about a year after I had settled into the cottage near the ruins of Forge, the wolf and I returned from a hunt to find change waiting in ambush for us. A yearling deer was heavy on my shoulders, making my old arrow scar ache and twinge. I was trying to decide if the comfort of a long soak in hot water was worth the pain of hauling the buckets and the wait for the water to heat when I heard the unmistakable sound of a shod hoof against stone. I eased our kill to the ground, and then Nighteyes and I ghosted a wide circle around the hut. There was nothing to see but a horse, still saddled, tied to a tree near my door. The rider was likely within our home. The horse flicked her ears as we sidled closer, aware of me, but not yet certain of alarm.
Hang back, my brother. If the horse scents wolf, she will neigh. If I go very softly, I might get close enough to see inside before she gives any warning.
Silent as the fog that cloaked us both, Nighteyes withdrew into a swirl of grey. I circled to the back of our cottage and then glided down to stand close to one wall. I could hear the intruder inside. A thief? I heard the clack of crockery, and the sound of water being poured. A thump was someone tossing a log on my fire. I knit my brows in puzzlement. Whoever it was, he seemed to be making himself at home. An instant later, I heard a voice lift in the refrain of an old song, and my heart turned over in me. Despite the years that had passed, I recognized Starling’s voice.
The howling bitch, Nighteyes confirmed for me. He’d caught her scent. As always, I winced wryly at how the wolf thought of the minstrel.
Let me go first. Despite knowing who it was, I was still wary as I approached my own door. This was no accident. She’d tracked me down. Why? What did she want of me?
‘Starling,’ I said as I opened the door. She spun to confront me, teapot in hand. Her eyes travelled me swiftly, then met my eyes and, ‘Fitz!’ she exclaimed happily, and lunged at me. She embraced me, and after a moment, I put my arms around her as well. She hugged me hard. Like most Buck women, she was small and dark, but I felt her wiry strength in her embrace.
‘Hello,’ I said uncertainly, looking down at the top of her head.
She tilted her face up at me. ‘Hello?’ she said incredulously. She laughed aloud at my expression. ‘Hello?’ She leaned away from me to set the teapot on the table. Then she reached up, seized my face between her hands and pulled me down to be kissed. I had just come in from the damp and the cold. The contrast between that and her warm mouth on mine was astonishing, as amazing as having a woman in my arms. She held me close and it was as if life itself embraced me again. Her scent intoxicated me. Heat rushed through me and my heart raced. I took my mouth from hers. ‘Starling,’ I began.
‘No,’ she said firmly. She glanced over my shoulder, then took both my hands and tugged me towards the sleeping alcove off the main room. I lurched after her, drunken with surprise. She halted by my bed and unbuttoned her shirt. When I just stared at her dumbly, she laughed and reached up to untie the laces of mine. ‘Don’t talk yet,’ she warned me. And she lifted my chilled hand and set it on one of her bared breasts.
At that moment, Nighteyes shouldered the door open and came into the cabin. Cold billowed into the warm room as fog. For an instant, he just looked at us. Then he shook the moisture from his coat. It was Starling’s turn to freeze. ‘The wolf. I’d almost forgotten … you still have him?’
‘We are still together. Of course.’ I started to lift my hand from her breast, but she caught my hand and held it there.
‘I don’t mind. I suppose.’ She looked uncomfortable. ‘But does he have to … be here?’
Nighteyes gave another shake. He looked at Starling and away. The chill in the room was not just from the door standing open. The meat will be cold and stiff if I wait for you.
Then don’t wait, I suggested, stung.
He drifted back outside into the fog. I sensed him closing his mind to us. Jealousy, or courtesy, I wondered. I crossed the room and shut the door. I stood by it, troubled by Nighteyes’ reaction. Starling’s arms came around me from behind and when I turned to her embrace, she was naked and waiting. I made no decision. That joining had happened between us in much the same way as night falls upon the land.
Thinking back on it, I wondered if she had planned it that way. Probably not. Starling had taken that part of my life with no more thought than she would give to picking a berry by the roadside. It was there, it was sweet, why not have it? We had become lovers with no declaration of love, as if our bedding was inevitable. Did I love her, even now, after all the years of her coming and going from my life?
Thinking such thoughts was as eerie as handling the artefacts Chade had brought from my old life. Once, such thoughts had seemed so important to me. Questions of love and honour and duty … I loved Molly, did Molly love me? Did I love her more than I loved my king, was she more important to me than my duty? As a youth, I had agonized over those questions, but with Starling, I had never even asked them until now.
Yet as ever, the answers were elusive. I loved her, not as a person carefully chosen to share my life, but as a familiar part of my existence. To lose her would be like losing the hearth from the room. I had come to rely on her intermittent warmth. I knew that I had to tell her that I could not continue as before. The dread I felt reminded me of how time had dragged and how I had clenched my soul against the healer digging the arrowhead from my back. I felt the same stiff apprehension of great pain to come.
I heard the rustling of my bedding as she awoke. Her footfall was light on the floor behind me. I did not turn to her as I poured the water over the tea. I suddenly could not look at her. Yet she did not come to me nor touch me. After a pause, she spoke.
‘So. Hap told you.’
‘Yes,’ I replied evenly.
‘And you’re determined to let it ruin everything between us.’
There seemed no answer to that.
Anger surged into her voice. ‘You’ve changed your name, but after all these years, you’ve not changed your ways. Tom Badgerlock is just as strait-laced a prude as FitzChivalry Farseer was.’
‘Don’t,’ I warned her, not of her tone but of that name. We had always taken great pains that Hap knew me only as Tom. I knew it was no accident that she spoke that name aloud now, but a reminder that she held my secrets.
‘I won’t,’ she assured me, but it was a knife sheathed. ‘I but remind you that you lead two lives, and you lead them very well. Why begrudge that to me?’
‘I don’t think of it that way. This is the only life I have now. And I but try to do by your husband as I would wish another man to do by me. Or will you tell me that he knows of me, and does not care?’
‘Exactly the opposite. He does not know, and therefore does not care. And if you look at it carefully, you will see it comes out to exactly the same thing.’
‘Not for me.’
‘Well, for a time it was the same for you. Until Hap saw fit to ruin it. You’ve inflicted your stiff standards on yet another young man. I hope you take great pride in knowing you’ve raised another moralistic, judgemental prig like yourself.’ Her words slapped me as she began to slam about the room, throwing her things together. I finally turned to look at her. Her colour was very high, her hair tousled from sleep. She wore only my shirt. The hem of it grazed her thighs. She halted when I turned to look at her and stared back at me. She drew herself up, as if to be sure I must see all I was refusing.
