“The one where the stars fell from the sky into your hands?”
“Yes. And then later, when I was enrolled in the marriage lottery, the dream changed, and the stars would fall through my hands, and into the water of the stream that ran through the Patchworks.
“The night you didn’t come—well, let’s just say it was a sad night, and when I went to sleep I had the dream again, but it was very different. I dreamt I looked into the water, and the stars had fallen in a circle around a long dark crevice, and were shining up at me. It wasn’t until recently, when we fell in love again, that I understood what it was.”
“That being—?”
“It was your eye, Sam; your serpentine-pupiled eye, so very different from what I remember and yet very much the same. That must have been what my mother meant in the vision when she said if I could find my guiding star I would never be lost. She meant it was in you—that you had a piece of my soul inside you, and to find it I needed to find you. That I would be complete with you. You aren’t the only one who had lost a piece of his soul; now each of us has carried that piece for the other.
“Now I finally understand why I’m prescient; why I have dreams of the Future. It’s because I gave you part of my soul that night in the Patchworks, and it came back here with you. That piece has been living, in the Future, all along. It has seen things that for me constituted the Future, since I was living fourteen hundred years in the Past. It has been calling to me, trying to reunite us.”
He smiled, looking down at the floor. “Thank God for those dreams. And if I ever meet the Lady Rowan again, I’ll have to remember to thank her.”
Rhapsody replaced the paintings and sighed. “Unfortunately, I didn’t understand any of this at the time. A deep despair descended on me, and I went through my days as if in a fog. My parents were very worried about me, just as your father was about you. I had told them you were Lirin, and my father was convinced you had cast a spell on me.
“He decided I needed something to salve my heart, and that marriage was the answer, so he moved up the suit interviews. That only made me more desperate and frightened, but I had to trust his judgment, because now I doubted my own. I remembered the gold coins you offered me as a gift, and decided what I had actually done was sold you my virginity.” Ashe’s face constricted in pain, but she didn’t seem to notice. “It made things that happened later inevitable, I guess.”
“Then one day, about a week after you left, several soldiers rode into our village. They didn’t know anything about you specifically; they were looking for anyone who had seemed unusual, who might have shown up at the same time you did. The Partches, the people whose barn you slept in, showed them the items you had left behind, and then they departed.
“I was terrified they would find you, and harm you. I knew I had to try to warn you, so I packed whatever I could carry, took one of my father’s horses, and ran away, following them to Easton. I lost them after a few days once we were there.
“I had never been in a city before, and it seemed very large and very dangerous to me; my horse was stolen almost immediately. I asked everyone I met if they had seen you, but no one ever had. I even made a foray into the Wide Meadows to see the leader of the Lirin who lived there, but she didn’t know any of the names you had given me, except for MacQuieth, who was a warrior of great renown that lived in the western lands past the great river. I realize now it was because, except for him, none of those other people had been born yet.
“Years later I did meet MacQuieth; it was quite by accident, really. And since he is a legendary hero in your lineage, I will spare you the details of how that occurred. I don’t want to dispel any of his mythos. I guess some things run in the family.”
Ashe laughed. “Could it be that your meeting had something in common with the way I, er, met Jo?”
She smiled sadly. “Well, in a way, yes,” she admitted, “but you were far nicer to Jo than he was to me. I asked him about you, and he said he had never seen you. And it was at that moment that I gave up; I knew that either you were dead, or a liar, but either way you weren’t coming back for me; and I would never see you again.
“But, as I said, that was years later. After a few days, when I could find no one who had even seen you, I decided to go home. Then I realized I didn’t even know where home was. The trip to Easton had taken several weeks, and I had no real knowledge of navigation then, and no horse. I always thought I would make it home someday, anyway.
“I needed money, so I sold the buttons; the silver buttons that matched the one I gave you.” He winced, remembering the excitement in her eyes, the pride on her face as she displayed them for him that night. “They brought a decent price, and that allowed me to live, at least for a little while; the money bought me shelter and food. But then the money ran out, and I had to find another way to support myself.
“At first I found work cleaning houses. I was a farm girl, and I knew at least how to do that well. But always something would happen. Sooner or later the master of the house and his wife would begin to argue about me, and sometimes he would even—” She turned away from him, crossing her arms and staring at the wall. The firelight reflected off the shimmering dress, casting shadows that undulated through the creases in the fabric, as though it sought to comfort her.
“Anyway, I would be out on the street again. And, unfortunately, there is a whole class of people who prey on young girls who are on the street. Then again, there are occasionally some who, while profiting from girls like me, also seek to protect them, and I was lucky enough to meet one of them, just before some of the more unsavory types moved in on me. Everyone called her Nana. She took me in, and wrapped her network of protection around me. All I had to do was—was—”
His voice was choked with pain. “Emily—”
“I guess I don’t need to spell it out for you, Sam. She sold me, often, I’m sorry to say. I wasn’t exactly the easiest commodity to sell; my body wasn’t womanly, my breasts small for the profession, and I didn’t help things by refusing to service married men. That severely limited my clientèle. Yet despite all the obstacles, she still managed to find work for me.”
Tears touched the corners of Ashe’s eyes. Easily, no doubt, he thought bitterly.
“I thought I wouldn’t care; nothing really mattered anymore, I was just marking my days. But I remember the first time,” she said, each word becoming softer “I was just fifteen. It had been a long time since you, and, well,
Nana was able to sell me as untouched. She expected I would bleed again, and she was right. I guess she got a much better price because of it. She would always give me a treat or small gift when that would happen later on, but then it was due to violence, not inexperience. The first time there was both. I tried to be brave, but in truth I cried all the way through it. I probably would have anyway, but the kind of man who is willing to pay extra for that particular privilege-She stopped when she heard a deep sob from behind her. A look of alarm shot across her face; she gathered her skirts and hurried to him, throwing her arms around his neck.
“Sam, I’m sorry; gods, I shouldn’t have told you. It’s all right, Sam, I’m all right. Oh, Sam, please don’t cry. I’m so sorry.”
He pulled her into his lap, burying his face in her shoulder as he wept. She held him to her heart until he calmed. At that moment she decided she would never again tell him anything about that time, locking the door in her memory. That was nothing, she thought ruefully. He would never survive hearing about the bad stuff.