Chapter 343: I Told You Not To Come Back

His face stopped.

It went absolutely still. The grin froze, and something shivered behind his eyes, and for a moment he seemed to forget how to breathe.

"Rowan."

"She said to tell you she’s well." Her voice was shaking. "She said she’s sorry she hasn’t written. She’s been very busy. She’s got a very good position."

"She...."

"She’s nearly running the palace."

"She is?"

"She says she nearly is."

Thomas made a noise.

It was a very small noise, not like his laugh at all. He pressed his flour-white fist against his mouth, and his huge shoulders shook. His eyes squeezed shut. A single great tear rolled down his cheek and fell into his beard.

"My girl," he said, behind the fist. "My girl. Gods. She’s all right."

"She’s all right."

"She hasn’t....nobody’s...."

"Nobody’s hurt her. I promise. She’s the bravest person I know. She’s got a grey hair."

"At seventeen?"

"She says it’s my fault."

Thomas laughed.

It was wet, and ragged, and broke in the middle. He wiped his face with both hands. Then he reached out and hugged her again, more gently this time, and rocked her a little from side to side.

"Thank you," he said, into her hair. "Thank you, lass. For looking after her."

"She looks after me."

"I thought she might."

When he let her go, his eyes were red and bright.

"Your soldiers are in my loft," he said. "Three of them. Hobb and the two lads. They eat like horses. The others are at your Ma’s." He nodded toward the cottage at the end of the lane. "They’ll be glad to see you. And...." He stopped. His eyes lifted, past her shoulder, to the two men on horseback, and widened very slightly.

"Is that..."

"Yes," said Morgana.

"Are they...."

"Yes."

"Both?"

"Yes."

"Gods," said Thomas, faintly.

He bowed.

It was a very deep bow, with a great deal of belly in it, and he came up red as a beet. He wiped his hands on his apron, and looked as though he wanted to say something, and could not think what. In the end, he said, with enormous dignity:

"Would you gentlemen like some bread?"

"Thank you," said Draeven gravely. "We would be honored."

"Take two."

"We will."

"Take three." Thomas thrust two loaves up at them, one in each hand. "And when it’s over, come back, and I’ll do you a proper dinner. There’s a goose." He swallowed. "Only mind the lady’s mother. She doesn’t like kings."

"No?" said Kaelen.

"Not one bit."

"I’ll take that under advisement."

"See that you do," said Thomas. "She’s got a very good arm."

***

The cottage stood at the end of the lane, where the cobbles gave out and the ground turned to grass.

It was small and low, with a thatched roof gone silver in the dusk and walls of whitewashed stone. A single window glowed yellow. A thin thread of smoke rose from the crooked chimney, straight up into the still air. Beside the door, a barrel for rainwater stood under the eaves, and a bench, and a row of pots with the last of the autumn herbs. A faint warm smell of woodsmoke and thyme drifted across the grass.

She stopped at the gate.

She did not move. She could not. She stood with her hand on the top rail, with the cold wood under her palm, and looked at the door. It was the same door. It had a brass knocker in the shape of a hare, polished bright. There was a faint dent in the lintel where she’d hit her head at nine, running in with a basket of eggs.

Someone moved in the window.

It was only a shadow. A shape against the light, a hand twitching the curtain. And then the curtain dropped, and the door flew open, and a woman stood on the threshold with a ladle in her fist and her chin lifted like a challenge.

"I told you," said Elara, "not to come."

Morgana’s whole body went still.

She looked so different. That was the thing that struck her first, the way a blow strikes. She was so small. She had always been small, a compact brisk woman with brown hair and a sunburned face, but now she looked like something blown away to its bones. Her hair, once dark, was streaked with white. Her cheeks were hollow. Her gown, the old green wool, hung on her like a sack on a post. The hand that held the ladle was thin as a bird’s claw.

But her eyes were the same.

They were grey-green, and sharp, and blazing. They fixed on Morgana’s face across the little garden, and in them was a fury so complete and so familiar that something in Morgana’s chest cracked clean in two.

"I know," she said.

"I told you."

"I know, Ma."

"I said, in the letter, don’t come home. I said it in the message. I said it three times." The ladle shook. "I sent a boy halfway across the kingdom to tell you."

"I know."

"And you came anyway."

"Yes."

"You great fool...."

Her voice broke.

It happened all at once. The anger went out of her face like a candle flame in a wind, and what was left underneath was only a tired, frightened, thin-skinned woman with tears pouring down her face. The ladle fell from her fingers. It struck the step with a clang. She put both hands over her mouth.

"Ma," said Morgana.

She was running.

She didn’t remember the path. She only knew that the grass was soft underfoot, and the door was very near, and then her mother’s arms were around her, thin and strong and shaking, and her mother’s face was pressed into her neck, and her mother’s voice, muffled and cracked, was saying, "My Morgana. My Morgana. My girl."

She held on.

She held on so tightly that she could feel the frail ribs under her arms, the sharp small shoulder blades, the faint hard tremble of a body that had been holding itself upright by sheer will for a very long time. She buried her face in her mother’s hair. It smelled of woodsmoke and thyme, and under it, very faint, of illness. A sour, dry, medicinal smell, like old paper.

"You’re so thin," she whispered.