Fool’s Assassin

She rose and came to me. She stood behind my chair and set her hands to my shoulders. “I understand,” she said. There was forgiveness in her voice for my thoughtless remark. She had that in her, that ability to forgive easily. I had no idea where she had learned it. It humbled me: I knew I didn’t deserve it. She spoke on. “I had hoped it might be otherwise, but I understand. And maybe in the spring you will feel differently. Maybe by then you’ll be ready to come and spend some time with us.”

She sighed, squeezed my shoulders a final time, and then yawned like a cat. “Oh. It’s gotten late somehow. I should have put Bee to bed hours ago. We’ve an early start to make, and I still need to find a way to make her comfortable in a pannier. I should go to bed now.”

I made no reply. Let her go to bed and get some sleep. In the morning, when she tried to take Bee, I’d simply say no. But for tonight, I could let it go. A coward’s way out.

Bee was still sitting cross-legged, still staring into the flames. “Come, Bee, bedtime,” Nettle said, and stooped to pick up her sister. Bee rolled her little shoulders in a way I knew well, moving herself just outside Nettle’s grip. Nettle tried again, and again the child shrugged her away. “Bee!” Nettle objected.

Bee turned her face up and looked somewhere between Nettle and me. “No. I’m staying with Papa.”

Never had I heard her speak so clearly. It shocked me, and I fought to keep that from my face and from my Skill.

Nettle froze. Then slowly she crouched down next to her sister to peer into her face. “Staying with Papa?” She spoke each word slowly and carefully.

Bee turned her head sharply aside and said nothing. She looked away from both of us, into the shadowy corners of the room. Nettle shot me an incredulous look. I realized that it might be the first time she had ever heard her sister speak a full sentence. Nettle put her attention back on the child.

“Bee, it’s time to go to bed. In the morning we must get up very early. You’re going for a ride with me, a long ride to a place called Buckkeep Castle. It will be so much fun to see a new place! So come to me so I can take you to your bed and tuck you in.”

I saw Bee’s shoulders tighten. She bent her head down, tucking her chin to her chest.

“Bee,” Nettle warned her and then tried again to pick her up. Again Bee squirmed out of her grip.

She had moved closer to me, but I knew better than to try to pick her up. Instead I addressed her directly.

“Bee. Do you want to stay here with me?”

No words came from her, only a single sharp nod of her head.

“Let her stay,” I told Nettle, and with a sigh my elder daughter rose.

She rolled her shoulders, stretched, and added with a sigh, “Perhaps it’s better this way. Let her wear herself out and fall asleep. Once she’s bundled up tomorrow, she can catch up on her rest for part of the journey.”

Nettle had not accepted her sister’s response. I had to make it clear for her. I leaned down toward my younger daughter.

“Bee? Do you want to go on a journey with Nettle tomorrow, to Buckkeep Castle? Or do you want to stay here at Withywoods with me?”

Bee turned her head, and her pale glance slipped past both of us. She looked up into the dark recesses of the ceiling. Her eyes darted to me once and then away. She took a long slow breath. She spoke each word distinctly. “I do not wish to go to Buckkeep Castle. Thank you, Nettle, for your kind offer. But I will be staying home here, at Withywoods.”

I looked at Nettle and turned a hand up. “She says she wants to stay here.”

“I heard her,” she replied sharply. She looked jolted at hearing her sister speak, but I maintained a calm façade. I would not betray that this was more talking than she usually did in a week, let alone that her enunciation was unusually clear. Bee and I were in this together, I sensed. Allies. So I looked at Nettle calmly as if I were not startled at all.

For a moment Nettle resembled her mother right before she would fly into a temper. I looked at her and my heart smote me. Why had I so often provoked that look from Molly when she had been alive? Couldn’t I have been kinder, gentler? Couldn’t I have let her have her way more often? Black and utter loneliness rose in me. I felt sick with it, as if the emptiness were something I needed to vomit out of my body.