Fool’s Errand (Tawny Man Trilogy Book One) by Robin Hobb (28)

We reached Buckkeep Town as the afternoon faded. We could have made far better time, but the Fool deliberately delayed us. We had stopped overlong on a stretch of sandy riverbank for our late afternoon luncheon. I believe he thought to buy the Prince one more day of quiet before he plunged into the whirl of court again. None of us had mentioned the chaos and gaiety of the betrothal ceremony that the new moon would bring. It had pleased the Prince to join in our charade, so that for the ride home he kept his mount beside Malta, as disdainful of Lord Golden’s coarse servant as any well-born young man might be. He allowed Lord Golden’s aristocratic talk of hunts and balls and exotic travel to amuse him while never compromising his princely demeanour. Laurel rode at Lord Golden’s other stirrup, but was mostly silent. I think the Prince enjoyed his new role. I could sense his relief that we included him now. He was not a wayward boy being dragged home by his elders, but a young man returning from a misadventure, with friends. His desperate loneliness had eased. Nonetheless, I also felt his rising anxiety as we drew nearer and nearer to Buckkeep. It pulsed through the Skill-connection we shared. I wondered again if he were as aware of it as I was.

I think poor Laurel was baffled by the change in the young man. He seemed to have recovered his spirits entirely, and set behind him his misfortune among the Piebalds. I do not know if she heard the brittleness at the edges of his laughter, nor marked how well Lord Golden carried the conversation during the times when the Prince could not seem to keep his mind on it. I did. I was relieved that the boy had latched onto Lord Golden so firmly. So I rode alone until, in the early afternoon, the Huntswoman dropped back to ride beside me, leaving the Prince and Lord Golden to their newfound companionship.

‘He seems a different young man entirely,’ she observed quietly.

‘He does,’ I agreed. I tried to keep any cynicism from my voice. With both Dutiful and Lord Golden occupied, she deigned to speak to me again. I knew I should not fault her for choosing wisely where to let her attention and fondness come to rest. For Lord Golden to honour her with his attention was no small coup for her. I wondered if she would try to continue their connection when we returned to Buckkeep Castle. She would be the envy of the ladies if she did. I even wondered how deep his affection for her went. Was my friend honestly losing his heart to her? I considered her silent profile as she rode alongside me. He could do far worse. She was healthy and young and a good hunter. I abruptly heard the echo of the wolf’s values in my thoughts. I caught my breath for a moment, and then let the pain pass.

She was more astute than I had realized. ‘I’m sorry.’ She spoke softly, and her words barely reached me. ‘You know I do not have the Old Blood myself. Somehow it passed me, to settle on my brothers and sister instead. Nonetheless, I can guess what you suffer. I saw what my mother went through when her gander died. That bird was forty years old, and had outlived my father … Truth to tell, it is why I think Old Blood as much a curse as a blessing. And I confess, when I consider the risk and the pain, I do not know why you practise this magic. How can anyone let an animal seize his heart so completely, when their lives are so short? What can you gain that is worth all the pain each time your partner dies?’

I had no answer to that. In truth, it was a rock-hard sympathy she gave me.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again when some little time had passed. ‘You must think me heartless. I know my cousin Deerkin does. But all I can say to him is what I’ve said to you. I do not understand. And I cannot approve. I will always think Old Blood a magic better left alone.’

‘If I had a choice, perhaps I would feel the same,’ I replied. ‘But I am as I was born.’

‘As is the Prince,’ she said after a long moment’s consideration. ‘Eda save us all, and keep his secret safe.’

‘Amen to that,’ I said heavily. ‘And mine as well.’ I gave her a sideways glance.

‘I do not think Lord Golden would betray you. He values you far too highly as a servant,’ she replied. It was a reassurance that she never even considered I might be thinking of her tongue wagging. A moment later, she set my thoughts on a different trail when she delicately added, ‘And may my bloodlines not become common talk.’

I replied as she had. ‘I am certain that as Lord Golden values you, both as a friend and as the Queen’s devoted Huntswoman, he would never breathe a word that might discredit or endanger you.’

She gave me a sidelong glance, then asked shyly, ‘As his friend? Do you think so?’

Something in her eyes and at the corners of her mouth warned me not to answer that question lightly. ‘So it would appear to me,’ I said, somewhat stiffly.

Her shoulders lifted as if I had offered her a gift. ‘And you have known him well and long,’ she embroidered my words. I refused to confirm that speculation. She looked away from me for a time, and after that we did not speak much, but she hummed as she rode. She seemed light of heart. Ahead of me, I marked that the Prince’s voice had faltered to a halt. Lord Golden chatted on, but the Prince rode looking ahead, and silent.

Buckkeep Castle was a dark silhouette on the black stone cliffs against a bank of dark clouds when we reached Buckkeep Town. The Prince had pulled his hood well up over his face and dropped back to ride beside me. Laurel rode by Lord Golden now, and seemed well pleased with the change. Dutiful and I spoke little, each busy with our own thoughts. Our journey back to Buckkeep would take us up the steep path to the lesser-used West Gate. As we had left, so would we enter. We passed once more the scattering of cottages at the bottom of the climb. When I saw the first drape of greenery on a door lintel, I thought it was but an over-eager celebrant. But then I saw another, and as we rode on, we eventually came to a group of workmen setting up a celebratory arch. Nearby, townsfolk busily plaited ivy with heffelwhite vines, ready to drape the arch. ‘A bit early, aren’t you?’ Lord Golden called to them congenially as we passed.

A guardsman spat and laughed aloud. ‘Early, milord? We’re damn near too late! All thought the storms would delay the betrothal ship, but the Outislanders seemed to have used them to fly here with the wind’s own wings. The treaty galleys arrived at noon with the Princess’s honour guard. We’ve heard she’ll make landfall before the sun sets, and all must be ready.’

‘Really?’ Lord Golden enthused. ‘Well, I dare not be late for the festivities.’ He turned his smile on Laurel. ‘My lady, I fear we must ride as swift as we can. You lads may follow at your own pace …’ And with that he set his heels to Malta, and she plunged nimbly forwards. Laurel matched him. The Prince and I followed, but at a more sedate gait. As we trailed them up the winding road to Buckkeep Castle, Lord Golden and Laurel continued up the main road and entered at the gate. But in a thicker patch of woods, I turned Myblack’s head from the path and motioned for the Prince to follow. There was little more than a game trail, but I pushed Myblack through the tangles of brush, along a path I scarce remembered, and Dutiful followed. We followed the keep wall until we came to the place the wolf had shown me so long ago. Thick brambles still covered that old breach in the wall, but I had my suspicions. In the shadow of the keep wall, we dismounted.

‘What is this place?’ he demanded. He pushed his hood back and looked about curiously.

‘A place to wait. I will not chance taking you in either of the gates. Chade will send someone to meet us here, and I am certain he will devise a way for you to re-enter the keep, so it may seem that you have never left. You have seen fit to spend these days in meditation, and now you will emerge to meet your betrothed. None need be the wiser.’

‘I see,’ he replied bleakly. Overhead the clouds were growing thicker, and the wind began to pick up. ‘What do we now?’ the Prince asked softly.

‘We wait.’

‘Waiting.’ He sighed. ‘If a man can become perfect at something by practising it, I should be perfect at waiting by now.’

He sounded both tired and older than his years.

‘At least, you’re home now,’ I said comfortingly.

‘Yes.’ He did not sound glad. After a moment, he asked, ‘It seems a year since I was last at Buckkeep, and it is not even a full month. I remember lying on my bed and counting the days I still had before the new moon, before I had to face this. Then – for a time I thought I might never have to face it. It seemed strange, all day today, to know I was riding back to my old life, that I would pick up all the threads, all the details, and go on as if I had never left. It was overwhelming. All day, riding back here, I promised myself a quiet day or two. I wanted some time alone, to decide how much I had changed. Now … this very night the delegation arrives from the Out Islands to formalize my betrothal. This night my mother and the Outislander nobles set the course of the rest of my life.’

I tried to smile, but I felt I was delivering him to his execution. I had come near as a knife’s edge to a similar fate once. I found something to say. ‘You must be very excited to meet your bride.’

He gave me a look. ‘Apprehensive is perhaps a better word. There is something rather dreadful about meeting the girl you will marry when you know that your own preferences have absolutely no bearing on the situation.’ He gave a small, sour laugh. ‘Not that I did so well when I thought I was choosing someone for myself.’ He sighed and looked aside from me. ‘She’s eleven. Eleven summers old.’ He looked away from me. ‘What shall I discuss with her? Dolls? Embroidery lessons?’ He crossed his arms on his chest and leaned against the cold stone wall. ‘I do not think they even teach women to read in the Out Islands. Nor men, for that matter.’

‘Oh.’ I struggled desperately but could think of nothing more to say. To say that fourteen was not that much older than eleven seemed a cruelty. We waited in silence.

With no warning at all, the threatened rain suddenly sluiced down on us. It began abruptly, one of those downpours that soak a man and fills his ears with the sound of falling water. I was almost grateful that it made conversation impossible. We huddled miserably, the water streaming down the horses who stood with their heads hanging.

We were both completely drenched and cold when Chade appeared to escort the Prince back into the castle. He spoke little, a hasty greeting in the cascading downpour and a promise to see me soon, and then they were gone. I grinned sourly to myself as they left me there in the wet. It was as I had expected. The old fox had not closed off this secret back door, but he was not going to show the entrance to me. I drew a deep breath. Well. My errand was done. I’d brought the Prince safely back to Buckkeep Castle in time for his betrothal. I tried on emotions. Triumph. Joy. Elation. No. Wet, tired and hungry. Cold to my bones. Alone.

Empty.

I mounted Myblack and rode through the downpour, leading the Prince’s horse. The light was fading and the horses’ hooves slipped on the layers of wet leaves. I was forced to go slowly. The bushes we pushed through were laden with rain. I had not thought it was possible to get wetter, but I did. Then, as I reached the main road up to the keep, I found the way choked with men and horses and litters. I somehow doubted they were going to make way for me, or allow me to join the betrothal procession. So I sat Myblack in the rain and held the reins of the miserable dun, and watched them go by.

First came the torchbearers, holding their blazing brands aloft to show the way. They were followed by the Queen’s Guards, in purple and white with the fox badge, riding white horses, very showy and dripping wet. They passed, leading the way, and then came an interesting mix of the Prince’s Guard and the Outislander warriors. The Prince’s Guard wore Buckkeep blue with the Farseer stag badge, and they were afoot, I suppose out of courtesy to the Outislanders. The guardians who had accompanied their narcheska were sailors and fighters, not horsemen. Their furs and leathers dripped, and I suspected the Great Hall would be rich with the stench of wet fur tonight as the warmth dried them. They strode along, rank after rank, with the rolling gait of men who had been long at sea and still expected a deck to rise to greet them at every step. They wore their weapons as their wealth, and their wealth as their weapons. Jewels glittered on swordbelts, and I glimpsed axe-hafts banded with gold. I prayed no fighting would break out among the mingled guard companies tonight. There strode together veterans from both sides of the Red Ship war.

The Outislander nobles came next, riding borrowed horses, and looking singularly uncomfortable on them. I saw an assortment of Six Duchies nobles riding welcome among them. I recognized them more by their badges than by their faces. The Duke of Tilth was younger by far than I had expected him to be. There were two young women wearing Bearns insignia, and though I recognized the stamp of their bloodlines in their faces, I had never seen them before. And still the folk, both grand and martial, paraded past and I stood in the rain and watched them go by.

Then came the litter of Prince Dutiful’s betrothed. It floated like a tethered cloud, immense and white, borne on the shoulders of the King’s Best. The young noblemen who walked beside it bearing torches were wet and spattered with mud to the knee. The flowers and garlands that draped it looked battered by the wind and rain of the storm. It would have seemed a ominous omen, this storm-tossed litter, but for the girl inside it. The curtains of the litter were not drawn against the wind’s rough kiss, but thrown wide. The three Six Duchies ladies within looked drenched and much aware of how the rain dripped from their coiffed hair and soaked their dresses. But in their midst sat a little girl revelling in the storm. Her inky black hair was long and unbound. The rain had sleeked it to her head tight as a seal’s fur, and her eyes, too, reminded me of a seal’s, immense and dark and liquid. She stared at me as they passed me, her teeth white in an excited smile. She was, as the Prince had said, a child of eleven. She was a sturdy little thing, wide-cheeked and square-shouldered and obviously determined not to miss a moment of her journey to the castle on the hill. Perhaps to honour her intended, she was dressed in Buck blue with an odd blue ornament in her hair, but her high-collared overblouse was of fine white leather embroidered in gold with leaping narwhals. I stared back at her, thinking I had seen her before, or met someone of her house, but before I could snag the memory, the litter was borne past me and on up the hill. And still I must wait, as the rain spattered down around me, for behind her came more ranks of her own men, and ours, to honour her.

When finally all the nobility and their guards had passed, I nudged Myblack onto the well-churned road. We joined a stream of merchants and tradefolk heading up to the keep. Some bore their wares on their shoulders, wax-coated wheels of cheese or kegs of fine liquor, and some brought theirs in carts. I became a part of the flow and entered the main gate of Buckkeep with them, unremarked.

There were stable boys to take the horses, struggling hard to keep up with the flow of animals. I gave them the Prince’s dun but I told them I wanted to care for Myblack myself, and they were glad of it. It was, perhaps, a foolish chance to take. I suppose I could have encountered Hands and he might have somehow recognized me. But in the bustle of all the strangers and extra animals to stable, I did not think it likely. The stable boys directed me to take Myblack to the ‘old stable’ for that was the one allotted to servants’ mounts now. I found it was the stable of my childhood where Burrich had reigned and I had once been his right hand. The old familiar tasks of putting the horses to rights before I left her in her stall brought an odd measure of peace to my heart. The smell of animals and hay, the muted light of the spaced lanterns, and the sounds of beasts settling for the night all soothed me. I was cold and wet and tired, but here in the Buckkeep stables, I was as close to home as I had been in a long time. All had changed in the world, but here in the stables, all was very much the same.

As I trudged across the busy yard and went in at the servants’ door, the thought followed me. All had changed yet was much the same in Buckkeep. There was still the heat and clatter and chatter from the kitchens as I passed. The flagged entry to the guardroom was still muddy, and it still smelled of wet wool and spilled ale and steaming meat as I walked past the door. From the Great Hall spilled the sounds of music and laughter and eating and talk. Ladies swished past me, their maids scowling at me as if I might dare to drip on their mistresses. Outside the entrance to the Great Hall, two young lordlings were chivvying a third about a girl that he dared not speak to. The sleeves of one boy’s shirt were trimmed with black-tipped ermine’s tails, and another wore a collar so filigreed with silver rings that he scarce could turn his head. I recalled how Mistress Hasty had once tormented me with fashionable clothing, and could only pity them. The homespun on my back was coarse, but at least I could move freely in it.

Once, I would have been expected to make an appearance at such an occasion, even if I were no more than a bastard. When Verity and Kettricken had sat at the high table, I had sometimes been seated almost near them. I had dined on elaborately-cooked delicacies, made conversation with noble ladies, and listened to the Six Duchies’ finest musicians in my time as FitzChivalry Farseer. But tonight I was Tom Badgerlock, and I would have been the greatest fool in the world to regret that I walked unknown amongst such gaiety.

Swept up in remembering, almost I climbed the stair that would have led to my old chamber but I caught myself in time, and made my way up to Lord Golden’s rooms instead. I tapped and then entered. He was not there, but there were all the indications he had been. He had obviously bathed and donned fresh attire, and his hurry was evident. A box of jewellery was still out on the table, plundered of something and the rest left scattered across the polished wood. Four shirts had been tried on, then flung across the bed. Several pairs of disdained shoes cluttered the floor. I sighed, and put the room to rights, wedging two shirts back into his wardrobe, packing two others into a chest and shutting the door upon the clothing and heaped shoes. I fed the hearth fire, put fresh candles in the holders against his late return, and swept up the hearth. Then I glanced about. The pleasant room seemed suddenly terribly empty. I took a deep breath and yet again explored the space in my mind where the wolf was not. Some day, I told myself, it would feel natural for that place to be empty. But just now, I did not want to be alone with myself.

I took up a candle and went into my own dark chamber. All was exactly as I had left it. I shut the door firmly behind me, worked the catch, and began the weary climb up the narrow stairs to Chade’s tower.

I had half-expected to find him waiting there for me, anxious for my report. Of course he was not; he must be at the festivities below. But if Chade was not there, the rooms welcomed me all the same. A tub had been left out by the hearth and a large kettle of water was steaming on the hook. Food, obviously from the same dishes the nobles shared below, waited on the table, and a bottle of wine. One plate. One glass. I could have felt sorry for myself. But I did note that a second comfortable chair now rested beside his near the hearth. On that chair was a stack of towels, and a robe of blue wool. Chade had left out lint and bandaging as well, and a pot of smelly salve. In the midst of all he undoubtedly had to tend to, he had thought of me. I reminded myself of that, even as I knew he would not have hauled the buckets of water up here on his own. So. He had a servant, or was it his apprentice? That was still a mystery I had not solved.

I poured the steaming water into the tub, and added cold from a bucket to adjust it. I heaped a plate with food and set it with the open bottle of wine next to the tub. I shed my sodden clothing where I stood, put Jinna’s charm on the table, and hid my feathers inside one of Chade’s dustiest scrolls. Then I peeled off the bandaging on my neck and climbed into the tub. I eased into the water and leaned back. I ate while soaking in hot water, and drank a glass of wine, and washed myself in a desultory fashion. Slowly the cold began to seep out of my bones. The sadness that remained and weighted me seemed a tired and familiar thing. I wondered if Starling played and sang in the Great Hall. I wondered if Lord Golden led Huntswoman Laurel to the dance floor. I wondered what Prince Dutiful thought of the child bride the sea-storm had washed to his doorstep. I leaned back in the tub and I drank wine from the bottle’s mouth, and I suppose I dozed off.

‘Fitz?’

The old man’s voice was worried. It startled me awake and I sat up in the tub, sloshing water. The neck of the winebottle was still in my hand. He caught it before I overset it and placed it on the table with a thump. ‘Are you all right?’ he demanded.

‘I must have fallen asleep.’ I was disoriented. I stared at him, in his court finery, with the dying firelight glinting off the jewels at his ears and throat. He seemed a stranger to me suddenly, and I was embarrassed to be caught sleeping, naked and half-drunk in a tub of cooling water. ‘Let me get out of this,’ I muttered.

‘Do,’ he encouraged me. He built up the fire while I clambered from the tub, dried myself and pulled on the blue robe. My hands and feet were wrinkled from the long immersion. He filled a smaller kettle and set it on the hob, and then took a teapot and cups down from the shelf. I watched him mix tea herbs from a row of cork-stoppered pots.

‘How late is it?’ I asked him groggily.

‘So late Burrich would say it was early morning,’ he replied. He put a small table between the hearth chairs and arranged his teapot and cups there. He sat down in his worn chair beside the table and indicated the other chair for me. I took it and I studied Chade. He had obviously been up all night, yet he seemed not weary but enervated by it. His eyes were bright and his hands steady. He folded his hands on his lap before him and for a moment he was silent, looking down on them. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. He looked up and met my gaze. ‘I won’t pretend to completely understand your loss. He was a fine creature, your wolf. But for him, Queen Kettricken would never have escaped Buckkeep Castle all those years ago. And she has often spoken to me of how he provided meat for all of you on your journey through the Mountain Kingdom.’ He lifted his eyes to mine. ‘Have you ever thought that, if not for the wolf, neither of us would be sitting here like this?’

I didn’t want to speak of Nighteyes just then, not even to hear the kindly memories others had of him. ‘So,’ I said when a moment of awkward silence had passed. ‘Did all go well this evening? The betrothal ceremony and all?’

‘Oh, that was just the welcoming ceremony. The formal betrothal will not take place until the new moon. Night after tomorrow. All the dukes must arrive before we can hold that. Buckkeep Castle will be packed to the rafters with folk, and all of Buckkeep Town as well.’

‘I saw her. The narcheska. She’s only a child.’

A strange smile lit Chade’s face. ‘If you say she is “only” a child, then I doubt you actually saw her. She is … a queen in the bud, Fitz. I wish you could meet her and speak to her. By the greatest good fortune, the Outislanders have offered us an extraordinary match for our prince.’

‘And does Dutiful concur with that?’ I asked proddingly.

‘He –’ Chade drew himself up abruptly. ‘And what is this? Asking questions of your master? Report, you young upstart!’ His smile took any sting from his words.

And so I did. When the water boiled, Chade brewed a tea for us, and later he poured it from the pot, stinging and strong. I don’t know what was in it, but the haze of weariness and wine lifted from my mind. I told him all the events up to the time when we reached the inn at the ferry landing. As ever, his face was still as he listened. If he heard anything that shocked or dismayed him, he covered it well. He only winced once, when I spoke of slamming Dutiful flat onto his back on the beach. When I was finished, he drew in a long breath through his nose. He stood up and walked a slow turn around the room. Then he came back and sat down heavily.

‘So our prince is Witted,’ he said slowly.

Of all the things he could have said, this most surprised me. ‘Did you doubt it?’

He gave a small shake of the head. ‘I had hoped we were wrong. That these Old Blood folk know he carries that blood is a knife in our ribs. At any time, the Piebalds could choose to drive it home, simply by speaking what they know.’ His eyes turned inward. ‘The Bresingas will bear watching. I think, ah, yes, that Queen Kettricken will ask Lady Bresinga to take a certain young woman into her household, a girl of good blood but poor prospects. And I shall look into Laurel’s family connections as well. Yes, I know what you think of that, but we cannot be too careful where the Prince is concerned. A damn shame you let the Piebalds ride away, but I see there was nothing you could have done about it at the time. If it were but one man, or two, or even three, we could end the danger. But not only a dozen Old Bloods, but those Piebalds know as well.’ He considered a moment. ‘Can their silence be bought?’

It disheartened me to hear him plot, yet I knew it was his nature. As well fault a squirrel for hiding nuts. ‘Not with gold,’ I decided. ‘Actions might keep them content. Do as they asked. Show good will. Have the Queen move more strongly to protect the Witted ones from persecution.’

‘She already has!’ Chade replied defensively. ‘For your sake, she has spoken out, and more than once. Six Duchies law forbids that any Witted one be killed simply for being Witted. Other crimes must be proved.’

I took a breath. ‘And has that law been enforced?’

‘It is up to each duke to enforce the laws within his own duchy.’

‘And in Buck?’ I asked softly.

Chade was silent for a time. I watched him gnaw briefly on his lip, his eyes staring deep into nothing. Weighing. At last he asked, ‘Do you think that would content them? Stricter enforcement of the law within Buck Duchy?’

‘It would be a start.’

He took a deep breath and sighed it out. ‘I will discuss it with the Queen. It will not take much urging on my part. In truth, I have played the opposite role up until now, urging her to respect the traditions of the folk she has come to rule, for she –’

‘Traditions!’ I burst out. ‘Murder and torture as “traditions”?’

‘She bestraddles an uneasy alliance!’ he finished more strongly than he had begun. ‘Since the end of the Red Ship war, it has been a juggler’s trick to keep the Six Duchies in balance. It takes a light hand, Fitz, and the sense to know when to take a stand and when to let things go.’

I thought of the smell that had hung near the river, and the cut rope left hanging from the tree. ‘I think she had best decide to take a stand on this.’

‘In Buck.’

‘In Buck, at the least.’

Chade covered his mouth and then pulled at his chin. ‘Very well,’ he conceded, and for the first time I perceived that I had been negotiating with him. I had not, I reflected, done very well at it, but then I had supposed I had merely been reporting. And whom had I expected to speak out for the Old Blood? Lord Golden? Huntswoman Laurel, who would just as soon not be associated with them? I wished I had been more forceful. Then I reflected that I still could be, when I spoke with Queen Kettricken.

‘So. What did our queen think of Prince Dutiful’s bride?’

Chade looked at me for a long moment. ‘Are you asking for a report?’

Something in his voice made me falter. A trap? Was this one of his trap questions? ‘I merely asked. I have no right –’

‘Ah. Then Dutiful was mistaken, and you have not consented to teach him?’

I worked the two ideas against one another, trying to see how they fit. Then I gave it up. ‘And if I have?’ I asked him cautiously.

‘If you have, then you not only have a right to the information, but a need. If you are going to educate the Prince, you must know everything that affects him. But if you are not, if you intend to go back to your hermit’s hut, if you are asking but for the sake of hearing family gossip …’ He let his words trail off.

I knew that old trick of his. Leave a sentence dangling, and someone will leap to fill in the end, and possibly betray their own thoughts in doing so. Instead, I sat regarding my cup of tea and chewing on the side of my thumbnail until he leaned across the table and in exasperation slapped my hand away from my mouth. ‘Well?’ he demanded.

‘What did the Prince tell you?’

It was his turn to hold his silence for a time. I waited him out, wolf-wary.

‘Nothing,’ he grudgingly admitted at last. ‘I was but hoping.’

I leaned back in my chair, wincing as my aching back touched it. ‘Oh, old man,’ I warned him, shaking my head. Then I found myself smiling, despite myself. ‘I thought the years had rounded your corners, but they haven’t. Why are you making it like this between us?’

‘Because I am the Queen’s Counsellor now, not your mentor, my boy. And because, I fear, there are days when, as you put it, my corners are rounded, and I forget things and all my carefully-gathered threads turn suddenly to a snarl in my hand. So. I try to be careful, and more than careful, in every aspect of all I do.’

‘What was in the tea?’ I asked suddenly.

‘Some new herbs I’ve been trying. They were mentioned in the Skill-scrolls. No elfbark, I assure you. I’d give you nothing that might damage your abilities.’

‘But they “sharpen” you?’

‘Yes. But at a cost, as you’ve already surmised. All things have a cost, Fitz. We both know that. We’ll both spend this afternoon abed, don’t doubt it. But for now, we have our wits about us. So. Tell me.’

I took a breath, wondering how to phrase it. I glanced up at his fireplace mantel, at a knife that still stood embedded in the centre of it. I weighed trust and youthful confidences and all I had once promised King Shrewd. Chade’s gaze followed mine. ‘A long time ago,’ I began softly. ‘You tested my loyalty to the king, by asking me to steal something from him, just as a prank. You knew I loved you. So you tried that love against my loyalty to my king. Do you recall that?’

‘I do,’ he responded gravely. ‘And I still regret it.’ He took a breath, and sighed it out. ‘And you passed his test. Not even for love of me would you betray your king. I know I put you through the fire, FitzChivalry. But it was my king who asked that you be tested.’

I nodded slowly. ‘I understand that. Now. I, too, made my oath to the Farseer line, Chade. Just as you did. You vowed no loyalty to me, nor I to you. There is love between us, but no oaths of fealty.’ He was watching my face very carefully. A frown divided his white brows. I took a breath. ‘My loyalty is to my prince, Chade. I think it must be up to him what he shares with you.’ I took a deep breath, and with great regret, severed a portion of my life. ‘As you have said, old friend. You are the Queen’s Counsellor now, no longer my mentor. And I am not your apprentice.’ I looked down at the table and steeled myself. The words were hard to say. ‘The Prince will decide what I am to him. But I will never again report to you about my private words with my prince, Chade.’

He stood, quite abruptly. To my horror, I saw tears welling in his sharp green eyes. For a moment, his mouth trembled. Then he walked around the table, seized my head in his hands, and bent down to kiss my brow. ‘Thanks be to Eda and El both,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘You are his. And he will still be safe when I am gone.’

I was too astonished to speak. He walked slowly around the table and resumed his seat. He poured more tea for both of us. He turned aside to wipe his eyes, and then looked back at me. He pushed my cup across the table towards me and said, ‘Very well. Shall I report now?’