Assassin's Apprentice (The Illustrated Edition) Read online

  It was worse than Chade’s. I would have thought it the clutter of years if I had not known that she had only recently arrived. Even a complete inventory of the room could not have described it, for it was the juxtaposition of objects that made it remarkable. A feather fan, a fencing glove, and a bundle of cattails were all vased in a well-worn boot. A small black terrier with two fat puppies slept in a basket lined with a fur hood and some woolen stockings. A family of carved ivory walruses perched on a tablet about horseshoeing. But the dominant elements were the plants. There were fat puffs of greenery overflowing clay pots, teacups and goblets and buckets of cuttings and cut flowers and greenery, vines spilling out of handleless mugs and cracked cups. Failures were evident in bare sticks poking up out of pots of earth. The plants perched and huddled together in every location that would catch morning or afternoon sun from the windows. The effect was like a garden spilling in the windows and growing up around the clutter in the room.

  “He’s probably hungry, too, isn’t he, Lacey? I’ve heard that about boys. I think there’s some cheese and biscuits on the stand by my bed. Fetch them for him, would you, dear?”

  Lady Patience stood slightly more than arm’s distance away from me as she spoke past me to her lady.

  “I’m not hungry, really, thank you,” I blurted out before Lacey could lumber to her feet. “I’m here because I was told to make myself available to you, in the mornings, for as long as you wanted me.”

  That was a careful rephrasing. What King Shrewd had actually said to me was, “Go to her chambers each morning, and do whatever it is she thinks you ought to be doing so she leaves me alone. And keep doing it until she is as weary of you as I am of her.” His bluntness had astounded me, for I had never seen him so beleaguered as that day. Verity came in the door of the chamber as I was scuttling out, and he, too, looked much the worse for wear. Both men spoke and moved as if suffering from too much wine the night before, and yet I had seen them both at table last night, and there had been a marked lack of either merriness or wine. Verity tousled my head as I went past him. “More like his father every day,” he remarked to a scowling Regal behind him. Regal glared at me as he entered the King’s chamber and loudly closed the door behind him.

  So here I was, in my lady’s chamber, and she was skirting about me and talking past me as if I were an animal that might suddenly strike out at her or soil the carpets. I could tell that it afforded Lacey much amusement.

  “Yes. I already knew that, you see, because I was the one who had asked the King that you be sent here,” Lady Patience explained carefully to me.

  “Yes, ma’am.” I shifted on my bit of seat space and tried to look intelligent and well mannered. Recalling the earlier times we had met, I could scarcely blame her for treating me like a dolt.

  A silence fell. I looked around at things in the room. Lady Patience looked toward a window. Lacey sat and smirked to herself and pretended to be tatting lace.

  “Oh. Here.” Swift as a diving hawk, Lady Patience stooped down and seized the black terrier pup by the scruff of the neck. He yelped in surprise, and his mother looked up in annoyance as Lady Patience thrust him into my arms. “This one’s for you. He’s yours now. Every boy should have a pet.”

  I caught the squirming puppy and managed to support his body before she let go of him. “Or maybe you’d rather have a bird? I have a cage of finches in my bedchamber. You could have one of them, if you’d rather.”

  “Uh, no. A puppy’s fine. A puppy is wonderful.” The second half of the statement was made to the pup. My instinctive response to his high-pitched yi-yi-yi had been to quest out to him with calm. His mother had sensed my contact with him and approved. She settled back into her basket with the white pup with blithe unconcern. The puppy looked up at me and met my eyes directly. This, in my experience, was rather unusual. Most dogs avoided prolonged direct eye contact. But also unusual was his awareness. I knew from surreptitious experiments in the stable that most puppies his age had little more than fuzzy self-awareness, and were mostly tuned to mother and milk and immediate needs. This little fellow had a solidly established identity within himself, and a deep interest in all that was going on around him. He liked Lacey, who fed him bits of meat, and was wary of Patience, not because she was cruel, but because she stumbled over him and kept putting him back in the basket each time he laboriously clambered out. He thought I smelled very exciting, and the scents of horses and birds and other dogs were like colors in his mind, images of things that as yet had no shape or reality for him, but that he nonetheless found fascinating. I imaged the scents for him and he climbed my chest, wriggling, sniffing and licking me in his excitement. Take me, show me, take me.

  “…even listening?”

  I winced, expecting a rap from Burrich, then came back to awareness of where I was and of the small woman standing before me with her hands on her hips.

  “I think something’s wrong with him,” she abruptly observed to Lacey. “Did you see how he was sitting there, staring at the puppy? I thought he was about to go off into some sort of fit.”

  Lacey smiled benignly and went on with her tatting. “Fair reminded me of you, lady, when you start pottering about with your leaves and bits of plants and end up staring at the dirt.”

  “Well,” said Patience, clearly displeased. “It is quite one thing for an adult to be pensive,” she observed firmly, “and another for a boy to stand about looking daft.”

  Later, I promised the pup. “I’m sorry,” I said, and tried to look repentant. “I was just distracted by the puppy.” He had cuddled into the crook of my arm and was casually chewing the edge of my jerkin. It is difficult to explain what I felt. I needed to pay attention to Lady Patience, but this small being snuggled against me was radiating delight and contentment. It is a heady thing to be suddenly proclaimed the center of someone’s world, even if that someone is an eight-week-old puppy. It made me realize how profoundly alone I had felt, and for how long. “Thank you,” I said, and even I was surprised at the gratitude in my voice. “Thank you very much.”

  “It’s just a puppy,” Lady Patience said, and to my surprise she looked almost ashamed. She turned aside and stared out the window. The puppy licked his nose and closed his eyes. Warm. Sleep. “Tell me about yourself,” she demanded abruptly.

  It took me aback. “What would you like to know, lady?”

  She made a small frustrated gesture. “What do you do each day? What have you been taught?”

  So I attempted to tell her, but I could see it didn’t satisfy her. She folded her lips tightly at each mention of Burrich’s name. She wasn’t impressed with any of my martial training. Of Chade, I could say nothing. She nodded in grudging approval at my study of languages, writing, and ciphering.

  “Well,” she interrupted suddenly. “At least you’re not totally ignorant. If you can read, you can learn anything. If you’ve a will to. Have you a will to learn?”

  “I suppose so.” It was a lukewarm answer, but I was beginning to feel badgered. Not even the gift of the puppy could outweigh her belittlement of my learning.

  “I suppose you will learn, then. For I have a will that you will, even if you do not yet.” She was suddenly stern, in a shifting of attitude that left me bewildered. “And what do they call you, boy?”

  The question again. “Boy is fine,” I muttered. The sleeping puppy in my arms whimpered in agitation. I forced myself to be calm for him.

  I had the satisfaction of seeing a stricken look flit briefly across Patience’s face. “I shall call you, oh, Thomas. Tom for every day. Does that suit you?”

  “I suppose so,” I said deliberately. Burrich gave more thought to naming a dog than that. We had no Blackies or Spots in the stables. Burrich named each beast as if they were royalty, with names that described them or traits he aspired to for them. Even Sooty’s name masked a gentle fire I had come to respect. But this
woman named me Tom after no more than an indrawn breath. I looked down so she couldn’t see my eyes.

  “Fine, then,” she said, a trifle briskly. “Come tomorrow at the same time. I shall have some things ready for you. I warn you, I shall expect willing effort from you. Good day, Tom.”

  “Good day, lady.”

  I turned and left. Lacey’s eyes followed me, and then darted back to her mistress. I sensed her disappointment, but did not know what it was about.

  It was still early in the day. This first audience had taken less than an hour. I wasn’t expected anywhere; this time was my own. I headed for the kitchens, to wheedle scraps for my pup. It would have been easy to take him down to the stables, but then Burrich would have known about him. I had no illusions about what would happen next. The pup would stay in the stables. He would be nominally mine, but Burrich would see that this new bond was severed. I had no intention of allowing that to happen.

  I made my plans. A basket from the launderers, an old shirt over straw for his bed. His messes now would be small, and as he got older my bond with him would make him easy to train. For now, he’d have to stay by himself for part of each day. But as he got older he could go about with me. Eventually, Burrich would find out about him. I resolutely pushed that thought aside. I’d deal with that later. For now, he needed a name. I looked him over. He was not the curly-haired yappy type of terrier. He would have a short smooth coat, a thick neck, and a mouth like a coal scuttle. But grown, he’d be less than knee high, so it couldn’t be too weighty of a name. I didn’t want him to be a fighter. So no Ripper or Charger. He would be tenacious, and alert. Grip, maybe. Or Sentry.

  “Or Anvil. Or Forge.”

  I looked up. The Fool stepped out of an alcove and followed me down the hall.

  “Why?” I asked. I no longer questioned the way the Fool could guess what I was thinking.

  “Because your heart will be hammered against him, and your strength will be tempered in his fire.”

  “Sounds a bit dramatic to me,” I objected. “And Forge is a bad word now. I don’t want to mark my pup with it. Just the other day, down in town, I heard a drunk yell at a cutpurse, ‘May your woman be Forged.’ Everyone in the street stopped and stared.”

  The Fool shrugged. “Well they might.” He followed me into my room. “Smith, then. Or Smithy. Let me see him?”

  Reluctantly I gave over my puppy. He stirred, awakened, and then wiggled in the Fool’s hands. No smell, no smell. I was astonished to agree with the pup. Even with his little black nose working for me, the Fool had no detectable scent. “Careful. Don’t drop him.”

  “I’m a fool, not a dolt,” said the Fool, but he sat on my bed and put the pup beside him. Smithy instantly began snuffling and rucking my bed. I sat on the other side of him lest he venture too near the edge.

  “So,” the Fool asked casually, “are you going to let her buy you with gifts?”

  “Why not?” I tried to be disdainful.

  “It would be a mistake, for both of you.” The Fool tweaked Smithy’s tiny tail, and he spun ’round with a puppy growl. “She’s going to want to give you things. You’ll have to take them, for there’s no polite way to refuse. But you’ll have to decide whether they’ll make a bridge between you, or a wall.”

  “Do you know Chade?” I asked abruptly, for the Fool sounded so like him I suddenly had to know. I had never mentioned Chade to anyone else, save Shrewd, nor heard talk of him from anyone around the keep.

  “Shade or sunlight, I know when to keep a grip on my tongue. It would be a good thing for you to learn as well.” The Fool rose suddenly and went to the door. He lingered there a moment. “She only hated you for the first few months. And it wasn’t truly hate of you; it was blind jealousy of your mother, that she could bear a babe to Chivalry, but Patience could not. After that, her heart softened. She wanted to send for you, to raise you as her own. Some might say she merely wanted to possess anything that touched Chivalry. But I don’t think so.”

  I was staring at the Fool.

  “You look like a fish, with your mouth open like that,” he observed. “But of course, your father refused. He said it might appear he was formally acknowledging his bastard. But I don’t think that was it at all. I think it would have been dangerous for you.” The Fool made an odd pass with his hand, and a stick of dried meat appeared in his fingers. I knew it had been up his sleeve, but I was unable to see how he accomplished his tricks. He flipped the meat onto my bed and the puppy sprang on it greedily.

  “You can hurt her, if you choose,” he offered me. “She feels such guilt at how alone you have been. And you look so like Chivalry, anything you say will be as if it came from his lips. She’s like a gem with a flaw. One precise tap from you, and she will fly all to pieces. She’s half-mad as she is, you know. They would never have been able to kill Chivalry if she hadn’t consented to his abdication. At least, not with such blithe dismissal of the consequences. She knows that.”

  “Who is ‘they’?” I demanded.

  “Who are they?” the Fool corrected me, and whisked out of sight. By the time I got to the door, he was gone. I quested after him, but got nothing. Almost as if he were Forged. I shivered at that thought, and went back to Smithy. He was chewing the meat to slimy bits all over my bed. I watched him. “The Fool’s gone,” I told Smithy. He wagged a casual acknowledgment and went on worrying his meat.

  He was mine, given to me. Not a stable dog I cared for, but mine, and outside of Burrich’s knowledge or authority. Other than my clothes and the copper bracelet that Chade had given me, I had few possessions. But he made up for all lacks I might ever have had.

  He was a sleek and healthy pup. His coat was smooth now, but would grow bristly as he matured. When I held him up to the window, I could see faint mottlings of color in his coat. He’d be a dark brindle, then. I discovered one white spot on his chin, and another on his left hind foot. He clamped his little jaws on my shirtsleeve and shook it violently, uttering savage puppy growls. I tussled him on the bed until he fell into a deep, limp sleep. Then I moved him to his straw cushion and went reluctantly to my afternoon lessons and chores.

  That initial week with Patience was a trying time for both of us. I learned to keep a thread of my attention always with him so he never felt alone enough to howl when I left him. But that took practice, so I felt somewhat distracted. Burrich frowned about it, but I persuaded him it was due to my sessions with Patience. “I have no idea what that woman wants from me,” I told him by the third day. “Yesterday it was music. In the space of two hours, she attempted to teach me to play the harp, the sea pipes, and then the flute. Every time I came close to figuring out a few notes on one or the other of them, she snatched it away and commanded that I try a different one. She ended that session by saying that I had no aptitude for music. This morning it was poetry. She set herself to teaching me the one about Queen Healsall and her garden. It has a long bit, about all the herbs she grew and what each was for. And she kept getting it bungled, and got angry at me when I repeated it back to her that way, saying that I must know that catmint is not for poultices and that I was mocking her. It was almost a relief when she said I had given her such a headache that we must stop. And when I offered to bring her buds from the lady’s-hand bush for her headache, she sat right up and said, ‘There! I knew you were mocking me.’ I don’t know how to please her, Burrich.”

  “Why would you want to?” he growled, and I let the subject drop.

  That evening Lacey came to my room. She tapped, then entered, wrinkling her nose. “You’d better bring up some strewing herbs if you’re going to keep that pup in here. And use some vinegar and water when you scrub up his messes. It smells like a stable in here.”

  “I suppose it does,” I admitted. I looked at her curiously and waited.

  “I brought you this. You seemed to like it best.” She held out the sea
pipes. I looked at the short, fat tubes bound together with strips of leather. I had liked it best of the three instruments. The harp had far too many strings, and the flute had seemed shrill to me even when Patience had played it.

  “Did Lady Patience send it to me?” I asked, puzzled.

  “No. She doesn’t know I’ve taken it. She’ll assume it’s lost in her litter, as usual.”

  “Why did you bring it?”

  “For you to practice on. When you’ve a little skill with it, bring it back and show her.”

  “Why?”

  Lacey sighed. “Because it would make her feel better. And that would make my life much easier. There’s nothing worse than being maid to someone as heartsick as Lady Patience. She longs desperately for you to be good at something. She keeps trying you out, hoping that you’ll manifest some sudden talent so that she can flout you about and tell folk, ‘There, I told you he had it in him.’ Now, I’ve had boys of my own, and I know boys aren’t that way. They don’t learn, or grow, or have manners when you’re looking at them. But turn away, and turn back, and there they are, smarter, taller, and charming everyone but their own mothers.”

  I was a little lost. “You want me to learn to play this so Patience will be happy?”

  “So she can feel she’s given you something.”

  “She gave me Smithy. Nothing she can ever give me will be better than him.”

  Lacey looked surprised at my sudden sincerity. So was I. “Well. You might tell her that. But you might also try to learn to play the sea pipes or recite a ballad or sing one of the old prayers. That she might understand better.”

  After Lacey left, I sat thinking, caught between anger and wistfulness. Patience wished me to be a success and felt she must discover something I could do. As if, before her, I had never done or accomplished anything. But as I mulled over what I had done, and what she knew of me, I realized that her image of me must be a rather flat one. I could read and write, and take care of a horse or dog. I could also brew poisons, make sleeping drafts, smuggle, lie, and do sleight of hand, none of which would have pleased her even if she had known. So, was there anything to me, other than being a spy or assassin?