Connie Willis - Winter's Tale

“What is’t, husband?”

“I have left you a remembrance in the will.” He smiled at me. “I will not tell you of it now. ‘Twill please thee to hear it when the will is read.”

He had forgot that I sat by him when he made his will.

“John’s foul decoction hath made me better,” he said. “I am as one again, not split in two.”

I laid my hand upon his brow. It was more hot than ever. I went to fetch another quilt from out the chest.

“Nay, come and sit with me and hold my hands,” he said. “I have paid the sexton a French crown to write a curse upon my grave, that none will dig me up and say, That is not he.’ ”

“Prithee, speak not of dying,” I said.

“I wrote not mine own will, but signed it only. They had him write out his name ere they killed him, that I might copy it.”

“I know, husband. Soft, do not fret thyself with—”

“It matters not whose name is on the plays, so that my daughters’ inheritance is safe. Hast thou burnst them all?”

“Yes,” I said, but I have not. I have sewn them in the new featherbed. I will ensure it is not burnt with the bedding when he dies, and so will keep them safe, save the house itself burns down. I will do naught to endanger their inheritance nor the love they bear their father, but in after years the papers can be found and his true name set on them. The clew lies in the will.

“Wife, come sit by me and hold my hands,” he says, though I hold them already. “I have left thee something in the will, a token of that night when first I came. I have bequeathed to thee the second-best bed.”