Fool's Assassin - Страница 47

Another year passed and Bee slowly grew. Our lives changed, for Molly centered her days on our daughter and I circled the two of them, marveling at what they shared. By the time Bee was seven, she was a genuine help to her mother, in her simple way. I could see Molly was slowing and feeling the burden of her years. Bee could pick up what Molly had dropped, could harvest the herbs that Molly pointed out or bring her items from the lowest shelves in the sewing room.

She looked like a little pecksie as she followed her mother and assisted in her small ways. Molly had the softest wool dyed in the brightest colors she could create, as much to make Bee happy as to make her easy to see in the deep grass of the meadows. She was no taller than waist-high on Molly when she was seven. Her pale-blue eyes and blond brows lent her a perpetually startled expression, and her wildly curly hair added to it. Her hair flew into stubborn knots at the slightest breeze and grew so slowly that Molly despaired of her ever looking like a girl. Then, when it did reach her shoulders in a wild cloud of fine ringlets, it was so fine that Molly resorted to wetting it, combing it, and braiding it in a long tail down her back. They came to show me, with my little girl dressed in a simple yellow tunic and green leggings of the sort that Molly and I had worn as children. I smiled to see her and told Molly, “That’s the smallest warrior I’ve ever seen!”—for so the soldiers of Buck had always worn their hair tailed back. Bee surprised me by crowing with delight at my comment.

And so our days passed, and Molly took great pleasure in our peculiar child and I took satisfaction in her pleasure. Despite her years, Molly would romp like a child with our Bee, seizing her and tossing her high, or chasing her recklessly around and sometimes through the manicured flower and herb beds of Patience’s garden. Round and round they would go until Molly was wheezing and coughing for breath. Bee would halt as soon as Molly did and go to stand close to her mother and look up at her with fond concern. There were times when I longed to join in, to spring out and pounce on my cub and roll her on the grass to hear her laugh. But I knew that would not be the response I would get from her.

For despite Molly’s assurance that our child did not dislike me, Bee remained distant from me. She rarely came closer than arm’s length, and if I sat down near her to see her little bit of needlework, she would always hunch her shoulders and turn slightly away from me. She seldom met my eyes. On a few occasions, when she fell asleep beside Molly in her chair, I would pick her up and try to carry her off to her bed. But at my touch, awake or asleep, she would stiffen and then arch like a fighting fish, flinging herself away from me. It would be a struggle for me to set her safely down, and after a number of efforts I gave up trying to touch her. I think Molly was relieved when I surrendered to Bee’s will in this.

So Molly tended to all Bee’s personal needs. She taught our child to keep herself clean, and to tidy her room as much as such a small person was able. Molly had a small bed built for her, and bedding of a matching size. She was required to keep her playthings in order and to do all things for herself as if she were a peasant child. Of this, I approved.

Molly taught her to gather from the woods mushrooms, berries, and herbs that we could not easily grow in our gardens. In the gardens and hothouses, I would find them together, picking caterpillars from leaves or gathering herbs to dry. I would pass Molly’s wax room and see small Bee standing on the table, holding a wick straight as Molly carefully poured hot wax. There they strained the golden honey from the combs and packed it into fat little pots for our winter sweetness.

They made a perfect unit, Molly and Bee. It came to me that though Bee was not the child I had dreamed we would have, she was perfect for Molly. She was utterly devoted to her mother, intent on every shift of the expression on her face. If, in their closeness, they closed me out, I tried not to resent it. Molly deserved the joy she took in this child.

So I was content to hover at the edges of their world, a moth at a window, looking in at warmth and light. Slowly I began to forsake my private study, and instead to take my translation work to the room where Bee had been born. By the time Bee was seven, I spent almost every evening in that warmly lit room. Molly’s softly flickering candles scented it with heather and lavender, or sage or rose, depending on her mood. She and Bee would do simple stitching together, while Molly softly sang the old learning songs about herbs and bees and mushrooms and flowers.

I was at my work one evening, the fire crackling softly and Molly humming over some embroidery she was working onto the neck of a little red nightgown for Bee, when I became aware that my daughter had left off sorting skeins of thread for her mother and had approached my table. I was careful not to look at her. It was as if a hummingbird hovered near me. I could not recall that she had ever voluntarily come so close to me. I feared that if I turned, she would flee. And so I continued painstakingly to copy the old illustration on a scroll about the properties of nightshade and its relatives. It asserted that one branch of the family that grew in desert regions bore red fruit that could be eaten. I was skeptical of such a claim for a toxic plant, but nonetheless I copied the text and did my best to reproduce the illustrations of leaves, starry flowers, and hanging fruit. I had begun to ink the flowers in with yellow. This, I surmised, was what had brought Bee to my shoulder. I listened to her open-mouthed breathing and became aware that Molly was no longer humming. I did not need to turn my head to know she was watching our child with as much curiosity as I felt.

A small hand touched the edge of my table and spidered slowly to the edge of the page I was working on. I pretended not to notice. I dipped my brush again and added another yellow petal. As softly as a pot bubbling on the hearth, Bee murmured something. “Yellow,” I said, as if I were Molly pretending to know her thoughts. “I’m painting the little flower yellow.”

Again, the bubbling mutter, this time a bit louder with more of a plea in it.

“Green,” I told her. I lifted the vial of ink and showed it to her. “The leaves will be this green at the edges. And I will mix green and yellow for the center, and green and black for the veins of the leaves.”

The little hand fumbled at the corner of my page. Her fingers lifted it and tugged. “Careful!” I cautioned her and received a cascade of bubbling muttering in a pleading tone.

“Fitz,” Molly gently rebuked me. “She’s asking you for paper. And a quill and ink.”

I transferred my gaze to Molly. She met my eyes steadily, her brows raised that I could be either so stupid or so unreasonable. The happily affirmative note in Bee’s babbling seemed to confirm that she was right. I looked down at Bee. She lifted her face and looked past me, but did not retreat. “Paper,” I said, and did not hesitate as I took a sheet of the best-quality paper that Chade had sent to me. “A quill.” It was one I had just cut. “And ink.” I slid a small well of black ink across the table. I set the paper and the quill on the edge of my desk. Bee stood silent for a moment. Her mouth worked and then she pointed a small finger and trilled at me.

“Colored ink,” Molly specified and Bee gave a wriggle of delight. I surrendered.

“We’ll have to share, then,” I told her. I moved a chair to the other side of my table, set a cushion on it, and then arranged Bee’s supplies where she could reach them. She surprised me with the alacrity with which she mounted to this throne.

“You dip just the pointed end of the quill into the inkpot …” I began. I stopped. I had ceased to exist in Bee’s world. Her entire focus was on the pen that she carefully inked and then set to her page. I froze and watched the child. Obviously she had been observing me for some time. I had expected her to dunk the quill and smear ink across the page. Instead her little hand moved with precision.

Her effort was not without blotches and drips. No one uses a pen correctly the very first time. But the image that emerged onto the page was intricately and intimately drawn. In silence, she filched my pen wipe, cleaned the quill. She blew on the black ink to dry it and claimed the yellow and then the orange ink. I watched in rapt silence, scarce aware when Molly drew near. A bee, exactly the scale of a live one, emerged from the pen onto the paper. There came a moment when our Bee heaved a huge sigh of satisfaction, as if she had consumed the perfect meal, and stood back from her work. I examined it without moving closer to her, the delicate antennae, the panes of the wings, and the bright bands of yellow shaded to orange.

“It’s her name, isn’t it?” I said quietly to Molly.

Bee shot me a rare look that met my eyes and then skated away. Her annoyance with me was plain. She drew the paper closer as if to protect it from me and hunched over it. The pen once more visited the black well and then scratched carefully over the paper. I glanced at Molly, who wore a proud and secretive smile. I watched in growing suspense until Bee leaned back from the page. There, in careful characters that mirrored Molly’s hand, was lettered “Bee.”

I was not aware my mouth was hanging open until Molly put her fingers under my chin and pushed it shut. Tears welled in my eyes. “She can write?”

“Yes.”

I took a breath and carefully capped my excitement. “But only her name. Does she understand they are letters? That they mean something?”