaps not,” she said then, and went away. Four days later, I saddled Myblack again and set out for Molly’s. Chade sternly warned me that I must be back in time for the Calling and I promised him that I would be. The day was fine and Myblack well behaved and in good condition for the journey. The summer evenings were long and I made the journey in two days instead of three. I found myself very welcome, for Chivalry was replacing the posts in the paddock fence. Swift and Steady were helpful in pulling up the old rotted posts and Just and Hearth dug the holes bigger. Chivalry and I came behind, setting each pole straight and tall. He spoke to me about becoming a father and how exciting it was until he realized that my silences were growing longer and longer. Then he declared he was going to take the boys down to the creek and let them swim for a time, for he’d had enough of hot, sweaty work for the day. He asked if I’d come but I shook my head.
I was pouring a bucket of cool water from the well over my head when Molly came out with a basket on her arm. “Thrift is napping. The heat is hard on her. It is, when you’re carrying. I thought we’d leave the house quiet for her, and perhaps find out if there are any blackberries ripe enough to be sweet yet.” We climbed the gentle hill behind the house. The shouts of the boys splashing in the creek below faded. We went past Molly’s neat straw hives, gently humming with the warm day. The blackberry tangle was beyond them and Molly led me to the far south side of it, saying the berries always ripened there first. Her bees were busy there too, some among the last blackberry flowers and some after the juice from the bursting ripe fruit. We picked berries until the basket was half-full. Then, as I bent a high prickly branch to bring it down so Molly could reach the top fruit, I offended a bee. It rushed at me, first tangling in my hair and then bumbling down my collar. I slapped at it and cursed as it stung me. I stumbled back from the berry bushes, batting at two others that were suddenly buzzing round my head.
“Move away quickly,” Molly warned me, and then came to take my hand and hurry me down the hill. A second one stung me behind the ear before they gave off the chase. “And we’ve left the basket back there with all the berries. Shall I try to go back for it?”
“Not yet. Wait a time until they settle. Here, don’t rub that, the stinger is probably still in it. Let me see.” I sat down in the shade of an alder and she bent my head forward to look at the sting behind my ear. “It’s really swelling. And you’ve pushed the stinger right in. Sit still, now.” She picked at it with her fingers. I flinched and she laughed. “Sit still. I can’t get it with my nails.” She leaned forward and put her mouth on it. I felt her tongue find the stinger, and then she gripped it between her teeth and pulled it out. She brushed it from her lips onto her fingers. “See. You’d pushed it all the way in. Is there another one?”
“Down my back,” I said, and in spite of myself, my voice shook. She stopped and looked at me. She turned her head and looked again at me, as if she had not seen me in a long time. Her voice was husky when she said, “Take your shirt off. I’ll see if I can get it out.”
I felt dizzy as her mouth once again touched me. She presented me with the second stinger. Then she set her fingers to the arrow scar on my back and said, “What was this?”
“An arrow. A long time ago.”
“And this?”
“That’s more recent. A sword.”
“My poor Fitz.” She touched the scar between my shoulder and neck. “I remember when you got this one. You came to my bed, still bandaged.”
“I did.”
I turned to her, knowing that she was waiting for me. It still took all my courage. Very carefully, I kissed her. I kissed her cheeks, her throat, and finally her mouth. She tasted of blackberries. Over and over, I kissed her, as slowly as I could, trying to kiss away all the years I had missed. I unlaced her blouse and lifted it over her head, baring her to the blue summer sky above us. Her breasts were soft and heavy in my hands. I treasured them. Her skirt slipped away, a blown blossom on the grass. I laid my love down in the deep wild grasses and sweetly took her to me.
It was homecoming, and completion, and a marvel worth repeating. We dozed for a time, and then woke as the shadows were lengthening. “We must go back!” she exclaimed, but, “Not yet,” I told her. I claimed her again, as slowly as I could bear to, and my name whispered by my ear as she shuddered beneath me was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.
We were abruptly guilty adolescents as the raised cries of “Mother? Fitz?” reached our ears. We scrabbled hastily back into our clothing. Molly ventured alone to retrieve our basket of berries. We dusted leaves and bits of grass from our clothing and hair, laughing breathlessly as we did so. I kissed her again. “We have to stop!” Molly warned me. She returned my kiss warmly, and then lifted her voice to call, “I’m here, I’m coming!”
I took her hand in mine as we went round the bramble and held it as we strode back down the hill to her children.
Epilogue
Withywoods is a warm valley, centered on a gently flowing river that carves a wide plain that nestles between gently rising and rolling foothills. It is a wonderful place to grow grapes and grain and bees and young boys. The manor is of timber rather than stone, and there are times when this still seems very strange to me. I sleep now in a room and in a bed that once belonged to my father, and the woman I have loved since I was a boy sleeps beside me at night.
For three years, we were lovers in secret. It was hard for us, and yet somehow all the more delicious. Our trysts were few and uncertain, and I valued them all the more for that. Molly came with her sons to the next Harvest Fest, and I stole her away from the music and dancing and carried her off to my own bed. I had never thought to have her there, and for many nights after, her perfume lingered on my pillows and sweetened my dreams. A visit to her cottage might yield me no more than a swiftly stolen kiss, but each was worth the long ride. I do not think we deceived Chivalry for long, and certainly Nettle’s comments let me know that I was not fooling her. But we went carefully, for the sake of her little boys, and I have never regretted taking the time to win their regard.
No one was more surprised than I when Steady answered the Calling. He did not seem to be strongly Skilled at first, but we soon uncovered reserves of strength and calm that made him precisely suited to be a King’s Man. Nettle was proud and protective, and I was grateful, for her young son’s residence in Buckkeep Castle gave Molly excuses to visit more often. Steady and Nettle became the core of the new King’s Coterie, for the bond the brother and sister shared was strong. Twelve others answered the Calling, four with Skill enough to become members of Nettle’s coterie and eight of lesser ability. We turned no one away from that first Calling, for as Chade himself pointed out, it sometimes takes time for the Skill to manifest itself completely. Thick and I continue to perform the duties of Solos. Chade, as always, keeps threads tied to us all and tests the boundaries of the magic, risking himself in ways he would deride as foolhardy if anyone else attempted them. When Chivalry’s second son was born, Molly suddenly declared that it was time Thrift had her own hearth and home. She decided to take Hearth and Just to Withywoods. Nimble made the decision to stay with his older brother, for the holding was too much for one man to work alone and he had always enjoyed the horses. Molly privately told me that she thought it had more to do with a certain redheaded girl, the daughter of a wainwright in the closest town.