After selecting a dozen of his best candles, Nathyn pulled his cloak around him and ducked outside his door. He locked it securely, thinking of his wife and their 'little treasure', as he liked to call him. He was sure it would be a boy. He had already imagined he and the boy fishing, and hunting, and teaching the boy how to make candles, like his father. He smiled at the thought, and unhooked the lantern that shone brightly above the carved door. Then he started for the midwife's cottage.

The chill air bit at him, and the larks began to sing their song of night. He walked up the small path that lead to the woman's front door. Cheery as a man who's going to be a father, he knocked briskly on the door. He waited a few seconds, but no one came. He began to get nervous, but tired again. When no one came, he put his ear to the door. He could see nothing, but felt sure the woman must be out." Well, she wouldn't mind if I just took some," he thought, remembering his wife's state when he had returned after a whole weekend with the herring she had wanted. "Besides," he tried to reassure himself," my wife and she do business all the time. Thus convinced, the man took one of his huge vats for dipping candles and turned it upside-down to use as a step. Leaving his precious candles by the midwife's door, he hefted himself up onto the vat's round bottom. He could just reach over the top of the wall if he stood on his tiptoes. He took a deep breath, jumped, and hooked his arm over the top of the wall.

He kicked his legs under him, trying to find purchase among the weathered stones, but they only scraped down the wall to dangled beneath him. His arm began to slip, the rough-hewn edges of the wall making tiny cuts in his arm. Naythn grunted, sweating, trying to hold his grip. He tried desperately to find a foothold. Suddenly, his foot caught something. He didn't hesitate. He just closed his eyes and

pushed as hard as he could.

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Back in the cottage, cozy and warm, Aevyn waited impatiently. She felt a kick in her stomach, and smiled. "Hang on in there," she said reprovingly, "you're not coming out yet." She tried to imagine what she would be like. She felt sure it would be a girl. With golden hair and flashing brown eyes, like her mother's. She would have her father's dimples, though. She would learn to make soaps with her mother, and to spin and embroider, and all of the household graces. She would be taught to read, of course, her father would see to that, and he would probably teach her the Latin he knew as well. And oh-when she came of age! She would have a string of wealthy men asking for her hand, absolutely besotted with her. Aevyn looked down at her womb. "But you can only have one" she told her unborn bride-to-be. Aevyn sighed and looked out the window, which she had closed due to the briskness of the evening. "What is taking him so long?", she thought annoyed. Just then she heard something moving in the garden.

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Nathyn shook his head and brushed the dirt from his face. He could taste he soil in his mouth. He spat and felt better. He ran a finger through his hair and felt something warn and wet on his face. He realized his arm was still bleeding. He cursed and looked around. The garden was pitch black. No moon illuminated the night sky, and he had left his lantern on the other side of the fence. He groped around the wall. As he approached the gate he could see the light from his lantern making long dark shadows as it shined through the fence. Unlatching the fence from the inside, Nathyn left in hanging open and rushed to grab his lantern. He didn't know when the midwife would get back, and he wasn't so sure how appeasing she'd be if she found him stumbling around her garden at night. As he combed the neatly planted rows for the luscious parsley, he thought about the stories he had heard of the agonizing plagues that had assailed the other men who had dared to climb into the forbidden garden. "Maybe she is a witch," he thought. But he consoled himself that it was only idle gossip.

Finally, he came upon the parsley. He grabbed a handful and yanked it free of the ground's steady grasp. He felt relief wash over him and then began to make his way back to the gate. The noise of someone coming along the road made him stop. He threw himself against the wall, blew out his lantern and waited, clutching the parsley to him. Nathyn held his breath. There was silence, except for the advancing footsteps. Nathyn's heart pounded loudly in his ears. He heard keys turning in the cottage door's rusty lock. The hinges creaked, and then stopped for a moment, and then the door was shut again. Nathyn waited a few seconds, then began feeling his way to the gate. He pushed it slowly open, and slid through, latching it as he eased it closed. He crept back to his door, fumbled with the lock, got it open, and stepped inside. He leaned against the door and, heart still pounding, breathed a sigh of relief.

Upstairs his wife's voice called "Nathyn? Is that you?"

"Yes," he called back, and prayed the midwife would not find out what he had done.

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