Rejoice the Child: Pearls of Great Price

by Nagia

Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou wilt find it in many days. An exploration of Joshua's childhood after Lea Monde. PG13 for family safety.

Disclaimer: I'm broke. I'm a broken wheel, a broken record, a Riot/Merlose shipper, and so I'm sort of… :: Alexander O. Smith quirks an eyebrow:: SQUARE. IT ALL BELONGS TO SQUARE! But the General is mine, so LEAVE HIM BE!

Summary: Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou wilt find it in many days. An exploration of Joshua's childhood after Lea Monde.

Notes: Um, HUGE, MASSIVE bit of fiction. This wasn't supposed to be so big, and was originally going to revolve around the ending scene, but that scene has been altered- the part I planned and, in fact, wrote the story for, has been cut. It's that long.

Thanks: To MC, for beta-ing.

Other Important Crud: This text is thought-speech , ((This text is the speech of a grayed-out person)), (This text is a thought).

Rejoice the Child

I: Pearls of Great Price

Intro

"And the young lord Joshua?" Rosencrantz asked, still kneeling.

"He is my light, my soul," Bardorba replied.

Outside, thunder crashed. "If aught should befall him..."

"As you wish, my Lord." Rosencrantz nodded and left the room.

Ever since Joshua had turned four, the elder Bardorba had behaved oddly, but his behavior was of no concern to Rosencrantz. Bardorba would die as soon as he returned from Lea Monde. And whatever hold Joshua kept on the man's mind and soul, Jan wouldn't hesitate to turn it on whomever he could.

Another nameless room, somewhere in the City proper. An hour ago, she would have immediately set to working at the ropes that bound her hands. That had been an eternity before, when she had still been confident in her skills as a VKP agent. She had examined the possible consequences of escape, had made certain that she still had a dagger stashed in the backs of her leggings. She had planned and planned, only to realize that Sydney would not let her escape.

"Do not attempt escape and no harm will come to you," he had said. He had never defined that harm, only said she would not feel it. Sydney hustled them from one place to another. She had taken the first opportunity she saw. She'd blacked out, much as she had when she had first seen Sydney.

When she woke, Sydney had given her an amused snort, but Hardin had looked on with a kind of wary appreciation.

Sydney had left, had gone somewhere where Hardin did not know (and thus could not tell her), to do things that made no sense to him (according to his soul-projection, which he had rather violently rid the room of).

Sydney wasn't a very a good leader, in her opinion. A leader needed to be with his men, not wandering around, taunting their enemies.

"I brought enough food and water for two people, not three; for a half day, not a day and a night," Hardin said quietly. "It shan't be long ere the Knights take the city. The dead shall rise with the moon and our soldiers shall number more than theirs, I'd wager."

"Feeling a bit hopeless?"

He said nothing, but his silence spoke for him. She got the feeling that part of his hopelessness was personal, as though

Hours passed, and another remembered conversation made her ask, "What makes you so certain you shan't survive?"

He shrugged again. "Some things are given to man to know. This is one of them."

"I thought death was to be the unknowable."

"Many people think many things, and don't go about it right." His head turned to look at the boy curled up asleep on his shoulder. "I want peace, after all that's happened... but the boy has no family I'd send him to, had I any way of sending him there. He should not fend for himself." Hardin's eyes met hers, and they were troubled. "I'd not condemn a child to the streets, any more than I'd condemn Sydney to the dungeons."

((The boy is too kind.)) The ghostly Hardin vanished as quickly as it came. She doubted he'd noticed it.

Callo shrugged back at him. "Parliament is not without a heart. The boy will find a home amongst the household of some noble, I've no doubt."

"No! I do not trust Parliament, any more than I trust Bardorba himself. You do not know the importance of the boy! If you did, you would gladly care for him yourself!"

"Tell me why the boy is so important, and we shall see if I am so moved."

He started his tale and she listened. She was an excellent listener.

At the end of it, she said, quietly. "If what you say is true, the boy is of supreme importance. ...Much like Lea Monde, neither Parliament nor the Church must lay a finger on him."

He glowered.

"Very well. If you do not survive, as you think you shan't, I shall look after the boy myself."

She didn't know what she was getting herself into, but that was quite all right.

Parents never do.

There should have been a spot on the wall, or on the ground, a body slumped against the wall of the wine cellar. Instead, there was nothing. If she looked closely, Merlose could still see the tiniest specks of light and a bit of a shimmer to the air.

But not a body.

A messy wound had sent him into oblivion, but the actual going had been clean— almost pretty, in a sick way.

She stood and watched the sun as it rose. For some reason, once night had fallen, she'd doubted she'd ever see the sun again. But now the dawn changed the bleak sky into a tapestry of light and color.

It took her a moment to notice a tugging on her leg. She looked down to see Joshua clinging to her thigh, holding on as if for dear life. She smiled, ruffling his hair.

"No need to worry," she said softly. "I shall take care of you."

Was it her imagination, or had his oddly gray eyes gone completely black as he looked up at her?

1

The boy was tired, so very tired.

How Callo could feel his exhaustion, she did not know, but she could. She knew without him telling her that his legs ached all the way up, and something in his calves had grown tight. She could feel a sympathetic ache in her own legs and something in the back of her head vibrated. The magic that Lea Monde had brought out from deep within her very bones… that ancient Power uncurling in her shoulder blades like a pair of invisible raven wings, was active again.

She had slipped out of her high-heels (though all her walking in Lea Monde had worn the heels down to something approaching flat) and into a pair of soft boots, knowing that they would need to traverse dense woodlands, and do so quickly. She hurried Joshua along to where she and Riot had hidden their horses.

She stopped and looked down at her charge. (We're only halfway there, but I could... it isn't far, after all. Well, I'll see how he is before I actually do that.)

She was fine as a VKP agent could be with being held hostage with him, but carrying him? She couldn't recall ever holding a child, and her training had taught her only how to come out of a hostage situation alive. The VKP had little care for its female agents becoming mothers.

"How are you?"

"Owie," he said, pointing to his feet.

"You can't walk much farther, can you?"

He shook his head.

"We're only a little ways away… I could carry you…?"

He nodded and reached towards her. She stooped to pick him up and realized how light he was. He was fine boned, like a bird. She wondered if her choice of letting him walk had been wise. It hadn't seemed far to her, but would it to a four year old? Especially such an apparently fragile child?

She slipped, came close to twisting her ankle, and hit her cheek on a rock. The boy held tightly to her, and she noted that he rubbed his back when they got moving again. Probably, he'd gotten a scratch. She rubbed her cheek when he couldn't see it. That would leave a nasty bruise, she was sure.

She reached the shady grove where they'd hidden the horses to find them safe, along with their supplies... a few flasks of water, some medical supplies and some food. The tack was sitting on a log. It seemed miraculous that the horses were still there, and hadn't starved. After a moment, she realized that it had only been a day.

"We can rest here," she said, handing him some dried fruit and a flask of water. He nodded his thanks and sat down on a stump to eat.

An hour later, his quiet voice startled her into sputtering as she woke. "How long?"

"What?" She asked.

"How long…" he paused, as though he couldn't find the words he needed, "…shall we stay here?" Strange, it seemed that he was mimicking her style of speech.

"Until noon, perhaps. Someone may be coming. He might help us."

"The man?" Joshua's voice was like the light piping sound of a flute. Sweet. Precious. And so, so small sounding.

(The man.) That was interesting. "Think you, you ken him?" The shift to "baby speech," something she'd always thought rather stupid, had been unconscious. She decided she wouldn't use it again.

The boy shrugged.

"Is the man who shall help us… is he the man who chased after Sydney and we? In the city? The man who shouted at Sydney in father's house?"

Merlose couldn't think of anything to say but 'yes.'

"Why would he help us?"

A good question. She didn't know why she assumed that Riot would help them. But that strange feeling in the back of her head, that vibrating-- it told her that he would. He would at least strongly consider the matter. He might advise her in where to go, at least.

The hours slid by in the same way that some syrupy sweet tonic might slide down her throat. Four hours past dawn-- ten in the morning, at her best reckoning. Twenty-three hours since she and Riot had arrived in this wretched place, twenty-three hours since Riot had looked at her as though she were useless.

That niggling sensation in the back of her mind, accompanied by an itch in her shoulder blades, told her that someone who had joined her in her body to see through her eyes approached.

She whirled around, just as something in the underbrush moved.

Riot stumbled into the makeshift 'campsite', a strange pile of flesh on his back. Merlose looked closer to see, and saw that it was Sydney.

"Riot," she hissed, motioning him to step away with her. Once he had followed, though only reluctantly, she noted, she whirled to face him directly. He was a large man, and she an average woman. She didn't come up to more than his nose, she realized, somewhat chagrined. But the anger at his brash actions still simmered strong. "Just what in the hells are you thinking? For all we know, he could still be dangerous!"

"He's half-dead." Riot replied. She heard a rush of air, coming from somewhere behind her. The same pulsing in her ears that had sounded when Sydney approached sounded now and she spun around, half expecting to see Sydney standing, preparing to cast some sort of spell.

Instead, she viewed a ghostly Ashley— but younger, with a sullen look on his face. If the real Ashley was twenty-five, this one was fifteen.

And a lot less taciturn.

((In the name of Iocus, I'm a VKP Riskbreaker. Or was, in any case. I know not if I shall be for much longer, but any danger Sydney presents, I can handle. Parliament calls me not its Fang in vain.))

Merlose blinked. She didn't think Riot's mouth could handle the strain of so many successive words. Could his soul ever even conceive of them all? The minor, unspoken insult brought a smirk to her lips, but she soon wiped it from her face.

"Wherefore did you bring him here?" She didn't know to whom she addressed the question— Riot or his mind. Most likely both.

"Whither else to go?"

"What shall you do with him?" Her back turned to him, she would appear to be musing, but she was in reality watching his ghostly self. Interesting, that the projection of Ashley's soul wandered far from his body. Hardin's had stayed near.

Suddenly and oddly, Ashley's ghostly form shifted, became a mirror of his body. She made a mental note of it.

((I don't know. I shan't turn him in… not to Parliament. Most likely see what he knows about the Dark. About this...THING on my back.))

She almost asked about the thing on his back, but didn't. The raw anger and disgust that had colored his mental voice told her exactly what it had to be. The tattoo from Sydney's back… she'd assumed it had linked to the City, but…

The Key to the Dark, as Guildenstern had said. Too great a stretch for her mind to take: exactly how did one invest power in a pigment of the skin? How did you pour raw, black, sin into a needle? Unless the power wasn't in the tattoo, but the act of tattooing? Was the tattoo merely an aftereffect of the Succession?

The back of Ashley's mind gibbered. ((I didn't want it. I'm not a heretic. I don't want…))

Interesting, that Ashley didn't want what every man that knew of it in Valendia sought. There were other countries… France, Spain, the German lands… they sought it still.

((I want nothing to do with it. NOTHING. I want it OFF, I want it to go away, to stop whispering.))

Curious, how Ashley's body wouldn't speak a word, and his soul or his mind or whatever Merlose was hearing wouldn't shut up. "I assume that asking why you have not clapped him in irons is a waste of time."

He nodded.

(Clapping him in irons or asking, I wonder. Perhaps both.)

((I want it to shut up. I want it to shut up. Silence! SILENCE! Leave me in peace! Leave me in PEACE! SILENCE!))

"You should most likely tend your… charge."

"And the boy?"

(The boy...) Those two words were all the well-oiled wheels that were her mind needed to start turning. Moments later, they clicked into place as she turned and locked eyes with the boy from across the clearing. That same trick of the light that had earlier colored his eyes happened again.

Her world shattered into a thousand, tiny pieces and then promptly reformed itself, with the boy as the focus.

Interlude I

The horse was large, with hooves nearly as big as her head. He seemed to like to show those hooves off by boxing them at her. Mounting this horse would change anyone's perspective.

((Twenty hands at the shoulder. He'll have a good stride. A gelding, easily manageable. Not quite as pliable as a mare, but he'll respond well))Ashley had thought or felt or sensed or SOMETHING as he inspected the horse.((He has a bit of a limp, but not so bad you'd notice it unless you were a smith. Pass him to Merlose; he could easily carry both her and the boy… He's a war charger; he'll be steady if she has to fight. Hell, he'll probably take out anyone on the ground for her, given the size of his hooves.))

He led the warhorse front of a stump and then boosted the boy onto the saddle. She swung a leg into the stirrup, but she lacked the necessary height to swing herself atop the war charger. And so, Riot boosted her as well.

"Where should we go?"

"Into hiding."

"Aye, but whither?" Did Riot try to be exasperating?

"Bardelth. 'Tis a city of filth— 'twill give the Hounds a difficult time of catching your scent."

She quirked an eyebrow. "And I've not heard of it?"

He ignored the question. "West, three days."

"And raising a child there?"

He chewed on that for a while. "Difficult, but possible."

"Thank you for the help."

"Get!" He replied, slapping the horse on the flank.

2

Three Days Later

Bardelth turned out to be a hole of filth in more ways than one, and the first thing she truly noticed about it was the smell.

The streets of Bardelth were full of muck. Apparently, the street sweepers had a rough time of it here and barely enough of them worked to keep the place decent for human habitation.

The second thing she noticed was that half the street seemed populated by heavily made-up women who didn't bother to bind their hair. There seemed to be even more whores than mercenaries and sailors— good for the sailors and sellswords, bad for the whores, she supposed.

She guided the war charger through the streets, making sure to keep her face calm as she carefully judged her surroundings and gleaned what she could from appearances.

Just in front of her, and huddled so close to her that she could feel him shaking, Joshua sat upon the saddle and clutched at the saddle horn.

She looked carefully for places of lodging that might need help. Most innkeeps would give workers the right to lodge with them instead of wages, if they needed it.

At length, she found a mostly respectable-seeming inn. She dismounted, pulled Joshua from the saddle, and turned the charger over to the stable boy.

The sign read, "Kionan's."

Within, she found that the innkeep happened to be a man of some fifty years, with a very shiny spot on his head where his hair had begun to fall.

"Master Innkeep, I have only this ere-even' arrived in Bardelth, and have no kin here, nor any means of paying for lodging. I…"

"'Tis quite enough," the Innkeep said. "You would serve here, and replace your wage with lodging and meal."

"Aye, Master Innkeep."

"Very well. Consider yourself hired. Beth shall show you to a room." And with that the innkeep moved away, shouting, to end a fight between two patrons in the dining area.

She only managed to keep from gaping like a fish on land through virtue of long, long training. It seemed hard for her to believe that an innkeep would take her in so easily, especially with a child and the bruises on her face.

But she followed the serving wench up the stairs to her room and kept her thoughts to herself.

She would have to see about finding a second job. She could not work as a wench in an inn for very long.

Two weeks later

Sitting in a tavern in Bardelth, Merlose couldn't help but wonder if following Riot's advice was such a good idea. The place was a hole of filth. Besides, it was a three-day ride from Lea Monde. If whatever person sent to investigate Lea Monde had any sense at all, they'd know to head to towns within a four-day ride from Lea Monde and a two-day ride of Bardorba's secondary residence.

Riot had supposedly slain Duke Bardorba. Merlose wasn't sure what to make of that. He didn't seem the type to kill a man without cause.

Not that she'd blame him if he had killed the man. The Church was growing too powerful. Challenging it directly was dangerous. Müllenkamp, if it had truly been Bardorba's tool as she thought, had gone too far when it started breaking laws. Fine to challenge the Church. Better to gain followers. Bad to give Parliament pause— bad for the front's health, at least.

But still, something about Bardorba's death stank.

(He conveniently dies a week after his primary manor burns to the ground, along with his wife and servants— a week after his elder son flies to the city of their family's origin to destroy the wellspring.) She watched warily as a group of sellswords entered, but quickly dismissed any thought of their being a threat.

They were far, far too drunk for that.

She stood, lost in a reverie, to take over for her shift. (A week after the leader of the Crimson Blades secretly tries —and fails— to take over the world? No, too much. He and Sydney must have planned this.)

She stiffened as a new thought struck her. (And now they've passed it off on Ashley…)

Well, whom else would they pass it on? Only Ashley had the clearance needed to visit Bardorba. After the death of his wife and kidnapping of his son, Ashley would be the only man Bardorba would be interested in seeing, for any of the various and sundry possible reasons.

She kept an ear open to make sure that none of the patrons were VKP agents. The only thing of note was a conversation between three men in a corner of the tavern.

"Couldn't find that bard I was looking for, the one what sings such sad songs," the youngest said.

"You couldn't find your head if the bard handed it to you."

"And did you find him? I think not!"

"Oh, silence, you two. You'll draw attention."

So—they sought Sydney, and none of them wore any clothing identifying their class. The couldn't be sellswords, because they had no armor. They couldn't be sailors; they weren't dirty enough. They looked like a trio of vagrants, really.

(Cultists), she thought. But they left soon after, and she knew she'd have a time of finding them again.

Hours passed, this time at what seemed a normal progression.

A first since Lea Monde. The hours there had passed as slow as any painful night, and rescue had seemed like dawn viewed on the wrong side of the wee hours of the morning— a distant dream.

She hated herself, in a way: she, with two PhD's, educated in Rome, Valnain, London, had become a barmaid. It had been necessary for Joshua's sake and to evade capture. The VKP agents tracking her down would know her well, and the Callo Merlose of two weeks ago would never have tended a bar. At least she wasn't a whore (never mind the opinions of several finely paid and over-scarred (and now over-sore about being rejected) mercenaries). Yet. She wasn't going to sink that low for a boy.

And yet… she had whored herself for information. She had to suppress a shudder at the thought, and wondered at her sudden disgust. She'd never had problems with… that… side of herself before.

"What's a pretty maid like you doing in Bardelth?" A man who'd clearly had too many mugs with his dinner said, his gaze dropping from her face to her dress.

She smiled, and met his eyes. Her voice was infinitely less friendly than her face. "Trying to raise a child and wishing rogues such as you didn't exist."

"So, the kitten has claws!" The man declared.

"The 'kitten' was e'er more the tiger's child than the cat's," Meg, another barmaid, replied. "A rogue such as you couldn't handle her!"

He smiled, a rather predatory smile, despite the fact that it was missing two teeth. Merlose thought it would have been a prettier smile if it had been missing all its teeth. "Do you think I could handle you?"

Merlose smiled icily. "Nay. You'd not get the chance." She was more than up to a battle of wits. She wanted a battle of wits, though it might give her away. Were there any obscure nobles in Bardelth?

"You heard the lass, Oro! Now out of my bar! I kicked ye out permanent-like ten years ago!" The voice, with an accent vaguely similar to Scottish, belonged to Tam, the tavern's owner.

"Ye can geh now," Tam said, nodding at the door.

Her shift must have ended, so she thanked him and left.

Walking through the hot, reeking streets of Bardelth, she observed the sheer mass of people wearing armor, even in the early dawn light. On the road from Lea Monde, the horse had been her armor. She sighed. Why on earth did everything remind her of that city?

And why did everything people said to her seem to come from a long distance off? Why did the world appear blurred and muted before her eyes? Why did she feel detached, as though she existed in emptiness?

She found Joshua sleeping in the stable, leaning against the stall in which they'd kept the horse. He'd christened it Knight-General Woundwort.

A smile tugged rather insistently at her lips. Joshua Bardorba and his warhorse, Knight-General Woundwort. It sounded like one of those folktales you might hear sitting in some idyllic country tavern, everybody gathered around the local storyteller's table. The name of a revolutionary. In time, Knight-General Woundwort's name would be shortened to The General, or perhaps just General. Or maybe they'd call him Woundwort.

She'd rather wanted to call him War or something like that. But the horse was the boy's pet, if you could call such a large, addled, strange beast a pet.

She bent down to scoop the tow-headed boy up and carried him to the room they shared. It was small, with but a single bed, but it would have to do. At least until she could find a better home. She deposited him into the bed, undressed and slipped into bed beside him.

She dreamt of Lea Monde.

"Rabbit!" Someone was pounding on the door. "Rabbit!" For a moment, she wondered what the person had meant, but soon remembered that it was the name she'd chosen.

As a VKP agent, she'd learned to sleep lightly and often: as an Inquisitor, you never know when you're going to be running off to some outpost or another to gather information. But her experience in the VKP wasn't the only reason she slept light. Lea Monde had left her feeling unsafe. Haunting memories of the city looming before her in the dawn, of Hardin's death, of Riot in the wine cellar, of the Gallows…

Every time she tried to sleep for too long, the images loomed before her eyelids and she woke, tangled in her bedsheets with a haunted, shaky feeling. She'd find Joshua huddled up on the floor with a blanket, as far away from the psychic waves of misery as he could get. Then guilt would twist a knot in her stomach and she'd scoop him up and put him back in bed. He would quickly go back to sleep, but she spent the rest of the night awake.

"Rabbit!"

She sighed and answered the door. "Yes, Kionan?"

Kionan looked at her oddly. "Rabbit, some man what calls himself Ash… he's looking for a girl like you." He touched her cheek. "Those bruises look faded. Sure you don't want some cure root for that?"

"Nay, thank you, Kionan," she replied, turning away. The bruises had been courtesy of a bandit on the road to Bardelth— or so she assumed. But oddly, she couldn't quite recall how she'd gotten them.

"Rabbit, is this Ash— is he the rogue that…?" Kionan and Tam thought that her last husband had beaten her on a regular basis. Untrue, but the perfect excuse for her jumpiness.

"Nay," Merlose replied. "Nay, my man's name…'twasn't Ash."

"Very well, then. I told him to wait in the kitchen."

"Thank you, Kionan. I shall be down in a moment."

Kionan nodded and left.

She roused Joshua, whispered that she believed Riot had entered the inn, that Joshua was to go to the stable and not leave the Knight-General's side. The boy nodded sleepily in response, but dressed and padded off.

She dressed as well, putting on the dress she'd worn last night, after smoothing it out. She tied her hair back in a single tail. If the VKP believed that she and Riot were working together, they might spring a trap by having an agent pretend to be him. Until she knew for certain, it was best to present an image even more unlike that of Callo Merlose than the one she'd recently given.

The bruises, shining on her left cheek and right temple, were part of it.

Stepping down to see the man who called himself Ash, she was greeted by Megar, Kionan's wife. Megar smiled kindly and shoved a bundle into her hands.

"I gave one to Joshy," Megar smiled and winked at the tired-looking boy standing in the hall.

"Josh, thank the woman," Merlose said, annoyed he hadn't listened. She took a muffin for herself and stepped into the kitchen proper. She noted that Kionan had followed her and smiled wryly. "Kionan, I shall be just fine— Ash wouldn't harm a hair on my head."

Instead of the looming figure of Ashley Riot, she saw a perfect in-color copy of John Hardin— but blonde. It gave her pause for a moment, and she wondered that the man wasn't Hardin's cousin or some such, but she soon remembered that John had only mentioned a brother, who'd died. She doubted that the VKP would use John Hardin's image.

A grayed-out version of Ashley Riot appeared. It remained only to say its piece, and then it vanished. ((An interesting place for her to choose… I wonder if she knows the full history of Kionan's Inn…))

Merlose decided to try something new. It would look odd if somebody heard her address a question 'Ash' hadn't asked. I do know the history.

"It is good to see you."

What is your name in this place? She wasn't sure how she heard the voice, but it was Ashley's.

"It is good to see you also."

None, as of yet. They all call me Rabbit.

She paused deliberately. "Have you gotten out of your trouble with the moneylender?" Did you kill Bardorba?

The look on his face said he understood her code. "Never was I in trouble with a moneylender. You have confused me with John's elder brother. Again." I never had anything to do with him. Sydney killed him.

"My apologies. And how is he?" Where isSydney

"Dead. Killed in an accident." Dead. I don't know exactly how. "Did you not hear?" What have you heard?

"Nay, nary a word." Nothing useful.

"And the boy?"

She smiled. "The boy… I purchased him with everything I had..."

She saw his hands reached out to touch her cheek, but felt nothing— he must have given the illusion of touching her.

"I can see," he rumbled. But his mind had misgivings. ((Sydney did naught but babble about the boy for the last day and a half. All he cared to speak of was the boy and danger.))

"Did he know about the boy?"

"Aye."

"Had he aught t'say?" What did Sydney say?

"I don't remember." Best not to mention here.

"I see. Joshy be in the stable with his horse. If you would see him?"

"Aye. Show me?"

She led him to Joshua, who was filling the horse's trough with hay.

Tell me what Sydney said. I need to know.

The grayed-out Ashley appeared in a corner of the stall. He prowled about the stall as he 'spoke.' ((He explained the power to push one's will on another. Said it ran in his family, but it started in stages. Subtly influencing the emotions of people around you, then to being able to suggest things to people, then finally to forcing the will.))

And? She prompted him with a bit of a mental tug.

((He said that the time in Lea Monde would… heighten the lad's talent. Enhance it. Instead of a subtle influence on people's emotions, it would have a dramatic effect. If, say, he wanted a particular person to care for him, he would rearrange their emotions so that they focused on him.))

Dangerous, yes. But 'twould only be an accident, aye? Surely, 'twould be reversible?

((Aye, perhaps. But if he were to gain conscious control of this talent, ere he had a mage's ethics…))

(...The results would be disastrous.) "But what truly sent you charging into Bardelth?"

He shrugged bitterly. "Whither else for an outlaw to go?"

"Any other reason?"

He pinned her with a stare. The grayed-out Ashley reappeared.

((I have reason to believe the boy has already begun to use his talent.))

On whom?

Neither Ashley said a word. In fact, both of them were making it something of a point not to look at her.

Surely, you don't…

((Aye, you.))

But…Joshua wouldn't… Shock. Riot surely didn't think that Joshua would consciously use his talent to manipulate another…

((…Hurt you? Know you that for certain?))

He is but a boy!

((Only a boy, perhaps, but 'tis great talent.))

Is there any way to… reverse the effects?

((Only if he truly wishes you to return to the way you were pre-manipulation, and 'tis doubtful he'd like that Merlose more than the one he has now.))

You speak as though he's completely selfish.

The ghostly and living Riots both threw her the same, "come now, surely you know better than that" look. It only served to remind her that they were the same person; the ghostly one was just more helpful.

((Merlose… are you truly that blind?))

I am not BLIND, just…

((Manipulated beyond recovery.)) The ghostly voice had modulated itself into a mirror of the living voice— ghostly Ashley was now a monotone.

He has NOT manipulated me!

((Aye, he has, though 'tis but a small change.))

She considered for a minute. Very well. We shall see if he can undo this 'damage.'

Riot released the illusion and grasped the boy's shoulder.

"I heard," Joshua said, his voice the same dull monotone ghostly Ashley's had been before.

Merlose felt a twinge of guilt.

"You deserved that," he said, his eyes going from slate gray to nearly black. "You deserve to feel worse about trying to talk about me behind my back… but I won't make you."

She felt her eyes widen in shock. "You…"

"I can make you feel things. Hardin liked me. You…" his face screwed up as he accessed his talent, "you are different."

"Undo what you have done," Riot spoke softly. Joshua recoiled, as if afraid.

When Riot moved forward to reach out to touch him, the boy's eyes widened and the color of his irises changed to the black of his pupils.

"Ashley, stop!" Merlose cried, reaching out to touch Riot's elbow. It was a gesture meant to delay. "You intimidate him!"

His eyes locked onto hers. Something about him seemed intense. Intense in a way he had never been before. "If it come to that, aye."

"He is but a boy!"

"A boy that can manipulate you t' his will and you ne'er e'en know!" The sound of Ashley shouting was a powerful one. The thin walls of the stables surely couldn't have kept it in.

"There is no need to intimidate him! I am confident that he will do what is right!" Her voice had raised in decibel as well. She hoped that no one had heard them, but considering that they were standing just outside the General's stall, that seemed unlikely.

"And what call have you for such confidence?" Intense brown eyes— an emotion she could not define made them glitter. At least it wasn't malice. "You have known the lad for a fortnight!"

"And you have known Sydney for that long!"

"Sydney is dead!" Riot roared. Knight-General Woundwort whinnied and the other people in the stable shot the group odd looks. Riot calmed, and then cast a truth-hiding spell. It wouldn't conceal their presence, but their true words would be masked. People would hear only the lies Ashley chose.

He was silent for a few minutes. When he spoke again, it was in a quieter voice. "How I would judge Sydney matters not! Joshua is a Bardorba. Sydney was to be the last of that line to come into contact with the Dark."

"What mean you?"

"The Bardorba line— it comes from the Bar Doroba family."

"Bar Doroba…" The words came out in a breathy whisper. Bar Doroba… the family that had ruled over Lea Monde with an iron fist, from the founding of the city more than two thousand years earlier to the day of its fall, twenty-five years past. According to the ancient Kiltians, the Bar Doroba family had made a pact with the gods in the Halls of Darkness: the Bar Doroba family would prosper wherever it was, in return for...

Odd, how she hadn't drawn a connection earlier. It made her suspect that Ashley had told the truth about her being manipulated.

He was still overreacting and exaggerating, of course. But mayhaps his words had more than a grain of truth to them.

No one knew what the Bar Doroba family had given up to rise to power. She herself believed it to be sanity, or perhaps the humanity of one person a generation— after all, Joshua had an older brother, as did Aldous himself.

And nobody knew where they were.

Riot cleared his throat, shaking her from her reverie. "You can see why he mustn't associate with the Dark. The boy should never have been in Lea Monde."

"What do you propose to do?" Merlose replied.

"Train him in mage ethics."

Merlose shot a look at the boy. "Riot, he's four years old!"

"The age matters not. Mage ethics are a simple enough concept to grasp. I had it in an hour."

(Aye, but you're Ashley Riot. A grown man who once called himself Parliament's Fang. He's Joshua Bardorba. A four year old who has the knack of looking adorable.) She sighed, frustrated. The man seemed rather bent on indoctrinating the boy. "Ashley, the lad is four years old. You are Parliament's Fang— you called yourself that to my face!"

He said nothing in reply and she sighed again.

He'd probably go ahead and do it, even if she said that he wasn't to.

Riot shot a look at the boy, who had entered the stall and was now combing down the horse— or trying to: he couldn't reach the horse's neck, even if he stretched as much as he could and stood on a stool.

The boy glanced over his shoulder at them, a sullen expression on his face. He was obviously listening in.

"I doubt he'd understand, but I must try." Ashley looked to her, and she didn't know what she'd call his expression. It was something approaching earnest… but Riot wasn't capable of looking as wet behind the ears as an earnest look made one appear. She supposed one might call the expression 'sadly determined.'

"Oh, very well," she blew out a sigh as she turned away. (Something tells me I shall regret this.)

Riot gestured for the boy to come closer, and reluctantly, Joshua obeyed, leaving the stall.

Merlose could only watch them go, mentally trying to untangle the knot that had twisted itself into the pit of her stomach.

Riot leaned back. If he'd been a man inclined to give away his emotions (though for him, things clearly definable as these came few and far between), he would have let out a contented sigh. Teaching the boy ethics hadn't been as difficult as he'd imagined, though it was far from complete. He didn't lie to himself: the boy's natural inclination towards selfishness had been an obstacle. It had not, however, been insurmountable. For Riot, few things were.

With some effort, he'd managed to teach the boy the magical difference between right and wrong. He'd warned the boy away from interfering negatively in the lives of others, and cautioned him to never invade the privacy of another without cause.

Half of the lecture had been stolen from Sydney, and thus worded (though slightly altered to communicate the full meaning to Joshua in a way he would understand) as he had spoken. The other half had been delivered in the same terse way he'd lectured Marco.

That he remembered lecturing Marco.

The boy had —eventually and after many interruptions— become convinced that his twisting of Merlose's emotions was wrong and that he should undo it. Now, however, the boy was eating supper. The boy appeared to think that Merlose had cooked it, though Riot doubted that. Inns usually provided lodging and meals to its indwelling workers.

Riot looked down at the boy, who was eating stew with great gusto. As the boy saw it, Merlose (or whoever it was) could cook very well. Riot disagreed. Something in him, something prideful, whispered that he'd had better fare by his own hand…

Dinner passed in near-silence. Every so often, Merlose would question the boy about what he had learned. The boy's responses were as terse as Riot's lecture and twice as tense as the questions that provoked them. At length, sometime before the end of dinner, Merlose gave a single nod of her head and the questions ceased.

The remains of the meal passed in complete silence.

Interlude II

The boy had fallen asleep on the rug before the fireplace, and Merlose was looking over at him from her place in the center of the bed. Riot calmly surveyed the scene before him, weighing actions and reactions in much the same way he did on a mission.

(...A smooth flow of thought into action…) Sydney's words came back to haunt him, of course. Keeping himself from shuddering took an unusually large amount of effort.

"So, you succeeded." Merlose's voice was soft.

"Aye." He said nothing more— he had succeeded, and that was enough. Restoring Merlose to her original self could wait another day. He'd have done it himself, but he didn't know her mind the way Joshua now did.

It seemed odd, how in just two weeks his mental hysteria at having the Blood Sin had calmed. Part of it had been Sydney, he recognized. It had been difficult to be hysterical near the man for very long. The rest had been time.

He had a feeling that the more he used this talent, the more comfortable he'd grow with it.

Merlose sighed and rolled off the bed to pick up Joshua and tuck him in. The gentle look on her face, an expression he'd not thought her capable of, as she brushed some of the boy's hair out of his face unnerved him deeply. She had never struck him as maternal, so these sudden actions had to be the boy's doing.

She moved to take the boy's place on the rug. "You should take a bath," her mouth bade, while her mind whispered something different.

((Anything, anything at all, if it make him leave for even a moment.))

So— he unnerved her. He wondered which attribute of his made her uncomfortable. It might have been his willingness to threaten the boy, or his size, or his silence.

No, not his silence. She'd never seemed the type to be uncomfortable with silence. She'd said nary a word during the carriage ride to Lea Monde.

He paused. It didn't seem like it had truly been only two weeks ago that the VKP carriage had left them before Lea Monde while a junior provisions agent rode to provide them with spare horses, should Ashley kill Sydney before the carriage arrived at sunset the next day.

She'd been the one to secure that assistance.

His gaze turned to focus on the boy, and he contemplated the boy's power. The change he'd made to Merlose was comparatively small. It had been an extreme change, but it didn't encompass her entirely. Exactly how long she would remain stable, he couldn't tell for sure. If she began to destabilize at all, changing her back would become an extremely painful experience… for her, at least.

He went back to weighing options, before deciding to go looking for a place to call a base of operations. He doubted it would be in Bardelth, but with all filth, it might aid him. Of course, it might not.

He'd find out in the morning, he supposed.

3

Merlose woke sometime before dawn, her head aching. She rolled out of bed and began to move as quietly and carefully as she could towards the dresser to find some willow root or failing that, cure root. They were both horrendously bitter, but she couldn't deny their effectiveness.

This plan, however, she abandoned as soon as she tripped over Riot, who was sleeping on the rug in front of the now-dead fire.

He shook awake, glaring at her. Well, doing what she had come to understand was his version of glare. It was a mild look, not obviously angry, except for his significantly narrowed eyes.

"Yes?" He asked.

She looked away, apologized. "I… forgot you were sleeping on the rug."

His lip twisted a fraction of an inch (inwardly, she gave three sardonic cheers at earning a Riot snarl) and he fished a cure root out of his own pack.

"My thanks."

"What happened?" He asked.

"Oh, naught happened, I woke with a headache, is all."

"A headache."

"Well, more like ale-head, but…"

His eyes seemed to sharpen. "How bad." His monotone turned the question into a statement.

"Bad enough to make me forget you were here."

Riot said nothing. Silence was fine. She could deal with silence. Silence was the usual for Riot. He didn't usually speak unless he felt he needed to, and sometimes not even then.

At length, after she had chewed and swallowed the cure root and stood staring at him, he spoke.

"You have become unstable."

"Unstable?"

"The…" he searched for a word and found it, "alteration has caused your magic to desert you." He paused and added, "Piecemeal."

(What? My magic, deserting me piece by piece— is that even possible? I've only had it a fortnight…)

"H…how?"

He shrugged. She had grown to know him well enough, through the thing that caused the vibrating in the back of her head and the pain in her shoulder blades, that Riot had no false pride— if he did not know, he did not know, and so would say nothing. He would not hazard so much as the faintest of guesses.

There was a long silence.

Oddly enough, Riot broke it. "Your magic was meant for who you were, not who you are."

"Who I was…" She whispered, turning away. "I have not changed, Riot."

"You are not the woman who entered Lea Monde."

She whirled around, inexplicably angry. "And are you that man? Who are you, a murderer, to judge me?"

"I murdered no one." His voice had returned to its usual tone— blankness.

"You slew countless Knights that might have aided you!"

His voice grew louder. The tone was angry. "They offered no aid, only steel!"

"And you might have taken it!" She drew back when she realized what she'd said.

He drew back too, his face contorting into something dreadful with wrath. Back to the monotone. "I see."

"Riot... Riot, forgive me. I did not intend--"

"--If you did not intend, you should not have spoken." He said, turning away.

"Riot…"

((She is unstable… perhaps… she truly did not intend to say that. But still…))

"Riot… honestly… I know not why that thought e'en crossed my mind!"

(Truly, I have no such feeling towards him. Or do I? I hardly know what I feel any longer…)

He stiffened, but said nothing. Whatever his response to her words was, he must have found it too insignificant to say.

His heart or mind or soul or intent or whatever, however, had a rather significant thought and promptly decided to share it.

((Sweet Iocus breathing, I can hear her thoughts!))

(Sant Rosa, Holy Mother, he can hear my thoughts!)

"Out."

(You too!)

"'Twas unintentional!" He replied, defensively.

"Whatever 'twas you did that you came to be within my mind, undo it and remove yourself!"

An extremely angry ghost of Ashley prowled the room. ((But that's the damned problem! I did naught!))

She had a feeling that if she pushed the issue any further, he'd raise his voice and wake Joshua. "In any case, I merely needed a cure root, my thanks for giving me one of yours, and I am going back to bed." (I know not what I'd do were Joshua to wake, so the argument ends here.)

He studied her. She could feel his eyes lingering even as she crawled into bed.

Just before she fell asleep, he spoke. "Merlose."

(His timing is SO wonderful.) "Aye?"

"The instability is why we can hear each other. Your instability lets those whom the City has touched breach your walls, and lets you breach theirs."

(Excellent. JUST what I want to hear when I am trying to sleep.) She sat up and gave him a Look.

"We will drive each other mad if you remain unstable."

"And the only way to become stable is to undo Joshua's alterations?"

He nodded.

She sighed. "It would appear that we have no choice, but it shall have to wait… if this takes as long as I believe 'twill."

"'Twill."

She sighed again, rolled over, and went to sleep.

Ashley stood beside a busy laneway in Bardelth, staring at a house and pondering what he was going to do about Joshua and Merlose.

The inordinately pragmatic part of him whispered that it might be easier to just kill them. Their deaths would rid him of the danger of Joshua's talent and provide him with a perfect assurance of secrecy, thus freeing him to do whatever it was he needed to do without constantly worrying about whether Merlose had been caught or compromised him.

No. He wouldn't be a murderer. Whether he had killed an innocent family or Tia had been his murdered wife, he would not—COULD not— have any more blood like that on his soul. And killing Merlose and Joshua would definitely do that.

But.

Joshua and Merlose were potential liabilities in an era of his life when he could not afford to have liabilities. As much as he wanted Joshua where he could see him, Joshua was an even worse liability with him than in a safe place where he could get to him easily.

Keeping a four year old while trying to destroy the Cardinal and ensure that Parliament could no longer seek the power of the Dark would be absolute hell. What would he do with a four year old if and when he needed to move quickly? What would he do with a four year old if he had to enter battle? No, keeping the boy himself wasn't an option; better to leave him with Merlose.

Merlose. There was his sticking point. Joshua couldn't compromise him— the VKP wouldn't believe the truth coming from a child. Merlose, on the other hand, could. Merlose might get caught on purpose.

She was also the only person he had even speculated that he might trust. Merlose was the only adult survivor of Lea Monde who didn't hate him to his very entrails and hadn't tried to kill him. She was also going to be very much in his debt soon.

He could use her. She seemed… agreeable to the prospect of keeping the boy. But what if her decision to care for the boy was his own doing?

Well, he'd deal with that problem when and if it arose.

He could… let her keep up appearances for him, were he to buy a house. It couldn't be in Bardelth, Bardelth was too obvious a place, and could only be a temporary residence for the boy. No, perhaps Je Bardeau? It was a bustling city in the Graylands, a very busy city, which meant that VKP investigations there would not be inhibited, but it was a remote place. The last place any fugitive in his right mind should go, due to the sheer potential of VKP investigations. And because nobody in their right mind would fly there, it was the first place fugitives went, thinking the VKP would think it a waste of time. In reality, it was the first place the VKP would look.

If he was lucky, the investigation there would be complete within a week, and he could discreetly move Merlose and the boy there.

But first he would have to make this insane proposal. 'Twould be best to ask her after he returned her to stability, so as not to entrap her in a bargain she wouldn't have made, and therefore earn her ire. Her ire might result in his getting caught.

Callo sat on the rug, brushing her hair. It was still damp, but being so close to the fire she'd built up would help it to dry. She was still damp, too, and wearing only a shift. She'd wrapped a blanket around herself for warmth, but it did nothing, and covered nothing further.

It felt odd. The last relaxing bath she'd had before Lea Monde had been in Rip's home, almost immediately before she left for the Bardorba manor. She'd gone home early that morning to discover one of Heldricht's many faceless aides standing outside her door. He'd informed her that Heldricht had a mission for her, and her presence was demanded in the council room.

And now, two weeks later, she had her first relaxing bath since Lea Monde. She was starting to settle in to Bardelth. The city's rhythm was coming more and more naturally to her.

The door swung open and she started, then relaxed when she noted that it was only Riot.

He spoke almost immediately. "Merlose. 'Tis time."

"I shall be ready presently, if ye will but let me dress."

He nodded and retreated from the room to let her dress without making any comments as to the state of her dress. He'd appeared not to even notice it. It surprised her that he hadn't shown any embarrassment.

(Truly, a man made of stone.)

She dressed quickly and then admitted he and Joshua.

Awkward silence reigned.

"How? how does this begin?" She asked.

"'Twill take a goodly amount of time," Riot replied. "You might want to sit."

She sat and spread her hands on her knees, patiently watching Joshua.

He squirmed under her gaze.

Riot put a hand on the boy's shoulder, drawing his attention upwards. "Joshua— how is it that you alter the emotions of others?"

Joshua closed his eyes, remembering. When he spoke, his usual high, piping voice sounded small and timid. "I… I think about them, and wonder what they feel, and then I look them in the eye, and I… I know."

"What next?" Riot made the question as gentle as possible.

She hadn't thought that he could sound gentle- his voice was usually so blank and emotionless that it was intimidating and bordered on being a monotone.

"I… I think about what I want them to feel and? make them feel it."

Unlike in many romantic poems and novels, fire- and candlelight do not provide enough illumination to see things completely clearly. Shadows flicker everywhere and colors may seem to be darker than they are. The effects of having only fire- and candlelight look rather like the more shadowy Rembrandt paintings. Reading or seeing detail by such lighting is often difficult, so Merlose was certain that it was merely a trick of the light that made Joshua's eyes seem both glistening and dark, like a mouse's or a bird's. The strange trick of the light that altered his eyes combined with his slight frame to give the impression of a bird.

And then it began.

It had been three hours since Joshua had begun to undo his changes to Merlose's mind. They had been smaller than Riot thought, but they were complex and well hidden enough to make the task slow going.

It was like forging a sword- not outright difficult, but requiring a great deal of strength, patience and time.

Joshua required constant attention. The boy wasn't so confident that he could undo his work, and worry that Merlose might remain altered against her will forever nagged and gnawed at him. Adding that to the factors of his age and lack of magical experience of any sort, and it looked to be a very, very long night.

They had to stop at least once every half an hour, simply because Joshua couldn't keep his concentration up for anywhere near as long as an adult might, and by half an hour, he was pushing his limit. Plying him with small portions of mana root had proved effective in restoring his concentration and ridding him of the spellcasting headaches.

They were halfway through, and Joshua was building his magical endurance. Riot no longer needed to keep up a constant link between himself and the boy. The boy would let him know when he encountered any sort of problem.

() The boy's mental gasp drew his attention.

Joshua?

(I… I think this causes her pain!)

It does.

(But… if it cause her pain…)

Refusing to undo it now would be like refusing to reset a broken arm. A little pain for her now will save her from great pain and possible insanity later.

(But…)

Return to the task, Joshua.

The boy gave a mental nod and slipped back into her mind, still slightly disturbed at the thought of causing her actual pain.

Two more hours had passed without incident when Merlose suddenly began to thrash. Apparently, the deeper Joshua went into her mind, the more painful it became. It made sense, and yet it didn't.

Clearly, penetrating deep into her mind would cause her pain. And yet… Joshua had been able to penetrate just as deep in order to alter her, and that hadn't caused her pain. What had kept the initial process from being a painful one?

Within minutes, her thrashings became so bad that Joshua had to retreat from her mind. He backed away from the bed, shaking.

Ashley reached out, then stopped. Merlose was still twitching. She might react violently to touch.

He waited until she had calmed a bit and then reached out to take hold of her. He helped her into a kneeling position and then clamped down on her arms to minimize the thrashing.

"Joshua. Continue."

Joshua gave Merlose a wary look but did as bidden. Almost as soon as he returned to his task, Merlose began to writhe and whimper.

Ignore it. Ashley commanded. 'Twill end soon enough.

The boy's brow furrowed in concentration as he entered deeper and deeper into her mind.

Within ten minutes, Merlose began thrashing again. This time, she struggled desperately against Riot's hold and screamed in pain.

Joshua panicked and retreated.

"Ignore it." Ashley hissed. "You only prolong the inevitable."

"But it hurts her!"

Riot couldn't tell if he was being especially conniving or really did care. "Do it anyway. Life is full of pain."

"But-"

"-'twill not kill her, Joshua. I doubt she will e'en remember the pain. Carry on." Joshua resumed mentally probing her and undoing what he'd wrought, and Merlose resumed screaming and thrashing. The boy cringed but continued.

At long length, the woman relaxed into his grip, her chest heaving as she panted for her very breath. Once she had caught her breath and rested enough, the screaming commenced again, though she struggled much weaker this time, causing Riot to feel a smidgen of guilt— which he ignored. The guilt went away after a few moments of earsplitting shrieking. However, instead of his usual emptiness, a profound feeling of disquiet replaced the guilt.

Merlose didn't just suffer the mental pain of someone breaching countless barriers, of someone laying horrible memories open and bare for those sensitive enough to see them. That was a pain he could understand. He'd felt it. No, Merlose felt also a very physical pain— something that hovered between severe pain and pure agony.

He'd felt that, too. Too many times to count.

After a half hour or so, the boy broke contact, shaking his head and saying that his mind buzzed and his head ached. Riot gave him a slice of mana root but let him rest. Aside from his attempted refusal due to fear of hurting Merlose (an understandable fear and a good sign because he had been selfish before), he had been extremely cooperative.

Merlose lay panting on the bed, looking pitiable. Sweat slicked her hair to her head, her breath came in short gasps and tear tracks stained her face. Amazingly enough, she had managed to retain consciousness and sat glaring daggers at him.

"My apologies," he said softly.

"I would accept them… were I in a bit less pain just now," she replied through gritted teeth.

"Truly. I am sorry." He glanced at the boy, then turned his attention back to her. "Are you ready? If you want a cure root…"

"Best not to delay the inevitable," she replied bitterly. "And as for the cure root, 'twould only make your job more difficult."

He nodded. "Joshua. Begin."

The boy sighed and nodded, hastening to do as bidden as soon as Riot had a firm grip on Merlose.

The boy had barely begun when Merlose began to writhe, and scarcely a minute later, she began to scream in a raw, agonized voice. And so, they continued.

Callo awoke late the next morning to the sound of Riot explaining softly that she felt unwell and 'twould be best if she were to remain in her rooms this day. The sun shone directly in her eyes and she stretched an arm to cover them, yawning loudly with a wide-open mouth. It took her about a moment to recognize the fact that a rather light lump of weight had pooled itself onto her stomach. She looked down through squinted eyes to view Joshua sleeping on her belly.

A day earlier, she would have smiled gently and ruffled his hair. Today, she rolled him off immediately. He woke instantly, blinking at her through bleary eyes, and she felt a little guilty. He had obviously been awake late into the night, so she pulled him closer, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

She woke again at midday, and found herself the object of Ashley's gaze. He slouched in his chair with his chin in his hands, studying her.

"Watching me as I sleep?"

"Waiting for you to wake," he corrected, stirring to sit up straighter.

"May I ask wherefore?"

"I have a proposition to make you. If you would hear it?"

"Speak."

"I understand that you will need someplace safe to hide. Bardelth is not that place, and we both know why." And indeed they did- if Je Bardeau was the first place the VKP would seek fugitives, Bardelth was the second. In their case, the VKP was probably scouring Bardelth as they spoke.

"What do you propose to do?"

"I propose to buy a house in Je Bardeau, under the pretense that you are my wife and I travel a great deal."

"And I would stay thither with Joshua that you might be able to keep watch over us both, arrive in an instant should we need thee, and have a safe hiding place to run to with a person you can trust already thither."

He inclined his head. "Indeed."

"'Tis a heavy proposition you make, Riot."

He said nothing to that.

"I shall have to think on it for a day at least."

He nodded understandingly.

"So… my answer at the evening meal?"

"At the evening meal."

She could tell he wanted her to accept from his agreeability- no, that wasn't fair; Riot was usually agreeable enough, just in an annoying, apathetic way.

The night before had left her feeling shaky and weak so she stayed in bed for the remainder of the day. Joshua seemed bent on cheering her up, even though she was cheerful enough, just tired. At length, Ashley sent the boy away, telling him to tend to the Knight-General (well, Riot actually said 'the horse,' but his meaning was obvious).

"Riot?" She asked as he handed her a bowl of soup (surprisingly good soup, as she found later).

"Aye?"

"Were I to agree, we would then sit down and work out the details?"

"Aye."

"There are many details to be worked out. Would you be the only one choosing the house, or would I have a say in the matter? What would our exact story be? What about the sleeping arrangements when you were actually present? There are a thousand and one details."

He said nothing, only giving her a level look.

"Oh, very well!" She snapped. "A sensible arrangement, 'tseems."

"A sensible arrangement," he replied agreeably. He was silent for a few moments, but then startled her by speaking of his own accord, with absolutely no prompting. "Have you ever heard the expression, 'cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou wilt find it in many days?'"

"Aye, of course. I wrote my thesis paper for my doctorate in religious psychology about that phrase. 'Tis a verse from the Sacred Screed, is it not? It means that if you do good deeds, you will be repaid for them eventually."

He shrugged. "I suppose that is the true meaning of it… but I was thinking more that 'tis the perfect description of parenthood."

"Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou wilt find it in many days…" she mused, "yes, I can see how you might come to that conclusion."

Fini