Having disposed of me Yoda turned abruptly on Raj. "Hmmm. Kept up with your exercises have you, Young One?"
"I'm afraid not, Master." the boy confessed, and who could blame him with what had been happening?
Yoda apparently. He frowned disapprovingly, ears sloping downward. "Fix that we will, come along, come along." he headed for the door without so much as a farewell glance. Raj flung me a look of comical resignation and followed, leaving me alone with Yedda - who had yet to say a word.
I forced an encouraging smile. "So, Yedda, tell me about yourself. You are a Jedi?"
"A very new Jedi am I." she said. "Send me to the Temple my parents would not. Master Yoda when he returned took me as Padawan he did."
Her parents' refusal had undoubtedly saved Yedda's life, but I didn't say so. No doubt she knew it only too well. "I'm afraid looking after me is going to interfere with your training," I said, "I'm sorry."
"Oh no!" the girl protested. "To serve first lesson is. Need anything now do you, Senator?"
"Padme, please." I corrected then looked ruefully down at the oversized ship suit I was wearing. "And I need practically everything, I'm afraid. Starting with some clothes."
Yedda proved to be good company. Once her shyness wore off she chattered happily, telling me all sorts of interesting things about her people and their lives and taking my mind off my own troubles - which I suspected was Yoda's real reason for giving her to me. She immediately produced yards and yards of 'reed cloth', a soft nappy fabric apparently made from a special kind of reed in varying thicknesses and dyed bright cheerful colors and helped me sew them into long, rather shapeless dresses.
Our days soon fell into a regular pattern: Yedda and I spent our mornings sitting under the trees at the edge of our islet fishing for the day's food . I already knew how to fish but I'd never had such luck before, we invariably filled our baskets before mid-morning. I wondered if Yedda was somehow using the Force but didn't like to ask.
After taking our catch home and cleaning it we would cross our little islet to call on Master Yoda who lived with Raj in the second cottage. I would be given a cup of treebark tea and sit sipping it while Yoda put his two students through their 'exercises'. This was not at all boring to watch as it involved levitating various objects in and around the hut, sometimes including me!
Raj would come home with us for lunch. Yedda made delicious meals from our daily catch and the things she bought at market but Yoda limited himself to an austere vegetarian diet which even he admitted was unsuitable for growing younglings - and pregnant women too.
Afternoons were given over to household chores. On laundry days we would wash clothes and blankets and sheets. The Whills made no use of technology - like some of our own country people on Naboo - so the wash was done in a big wooden box that needed to be cranked. First you'd put in the clothes and some soap powder, then you'd pour in a kettle water heated over the kitchen stove, close the lid and turn the crank steadily for an hour - Yedda and I took turns doing that. Then you opened a drain at the bottom of the box and let the dirty water flow out, added another kettle of hot water to rinse and turned the crank for half hour until all the soap was worked out. The wet clothes had to be thoroughly wrung and then spread over the grass to dry before being folded away with sweet smelling herbs.
On baking days we would make bread out of the greeny-yellow flour ground from yet another variety of reed. The dough was mixed in a big pottery bowl, allowed to rise, then kneaded, rolled out and formed into little round cakes or long sticks which were baked in a clay oven in the middle of our islet which we shared with Yoda and Raj. The little Master prided himself on his bread. Personally I couldn't taste any difference between his and Yedda's, both were chewy and a little sour, but of course I didn't say so.
Brewing days were dedicated to making a curious thick beer that was as sour as the bread and took a lot of getting used to. But I had to drink it because the water was not safe. The first stages of beer brewing were exactly like making bread; you mixed dough and let it rise but instead of popping it into the oven you crumbled it and mixed it with water to make a thick mash which you then put into a vat to stand for a few days. But first you'd empty the vat of the now fermented beer from the last brewing day, strain it and pour it into jars. Even after straining the stuff was still so thick I would drink mine through a straw.
Cleaning day meant taking up all the rush mats and giving the clay floor beneath a thorough sweeping, then gathering rushes and weaving new mats to put down. Yedda would scrub out her little kitchen and I would dust my table and chair and the hanging shelves where we kept spare garments and various jars and boxes.
It wasn't very hard work but it did keep hands and mind occupied, which was exactly what I needed. Nor was it all work; on market days Yedda would pole us over to the big meadow in the shadow of the mountain where the Whills met to trade. They didn't use money at all but bartered one set of goods for another. Yedda made more beer than we could drink and used the extra for trade and Master Yoda would send some of his bread. People always seemed eager to get it so maybe he was as good a baker as he said he was!
We would trade our bread and beer for flour and herbs, vegetables and fruits we couldn't find on our own islet or the ones nearby.
Those Whills who weren't Jedi liked to dress in bright colors, yellows and greens were especially favored, and wore long tunics over short breeches with sashes around their middles and cloaks over their shoulders. Some wore small pointy hats but most twisted their hair, which could be yellow or brown as well as white, into complicated topknots
often decorated with ribbons and flowers.
Everybody was very kind to poor Mistress Skywalker, widowed and driven from her home by the Emperor. And nobody ever said a word about my being a senator or Anakin's fall. Maybe they didn't know, or maybe they were just being tactful but whichever it was I was grateful for the lack of reminders.
I was trying very hard to forget my old life, though not Anakin - never that! But I concentrated on remembering the good not the horrible end of our love. Obi-Wan was right, what we'd seen on Mustafar hadn't been my Ani and I mustn't think of him but of the little boy I'd met on Tatooine all those years ago and the young Jedi Knight I'd married.
After doing our marketing, and sharing a cup of tea or two with friends, we'd pole ourselves over to the landing field so I could see Threepio and Artoo. The soft ground and many channels had convinced me the droids should stay on the ship, besides there was nothing for them to do on our islet. But because they weren't just machines like most of their kind I felt I had to visit regularly so they wouldn't feel abandoned.
Of course they hadn't questioned my decision but they were always glad to see me. Threepio would chatter away about the repairs they were making and complain about the freighter's odd accent with Artoo whistling and chirping accompaniment. And I would tell them about the long, squirming greeny-black thing I'd caught the day before or about learning to bake Whill bread and assure them I was being well taken care of and as happy as it was possible for me to be under the circumstances.
At nightfall Raj and Yoda would both join us for dinner - though Yoda would eat only his own vegetable stew. Afterwards we'd sit outside under the black sky with its three bright stars and wait for the galaxy to rise and illuminate the marshlands with a soft silver-golden light. And Yoda would tell us stories about the peoples and planets he'd seen in his long life, tales which I'm sure were part of Raj and Yedda's instruction but I simply enjoyed as stories.
At long last the day would end with me snuggled in my blankets on my sleeping platform, Yedda in her own cubbyhole near the kitchen, and a single rush-light left burning. And I'd whisper to my babies, telling them stories about their father, their grandparents and my own childhood until I fell asleep, lulled by the good memories.
This peaceful existence was marred by one nagging worry, where was Obi-Wan? I'd gathered he meant to try to find other surviving Jedi and realized that that wouldn't be a quick or easy mission, but as the weeks passed with no sign of him I became more and more concerned. I didn't say anything, what was the point? Yoda and Raj didn't know any more than I did what might be delaying Obi-Wan. And I reminded myself he was one of the best Jedi who ever lived and had already survived several attempts to kill him - but still I worried. Until one wash day as Yedda and I were spreading the clean clothes out to dry a vast winged shadow passed over us and I looked up to see my senatorial skiff skimming overhead towards the landing field.
I dropped the basket of clothes I was holding and ran towards the second cottage shouting, "Master Yoda! Master Yoda! Obi-Wan is back."
"Yes, yes." he said appearing in the door of his house. "Felt his presence we have. Come, to landing field we will go."
My skiff had been remodeled on Polis Massa, the highly polished chrome surface removed and replaced with standard hull plates painted yellow and white. Nubian ships were common enough, with the special royal plating removed nobody would give mine a second glance.
It settled lightly on the landing field next to the old freighter and the gangway lowered. Suddenly a bevy of very small people in Jedi dress erupted from within, running to Yoda with glad cries. I saw they were children, perhaps four or five years old, a Human boy and girl, a horned Zabrak boy, a Rystall girl with bushy red hair and a fair, frail little creature with tiny wings. To my astonishment the crusty old Master returned their hugs and soothed their tears with the affectionate gentleness of a doting grandfather.
I was so fascinated by the sight I didn't even notice Obi-Wan until he spoke to me. "How are you, Padme?"
I tore my eyes away and turned to him with a smile. "Pretty well, much better than I expected to be." then I saw he was holding a sixth child, a baby a few months under a year old if I was any judge, who looked at me with big, blinking eyes as blue as Obi-Wan's. "Hello there!" I said to that solemn stare, my name's Padme, what's yours?"
"Mei-Qan." Obi-Wan answered for her, "my granddaughter."
My eyes snapped up glare accusingly into his. "You're not old enough to be a grandfather!"
He laughed a little. "Oh yes I am, just barely. We both married very young my son and I."
I glanced up the gangway behind him. "Is your son -?"
"No. He and his mother chose a different path. But we agreed Mei-Qan would be safer with me."
I gave a little sigh of relief. At least Obi-Wan's family was still intact. I was glad he'd managed to save that much from the ruins of the Jedi Order.
Meanwhile Yoda and Raj had herded the little ones into the first of our two boats. "Come, come!" the old Master called over his shoulder. "Going home we are. Come, Padme, Obi-Wan!"
Obi-Wan let me hold little Mei-Qan as Yedda poled us back to our islet. After a long, silent consideration the baby decided in my favor, gave me a smile and began talking away as unintelligibly as Artoo Detoo. I talked back holding a pretend conversation about the cottages, washday, and what kind of things she could expect to eat.
Obi-Wan watched and listened with amusement. "You're going to make a good mother, Padme." he said while his granddaughter meditated on my description of worzelberry jam.
"I hope so." I said. "But Obi-Wan, where did you find these little ones?"
His smile vanished. "In the hands of the Emperor. He killed the older children but spared the Initiates too young for formal training. Properly conditioned they would have made him valuable servants."
I shuddered at the thought. "Thank goodness you got them back."
"The Force was with us." he said quietly.