But now one of those small folk had come to her door, and the knight felt the old battle tide rising in her, clean and righteous as a prayer.
The scholar, who had placed himself between the cradle and the door, said sharply, ‘Why did you come running to us? What makes you think we could help you?’
The boy looked baffled. He glanced, speakingly, at the knight, whounderstood that her disguise was not so perfect as she had thought. It was the size of her, maybe, that gave her away, or simply the way she moved. What simple woodswoman sometimes forgot herself and swung her ax one-handed, as if it were a sword? What good wife or mother strode through the world so boldly, without smiling or ducking her head? She was still, as the scholar had promised, herself.
‘Please,’ the boy said. Then, trembling and trying not to, ‘My brother. He—they—’ He said no more; what else was there to say?
The scholar gestured gruffly to the floor by the fire. ‘Sit. Eat something.’
The boy sat, cracking nuts and digging out the meat with the thoughtless, jerky motions of a clockwork toy. Over his head, the knight and the scholar spoke to one another in the way of old couples who had met very young: in silence, by look and gesture.
The knight met the scholar’s eyes squarely:Will we let them die, then? Will we send him home without aid, to whatever remains of his family?
A muscle moved in the scholar’s jaw:Will you risk ours, for theirs?
The knight looked away, and the scholar watched her face with a familiar, leaden guilt. He’d told her once that she was no hero—what a lie. The queen had tried for years to make a mere weapon of her, a blade that killed coldly, without hesitation; the scholar had tried for years to make a coward of her, a woman who lived selfishly, without risk. Both of them had tried to cut the honor out of her and leave only what served them best, and both of them had failed, for here she stood: so full of honor even a child could feel the heat of it and run to her for help.
The scholar was suddenly sick with himself, with the gory work of carving away what he loved best. He touched the knight’s elbow with two fingers. ‘We have already broken two rules,’ he said.What’s one more?said his eyes.
Her lips parted. She looked at him, and then at the crofter’s son, and then at her own son, just beginning to frown in his sleep. Soon he would begin the mysterious squirming, flailing motions by which he escaped his swaddling. Already his left foot had worked free. In the dark, his birthmark looked like a wound.
The knight left the cottage without speaking, and the scholar watched her go without weeping. She walked in the dark to the yew. She did not stumble; she had walked this path many times.
Beneath the tree her hand found Valiance. Her fingers wrapped around the hilt, and it felt good. It had been too large for her hands when she was a girl, but now it fit her palm perfectly.
She imagined drawing it from the wood, stalking to the near edge of the woods, slaughtering the raiders, saving the farm, righting this one small wrong. She imagined washing the blood from her hands before she returned to her son. There would be some left in the beds of her nails or the crease of her elbow; there always was.
She imagined the queen discovering that the sword had been drawn too early from the yew and realizing, at last, where they’d hidden themselves.
Slowly, knuckle by knuckle, the knight took her hand from the hilt.
She returned to the cottage and knelt, empty-handed, before the crofter’s son. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and the words were grave dirt in her mouth. ‘We cannot help you.’
Later in the night, when the baby fussed, it was the knight who went to his cradle. She held him tenderly, uncertainly, with hands that would never again hold a sword. Already her calluses had changed, adjusting to the simple labor of living.
The scholar watched her, softened by moonlight, and knew Una Everlasting had died another death at his hands.
We are coming now to the end of their fairy tale, and every fairy tale ends the same way: happily ever after.
This was theirs, and Lord, it was sweet. I know you don’t like to remember it, but try, for me.
Remember the book tucked away on a high shelf, nearly forgotten, gathering dust, because they were no longer on the run. Remember the seasons returning to their proper order, coming one after the other.
Winter. The yewberries are covered in frost, chiming softly, and their son is beginning to talk.Ma ma ma,he calls the knight, a pattern more than a word. She meant to choose a new name for herself, but never quite did. She answers now only to whatever her son and the scholar call her—mother, wife, beloved, mine—and when she dies it is only by those names she will be remembered. She decides it is enough.
Summer. The honey tastes of dog rose and their son’s hair is long enough to make a slim white braid. His father tells him stories as he braids it, of dragons and crowns and swords. The boy says one day he will be a knight, and the scholar says, too sharply, ‘No.’ He tells no more tales, after that, and eventually his son stops asking for them.
It occurs to the scholar that he has slowly become his own opposite. As ahistorian he chased stories—collected them, cherished them, pressed them tenderly between the pages of books so that the whole world could read them. Now he stamps them out, frantically, and buries the remains. He misses his work; he misses the university library even more.
But if the knight can put away her sword, then he can put away his pen. He no longer fears the cold, and the knight no longer flinches from the fire. Surely, it’s enough.
Spring again. The thrushes are singing and their second child is born. Her hair is a wet black cap and her eyes are the lucent brown of acorns in the sun. Her brother, upon meeting her, comforts his parents. ‘Maybe the next one will come with teeth,’ he says, patting his mother’s knee.
It’s a funny story, and the scholar finds himself wishing, guiltily, that he had someone to tell it to. Professor Sawbridge, maybe—she didn’t like children, as a genre, but she would like his. Or his father—he was forever pulling faces at babies in their prams, laughing his loose drunkard’s laugh. Perhaps he would do a little better as a grandfather than he had as a father.
But no: Their children can have no grandparents or aunts, no uncles or cousins or teachers or scuff-kneed neighbor children. They have no lineage and no inheritance. No past, and an uncertain future. Will they leave the wood and go out into the wide, cruel world? Will their sweet son one day go to war? Will their loud daughter sit silent in the pew, head bowed?
All the children have isnow,hidden away. It will have to be enough.
