Assassin's Apprentice (UK) Page 2

  They seemed all the darker after the warmth and light, and end­less as I tried to match the guard’s stride as he wound through them. Per­haps I whimpered, or per­haps he grew tired of my slower pace, for he spun sud­denly, seized me, and tossed me up to sit on his shoulder as cas­u­ally as if I weighed noth­ing at all. ‘Soggy little pup, you,’ he ob­served, without ran­cour, and then bore me down cor­ridors and around turns and up and down steps and fi­nally into the yel­low light and space of a large kit­chen.

  There half a dozen other guards lounged on benches and ate and drank at a big scarred table be­fore a fire fully twice as large as the one in the study. The room smelled of food, of beer and men’s sweat, of wet wool gar­ments and the smoke of the wood and drip of grease into flames. Hogsheads and small casks ranged against the wall, and smoked joints of meats were dark shapes hung from the rafters. The table bore a clut­ter of food and dishes. A chunk of meat on a spit was swung back from the flames and dripped fat onto the stone hearth. My stom­ach clutched my ribs sud­denly at the rich smell. Jason set me rather firmly on the corner of the table closest to the fire’s warmth, jog­ging the el­bow of a man whose face was hid­den by a mug.

  ‘Here, Burrich,’ Jason said mat­ter-of-factly. ‘This pup’s for you, now.’ He turned away from me. I watched with in­terest as he broke a corner as big as his fist off a dark loaf, and then drew his belt knife to take a wedge of cheese off a wheel. He pushed these into my hands, and then step­ping to the fire, began saw­ing a man-sized por­tion of meat off the joint. I wasted no time in filling my mouth with bread and cheese. Be­side me, the man called Burrich set down his mug and glared around at Jason.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked, sound­ing very much like the man in the warm cham­ber. He had the same un­ruly black­ness to his hair and beard, but his face was an­gu­lar and nar­row. His face had the col­our of a man much out­doors. His eyes were brown rather than black, and his hands were long-fingered and clever. He smelled of horses and dogs and blood and leath­ers.

  ‘He’s yours to watch over, Burrich. Prince Ver­ity says so.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re Chiv­alry’s man, ain’t you? Care for his horse, his hounds, and his hawks?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, you got his little bastid, at least un­til Chiv­alry gets back and does oth­er­wise with him.’ Jason offered me the slab of drip­ping meat. I looked from the bread to the cheese I gripped, loth to sur­render either, but long­ing for the hot meat, too. He shrugged at see­ing my di­lemma, and with a fight­ing man’s prac­tic­al­ity, flipped the meat cas­u­ally onto the table be­side my hip. I stuffed as much bread into my mouth as I could, and shif­ted to where I could watch the meat.

  ‘Chiv­alry’s bas­tard?’

  Jason shrugged, busy with get­ting him­self bread and meat and cheese of his own. ‘So said the old plough­man what left him here.’ He layered the meat and cheese onto a slab of bread, took an im­mense bite, and then spoke through it. ‘Said Chiv­alry ought to be glad he’d seeded one child, some­where, and should feed and care for him him­self now.’

  An un­usual quiet bloomed sud­denly in the kit­chen. Men paused in their eat­ing, grip­ping bread or mugs or trench­ers, and turned eyes to the man called Burrich. He him­self set his mug care­fully away from the edge of the table. His voice was quiet and even, his words pre­cise. ‘If my mas­ter has no heir, ’tis Eda’s will, and no fault of his man­hood. The Lady Pa­tience has al­ways been del­ic­ate, and …’

  ‘Even so, even so,’ Jason was quickly agree­ing. ‘And there sits the very proof that there’s nowt wrong with him as a man, is all I was say­ing, that’s all.’ He wiped his mouth hast­ily on his sleeve. ‘As like to Prince Chiv­alry as can be, as even his brother said but a while ago. Not the Crown Prince’s fault if his Lady Pa­tience can’t carry his seed to term …’

  But Burrich had stood sud­denly. Jason backed a hasty step or two be­fore he real­ized I was Burrich’s tar­get, not him. Burrich gripped my shoulders and turned me to the fire. When he firmly took my jaw in his hand and lif­ted my face to his, he startled me so that I dropped both bread and cheese. Yet he paid no mind to this as he turned my face to­ward the fire and stud­ied me as if I were a map. His eyes met mine, and there was a sort of wild­ness in them, as if what he saw in my face were an in­jury I’d done him. I star­ted to draw away from that look, but his grip wouldn’t let me. So I stared back at him with as much de­fi­ance as I could muster, and saw his up­set masked sud­denly with a sort of re­luct­ant won­der. And lastly he closed his eyes for a second, hood­ing them against some pain. ‘It’s a thing that will try her lady’s will to the edge of her very name,’ Burrich said softly.

  He re­leased my jaw, and stooped awk­wardly to pick up the bread and cheese I’d dropped. He brushed them off and handed them back to me. I stared at the thick bandaging on his right calf and over his knee that had kept him from bend­ing his leg. He re­seated him­self and re­filled his mug from a pitcher on the table. He drank again, study­ing me over the rim of his mug.

  ‘Who’d Chiv­alry get him on?’ a man at the other end of the table asked in­cau­tiously.

  Burrich swung his gaze to the man as he set his mug down. For a mo­ment he didn’t speak, and I sensed that si­lence hov­er­ing again. ‘I’d say it was Prince Chiv­alry’s busi­ness who the mother was, and not for kit­chen talk,’ Burrich said mildly.

  ‘Even so, even so,’ the guard agreed ab­ruptly, and Jason nod­ded like a court­ing bird in agree­ment. Young as I was, I still wondered what kind of man this was who, with one leg band­aged, could quell a room full of rough men with a look or a word.

  ‘Boy don’t have a name,’ Jason vo­lun­teered into the si­lence. ‘Just goes by “boy”.’

  This state­ment seemed to put every­one, even Burrich, at a loss for words. The si­lence lingered as I fin­ished bread and cheese and meat, and washed it down with a swal­low or two of beer that Burrich offered me. The other men left the room gradu­ally, in twos and threes, and still he sat there, drink­ing and look­ing at me. ‘Well,’ he said at long last. ‘If I know your father, he’ll face up to it square and do what’s right. But Eda only knows what he’ll think is the right thing to do. Prob­ably whatever hurts the most.’ He watched me si­lently a mo­ment longer. ‘Had enough to eat?’ he asked at last.

  I nod­ded, and he stood stiffly, to swing me off the table and onto the floor. ‘Come on, then, fitz,’ he said, and moved out of the kit­chen and down a dif­fer­ent cor­ridor. His stiff leg made his gait un­gainly, and per­haps the beer had some­thing to do with it as well. Cer­tainly I had no trouble in keep­ing up. We came at last to a heavy door, and a guard who nod­ded us through with a de­vour­ing stare at me.

  Out­side, a chill wind was blow­ing. All the ice and snow that had softened dur­ing the day had gone back to sharp­ness with the com­ing of night. The path cracked un­der my feet, and the wind seemed to find every crack and gap in my gar­ments. My feet and leg­gings had been warmed by the kit­chen’s fire, but not quite dried, so the cold seized on them. I re­mem­ber dark­ness, and the sud­den tired­ness that came over me, a ter­rible weepy sleep­i­ness that dragged at me as I fol­lowed the strange man with the band­aged leg through the chill, dark court­yard. There were tall walls around us, and guards moved in­ter­mit­tently on top of them, dark shad­ows vis­ible only as they blot­ted the stars oc­ca­sion­ally from the sky. The cold bit at me, and I stumbled and slipped on the icy path­way. But some­thing about Burrich did not per­mit me to whim­per or beg quarter from him. In­stead I fol­lowed him dog­gedly. We reached a build­ing and he dragged open a heavy door.

  Warmth and an­imal smells and a dim yel­low light spilled out. A sleepy stable-boy sat up in his nest of straw, blink­ing like a rumpled fledgling. At a word from Burrich he lay down again, curl­ing up small in the straw and clos­ing his eyes. We moved past him, Burrich drag­ging the door to be­hind us. He took the lan­tern that burned dimly by the door and led me on.

  I entered a dif­fer­ent world then, a night world where an­im­als shif­ted and breathed in stalls, where hounds lif­ted their heads from their crossed fore­paws to re­gard me with lam­bent eyes green or yel­low in the lan­tern’s glow. Horses stirred as we passed their stalls. ‘Hawks are down at the far end,’ Burrich said as we passed stall after stall. I ac­cep­ted it as some­thing he thought I should know.

  ‘Here,’ he said fi­nally. ‘This’ll do. For now, any­way. I’m jigged if I know what else to do with you. If it weren’t for the Lady Pa­tience, I’d be think­ing this a fine god’s jest on the mas­ter. Here, Nosy, you just move over and make this boy a place in the straw. That’s right, you cuddle up to Vixen, there. She’ll take you in, and give a good slash to any that think to bother you.’

  I found my­self fa­cing an ample box-stall, pop­u­lated with three hounds. They had roused and lay, stick tails thump­ing in the straw at Burrich’s voice. I moved un­cer­tainly in amongst them, and fi­nally lay down next to an old bitch with a whitened muzzle and one torn ear. The older male re­garded me with a cer­tain sus­pi­cion, but the third was a half-grown pup, and Nosy wel­comed me with ear lick­ings, nose nip­ping and much paw­ing. I put an arm around him to settle him, and then cuddled in amongst them as Burrich had ad­vised. He threw a thick blanket that smelled much of horse down over me. A very large grey beast in the next stall stirred sud­denly, thump­ing a heavy hoof against the par­ti­tion, and then hanging his head over to see what the night ex­cite­ment was about. Burrich calmed him ab­sently with a touch.

  ‘It’s rough quar­ters here for all of us at this out­post. You’ll find Buck­keep a more hos­pit­able place. But for to­night, you’ll be warm here, and safe.’ He stood a mo­ment longer, look­ing down at us. ‘Horse, hound, and hawk, Chiv­alry. I’ve minded them all for you for many a year, and minded them well. But this by-blow of yours; well, what to do with him is bey­ond me.’

  I knew he wasn’t speak­ing to me. I watched him over the edge of the blanket as he took the lan­tern from its hook and wandered off, mut­ter­ing to him­self. I re­mem­ber that first night well, the warmth of the hounds, the prick­ling straw, and even the sleep that fi­nally came as the pup cuddled close be­side me. I drif­ted into his mind and shared his dim dreams of an end­less chase, pur­su­ing a quarry I never saw, but whose hot scent dragged me on­ward through nettle, bramble and scree.

  And with the hound’s dream, the pre­ci­sion of the memory wavers like the bright col­ours and sharp edges of a drug dream. Cer­tainly the days that fol­low that first night have no such clar­ity in my mind.

  I re­call the spit­ting wet days of winter’s end as I learned the route from my stall to the kit­chen. I was free to come and go there as I pleased. Some­times there was a cook in at­tend­ance, set­ting meat onto the hearth-hooks or pum­mel­ling bread dough or breach­ing a cask of drink. More of­ten, there was not, and I helped my­self to whatever had been left out on the table, and shared gen­er­ously with the pup that swiftly be­came my con­stant com­pan­ion. Men came and went, eat­ing and drink­ing, and re­gard­ing me with a spec­u­lat­ive curi­os­ity that I came to ac­cept as nor­mal. The men had a same­ness about them, with their rough wool cloaks and leg­gings, their hard bod­ies and easy move­ments, and the crest of a leap­ing buck that each bore over his heart. My pres­ence made some of them un­com­fort­able. I grew ac­cus­tomed to the mut­ter of voices that began whenever I left the kit­chen.

  Burrich was a con­stant in those days, giv­ing me the same care he gave to Chiv­alry’s beasts; I was fed, watered, groomed and ex­er­cised, said ex­er­cise usu­ally com­ing in the form of trot­ting at his heels as he per­formed his other du­ties. But those memor­ies are blurry and de­tails, such as those of wash­ing or chan­ging gar­ments, have prob­ably faded with a six-year-old’s calm as­sump­tions of such things as nor­mal. Cer­tainly I re­mem­ber the hound pup, Nosy. His coat was red and slick and short, and bristly in a way that prickled me through my clothes when we shared the horse blanket at night. His eyes were green as cop­per ore, his nose the col­our of cooked liver, and the in­sides of his mouth and tongue were mottled pink and black. When we were not eat­ing in the kit­chen, we wrestled in the court­yard or in the straw of the box-stall. Such was my world for how­ever long it was I was there. Not too long, I think, for I do not re­call the weather chan­ging. All my memor­ies of that time are of raw days and blustery wind, and snow and ice that par­tially melted each day but were re­stored by night’s freezes.

  One other memory I have of that time, but it is not sharp-edged. Rather it is warm and softly tin­ted, like a rich old tapestry seen in a dim room. I re­call be­ing roused from sleep by the pup’s wrig­gling and the yel­low light of a lan­tern be­ing held over me. Two men bent over me, but Burrich stood stiffly be­hind them and I was not afraid.

  ‘Now you’ve wakened him,’ warned the one, and he was Prince Ver­ity, the man from the warmly-lit cham­ber of my first even­ing.

  ‘So? He’ll go back to sleep as soon as we leave. Damn him, he has his father’s eyes as well. I swear, I’d have known his blood no mat­ter where I saw him. There’ll be no deny­ing it to any that see him. But have neither you nor Burrich the sense of a flea? Bas­tard or not, you don’t stable a child among beasts. Was there no where else you could put him?’

  The man who spoke was like Ver­ity around the jaw and eyes, but there the re­semb­lance ended. This man was younger by far. His cheeks were beard­less, and his scen­ted and smoothed hair was finer and brown. His cheeks and fore­head had been stung to red­ness by the night’s chill, but it was a new thing, not Ver­ity’s weathered rud­di­ness. And Ver­ity dressed as his men dressed, in prac­tical wool­lens of sturdy weave and sub­dued col­ours. Only the crest on his breast showed brighter, in gold and sil­ver thread. But the younger man with him gleamed in scar­lets and prim­rose, and his cloak drooped with twice the width of cloth needed to cover a man. The doublet that showed be­neath it was a rich cream, and laden with lace. The scarf at his throat was se­cured with a leap­ing stag done in gold, its single eye a wink­ing green gem. And the care­ful turn of his words were like a twis­ted chain of gold com­pared to the simple links of Ver­ity’s speech.

  ‘Regal, I had given it no thought. What do I know of chil­dren? I turned him over to Burrich. He is Chiv­alry’s man, and as such he’s cared for …’

  ‘I meant no dis­respect to the blood, sir,’ Burrich said in hon­est con­fu­sion. ‘I am Chiv­alry’s man, and I saw to the boy as I thought best. I could make him up a pal­let in the guard­room, but he seems small to be in the com­pany of such men, with their com­ings and go­ings at all hours, their fights and drink­ing and noise.’ The tone of his words made his own dis­taste for their com­pany ob­vi­ous. ‘Bed­ded here, he has quiet, and the pup has taken to him. And with my Vixen to watch over him at night, no one could do him harm without her teeth tak­ing a toll. My lords, I know little of chil­dren my­self, and it seemed to me …’

  ‘It’s fine, Burrich, it’s fine,’ Ver­ity said quietly, cut­ting him off. ‘If it had to be thought about, I should have done the think­ing. I left it to you, and I don’t find fault with it. It’s bet­ter than a lot of chil­dren have in this vil­lage, Eda knows. For here, for now, it’s fine.’

  ‘It will have to be dif­fer­ent when he comes back to Buck­keep.’ Regal did not sound pleased.

  ‘Then our father wishes him to re­turn with us to Buck­keep?’ The ques­tion came from Ver­ity.

  ‘Our father does. My mother does not.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ver­ity’s tone in­dic­ated he had no in­terest in fur­ther dis­cuss­ing that. But Regal frowned and con­tin­ued.

  ‘My mother the Queen is not at all pleased about any of this. She has coun­selled the King long, but in vain. Mother and I were for put­ting the boy … aside. It is only good sense. We scarcely need more con­fu­sion in the line of suc­ces­sion.’

  ‘I see no con­fu­sion in it now, Regal,’ Ver­ity spoke evenly. ‘Chiv­alry, me, and then you. Then our cousin Au­gust. This bas­tard would be a far fifth.’

  ‘I am well aware that you pre­cede me; you need not flaunt it at me at every op­por­tun­ity,’ Regal said coldly. He glared down at me. ‘I still think it would be bet­ter not to have him about. What if Chiv­alry never does get a legal heir on Pa­tience? What if he chooses to re­cog­nize this … boy? It could be very di­vis­ive to the nobles. Why should we tempt trouble? So say my mother and I. But our father the King is not a hasty man, as well we know. Shrewd is as Shrewd does, as the com­mon folk say. He for­bade any set­tling of the mat­ter. “Regal,” he said, in that way he has. “Don’t do what you can’t undo, un­til you’ve con­sidered what you can’t do once you’ve done it.” Then he laughed.’ Regal him­self gave a short, bit­ter laugh. ‘I weary so of his hu­mour.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ver­ity again, and I lay still and wondered if he were try­ing to sort out the King’s words, or re­frain­ing from reply­ing to his brother’s com­plaint.

  ‘You dis­cern his real reason, of course,’ Regal in­formed him.

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘He still fa­vours Chiv­alry.’ Regal soun­ded dis­gus­ted. ‘Des­pite everything. Des­pite his fool­ish mar­riage and his ec­cent­ric wife. Des­pite this mess. And now he thinks this will sway the people, make them warmer to­ward him. Prove he’s a man, that Chiv­alry can father a child. Or maybe prove he’s a hu­man, and can make mis­takes like the rest of them.’ Regal’s tone be­trayed that he agreed with none of this.