“Sitting with her on Sunday evening--- a wet Sunday evening---
the very time of all others when if a friend is at hand the heart
must be opened, and everything told--- […] it was impossible not to speak.”
	--- Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

The air was heavy both inside and out, humid, oppressive, and still--- the kind of weather that makes small animals huddle in their dens and turns people snappish. Inside the Coronet, business had picked up as laborers on their way home stopped in for a quick pint. Many of them looked at the ominous sky overhead and chose to fill their lunch pails with the evening’s supply of ale to drink at home, instead of risking a soaking later, which would only lead to furious complaints from wives and mothers about muddy floors and extra washing.

Minsc and Jan were intensely absorbed in a marathon grudge darts match between one of the innumerable Jansens and the current Coronet champion. Most of the regulars were also in a knot around the players, with Bernard serving as official bookmaker. Nalia had pled exhaustion and taken a glass of wine and some bread and cheese upstairs. Jaheira had also gone to her room earlier, but now she silently came down the steps, tight muffled in a cloak despite the heat, and vanished into the rapidly-waning twilight.

Anomen marked her departure where he sat sweltering near the fire. It was uncomfortable, but he needed the extra light to check his equipment. Since he was forced to wait, he should shelve his impatience and use the time to prepare himself for the battle on the morrow. He frowned as checked the buckles and straps on his leg armor. That last field repair was beginning to come apart; he’d need to get to a professional armorer soon to get the rivets pulled out where the leather attached to the metal and have the strap replaced. In spite of himself, he found his thoughts turning inexorably back to the interrupted conversation of the morning.

It had been a glorious day, dawn still pink and orange in front of them as they left the city gates. Even Jaheira seemed less gloomy, now that they were leaving the city. His hopes had run high that before nightfall he would feel the thrill that always came to him before a major battle, the heightened awareness and sense of power. The day had started with so much promise, Patricia reassuring him and Jan that they were now full members of the group, and now it had ended back where it started. Was that to be the story of his life, he wondered, never able to move beyond his own past, but always returning to it? With an effort he shook the mood off, returning to his task.

The day had been fine indeed, warm but with just enough wind to make walking a pleasure. Patricia set a fast pace that overjoyed him after the inching progress along the sewers. Indeed, he found that they soon outstripped the others, her gait deceptively smooth for the speed she maintained. Every half-mile or so she would stop for a few minutes to let the others gain ground, then turn around and resume the pace. She’d told him the first time it happened that it maddened her to have to try to match her pace to someone slower on a long march, that it threw off her rhythm and she’d rather take to the walk-and-stop pattern. He’d thought he was the only person like that, though he didn’t say so.

Near the tenth hour he had finally gotten the courage to inquire about Jaheira. Patricia hadn’t refused to answer, but she seemed even more remote than usual as she doled out her response without looking at him. Steady as her voice was, it had suddenly burst upon him, how he could not say, that she was like a tight-coiled spring. Any more tension would break her. He’d found himself resenting this mastery of herself, the fact that she would not break, and he’d taken it out on her when she insisted on returning to Athkatla with the wounded man. He cursed himself for a fool, and was startled by a loud clap of thunder overhead that seemed to come as an echo to his own thoughts. The next moment came the sound of rain pouring down on the roof.

Patricia came out of the kitchen a few minutes later, having gone into consultation with the new halfling cook Hendak had just hired. Anomen’s head was bent over his boots by then, rubbing beeswax into them to keep his feet dry. He glanced up as the light suddenly brightened. She was standing before him with a tray in her hands, face lit from below by a candle resting on it, but the other contents of the tray left him staring.

Patricia’s face broke into a grin at his expression. “I know, I know,” she said. “Cookies and milk? But I’ve got an incurable sweet tooth. I have to sit down here for an hour,” she continued, “and I thought you might as well share the candle, if you’d like.” She placed the tray on the table as she spoke, deftly moving the candlestick to the center, a book, papers, and writing kit to the left, and handing Anomen a mug of dark brown ale before taking off her own food.

Anomen continued to stare at her, completely stunned. The cookies had been odd, yes, but… who was this in front of him? When she smiled--- a smile that began in her green-brown eyes and proceeded to fill her entire face, only at the end curving her mouth --- it was as if the mask had cracked into a thousand shards of light, and when he could see again there was no one there but a merry young lady about his own age. The polite but remote serenity had vanished, replaced by this stranger who seemed years younger. He’d assumed Patricia to be in her thirties, some five or ten years older than himself; now he thought she could be no more than his own twenty-five at the outside. As he automatically took the proffered mug, he heard his own voice blurting, “By Helm, how old ARE you?”

Even before he could finish turning red with mortification at his blunder, she cheerfully replied, “Twenty-four, although I’ve been accused of everything from sixteen to thirty-five. I can nearly always win prizes from the age-guessers at fairs. And don’t apologize, because now I have the chance to ask you the same question,” she added, seeing the contrition on his face. “Twenty-five,” he muttered, staring at his left boot in his lap.

They were interrupted by the arrival of a man from the darts crowd. Cap in hand, he spoke to Patricia. “Please, ma’am, ye’d be the Bound Quill Hendak said is here?” Anomen saw that her face had gone rigid before she even turned around. With what he now knew to be her public smile, she said pleasantly, “I’ve taken Deneir’s charity vow, if that’s what you mean. Will it bother you to speak in front of this gentleman?” Shaking his head, he proceeded to dictate a note to his cousin about some minor family affairs.

Anomen’s head was awhirl. Scarcely knowing what he did, he picked up the book lying on the table and began to read. After a few minutes he realized that he’d read the same paragraph five times and still had no idea what it said. Forcing himself to concentrate, he soon became engrossed in “The Tale of Li Ho Fook”. He finished it just before Patricia completed her work for the last man in the short queue that had formed behind the first seeker. The moment’s grace gave him a chance to consider what he had just seen and read.

After the last man left with his precious document clutched close to his chest, he said in a carefully neutral tone, “I had forgotten how many people cannot read or write themselves, and I suppose the regular scribes must be beyond the means of many of the Coronet’s customers. Are you then a priest of Deneir?”

“No,” replied Patricia, “although I do have some minor vows, such as this, to fulfill.” Her voice, too, had reassumed a certain wariness. “I hope you found the story of Li Ho Fook to your liking.”

“Very interesting,” he replied, knowing he must sound stilted. “Have you ever been to Candlekeep yourself?”

“Yes, I was raised there---“ Patricia suddenly trailed off. “Anomen, would you please excuse me for a moment? Please don’t leave, I have a favor to ask of you, if you would be so kind.” He rose politely as she darted off. Turning his eyes to follow, he saw her pursuing a dripping cloak upstairs. So Jaheira had returned.

“Jaheira!” Patricia called softly as they both reached the top of the steps. Turning, the overtaxed half-elf nearly fell into her friend’s arms. “Here, girl, are you all right?” said Patricia with real alarm.

“Yes, yes,” replied Jaheira with a flash of her old self, “I just stumbled, child. Look, I have come to tell you that I shall be leaving you for a while. It is necessary. Much as I have tried, I find that I cannot rest without taking the lock of hair you were so kind as to--- to remove for me to a place that--- that we both once held dear. I have found some old acquaintances in this town that I have prevailed upon to travel with me. Do not ask more, though I will tell you that if you truly need me, the people at the house we brought Renfield to may be able to find me. When I return, I will await you there.”

Patricia looked hard at her old companion. There was more to this than Khalid, she knew, but there would be no getting it out of Jaheira. All she could hope for was that these unknown people would in fact be able to help her friend work through her grief. It was an answer to her prayers, after all; if Jaheira wasn’t healed in spirit, she was at least honorably released from having to watch over the woman. She hugged her fiercely. “Chauntea and the Five bless you, my friend, wherever this journey’s taking you. You’re probably safer away from me anyway.”

“Silvanus watch over you, too, child. But be wary. Amn is a strange place.”

“You know me. The stranger, the better. But Jaheira, you must tell Minsc this yourself. He’ll never forgive either of us if you don’t. Can I send him up to you while you’re packing?”

“Yes, do. Now go!” Jaheira turned away sharply to hide her own tears.

Patricia forced herself to walk slowly as she threaded her way through the spectators to Minsc. “Minsc, would you go take this tray up to Jaheira? I don’t think she’s going to eat unless we make her.”

“Of course, Patricia. Boo and I will make sure that she eats every bite of good bread and cheese!”

“Thanks.”

Patricia sat heavily down across from Anomen. The taper was a good two inches shorter now, and he could see a faint weariness around her eyes that he would not have thought to look for even a few hours ago. He had been reflecting steadily ever since she left, and he put one of the resulting resolutions into effect. He held up his empty tankard for her to see. “Milady, may I buy you a glass of wine in return?”

She smiled back… one of her eye-smiles, but gentler this time than the first wild flash, and he was strangely elated. “I do believe you may, good sir, so long as you ask Hendak to fill it out of the small cask in his office.”

“As the lady wishes,” with an exaggerated sweep. He left her in possession of the table, returning shortly with a delicate fluted glass that had been one of Lehtinan’s own special pair as well as his own refilled tankard. “A small glass of Evergold, as requested. I see you have a fine palate.”

Patricia laughed softly. “Say rather a palate that cannot abide the vinegar that passes for the house wine here, though the new brewer Hendak’s using isn’t bad and the cook shows promise.” She raised her glass in salute, then sipped.

“I should tell you that Jaheira seems to have arrived at her own solution to the difficulty we were discussing today. She has decided to go on a pilgrimage to places they frequented in their youth, and she most emphatically does not want our company, though we are parting on good terms.” She sighed so faintly that he barely heard it, toying absently with a chain around her neck that he’d never before noticed.

“But to return to other subjects… yes, I know Candlekeep very well. Imoen and I were raised there by Gorion Greenmantle and his friends Winthrop and Delaine. What you were reading is the history of one of its least-known events.”

“What is this Order of the Hand it mentions?” asked Anomen. “I had thought I knew the name of every order of knighthood on the face of Faerun.”

“Rest easy,” she replied. “Your teachers didn’t mislead you; we aren’t paladins. Yes, we. I am, if you care to be Court-formal, Sister Patricia Contemplata, Journeywoman of the Order of the Hand.”

“Our training does involve combat, yes, but as you’ve already seen it bears little resemblance to the fighting styles taught by ordinary armies. Except for the defense of Candlekeep itself, we don’t field any troops. What we really are is scholars. Our task is to wander the face of Faerun in search of knowledge and in the service of the Five.”

At this, she pulled the chain he’d seen earlier out from her tunic, showing him a medallion of some silver metal with a hand with outspread fingers chased into it. Holding up her left hand, she chanted, “Torm and Tyr, Helm and Deneir, Ilmater watch over us all,” pointing to each finger in turn with the other hand, ending with the thumb. “We’re called Hands for the symbol of our belief, not because we’re taught to fight bare-handed in the Kara-Turan style.”

Anomen was intrigued by this. “I understand the conjunction of Torm, Tyr, and Helm, because the Radiant Heart uses much the same. But why did your Order choose to add Deneir and Ilmater?” He partially answered himself in the next breath. “Ah, of course… Deneir for scholarship. And Ilmater? The Crying One? Just as the third member of the Triad, or for more specific reasons?”

Patricia looked at him gravely. “When the first Hands traveled to the wide corners of Faerun, they could not help but see the suffering that evil causes everywhere. If one travels alone in a distant land, there are no large forces at one’s beck and call to sweep in and save the day. Justice may be distant for such people. But Ilmater is dedicated to relieving the pain of the smallest people in the most practical ways, to providing a warm bed and full stomach to the cold and hungry. Where nothing else is possible, we can always provide hope, which is free.”

She had done it again. Anomen found himself startled out of his ordinary pattern of thoughts by this woman. In five sentences she had limned the problems of the world in an entirely different light than he had ever viewed them. Like Moira, she had the gift of twisting his point of view till he was dizzy. Yet he could not afford the luxury of mulling it over now, for Patricia was speaking again.

“I said I wanted to ask a favor of you. Our Order’s customs dictate that when a fellow Hand, or another close comrade, passes on, we spend five nights honoring their memory. Each night brings the person to the notice of one of the Five. Khalid was a truly noble fighter, a gentle man yet a good warrior, and this night I shall sing the Helm Song in his memory. Would you be willing to join me in this?”

What could he say? He was honored. Without a parish of his own, he was rarely able to perform the more hallowed rites, and the Helm Song was the most sacred piece in the repertory, as it turned the guardianship of the soul over to the Great Guard.

Later that evening the plain chant, point and counterpoint, high voice and deep, echoed longingly behind the closed door of one of the back rooms of the Copper Coronet, and as one soul was set free, two rather lonely people began to be friends.