‘—or hair, or nail clippings,’ he went on. ‘The spell is linked to the similarity of essences. It should be pointing toward the son.’ Jarvis opened the locket, his fingers probing delicately for the catch. Within one half was a miniature portrait, a tiny thing no bigger than Jimmy’s thumb. The other held a love-knot, a twining of hair braided together, one strand blond, the other brown. ‘Could you bring me some light, Jimmy?’ he asked.
Jimmy went to the hearth. A tube of birch-bark stood on the bare earth beside it, containing long splints of lightwood from resinous pine, ready to kindle. He took one and held it to the low flames of the fire. It hissed and spat as it caught, giving off a resinous, medicinal scent. Jimmy brought it back to the table, holding it higher and to one side so that no driblets of hot sap would fall on the table, careful that none struck him, either.
The light was wavering and none too bright compared to a candle, but the old couple had none of those, or even tallow dips, but it was still bright enough for him to see the handsome blond young man in the portrait.
‘Ruthia!’ Jimmy blurted. ‘That’s the one they took!’
‘No,’ the old woman said. ‘That’s young lord Kethry, by the name of Zakry, who were Lady Elaine’s friend from Krondor. From before she met the Baron. Him who disappeared.’
‘Oh-ho,’ Jimmy said. ‘Well, from his looks—’
‘And from the behaviour of this needle—
‘I’d say that while the Lady Elaine may have had a son seventeen years ago, the Baron surely didn’t,’ Jimmy said.
Jarvis gave a lopsided grin. ‘You can see further than most, Jimmy,’ he said.
The cottager sighed. ‘You’ll have to tell them now,’ he said wearily. ‘No helping it.’
Meg the midwife nodded. ‘The Baron would have none of his son . . . well, of the baby. For a moment he was overjoyed to have an heir, but when he saw his wife at the edge of death, he became a man possessed. He blamed the baby and told me to get rid of it, so that he would never see it again. Set it out for the wolves, he meant, but I couldn’t. So I took it to a farmer I knew—name of Ossrey—near Relling, whose wife had lost her babe but still had milk. They were glad to take it in and raise it as their own.’
‘Relling’s not far south of here, and somewhat east. Still on the Baron’s land, of course,’ her husband added. ‘He promised never to speak of it, and to give him credit, I’ve never heard the rumour come back. Like as not they’ve forgotten the babe wasn’t theirs; all they knew was the mother died birthing it, and likely they thought it some serving-girl’s by-blow.’
‘This makes a good deal of unpleasant sense,’ Jarvis Coe said. ‘The Baron obviously loved his wife very much.’
‘To madness,’ Meg said, sitting down on her bed and sighing as she looked at the cedarwood box. ‘And I never thought she wasn’t fond of him—even when she took sick after Kethry disappeared.’
‘Disappeared?’
‘In a hunt. Rode off to Krondor, the Baron said, leaving his servants and traps to be sent on, but nobody saw hide nor hair of him again. Young Lord Kethry never reached Rillanon.’
Jimmy snorted. I know that sort of sudden leave-taking, he thought. Bet if you asked, nobody saw him arrive anywhere else, either. The sea hides a good many sins.
‘Well . . .’ Jarvis said, looking at the three of them and obviously thinking how much to tell. Jimmy raised an ironic eyebrow: it was a bit late to be cautious about things.
Unless he plans to leave no witnesses, and I doubt he’s quite that ruthless.
Jarvis confirmed his guess by going on: ‘If a magician of the . . . right sort . . . were at hand, as the lady lay dying, he could . . . not keep her alive, exactly. Suspend her, between life and death, so that someone could attempt to heal her entirely later.’ He reached for a wooden mug of the old couple’s ale. ‘Let me wash out my mouth! She’d be suspended between life and death . . . for . . . by the Goddess! Seventeen years, dying every second!’
Jimmy felt the coarse bread and eternal bean soup turn into a heavy lump under his breastbone. ‘Lims-Kragma rest her!’ Another thought struck him. ‘And why do they want her son?’
Remind me never to get involved with wizards again, he thought. Looking back on it, he felt a touch of fear at how lightly he’d dealt with old Alban Asher, even.
‘Well, the force of life is released at death. They could try to revive her with anyone’s, but the more like to like, the easier. Children, because her life was lost birthing a child. The child himself, best of all—it’s the natural order that the lives of parents run on in their children, but it can be forced into reverse.’
The old man spat into the fire, which hissed.
Jarvis looked up. ‘We have four days,’ he said. ‘And so does young—’ He looked down at the locket.
‘Bram,’ Meg said.
‘—Bram,’ Jarvis echoed.
Jimmy sighed. ‘I suppose, if he loved her that much . . . it’s evil and mad, but there’s a sort of grandeur to it.’