Chapter Seven — Papa

"In," said Ian.

Avon breathed in.

"Hold it," said Ian.

Avon held it.

"Keep holding it."

Avon kept holding it. Somewhere under the hat, Ian yawned.

"...Out, my lord. Slowly. Like you're blowing on soup you don't much want."

Avon breathed out.

Ian was lying on the garden bench with his hat over his face. He'd been lying there for most of the lesson.

"Again," said Ian, from under the hat.

Avon breathed in. He let it catch at the top, a little. He let it out a little too fast.

"Marvelous," said Ian. "Truly. I've seen grown squires do worse."

"Have you?" asked Avon.

"No."

Three feet away, Marika was lying on her back in the grass with her handkerchief over her face.

"In," Marika told herself.

The handkerchief went up.

"Hold it," said Marika.

The handkerchief stayed up. It stayed up for a very long time. Her feet started kicking.

"...Out!" Marika gasped, and the handkerchief blew off her face and landed in a rosebush.

Ian lifted one corner of his hat and looked at her.

"That," Ian said, "was better than his."

"I know," said Marika.

The hat came back down.

"Ian," said Avon.

"Mm?"

"What's it for?"

"What's what for?"

"The breathing."

Ian sighed, like he'd been asked to carry something heavy up some stairs.

"It's for being a Strade, my lord. Your father does it. Your grandfather does it. Your great-grandfather did it, and then he died, and I'm told he did it at the funeral too." The hat shifted. "It makes you strong. It makes you fast. It makes you very hard to kill. Mostly it makes you able to stand in a room full of important people for six hours without needing to sit down."

"Does it make you able to lie on a bench?"

"No, my lord. That's a different gift. You're born with that one."

"I can do it," said Marika, from the grass. "I can lie on the bench."

"You're lying on the ground, sweetheart."

"I can lie on anything," said Marika.

"Truly a Strade," said Ian. "Except for the part where you're not."

"I'm a Guesclin," said Marika.

"So I've heard. Everyone's heard. The whole kingdom's heard." Ian yawned again. "Again, my lord. In."

Avon breathed in.

"Your mother," said Ian, still under the hat, "told me the first day I got here that you're very clever."

"She says that."

"They all say that, my lord. Every mother. Every grandmother. Every aunt. I've never once met a lord's child whose mother didn't think he'd hung the moon." The hat lifted a little. One eye looked out at him. "Don't take it the wrong way. It's a very nice thing to be told. And it's an even nicer thing to get paid to agree with."

"Are you paid to agree with it?"

"I'm paid to teach you, my lord. Telling your mother you're wonderful, I'd do for nothing." The hat came down. "Out."

Avon breathed out, a little too fast.

"Marvelous," said Ian.

"Right," said Ian, sitting up. "That's enough of that. Very good, my lord. Wonderful progress. I'll write to your grandfather and tell him so."

"You wrote last week," said Avon.

"And I'll write again. Grandfathers like letters."

"It's not time yet."

Ian looked at the sun. Then he looked at Avon.

"It's near enough time."

"It's the middle of the morning," said Avon.

"Then it's near enough to lunch, which is a kind of time." Ian got up and settled the hat. "You know what your problem is, my lord? You're precise. Nobody likes precise. Precise men don't get invited back to things."

"What's precise?" said Marika, from the rosebush, where she was still trying to get her handkerchief back.

"Something he is and you aren't, sweetheart," said Ian. "Lucky you."

He walked off toward the house.

Avon watched him go.

His name was Ian, and he wasn't a Strade.

"He winked at me," Loretta said, in the kitchen, the week he arrived. "At me. At the door."

"He winked at me too," said Nina.

"You're not supposed to be winked at, Nina. You're nineteen."

"What's that got to do with it?" said Nina.

Marta put a pot down hard. "Gambler."

Everybody looked at her.

"My cousin works a card room near the coast road," said Marta. "Knows his face. That one was a knight at seventeen. Youngest they'd made in fifty years."

"A knight?" said Nina. "Him?"

"Then he found the dice houses," said Marta, "and the dice houses found him back. Owed every card room from here to the sea."

"Owed," said Loretta.

"Owed. Past tense." Marta went back to her pot. "The young lord's grandfather sent him. The family bought up his debts. Every last marker. So now he's theirs."

"And now he teaches the young lord to breathe," said Loretta. She couldn't decide if she was outraged or impressed.

"He teaches whatever they tell him to teach," said Marta. "They paid his debts. He goes where they send him."

Avon was under the table with Beso at the time.

He turned that over for a while.

He'd asked his mother. That was all it had taken.

"Mother," Avon had said, in the spring.

"Mm?" His mother hadn't looked up from her letter.

"What Father does. When he breathes."

The pen stopped.

"...Where did you learn to ask that?" said his mother.

"The yard."

"You've been watching him."

"Yes."

"For how long?"

Avon thought about lying. It didn't seem worth it. "A while."

"Corin said a year," said his mother slowly. "Your father told me Corin said a year, and I told your father Corin exaggerates."

"Corin exaggerates," said Avon.

"Not about that, apparently." She laughed a little. "Oh, sweetheart. That's not a thing you just pick up. It's the family's. The Strade way. Your father learned it from his father."

"Can I learn it?"

She looked at him for a long time.

"It isn't mine to give," his mother said at last. "I'll write to your grandfather."

Two months later, Ian was at the gate.

And the breathing — the real breathing — Avon had already had for a while by then. The yard leaned in when he did it right. It leaned in almost every morning now.

Which was a problem. Because a man who breathed like that for a living would feel a yard lean.

So in front of Ian, Avon did it wrong. Nicely wrong. Getting-better-slowly wrong.

Ian lay on his bench and never noticed.

Avon didn't mind Ian at all. A teacher who didn't look was worth more than a good one who did.

The letter came at breakfast.

"For you, Miss Guesclin," said Loretta. She was carrying it on a tray, like a hot dish. "It's the border seal."

Miss Guesclin opened it with the butter knife. She read it once. Then again. Then she put her hand over her mouth.

"Alina?" said Avon's mother.

"He's coming home," said Miss Guesclin.

His mother's chair screeched back. "When?"

"When the passes close. He's got leave for the whole winter." Miss Guesclin was reading it a third time. "He says he's sorry it took so long."

"Four years, Alina!"

"I know how long it's been, Janet."

"I know you know, I'm just—four years—"

Marika had stopped eating her egg.

"Who's coming home?" asked Marika.

Miss Guesclin turned in her chair and put a hand on her daughter's cheek.

"Your papa, sweetheart."

"...Oh." Marika thought about that. "The one in the letters?"

"The one in the letters," said Miss Guesclin.

"The one who sends the wooden soldiers?"

"Yes."

"Is he coming here?"

"Of course he is," said Avon's mother. "Where else would he go?"

"Is he going to stay?" said Marika.

"For the winter," said Miss Guesclin.

"Where's he going to sleep?"

"With me, sweetheart. Where papas sleep."

Marika thought about that very hard. Then she looked across the table.

"Avon. Did you know I had a papa?"

"You told me," said Avon.

"I know I told you," said Marika. "I didn't know he was real."

By lunch, the kitchen knew everything.

"The general," said Nina. "In our house!"

"It's not your house, Nina," said Marta.

"You know what I mean!"

Avon was shelling peas. Marika was eating them.

Rufo came in with a bucket. "They say he took a hill fort with forty men. No ladders."

"How'd they get up?" asked Nina.

"Climbed each other," said Rufo.

"I heard," said Nina, "he killed a bear. With his hands."

"That's not true," said Marta.

"Corin said!"

"Corin says a lot of things."

Corin put his head in the door. "It's true. Except it wasn't a bear, it was a man the size of a bear. And it wasn't his hands, it was his helmet. Took it off and hit him with it." Corin mimed it. "Bang. Twenty years on that border and he's never lost a wall. My old sergeant served under him. He said the general shouts so loud the other side hears his orders before their own officers give them."

"Is he big?" asked Marika.

"Enormous, miss," said Rufo.

"Bigger than Corin?"

"Corin would fit in his coat pocket," said Rufo.

"Hey," said Corin.

"Bigger than a horse?" said Marika.

Rufo thought about it honestly. "No, miss. But he'd win if they had a fight."

Marika took out her handkerchief and wiped her hands. For a long time.

Avon put a pea in her palm. She ate it without looking.

A girl came in through the yard door with a basket of onions. She set it down by Marta's elbow and went back out without a word.

"Who's that?" asked Avon.

"Extra hands," said Marta, not looking up. "For the birthday. Your mother's taking on help from town. There'll be more yet, before it's done."

"What's her name?"

Marta opened her mouth. Then she shut it again.

"Ask Loretta," said Marta. "I can't keep up with them all."

Big, he thought. Loud. Hard in the face.

It seemed reasonable.

"Avon," said Marika, that night, from the end of his bed.

"Mm."

"When he comes. Do I have to say hello?"

"Probably," said Avon.

"What if I don't want to?"

"Then don't."

"Mama'll be sad."

"Then do."

"You're not helping," said Marika.

Avon thought about it properly, since she was asking properly.

"You don't have to say it loud," he said.

Marika thought about that. "...Okay."

She slid off the bed. At the door, she stopped.

"And after he comes," said Marika, "Mama says we can go out."

"Out where?"

"Out out. Not garden out. Not yard out." Her voice dropped. "Outside the gate."

"We've never been outside the gate," said Avon.

"I know! Mama always says we're too little, or it's too cold, or next month. But she promised. She said when Papa's home, there'll be enough people to watch us, and we can go into the city and see everything."

"What's everything?"

"I don't know," said Marika, very pleased. "That's why it's everything."

He came on the first day of real snow.

Twelve riders came up the drive in gray cloaks. The one at the front was the biggest man Avon had ever seen. Gray beard. A mustache waxed at the ends. A scar from his ear to his mouth.

He reined in at the steps.

"Dismount," said the general.

He didn't shout it. The whole yard flinched anyway. Corin's hand went to his sword and then came away again, looking embarrassed.

"Horses to the stable," said the general. "Walk them first. If I find one of them wet under the blanket tonight, the man it belongs to sleeps in the stall with it. Go."

His men went.

Two stable hands came out to take the bridles. Avon didn't know either of them. Rufo looked at them for a second, then shrugged and let them.

Marika had Avon's shirt in her fist.

"Avu," she whispered. "Avu, is that him?"

"That's him," said Avon.

Yes, he thought. That's about right.

Then Miss Guesclin came down the steps.

The general turned around, and everything about him stopped.

"...Alina," said the general. It came out barely louder than breathing.

"You're late," said Miss Guesclin.

"I know."

"You said the passes."

"The passes were late."

"Four years, Renoir."

"I know." He took both her hands, very carefully, like they'd been in a fire. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You look tired."

"I've had a four-year-old for four years."

"I know," said the general again.

He put his forehead against hers. His eyes were running into his beard, and he didn't wipe them. He just stood there in front of everyone, crying, with the snow landing on his shoulders.

Avon looked at the man he'd built in his head. Then he looked at the real one.

They didn't match.

No. That wasn't it. They did match. Both of them were true. The one who said dismount, and the one who said I'm sorry like it hurt.

Avon didn't know where to put that.

After a while, the general wiped his face and looked up the steps.

"Strade," said the general.

"General," said Avon's father.

"Thank you for keeping them."

"They kept us," said Avon's father.

Then the general's eyes went down to Avon. And past Avon. To the small piece of dark hair poking out from behind his arm.

The general came up three steps and stopped.

Then he went down on one knee. In the snow. Even kneeling, his head was higher than Avon's.

"Hello, Marika," said the general. Very softly.

Marika disappeared completely behind Avon's back.

"...Avu," she whispered.

"That's all right," said the general. "That's all right, sweetheart. I'm very big, aren't I? I'd hide from me too."

Nothing.

"I brought you something," said the general. "A bird. A wooden one. I carved it myself, and it's not very good. You don't have to take it now. I'll give it to your mama. Whenever you want it. Or never. Never's all right too."

Avon felt Marika shake her head against his back. Once.

The general nodded as if she'd answered him.

Then he looked at Avon.

"You'd be the Strade boy," said the general.

"Yes," said Avon.

"She's holding on to you."

"She does that."

"Does she." The general looked at the fist in Avon's shirt for a long moment. "Good."

He stood up. It took a while.

"Thank you," said the general.

Avon didn't know what for. He didn't ask.

"He cried," said Nina, in the kitchen, that evening. "On the steps. In front of everybody."

"I saw," said Marta.

"The general! The one with the helmet!"

"I said I saw, Nina."

"I didn't know generals could cry," said Nina.

"He hasn't seen his daughter in four years, Nina," said Loretta. "I'd cry too."

"You cried," said Rufo, to Loretta.

"I did not."

"You did. You were on the stable side. I saw you go for your apron."

"I had something in my eye," said Loretta. "It was snowing, Rufo."

"On both eyes?"

Loretta hit him with a dishcloth.

Corin came in stamping snow off his boots. "Well," said Corin, "I've just spent an hour in the stable with eleven of the most frightening men I've ever met, and do you know what they talked about?"

"Battles?" said Nina.

"The horses," said Corin. "Whether the horses were warm enough. Every one of them. They wouldn't leave until every horse was dry." He sat down. "One of them asked me if our stable cat had kittens yet. Kittens. He's got a scar across his whole face."

"They're his men," said Marta. "If he fusses over horses, they fuss over horses."

Avon was under the table with Beso, eating a heel of bread.

For four days, Marika wasn't in any room the general was in.

"Marika," said Miss Guesclin, at dinner. "Pass your papa the bread."

Marika passed the bread to Avon.

Avon passed it to his mother. His mother passed it to his father. His father looked at the bread, looked at the general, and passed it to the general.

"Thank you, Marika," said the general, to the bread.

Marika said nothing.

On the second day, the general left sweets outside her door. In the morning, the paper was empty and folded into a tiny square, and the door was still shut.

On the third evening, the general sat in the big chair by the fire, turning pages. Marika sat on the far end of the rug with her back to him.

Avon was at the general's end, because the light was better.

"She's watching you," said Avon.

The general didn't look up. "Is she?"

"She hasn't turned the page in that picture book in an hour."

"...Neither have I," said the general.

"He's too big," said Marika, that night, from the end of Avon's bed.

"Yes," said Avon.

"And he's loud."

"He was quiet with you."

"He was loud in the yard. I heard him. He said dismount and everybody jumped."

"He was talking to soldiers."

"I'm not a soldier," said Marika.

"No."

Marika pulled her knees up.

"He cried," she said. "On the steps. Did you see?"

"I saw."

"Grown-ups aren't supposed to cry. Only Mama. And your mama. And Retta, but Retta says it's her eyes."

"He did anyway," said Avon.

"Why?"

Avon thought about the steps. About the man's face, wet all the way down into his beard.

"He missed you," said Avon.

"He doesn't know me."

"He missed you anyway."

Marika was quiet for a long time.

"...That's stupid," she said at last. But she said it much more quietly than usual.

"Avon," said Miss Guesclin, the next afternoon. She'd caught him in the corridor. "Could you do something for me?"

"Yes, Marima," said Avon.

Miss Guesclin smiled a little at the name. She always did.

She held out a small wooden bird. It had one wing bigger than the other, and the beak was crooked, and somebody had tried to paint the eyes and gotten one of them too high.

"Her papa made it," said Miss Guesclin. "She won't take it from him. And she won't take it from me, because she knows where I got it."

"She'll know where I got it too," said Avon.

"Yes," said Miss Guesclin. "But she might take it anyway. From you."

Avon took the bird.

He found Marika in the library, under the big table, with a book open and her back to the door.

"Here," said Avon. He put the bird on the floor next to her.

Marika looked at it. She didn't pick it up.

"That's his," said Marika.

"It's yours. He made it for you."

"It's ugly."

"Yes," said Avon.

Marika looked at it some more.

"One wing's bigger," she said.

"He said he's not good at carving."

"He's not." Marika poked the bird with one finger. It fell over. She sat it back up. "Its eye's in the wrong place."

"Yes."

"It looks surprised."

Avon looked. It did look surprised.

Marika picked it up. She turned it over in her hands. She looked at the bottom, where somebody had scratched a very small, very careful M.

"...It can stay," said Marika. "But only because it's ugly. Because nobody else would want it."

"All right," said Avon.

"And I'm calling it Surprise."

"All right."

That night, Avon heard from Loretta, who heard from Nina, who heard from the maid who did the Guesclin rooms, that Marika had gone to sleep with a wooden bird in her fist.

In the morning, the general came down to breakfast and didn't say anything about it at all. But he ate four eggs, and he hummed.

On the fourth night, Avon went down for water.

The terrace door was half open. He stopped on the stair.

"She hates me," said the general.

"She doesn't hate you," said Miss Guesclin. "She doesn't know you."

"Four years, Alina."

"You've said that."

"Because it's four years." The general's voice cracked. "Her first word. Her first steps. All of it. I read about all of it. I read about my own daughter in letters, like she was a battle somebody else fought."

"You were holding a border," said Miss Guesclin.

"I'd rather have been holding her."

Nobody said anything for a while.

"Every night on that wall," said the general, "I thought, she's asleep now. And she doesn't know my face. And if I die tonight, she never will."

"Renoir—"

"And now I'm here. I'm right here. And she still doesn't."

Avon went back up the stairs without the water.

There was a man at the top, in the corridor, with a candle. House clothes. Gray coat, like the footmen wore.

"Lost, little lord?" said the man.

"No," said Avon.

"Off to bed, then."

"Yes."

The man stepped aside to let him past. He was still standing there, with the candle, when Avon closed his door.

Avon lay in bed for a while, going through the footmen. There were five. He knew all five.

He'd have to ask Loretta.

He fell asleep before he could decide whether it mattered.

"You're up early," said the general, the next morning, at the fence.

Avon had been at the bottom rail since before the sky went gray. He hadn't thought anyone had seen him come out.

"So are you," said Avon.

"I'm always up early. Twenty years of it. The wall doesn't let you sleep in." The general leaned on the fence beside him. The whole fence creaked. "What about you?"

"I like the yard."

"Hm." The general looked down at him. "What does she like?"

"Who?"

"You know who."

Avon thought about it. "Hedges."

"Hedges?"

"She goes through them. Not round. Through."

The general's mouth moved under the mustache. "What else?"

"Counting. She counts to fourteen. Then she stops, because fourteen's enough."

"Fourteen," repeated the general.

"And her handkerchief. She wipes her hands when she's nervous. Even when they're clean."

"Does she wipe them a lot?"

"Since you came," said Avon.

The general was quiet for a while.

"I see," said the general. "Thank you."

"You keep saying that."

"I keep meaning it." The general pushed off the fence and picked up his sword. "Stay if you want. I'll only be a few hours."

"Morning, little lord," said Corin, at the fence, at dawn.

"Morning," said Avon.

"He's been at that since before the sky went gray."

At the near end of the yard, the general was doing one cut with a long plain sword. Up from the hip, across, down. Back to the start. Again.

"That's all he does?" asked Avon.

"That's all he does," said Corin. "Same cut. Over and over. Rufo came out to feed the horses and he was already at it."

"How long does he go?"

"Nobody knows. Nobody's stayed long enough. Faro tried yesterday. Gave up at breakfast."

"His feet don't move," said Avon.

"No."

"The prints in the snow aren't getting any deeper."

Corin looked. "...Huh. So they aren't."

Avon watched the breath, not the sword.

His father breathed in long and slow, and held it. The general breathed in short on the up-cut, and on the down-cut, all of it went out — down his arm, down the blade, and gone.

"He spends it," said Avon.

"Spends what?" said Corin.

"All of it. Every cut."

"If you say so, little lord."

The general did one more cut, lowered the sword, and turned his head.

"Line," said the general.

The Strade guards made a line. Corin too. He was three steps away before he noticed he'd moved.

"Hey—" said Corin, to his own feet.

He went the rest of the way anyway.

The general walked down the line, looking at each man. He stopped at Faro and moved Faro's sword belt an inch to the left.

"You favor your right," said the general. "It'll kill you."

"Yes, sir," said Faro.

"Not today. Not for years. But it'll kill you."

"Yes, sir."

The general reached the end of the line. "Who's first?"

He took four of them, one after another, with a wooden practice sword. None of them lasted three moves.

"Next," said the general.

Nobody moved.

"Next."

The line looked at its boots.

Then Ian came across the yard with his hands in his pockets, to fetch Avon for his lesson. He was late.

"You," said the general.

Ian looked left. Then right. Then behind him. "Me?"

"You're Ian."

"Am I?" said Ian.

"Knighted at seventeen. Won the spring tourney with a left hand nobody could read," said the general. "I was there. Three rows back."

"Wrong man, General. I get that a lot. I've got one of those faces."

"I never forget a left hand."

"Then it's a shame I'm right-handed," said Ian.

"Pick up a sword."

"I'd rather not."

"I'd rather you did," said the general.

Ian looked at the rack. He looked at the general. Then, for half a second, he looked at Avon.

Avon was watching.

Ian sighed. He hung his hat on the fence post and took a wooden sword from the rack. In his left hand.

"Oh," said Corin, very quietly.

"He's good," whispered Corin, three moves in.

"Yes," said Avon.

"Why's he good? He's never good!"

Ian was everywhere. Low, then high, then round the side, sword held almost backward, point trailing, coming up from nowhere. The general had to move his feet. Once. Twice.

"He made him move," said Corin. "He made the general move!"

Ian laughed, short and surprised.

On the eighth move, Ian's breath caught.

"There," said Avon.

"What?" said Corin.

"He's tired."

The general heard it too. He didn't speed up. He just put his sword where Ian's was going to be, and waited, and then it was over.

Ian's sword went into the snow. The general's stopped a finger's width from his neck.

"...Well," said Ian, breathing hard. "That was humiliating."

"It was very good," said the general.

"It was eight moves."

"Most men don't get two. You were better than that at seventeen."

"At seventeen," said Ian, "I didn't drink."

"You could stop."

"I could." Ian took his hat off the fence post and put it on. For a second, it looked like he might say something else. He didn't. "Lesson's canceled, my lord!" he called to Avon. "Your teacher's going to lie down in a dark room and think about his life."

He walked off toward the house.

"Shame," said the general, to nobody.

Avon's father had come out onto the step at some point. Avon hadn't seen when. He was leaning on the doorframe, the way he leaned on everything.

The general walked over to him.

"Strade," said the general.

"General," said Avon's father.

"Your boy watches."

"Yes."

"He was watching feet," said the general. "Not swords. Feet."

Avon's father didn't say anything to that.

"Mine used to watch," said the general. "My son. When he was small. Before they took him." He looked at the yard. "He watched swords."

"Hm," said Avon's father.

"Are you teaching him?"

"His grandfather sent someone."

The general looked toward the house, where Ian had gone.

"Him?"

"Him," said Avon's father.

The general thought about that for a long time.

"Hm," said the general.

The two of them stood there, not saying anything else, for so long that Corin eventually gave up waiting to find out whether they were going to, and went in for breakfast.

Ian lay on his bed with a wet cloth over his eyes and thought about the boy.

Nice kid, he thought. Quiet. Never cries. Not gifted, but nobody is.

Every family thought their child was a genius. That was the first rule of the job. The mother writes to the grandfather — he asked me all on his own, he's so bright — and the grandfather sends someone, and the someone agrees. Warmly. For as many years as it takes.

Steady progress, Ian would write. Good attention. A credit to the family. Every month. Ten years. Twelve. Room, board, and an envelope, and all he had to do was lie on a bench.

Only—

He took the cloth off.

At the fence, when the sword stopped at his neck, he'd looked over at the kid. The kid had been watching. Not the swords. Not the faces.

The feet.

And his lips had been moving. Like he was counting.

Ian lay there with that for a while.

"Kids count things," Ian said to the ceiling. "Kids count buttons."

He put the cloth back.

"In," said Ian, the next morning, on his bench.

Avon breathed in.

"Hold it."

Avon held it.

The hat didn't come down over Ian's face this time. It stayed on his head. Ian was sitting up. That had never happened before.

"Out," said Ian.

Avon breathed out. A little fast. Nicely wrong.

"My lord," said Ian.

"Mm?"

"Yesterday. At the fence. What were you looking at?"

"The fight," said Avon.

"Which part of the fight?"

Avon thought about how a four-year-old would answer that.

"The sticks," said Avon.

"The sticks," repeated Ian.

"They go crack."

Ian looked at him for a long moment.

"They do go crack," said Ian slowly. "That's true."

"You made him move," said Avon.

"...I did, didn't I?"

"Corin said you're never good."

Ian made a noise that was almost a laugh. "Corin's right. I'm never good. Yesterday was an accident."

"Can you do it again?"

"No," said Ian. He lay back down and put the hat over his face. "Never. Not once. I'd have to stop drinking, and I'd have to get up early, and I'd have to care, my lord, and I gave up caring for a very good price. In."

Avon breathed in.

"Hold it."

Avon held it.

From under the hat, very quietly, Ian said, "He's right, you know. The general. I was better at seventeen."

"Why did you stop?" asked Avon.

"Out," said Ian.

Avon breathed out.

Ian didn't answer the question. But he didn't go back to sleep, either.

"You missed it," said Marika.

She was waiting in the library when the lesson was over, sitting on the big table with her legs swinging. She was never allowed on the big table.

"Missed what?" said Avon.

"Papa's soldiers. They did a drill. Behind the stable. The whole thing. While you were doing breathing."

"You watched them?"

"From behind the woodpile." Marika lifted her chin. "He didn't see me."

"I thought you didn't like him."

"I don't," said Marika. "I was watching the soldiers."

"What did they do?"

"Everything." She hopped down off the table. "Do you want to see?"

"You can't show me," said Avon. "You weren't doing it. You were behind a woodpile."

Marika looked at him the way she'd looked at him in the shop, when he asked where the handkerchief came from.

"Watch," said Marika.

She took the fire poker out of its stand. It was nearly as long as she was.

She held it in both hands, down by her right hip.

"This is the first bit," said Marika.

She stepped forward with her left foot. The poker came up and across and down, and stopped. She stepped back. She turned. The poker went up over her head, and down again, and stopped exactly where it had stopped the first time.

"And then they all go hup," said Marika, "and do it the other way."

She did it the other way.

Avon didn't say anything.

"Then there's a spinny bit," said Marika. "Then there's one where you go down on your knee. Then there's the long one where everybody goes forward three steps and then stabs."

She did the spinny bit. She did the one on her knee. She went forward three steps, and stabbed the bookcase, and a book fell off.

She didn't wobble once.

Marika had fallen over sideways every time she sat up for most of a year. She fell out of chairs. She fell off the bottom step twice a week. She'd tried to do his breathing and landed in a rosebush.

She didn't wobble once.

"Marika," said Avon.

"That's all of it," said Marika, a little out of breath. "There's forty-two moves. I counted. I can only count to fourteen, so I did it three times."

"How many times did you watch it?"

"Once." She frowned. "They only did it once."

"Do another one."

"Another what?"

"Another one you've seen. Anyone."

Marika thought about that.

Then she moved the poker to her left hand. She held it backward, point trailing behind her, low and sideways.

"That's Ian," said Avon.

"That's Ian," agreed Marika, and came in low and sideways at the curtains, and the point came up from underneath, from nowhere, exactly the way it had in the snow.

"When did you see that?"

"Yesterday. From the window." She put the poker in her right hand, down at the hip. "And this is Papa."

Up from the hip. Across. Down to the knee.

Her feet didn't move.

She did it again. And again. Five times. The poker crossed the same place in the air every time.

"Now do my father," said Avon.

"Which bit?"

"Any bit."

Marika dropped low. Fast. She turned under a cut that wasn't there, with one hand trailing along the library rug, and came up on the other side of it.

Avon had watched his father do that for three years from the bottom rail. He'd practiced it in his room at night, with the door shut, where nobody could hear. He still couldn't do it that clean.

Marika stood up and blew her hair out of her face.

"Can you do that?" said Marika.

"No," said Avon.

"Oh," said Marika. She seemed surprised. "It's easy. You just look at it, and then it's in you."

"Is that how it goes?"

"That's how it goes for me." She put the poker back in its stand, crooked. Then she took out her handkerchief and wiped her hands, one finger at a time. "Doesn't it go like that for everyone?"

"No," said Avon.

"Oh," said Marika again.

She thought about it for a while. Then she lost interest, the way she did with anything that wasn't hers yet.

"Don't tell Mama I was on the table," said Marika.

"I won't."

"And don't tell Papa I watched."

"I won't."

She went off to find Beso.

Avon stood in the library for a long time, looking at the book on the floor.

Once, he thought. She watched it once.

He picked the book up and put it back.

Then he went and found the woodpile behind the stable, and looked at how much of the drill yard you could see from there.

Not much. A gap between two logs. About as wide as his hand.

That had been enough.

On the sixth afternoon, the general fell asleep on the terrace.

"Come here," hissed Marika, in the library door. "Come here."

"Why?" said Avon.

"Come here!"

She dragged him out the side door by his shirt, along the wall, bent over, to a big stone pot at the end of the terrace.

"Look," whispered Marika.

The general was in the good chair with his boots up on the rail and a blanket over his knees. His head was back. His mouth was open.

"Is he asleep?" whispered Marika.

"Yes," said Avon.

"Really asleep?"

"His mouth's open."

The mustache went up. It came down.

"It moves," whispered Marika. "Every time. Like a bird."

It did move like a bird.

Marika took out her handkerchief, wiped both hands, and put it back.

"Marika," said Avon.

"Shh."

She went across the terrace. Straight. Up to the arm of the chair. Up onto her toes. She looked at the mustache from six inches away.

Then she grabbed both ends of it.

And pulled.

The general woke up with a snort. His boots crashed off the rail. His eyes came open, huge and gray.

Marika froze. Both fists still full of mustache.

"Avu—!" squeaked Marika.

The general looked at her for one breath.

Then he laughed.

It came out of him all at once, too big for the terrace, and before Marika could let go, two huge hands closed round her middle and she was up. Up over his head. Kicking.

"CAUGHT!" roared the general. "Ambushed in my sleep! Twenty years on the wall, and I'm taken by a spy the size of a loaf of bread!"

"Put me DOWN!" shrieked Marika.

"Never!"

He brought her down to his face and rubbed his beard on her cheek. One side, then the other, growling like a bear.

"No! NO!" shrieked Marika. "It's PRICKLY!"

"Grrrrrr—"

"It's prickly! Stop! Papa, it's PRICKLY!"

The general stopped.

He stopped completely, with her held up in front of his face, her boots dangling.

She'd said it.

Marika didn't seem to notice. She was too busy being outraged.

"It's prickly," said Marika again. "And it's sticky."

"...That's wax," said the general. His voice had gone strange.

"Why?"

"So it looks fierce."

Marika looked at the mustache for a long time.

"It doesn't," said Marika.

The general laughed again. Quieter. His eyes were running into his beard.

"No," said the general. "No, I don't suppose it does."

He rubbed his face against hers again. Gently this time. She only complained a little.

Miss Guesclin was standing in the terrace door with her hand over her mouth.

Avon hadn't heard her come. He hadn't moved from behind the pot.

His chest was doing something. He waited for it to turn into something he recognized.

It didn't.

He decided it could stay anyway.

When the general finally put her down, Marika marched straight back to the stone pot with her chin up. She took out her handkerchief. She wiped every finger.

"Wax," Marika told Avon, disgusted.

Then she took hold of his shirt and turned around.

"...Papa," said Marika.

"Yes, sweetheart?" said the general.

"Can we go out now?"

At dinner that night, Marika sat down in the chair next to her father.

Nobody said anything about it. Avon's mother very carefully didn't look. Miss Guesclin very carefully looked at her soup.

"Marika," said Miss Guesclin, after a while. "Pass your papa the bread."

Marika picked up the bread basket in both hands and turned in her chair and held it up.

"Here," said Marika.

"Thank you, sweetheart," said the general.

He said it to her this time. Not to the bread.

"You have to take it," said Marika. "My arms are getting tired."

The general took it.

"Papa," said Marika.

"Yes?"

"Why's your face got a line on it?"

The table went very still.

"Marika—" said Miss Guesclin.

"It's all right." The general touched the scar with one finger. "A man gave it to me. A long time ago. On the wall."

"Did it hurt?"

"Very much."

"Did you cry?"

The general thought about it honestly.

"Yes," said the general. "But only afterward. Where nobody could see."

"You cried on the steps," said Marika. "Everybody saw."

"...That's true," said the general. "I did do that."

"Why?"

The general looked at her for a long moment.

"Because I was very, very happy," said the general. "And sometimes when you're very happy, it comes out of your eyes."

Marika frowned at that.

"That's silly," she said.

"It is silly," agreed the general.

"Avon's mama does it too."

"I do," said Avon's mother, a little wetly. "It's true. I do."

Marika looked around the table at all the grown-ups who were suddenly doing a great deal of looking at their plates.

"Grown-ups are weird," she told Avon.

"Yes," said Avon.

"She pulled it," said Nina, in the kitchen. "His mustache. With both hands."

"I heard," said Marta.

"And he laughed!"

"I heard that too. The whole house heard that. They heard it in the city."

"Then he picked her up and rubbed his face on her," said Nina, "and she called him Papa, and Miss Guesclin was in the door crying, and—"

"Who told you all this?" said Loretta.

"Faro," said Nina. "Faro was on the roof."

"Why was Faro on the roof?"

"Fixing a slate."

"There's nothing wrong with the slates."

"...He said he was fixing a slate," said Nina.

Corin came in, took one look at the table, and sat down. "The general's men," said Corin, "just paid me three coppers each."

"For what?" said Marta.

"They had a bet going. Since the day they got here. How long till the little one would talk to him." Corin put the coins on the table. "I had five days. The rest of them had ten or more. One of them had spring."

"You bet on a child," said Loretta.

"I bet on Master Avon," said Corin. "She'd follow him anywhere. Figured he'd walk her right up to it sooner or later."

"He didn't walk her anywhere," said Loretta. "She dragged him."

"Same thing, with those two," said Corin.

Avon was under the table with Beso again.

He didn't say anything. He was thinking about whether it was, in fact, the same thing.

"You're doing it wrong," said Marika.

It was the seventh morning. Avon was in his room with the door shut, doing the low stance he'd seen the guards hold at the start of every drill. Knees bent. Back straight. Arms out in front. He'd been doing it every night for a month. He could hold it for about as long as it took to count to a hundred.

Marika hadn't knocked. She never knocked.

"How am I doing it wrong?" asked Avon, still holding it.

"Your weight's in your heels." She came over and pushed on his shoulder with one finger. He rocked backward. "See? You're sitting on your heels like a chair. It's supposed to be here." She poked him in the middle of the foot, through his slipper.

"Where did you learn that?"

"Papa's soldiers. Behind the stable. They all do it like this."

Avon moved his weight forward.

His legs started shaking almost right away.

"Better," said Marika. "And your knees go out. Not in. Like you're sitting on a horse."

"I've never sat on a horse."

"Neither have I," said Marika. "But Papa's soldiers have, and their knees go out."

Avon pushed his knees out.

His legs shook harder.

"How long do they hold it?" asked Avon.

"Forever," said Marika.

"Show me."

Marika dropped into it beside him.

She didn't wobble. She didn't adjust. She just went down into it like she'd been poured, knees out, weight forward, back straight, arms level, and stopped.

Then she reached into her pocket, took out an apple, and started eating it.

Avon counted.

At sixty, his legs were shaking so badly his slippers were squeaking on the floor.

At ninety, he stood up. He had to. His knees didn't give him a choice.

Marika was still down. She was on the second half of the apple.

"You stopped," said Marika, around a mouthful.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"My legs."

"What's wrong with your legs?"

"They hurt," said Avon.

Marika looked at her own legs, as if she'd never thought about them before.

"Mine don't," she said.

She finished the apple. She ate the core. She held the stance for a while longer, just to see. Then she stood up the normal way, not using her hands, not wobbling, and wiped her fingers on her handkerchief.

"You have to do it every day," she told him seriously. "Papa's soldiers do it every day. That's what makes it go in."

"Does it go in for you every day?"

"It went in the first day," said Marika. "I'm just telling you what they do."

The guards drilled in the yard that afternoon. Avon was at the bottom rail. Marika wasn't at the bottom rail. Marika was on top of the corner post.

"Miss!" shrieked Loretta, from the kitchen door. "Miss, you come down from there this instant!"

"Why?" said Marika.

She was standing on it. On one foot. The corner post was about as wide as a dinner plate, and four feet off the ground, and slick with melted snow, and she was standing on it on one foot with the other foot tucked up against her knee, looking down at the drill like a bird on a branch.

"Because you'll fall!" said Loretta.

"I won't," said Marika.

"You will! You fell off the bottom step on Tuesday!"

"That was the step," said Marika, as if the step had done it on purpose.

Corin had stopped drilling. So had Faro. So had most of the line.

"How long's she been up there?" said Faro.

"Since before you started," said Avon.

"...That's twenty minutes," said Faro.

"Yes."

Faro looked at the post. He looked at his own feet. Then he lifted one of them off the ground.

He wobbled. He put his arms out. He put the foot down again after about the count of five.

"Faro," said Corin. "What are you doing?"

"Seeing," said Faro.

He tried it again. He got to four this time.

Two of the other guards were trying it now, too, very quietly, as if nobody would notice. One of them hopped. The other grabbed the rack.

Up on the post, Marika hadn't moved at all.

"Faro," said Marika.

"...Yes, miss?"

"You're wobbling."

"I'm aware, miss," said Faro.

Marika watched him wobble for a bit longer, with great interest, like he was a new kind of bird.

Then she switched feet. Just like that. Down with one, up with the other, without putting her hands out, and went on standing there.

Faro put his foot down and didn't try again.

Corin was laughing so hard he'd had to lean on the rack.

"Miss Marika!" called Loretta, from the door. "Down! Now!"

Marika sighed.

She jumped.

Not down off the side, the way you'd get off a post. She jumped out, over Avon, over the bottom rail, and landed on both feet in the snow of the drill yard, with her knees bent and her arms out, and didn't take a single step to catch herself.

The whole yard went quiet.

Marika straightened up. She brushed the snow off her skirt. Then she took out her handkerchief and wiped her hands.

"There," she said to Loretta. "I'm down."

"Corin," said Avon, later, when Marika had gone in.

"Mm?" Corin was still grinning.

"The jump. From the post."

"She's a little monkey, that one," said Corin fondly.

"Could you do it?"

Corin looked at the post. He looked at the distance to the snow.

"Could I?" said Corin. "Sure. Probably. I'd land on my backside, but I'd do it."

"She didn't land on her backside."

"No," said Corin, and stopped grinning for a second. "No, she didn't."

Then he shrugged and picked up his practice sword.

"Kids bounce, little lord," said Corin. "Wait till you're my age. Then you land on your backside every time."

Avon looked at the prints in the snow where Marika had landed.

Two of them. Side by side. Not any deeper at the toes than at the heels.

Weight in the middle of the foot, he thought.

He went inside and did the stance until he got to a hundred and ten.

"Men who look like me make shopkeepers nervous," said the general, at the door, on the eighth morning. "And nervous shopkeepers overcharge."

"You just want to sleep in the chair," said Miss Guesclin.

"I just want to sleep in the chair," said the general.

"Marika," said Miss Guesclin, "what do you want to see first?"

"Everything," said Marika.

"Yes, but first."

Marika held up her fingers and counted on them.

"A shop. A horse that isn't ours. A bridge. A man selling something. A baby that isn't a Strade baby. A boat—"

"There aren't any boats, sweetheart. We're not going to the coast."

"—a boat," said Marika firmly, "and a king."

"Definitely no king," said Avon's mother.

"Why?"

"He's busy."

"Doing what?"

"Being king," said Avon.

Marika considered that.

"...Fine," she said. "But everything else."

Avon's father put his hand on top of Avon's head for a second. Then he took it away and went inside.

"Are you sure about this?" said Avon's mother to Miss Guesclin, quietly, at the carriage step.

"No," said Miss Guesclin.

"We could wait. Until spring."

"We've waited four years, Janet." Miss Guesclin was watching Marika bounce on the carriage seat. "Everyone in that city already knows who she is. They've been talking about her for four years. They'll talk whether she's there or not."

"Then why go?"

"Because I promised," said Miss Guesclin. "And because Renoir's men are here. And because I don't want the first time she sees the city to be the day the priests take her there."

Avon's mother squeezed her hand.

"Mama!" shouted Marika, from inside. "Mama, the horses are ready!"

"Coming, sweetheart."

Two carriages. Avon's mother and Miss Guesclin, Loretta, Avon, and Marika in the first. The second one empty.

"What's the empty one for?" asked Avon.

"The damage," said Loretta.

Corin rode on one side. Faro rode on the other. Four of the general's men rode behind.

A maid Avon didn't know was tucking a blanket over Loretta's knees.

"All the way into the city, is it?" said the maid.

"All the way," said Loretta. "Back by dark, if the little miss doesn't wear us out first."

"She will," said the maid, and smiled, and shut the carriage door.

The carriage went down the drive. Past the stable. Past the fence.

Then through the gate.

"Outside," breathed Marika, with her nose flat against the window.

"Avon. Avon. Look at all the houses!"

"I see them," said Avon.

"They're leaning on each other!"

"They're tired," said Loretta.

"Houses don't get tired," said Marika.

"These ones do, miss."

"Why are there so many of them?" said Marika.

"Because there are so many people," said Avon's mother.

"Where do they all sleep?"

"In the houses."

"All of them? In those?"

"Some of them sleep four to a room, miss," said Loretta. "I grew up six to one."

"Six?" said Marika. "Where did you put your knees?"

"In somebody else's back, mostly," said Loretta.

Marika turned from the window to look at Loretta with enormous respect.

Corin rode up close to the window. "All right in there, little lord?"

"Yes," said Avon.

"First time outside the gate, eh?"

"Yes."

"What do you think?"

Avon looked at the street. At the washing hung between the houses. At a cart with a broken wheel and a man shouting at it.

"It's loud," said Avon.

"That it is," said Corin cheerfully.

"How many people live here?"

"Couldn't tell you, little lord. Thousands. More than you could count."

"I could count them," said Avon.

"...I bet you could, at that," said Corin.

"Chestnuts!" shrieked Marika. "Mama, the man's got chestnuts! On his head! Can we have some? Can we? Please?"

"Loretta," said Miss Guesclin, with a sigh.

Loretta leaned out of the window and whistled, sharp and loud, the way Avon had never once heard her whistle in the house. The chestnut man came running. Coins went out. A paper cone of hot chestnuts came in.

"Retta," said Marika, amazed. "You can whistle?"

"Of course I can, miss," said Loretta. "I had four brothers. It was the only way to get them in for supper."

Marika burned her fingers on the first chestnut, dropped it, picked it up, wiped it on her handkerchief, and ate it anyway.

"It's good," she told Avon, with her mouth full. "Outside food is good."

Avon ate one.

It was good.

The carriage stopped at a corner to let a wagon through. A girl about their size was standing on the step of a bakery, with flour all down her front, staring straight in at the window.

Marika stared back.

"Hello," said the flour girl.

"Hello," said Marika.

"Are you her?"

"Who?"

"Her," said the flour girl. "The one from the sky."

Marika thought about it. "I'm Marika."

"My mam says you're going to kill a dragon."

"Am I?" said Marika, very interested.

"She says you're going to kill all of them."

"How many are there?"

The flour girl held up both hands, then took two fingers down. "Eight. Mam says."

Marika looked at Avon.

"Avon," said Marika. "Am I going to kill eight dragons?"

"I don't know," said Avon.

"That's a lot of dragons."

"Yes."

"Can you help?"

"Yes," said Avon.

He said it before he'd thought about it. It was just the answer.

Marika turned back to the window, satisfied. "Avon's going to help," she told the flour girl.

"Who's Avon?" said the flour girl.

"Him," said Marika, pointing.

The flour girl looked at Avon for a long time.

"He's small," said the flour girl.

"So am I," said Marika.

The wagon cleared. The carriage lurched forward. The flour girl ran alongside it for three houses, waving, until her mother came out and shouted her back.

Miss Guesclin had gone very quiet in her corner.

Avon's mother reached across and took her hand, and neither of them said anything at all.

The carriage hit a hole in the road a street later. A deep one.

Everybody lurched. Loretta grabbed the strap. Avon's mother grabbed the seat. Avon went sideways into the door and caught himself on the window frame.

Marika was standing up.

She'd stood up to look at a pigeon, just before the hole. And when the carriage dropped, she'd just — gone down with it. Knees bent. Weight in the middle of her feet. Her hands weren't holding anything at all.

The carriage came back up. Marika came back up with it.

She hadn't moved an inch.

"Sit down," said Miss Guesclin, white-faced.

"Why?" said Marika, still looking at the pigeon.

"Because you'll fall."

"I won't," said Marika. "Everybody always says that."

Miss Guesclin stared at her daughter for a long moment.

Then she looked at Avon's mother. Avon's mother looked back.

Neither of them said it.

"Sit down, sweetheart," said Miss Guesclin again, more quietly.

Marika sat down. She was still looking at the pigeon.

"There's a man with chestnuts on his head!" said Marika. "There's a dog chasing a boy! Is that his dog?"

"No," said Avon.

"How do you know?"

"The boy's got an apple. The dog wants the apple."

"Oh," said Marika. "Avon. Avon. There's a man with a bird on his hat."

"It's a feather."

"It's a whole bird!"

Avon looked. It was a whole bird.

Then the people started looking back.

"That's the Strade carriage," said a woman at the fish stall.

"That's the general's wife in the window," said the man next to her.

"The general's home. My sister's boy saw him ride through on the snow day."

"Then that's—oh. Oh. Look. That's her."

Avon heard every word. He always heard every word. At home, there'd just never been this many words.

It went ahead of the carriage down the street.

"The Guesclin girl!" said someone.

"There, in the window, with the dark hair!"

"That's the one they saw the ring for?"

"My mother was on her knees in the road all night," said an old woman. "She says the sky was white as noon."

"Twice in one house," said a man. "The priest said it's never happened—"

"She's so small," said a girl.

"They're all small at first," said her mother. "Her brother was small. Now he's taller than a door."

"Wave to her, love. Wave."

Marika waved back. With her whole arm. At the fish woman, the chestnut man, a baby, a horse.

"Avon," said Marika. "They like me."

"They know you," said Avon.

"How do they know me?"

He didn't have an answer he could give her.

"—and that's the Strade boy," said a man by a cart. "The quiet one."

"The heir?" said his friend. "That little thing?"

"Staring at us like he's pricing us."

"Children don't price things."

"That one does."

Avon stopped looking out of the window.

It didn't help. He could still hear.

"Poor little mite," said a woman.

"Poor?" said another. "She's blessed."

"Blessed means they come for her. Her brother went at twelve. They'll have her at twelve too, and then where's her mother?"

"That's how it goes with heroes."

"That's how it goes."

An old man with a pipe, in a doorway, said to nobody: "Eight calamities out there now. Eight. She'd best grow fast, that one."

The carriage went on.

Avon sat back.

They've never met her, he thought. They don't know about the handkerchief. They don't know she can't sleep without her knees up.

And every one of them has a piece of her.

He looked at Marika. She was waving at a cat.

He didn't like the feeling. It wasn't the good one from the terrace. It was the other kind.

He held on to it and didn't let it out.

"Lady Strade! Lady Guesclin!" said the thin man in the cloth shop, bowing so low his nose nearly hit his knees. "What an honor! For the birthday, is it? For the little ones? Please, please, come through! I've had the new silks put aside since the moment I heard—"

"He hasn't put anything aside," Avon said to Marika, quietly.

"How do you know?" whispered Marika.

"The dust."

The mothers went to the window. Loretta went with them. The thin man started holding up silk.

"Too bright," said Avon's mother.

"Too dark," said Miss Guesclin.

"Too expensive," said Loretta, under her breath.

"Four years," Marika announced to the shop in general. "Four years, I've been inside."

"Have you, little miss?" said the thin man.

"And now I've been let out."

"How wonderful."

"It is," said Marika. "I'm going to see everything. This is the first bit."

The thin man looked around his shop, at the dust and the silk and the one bored cat on the windowsill, like he'd never once thought of it as everything before.

It went on for a long time.

Avon looked for a chair. There wasn't one. There was a stool behind the counter, a bench with velvet piled on it, and the floor.

He started to sit on the floor.

"No!" A hand grabbed the back of his shirt and hauled him upright. "You can't!" hissed Marika.

"Why?" said Avon.

"It's the floor! People walk on it with their feet!"

"People walk on every floor with their feet."

"Not shop floors! Shop floors are outside floors that are inside! That's the worst kind!"

Avon looked at the floor. It looked like a floor.

"Wait," said Marika.

She reached into her sleeve and pulled out her handkerchief.

And kept pulling.

It unfolded. And unfolded. And unfolded again. Napkin-sized. Pillowcase-sized. Tablecloth-sized.

The thin man stopped talking about silk.

"Where—" said the thin man.

Marika snapped it out like a maid with a sheet and let it fall. It floated down onto the floor, flat and white and big enough for two. She sat on one half, straightened her skirt, and patted the other half.

"Now you can sit," said Marika.

Avon sat.

His mother turned around from the window with a length of blue silk in her hands. She looked at them. She looked at Miss Guesclin.

"She does that," said Miss Guesclin calmly, and turned back to the silk.

The thin man came out from behind his counter. He bent down, very low, until his face was level with Marika's.

"And is this," he said, in a voice like warm honey, "our little hero?"

Marika looked at him.

"I'm Marika," said Marika.

"Of course you are. Of course. And do you know, little miss, how very important you are? How very, very special?"

"No," said Marika.

The thin man didn't seem to know what to do with that.

"Well," he said, "you are. Everyone says so."

"Everyone says a lot of things," said Marika. "Marta says so."

"And who's Marta?"

"She makes the bread," said Marika, as if he should have known.

The thin man straightened up slowly. He looked at Avon.

"And you must be young Lord Strade."

"Yes," said Avon.

"What a very fine young man. What a very serious young man." He smiled with all his teeth. "Do you like silk, my lord?"

"No," said Avon.

"...Ah," said the thin man.

He went back behind his counter.

"He was weird," whispered Marika.

"He wants money," said Avon.

"From us?"

"From our mothers."

"Oh," said Marika. She looked at the thin man with a great deal more suspicion.

"Is it true?" said the glove-maker, in the second shop. She was an old woman with very clever hands. She was kneeling in front of Marika, measuring her fingers with a bit of string. "Is it true, little miss, what they say about the ring in the sky?"

"I don't know," said Marika. "I was a baby."

"Of course you were. Of course." The old woman wrote a number down. "My husband saw it. He was on the night watch. He said it was so bright you could read by it."

"Could he read?" said Marika.

"...No, dear. But he said you could."

"Oh," said Marika.

The glove-maker turned to Avon and took his hand to measure it.

"And you were born that same night, weren't you, my lord? In the same house?"

"Yes," said Avon.

"Fancy that. Under the same ring." She wrapped the string round his fingers and wrote the number down. "You must be very proud of her."

Avon thought about it.

"She's proud enough for both of us," said Avon.

The glove-maker laughed out loud.

"I'm not," said Marika, from the floor.

"No chair," said Avon, in the hat shop.

Marika's hand was already in her sleeve.

"No chair," said Avon, in the lace shop.

"There's a chair," said Marika.

"There's an old lady asleep in it."

"Oh." Out came the handkerchief.

"No chair," said Avon, in the shoe shop.

"There's a bench."

"It's got shoes on it."

Out came the handkerchief.

The shoemaker was a round, cheerful man with pins in his mouth. He took one look at Marika on the handkerchief and got down on the floor with her, knees cracking.

"Right then, little miss," said the shoemaker, around the pins. "Stand up for me, and put your foot on the board."

Marika stood up and put her foot on the board.

"And the other one up, please. Off the floor. Just for a moment, while I draw round you."

Marika lifted the other foot.

The shoemaker drew round the first foot. Then he took the pins out of his mouth and started measuring the width. Then the arch. Then he measured it all again, because he'd dropped a pin.

Marika stood on one foot the whole time.

"You can put it down now, miss," said the shoemaker eventually.

"I don't need to," said Marika.

"...No," said the shoemaker, looking up at her. "No, I don't suppose you do."

He did the other foot. She stood on the first one for that. Then he sat back on his heels and looked at the two drawings side by side.

"Well, I'll be," said the shoemaker.

"What?" said Avon's mother, from the counter.

"Nothing wrong, my lady. Nothing wrong at all." He tapped the drawings. "It's just — I've measured feet for thirty years. Soldiers' feet. Dancers' feet. The king's own couriers. And I've never drawn a pair that sat so square on the board. There's not a hair of lean in them. Not one." He looked up at Marika again. "Where'd you get feet like that, little miss?"

Marika thought about it.

"They came with me," said Marika.

The shoemaker laughed so hard he swallowed a pin, and had to be thumped on the back by Loretta.

Then he did Avon's feet.

He didn't say anything about Avon's feet at all.

By the fifth shop, neither of them said anything. Avon walked in, stopped at the first clear bit of floor, and waited. The handkerchief came out, and unfolded, and fell, and they sat.

"Marika," said Avon, on the floor of the fifth shop.

"Mm?"

"Where does it come from?"

She looked at him sideways, very slowly, like she was embarrassed for him.

"My sleeve," said Marika.

"Avon," said Marika, in the seventh shop.

She wasn't sitting on the handkerchief anymore. She was lying on it, flat on her back, staring at the ceiling.

"Mm," said Avon. He was lying next to her.

"Is it everything yet?"

"I think so."

"Oh," said Marika.

She lay there.

"Everything's just shops," said Marika.

It was dark when they got back in the carriage.

"I can't get it back in," said Loretta, trying to stuff the handkerchief back up the sleeve of a sleeping Marika. "How does she get it back in?"

"Fold it, Retta," said Avon.

Loretta folded it. It covered her whole lap.

The carriage started up the hill. At the bend, Marika woke up all at once, the way she always did.

"Are we going home?" said Marika.

"We're going home, sweetheart," said Miss Guesclin.

"Good." Marika lay down across Avon's lap and pulled a corner of the handkerchief over her face. "I'm never going outside again."

The mothers looked at each other.

"Never?" said Miss Guesclin.

"Never. I'm staying in. Forever. Outside's boring."

"You begged for four years," said Miss Guesclin.

"I didn't know," said Marika, from under the handkerchief. "Nobody told me it was just shops."

Avon's mother laughed first. She couldn't help it.

Then Miss Guesclin went too, with her hand over her eyes.

"Four years, Janet," said Miss Guesclin, when she could talk. "Every single day. When can we go out? When can we go out? When's Papa coming so we can go out?"

"I know," said Avon's mother.

"And after one afternoon—"

"I know."

"Never again, she says!"

Loretta was laughing too, and pretending she wasn't.

Marika was already asleep again.

Avon kept his eyes shut. They thought he was asleep. That was fine.

"Five," said his mother quietly, a while later.

"Five," said Miss Guesclin.

"Have you seen the list?"

"You've shown me the list three times, Janet."

"It's longer now." Avon heard his mother's hands move in her lap. "His grandfather wrote again. They're sending people from the Bank. Two cousins I've never met. People from—I don't even know where half of them are from, Alina. I have to look them up."

"They've never cared about Redmont before," said Miss Guesclin.

"They care now. They want to look at him." His mother's voice went smaller. "His grandfather wants them to look at him. They'll come, and eat, and give him things, and look at him. Then they'll go home and write to each other about what they saw."

"And what will they see?" asked Miss Guesclin.

"I don't know," said his mother. "That's what frightens me."

The wheels rolled.

"It's her birthday too," said his mother.

"I know what day it is," said Miss Guesclin.

"Nobody will come to hers."

"Good," said Miss Guesclin.

"Alina."

"I mean it. Good." Miss Guesclin's voice was very even. "Let them all come up the drive with their carriages and their cousins and their presents. Let them stand in your hall and look at him all day. Let them count his teeth. And my girl can sit in the corner with a piece of cake, and nobody will look at her at all."

"You'd use my son as a wall," said his mother.

"Yes," said Miss Guesclin. "I would." A pause. "And he's a good one. Nobody can ever tell what he's thinking. Not even you."

His mother didn't say anything for a while.

"His grandfather's people notice everything," his mother said at last. "They'll notice he isn't like other four-year-olds."

"Is he not?" said Miss Guesclin.

"You know he isn't, Alina."

A hall full of strangers, Avon thought. In a line. Looking at me.

Every one of them carrying a piece.

Most things, he didn't mind. That was how he'd always known a thing was all right. The terrace. The handkerchief. His father's hand on his head.

This, he minded.

He didn't know what he'd do about it. He was four.

But he had until then.

The general was waiting at the gate with a lantern, in his shirtsleeves, in the snow. His men were behind him, pretending they hadn't come too.

There were more people at the gate than there had been that morning. Footmen. Maids with lanterns. Somebody from the kitchen.

Avon knew most of them.

Corin opened the carriage door.

Marika sat up. She saw who was standing in the lantern light.

She didn't hide.

She climbed over Avon, and over Loretta, and out into the snow, and stood in front of him with her hair squashed flat on one side.

"Papa," said Marika. "Outside is boring."

"Is it?" said the general.

"It's all shops. And everybody stares."

The general went down on one knee. Slower this time. Not like he was scared of it.

"They do stare," said the general. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. They've been staring at our family for four hundred years. They won't stop just because you ask."

"Can you make them stop?" asked Marika.

"No."

"Can Avon make them stop?"

The general looked up at the carriage. At Avon, sitting in the dark with his hands on his knees.

He looked for a long time.

"...I don't know," said the general. "Maybe."

Marika seemed satisfied with that.

She let him pick her up. She put her arms around his neck and her face in his beard.

"Prickly," said Marika, once, for form's sake.

Then she left it there.

Over his shoulder, as he turned back toward the house, she reached one hand out behind her. Toward the carriage.

"Avu," said Marika.

Avon got down.

He walked up behind them in the snow, and let her take hold of his shirt.

The general took short steps all the way up the drive, so nobody had to hurry.