Chapter Eight

The Past and the Present

Dusk had started to settle over the village of Simnel as I wandered back.

It suited the village: the encroaching darkness left the buildings hazy, gray shadows, marked out by the jolly firelight that illuminated their insides. I thought, oddly, that this was what Heaven might look like (a place not typically associated with fire, but even the great god has to keep warm); gauzy insubstantial homes but warm within. Spiritual on the outside, cozy on the inside, filled with light and laughter, for that too spilled out from the windows and rolled up to meet me.

Were all country villages this happy? What did they know that we in the Gath didn't? Why were people who apparently had so little so much happier than those who had so much? The people of the royal court had mostly anything their hearts desired and I couldn't recall seeing any of them as happy as these people seemed to be. Maybe that was the problem; if you had everything you desired, then what could make you happy? If you were wanting for so much, then the small happinesses became bigger ones.

All very philosophical, but I wondered how much laughter would be coming from the house on the outskirts to which I was heading.

Most of the goats had made their way into a straw-lined lean-to for the night, though two of the littler ones were still out, running rings around each other in chaotic fashion, butting heads from time to time.

They reminded me a little of Nicolo and Balduin.

"You'll grow up to hate each other," I muttered.

The house's windows put forth the warm glow that was standard for Simnel, but I heard no laughter from within. No shouting either, which was something. Proteus remained tied up next to Amber so presumably he was still there. It would probably be tactful to simply go in, make my presence known and then excuse myself to some other room so they could continue to talk in peace.

But, although I'd consciously shed my profession of assassin earlier this afternoon, the habits that went with the job were discarded less easily. I wanted to know what was being said, and I was quiet enough to listen in without them realizing.

As I crept closer to the house, I began to hear more clearly the hum of voices from within, low and earnest. Sidling up to the window, I turned my back to the wall so I could listen but still keep my gaze outwards—Nicolo's mother had a husband somewhere called Ranolf, and I didn't know where he was. He might be inside as well, but if he was on his way home from work, I didn't want him coming back to find a well-dressed girl listening at his window.

"… ever again." The voice was female and had a maturity to it that suggested it was Maria, Nicolo's mother.

"Never?" asked Nicolo.

"I wish I could tell you more, Nicolo."

"So, he left me." I could hear the sadness in Nicolo's voice.

"I always got the impression he didn't want to," Maria went on. "That there was something calling him back. Back… wherever he came from. I don't know what sort of life it would have been for him here. On the one hand, I'd have wished you had a father—and the great god knows I'd have liked the help in the hard years that followed your birth—but he'd have suffered the same treatment as you, my son. They'd only have feared him, just as they did you. And you had the protection of being a child, Nicolo. They turned us out of the village, yes, but they didn't try to hurt you. But a fully grown man? I daresay, they'd have beaten him or stoned him as the demon they were sure you were. I thought his eyes beautiful," her voice softened. "But all they could see was someone different to them, and different was the mark of the Devil."

"The devil," murmured Nicolo. I guessed he hadn't told his mother that there were many who thought him the Devil now, and perhaps they had more cause to believe as much.

"That was how I wound up here in Simnel," Maria went on. "There are none here quite like you—so vividly colored and bright in the eyes. But there are a smattering of those who show the marks from a few generations back. Those with violet eyes more watered down—a grandparent or great grandparent, perhaps."

"Do any of them…" Nicolo paused to phrase the question. "Do they have any unusual abilities?"

"You mean the healing."

"Yes." I could hear the desperate fascination in Nicolo's voice, but he was to be disappointed.

"No. They are all too far removed from the original bloodline, I believe. Some of the old folk talk about it as something that used to happen, but none know the details, nor why some possessed strange abilities but not others."

"I understand." In another situation I thought Nicolo might have been disappointed to have his inquiries cut short, but today it seemed nothing could disappoint him.

"But they understand here," Maria went on. "About those like you. They don't fear the violet eyes. And although I no longer had you, I felt happier amongst people who would have welcomed you if… if you ever came back."

I could picture the smile between them; he had indeed come back.

"By the great god and all the saints," Maria's voice became more emotional, "I wished I had known of this place when you were a babe. We would have been safe here, my love. Safe and happy and…" I could hear the tears start to inflect her voice and imagined Nicolo putting an arm around his mother to comfort her.

"I'm here now, mother."

"And you were happy? Weren't you? They weren't cruel to you?"

"No," said Nicolo, softly. "Not cruel. Indulgent really. Perhaps I could have used a mother to slap me ‘round the head and tell me off."

"You're a bit big for that now," Maria laughed through her tears.

"Well… I still probably need it from time to time."

I could vouch for that.

"But, yes. I was happy enough," he continued on a sigh. "I had everything I wanted. Except one thing. And… you?"

"The same I suppose," Maria said the words with a sigh, but not a tearful one. From what I could gather, it hadn't been a bad life for her, and her son would be as glad of that revelation as she was that his hadn't been bad either. "I met a good man, here in Simnel, raised more children—all healthy and happy, the great god be praised. All I could ask for. Except one thing."

Straining my ears a little, I could hear a child playing somewhere in the house.

"How many children did you have?" asked Nicolo, maybe a little jealously.

"Four more after you. Ranolf's children. Two boys, two girls. The eldest is married herself now, if you can believe that, and expecting her first. Little Peri is my youngest. It's him you can hear upstairs. You can always hear Peri; he got his father's lungs."

Nicolo laughed.

"And you?" pressed Maria. "Are you married, my son?"

Master Nicolo married? Ha!

"No," admitted Nicolo, and I found it slightly amusing that he sounded guilty admitting as much to his mother.

"What about that woman who rode in with you?" asked Maria. "Such a pretty young thing, though she was dressed most strangely."

Nicolo chuckled at the mention of me and my strange getup. "That's Charlotte," said Nicolo, and I tried to read his voice for whatever subtle double-meaning I could find in his pronunciation of the two syllables of my name.

"Pretty name, too."

"She's my squire," Nicolo explained, making my heart sink. "And… and, well, she's Charlotte."

"She must be special," said Maria, endearing herself to me even more than she already had.

"Yes, she's exceedingly special," said Nicolo with fondness in his tone. Then he sighed. "But I'm not sure I am."

There was a long pause during which, I was sure, many significant things were said with eyes, expressions and body language to which I was irritatingly not privy.

"You are very special, my son," Maria said, her voice softer than I'd yet heard it.

"If there are others similar to me here," Nicolo returned to his earlier subject, "does that mean my father came from these parts?"

"Not from around here as such," Maria replied. "You'll not see anyone like your father here in Simnel. But your father came—I suppose—from over the hills. I met him when I was little more than a girl."

"How did you meet him?"

"I was away from home for the first time and… Well, it was all a whirlwind. A matter of weeks and our courtship was over. Of course, I didn't know about you when I said goodbye to him." She paused. "I've often thought about going over the hills to see what became of him, but… It's all so long ago now. It was what it was and what it was, was wonderful. I wouldn't change a thing. Except maybe… I suppose I should have liked to tell him he had a son. For all I know, he has a brace of them by now, all with those violet eyes of yours—as I suppose all his people have. But to have a son and not know it… well... Maybe what you don't have, you don't miss."

"I wouldn't say that," replied Nicolo, his low voice lower still.

"No," agreed Maria. "No, I don't suppose I would either."

Another long pause, and I wondered what their eyes were saying to each other while I wasn't looking.

"I didn't know," said Nicolo, finally.

"You didn't know…?"

"Where you were," he explained, hurriedly. "Or even… I didn't know that you were still alive. They let me think…"

"I understand."

It was interesting to me that he used the word ‘ they' . He meant the Old Queen, because she was the one who'd made the decision to steal Nicolo away from his mother, but it seemed Nicolo couldn't quite bring himself to blame her. I was certain he harbored a genuine affection for Queen Nell because she'd shown him a mother's kindness when he couldn't even remember his own.

"If I'd known," Nicolo went on, more emotion in his voice than I'd ever heard, "then I would have come."

"You did come."

"I would have come sooner."

"You're here now and that's all that matters, my son."

"Yes, I am here." It was such a definite statement. Declarative: I am here .

Turning away from the window, I walked to the door, because it sounded as if that part of their conversation was at an end, and I was getting cold and hungry out here.

The door was answered by a sturdy-looking man with steel gray hair and I explained who I was.

"You'd better come in," the man said, with a friendly smile. "Your master is talking to my wife."

So, this was Ranolf. Based on twenty seconds acquaintance, he seemed a nice man and I hoped Nicolo's mother had been very happy with him through the years.

"Master Nicolo!" Ranolf called. "Your servant is here."

I did want to correct that to ‘squire' but let it go.

"Charlotte?" Nicolo came into the hall and glanced at a window. "It's dark outside."

"Yes, Master. That's what happens when night falls."

"She calls you ‘Master'?" Maria followed Nicolo into the hall and I got my first good look at the woman whom ‘The Unbreakable' called ‘Mother'.

Maria was in every respect a country woman, solidly made and weathered by time. She was a handsome woman and looked to be in her middle forties—young to be expecting a first grandchild. There was something about her face that made her seem… gentle. It was a kind face. A few days ago, it would have been the last face I would have expected to be related to Master Nicolo but now… maybe it was exactly what I expected.

"Ours is a layered relationship," said Nicolo, answering his mother. "And top amongst those layers is that of master and squire. That is how we met and in some ways, it's hard to move beyond that."

I didn't like that last bit, especially after everything that had passed between us most recently.

"I'd love to hear how you met," said Maria, addressing me.

"It's a long story," objected Nicolo.

"No, it's really not."

"Charlotte."

"I think I'll leave you three to it," said Ranolf, giving Nicolo a bright smile as if to say he realized Nicolo had his hands full. He turned to me and gave a respectful bow. "My name is Ranolf. It's a pleasure to meet you—"

"Charlotte," I replied. "And likewise."

"He seems like a good man," said Nicolo, after Ranolf had left.

"He is," smiled Maria. "And a good husband." She turned to me. "Charlotte, I am pleased to meet you."

"As am I, you, ma'am," I affected as good a curtsey as I could manage.

Maria hastily waved this off. "Please. My name is Maria. And you should call him Nicolo." She looked at her son and her smile widened. "None of this ‘master' stuff."

Nicolo rolled his eyes. It was amazing how little time it took for a son to be embarrassed by the mother he hadn't seen since he was a child.

"Why don't you come and join us?" Maria went on. "We were just having a chat before supper. I'd love to hear all about my Nicky from someone else."

My amusement at hearing my master called ‘Nicky' was cut short as I saw the slightly desperate look he shot me. It was only momentary, but I read it instantly; he didn't want his mother to know too much about the man he'd become.

There was a sadness to that. The Old Queen had said something along those lines to him before he left, about the man he'd become after she'd brought him to the Gath. For the first time, I thought Nicolo understood what she'd meant.

"Are you hungry?" asked Maria.

"I am rather," I admitted.

"You'll stay to sup, won't you?"

I shot a look at Nicolo.

He nodded. "We'd love to stay, if it's no trouble."

"It's no trouble at all," Maria assured, "I miss cooking for a big family." She smiled at me. "I think the best way for two people to get to know each other is over food. And I feel that I would like to get to know you better, Charlotte."

"Thank you," I smiled, not really certain what more to say. This was all so strange and quite awkward. We smiled at each other for the nth time and now Nicolo was smiling as well, apparently glad to see his mother's reaction to me. No doubt, it was important to him, even if he did not yet understand why.

***

I liked Maria more or less instantly (partly because I'd eavesdropped on her) and supper made me like her more. She had an easy openness to her, welcoming people into her home and making them feel more like family than guests. Of course, Nicolo was her family, but I wasn't and yet, by the time supper was over and young Cady was cleaning and putting the dishes away, I felt entirely at home.

We kept heavy subjects off the table over supper, perhaps because Maria didn't wish to explain to the two children she still had at home, who these people were. But that omission made our evening feel more natural; we talked of everyday things, and so I got to know Nicolo's new family through thoroughly mundane things.

Ranolf was a carpenter, whose workshop adjoined the house; like stonemasons in Woodfall Gath, there was always work for a carpenter in Simnel, and Ranolf was skilled at his profession, both as an artisan and an artist. He had built the house in which we now sat but had also crafted the toys that Peri played with and the ornamental owl that watched us from the mantelpiece.

I enjoyed watching how he interacted with Peri, and with Cady (a somewhat petulant twelve-year-old who wanted to move out with her older brother); stern but gentle. Ranolf's blue eyes lit up when Peri told a joke or when Cady asked an intelligent question of these strange new guests. I imagined Ranolf to be a good provider and a good father, and I hoped Nicolo thought the same.

Peri was a curious six-year-old with wide blue eyes like those of his father, though in other respects, I thought he more resembled his mother. Peri seemed almost fascinated by Nicolo, barely sparing me a glance but fixating on the tall, well-dressed man, so unlike the villagers he was accustomed to. He kept telling jokes to try to please this intriguing stranger.

"Knock, knock?"

"Who's there?" asked Nicolo.

"Daisy the interrupting cow."

"Daisy the interupti—"

"MOOOO!"

And we all fell about laughing, which made Peri laugh all the more for having made us laugh. His repertoire also included ‘Daisy the interrupting goat', ‘Daisy the interrupting dog' and ‘Doris the interrupting horse'. I wasn't sure why the horse could not be Daisy, as well, but did not deign to ask.

When he was not joking, Peri was a constant fount of questions, forever pressing Nicolo for information.

"Is that your horse?"

"Yes, it is."

"What's his name?"

"Proteus."

"Why?"

"Because I liked it."

"Did you buy him?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I needed a horse."

"Why?"

"To travel long distances more quickly."

"Why?"

Later in the meal, I caught Peri imitating Nicolo, trying to move and sit like him. How quickly a child can pick a hero.

The older Cady was less direct, but I realized early on that her focus was on me. I was a woman of the royal court (sort of), and what twelve-year-old girl would not be fascinated by that? I didn't like to tell her that as women of the royal court went, I was a terrible example and that, while I lived at court, I was not a ‘Court Lady' as such—that I was barely one rung above the servants. None of it would have mattered to Cady anyway, who earnestly watched me throughout dinner as if she were memorizing everything I did for when she, inevitably, went to court, herself. She did everything with such a serious expression that I found myself genuinely delighted when, at the end of supper when she and Peri were sent off to get ready for bed, she gave me a shy smile before running off. I'd won more than an admirer, I had acquired a friend.

But it was Maria herself who I was most keen to get to know, and who impressed me the most. There was, I suppose, nothing typically ‘impressive' about her, she was just a matronly woman of a certain age, looking after her family, and yet I found it all rather wonderful, all of it. It hadn't occurred to me before that Nicolo and I, for all our very different upbringings, had something in common; neither of us had ever been part of a family. I'd been raised in the Assassins' Guild and, nurturing environment though it was and well-looked after though I'd been, a school for killing people is not the same as a family.

Even when he was a baby, Nicolo had been, at best, part of a family of two, then he'd lost that family when he was absorbed into the royal one. But no matter how the Old Queen doted on him and no matter the closeness between Balduin and him, that was not a family, and certainly not his family. He was always on the outside looking in.

That was what Maria embodied with such effortless grace; family . And there was something rather wonderful in that. I watched her serve the dinner, watch the children, smile at her husband, lead the conversation, her eyes on many things at once, and I felt a sort of envy. Or perhaps a better word was ‘longing'. It reminded me of the conversation which I'd overheard earlier between her and her long-lost son; I, too, had never known I'd missed something until I'd seen it for myself.

"Is there an inn where we can spend the night?" asked Nicolo, as we left the table.

"Don't be silly," Maria chided. "You can both stay here. We've got a spare room."

Room. Singular.

I said nothing.

"Well…" Nicolo was obviously tempted. Now that he'd found his mother, he didn't want to let her go. "If we wouldn't be in the way."

"Not at all," Ranolf weighed in. "It's about time someone used that room. Maria insisted we have the spare, but all our friends are in Simnel so it sits empty."

"That's very kind of you," said Nicolo as he looked at me in question and I nodded, surprised to find he was asking my permission before he gave his. "We accept."

"Wonderful," beamed Maria, looking at us both. "Then we can chat some more before bedtime. Ranolf, didn't you have that bottle of wine put aside for a special occasion?"

Around the fire we sat, drinking and talking like old friends. As if by some mutually agreed but unspoken rule, none of us talked about the past; there was no sense dredging up events none of us could change. Instead, we told stories and shared anecdotes.

Ranolf kept the conversation flowing; he seemed to have lived an eventful life—so much so that I wondered if half of it was made up to keep things convivial. And I also wondered if all of this felt as strange to Nicolo as it did to me; this friendly, family atmosphere. I'd loved my time at the Guild, but there had never been anything like this. I felt as if a void in my life had been filled; one that I'd never even known existed.

As the fire burned down and the wine ran out, the evening came to a close, and Maria showed us up to the attic room where were we were to spend the night.

"Goodnight, Nicky." She could not quite conceal the emotion in her voice as she said the words she'd once said every night and had never thought to say again.

"Goodnight, Mother." It could have sounded incongruous, but Nicolo's voice was as thick with emotion as hers.

The door closed, and I realized that the emotions of the moment had quite glossed over the question of the single bed tucked under the eaves. I looked to Nicolo, knowing the answer I wanted to hear, but not wanting to assume. He crossed the floor to where I was standing, took me in his arms and kissed me, which was an even better answer than I'd hoped for.