If you were thrall to sorrow,
And I were page to joy,
We'd play for lives and seasons
With loving looks and treasons
And tears of night and morrow
And laughs of maid and boy;
If you were thrall to sorrow,
And I were page to joy.
	---“A Match”, A. C. Swinburne

Anomen’s heart sang within his breast as he and Patricia made their way across the Bridge. Twilight was fading rapidly, and it behooved them to reach the Coronet quickly, before the multifarious evils of the night descended on the city streets. He cursed himself for not having thought to stop at Lady Delcia’s to borrow her carriage, or at least a linkboy. Patricia was showing the faint signs of weariness he was learning to read--- the slightest shadows at the corners of her eyes, lips compressed just the tiniest bit, fingers curled almost into fists at her side. She’d been up since before dawn, and had had a trying day. He was slightly concerned, but still couldn’t help feeling buoyant over the day’s events.

If he’d still been fourteen, he might have made a solemn vow never to polish the spot where Patricia had rested her head against his breastplate again. Thank Helm he’d been wearing his armor; it had been hard enough to resist the urge to wrap his arms around her even with its unyielding stiffness between them. His spirits leapt and soared once more with the heady thought that she had turned to him in her distress. He sobered again as he wondered if she had indeed found comfort in his presence. He hoped so, though he had had no idea what to do. Well, he’d had ideas, but he’d managed to keep himself from carrying any of them out, which in and of itself was a victory. He realized that his thoughts were running in circles. It was high time he withdrew himself for a period of reflection to order his mind. But that would mean leaving her presence just when there were a million things he wanted to say….

By day the bat is cousin to the mouse. […]

But when he brushes up against a screen,
We are afraid of what our eyes have seen:
For something is amiss or out of place
When mice with wings can wear a human face.
	---“The Bat”, Theodore Roethke

He noticed a few bats sweeping overhead, emitting a few high-pitched squeaks that he could just faintly hear. Nothing unusual about that; the insectivores were actually encouraged in the city for their ability to keep down the populations of flies and mosquitoes. Most houses had a wooden roosting box attached high on the wall, just under the eaves, that was just big enough for three or four of the small brown creatures. Although the ones passing now seemed a good bit bigger than usual… he spun at Patricia’s shriek, searching for an attacker that was not there. Was the serial killer after them?

She had her hands pressed over her mouth now, preventing any further outcry, but her eyes flickered desperately from side to side, as if she were seeking shelter. By Helm! Could she really be terrified of bats? He’d heard of such a thing, but Patricia seemed far too balanced for any such irrational fears.

“Did one of those bats brush your hair by accident, milady?” he asked.

She removed her hand from her mouth long enough to rap out: “Inside! Now!”

“All right, all right, be calm.” He took her elbow and steered her gently over to the nearby temple of Helm, though she was nearly running in her haste. Gods, she was shaking like a leaf, near as bad as at Keldorn’s! What could possibly be disturbing her so? Her shudders eased as they passed under the portico, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Once they were fully inside the temple, her legs buckled unexpectedly. She made no attempt to rise again, merely tucked her legs underneath her and remained kneeling. He heard whispered snatches of prayers, then she lurched sideways and he beheld the unrewarding sight of the woman he loved retching yellow bile on the floor of his god’s holy place. Afterwards, Patricia lay still so long, her cheek pressed against the cold marble tile, that he became seriously alarmed. Where was Vottnar? There should have been several acolytes here by now!

Anomen knelt to the floor. She could not stay here, that was certain. With an effort, he managed to roll her onto her back, then pull her up by her arms. He dragged her to her feet, more concerned every moment by her unresponsiveness. Her eyes were open but apparently unseeing, and a cold sweat had broken out on her face. He didn’t wait to see if she could walk, but swept her into a fireman’s carry, glad that she went armorless, as he grimly estimated that the monk must weigh around a hundred and fifty pounds. He walked carefully towards the inner sanctuary. How was he going to open the door without putting her down?

His problem was solved when the door opened outward before him. The temple’s Guardian stood in the entrance. The other man evaluated the situation in a single glance, and gestured him towards the front of the sanctuary.

“Quick, lay her on one of the front pews, Watcher. Do you know what has befallen the lass? My youngest son saw you enter, and came running with the news that the lady seemed ill.”

“No, Guardian Vottnar. Lady Patricia and I were returning to our inn to meet our companions when a group of bats flew overhead. I cannot understand why she reacted so, and it troubles me grievously. The lady is not apt to fall into a faint at the drop of a hat.”

They had moved a little away to converse, but now they heard a whisper from the pew. “Dynaheir… oh, Minsc, what did you see before they dragged you down?”

Vottnar arched an eyebrow. “Do you know to whom she refers?” he queried in a low voice.

Anomen nodded. “Aye, a lost comrade and one of the friends we were to meet,” he whispered back. Anxiously he watched as she lay there as stiffly as if she had been upon a bier. He was torn between the duty of obedience to regulations and his desperate desire to offer comfort. He’d already skirted as close as he dared earlier in the day…. If only Nalia or even Minsc were here, someone who could at least hold her hands while she passed through this strange spasm of grief! Anything that might let her know she wasn’t alone….

He felt Vottnar’s hand fall on his shoulder. “I have sent for my wife. In the meantime, I am your superior in the Church, and I see no need for the woman to be more miserable than necessary. As I recall, you have not yet been sent for Judgment, young Anomen.”

The Watcher nodded agreement.

The older cleric eyed him gravely. “Well, as I have every intention of remaining here until we can sort this business out, I think you may be temporarily exempted from the ordinary restrictions placed upon you. I shall take full responsibility. You are hereby ordered to comfort Lady… Patricia, is it? Yes, comfort Lady Patricia as you might a sister.”

“I thank you for her sake, Guardian,” he said, and moved towards the pew. He knelt beside her, taking both her hands in his own for the first time. “Milady, please, can you not tell me what ails you?” Suddenly he realized that his own distress might only make things worse, and would have let go if she had not convulsively gripped him when he tried to move.

“No…,” she whispered. “Need… remembered, very bad.” Her voice strengthened and rose to a near hysterical pitch, “Why? Why? WHY????”

She jerked up and began rocking back and forth, still clutching his hands for dear life. “They came… I heard… heard the wings! Just like Minsc said! Thought… it was moths against the windowpanes. Then… don’t remember anything until… that cheeping! Woke up… Dynaheir was gone. Minsc gone. Everyone gone, even Imoen. Saw bats… circling like scraps of black paper against some unbearable whiteness…. HE came out of the light, but he was all darkness… and the pain, the pain was so bad, but no matter how much I hurt it was never enough, or the results didn’t please him. HE was only pleased once--- I heard Imoen shrieking somewhere behind him, lost in the whiteness, and she couldn’t stand whatever was happening to her, and I was getting all of it, every single nuance---.” She stopped dead, and her face grew even paler. “Oh, no, no, no, no, not Khalid! Irenicus, death is too good for you! May you rot forever in the Abyss! May you join those brains you kept in glass jars! You will pay! How dare you!”

With a great effort Anomen wrenched his own hands free from her grasp and held her face in his hands, stilling her. Some instinct prompted him to pitch his voice low, but he put every ounce of command he could muster into it, staring fiercely into her eyes. “Patricia, stop.” And by some miracle she did! Her glassy eyes blinked, and suddenly the woman he knew was visible once again in those windows of the soul. She gazed at him long and searchingly, then overflowed silently with tears. Her eyes closed, and he allowed her head to slip forward and rest against the hard metal on his chest once again. Never had he seen a woman express such grief so soundlessly; she neither sobbed nor sniffled.

He looked up at the Guardian, who had now been joined by a round, matronly figure. Thanks be to the Vigilant One that they had been so near here, and that Vottnar was known for being a touch soft-hearted. It had at least allowed himself to feel useful to Patricia in her torment. “I think she will be all right now, Guardian. It seems that she has remembered something best forgotten.” He felt rather than saw her nod her head against its metallic support. She used her forearms to push herself away from his chest, and took a long, shaky breath. Then she straightened and turned to face Vottnar.

“I thank you most heartily for all your care, Guardian of this House of Helm,” she said formally. “I request sanctuary within the temple’s bounds for the night, as I do not believe that I can travel back to my lodgings on my own. I… could not face what lies without.” Anomen guessed what an effort the admission must have cost her; he’d come to realize that she hated to show any sign of weakness. Yet another trait they had in common….

“Lady Patricia, I would have discouraged you if you had tried. You and Watcher Anomen here must remain as my guests for this evening. I was his first tutor in the ways of the Unsleeping One, and I confess that to hear something of his recent exploits will give me much pleasure,” Vottnar replied. “I shall send a message to your friends so they will not worry. This is my wife Lomela; she will show you to your quarters.”

The kind-faced woman led her through into the private rooms at the back of the temple. Anomen sniffed appreciatively at the scent of stew that wafted briefly through the open door. Vottnar smiled at his old student. “Still smells as good, eh? Can you eat as many bowls as you used to?”

The Watcher said, “Oh, three or four bowls at least, sir. And if anything will raise Lady Patricia’s spirits, ‘twill be being allowed to spend some time discussing kitchen matters with your lady.” He still held fond memories of that room, where he’d been treated almost as one of the family. Two years he had spent here, cramming in the studies that would allow him to enter the novitiate in every moment he could be spared from home. Without Vottnar’s help and early guidance, he knew he would never have made it this far; the man had given him a vital sense of stability amid the changes swirling through his family.

“Well then, let us leave her to Lomela’s ministrations for the moment. Tell me of all the places you have been this past while. I hear rumors that you have encountered a red dragon and lived to tell the tale!”

“Well, not exactly encountered, sir,” he said, and proceeded to give a brief synopsis of their whirlwind trip to the Windspear Hills. His heart was not truly in his account, however; he found himself glancing repeatedly at the side door, hoping against hope to see Patricia there.

If his old mentor saw his looks, he was kind enough to ignore them; but when the story was over, the Guardian suggested that they go in search of food, and he followed eagerly. When they arrived in the kitchen, Patricia seemed to be a bit better, but she was still more nervous than he had ever seen her. She kept toying with an entire bulb of garlic as if it were a worry bead, thumbing it anxiously. Suddenly, the disjointed threads of her tale gelled into a terrifying whole.

Vampires in the City of Coin? Right underneath the noses of the Order? Helm, how could we have been so blind? And as an immediate corollary, What have they done to her, to her sister? Who is this Irenicus, anyway, and how hard is it going to be to kill him? If he’s a vampire, we may need to call in an Order specialist.

Somehow Patricia was holding to some semblance of composure in front of Vottnar’s children, but he guessed by the renewed masklike expression that she was struggling hard underneath. So much of her early behavior was now coming clear to him! He cursed himself for having seen so little. He had thought of her in varying ways--- with friendly camaraderie, with worshipful reverence, with unreasonable irritation, with resentment at his own inability to drive her from his thoughts--- but now he loved her with a tender pity. How had she borne all this?

Over and around her Vottnar and Lomela kept up a string of ordinary conversation, to which he occasionally made a contribution, but Patricia just sat, mechanically spooning food into her mouth. At least she ate. Anomen ached to hold those slumped shoulders, to offer himself as shelter to her weariness and pain, but he dared not, and cursed the bounds of duty as never before.