“The Laughing Man?”

The storyteller reached into her boot and took out a pack of cards. Without looking, as though she knew the cards by feel, she took one out: a primitive woodcut of a man, laughing gleefully in the midst of a wrecked house. The storyteller’s fingertip touched the red symbol stamped on one corner. “This glyph means fate, or chance. The Laughing Man’s actions are so unexpected, and their effect is so profound, that his victims think it is a bitter joke. He destroys everything–even trust and hope. But there is one power that can counteract his.” She took out another card: a circle of people, arm in arm. “Fellowship,” she said.

Clement said, finally, as the storyteller secured the pack with a leather thong, “To own these cards is illegal. To use them, to know how to use them, to use them in front of a Sainnite officer… !”

Silent, serious, fearless, the storyteller tucked the cards into her boot.

The strangest aspect of this woman’s madness was how sane it seemed, how utterly coherent. If Clement asked the storyteller where she got her cards, or how she learned to read them, the storyteller certainly would respond that she did not remember. But she used them, as she used everything, as a tool for storytelling. She was not a friend or a lover, a member of a tribe, of a family; she had no past and neither feared nor desired the future. She was a storyteller only, and that was what both explained her coherence and defined her madness.

The storyteller gazed at Clement: a long gaze, incurious, unblinking.

Clement said, “Don’t let anyone else see those cards, or you will be a dead woman. Do I owe you a story now?”

“You told me a story already, a tale of a woman who contracted to buy a child without realizing that she also had to make a home for it.”

Clement snorted. “A ridiculous tale. Who wouldn’t realize–” I here was a sound from upstairs, a wrenching cry of a sort Clement had heard too often in her life, but always before on a battlefield. “My mother’s gods!”

She leapt to her feet, but the storyteller’s voice stopped her. Marga will not allow you into the room.“

“She’s dying!”

“Yes.” The storyteller picked up her empty cup from the floor, and refilled it.

The house again lay still, a silence wrapped around by howling wind. The Laughing Man leaves wreckage in his wake, inevitably, unstoppably. Clement returned eventually to the chair; there was nothing she could do.

Sometime before dawn, the storm began to lose its force. Clement was awakened by the storyteller building up the fire. She had slept in the chair, covered by a blanket, but the storyteller had perched unmoving on the stool all night. Now, she swung the kettle over flame once again, and began the ritual of making another pot of tea. Clement said, “Has something happened?”

Her reply was a faint rapping at the front door. The storyteller went to answer it, and quickly returned. “The Lucky Man is here.”

“What?” Clement leapt to her feet, snatched the corner of the blanket out of the coals, and then wrapped it around herself like a shawl. She went out into the bitter chill, into a city glazed with ice, with drifts of snow piled head‑high by the harsh wind. A snow plow, dragged by two massive, steaming plow‑horses, worked its way slowly down the street. At Alrin’s gate, which was half buried in a drift of snow, Gilly waited on horseback, attended by a red‑cheeked, shivering young soldier. The storyteller came out behind Clement, with cups of tea emitting clouds of steam in the chill. She gave one to Gilly and one to his aide, then disappeared into the house again.

Clement said vaguely, “It’s almost as if the storyteller knew that you were coming.”

“People with talents like hers often have some prescience.” Gilly gulped his tea. “Any word?”

“Not yet.”

Gilly looked grim. “And Alrin has been laboring all night?”

“The storyteller implies…” Clement took too deep a breath, and choked on the searing air. “Gods, Gilly, what are you doing here?”

“The storyteller says what?”

“Alrin will die.”

“Well.” He gulped his tea again, and handed Clement first the cup, then the basket that rested before him on the saddle. “I’ve made inquiries. But it will not be easy to find a nurse. Meanwhile, I think I’ve gotten everything you need, even some milk.” He spoke briskly, no doubt to cover his embarrassment.

She stared at him, speechless from gratitude and sleeplessness.

He continued, “Ask the midwife to show you how to care for the child. And offer her a commission for helping you to find a nurse. But don’t offend her.”

“How would I do that?” she asked humbly.

“By giving her orders as though she were a soldier.”

“Gilly … I can’t keep a baby in the garrison!”

“I’ll tell Cadmar it’s temporary. Now get inside.” He smiled a gruesome smile, twisted as always.

“I’m in your debt, I think.”

“Are you? I lost track several years ago.”

She reached up, and he reached down, and briefly clasped her hand.

Back in the kitchen, the storyteller took the empty cups from her, then examined the contents of Clement’s basket, and gave an approving nod. “Fellowship,” she commented, and went to put the bottle of milk in the cold cupboard.

Some hours later, Marga came into the kitchen, carrying a bundle wrapped so as to reveal a solemn, old man’s face and blue, unfocused eyes. Clement gave Marga the money, and Marga put the baby in her arms, like a shopkeeper handing over a sack of sugar.

“I need to speak to the midwife!” Clement said in a panic.

“She’s busy,” Marga said. “The storyteller will show you out.” She left the kitchen, hurrying, leaving Clement with a fleeting glimpse of her harried face and fatigue‑smeared eyes. The storyteller followed her out, and for some little time Clement was left alone to stare at the baby, who blinked vaguely at her, opened and closed a toothless mouth and made random movements in its bindings. Clement felt a swift, deep shifting in her heart. Everything felt askew, and yet this giddiness was not entirely due to fear.

The storyteller returned. “The midwife knows of a possible nurse. She’ll speak to her tomorrow, and send her to the garrison, if she’s willing.”

“But I need her to show me what to do!”

The storyteller said, “She cannot leave Alrin.”

Clement stood like a dumb animal, watching without seeing, as the storyteller put a few things in a basket: her silken performance clothes, a wooden comb. Then she took the baby so Clement could put on her coat. She gave the infant back, now wrapped in three small blankets from Gilly’s basket, and put on her own outdoor clothing. She got the bottle of milk from the cupboard, and picked up both the baskets in one hand.

The storyteller held open the kitchen door for Clement. On the table in the front hall, where the lamp had long since burned itself out, she placed a latchkey. She opened the front door, and Clement walked out into the blinding day, where a cold sun glanced around scudding shreds of clouds, and the street was busy with people, old and young, all wielding snow shovels. The storyteller closed the door firmly.

The infant stirred in the cold and uttered a small complaining sound. The storyteller arranged a fold of blanket to shield its face, then took Clement by the arm to steady her on the snowy walk.

“You’re coming with me?” asked Clement.

In a voice made rough by cold the storyteller said, “I will teach you to care for your son.”

“My son?” said Clement blankly. She looked down at the bundled baby. Then, the finality with which the storyteller had shut that door sank in. “Storyteller? Marga won’t tolerate you after Alrin is gone?”

“Marga will do what she wants, now.”

A silence. The street had been scattered with sand, and the storyteller took her supporting hand from Clement’s elbow. Clement said, “Gilly and I will take care of you, somehow.”