Thar Shaddin

Pregnant? Chrishton wondered if that had anything to do with the witch's request. Pregnant women and babies were common targets for spells of all sorts.

Unlike Dorcas, Chrish had a weak spot for pregnant women. They were a combination of woman and child, and were not to be messed with. His code of honor always did find impetus whenever children were involved.

"Unless yer kid's got a good right hook, I dun think it's gonna make a lick o' difference. We've got..." He began to explain when a sound of surprise came from Dorcas and she ran off in the wrong direction. He followed her path with his eyes and saw her focus of attention. It was that cat of hers.

Chrishton was tired of running. He was hoping they would be done by now. Halfway across Keltaris while heaving a gnomish gun was enough for his reluctantly aging body. A few beads of sweat rolled down his brow and the side of his face. Still, with a sigh of resignation, he had his reluctantly aging body reluctantly moving again.

"Ain't nothin' unseemly 'bout it though." Explained Chrishton while following the pair. "It's an emergency an' we need ya fer somethin'."

"Interesting," Jasmina replied when the man had spoken, resenting the painful hold the girl had on her wrist. "Why the cape and dagger, then?"

She meant 'cloak and dagger,' but hopefully had gotten close enough.

"I think you will find that I am not an unreasonable person. I would, perhaps, be inclined to help willingly if you merely asked. Instead you practically kidnap me, after assaulting my employer. What was I to think but that you were up to no good?"

Of course, Jasmina still thought that. She had simply changed tactics. Obviously she wasn't going to get away by force; she was physically strong but there were two of them, and she didn't want to risk the baby in an all-out brawl. Nor were the other pedestrians in the area willing to help. Jasmina had done all she could, for now. The best she could do, now, was to stay the course.

There was, of course, a slim chance they really would manage to convince her, although it was unlikely under the circumstances. Jasmina had merely decided that she would play along for now, and wait for a more opportune time to escape. If they intended to murder or ravish her, she wasn't going to give in without a fight. Perhaps it would be best, though, to let them think she had decided to comply, until she saw her chance to get away.

"You should explain it to me as we go. I might be more agreeable if you spoke your piece, instead of dragging me around like luggage."

Jasmina made the valid point that they were, in fact, kidnapping her. Her assertion that they seemed "up to no good" was fair enough, but really, as so many tasks in Dorcas's daily life now, this whole ordeal was just another step in self preservation. She was becoming, in her own coddled way, a survivalist. Explaining to Jasmina exactly what they were doing with her would certainly not, contrary to Jasmina's suggestion, assuage the dancer's fears.

* * *

Berbiezu hummed to herself as she straightened things up around her apartment. Her tune meandered through a handful of minor scales, her voice lilting and breathy. Periodically she would pause in her humming to complete some action that was more strenuous for someone with such limited mobility. As she leaned over to pick up a murky jar Chrishton had earlier displaced, her humming halted with a soft croak.

Berbiezu looked down at Cervantes. She had bothered him very little all this time, allowing him his much-needed rest. She dropped the jar heavily onto the low table beside the couch; the thick glass thunked against the wood surface.

"You," said Berbiezu to his back. She leaned against her canes as she loomed above him and waited for his attention. The two tiny pickled females in the jar seemed to gaze at him too, from sockets that were mere smudges within distorted faces, beneath pale scalps.

"You've seen the dancer," she stated, rather than asked. "You've seen the way she moves. Tell me." Her voice was commanding, but dreamlike, as if she were reciting a fairy godmother's lines.

From the other room, the rattling and clanking of metal against metal continued as it had through the night. Occasionally, the ruckus would become more urgent, interspersed with squeaking exclamations.

* * *

For Dorcas and Chrishton together, Jasmina proved easy enough to treat as luggage. She actually seemed to be complacent for time time, anyway, so they didn't have to continue to struggle with her as they led her through the back streets towards Berbiezu's. The mention of her pregnancy even seemed to inspire Chrishton to treat her as slightly more delicate luggage, and for the moment Dorcas was distracted from her desire to hold it against Jasmina.

Berbiezu's wasn't terribly far removed from Salliniari's, and at this rate, Jasmina might even be inclined to think that's where they were going. Dorcas found herself following the lead of her cat, and Chris seemed confident as usual. A few times they crossed narrow intersections that gave her pause as she glanced around, expecting perhaps to go a different way. But nobody else objected--Jasmina of course didn't know where they were supposed to be going, and Chris was always so cocksure--so Dorcas stayed the path and tried to distract herself from doubt.

She was largely unsuccessful at that. She found herself only thinking of other things that stirred up her unease. The most pressing thing, she couldn't put into words. So many unexplainable things had happened that evening, and how could she describe the very odd sensation of feeling as if she'd had something to do with them.

As they walked, each of them alternately keeping hold of Jasmina and nudging her along, Dorcas periodically reached out to Chris. She would brush her hand over his knuckles or pat his sweaty shoulder blade, partly in an effort to make sure he was still there, that she herself was still conscious and real, and partly in foolish hopes that he'd understand her that way, without her having to speak up: empathy through osmosis. But it was useless anyway, because even if he could hear her thoughts, she knew, reluctantly, that he was uninterested in hashing out the details of the supernatural world on her terms. He would also ignore her desire to leave this whole mess alone and go find somewhere to rest, the two of them.

Before long, they came across the mouth of the alley down which Berbiezu's apartment was hidden. If they turned out to the main road here, they'd be headed straight to Salliniari's a few short blocks away. Dorcas paused and looked down the gloomy alley. It seemed so much colder than before, and spookier now that they knew what strangeness there was to find.

"D'you. . . how will we get in?" Dorcas mumbled to Chris. She was killing time, hesitant. She kept a good grip on Jasmina.

Unlike the others, Cervantes met the image of the jarred faeries with curious indifference. He wondered what the little creatures were being captured for, but cared little about their misfortune. He was not weighed down by Chrishton's morality. Maybe Berbiezu saw that in him. All he knew was that he was being held prisoner by some kind of witch who collected things in jars and presumably had enough magic to threaten his life.

On the plus side, he was alive, and didn't have anywhere else to go. Going back to Trelham empty handed was not an appealing prospect.

"I've seen her." His eyes remained on the Jar, a dull expression on his face. The words came easily in his somber state. "She's strong and she moves like a snake. She's beautiful, too."

Cervantes would have tried to ask a question, or escape somehow, but he just didn't care.

* * *

Taking turns with Dorcas, Chrishton led Jasmina after Dorcas' cat. He was noticeably careful with her, never jarring or holding her too tightly. When he wasn't hanging onto her, he was fixing his clothes up and keeping watch. It felt good to have a chance to catch his breath.

For her part, Dorcas was handling things well. She impressed him with her resolve, never complaining and always doing what was best for both of them. Somehow she was keeping her wits about her through all of this and he knew he would have to make it up to her someday.

He explained some things during their brisk walk - things he was aware that Dorcas might not want to hear. "There's a witch, who fer some reason wants t'see ya. An' she's got m'son prisoner. She'll kill 'im if we dun get 'er what she wants. Once we get 'im back, we'll all leave t'gether. If y'cooperate, I'll make sure nothin' bad 'appens t'ya. If y'dont, I can-na say what'll 'appen."

Chrishton could have lied, but he thought it might be best if Jasmina knew what was coming. He had no intention of letting the witch have her way. What he needed was a distraction.

Once they reached the mouth of the alley, he stepped ahead of the two of them and carefully checked the road, keeping his head ducked low behind his scarf and barely-tied turban. There were plenty of people around, some of whom he recognized as Salliniari's men and others who were visibly part of the police force. There was also a lot of commotion and talking going on. After the collapse of the tavern there was cleanup to be done, reports to be made, and curiosity of onlookers to be satiated.

He turned back around to face Jasmina and Dorcas, and looked Jasmina over. "We kin make it, but if y'try anythin at all, a lot o' people gonna get hurt, includin' yerself. Escape now, an I'll just 'ave ta find ya again later. Cause there ain't no way I'm lettin' m'son die."

Jasmina looked at Chrishton with visible surprise.

"That is it? Truly? You wanted my help to rescue your son? You might have said that in the first place and spared yourself a lot of trouble. I am not a cruel person. I would have helped if you had asked, instead of kidnapping me and attacking my employer!"

That was quite true - assuming she believed him. Which she wasn't quite sure of, at the moment. Why would she believe such desperate people would tell the truth? Perhaps he had just said that to play on her sympathies so she would shut up and cooperate!

There was little to be done about that now, though. She was going along with this; if there was truly a son who needed saving, she would honestly try to be of some use. If not, if their intentions were impure, she would fight to the ends of the earth. For now, she would just have to wait and see.

"I will do my best to help, in spite of your trickery. I hope your son will survive. If he dies, it will not be because of me."

Her tone was slightly defiant, but that was a good thing. Jasmina's stubbornness was a force to be reckoned with, and... assuming that these two didn't play her false... at least for a brief time it would be employed on their behalf.

What a doormat! Dorcas might have at least maintained a hostile respect for Jasmina if she'd continued to put up a fight. The lady must have had an active imagination indeed, if whatever "unseemly conduct" she'd feared was so much worse than what Chris had just told her: a witch wanted her. They were using her as a bargaining token for negotiations with a witch, and she was going to go along with that. The disgust on Dorcas's face did nothing, however, to the numb shock of hearing Chris utter yet another truth she wished she could ignore--the boy was, of course, his son.

Dorcas's eardrums pounded with dizzying waves of pressure. She felt she was drowning silently in ether: the labored rushing of her veins, sick with adrenaline and exhaustion; the fog of a brutish and irreconcilable reality; the steam of magic and muck coming off the enemies that seemed ready to materialize from the very streets.

Chris's strategizing and Jasmina's righteous invocations met Dorcas's ears as a dull buzz. She had no more use for their information in this last stretch of their trip, for her dampened mind was prepared only to push on until respite could be found.

With hardly a conscious thought, she stepped forward to meet Chris. Her hand rose up to tuck the loose end of his turban into the sweat-drenched folds of his scarf. Her eyes were unfocused and dull. She turned her face to Jasmina, and her expression was entirely vacant. She made no eye contact, but held out her arm to beckon the woman forward. She was small enough that if she sandwiched herself between Dorcas and Chris as they walked, huddled like invalids, she could be lost in their robes to the distant eye. There was not far to go.

* * *

Berbiezu leaned on her crutches, overlooking Cervantes's supine form as he answered. Her long-lashed eyes closed with pleasure upon hearing his assessment of the girl. Her distorted lips could not form a smile.

"Mmm," sighed the witch, and she inhaled through nostrils that were stiffened slightly at the edges with smooth scar tissue. She seemed to catch the scent of something, and her insect-like head tilted as she looked along the length of him. "Let us hope you have not extracted so much of that beauty already, that there is none for the rest of us to appreciate."

"Oh! I shoulda just telled ya! Oh well fuck knows why I didna do that!" All worked up, Chrishton didn't care who heard him and his sarcastic yelling. "Scuze us mister Salliniari, I know ya've got half the city out lookin' fer us so y'kin kill us all an' kill m'son twice cause ya failed that th' last time, but I've just gotta ask this dancer ya've got with ya if she'll help us out!"

The stress of the situation had caught up with him. For a moment he seemed genuinely upset. Fortunately the emotion was as fleeting as all the others.

"I'd rather not hurt ya. But I'd much rather keep m'son alive. So trust us or don't, either way we're goin'."

He was sure to keep an eye on Jasmina while Dorcas fixed his failing turban, but a glance at Dorcas was all it took for him to realize she was acting differently. Saying nothing, Chrishton let her set things up and followed her lead.

Lifting one arm so that Dorcas could find some room close at his side, he tucked his chin down and tried not to stand out. No matter what he did, he was still bigger than most of the people around and while this made hiding difficult, it would make getting through the crowd easy.

* * *

Cervantes didn't understand what the witch meant.

"I barely touched her. She's the one who got me in this situation. If she'd just cooperated, I could have had Salliniari's head and been on my way back to a fortune."

He didn't believe his own words. Saying them didn't make them feel any more true, either. A foolish boy on a suicide mission never would have been able to kill Salliniari. Now there was nothing to go back to.

Jasmina couldn't help but laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. It wasn't a happy or amused laugh, though. It was wild, high-pitched, bordering on hysteria, and terminated abruptly like water poured over a campfire when she managed to get control over herself.

He was acting like she had wronged them? After they had pursued her, kidnapped her, attacked her employer, and dragged her away with no warning? And now they were treating her like an inconvenience, a disobedient child who had foiled the sensible adult plans? It was surreal, like watching a play. Jasmina expected that any moment, one of them would break down, drop the act and reveal it was all a joke.

That didn't happen, though, and she realized they were serious after all. Deadly so. She revised her opinion of them. They weren't fiends with some kind of evil master plan. They were just completely insane. Perhaps they were indeed leading her to rescue a kidnapped son - lunatics presumably had children, too - but it seemed equally likely that they were simply wandering aimlessly, toward a completely invented destination.

Her decision that they were crazy didn't really reassure her. People who were mad were more unpredictable, and not necessarily less violent, even if they weren't currently intending to kill her. Nor did it change her strategy of playing along for the moment. It did make her wary in a slightly different way, and just as convinced to escape given the opportunity.

Jasmina said nothing about this, though. What was there to say? She just kept following, watched them, and waited for an opening to rescue herself.

Jasmina's opportunities for escape diminished with each step forward: there she was, wedged between Dorcas and Chrishton, their robes draped over her like a little bit of nothing. They moved across the street--the last open area before the city closed in again to the alley of the witch's home. She could, if she wanted, lunge out from beneath their cover, but then again they were within a few short blocks of Salliniari's place, and she was the last person seen in Salliniari's company. Who would she turn to? She was a foreigner and an entertainment worker, anybody's scapegoat.

Dorcas's mind was far too foggy to consciously recognize these facts, but she had a vague awareness that, for all her protest, Jasmina was not leaving them. Nor did she recognize specifically the silliness and futility of Chris and Jasmina arguing--though it made their job quite easy, having a hostage whose main concern was that she was owed an explanation, rather than her life. To Dorcas, the sound of their quarrel was just another chord in the cacophony. When Jasmina laughed, Dorcas gazed heavenward as if for deliverance from the fiendish racket.

They came to the mouth of the alley of their destination. The sky above them closed in to a narrow ribbon. In the open city, the stars were dimmed by the glow of the metropolis, but above the alley, in a slim highway of black, a handful of stars gleamed and offered some comfort.

Presently, the huddled trio stumbled up to the door of Berbiezu and Shivshin's squalid townhouse. For the first time in several minutes, Dorcas looked over to Chris for his next move. He was the one who had gotten them in previously, and it looked as if the gnome had reset his device for Chris to trip again. Gnomish curiosity could be such a headache for people trying to get things done.

The paths of fate that twisted around like snakes, morphing and flowing like river currents, revealed things that might be, that would probably be, to anyone who could see them. People's lives tended to collide at certain points in space, or time, or both.

Already Chrishton and Dorcas' lives intertwined enough to be inseparable, indistinguishable from one another. Their single path collided with Sallinari, Jasmina, and Cervantes' so explosively that it was impossible not to notice.

From that point onward the doctor knew they would be back again. And so he watched them weave their way through the crowd and to the gnome's door from a distance away across the street. Those milky white eyes of his didn't need to be close to see them clearly, both where they were and where they were headed.

* * *

"See? That wasn'a so 'ard. Ain't nobody seen us." Chrishton spoke as he grabbed the door and nudged it with the palm of his hand to produce an audible click. "All yer worryin'. Let me do th' talkin'."

He pivoted in place to look at Jasmina with his hand still holding the door closed. "Once I've got m'son back, yer free t'do whate'er ya want. Trash th' place, kill th' bitch. Not before then, eh? Right."

Chrishton pulled the door open and waited for the two girls to enter. It wasn't until he was sure that they were both inside that he followed and closed it securely behind himself.

Jasmina couldn't help raising an eyebrow at Chrishton's suggestions of what she might want to do, because all of those ideas sounded so out of character for her. The only thing she truly wanted, right now, was to make sure that Salliniari was relatively intact, and then get the hell out of Keltaris as fast as her feet could carry her and never come back. In that order, and preferably with as little delay as possible between the two steps.

Still, she wasn't going to rule anything out. Now that she was pressed by a potentially lethal situation, Jasmina could think of several possible endings to this nightmare that would prompt her to greater revenge... most of those endings being focused on the loss of her unborn child. While Jasmina's view of the fetus was fairly pragmatic, and she didn't intend to die for it - if she lost it, she could have other children - she was concerned for it, and hoped to carry it to term if possible. If that proved impossible, she was confident that she would survive the loss... but she would be angry, and that anger would need an outlet. For now, though, Jasmina would try to concentrate on the task at hand.

She entered as Chrishton bid her to, staying in proximity to the younger woman. Jasmina was unsure the reason for the hostility Dorcas seemed to feel toward her. After all, Jasmina was the one who had been attacked and kidnapped. It seemed ridiculous for one of her abductors to feel she was the wounded one for having to put up with the woman they had nabbed against her will.

Jasmina put it down to a capricious mood of adolescence. Then she wondered why she cared at all. She had no desire for permanent association with these people, and she was eager for their temporary crossing of paths to come to an end. No need to spend the meantime dwelling on her kidnapper's feelings.

The dancer had no idea where she was going after this, since her employment opportunity with Salliniari had almost certainly dried up, and even if the job offer stood, she'd had her fill of this city. The lack of a plan didn't bother Jasmina in the slightest, though. Traveling without a clear aim except supporting herself at a level of basic subsistence was comfortable for her. It was only the thought of being pinned down that made her shudder. On the open road, somehow things always just fell into place.

As they entered the room, Jasmina was on guard, but not quite sure what she was guarding against. Her eyes searched the room curiously, but otherwise she waited for someone else to take the lead.

Dorcas nudged Jasmina slowly up the steps with the butt of her shoulder. She kept the dancer up in front of them on the narrow staircase--after all, she was a sacrifice, meant to be presented as if held upward in prostration, or at least as a buffer before the witch. Dorcas waited to feel the warmth radiating off Chris's approaching figure before she made her way up.

By the time they reached the top of the steps, both Berbiezu and Shivshin had stopped their strange activities and poked their eager faces out of their rooms. One could practically see the bile percolating behind the gnome's wide eyes as he came to realize they had not brought back the gun he had lent them. He pulled a fierce grimace and made a few swipes at the air with fingers crooked into claws--this was more likely an expression of frustration than any sort of hex, because nothing out of the ordinary occurred as he turned tail and slammed the door of his bedroom-cum-workshop behind him.

Berbiezu, however, was far more charmed to see their party. She took a step backward to open a path into her hazy, fragrant parlor.

It was much as they had left it: crepe scarves draped here and there, a sense of delicate disarray and sleepiness; Cervantes reclined on the couch as before, his wounds certainly not worse, but hardly better.

As Dorcas bumped Jasmina forward into the witch's room, Berbiezu inhaled a sharp breath between swollen lips, then let out a soft, girlish chirp of surprise.

"You!--" She swiveled her head to look at Cervantes and blinked a few times rapidly, a beating of butterfly's wings. "You didn't say--"

The woman leaned her weight into her left cane as she raised the fingers of her right hand to beckon the travelers further into the room.

"Welcome back to my home," she nodded to Dorcas and Chrishton as she regained her composure. She gave no word of welcome to Jasmina, just as she paid no special heed to the cat skulking around the landing of the stairs just outside her door. "Please sit the dear girl down--I'd like to take the strain off her."

Berbiezu scooted backward and bobbed her wobbly head at Cervantes, indicating he was to make some room on the couch.

"Now can I offer everyone a revitalizing tonic? A sip to drink?" She made as if to turn back towards the cabinets along the wall, but her chin swiveled on her neck to continue staring them down even as her body turned.

Cervantes' indifference to his own situation was enough to stave off boredom after what felt like hours. There was nothing to take his mind off the pain in his back, so he couldn't help but focus on how the throbbing pain in his back mixed with waves of burning where his flesh had cauterized. He found that he could feel his pulse beating along certain veins if he remained perfectly still.

Eventually he heard the door down the steps open to let in sounds from the street outside, followed closely by what sounded like three people climbing the stairs. One of them was definitely Chrishton.

It was then that Cervantes realized he much preferred not thinking about Chrishton. Something about the man bothered him and thinking about it bothered him even more. In another life he might look up to someone with the kind of unbridled willpower that Chrishton displayed, but there was no room in this one for anyone like that. There was no room for anyone at all.

"Cavalry's arrived!" Chrishton's voice bellowed over everything else with a disregard for social grace.

Once they were all upstairs, Chrishton took a quick look at Cervantes to make sure things were in order. He had a casual smile on his face, like he was inspecting livestock or produce, and seemed pleased with what he saw. His son wasn't dead. This was a good thing.

"We'll pass on th'drinks" he answered for himself and Dorcas. "Lets get on with it, eh. Deal's a deal."

He folded his arms and kept his eyes on where Berbiezu had gone. He didn't count on her keeping her end of the bargain any more than he intended to keep his.

Jasmina glanced over at Cervantes on the couch, recognized him from their last dubious "meeting," and decided she didn't want to sit with him. She remained standing, alert and suspicious, like an animal waiting for a trap to close. It wasn't as though she was tired, anyhow; she was so recently pregnant that the tiny embryo didn't add any additional weight to her body, and she was used to physically exerting dance performances punctuated by journeys by foot between towns. There was no need to take advantage of the available furniture, and when she had to make a move - whether that move was fight or flight - it would be easier if she was already on her feet.

"No drink for me either, thank you," Jasmina told the woman with careful but not especially friendly politeness. There was no sense antagonizing this new potential captor... but there were limits. Accepting a drink that might be poisoned or drugged was going too far to keep the peace.

She still didn't trust any of these people. The man had a good story - a kidnapped son - which seemed confirmed by the presence of said kidnappee, assuming the younger man wasn't here by choice. Still, that didn't change the fact that she had been attacked and abducted herself. The man claimed he wouldn't allow anything bad to happen to her if she helped, but she had no reason to believe him... or for that matter, to believe he wouldn't change his mind if an easier option presented itself.

On the other hand, much as Jasmina hated to admit it even in the privacy of her own mind, there was a strange comfort in the familiar. She found herself subconsciously aligning herself with the man and the girl who had abducted her if only because she'd been with them for longer. It was easy to fall into the trap of thinking they were allies against this odd, vaguely menacing if entirely polite stranger woman.

But of course, they were all strangers to her, and Jasmina would be a fool to permit herself to forget that, even for a moment...

"Would anyone be so kind as to explain to me what I'm doing here?" Jasmina inquired to the room in general, assuming she would be ignored but feeling the need to assert herself in some small way, even if only by imposing the sound of her voice on the scene that seemed to be proceeding without her.

Dorcas was vaguely aware that a drink had been turned down on her behalf. Her awareness registered as a sudden thickening of her already heavy tongue, an itch in her tonsils. Yet her sluggish tongue precluded her from lobbying for herself. She instead stared around the dim room to take in what she, in her haste, had missed before.

Most of the walls were decorated with tapestries, crepe scarves, or other textile scraps. Some were tacked up with nails, others simply pinned behind the corners of mismatched furniture, and at least one gauzy draping was haphazardly glued to the wall with streaks of some gummy substance. There were other decorations too--framed artwork and various carvings--leaving hardly a square inch of blank canvas around the room, and giving Dorcas the feeling of being inside a large wardrobe that happened to store a few knick-knacks and chairs as well.

Berbiezu lowered her lashes demurely as her offer for something to drink was refused. She turned and shuffled half the distance back toward the group, and her grip on her canes looked stiffer than before. "We'll get on with things--or they'll get on with us, rather. Try as we may, there's no hurrying the delights of fate."

The witchy creature gave Jasmina what she could manage of a smile: the pink scar tissue around her swollen upper lip stretched a fraction of an inch wider, and her lower lip puckered beneath. Dorcas glanced again at a picture she'd noticed on the wall, a portrait of a woman--a dwarf, judging by the broad bridge of her nose and the radiance of her round cheeks and chin. It was a glamorous portrait, not in the polite style, posed with sensuous hands framing a fleshy jaw, a pout on her full lips. Someone had used a wax pencil to trace a wobbly line around those lips.

Dorcas hated and had become accustomed to those moments when her tenuous grasp of the world was dashed. Being of a scientific mind, Dorcas preferred to practice skepticism, which most of the time served her tendency towards denial quite well. When faced with mounting evidence of the nasty things she suspected, her shield of skepticism would slowly disintegrate, and she'd be left with very little protection.

Rather than cringe towards Chris for protection, as she had so frequently done, she found herself sidestepping towards the door to block anyone from turning and running very easily. There was no use denying, someone was going to get sacrificed. Dorcas wasn't going to let the dancer relegate on of the rest of them to that fate instead.

Berbiezu bobbed her head at Jasmina, acknowledging her as a sentient being for perhaps the first time. "My dear, you shall know nothing but kindness if you shall only accept that you must sit down for me."