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“A fine time to call me ‘mother,' after all these years,” she sniffed, and added, “And what would Burrich have known about anything, unless it had four legs and hooves.” But she put her tear-wet hands on my cheeks and drew me forward to kiss me on the brow. She sat back and looked down at me severely. The tip of her nose was very pink. “I'll have to forgive you now. Eda knows, I may drop dead tomorrow, and angry as I am with you, I still would not wish you to walk about the rest of your life regretting that I had died before I forgave you. But that does not mean I'm going to stop being angry with you, or that Lacey has to stop being angry with you. You deserve it.” She sniffed loudly. Lacey passed her a kerchief. The old serving woman's face rebuked me as she took her seat at the table. More clearly than ever, I saw how the years together had erased the lines between lady and maid.

“Yes. I do.”Advertisement

“Well, get up. I've no desire to get a crick in my neck staring at you down there. Why on earth are you dressed as a guardsman? And why have you been so foolish as to come back to Buckkeep Castle? Don't you know there are still people who would love to see you dead! You are not safe here, Tom. When I return to Tradeford, you shall come with me. Perhaps I can pass you off as a gardener or a wayward cousin's son. Not that I shall allow you to touch my plants. You know nothing about gardens and flowers.”

I came to my feet slowly and could not resist saying, “I could help with the weeding. I know what a marigold looks like, even when it isn't in flower.”

“There! You see, Lacey! I forgive him and the next word out of his mouth is to mock me!” Then she covered her mouth suddenly, as if to suppress another sob. The tendons and blue veins stood out on the back of her hand. Behind it, she drew a sharp breath, and then said, “I think I'll have my brandy now.” She lifted her cup and sipped from it. She glanced at me over the rim, and more tears suddenly spilled. She set the cup down hastily, shaking her head. “You're here and alive. I don't know what I've got to weep about. Except sixteen years and a grandchild, lost to me forever. How could you, you wretch! Account for them. Account for yourself and what you've been doing that was so very important you couldn't come home to us.”

And suddenly, all the very good reasons I'd had for not going to her seemed trivial. I could have found a way. I heard myself say aloud, “If I hadn't given my pain to the stone dragon, I think I would have found a way, however risky. Maybe you have to keep your pain and loss to know that you can survive whatever life deals you. Perhaps without putting your pain in its place in your life, you become something of a coward.”

She slapped the table in front of her, then exclaimed in pain at her stinging fingers. “I didn't want a moral lecture, I wanted an accounting. With no excuses!”

“I've never forgotten the apples you threw to me through the bars of my cell. You and Lacey were incredibly brave to come to me in the dungeons, and to take my part when few others dared to.”

“Stop it!” she hissed indignantly as her eyes filled with tears again. “Is this how you get your pleasure these days? Making old ladies weep over you?”

“I don't mean to.”

“Then tell me what happened to you. From the last time I saw you.”

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“My lady, I would love to. And I will, I promise. But when I encountered you, I was on a pressing errand of my own. One that I should complete before I lose the daylight. Let me go, and I promise that I'll be back tomorrow, to give a full accounting.”

“No. Of course not. What errand?”

“You recall my friend the Fool? He has fallen ill. I need to take him some herbs to ease him, and food and wine.”

“That pasty-faced lad? He was never a healthy child. Ate too much fish, if you ask me. That will do that to you.”

“I'll tell him. But I need to go see him.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Yesterday.”

“Well, it has been sixteen long years since you've seen me. He can wait his turn.”

“But he is not well.”

She clashed her teacup as she set it down on the saucer. “Neither am I!” she exclaimed, and fresh tears began to well.

Lacey came to pat her shoulders. Over Patience's head, she said to me, “She is not always rational. Especially when she is tired. We only arrived this morning. I told her that she should rest, but she wanted a bit of air in the gardens.”

“And what, pray, is irrational about that?” Patience demanded. pqdm.com