Royal Assassin (UK) Read online

  It was my turn to be nettled. ‘You’re the one who left me, with not even a word of farewell. And with that sailor, Jade. Do you think I don’t know about him? I was there, Molly. I saw you take his arm and walk away with him. Why didn’t you come to me, then, be­fore leav­ing with him?’

  She drew her­self up. ‘I had been a wo­man with pro­spects. Then I be­came, all un­wit­tingly, a debtor. Do you ima­gine that I knew of the debts my father had in­curred, and then ig­nored? Not till after he was bur­ied did the cred­it­ors come knock­ing. I lost everything. Should I have come to you as a beg­gar, hop­ing you’d take me in? I’d thought that you’d cared about me. I be­lieved that you wanted … El damn you, why do I have to ad­mit this to you!’ Her words rattled against me like flung stones. I knew her eyes were blaz­ing, her cheeks flushed. ‘I thought you did want to marry me, that you did want a fu­ture with me. I wanted to bring some­thing to it, not come to you pen­ni­less and pro­spect­less. I’d ima­gined us with a little shop, me with my candles and herbs and honey, and you with your scriber’s skills … And so I went to my cousin, to ask to bor­row money. He had none to spare, but ar­ranged for my pas­sage to Silt­bay, to talk to his elder brother Flint. I’ve told you how that ended. I worked my way back here on a fish­ing boat, New­boy, gut­ting fish and put­ting them down in salt. I came back to Buck­keep like a beaten dog. And I swal­lowed my pride and came up here that day, and found out how stu­pid I was, how you’d pre­ten­ded and lied to me. You are a bas­tard, New­boy. You are.’

  For a mo­ment, I listened to an odd sound, try­ing to com­pre­hend what it was. Then I knew. She was cry­ing, in little catches of her breath. I knew if I tried to stand and go to her, I’d fall on my face. Or I’d reach her, and she’d knock me flat. So stu­pidly as any drunk, I re­peated, ‘Well, what about Jade then? Why did you find it so easy to go to him? Why didn’t you come to me first?’

  ‘I told you! He’s my cousin, you moron!’ Her an­ger flared past her tears. ‘When you’re in trouble, you turn to your fam­ily. I asked him for help, and he took me to his fam­ily’s farm, to help out with the har­vest.’ A mo­ment of si­lence. Then, in­cred­u­lously, ‘What did you think? That I was the type of wo­man who could have an­other man on the side?’ Icily. ‘That I would let you court me, and be see­ing someone else?’

  ‘No. I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Of course you would.’ She said it as if it sud­denly all made sense. ‘You’re like my father. He al­ways be­lieved I lied, be­cause he told so many lies him­self. Just like you. “Oh, I’m not drunk,” when you stink of it and you can barely stand. And your stu­pid story: “I dreamed of you at Silt­bay.” Every­one in town knew I went to Silt­bay. You prob­ably heard the whole story to­night, while you were sit­ting in some tav­ern.’

  ‘No, I didn’t, Molly. You have to be­lieve me.’ I clutched at the blankets on the bed to keep my­self up­right. She had turned her back on me.

  ‘No. I don’t! I don’t have to be­lieve any­one any more.’ She paused, as if con­sid­er­ing some­thing. ‘You know, once, a long time ago, when I was a little girl. Be­fore I even met you.’ Her voice was get­ting oddly calmer. Emp­tier, but calmer. ‘It was at Spring-fest. I re­mem­ber when I’d asked my daddy for some pen­nies for the fair booths, he’d slapped me and said he wouldn’t waste money on fool­ish things like that. And then he’d kicked me in the shop and gone drink­ing. But even then I knew how to get out of the shop. I went to the fair booths any­way, just to see them. One was an old man telling for­tunes with crys­tals. You know how they do. They hold the crys­tal to a candle’s light, and tell your fu­ture by how the col­ours fall across your face.’ She paused.

  ‘I know,’ I ad­mit­ted to her si­lence. I knew the type of hedge wiz­ard she meant. I’d seen the dance of col­oured lights across a wo­man’s close-eyed face. Right now I only wished I could see Molly clearly. I thought if I could meet her eyes, I could make her see the truth in­side me. I wished I dared stand, to go to her and try to hold her again. But she thought me drunk, and I knew I’d fall. I would not shame my­self in front of her again.

  ‘A lot of the other girls and wo­men were get­ting their for­tunes told. But I didn’t have a penny, so I could only watch. But after a bit, the old man no­ticed me. I guess he thought I was shy. He asked me if I didn’t want to know my for­tune. And I star­ted cry­ing, be­cause I did, but I didn’t have a penny. Then Brinna the fish-wife laughed, and said there was no need for me to pay to know it. Every­one knew my fu­ture already. I was the daugh­ter of a drunk, I’d be the wife of a drunk, and the mother of drunks.’ She whispered, ‘Every­one star­ted laugh­ing. Even the old man.’

  ‘Molly,’ I said. I don’t think she even heard me.

  ‘I still don’t have a penny,’ she said slowly. ‘But at least I know I won’t be the wife of a drunk. I don’t think I even want to be friends with one.’

  ‘You have to listen to me. You’re not be­ing fair!’ My trait­or­ous tongue slurred my words. ‘I –’

  The door slammed.

  ‘– didn’t know you liked me that way,’ I said stu­pidly to the cold and empty room.

  The shak­ing over­took me in earn­est. But I wasn’t go­ing to lose her that eas­ily again. I rose and man­aged two strides be­fore the floor rocked be­neath me and I went to my knees. I re­mained there a bit, head hanging like a dog. I didn’t think she’d be im­pressed if I crawled after her. She’d prob­ably kick me. If I could even find her. I crawled back to my bed in­stead, and clambered back onto it. I didn’t un­dress, but just dragged the edge of my blanket over me. My vis­ion dimmed, clos­ing in black from the edges, but I didn’t sleep right away. In­stead, I lay there and thought what a stu­pid boy I had been last sum­mer. I had cour­ted a wo­man, think­ing that I was walk­ing out with a girl. Those three years dif­fer­ence in age had mattered so much to me, but in all the wrong ways. I had thought she had seen me as a boy, and des­paired of win­ning her. So I had ac­ted like a boy, in­stead of try­ing to make her see me as a man. And the boy had hurt her, and yes, de­ceived her, and in all like­li­hood, lost her forever. The dark closed down, black­ness every­where but for one whirl­ing spark.

  She had loved the boy, and fore­seen a life to­gether for us. I clung to the spark and sank into sleep.

  FOUR

  Di­lem­mas

  As re­gards the Wit and the Skill, I sus­pect that every hu­man has at least some ca­pa­city. I have seen wo­men rise ab­ruptly from their tasks, to go into an ad­ja­cent room where an in­fant is just be­gin­ning to awake. Can­not this be some form of the Skill? Or wit­ness the word­less co­oper­a­tion that arises among a crew that has long ten­ded the same ves­sel. They func­tion, without spoken words, as closely as a co­terie, so that the ship be­comes al­most a beast alive, and the crew her life force. Other folk sense an af­fin­ity for cer­tain an­im­als, and ex­press it in a crest or in the names they be­stow upon their chil­dren. The Wit opens one to that af­fin­ity. The Wit al­lows aware­ness of all an­im­als, but folk­lore in­sists that most Wit users even­tu­ally de­velop a bond with one cer­tain an­imal. Some tales in­sist that users of the Wit even­tu­ally took on the ways and fi­nally the form of the beasts they bon­ded to. These tales, I be­lieve, we can dis­miss as scare tales to dis­cour­age chil­dren from Beast ma­gic.

  I awoke in the af­ter­noon. My room was cold. My sweaty clothes clung to me. I staggered down­stairs to the kit­chen, ate some­thing, went out to the bath house, began trem­bling, and went back up to my room. I got back into my bed, shak­ing with cold. Later, someone came in and talked to me. I don’t re­mem­ber what was said, but I do re­mem­ber be­ing shaken. It was un­pleas­ant, but I could ig­nore it and did.

  I awoke in early even­ing. There was a fire in my hearth, and a neat pile of fire­wood in the hod. A little table had been drawn up near my bed, and some bread and meat and cheese was
set out on a plat­ter upon an em­broidered cloth with tat­ted edges. A fat pot with brew­ing herbs in the bot­tom was wait­ing for wa­ter from the very large kettle steam­ing over the fire. A washtub and soap were set out on the other side of the hearth. A clean night­shirt had been left across the foot of my bed; it wasn’t one of my old ones. It might ac­tu­ally fit me.

  My grat­it­ude out­weighed my puz­zle­ment. I man­aged to get out of bed and take ad­vant­age of everything. Af­ter­wards, I felt much bet­ter. My dizzi­ness was re­placed by a feel­ing of un­nat­ural light­ness, but that quickly suc­cumbed to the bread and cheese. The tea had a hint of elf­bark in it; I in­stantly sus­pec­ted Chade and wondered if he were the one who’d tried to wake me. But no, Chade only summoned me at night.

  I was drag­ging the clean night­shirt over my head when the door opened quietly. The Fool came slip­ping into my room. He was in his winter mot­ley of black and white, and his col­our­less skin seemed even paler be­cause of it. His gar­ments were made of some silky fab­ric, and cut so loosely that he looked like a stick swathed in them. He’d grown taller, and even thin­ner, if that were pos­sible. As al­ways, his white eyes were a shock, even in his blood­less face. He smiled at me, and then waggled a pale pink tongue de­ris­ively.

  ‘You,’ I sur­mised, and ges­tured round. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘No,’ he denied. His pale hair floated out from be­neath his cap in a halo as he shook his head. ‘But I as­sisted. Thank you for bathing. It makes my task of check­ing on you less oner­ous. I’m glad you’re awake. You snore ab­om­in­ably.’

  I let this com­ment pass. ‘You’ve grown,’ I ob­served.

  ‘Yes. So have you. And you’ve been sick. And you slept quite a long time. And now you are awake and bathed and fed. You still look ter­rible. But you no longer smell. It’s late af­ter­noon now. Are there any other ob­vi­ous facts you’d like to re­view?’

  ‘I dreamed about you. While I was gone.’

  He gave me a du­bi­ous look. ‘Did you? How touch­ing. I can’t say I dreamed of you.’

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ I said, and en­joyed the brief flash of sur­prise on the Fool’s face.

  ‘How droll. Does that ex­plain why you’ve been play­ing the fool your­self so much?’

  ‘I sup­pose. Sit down. Tell me what’s been hap­pen­ing while I was gone.’

  ‘I can’t. King Shrewd is ex­pect­ing me. Rather, he isn’t ex­pect­ing me, and that is pre­cisely why I must go to him now. When you feel bet­ter, you should go and see him. Es­pe­cially if he isn’t ex­pect­ing you.’ He turned ab­ruptly to go. He whisked him­self out the door, then leaned back in ab­ruptly. He lif­ted the sil­ver bells at the end of one ri­dicu­lously long sleeve, and jingled them at me. ‘Farewell, Fitz. Do try to do a bit bet­ter at not let­ting people kill you.’ The door closed si­lently be­hind him.

  I was left alone. I poured my­self an­other cup of tea and sipped at it. My door opened again. I looked up, ex­pect­ing the Fool. Lacey peeked in and an­nounced, ‘Oh, he’s awake,’ and then, more severely, de­man­ded, ‘Why didn’t you say how tired you were? It’s fair scared me to death, you sleep­ing a whole day round like that.’ She did not wait to be in­vited, but bustled into the room, clean lin­ens and blankets in her arms and Lady Pa­tience on her heels.

  ‘Oh, he is awake!’ she ex­claimed to Lacey, as if she had doubted it. They ig­nored my hu­mi­li­ation at con­front­ing them in my night­shirt. Lady Pa­tience seated her­self on my bed while Lacey fussed about the room. There was not much to do in my bare cham­ber, but she stacked my dirty dishes, poked at my fire, tich-tiched over my dirty bath wa­ter and scattered gar­ments. I stood at bay by the hearth while she stripped my bed, made it up afresh, gathered my dirty clothes over her arm with a dis­dain­ful sniff, glanced about, and then sailed out the door with her plun­der.

  ‘I was go­ing to tidy that up,’ I muttered, em­bar­rassed, but Lady Pa­tience didn’t ap­pear to no­tice. She ges­tured im­per­i­ously at the bed. Re­luct­antly I got into the bed. I don’t be­lieve I have ever felt more at a dis­ad­vant­age. She em­phas­ized it by lean­ing over and tuck­ing the cov­ers around me.

  ‘About Molly,’ she an­nounced ab­ruptly. ‘Your be­ha­viour that night was rep­re­hens­ible. You used your weak­ness to lure her to your room. And up­set her no end with your ac­cus­a­tions. Fitz, I will not al­low it. If you were not so sick, I would be furi­ous with you. As it is, I am gravely dis­ap­poin­ted. I can­not think what to say about how you de­ceived that poor girl, and led her on. So I will simply say that it will hap­pen no more. You shall be­have hon­our­ably to her, in every way.’

  A simple mis­un­der­stand­ing between Molly and me had sud­denly be­come a ser­i­ous mat­ter. ‘There’s been a mis­take here,’ I said, try­ing to sound com­pet­ent and calm. ‘Molly and I need to straighten it out. By talk­ing to­gether, privately. I as­sure you, for your peace of mind, that it is not at all what you seem to think it is.’

  ‘Bear in mind who you are. The son of a prince does not …’

  ‘Fitz,’ I re­minded her firmly. ‘I am FitzChiv­alry. Chiv­alry’s bas­tard.’ Pa­tience looked stricken. I felt again how much I had changed since I had left Buck­keep. I was not a boy any more for her to su­per­vise and cor­rect. She had to see me as I was. Still, I tried to soften my tone as I poin­ted out, ‘Not the proper son of Prince Chiv­alry, my lady. Only your hus­band’s bas­tard.’

  She sat on the foot of my bed and looked at me. Her hazel eyes met mine squarely and held. I saw past her gid­di­ness and dis­tract­ib­il­ity, into a soul cap­able of more pain and vaster re­gret than I had ever sus­pec­ted. ‘How do you think I could ever for­get that?’ she asked quietly.

  My voice died in my throat as I sought for an an­swer. I was res­cued by Lacey’s re­turn. She had re­cruited two serving maids and a couple of small boys. The dirty wa­ter from my bath and my dishes were whisked away by them, while Lacey set out a tray of small pastries and two more cups, and meas­ured out fresh brew­ing herbs for an­other pot of tea. Pa­tience and I were si­lent un­til the serving folk left the room. Lacey made the tea, poured cups for all, and then settled her­self with her ever-present tat­ting.

  ‘It is pre­cisely be­cause of who you are that this is more than a mis­un­der­stand­ing.’ Pa­tience launched back into the topic, as if I had never dared in­ter­rupt. ‘If you were just Fed­wren’s ap­pren­tice, or a stable-hand, then you would be free to court and marry how­ever you wished. But you are not, FitzChiv­alry Farseer. You are of the royal blood. Even a bas­tard,’ she stumbled slightly on the word, ‘of that line must ob­serve cer­tain cus­toms. And prac­tise cer­tain dis­cre­tions. Con­sider your po­s­i­tion in the royal house­hold. You must have the king’s per­mis­sion to marry. Surely you are aware of that. Cour­tesy to King Shrewd de­man­ded that you in­form him of your in­ten­tion to court, so that he might con­sider the case’s mer­its, and tell you if it pleased him or not. He would con­sider it. Is it a good time for you to wed? Does it be­ne­fit the throne? Is the match an ac­cept­able one, or is it likely to cause scan­dal? Will your court­ing in­ter­fere with your du­ties? Are the lady’s blood­lines ac­cept­able? Does the King wish you to have off­spring?’

  With each ques­tion she posed, I felt the shock go deeper. I lay back on my pil­lows and stared at the bed hangings. I had never really set out to court Molly. From a child­hood friend­ship, we had drif­ted to a deeper com­pan­ion­ship. I had known how my heart wished it to go, but my head had never stopped to con­sider it. She read my face plainly.

  ‘Re­mem­ber, too, FitzChiv­alry, that you have already sworn an oath to an­other. Your life be­longs to your king already. What would you of­fer Molly if you wed her? His leav­ings? The bits of time that he did not de­mand? A man whose duty is sworn to a king has little time for any­one else in his life.’ Tears stood su
d­denly in her eyes. ‘Some wo­men are will­ing to take what such a man can hon­estly of­fer, and con­tent them­selves with it. For oth­ers, it is not enough. Could never be enough. You must …’ she hes­it­ated, and it seemed as if the words were wrung from her. ‘You must con­sider that. One horse can­not bear two saddles. How­ever much he may wish to …’ Her voice dwindled off on the last words. She closed her eyes as if some­thing hurt her. Then she took a breath and went on briskly, as if she had never paused. ‘An­other con­sid­er­a­tion, FitzChiv­alry. Molly is, or was, a wo­man of pro­spects. She has a trade, and knows it well. I ex­pect she will be able to re-es­tab­lish her­self, after a time of hir­ing out. But what about you? What do you bring her? You write a fair hand, but you can­not claim a full scriber’s skills. You are a good stable-hand, yes, but that is not how you earn your bread. You are a prince’s bas­tard. You live in the keep, you are fed, you are clothed. But you have no fixed al­low­ance. This could be a com­fort­able cham­ber, for one per­son. But did you ex­pect to bring Molly here to live with you? Or did you ser­i­ously be­lieve the King would grant you per­mis­sion to leave Buck­keep? And if he did, then what? Will you live with your wife and eat the bread she earns with the work of her hands, and do naught? Or would you be con­tent to learn her trade, and be a help to her?’

  She fi­nally paused. She did not ex­pect me to an­swer any of her ques­tions. I did not try. She took a breath and re­sumed. ‘You have be­haved as a thought­less boy. I know you meant no harm, and we must see that no harm comes of it. To any­one. But, most es­pe­cially to Molly. You have grown up amidst the gos­sip and in­trigues of the royal court. She has not. Will you let it be said she is your con­cu­bine, or worse, a keep whore? For long years now, Buck­keep has been a man’s court. Queen De­sire was … the Queen, but she did not hold court as Queen Con­stance did. We have a queen at Buck­keep again. Already, things are dif­fer­ent here, as you will dis­cover. If you truly hope to make Molly your wife, she must be brought into this court one step at a time. Or she will find her­self an out­cast among po­litely nod­ding people. I am speak­ing plainly to you, FitzChiv­alry. Not to be cruel to you. But far bet­ter I am cruel to you now than that Molly live a life­time of cas­ual cruelty.’ She spoke so calmly, her eyes never leav­ing my face.