by Robin Hobb
She recognized the mockery in his voice as he aimed his words at Gillam. If he hoped to rouse the boy to defy him, he failed. Gillam only clutched more tightly at her neck. She held her ground until Pell was almost an arm’s length away and then, despite her resolve, backed up. “Let me calm him. You don’t want his first memory of you to be that you frightened him.”
“First memory, last memory, what does it matter? Let’s see this boy that bears my name. Can he stand up to something that frightens him? Is there anything of me in him at all? Will. Look at me. Come to me. Right now.”
She had not seen the cat underfoot. He must have been right behind her. She didn’t feel her foot tread on him, but she must have, for suddenly, with a furious yowl and a spattering of hisses, the tomcat exploded from the floor. He leaped into the air between them and then clawed his way up Pell, literally running up his face and then leaping from his head into the low rafters. There he crouched, yowling and growling low as he lashed his abused tail back and forth.
Pell held his scratched face with both hands and cursed shrilly through his fingers Obtusely, Gillam had popped up his head at the cat explosion and now giggled wildly at the big man squeaking through his peekaboo fingers. Rosemary’s breath caught and she choked back a fear-strangled giggle of her own. Pell dropped his hands from his face. “It’s not funny!” he roared at them both.
Gillam turned astonished eyes on his mother. Rosemary managed to keep her expression calm. “See,” she told the child. “You don’t need to be afraid of Pell.”
In response to her remark, the boy gazed at his father, staring intently at the long stripe of red that crossed the top of his cheek above his beard. Fear had left him to be replaced by fascination.
“Where’d that damned beast come from?” Pell demanded. He dabbed at his face with his fingers, scowled at the blood, and then peered up into the dim space above the rafters. Marmalade had already vanished into the shadows. He was probably outside by now, having left via the eaves.
“Hilia gave him to me. He keeps rats out of the cottage and away from the chicken yard.” She tried to keep her voice calm for Gillam’s sake. The boy was now peering at his father with curiosity. There was tension in his little body, and she knew from experience that he would either dissolve into wails or decide to explore the situation, depending on what happened in the next few moments. She desperately wanted him to stay calm.
“Hilia? Hilia Borse? Everyone knows her family is Wit tainted. They do the beast magic in their home. They talk to animals. You let her put an animal into this house? Are you mad?”
She bounced Gillam a time or two, then set him down on the taller stool at the table. There were only two places to sit; she wondered if Pell had noticed that. As if Pell were any other inconvenient visitor, she decided she would simply go on with her routine. She pulled the simmering pot of soup back from the fire and crouched down to ladle a portion into Gillam’s shallow bowl. “You know who Hilia is,” she said, trying not to sound confrontational. “She has been my best friend since we were girls.”
“Yes, I know who she is! And I know what she is! Everyone in the village knows her family has the Wit. Her mother talks to sheep!”
She sighed, blew on Gillam’s soup to cool it a bit, and then set it on the table. Gillam grinned happily. The stranger in the house was eclipsed by the prospect of hot food. The boy was always hungry. His constant hunger both pleased her and frightened her. He would eat and grow strong, as long as she had food to feed him. From the mantel shelf, she took down half a loaf of bread wrapped in a clean cloth. She broke off a piece for him and set it beside his bowl with a spoon. “Eat nicely,” she warned the boy.
She marked how Pell was eyeing the food. She clenched her jaw. She wasn’t going to offer him any. Let him ask, if he had the nerve. She ignored his interest in the food as she filled her own bowl. “No one knows for certain the family is Witted,” she pointed out. “And if they are, well, no ill has ever come of them having that magic that I know. The wool from their flock is the best in Buck Duchy. They are respected in town. Hilia and her husband have always been kind to me. And Marmalade is my cat.”
“And for all you know, he could be her Wit beast, spying on you from dawn to dusk. I wouldn’t allow a Wit beast in my house. Don’t you care about your own child? Don’t you fear he’ll be tainted with that magic?’
She took her bowl, a spoon, and another piece of the bread to the table. She sat down with her back to him and stirred the soup thoughtfully. Potato and cabbage and onion. Sometimes she dreamed of meat. Rich brown broth with hunks of beef in it. Greasy pork cooked on skewers. Don’t think about what you don’t have. She spoke over her shoulder. “The Wit is not contagious. You are born with it or you don’t have it. I think if you could just go get that magic for yourself, a lot of people who look down on Witted ones would have gone out and done it by now. I think half the hatred of the Witted is jealousy, pure and simple.” She took a spoonful of her soup and a bite of her bread.
Pell made a sound between derision and disbelief. “That’s what they’d have you believe,” he said in a thick voice. “But if you’d seen half of what I’ve seen, you’d know better.”
She had to turn to look back at him. That was when she discovered that he had taken the remaining chunk of the loaf and was dipping it into the soup pot and eating it. She knew a flash of anger. She put her eyes back on her food and forced herself to eat. Gillam had been watching his father and now he dipped his bread in his soup and took an exploratory bite of it. She looked back at Pell and managed to say calmly, “What you’re eating? That was to be Gillam’s breakfast tomorrow.”
“This?” He was incredulous. “You should be feeding him meat by now. Meat and eggs and hot porridge for breakfast. Not soup. No wonder he’s so timid.”
“I feed him what I have,” she retorted. The implied criticism stung. She had worried, often enough, that Gillam was not as well fed as other children. She had compared his size and his alertness to other boys of his age and told herself that he did not suffer in that comparison. But there had been times when he had asked for “more” and there was no more to give him. “Soon enough, the chickens will start to lay, and then he can have eggs. And after Tessie drops her calf, I hope there will be milk for him as well.” She finished her food; it had not taken her long to eat it. If not for Pell, she might have allowed herself and Gillam another break of the bread.
But Pell was wiping out her pot with the last crust of her bread. She would have to make Gillam hearth cakes in the morning if he was to have anything to eat. When Pell set the pot down, she asked him directly. “What do you want? Why are you here?”
He looked surprised. “I told you. I’ve come home. My grandfather left me this house.”
She stared at him silently. She wouldn’t ask him if he meant to stay, because then he might think she wanted him to. Instead, she said bluntly, “No, Pell. Your grandfather left his house to Gillam, not you. It’s our home, not yours. There’s no room in my life for you, Pell. You shamed me and you abandoned your son. I don’t love you and I don’t want you here.”
She’d expected at least one flicker of hurt at her words. She didn’t want to admit to herself how much satisfaction that would have given her. Instead, he just set his jaw. After a moment he said, “Well, none of that has anything to do with the fact that you’re living in my son’s house. I’ve as much a right to be here as you do. I’m back, and that’s that.” He thudded the empty pot back onto the table. “I thought you might be smart enough to make the best of it. I thought I should give you another chance to do that. To be fair.”
Fair? She tried to shape her thoughts about Pell around that word. He waited for her to say something. No words came to her and despite how tight her throat went, she refused to cry. She would not weep over this. Weeping, she knew, solved nothing. She looked at Gillam. He was regarding his father with a small scowl. He thrust his jaw out, and Pell suddenly laughed. She looked back at him incred
ulously.
“Look at him. He looks just like my little brother when he got angry.” He sobered suddenly. “I never expected him to look so much like my family.”
“Everyone says he looks more like you than he does me,” she admitted stiffly. Then she asked, “Why wouldn’t you expect your son to look like you?”
“Well,” he said and shrugged one shoulder. “There was talk, you know. Back then. That perhaps he wasn’t mine.”
She stared at him, cold rushing through her. “Talk? There was never any talk. Everyone knew he was yours.” She dragged in an outraged breath. “Who ever said he wasn’t? Because that person was a liar!”
“Don’t shout! It was a long time ago, and it scarcely matters now. He looks like me, so that’s done with, eh?”
“You just said that because perhaps you hoped it was true. But there was never any talk, Pell. You were my first and if you must know, my only. I’ve never been with another man than you, before or since. He’s yours. There was never any talk otherwise.”
“Have it your way, if it matters to you so much. Yes. He’s mine.”
And when he claimed the boy, she could have bitten the tongue out of her own mouth. Why had she said that, why had she herself admitted what she wished were not true? Pell was watching her face, smiling slightly, knowing well he’d won. She looked away from him.
“I’m tired,” he said. The bed was only three steps away in the little house. He sat down on the edge of it and bent over to tug off his fine boots. He set them side by side and followed them with his thick wool socks. Next he dragged off his shirt and dropped it on the floor. His trousers followed it. He stood, almost inviting her to look at him. He’d always been proud of his body. He was lean and muscled still, but no longer boyish. She hadn’t wanted to see him; his mean little smile showed that he knew she had looked at him. Naked, he rucked his way into her clean bed and drew the covers up nearly over his head. “Brr. Blankets are chilly.” He laughed a small laugh. “I could use some company under here to warm me.”
“You won’t get any.”
“As you will, Rosie. And you will when you will, and it will be soon enough for me.”
“I won’t.”
“We’ll see,” he said and yawned as if bored. Then he was still.
She stared at him. There was only one bed. Since Gillam had been born, they had shared it. “He go my bed,” Gillam exclaimed between wonder and dismay.
“Yes he did,” she confirmed for him. She pulled her gaze away from the sight. “Finish your food, Gillam.”
She doubted that Pell was really asleep. Could he have been that relaxed about all of this? She doubted it. If she had been alone, she would have hit him with the pan and told him to get out of her house. No, she realized. If she were alone, she would have left here long ago. The only reason she had stayed was that her child needed a roof over his head and regular meals on the table. He still did. And that, she told herself, was the only reason she wasn’t confronting Pell now. She didn’t wish to frighten Gillam.
Or provoke Pell.
She did not want him to stay. She was clear with herself on that. It was too late for the old dreams that had once sustained her. He’d hurt her too badly, humiliated her too deeply. She could never feel about him as she once had. Never.
She tried to go about her evening tasks as if Pell did not exist. She tidied away the dishes and brushed off the table. She gave Gillam a tin cup, three broken buttons, an empty spool, and a spoon to play with and set out her sewing on the table. She faced a real challenge with this quilt. She had no rags of her own to quilt from, but her friends saved her the pieces of cloth that they judged too small or oddly colored to work into their own piecework. She worked painstakingly with scissors and pins. She did not have many pins, and sometimes had to resort to a quick loop of thread to hold a bit in place. And she dared not sew any of it permanently until she had enough bits to make an entire quilt top, for who knew what colors and textures might come her way the next time she went begging for fabric scraps? She was glad to lose herself in the detailed work, glad to push her present problem out of her mind.
Gillam was content at her feet, and she was so engrossed in her work that she didn’t notice when he disappeared. When her eyes grew weary with squinting through the dimness, she rolled up her work and looked about for her son. She caught her breath at what she saw. With the pragmatism of small children, he had put himself to bed, on his side of the bed where he always slept. He was a smaller lump under the covers next to Pell.
That forced her to confront her next decision. Did she sleep on the hard flagged floor, as a message to Pell that she’d rather be cold than sleep beside him? If she claimed a spot in the bed, would he understand she wasn’t surrendering territory, or would it make him think she would willingly come back to his bed? She did her nightly chores as she pondered it. Was she a coward? Should she have flown at him, kicking and scratching and screaming the moment he showed up? She felt her pulse quicken with enthusiasm at the idea, and as quickly she refused it. He would have been delighted. They had quarreled once, violently, before she was pregnant with Gillam. He had slapped her, hard, to “bring her to her senses” as he put it then. And then apologized so abjectly and made love to her so earnestly that she’d accepted his behavior. Stupid girl. What if she’d run away from him then? What if he’d never got her with child, never lived with her, never left her, never returned? What life would she have now? Would she be like Hilia, with a husband and a home and a legitimate baby in her arms? Would she be in safe harbor? Useless to wonder.
She built up the fire for the night after she put her sewing away. As she went to pull in the latchstring to secure the cottage for the night, she wondered what she feared out there. Her worst fear was already inside the door and in her bed. She blew out her candle and undressed under her worn flannel nightgown. Then she crept in beside Gillam, balancing almost on the edge of the bed. The blanket didn’t quite cover her. She tugged a bit more of it free, and then lost it when Marmalade thudded into place between her and Gillam. He settled in, surrounded by warmth, and began his loud purr. She stroked him. “Go to sleep now,” she told him, and he gently bit her hand to say that she had petted him enough.
She awoke, as she always did, to Picky the rooster’s crowing. She slipped out of the bed and took Gillam with her, taking him to the back house before he could wet the bedding. They hurried back, shivering, through the dew wet grasses and dressed hastily in the dimness of the cabin. Pell slept on. She let out the chickens and picketed the cow in a fresh spot. With her hatchet, she split kindling to wake the flames. She brought in firewood and built up the fire. The chickens had produced two eggs, and Gillam was terribly excited about that. He had wanted to carry the warm, brown eggs, but she feared to trust him with the precious bounty. He sat at the table and stared at them as she began to stir together ground oats and water.
“We’ll put the eggs in the hearth cakes and they’ll taste wonderful,” she told him, and he wriggled with excitement. Marmalade came and perched on her chair to watch the process. His whiskers were pricked forward with interest. “You can have a corner of mine,” she promised the cat. “Even if you didn’t give me any of the mouse you caught this morning!”
“Mama eat mouse!” Gillam exclaimed and dissolved into giggles. For that moment, they were as happy as they had ever been.
Then Pell spoke from the dim corner where the bed was. “What’s for breakfast?”
Her stirring slowed. She admitted to herself that she’d hoped to feed both of them and be out the door and doing chores before Pell awoke. “I’m making meal cakes for Gillam,” she told him.
For a time, there was only the sound of her spoon against the bowl. She tried not to feel Pell watching her from the bed. Then he spoke again. His voice was softer, considering. “You’d look younger if you let your hair down, like you used to wear it. I remember it well. All loose around your face and bare shoulders.”
“I’m not y
ounger. I’m older,” she said brusquely.
He laughed.
She formed two hearth cakes in the pan and set it by the fire to cook. Gillam pulled his little stool over and sat down on it, watching intently. It was just a slice of log with three legs pegged into it, but he had helped make it and was inordinately proud of it. When he had settled himself, she tried to follow the pattern she’d established for herself, telling them both the shape of their day. “After we eat and wash up, we’ll take a basket and go looking for spring greens, shall we? Maybe we’ll find some mushrooms, too. And we need to visit the beach and find more firewood and bring it home. Then we’ll go to Serran’s house and do washing for her, and maybe we’ll bring a fish home for dinner.”
“Fish!” Gillam exclaimed happily and clapped his hands. She had noticed that when words were related to food, he learned them very quickly. She hoped that Serran’s husband had made a good catch that week and that Serran would feel generous in barter. Today was wash day at Serran’s house. Next week, she’d help Widow Lees plant her garden. And sheep shearing time was not far away. The widow had said she might help with that, and that she’d pay her in hard coin for her work. She could barter for most of her needs, but hard coin was needed for some things. She turned the cakes in the pan, and Gillam sighed in happy anticipation. “Soon,” she told him.
“Damn!” Pell roared. “Damn him! I’ll kill him!”
He kicked his clothes across the floor at her, and Gillam shrieked in terror at the explosion of violence as Pell lunged wildly at Marmalade. But the cat had been in motion at the man’s first exclamation. He leaped from chair to table to shelf and up to the rafters in a motion as smooth as water flowing. He vanished.
Pell cursed loudly, kicked over the chair, and stood glowering. Gillam had pressed up against her so suddenly as she crouched by the hearth that Rosemary had sat down hard on the floor. Now the boy clambered into her arms, and she held him protectively as he whimpered in fear. Her own heart was racing as he stared at Pell. The muscles were knotted under his bared skin, and his eyes were wild.
