The Golden Fool

Incredulous, I lifted myself a little from her so that I could look down into her eyes. She blinked up at me, an odd smile on her face. ‘I’ve never been with a Witted one, before this,’ she confided to me. She drew another deeper breath. ‘I’ve heard other women speak of it. That such men are more…’ She paused, seeking for a word.

‘Animal?’ I suggested. The word as I spoke it was an insult.

Her eyes widened, and then she laughed uncomfortably. ‘That isn’t what I was going to say, Tom. You shouldn’t take insults to yourself where a compliment is intended. Untamed, was what I was going to say. Natural, as an animal is natural, with no thought of what any other may think of his ways.’

‘Oh.’ I could say no more than that. I wondered abruptly what I was to her. A novelty? A forbidden indulgence with something not quite fully human? It was u

Then she pulled me down upon her breasts again, and kissed the side of my neck. ‘Stop thinking,’ she warned me, and I did.

Afterwards, she dozed briefly beside me, my arm around her and her head pillowed on my shoulder. I judged that I had acquitted myself well. But as I watched the sunlight’s passage on the wall, I realized it had been a performance. Neither of us had spoken of love. It had simply been a thing we had done together, something that felt good, something I was reasonably competent at. Yet if our first coupling had left her unsatisfied, the later ones left me feeling incomplete in a deeper way. With a sharpness I had not felt in years, I suddenly longed for Molly, and how simple, good, and true it had been between us. This was nor that, any more than my partnering with Starling had been. It wasn’t even sharing a bed. At the heart of my discontent, I wanted to be in love with someone the way I had been that first time. I wanted someone I could touch and be held by, someone that made everything else in the world more significant simply by her existence.

This morning, Kettricken had touched me as a friend, and that had held more meaning and even more true passion than this had. I suddenly wanted to be gone from here, for none of this ever to have happened. Ji

I was deathly tired of secrets. They seemed to spawn all around me, to fasten to me and suck the life from me like cold leeches. I hungered for something real and true and open. Could I change my relationship with Ji

I had not realized she was awake. Or perhaps my deep sigh stirred her past the edge of drowsing. She set her hand to my chest and patted me lightly ‘Don’t be troubled, Tom. It wasn’t all your failure. I had guessed there might he a problem when the charm by the bed near unma

I shrugged one shoulder. She sat up beside me in the bed. She reached across me, her flesh warm against mine, and lifted my shirt off the bedside charm. The sad little thing hunched there, forlorn and alone.

‘It’s a woman’s charm. It’s difficult to make, as it must be very finely tuned to the individual woman. To construct this sort of charm, you have to know the woman from the skin in. So a hedge-witch can make one for herself, but not for anyone else… at least, not one that is certain. This one is mine, tuned to me. It’s a charm against conception. I should have guessed that it might affect you. Any man who wants children so desperately that he takes in a foundling to raise on his own has that longing down to his bones. You may deny it, but that little hope burns in you each time you lie with a woman. I suspect it is what must drive your passion, Tom. And this little charm took that idle dream away from you before you could even wish it. It told you our joining would be futile and barren. That’s what you feel now, isn’t it?’

Having something explained to you does not always solve it. I looked aside from her. ‘Isn’t it?’ I asked, and then winced at the bitterness in my voice.

‘Poor boy,’ she said sympathetically. She kissed me on the forehead, where Kettricken had kissed me earlier. ‘Of course not. It’s what we make it.’

‘I’m in no position to be a father to anyone. I didn’t even come to see Hap last night, when he told me it was important. I’ve no wish to start another little life that I ca

She shook her head over me. ‘What the heart longs for, and what the mind knows are two different things. You forget I’ve seen your palms, sweet man. Perhaps I know more of your heart than you do yourself.’

‘You said my true love would come back to me.’ Again, despite myself, my words sounded accusing.

No, Tom. That I did not. Well do I know that what I say to a person is seldom what that person hears, but I’ll tell you what I saw. It’s here.’ She took my hand. She held the open palm close to her near-sighted eyes. Her bare breasts brushed my wrist as her fingers traced line in my palm. ‘There is a love that twines in and out of your days. Sometimes, it leaves, but when it does, it runs alongside you until it returns.’ She lifted my hand closer to her face, studying it. Then she kissed my palm, and moved it hack to her breast. ‘That doesn’t mean that you must be alone and idle while you wait for it to come back,’ she suggested in a whisper.

Fe

No. Just kill it. I felt the red spark of the rat’s agony. It had no hope of living, but the life in it would not surrender easily. Life never gives up willingly.

Fe

You’re fast. Fe

Here. Take it away. I offered him the dead rat.

He sniffed the dead body. You broke it! Fe

Take it away.

I don’t want it. It’s no fun any more. He growled low at me, then leapt from the bed. You ended it too fast. You just don’t know how to play. He went immediately to the door and clawed the jamb, demanding to go out. Ji

My trousers and drawers were still tangled together when Ji

I threw the rat out onto a midden behind the house. When I came back in, she was pouring hot water over tea in the pot. She gave me a smile. ‘The other tea seems to have gone cold, somehow.’

‘Did it?’ I tried to speak as lightly as she did. I went back to her bedroom for my shirt. After I put it on, I twitched the bedding straight. I avoided looking at the charm. When I came out, I ignored my own desire to leave and sat down at the table. We shared bread and butter and honey, and hot tea. Ji