“I know.” Her blue gaze roamed the room, and for the first time it struck me how strange this world might look to her. The room was immense in comparison with her, everything sized for the benefit of a grown man. Could she even see out of her windows when she stood by them? Open the heavy cedar lid of her blanket chest? I suddenly remembered my first night in my bedchamber at Buckkeep Castle after years of sleeping cozy in Burrich’s chamber in the lofts above the stables. At least the tapestries here were all of flowers and birds, with no golden-eyed Elderlings staring down at an awestruck child who was trying to fall asleep. Still, I saw a dozen changes that needed to be made in the room, changes that would have been wrought years ago by a father with any sensitivity. Shame flooded me. It felt wrong to leave her alone in such a large and empty space.
I stood over her in the darkness. I promised myself I would do better. I reached to smooth the pale stubble on her skull. She curled away from my touch. “No, please,” she whispered into the darkness, looking away from me. It was a knife to my heart, a stab I well deserved. I drew back my hand, did not stoop for the kiss I had intended to bestow on her. I held back my sigh.
“Very well. Good night, Bee.”
I took up my lamp and was halfway to the door when she asked timidly, “Can you leave a short candle burning? Mama always left me one candle.”
I immediately knew what she meant. Molly often lit a small fat candle by our bedside, one that scented the room as she drifted off to sleep. I could not recall how many times I had come to our bed to find her deep in slumber and the last bit of flame dancing on the foundering wick. A pottery saucer on Bee’s bedside table awaited such a candle. I opened the cupboard beneath the table and found ranks and rows of such candles. Their sweet fragrances drifted out to me as if Molly herself had entered the room. I chose lavender for its restfulness. I lit the candle from my lamp and set it in its place. I drew the bed’s draperies closed, imagining how the dancing candlelight would seep through the hangings to softly illuminate the enclosed space.
“Good night,” I said again, taking up my lamp.
I started for the door, and her whisper reached me softly as blown thistledown. “Mama always sang a song.”
“A song?” I asked stupidly.
“You don’t know any,” she surmised. I heard her turn away from me.
I spoke to the curtains. “Actually, I do.” Obtusely, it was “Crossfire’s Coterie” that leapt to the forefront of my mind, a martial and tragic tale completely inappropriate for a child’s bedtime. I thought of others I knew, the learning tunes and rhymes I had acquired growing up. “The Poisoner’s Prayer,” a list of deadly herbs. “Blood Points,” a musical recitation of where to stab a man to make the blood leap. Perhaps not for bedtime.
She whispered again, “Do you know ‘The Twelve Healing Herbs’?”
“I do.” Burrich had taught it to me, as well as Lady Patience hammering it into my head. I cleared my throat. When had I last sung a song when mine was the only lifted voice? A lifetime ago. I drew a breath and suddenly changed my mind. “Here’s a song I learned when I was much younger than you are now. It’s about horses, and choosing a good one.” I cleared my throat again and found the note.
“One white hoof, buy him.
Two white hooves, try him.
Three white hooves, think for a day.
Four white hooves, turn him away.”
A brief silence greeted my effort. Then, “That seems cruel. Because his hooves are white, you turn him away?”
I smiled into darkness, and remembered Burrich’s answer. “Because his hooves are soft. Sometimes. White hooves can be softer than black hooves. You don’t want to buy a horse whose hooves will split easily. The rule isn’t always true, but it reminds you to check the hooves of a horse you are thinking of buying.”
“Oh.” A pause. “Sing it again, please.”
And I did. Four more times, until my listener did not request an encore. I took my lamp and walked softly to the door. The fragrance of lavender and soft candlelight remained as I stepped out into the corridor. I looked back at the draped bed, so large in comparison with the very small person who slept there. So small, with only me to protect her. Then I eased the door closed behind me and sought my own chill and empty bedchamber.
The next morning I woke at dawn. I lay still, looking up at the shadowy corners of the bedchamber ceiling. I had slept but a few hours, and yet sleep had deserted me. There was something.
The cub.
I took in a sudden breath. It happened, not often, that I heard my wolf speak in my mind as clearly as if he still lived. It was a Wit phenomenon, something that happened to people who had been so long partnered with an animal that when it died, some influence lingered. It was close to a score of years since I had lost Nighteyes, and yet in that instant he was at my side, and I felt the nudge as clearly as if it were a cold nose intruding under the blankets. I sat up. “It’s barely dawn,” I grumbled, but I swung my legs over the edge of the bed.