Fool's Errand (Tawny Man #1) 49

My words choked me for an instant. Then I laughed aloud. My eyes swam with tears but I ignored them. “I swear, Fool, that is when I came closest to going down to him. It seemed as unnatural a thing as I had ever done, to watch Burrich work and not toil alongside him.”

The Fool nodded, silent and rapt beside me.

"When he came out, he was leading a roan stallion. It astonished me. 'Buckkeep's best,' shouted every line of his body. His spirit was in the arch of his neck, his power in his shoulders and haunches. My heart swelled in me just to see such a horse, and to know he was in Burrich's keeping rejoiced me. He turned the horse loose in a paddock, and then hauled yet more water to the trough there.

"When he next led Ruddy out, much of the mystery was cleared for me. I did not know, then, that Starling had hunted him down and seen to it that both his horse and Sooty's colt were given over to him. It was just good to see man and horse together again. Ruddy looked to have settled into goodnatured stability; even so, Burrich did not paddock him next to the other stud, but put him as far away as possible. He hauled more water for Ruddy, then gave him a friendly thump and went back into the cottage.

“Then Molly came out.”

I took another breath and held it. I stared out at the ocean, but that was not what I saw. The image of she who had been my woman moved before my eyes. Her dark hair, once wild and blowing to the wind, was braided and pinned sedately to her head, .a matron's crown. A little boy toddled unsteadily after her. Basket on her arm, she moved with placid grace toward the garden. Her white apron draped her swelling pregnancy. The swift and slender girl was gone, but I found this woman no less attractive. My heart yearned after her and all she represented: the cozy hearth and the settled home, the companionship of the years to come as she filled her man's home with children and warmth.

"I whispered her name. It was so strange. She lifted her head suddenly, and for one sharp moment I thought she was aware of me. But instead of looking up to the hill, she laughed aloud, and exclaimed, 'Chivalry, no! Not good to eat.' She stooped slightly, to pull a handful of pea flowers from the child's mouth. She lifted him, and I saw the effort it cost her. She called back to the cottage, 'My love, come fetch your son before he pulls the whole garden up. Tell Nettle to come and pull some turnips for me.'

“Then I heard Burrich call back, 'A moment!' An instant later, he stood in the doorway. He called over his shoulder, 'We'll finish the washingup later. Come help your mother.' I watched him cross the yard in a few strides and snatch up his son. He swung him high, and the child gave a whoop of delight as Burrich landed him on his shoulder. Molly set a hand atop her belly and laughed with them, looking up at them both with delight in her eyes.”

I stopped speaking. I could no longer see the ocean. Tears blinded me like a fog.

I felt the Fool's hand on my shoulder. “You never went down to them, did you?” I shook my head mutely.

I had fled. I had fled the sudden gnawing envy I felt, and I fled lest I glimpse my own child and have to go to her. There was no place down there for me, not even on the edges of their world. I knew that. I had known it since first I knew they would marry. If I walked down to that door, I would carry destruction and misery with me.

I am no better than any other man. There was bitterness in me, and anger at both of them, and the stark awareness of how fate had betrayed us all. I could not blame them for turning to each other. Neither did I blame myself for the anguish I felt that by that act, they had excluded me forever from their lives. It was done and over, and regrets were use jbs less. The dead, I told myself, have no right to regret. The most I can claim for myself is that I did walk away. I did not let my pain poison their happiness, or compromise my daughter's home. That much strength, I found.

I drew a long breath and found my voice again. “And that is the end of my tale, Fool. Next winter caught us here. We found this hut and settled into it. And here we have been ever since.” I blew out a breath and thought over my own words. Suddenly none of it seemed admirable.

His next words rattled me. “And your other child?” he asked quietly.

“What?”

“Dutiful. Have you seen him? Is not he your son, just as much as Nettle is your daughter?”

“I... no. No, he is not. And I have never seen him. He is Kettricken's son and Verity's heir. So Kettricken recalls it, I am sure.” I felt myself reddening, embarrassed that the Fool had brought this up. I set my hand to his shoulder. “My friend, only you and I know of how Verity used me...my body. When he asked my permission, I misunderstood his request. I myself have no memory of how Dutiful was conceived. You must recall; I was with you, trapped in Verity's misused flesh. My King did what he did to get himself an heir. I do not begrudge it, but neither do I wish to remember it.”