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“Knock through the wall quietly?”

“It might be a bit difficult.”Advertisement

“A bit. I may try it. I'll let you know.”

“Or you could move Nettle out of your old room down below and have the use of it.”

I shook my head. “I still hope there may come a time when she would want to use that passage to come up and talk with me of an evening.”

“But not much progress there yet.”

“No. I'm afraid not.”

“Ah, she's as hardheaded as you were. Don't trust her near the mantel with a fruit knife.”

I looked at the one that still stood there, driven in as deep as my boyish anger could sink it. “I'll remember that.”

“Remember too that you forgave me. Eventually.”

I tried to send off the liniment by Riddle with a sack of peppermint drops, some spice tea, and a small marionette of a deer. “That won't do,” he told me. “At least put in some tops, so there's something for each of them.” And so it was done. He suggested pennywhistles as well, quite innocently, but I pointed out I was trying to win my way in, not provoke Molly to murder me. He grinned, nodded and rode off, and stayed away an extra two days because of a snowstorm.

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He brought back letters, one for me and one for Nettle, and the news that he'd eaten with the family and spent the night in the stables after a half-dozen games of Stones with Steady each evening. “I spoke you well, when Chivalry asked after you. Said you spent your nights at your scroll work and were fair to turn into a scribe if you didn't watch yourself. So then Hearth asked, ‘What, is he fat, then?' for I gather the scribe at their town is quite a portly man. So I said, no, quite the opposite, that I thought you'd lost flesh and grown quieter of late. And that you spent more time alone than was healthy for any man.”

I tilted my head at him. “Could you have made me sound any more pathetic?”

He mimicked the tip of my head. “Is there any of it not true?”

The note was from Chivalry, thanking me for the liniment and recipe.

I don't know what was in Molly's note to Nettle. The next morning, she lingered after the Skill-lesson. Dutiful called to ask if she was coming, for he and Elliania and Civil and Sydel intended to go riding, if she'd care to come. She told him to go ahead and she would catch up easily, for it didn't take her forever to primp her hair before riding out.

She turned back to catch me smiling, and said, “I speak him formal when others are about. It's only here that I talk to him like that.”

“He likes it. He was elated when he first discovered he had a cousin. He said it was nice to know a girl who spoke her mind to him.”

That stopped her cold, and I regretted the remark, for I thought I had put her off whatever it was she was about to say. But she met my eyes and, lifting her chin, set her fists to her hips. “Oh. And should I speak my mind to you?”

I wasn't sure. “You could,” I suggested.

“My mother writes that she is well, and that my little brothers quite enjoy Riddle's visits. She wonders if you are afraid of my brothers, that you don't come yourself.”

I slouched back in my chair and looked down at the tabletop. “I'm more likely to be afraid of her. Time was, she had quite a temper.” I picked at my thumbnail.

“Time was, I understand you were excellent at provoking it.”

“I suppose that is true. So. Do you think she would welcome a visit from me?”

She stood quite a time, not answering. Then she asked, “And are you afraid of my temper, as well?”

“A bit,” I admitted. “Why do you ask?”

She walked to Verity's window and stared out over the sea as he used to. In that pose, she looked as much a Farseer as I did. She ran her hands back through her hair distractedly. Truly, she could have given a bit more care to “primping.” Her shortened hair stood up like the hair on an angry cat's back. “Once, I thought we were going to be friends. Then I discovered that you were my father. From that moment on, you haven't much tried even to speak to me.”

“I thought you didn't want me to.”

“Perhaps I wanted to see how hard you'd try.” She turned back to look at me accusingly. “You didn't try, at all.”

I sat a long time in silence. She turned and started toward the door.

I stood up. “You know, Nettle, I was raised by a man among men. Sometimes, I think that is the greatest disadvantage a man can have when it comes to dealing with women.” pqdm.com