“A lot of the other girls and women were getting their fortunes told. But I didn’t have a penny, so I could only watch. But after a bit the old man noticed me. I guess he thought I was shy. He asked me if I didn’t want to know my fortune. And I started crying, because I did, but I didn’t have a penny. Then Brinna the fishwife laughed, and said there was no need for me to pay to know it. Everyone knew my future already. I was the daughter of a drunk, I’d be the wife of a drunk, and the mother of drunks.” She whispered, “Everyone started laughing. Even the old man.”

“Molly,” I said. I don’t think she even heard me.

“I still don’t have a penny,” she said slowly. “But at least I know I won’t be the wife of a drunk. I don’t think I even want to be friends with one.”

“You have to listen to me. You’re not being fair!” My traitorous tongue slurred my words. “I—”

The door slammed.

“—didn’t know you liked me that way,” I said stupidly to the cold and empty room.

The shaking overtook me in earnest. But I wasn’t going to lose her that easily again. I rose and managed two strides before the floor rocked beneath me and I went to my knees. I remained there a bit, head hanging like a dog. I didn’t think she’d be impressed if I crawled after her. She’d probably kick me. If I could even find her. I crawled back to my bed instead, and clambered back onto it. I didn’t undress, but just dragged the edge of my blanket over me. My vision dimmed, closing in black from the edges, but I didn’t sleep right away. Instead, I lay there and thought what a stupid boy I had been last summer. I had courted a woman, thinking that I was walking out with a girl. Those three years’ difference in age had mattered so much to me, but in all the wrong ways. I had thought she had seen me as a boy, and despaired of winning her. So I had acted like a boy, instead of trying to make her see me as a man. And the boy had hurt her, and yes, deceived her, and in all likelihood, lost her forever. The dark closed down, blackness everywhere but for one whirling spark.

She had loved the boy, and foreseen a life together for us. I clung to the spark and sank into sleep.

4

Dilemmas

AS REGARDS THE Wit and the Skill, I suspect that every human has at least some capacity. I have seen women rise abruptly from their tasks to go into an adjacent room where an infant is just beginning to awake. Cannot this be some form of the Skill? Or witness the wordless cooperation that arises among a crew that has long tended the same vessel. They function, without spoken words, as closely as a coterie, so that the ship becomes almost a beast alive, and the crew her life force. Other folk sense an affinity for certain animals, and express it in a crest or in the names they bestow upon their children. The Wit opens one to that affinity. The Wit allows awareness of all animals, but folklore insists that most Wit users eventually develop a bond with one certain animal. Some tales recount that users of the Wit eventually took on the ways and finally the form of the beasts they bonded to. These tales, I believe, we can dismiss as scare tales to discourage children from Beast magic.

I awoke in the afternoon. My room was cold. No fire at all. My sweaty clothes clung to me. I staggered downstairs to the kitchen, ate something, went out to the bathhouse, began trembling, and went back up to my room. I got back into my bed, shaking with cold. Later someone came in and talked to me. I don’t remember what was said, but I do remember being shaken. It was unpleasant, but I could ignore it and did.

I awoke in early evening. There was a fire in my hearth, and a neat pile of firewood in the hod. A little table had been drawn up near my bed, and some bread and meat and cheese was set out on a platter atop an embroidered cloth with tatted edges. A fat pot with brewing herbs in the bottom was waiting for water from the very large kettle steaming over the fire. A washtub and soap were set out on the other side of the hearth. A clean nightshirt had been left across the foot of my bed; it wasn’t one of my old ones. It might actually fit me.

My gratitude outweighed my puzzlement. I managed to get out of bed and take advantage of everything. Afterward I felt much better. My dizziness was replaced by a feeling of unnatural lightness, but that quickly succumbed to the bread and cheese. The tea had a hint of elfbark in it; I instantly suspected Chade and wondered if he was the one who’d tried to wake me. But no, Chade only summoned me at night.

I was dragging the clean nightshirt over my head when the door opened quietly. The Fool came slipping into my room. He was in his winter motley of black and white, and his colorless skin seemed even paler because of it. His garments were made of some silky fabric, and cut so loosely that he looked like a stick swathed in it. He’d gotten taller, and even thinner, if that were possible. As always, his white eyes were a shock, even in his bloodless face. He smiled at me, and then waggled a pale pink tongue derisively.