Yet it was hard for them to be patient with her, for she did little except moon after her absent lover. A year went by and then another. All of us told her both man and fortune were gone, and she should make a fresh start for herself. Aubretia insisted she would wait, that Howarth would come back from her.’ The carved face pursed its lips in ancient disappointment. ‘She waited. And that was all she did.’
‘Did Howarth ever come back?’ I asked in a whisper. The pendant’s small face twisted in disgust. ‘Oh, yes. He returned. Some three years later, he came back to Bingtown, but it was months before your grandmother knew of it. She recognized him one day as he strolled through the Market with his fine foreign wife at his side. A servant walked behind them, carrying a parasol to shade them. A nurse carried their little son. And his pale, plump Jamaillian wife wore the Lantis emerald at her throat.’
‘What did she do?’ I whispered.
The pendant’s small voice grew heavy with an old weariness. I sensed it was a memory often pondered but still painfully fresh. ‘She stood and stared. She could not believe her eyes. And then a cry of purest disbelief broke out of her. At the sound, he turned. Howarth recognized her, and yet he turned aside from her. She shrieked his name, demanding to know why he had abandoned her. In the streets of Bingtown, before Traders and common merchants, she wailed like a madwoman and tore out her hair. She fell to her knees and begged him to come back to her, wailing that she could not live without him. But Howarth only took his wife’s arm and hurried her way, whispering something to her about "that poor mad woman." ‘