'A fine time to call me "mother", after all these years,' she sniffed, then added: 'And what would Burrich have known about anything, unless it had four legs and hooves?' But she put her tear-wet hands on my cheeks and drew me forward to kiss me on the brow. She sat back and looked down at me severely. The tip of her nose was very pink. 'I'll have to forgive you now. Eda knows, I may drop dead tomorrow, and angry as I am with you, I still would not wish you to walk about the rest of your life regretting that I had died before I forgave you. But that does not mean I'm going to stop being angry with you, nor that Lacey has to stop being angry with you. You deserve it.' She sniffed loudly. Lacey passed her a kerchief. The old serving woman's face rebuked me as she took her seat at the table. More clearly than ever, I saw how the years together had erased the lines between lady and maid.

'Yes. I do.'

'Well, get up. I've no desire to get a crick in my neck staring at you down there. Why on earth are you dressed as a guardsman? And why have you been so foolish as to come back to Buckkeep Castle? Don't you know there are still people who would love to see you dead! You are not safe here, Tom. When I return to Tradeford, you shall come with me. Perhaps I can pass you off as a gardener or a wayward cousin's son. Not that I shall allow you to touch my plants. You know nothing about gardens and flowers.'

I came to my feet slowly and could not resist saying, 'I could help with the weeding. I know what a marigold looks like, even when it isn't in flower.'

'There! You see, Lacey! I forgive him and the next word out of his mouth is to mock me!' Then she covered her mouth suddenly, as if to suppress another sob. The tendons and blue veins stood out on the back of her hand. Behind it, she drew a sharp breath, and then said, 'I think I'll have my brandy now.' She lifted her cup and sipped from it. She glanced at me over the brim, and more tears suddenly spilled. She set the cup down hasI'lly, shaking her head. 'You're here and alive. I don't know what I've got to weep about. Except sixteen years and a grandchild, lost to me forever. How could you, you wretch! Account for them. Account for yourself and what you've been doing that was so very important you couldn't come home to us.'

And suddenly, all the very good reasons I'd had for not going to her seemed trivial. I could have found a way. I heard myself say aloud, 'If I hadn't given my pain to the stone dragon, I think I would have found a way, however risky. Maybe you have to keep your pain and loss to know that you can survive whatever life deals you. Perhaps without putting your pain in its place in your life, you become something of a coward.'

She slapped the table in front of her, then exclaimed in pain at her stinging fingers. 'I didn't want a moral lecture, I wanted an accounting. With no excuses!'

I've never forgotten the apples you threw to me through the bars of my cell. You and Lacey were incredibly brave to come to me in the dungeons, and to take my part when few others dared to.'

'Stop it!' she hissed indignantly as her eyes filled with tears again. 'Is this how you get your pleasure these days? Making old ladies weep over you?'

'I don't mean to.'

'Then tell me what happened to you. From the last time I saw you.'

'My lady, I would love to. And I will, I promise. But, when I encountered you, I was on a pressing errand of my own- One that I should complete before I lose the daylight. Let me go, and I promise that I'll be back tomorrow, to give a full accounting.I

'No. Of course not. What errand?I

'You recall my friend, the Fool? He has fallen ill. I need to take him some herbs to ease him, and food and wine.I

'That pasty-faced lad? He was never a healthy child. Ate too much fish, if you ask me. That will do that to you.'

'I'll tell him. But I need to go see him.I

'When did you last see him?'

'Yesterday.'

'Well, it has been sixteen long years since you've seen me. He can wait his turn.'

'But he is not well.'

She clashed her teacup as she set it down on the saucer. 'Neither am I!' she exclaimed, and fresh tears began to well.

Lacey came to pat her shoulders. Over Patience's head, she said to me, 'She is not always rational. Especially when she is tired. We only arrived this morning. I told her that she should rest, but she wanted a bit of air in the gardens.I

'And what, pray, is irrational about that?' Patience demanded.

'Nothing,' I said hasI'lly. 'Nothing at all. Come. I've an idea. Lie down on your bed, and I shall sit beside you where you are comfortable, and begin my tale. And if you drowse off, I shall quietly take my leave, and come back to continue it tomorrow. For sixteen years cannot be told in an hour, or even in a day.'

'It will take sixteen years to tell sixteen years,' Patience told me sternly. 'Help me up, then. I'm stiff from travelling, you know.'

I gave her my arm and she leaned on it as I escorted her to her bed. She groaned as she sat down on it, and as the feather bed gave beneath her, she muttered, 'Much too soft. I'll never be able to sleep on this. Do they think I'm a hen, setting in a nest?' Then, as she lay back and I helped her lift her feet onto the bed she said, 'You've quite ruined my surprise, you know. Here, I was all set to summon a grandchild to me and reveal to her that she was well born of noble blood, and pass on to her keepsakes of her father's. Oh, help me take my shoes off. When did my feet get so far away from my hands/'

'You don't have your shoes on. I think you left your slippers in the garden.'

'And whose fault is that? Startling us that way. It's a wonder I didn't forget my head down there.'

I nodded, noting but not commenting that her stockings didn't match. Patience had never cared much for detail. 'What sort of keepsakes/' I asked.

'It scarcely matters now. As you are alive, I intend to keep them.'

'What were they?' I asked, intensely curious.

'Oh. A painting you gave me, don't you know? And, when you were dead, I took a lock of your hair. I've worn it in a locket ever since.' While I was speechless, she leaned up on an elbow. 'Lacey, come have a lie down for a bit. You know I don't like you to be too far away if I need you. Your hearing isn't what it used to be.' To me, she confided, 'They've given her a narrow little bed in a closet of a room. Fine if your maid is a slip of a girl, but hardly appropriate for a mature woman. Lacey!'

'I'm right here, dearie. You needn't shout.' The old serving woman came round to the other side of the bed. She looked a bit uncomfortable at the prospect of lying down in front of me, as if I might think it improper that she should share a lady's bed. It made perfect sense to me. 'I am tired,' she admitted as she sat down. She had brought a shawl, and she spread it over Patience's legs.

I brought a chair to the edge of the bed and sat down backwards on it. 'Where should I begin?' I asked her.

'Begin by sitting on that chair properly!' And after I had corrected that, she said, 'Don't tell me what that vile pretender did to you to kill you. I saw enough of it on your body and I could not bear it then. Tell me, instead, how you survived.'

I thought briefly, considering. 'You know I am Witted.'

'I thought you might be,' she conceded. She yawned. 'And?'

And so I launched into my tale. I told her of seeking refuge in my wolf, and how Burrich and Chade had called me back to my body. I told her of my slow recovery, and of Chade's visit. I thought she had drowsed off then, but when I tried to rise, her eyes flew open. 'Sit down!' she commanded me, and when I had done so, she took my hand, as if to keep me from creeping away. 'I'm listening. Go on.'

I told her of Burrich leaving, and of the Forged Ones. I explained to her how Burrich had come to believe I had died there, and returned to Molly to protect her and the child she carried. I told her of my long journey from Buck to Tradeford, and of Regal's King's Circle there. She opened one eye. 'It's all a garden, now. I've plants and trees and flowers from all over the Six Duchies and beyond. Monkey-tail vine from Jamaillia, and blue-needle bush from the Spice Isles. And a lovely herb-knot in the very middle of where it used to be. You'd like it, Tom. You will like it, when you come to live with me.'