Chapter 20: The Question

I wore the blue sweater and nothing under it but a pair of cotton underwear.

I sat on my porch steps at dusk with a mug of tea going cold between my hands.

The frost had come back.

The yard glittered, and over the ridge the first stars were pricking through.

I heard his boots on the road long before I saw him.

Garrick came up the path with his hands at his sides.

He had combed his beard and wet down his sandy hair, and it stood up again anyway.

He stopped at the foot of the steps.

His right hand was empty.

"You forgot the bread," I said.

"The law says I may give what I can carry in one hand."

"So?"

"I thought about it all day. I couldn't find the thing."

He opened his hand, palm up, and held it out to me.

There was nothing in it.

"I'm bringing what I have," he said. "It's a hand."

I looked at it for a long time.

It was a huge, scarred, careful hand, calloused across the knuckles, and I knew exactly what it felt like on every part of me.

My eyes stung.

"Ask," I said.

He took one breath.

"I have come to this door for twelve days to ask for the Queen's Chair," he said. "I'm not asking tonight."

"Garrick."

"Let me say it. It's the first time I've had to say it plainly."

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