At first, Anomen was irritated by Patricia’s insistence on telling him a story. Probably some glum fable about patience and forbearance, cooked up by her monastic superiors and drilled into her head. Didn’t she know his own training was full of stories about fulfilling one’s duty? The woman seemed to know everything in his mind, couldn’t she tell that all such anecdotes seemed to have lost their power over his heart?

It took a moment for him to realize that she was speaking of her own childhood. Oh, wonderful, another tale of how kind Gorion was? How was that supposed to help him, with his relationship with Cor irrevocably destroyed on her own advice? But no, wait… her face had that look of repressed agony that had shocked him in the past. She was speaking of her sister, not Gorion….

He heard the hot indignation in her voice as she spoke of the cruelty of Foldran, and thought it might have been an echo of his own feelings about his summer fighting the giants. So that was why she had said she’d little love for bullies herself! By Helm, she did understand what it was like to be pushed around!

Anomen listened to Patricia recounting Foldran’s vicious second attack on Imoen, and marveled at the control she managed to hold over her face, even as her voice betrayed her emotions. It came as a double shock, then, to see that marble countenance spilling forth the tale of her own eruption into a raging hellcat, bent on mindless destruction. He became so ensorcelled by her narrative that he forgot his own grief and anger. As she came to herself with a start in Dreppin’s arms, he found himself sighing with relief, then was plunged again into horror at the mention of the pitchfork. As she drew to a close, he felt as if he’d been for the emotional equivalent of an all-night ride on a phouka, dragged cross-country through briar patches and mudholes.

He found himself leaning with his back against the door, staring at Patricia where she sat on the bed. It took some moments for him to process the full significance of her story. He was surprised to hear his own voice.

“Patricia… it wasn’t wrong to defend your sister.” He felt he must make her see that she wasn’t evil.

“I know that now,” she replied, “though it took a while to see it. No, I’m not ashamed of having responded to Foldran’s attack on Imoen. But the blind fury that overcame me… that does disturb me. For years I lived in fear that if I were ever pushed into a corner again, I would snap once more. When I became a Hand, I worked hardest at the lessons in self-restraint and discipline. I still can’t bear the thought of losing my self-control. I might become like Minsc, hurting my friends as well as my enemies. I can’t afford to take the risk.”

She hesitated. “I… I’ve never told anyone else about Foldran. I… I’m so ashamed that I once could have killed someone in that way. He… he was unconscious by the time I grabbed the pitchfork, there was no way he could have hurt Immy then, and… and yet I… I would have stabbed him with it, if Dreppin hadn’t stopped me.” She shuddered. “Even though I didn’t know what I was doing, I would always have felt that I’d murdered him in cold blood. And it would have been such a stupid reason for doing it--- not because I needed to save someone else, but just because I was too angry to think straight.”

Anomen was humbled. He’d made such a production out of his own feelings of hate and misery, and his struggles to defy them--- and this woman had just yanked the rug out from under him by exposing her own weakness. Ye gods, what a loser he was! He couldn’t even be a better tragic figure than Patricia!

Patricia answered his unspoken thoughts. “Don’t belittle the importance of your emotions, Anomen. You would not have the ideals you do if you were heartless, you wouldn’t have the desire to seek what is good. What happened to Moira was evil, and your father truly hasn’t been just or merciful to you. It’s not wrong to feel outrage at that, any more than it was wrong for me to be outraged at Foldran’s treatment of Imoen. But it would be just as wrong for you to kill Saerk without proof of complicity as it would have been if I’d actually killed Foldran once he himself was helpless.”

“You’re just human, Anomen. And so am I. All we can do is keep trying to develop ourselves into better people. Sometimes that means slapping your friends in the head when they’re wrong. Sometimes that means paying attention to them when they slap you. So let’s go get some breakfast, and try to make the world a better place by finding who really caused this mess. It’s the only way you’ll ever be able to straighten things out with your father.”

They passed out of her bedroom and on to the landing. She paused to look back at him at the top of the stairs, a grin on her face but understanding sympathy in her eyes. “Believe it or not, one of these days you may even crack a smile again.”

He cherished that look in his heart as he followed her down the stairs. Patricia might not be free, but perhaps someday there would be another who had something of her kindly spirit, another whose glance would be enough to give a man heart for the trials to come. Though somewhere, in a little corner at the back of his mind, he wondered why she’d never told Ajantis about Foldran on one of those long night watches.