She only sobbed harder, clinging to me. Her horse shifted restlessly and stepped on his reins. One arm still around Starling, I managed to step sideways and catch hold of them. Calmness. Wait. I told him, and he lowered his head a trifle.

I held her, thinking she would stop crying soon, but still she wept. I had thought her heartless. Careless was a better word for her, like a child who takes what she wants with no thoughts for the consequences. I knew more than she about consequences, and I should have behaved better. I spoke quietly, and as I had hoped, her sobbing softened so she could hear my words. ‘I want you to know the truth about something. What I said last time, about thinking of Molly when you were in my arms. That wasn’t true. Never. It was an unworthy thing for me to say, belittling to both of you. When you were in my arms, you filled my senses. I’m sorry that I tried to hurt you with a lie.’ Her tears still did not calm. ‘Starling. Talk to me. What’s wrong?’

‘It’s not… it’s not all from you being cruel to me. It’s—’ She took a shuddering breath. ‘I think… I suspect my husband is… That night, he had said he had never realized how much he might want a child. Even though he cannot inherit and needs no heir of his own, he said that. And… and I think he is, or might be…’ Her voice trailed off, unable to form the words of her greatest dread.

‘Has he taken a mistress?’ I asked quietly.

‘I think so!’ she wailed suddenly. ‘When first we were wed, he wanted me every night! Well, I knew that would not last forever, but when his heat cooled, he still… but lately, he hardly seems to notice me. Even when I have been away from him for a few days, he no longer seems full of desire for me. He stays up late gaming with his friends, and comes to bed drunk. Dresses, jewelry, perfume, no matter how I adorn myself, he pays no heed.’ Her words came out in a flood with her tears. Her sleeve smeared her wet face without drying it. I found a handkerchief and offered it to her.

‘Thank you.’ She wiped her face again. She took a sudden deep breath that lifted her shoulders and exhaled it again. ‘I think he is tired of me. That he looks at me and sees an old woman. I stand before my glass, and I look at my breasts and my belly and the lines in my face… Fitz, have I aged that much? Do you think he regrets marrying a woman so many years older than he?’

I had no way of knowing the answers to her questions. I put my arm around her. ‘It’s cold here. Let’s keep walking,’ I said to gain a few moments to think. She kept her arm around my waist as we set off, her horse trailing us. For a time we both walked silently.

Then she said quietly, ‘I married him to be safe, you know. Finally safe. He did not need children, he had wealth, he was comely, and he found me exciting. I overheard him once, telling a friend what a keen pleasure it was that he never needed to introduce me as other than his wife. That my name as the Queen’s minstrel was known to all. He took such satisfaction in my fame that it gave me new pride in it. When he asked me to marry him and always be his, it was… it was like coming into safe harbour, Fitz. After all the years of wondering what would become of me when my voice faded or if I fell out of favor with the Queen. I never thought that to have him I must lose you. Then, when you insisted that was so, well… I was angry with you. I had come to think of our times together as a thing we owned. It shocked me that you could take them away from me, whether I would or not. But even so, I still had my Lord Fisher. And I told myself that losing you was a small price to pay for security when I was old.’

She fell silent for a time and the wind blew between us. I thought she had finished and then she said, ‘But if he takes a mistress and gets her with child, or merely finds her more interesting than me… then I will have lost you for nothing, and still come up with my nets empty.’

‘Starling. How can you imagine that Queen Kettricken and Chade would ever let you lack for anything? You know you will always be provided for.’

She sighed and suddenly looked older. ‘A bed and food and clothes to my back. Those things, I suppose, I shall be sure of. But a time will come when my voice fails and my lungs cannot hold the notes long. A time will come when no one finds me comely or desirable. And then all regard for me will fade and Starling the Minstrel will become Starling the Crone in the Corner. And I will not be important to anyone. No one will hold me high in regard. I will still, in the end, be alone.’

I saw Starling from a new perspective. Perhaps it had always been the only perspective she had. Starling operated solely out of her own needs. She was a good musician, even excellent, but she did not have the brilliance that led to eternal fame. She was also a woman who could not bear children, and thus would always fear losing her man to another woman’s charms and fertility. And as she aged and her beauty began to fade, that fear would only increase. With no children to bind her husband to her, she feared to lose him when the excitement of her bed palled. Perhaps that had been a great part of my charm for her; that I had always found her desirable, that I had never wearied of her body. In addition, I had been something that she had possessed, a powerful secret that she was privy to, as well as a lover and a man who never asked more of her than what she so casually offered. Bereft of my unquestioning enthusiasm for her body, and faced with her husband’s fading ardour, she had begun to wonder if her desirability was fading. Yet I could neither sweep her into an hour of lovemaking to prove to her that she was still womanly, nor assure her that his husband still loved her. I tried to think of something I could offer her.

I stopped her suddenly, turned and held her at arm’s length. I pretended to appraise both her face and her body, as if making judgement about her. In truth, I could only see her as Starling, not as another might. But I managed a grin and told her ‘If your husband does not find you desirable, then he is a fool. I am sure that any number of men at Buckkeep would be very willing to share your bed. Myself among them, were circumstances different.’ I tried to look thoughtful. ‘Shall I tell him so?’

‘No!’ she exclaimed, and then managed to laugh, although it was a fragile thing. I took her hand to keep her at a more appropriate distance from me and we walked a bit farther down the road. ‘Fitz,’ she asked in a small voice some time later. ‘Do you still care for me, at all?’

I knew I could not let that question hang unanswered for long. And, in fact, the truth was right before me. ‘Yes. I do.’ I met her eyes as we walked. ‘You’ve hurt me sometimes. You’ve said some cruel things to me, and acted in ways I don’t approve of. And I’ve done the same to you. But, it’s as you said, Starling: fifteen years. When people have that much history together, they tend to take everything for granted. We accept as given the faults as well as the graces. How many songs have you sung before my hearth, for me alone? How many meals have I cooked for you? Fifteen years of knowing one another goes past likes and dislikes, into simple being. We’ve been careless of one another’s feelings, even as Chade and I are careless of one another. Because we trust that what we are and what we know from all the years are more important than words flung in anger.’

‘I deceived you,’ she said after a time, quietly.

‘Yes. You did.’ I found I could speak without rancour. ‘And I disappointed you. And just as I felt I had the right to decide what I would do with my life, regardless of what you thought about it, so did you. You married. I chose obscurity. Both those decisions came between us. Not just yours. But let me assure you of one thing. No matter how the years may pass for us, even though we never share a bed again, when we are old I will still hold you high in my regard. Always.’