It was a babe. A small, cuddly, weasel babe with big, sparkling eyes and a laugh that made Ferahgo's blood boil. Marelda quickly snatched the poor thing from the dirty rat's half-hearted paw hold and began looking it over for scratches or bruises made by indelicate vermin. Miraculously the thing looked healthy. And sweet. She'd never seen a vermin babe up close before. He didn't look like he had been born with a sharp, pointed object in his hand...

"Ugh. Get rid of it. This is no place for a babe. Where'd it come from?"

"We don't know, chief. It just kinda...arrived."

"So there is a female amongst us other than the foxmaid..." He muttered to himself. "Kill it. Drop it off in the woods somewhere. It's not my problem."

Marelda could not hide her horror this time. Killing full grown beasts was one thing, but killing a helpless, innocent babe? That went beyond mere sadism.

"Get rid of it? This thing couldn't cause trouble if it wanted to!" She protested angrily.

"It's a liability I cannot afford. Besides, do you really think such a fragile thing would last ten minutes in the middle of the Corpsemaker's camp?"

"If I were allowed to take care of it, most certainly. Besides, you have your legacy to think about. Would you not want an heir for your kingdom after your seasons are gone?"

Ferahgo blinked pensively and stared at the babe for a moment, then nodded and laid back down on his cot. "You are dismissed, rat. Marelda, you can stay." She approached him cautiously once the rat was gone and knelt down beside him with the babe gurgling in her arms.

"If you can take care of him, we shall keep him. Just keep him out of my way. But if I have an heir, I must also have...a bride." he looked at her expectantly, but Marelda took awhile to get the hint. When she did, she gasped and looked at him, confused.

"What are you saying, that...me and you...? I think that wound has gone to your head. You need to get some rest..." She quickly stomped out the cooking fire and rushed out of the tent, with the weasel babe still in her arms. What the heck did he want her for? She hated him? She despised every fibre of his being...and yet, there she stood, one of his horde, holding his future heir and having bandaged a potentially mortal wound for him. Why hadn't she just let him die when she had the chance? She looked down into the small weasel's endearing eyes. She had too much of an ingrained sense of justice to just let such a powerful man die helplessly. She had to play a fair game. But what was she supposed to do now? Just keep sabotaging him for the rest of her life? Well, if that was what she had to do to avenge Klitch's death, she'd just have to suck it up and do what needed to be done.

The next morning she went into Ferahgo's tent again, early at dawn. He was asleep, peaceful for once. She started up the cooking fire, with the babe in a sling, tied tightly across her back. He was asleep too. Marelda had decided to name him Klitch, hoping she could raise him to be just like the brother she'd lost, so she could one day know for sure that the Corpsemakers would be no more under his rule. Her son's rule if it hadn't just been a fever talking the night before.

After a few minutes of heating some plain bread over the fire, the assassin began to stir, opening his cool blue eyes and groaning. She smiled at him weakly, and opened a flask of water.

"Did you sleep soundly? How's the pain?"

"No, of course I did not sleep soundly. The pain is excruciating. And don't ask me how I feel. You're smarter than that, aren't you?"

She put a cup of water to his lips and he drank quickly. He was not in a good mood that morning, so she made a mental note to tread carefully. She lightly touched his wound and he spit the water out and yelled in pain. It was infected. She put a wet cloth on his brow and instantly went to work, without a word.

"Have you...considered...my offer...?" Ferahgo finally asked, through clenched teeth as she rubbed down his wound with a gentle paw.

"Remind me of what that offer was again? Something about a lifetime of stitching battle wounds, taking orders and living with smelly rodents?"

Ferahgo laughed shortly. "There was never a beast before like you, Marelda. Are you going to...ow!...take it or leave it?"

"Tell me why I should take it. I was raised around those who believed in kindness and respect, and you are obviously not going to show either. Why on earth would I not go out on my own once I have shown you Redwall? What is to stop me from leaving this place? Not that this job does not have it's perks- I am grateful, don't get me wrong, master." Marelda was merely fishing to see how much he really wanted her as his bride. If he actually cared about her, she might at least know then that she was safe. For the time being until his mood changed, at any rate. She began wrapping a clean bandage around him and he looked at her, his paw clinging to the frame of the cot tightly.

"Because I could give you everything you ever desired once I accomplish it- it being my master plan of overtaking all the lands." He said.

"And what material things do you think that I would desire so badly?" The weasel gurgled on her back and she began to sway slowly back and forth to amuse it.

"Who says it has to be merely material things? You are unlike any beast- ow!- I have ever met. Your place is not an advisor. I'm not sure it ever truly was. I am offering you a promotion, take it."

Marelda sighed inwardly with relief. "I would not settle for anything less than love. I would never be your bride. Your right hand beast? Quite possibly. But I am afraid I am perfectly content where I sit right now, above the rest." She finished washing his wound and swiftly secured a bandage around it, after having wiped away a strange green ooze. He winced, but didn't complain, so she went back to her cooking.

"And if I said that I did...love you?"

"I wouldn't believe a word of it. I'm not that gullible. I'm perfectly content just being an advisor. I don't want to be chained for anything less than perfection and this-"

"Could be perfection. It could be anything you wanted it to be, just say the word." She whirled around and saw him standing close. Her jaw dropped. Ferahgo had to be in a massive amount of pain- he was breathing hard, sweating and his words were pushed through gritted fangs. It was obviously quite an effort, and no beast in his body would've gotten up for anything less than something excruciatingly important.

"You need to sit. Now!" She tried to ease him back onto the bed, but he caught her paws. She began to get very nervous. He forced her to sit down on the cot beside him, even though sitting wasn't much less painful.

"Listen to me, Marelda. I don't know how to explain this to you, you know that I am not the type to show...emotion. I don't give a damn about any beast other than myself. But for some stupid reason I can't figure out, I give a damn about you. I have never felt like this before and I'm not even entirely sure of what it is or even if it is this 'love' thing that I could even express it. I present it to you as a promotion, and I promise you everything you desire. That silly babe is merely the perfect excuse to have you as my bride without any of my potential enemies seeing you as a weakness. You are cunning and I want you to be my right hand, but, I also want for us never to grapple for power and...I...I don't want you to ever leave me. Certainly not because of something as silly as a few thousand hectares of woodland."

"Ferahgo, the infection has gone to your head. You need to lay down and rest awhile." She tried again to make him relax, but again he wouldn't. It was easy to see he was in agony, but all his eyes betrayed was an unselfish passion, uncommon to his cool orbs of blue.

"I am not lying down until you tell me exactly what I want to hear and mean it, Marelda. You have two choices: you can either walk away and stay exactly as you are, or, you can stay and tell me you'll accept the job."

"That's all you want it to be to me? A job? Being with you forever as a job?"

"I don't want it to be that way, but how could anyone ever love me back? All I want is for you to say you'll never leave. You can have anything in the world, just agree to that one thing."

Marelda's eyes softened and something clicked deep inside her soul. She understood. She took his paw in hers almost without realizing it. There was something still alive in that cold, black abyss of a soul he owned. He had the capacity to love. The capacity to love her. He was a monster, that had not changed. But perhaps there was a reason for his madness. Perhaps everyone really could change. She was suddenly not apologetic for not leaving him to die the day before.

"I don't love you, Ferahgo. But with a little patience, it would not be hard to learn. It is not impossible to love you. It's merely too dangerous for many to want to try." She closed her eyes and tilted her head, leaning in closer to him- but the little bundle on her back began to wail, and she quickly snapped out of her near trance and tended to the rascal.

"So, is that a yes?" He asked rather softly. Marelda smiled and nodded, humming to the baby and rocking it to calm him.

"That is most definitely a yes."

The deadly murderer laid back on his cot with the largest grin on his face that she had ever seen a living creature wear. His muscles finally relaxed and she placed a cool cloth over his brow after she had finished tending to Klitch. She opened her mouth to say something else to her new fiancée, but she was interrupted...