Thinking such thoughts was as eerie as handling the artifacts Chade had brought from my old life. Once, such thoughts had seemed so important to me. Questions of love and honor 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 or 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 straitlaced 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, judgmental 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 color 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. “What does it hurt?” she demanded.
“Your husband, if he ever gets word of it,” I said quietly. “Hap gave me to understand he's a noble of some kind. Gossip can do more damage to that kind of man than a knife. Consider his dignity, the dignity of his house. Don't make him some old fool taken with a lively youngerwoman”Old fool?“ She looked perplexed. ”I don't... Hap told you he was old?"
I felt off balance. “He said he was a grand man...”
“Grand, yes, but scarcely old. Quite the opposite.” She smiled oddly, caught between pride and embarrassment. “He's twentyfour, Fitz. A fine dancer and strong as a young bull. What did you think, that I'd pastured myself out to warm some elderly lord's bed?”
I had. “I thought Ê”
She was suddenly almost defiant, as if I had belittled her. “He's handsome and he's charming, and he could have had his pick of any number of women. He chose me. And in my own way, I do, truly, love him. He makes me feel young and desirable and capable of real passion.”
“What did I make you feel?” I asked unwillingly, my voice low. I knew I was inviting more pain but I couldn't stop myself.
That puzzled her for a moment. “Comfortable,” she said at last, with no thought for my feelings. “Accepted and valued.” She smiled suddenly, and her expression cut me. “Generous, giving you what no one else would. And more. Worldly and adventurous. Like a bright songbird come to visit a wren.”
“You were that,” I conceded. I looked away from her, toward the window. “But no more, Starling. Never again. Perhaps you think my life a poor thing, but it is mine. I - , won't steal the crumbs from another man's table. I have that much pride.”