Robin Hobb - The Inheritance and Other Stories

The cat appeared suddenly, winding himself comfortingly around her ankles, and she sank down, the last of her strength spent. “We have to get out of here,” she whispered to them both. “Hush. Hush. We have to go now, right now. You, too, cat. Come on.”

“Where? Where we go, Mama?” Gillam barely choked out the words.

“We’re going to go visit. We’re going visiting, we’re going to see . . . On a visit. You’ll see, you’ll see.” Where could she go? Was there anywhere she could flee that Pell wouldn’t find her? She carried Gillam despite her throbbing knee. Odd. While she had been fleeing from Pell, she hadn’t even felt it. Now it kept time with the beating of her heart, sending surges of pain up her thigh. It would have to be borne, just like everything else.

She’d left her packed bag by the cow’s byre. She snatched it up and kept walking. She would not go see if he was sitting up yet or if he still sprawled there. Gillam did not need to see his father that way. Where to go, where to go? Which of her friends deserved the trouble that would go with her? Flee to Hilia, hope her husband would be home to keep Pell from killing her? Go to Serran’s? No, the old woman would be frightened to death if Pell came shouting and breaking things.

In the end she followed the cliff-edge road and limped all the way into town, Gillam on her hip and Marmalade trailing after her and the hatchet clutched in her hand against her child’s back. The promised rain began as she hiked, a gentle spring rain of small droplets. At the outskirts of town, the cat sat down. She glanced back at him. Rain glistened in drops on his whiskers. “Aren’t you coming with us?”

Dogs. Big dogs require bigger dogs. You won’t see me.

“I may not come back this way.”

I’ll follow. Or I won’t.

“Very well.” It was yet another thing she could not change. Eda bless and watch over him, she prayed silently. She paused to put the hatchet in her bag and then walked down the last hill and into the village. It seemed a quiet day. In the little harbor, only the small boats had set out to fish. The larger ones were waiting for a better tide. The little market was just starting to stir. She could smell the first bake of the day’s bread on the rising wind. She glanced back the way she had come, but the cat was not to be seen. She had to believe he could take care of himself.

Before she reached the market street, the rain began in earnest with the rising wind tugging at her skirts. Her boy shivered in her arms and huddled into her. “Hungry, Mama,” Gillam told her, and the fourth time he said it, he dissolved into helpless weeping. Her heart sank. She was hungry, too, but if she spent her coin on food now, what would they live on tomorrow? The rain was penetrating her clothing already.

She went to the tavern, the only one in the village, the one by the fishmonger’s where she had first met Pell and been courted by him. Those days seemed like a song she had once heard, something about a foolish girl infatuated with a heartless man. It had been months since she had passed those doors, years since she had sat by the fire with a mug of Tamman’s ale and sang choruses with a minstrel. For a moment, she recalled it all clearly. The fire was hot on her face and legs, and her back had been warm where she leaned on Pell. He didn’t sing but had seemed proud that she did. All those times when she had defied her mother to be there with Pell, creeping from her bed quietly and sneaking off; how often had she lied for the sake of being with him?

It hurt to remember that deception.

Her mother had been so right about everything. She wished she could tell her that now.

She could barely bring herself to push open the tavern door and carry her child inside. It was darker than she remembered, but it smelled the same, of fish chowder and wood smoke and spilled beer and pipe smoke and hearth bread. There were few customers at that hour and she took Gillam to a table near the fire and set him down. The innkeeper himself came over and stared down at her in a peculiar way. Tamman’s generous nature was reflected in his personal size. He looked from the door to her to the boy and then back again. His mouth moved as if he were chewing words, deciding to spit them out or swallow them. She spoke first.

“I’ve got a couple of copper shards. Can I have a bowl of chowder for the boy, and as much bread as that will buy?”

Tamman didn’t budge from where he stood or change his gaze. He only opened his mouth and bellowed, “Sasho, chowder and bread for two!” Then he abruptly dropped down on the bench across the table from her. “Pell coming in?” he asked somberly.

A shudder passed through her. She hoped he hadn’t seen it. “I . . . I don’t know.” She tried to sound calm.

Tamman nodded sagely. “Well, nothing against him or you, but I don’t want trouble here. He was here last night, you know. That cross-the-bay woman, that Meddalee Morrany? She was here last night, waiting for Pell. She got pretty angry, sitting and waiting, but he finally got here, looking like something the cat dragged in. It wasn’t coincidence, Rosemary. She was waiting for him.” The innkeeper who had known her since she was a child looked into her tearless eyes, trying to see what his words meant to her. There was no malice in his look, only measurement. She blinked, trying to contain her thoughts. Tamman nodded to himself. “Yes. Those two had planned to meet here. And they sat in the corner there, by the back door, away from the fire and the crowd, and they talked for a long time.” Tamman shook his head. “That woman’s crazy. Her face was still bruised blue from the last beating that damn Pell gave her. Why she would come seeking that cruel bastard . . . Sorry. Forgot the boy was here. Sorry.” He leaned his forearms on the table and it creaked.

“Never mind,” she said quietly. Gillam was watching the fire and not paying attention to them. Sasho appeared with the food then, two brimming bowls that were dribbling white chowder down the sides and a napkin with three brown-crusted rolls on it. Gillam snatched at the bread before the serving lad could even set the food down. Her boy stuffed the corner of the roll in his mouth. “Gillam!” she cried, mortified, but the innkeeper put a large hand on her arm.

“Let the boy eat. A child that hungry shames us all. Go on, boy. There’s a big bowl of chowder there for you, made this morning with fresh cream, fresh cod, and old onions. Go on.”

“Let me break the bread for you while you try your soup,” she suggested to her son quietly. Gillam did not wait to be urged again. Despite her anxiety, Rosemary’s stomach growled loudly at the sight and smell of the hot food.

Tamman heard it. “Go on. You, too. What I got to say isn’t pleasant, so you may as well hear it on a full stomach as not.”

She nodded slowly as she took another of the rolls and tore off a bite of bread. It was fragrant and warm. She chewed it slowly, waiting in dread for whatever disaster was to befall her.

“Just as I was about to close for the night, who should come storming in but Meddalee’s father. Morrany was furious with Pell for marking his daughter’s face, and even angrier that she’d caught the cross bay ferry to come running after him. Made him even hotter to see those two all cozy with their heads together. Morrany spoke loud and plainer than any father should, saying if Pell wants to visit his daughter’s bed, then he should marry her. And then he demanded to know where this grand fortune is that his grandfather was to bequeath to him, for he’d heard gossip the old man was dead for most of the winter, and if Pell was his chosen heir, well, where was his wealth, then?

“And you know Cham, who loves to sit and drink here more hours than he works in a day. Well, he was the one fool enough to stand and say that the old man had little enough, and most of what he had, he’d already left to Pell’s bastard son after Pell abandoned the boy and his mother.