"As long as you are not flung back into battle before it heals," he concurs, settling slightly as he takes the tea. "You're a consummate swordswoman, but even the best fighter is safest unhindered."

Her words remind him that he's flaunting knowledge he'd as soon not show off. "My mother," he extemporises, remembering that they know something of his life, so avoiding an outright lie whilst not speaking of his time with Chade. "She had a love for gardens and herbs. Many's the hour I spent with her hanging herbs from her garden - 'this for swelling, that for pain, these to stop a woman conceiving' - or poring over herbals with her. She had me copy out pages of her old herbals, painting copies of the faded illustrations, too. I've always had a head for such things, and so I learnt a lot from that, and from working in the stables. And it's stood me well. But no healer I, no. Just a man with some little knowledge of the common herbs."

There's a little smile playing around his lips as he thinks of balancing precariously on a chair in Patience's cluttered rooms, hanging bundles of herbs as she alternately fusses and nags below. She wasn't, in truth, his mother, only his father's wife, but he realises he considers her such. An ache of loss stabs him, as it does whenever he thinks of home, and he sips the tea to hide his face.