It had been some time since I had last called upon her. But her sitting chamber never seemed to change, save in the uppermost layer of litter that reflected her current passion. This day was no exception. Fall-gathered herbs, bundled for drying, were suspended everywhere, filling the room with their scents. I felt I was strolling through an inverted meadow as I ducked to avoid the dangling foliage.

“You’ve hung these a bit low,” I complained as Patience entered.

“No. You’ve managed to grow a bit too tall. Stand up straight and let me look at you now.”

I obeyed, even though it left me with a bundle of catmint resting on my head.

“Well. At least rowing about killing people all summer has left you in good health. Much better than the sickly boy who came home to me last winter. I told you those tonics would work. As long as you’ve gotten that tall, you may as well help me hang up these lot.”

Without more ado, I was put to work stringing lines from sconces to bedposts to anything else that a string could be tied to, and then to fastening bundles of herbs to them. She had me treed, up on a chair and tying bundles of balsam, when she demanded, “Why do you no longer whine to me about how much you miss Molly?”

“Would it do me any good?” I asked her quietly after a moment. I did my best to sound resigned.

“No.” She paused a moment as if thinking. She handed me yet another bouquet of leaves. “Those,” she informed me as I fastened them up, “are stipple-leaf. Very bitter. Some say they will prevent a woman conceiving. They don’t. At least, not dependably. But if a woman eats them for too long, she can become ill from them.” She paused as if considering. “Perhaps, if a woman is sick, she does not conceive as easily. But I would not recommend them to anyone, least of all anyone I cared about.”

I found my tongue, sought a casual air. “Why do you dry them, then?”

“An infusion of them, gargled, will help a sore throat. So Molly Chandler told me, when I found her gathering them in the women’s garden.”

“I see.” I fastened the leaves to the line, dangling them like a body from a noose. Even their odor was bitter. Had I wondered, earlier, how Verity could be so unaware of what was right before him? Why had I never thought of this? How must it be for her, to dread what a rightfully married woman would long for? What Patience had longed for in vain?

“… seaweed, FitzChivalry?”

I started. “Beg pardon?”

“I said, when you have an afternoon free, would you gather seaweed for me? The black, crinkly sort? It has the most flavor this time of year.”

“I will try,” I replied absently. For how many years would Molly have to worry? How much bitterness must she swallow?

“What are you looking at?” Patience demanded.

“Nothing. Why?”

“Because I’ve asked you twice to get down so we can move the chair. We’ve all these other packets to hang, you know.”

“Beg pardon. I didn’t get much sleep last night; it’s left me dull-witted today.”

“I agree. You should start sleeping more at night.” These words were uttered a bit heavily. “Now come down and move the chair so we can hang these mints.”

I didn’t eat much at dinner. Regal was alone on the high dais, looking sullen. His usual circle of fawners clustered at a table just below him. I did not understand why he chose to dine separately. Certainly, he had the rank to, but why choose this isolation? He summoned one of the more flattering of the minstrels he had recently imported to Buckkeep. Most of them were from Farrow. All of them affected the nasal intonations of that region and favored the long, chanting styles of epics. This one sang a long telling of some adventure of Regal’s maternal grandfather. I listened as little as I was able; it seemed to have to do with riding a horse to death in order to be the one to shoot a great stag that had eluded a generation of hunters. It praised endlessly the greathearted horse who had gone to his death at his master’s bidding. It said nothing of the master’s stupidity in wasting such an animal to gain some tough meat and a rack of antlers.

“You look half-sick,” Burrich observed as he paused beside me. I rose to leave table and walked through the hall with him.

“Too much on my mind. Too many directions to think in all at once. I sometimes feel that if I had time to focus my mind on just one problem, I could solve it. And then go on to solve the others.”

“Every man believes that. It isn’t so. Slay the ones you can as they come to hand, and after a while you get used to the ones you can do nothing about.”