Wildeye was ever a reluctant Catalyst to her master, for she regarded him as more tormentor than mentor. For his part, the old White was not pleased that his Catalyst was such a homely and resentful young woman. He complained in all his writings that fate had made him wait through most of his life for her to be born, and then when he did find her and make her his companion, she made his old age a trial to him. Nonetheless, as his darkening showed, he was able to complete some of the tasks that were appointed to him by fate, and when he died, it was said that he had, indeed, set the world on a better path.
Whites and Catalysts by Eulen Screep
She arrived in the afternoon. Shun rode a trim little sorrel mare with white stockings and Riddle accompanied her on a rangy white gelding. Her green cloak was trimmed with fur and draped not just her but half her mount. A mule followed laden with a trunk on one side and several boxes on the other. The sorrel’s tack was gleaming new, as was the trunk. So. Chade had provided the coin, and Shun had wasted no time in directing Riddle to take her to a larger market town. I suspected that the days since I had last seen her had been spent in acquiring these things. I wondered again what had precipitated such a speedy departure from wherever Chade had been keeping her that she had left her possessions behind. Had the attempt on her life been that dire? And who was her enemy that he could find her when neither Riddle nor I knew of her existence, let alone her location? There were still far more mysteries attached to this young lady than I liked.
I met them in the carriageway. My hair was brushed and my face stung from scraping the last remnants of beard from it. I’d found my last clean shirt and given my boots a hasty wipe with my dirty shirt. I needed to make time to bundle my dirty clothing and ask one of the servants to see to them. I had realized, with shame, that I’d never given a thought to such things before. Molly had seen to it that my wardrobe was kept in order. Molly …
I had decided my trousers were presentable and hastily left the room we once had shared. Why was I fussing over my appearance? After all, it was only Riddle and Shun.
I had hoped to have Bee at my side, but though I had called her when a boy came running to tell me that horses were coming up the drive, she had not answered me. Of late she had taken to disappearing within the house. Although she had begun talking more, I felt as if she said less to me. She still avoided meeting my eyes. I was accustomed to that, but not to the sidelong gazes she sent me, as if she were evaluating me and studying my responses. It was unnerving.
And I’d had no real time to devote to understanding it. A veritable deluge of work had drenched me in details. Winter always brings out the worst in a house. If a roof is going to leak, winter storms make it happen. Clogged chimneys filled guest rooms with smoke and stench. It seemed to me that just as I was already overwhelmed the manor turned on me and developed every imaginable problem. The crown provided Nettle with a generous allowance for her tasks as Skillmistress of Dutiful’s Coterie. And Queen Kettricken had bestowed a further allowance for the upkeep of Withywoods as an acknowledgement of all that Burrich had done for the Farseer monarchy during his life. So there was coin to effect the repairs, but it did not make the noisy and unsettling process of having workmen come into the manor any more palatable to me. Nor lessen my irritation with myself that I had let it all go all summer.
So in the midst of workmen coming and going, and carts arriving with timber and plank and brick, and folk mixing mortar in tubs, Shun and Riddle arrived. Riddle, damn him, did not bother to conceal his amusement while Shun’s dismay was plain on her face. I called a stable lad to take their horses, and Revel appeared to direct a new housemaid to find someone to carry Shun’s trunks to the guest room. He told me that he had arranged refreshments in the Mockingbird Room, a relatively quiet parlour. I thanked him and asked them to follow me there. As we arrived, the new kitchen girl was just leaving. It took me a moment to recall that her name was Opal. I thanked her. There was a fat steaming pot of tea on the table, and an assortment of little cakes. She told us that she’d be back in a moment with sausage rolls fresh from the kitchen and asked if there was anything else we would fancy. Shun studied the table and requested wine. And perhaps some cheese, and cut bread. And butter. Opal bobbed a curtsey and said she would tell Cook Nutmeg. I added to her tasks, asking her to see if anyone could find Lady Bee and send her to us. Then she was gone and I turned to Shun and Riddle.
‘I’m sorry about the clatter. It seems that as soon as I discovered that one thing needed repair, it led to another. I promise that the room you’ll have tonight is snug and warm, and they’ve told me that by the end of the week your apartments should be fully habitable. We haven’t had many long-term guests here at Withywoods, and I’m afraid the house hasn’t been kept up as well as it might have been.’
The dismay in Shun’s eyes deepened.
‘Lady Bee is not here? Is she well?’ Riddle intervened. Perhaps he had hoped to change the subject.
As if summoned by his words, there was a light tap on the door and Bee drifted in. There was no other word for how she moved. Her body was languid with grace and the pupils of her eyes were so dilated that her eyes looked almost black. She stared at me, and when she spoke, her words were thick. ‘It’s today,’ she said. She smiled ethereally. ‘The butterfly in the garden, Father. The wing is on the ground and the pale man awaits you.’
She fell silent as we all stared at her. I felt heartsick; was she drugged? Sick? This was nothing like any Bee I had ever seen. Riddle looked horrified. He stared at her and then turned accusing eyes on me. Sometimes I forgot how young she appeared to folk who did not know her well. To hear such words from a nine-year-old would have been alarming enough, but most onlookers would have guessed her age at merely six. Shun spoke. ‘I thought you said you had a daughter? Who is this little boy? Do your servants often speak to you so?’
I scarcely heard her. ‘Bee, are you well?’
She tipped her head as if finding me by sound rather than sight. Her expression was beatific. ‘It feels so good to be right. When the circle closes. And it actually happens. You should go quickly. There isn’t much time.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘The messenger has come such a long way to die at the doorstep.’
I found my wits. ‘I fear my child is ill.’ I crossed the room and caught her up in my arms. At my touch, she went rigid. Hastily, I sealed myself. ‘Riddle, please take care of everything else.’ Riddle said something as I left, his voice anxious. I shut the door on his words.
I strode down the corridor, Bee in my arms. I turned to carry her toward the stairs and her bedchamber but she suddenly came alive in my arms and with a twist of her body freed herself of my grip. She landed on her feet, swayed into a near fall, and then contorted her body in the other direction to stay on her feet. For a moment she seemed a girl made of fluid. Then she sprang away from me, calling over her shoulder, ‘This way, FitzChivalry. This way!’ Her voice was ethereal as she ran from me.
I chased her. The child ran and her slender feet seemed barely to skim the floors. She fled toward the West Wing of the house, the least-used part, and thankfully one that was not infested with workmen. She turned down a corridor that led to one of Patience’s gardening rooms. I thought I would catch her there, but she was as fleet as the wind as she threaded her way through urns of ferns and fat pots overflowing with vines. ‘Bee!’ I whispered her name, but she did not pause. I hopped and twisted through the narrow way, slowed by the obstacles, and watched helplessly as she tugged open a door and dashed outside into a section of garden mazed with hedges.
I followed. My pursuit and her flight had been a silent one save for the pattering of her feet and my heavier tread. I did not call out her name or bid her stop or come back to me. I had no desire to call attention to my child’s aberrant behaviour and my failure to control her. What was wrong with her? And how could I explain it to Riddle to keep him from thinking me neglectful? I was certain he would report back to Nettle and that it would reinforce her insistence that Bee be surrendered to her. As for Shun, I could not think of a worse introduction to Withywoods, Bee, or me than what she had just witnessed.
The garden on this side of the house had benefited wildly from Patience’s impetuous nature. If there had ever been design or intent applied to this area, the garden had either outgrown it, or it was a plan that only Patience could have understood. On and on Bee led me through this esoteric jungle of paths, stone walls, birdbaths and statuary. She danced along snowy pathways in a herb knot, and then sprang over a short picket fence and ran down a pathway sheltered by leafless roses on an arched trellis. Snowy gravel pathways gave way abruptly to mounds of moss and ferns, low walls intersected one another, and in one section, elevated pots allowed trailing vines to cascade over a framework above the path, converting the dim winter day to a tunnel draped with greenery. I had always loved the randomness of the garden; for me it spoke of forest, and reminded me of my journey through the Mountains to seek Verity and the dragons. But today it seemed to deliberately hold me back while allowing Bee to slip through as nimbly as a ferret. She entered the shelter of a stand of evergreens.
And then I caught up with her. She was standing motionless, staring at something on the ground. To her right, the ancient stacked stone wall that marked the boundary of the estate gardens was thick with dark green moss. Just beyond it there was a steep forested slope, and then the public road that led to the front entrance of Withywoods and the grand carriageway entrance. I was panting as I caught up to her, and for the first time I realized that she was very familiar with this section of the grounds. I had never thought of my little child playing so near a carriageway, even one so lightly travelled.
‘Bee,’ I panted when I was near enough to speak to her without shouting. ‘You must never again …’
‘The butterfly’s wing!’ she exclaimed, pointing. And halted, still as a statue. Her eyes were wide and when she looked at me, they seemed black edged with blue. ‘Go,’ she whispered softly. ‘Go to him.’ She gestured with a slender hand and smiled as if giving me a gift.
A premonition of disaster rose in me so strongly that my heart, which had previously beat fast from my exertion, now raced even faster with dread. I stepped toward where she pointed. A small black animal burst suddenly from nowhere and streaked off into the woods. I shouted in surprise and halted. A cat. Just one of the feral cats of Withywoods, hunting for mice. Only a cat. I took two more steps and looked down.
There, on the deep bed of shaded moss still mottled with last night’s frost, was a butterfly’s wing the size of the palm of my hand. There were brilliant panels of red, gold and deep blue separated by dark veins that reminded me of the leading in a stained glass window. I halted, transfixed by it. Never had I seen a butterfly of such a size or brilliance, let alone in the cold days of early winter. I stared.
‘It’s for you,’ she whispered. She had eased soundlessly to my side. ‘In my dream, it was for you. Only you.’
In a sort of daze, I dropped to one knee by the strange thing. I touched it with my forefinger; it was soft and pliable as the finest silk. Gently I pinched the tip of it between my fingers and lifted it.
As I did so, it became something entirely different. Not a butterfly’s wing, but an airy cloak of impossible lightness. It floated like a lady’s veil, and suddenly the colours were revealed as a corner lining of a much larger piece of fabric. The fabric itself was exactly the shades of the moss and the shadows that dappled it, blending perfectly with the ground under the evergreen trees. As I lifted, I revealed more of the gaudy butterfly-wing lining of the cloak, and then I uncovered what had been concealed beneath it.
The Fool.
Pale and slight as he had been when we were boys together, he huddled on the bare ground. His arms were drawn in tight to his body and he was curled in, chin tucked to chest. His ice-white hair was loose, some matted to his cheek and some tangled against the deep moss. I hated that his cheek was pressed against the cold earth. A beetle crawled on the moss by his lip. He was not dressed for this weather: he had come here from a much warmer place. He wore a long cotton tunic with a pattern of large rust shapes against a wheat-coloured background over simple loose trousers of a slightly darker colour. He had a boot on one foot; the other was bare, dirty and bloodied. His skin was alabaster, his eyes closed, and his lips pale pink as a fish’s gills. He was still. Then my eyes resolved that the large rosettes on the back of his shirt were actually bloodstains.
There was a roaring in my ears and darkness at the edges of my vision.
‘Papa?’ Bee tugged at my sleeve and I realized she had been worrying it for some minutes. I was on my knees by the Fool. I could not say how long I had been transfixed there.
‘It will be all right, Bee,’ I told her, certain it would be nothing of the kind. ‘Run along back to the house. I’ll take care of this.’
Some other man took charge of my body. I set my fingers to his throat under the angle of his jaw. I waited and when I was certain there was no pulse, I felt one. He wasn’t dead, not quite. His flesh, never warm to the touch, was cold as meat. I bunched the butterfly cloak around him and lifted him, heedless of his wounds. He’d carried them for some time. Delaying to be careful of them now would not save him, but keeping him longer in the cold might finish him. He did not make a sound. He was very light in my arms, but then, he had never weighed much.
Bee had not obeyed me and I found I didn’t care. She trotted at my side, crackling questions like a sap-log in the fire, very much my child again. I ignored them. Her peculiar fit seemed to have passed. It still concerned me, but not as much as the unconscious man in my arms. I would tend to my crises one at a time. Calmly. Dispassionately.
Abruptly I wondered what I was feeling. The answer came to me quite clearly. Nothing. Nothing at all. He was going to die and I was determined to stop feeling anything about it before it happened. I’d had enough pain with Molly’s death. I wasn’t going to feel any more. He had been gone from my life for years. If he’d never come back, I wouldn’t have experienced any new sense of loss. No. There was no sense in feeling anything about regaining him when it was so obvious I was about to lose him again. Wherever he had come from, he had journeyed a long way to bring agony to my door.
I wasn’t having it.
I found that somehow I had retraced the whole length of my wild garden chase of Bee. She waited for me by the door to Patience’s garden room. I didn’t look at her. ‘Open the door,’ I said, and she did and I carried him inside. My mind halted for an instant, fighting to decide what to do, but my body and my daughter did not. She ran ahead of me, opening doors, and I followed her without thinking.
‘Put him there. On that table,’ she said, and I realized she had led me to the small workroom where Molly had done her hive-work. It was tidy, as she always left it, but still it smelled of her and her work, the fragrant honey, the wax, even the musky smell of dead bees from when she had cleaned out a wooden hive. It was actually a good choice, for there were cloths, washed and dried and folded, and buckets and …
He made a small gasping sound as I lowered him to the table and I caught his meaning. As gently as I could, I turned him, putting him on his belly. He still gave a whimper of pain, but I knew the injuries to his back would be the worst ones.
Bee had watched in silence. Now she picked up two small buckets meant for honey. ‘Hot water or cold?’ she asked me gravely.
‘Some of each,’ I told her.
She paused at the door. ‘Honey is good for infections,’ she told me gravely. ‘The butterfly man will feel more at home here, for bees are not, perhaps, so different from butterflies.’
She left and I heard her small feet pattering down the hall. I wondered what Riddle thought of my sudden abandonment of him, and what he would say to Nettle and Chade. It was so rude of me. I unfastened the glorious cloak and set it aside. Strange garment; it weighed scarcely more than spider-silk. It reminded me of the amazing tent that the Fool had brought with him to the OutIslands. I thrust the memory down. I hoped Shun was not feeling neglected. Would her temporary chambers please her? I thought about that carefully, and what excuses I could make for any delay, as my hands cut away his bloody tunic. I peeled his garment away from his back as if I were skinning a deer. The blood-soaked fabric was as stiff as a frozen hide and clung to the wounds. I gritted my teeth and tried to be gentle as I tugged it free. Two of the injuries broke open afresh, leaking watery blood. He lay very still and only when I had stripped his clothes away did I pause to think how very gaunt he was. I could count the knobs of his spine below the nape of his neck, and his ribs pushed tight against the skin of his back.
The wounds had come from some sort of missiles, I guessed. Not arrows, but something smaller that had penetrated deeply. Darts? He’d managed to pull them out, I judged. At least, nothing projected from any of the crusted, swollen wounds.
‘Water.’ She spoke in a strange accent, her voice so different from my Fool’s voice that I knew instantaneously that I had been completely mistaken. The breath caught in my throat. Disappointment drenched me, even as buoyant relief that this dying person was not my old friend welled up in me. What a dizzying trick my mind had played on me, taking me back to my adolescence and convincing me this was indeed the Fool! Yet she appeared almost identical to my recollection of him as he had been in those days. Relief nearly unmanned me more than my previous panic. I held onto the edge of the table as my knees bent. Oh, how the years had changed me. Where was my iron resolve, my forged nerves? Would I faint? I would not. Yet I let my knees touch the floor and lowered my head, pretending I stooped to look into her face.
She was not the Fool. Only her colouring was the same. She had no scent, just as the Fool had lacked, and to my Wit she was not there at all. But her nose was more pointed, her chin more rounded than the Fool’s had ever been. However had I looked at her and thought she was him?
‘The water is coming,’ I said hoarsely. ‘I’ll let you drink first. Then we need to clean up these wounds.’
‘Are you healer?’
‘No. I’m not. But years ago I had a friend like you.’ I halted. The Fool had always refused to go to healers. He’d resisted anyone touching his body for such a purpose. I realized that might not be true for every White. ‘I’ll send for a healer, right away.’
‘No.’ She spoke quickly. Her voice was breathy with weakness and pain. ‘They don’t understand. We’re not like your people.’ She moved her head in a feeble denial.
‘I’ll do what I can for you, then. Clean and bind your wounds, at least.’
She moved her head. I couldn’t tell if she was acceding or denying me permission. She tried to clear her throat but her voice went huskier. ‘What did you call your friend?’
I stood quietly. My heart went to a very still place inside me. ‘He was a jester at King Shrewd Farseer’s court. Everyone just called him the Fool.’
‘Not everyone.’ She gathered her strength. ‘What you called him?’ She spoke in a learned tongue, without accent, only the dropped words betraying her.
I swallowed fear and regret. This was not a time to lie. ‘Beloved. I called him Beloved.’
Her lips pulled back in what was intended as a smile. Her breath was foul with sickness. ‘Then, I have not failed. Not yet. Late as I am, I have done as he bid. I bring a message for you. And a warning.’
I heard a voice in the corridor. ‘Let me carry them. You’re spilling them trying to hurry.’
‘I don’t think you should be following me.’ Bee’s retort to Riddle was both tart and indignant. He’d followed her to track me. He was still Chade’s man. Probably Nettle’s as well, when it came to spying. Useless to try to avoid what was coming. But I could spare my guest a bit of humiliation. I took off my shirt and spread it lightly over her. She still gasped at the touch and then, ‘Oh, warm. From your body.’ She sounded pathetically grateful.
A moment later, Bee opened the door and Riddle came in bearing the little buckets. He looked at me in my woollen undershirt and then at the table. ‘An injured traveller,’ I said. ‘Would you run down to the village and bring back the healer?’ That would get him out of my way until I had time to wash and bind her wounds.
Riddle stepped in for a closer look. ‘She’s so pale!’ he exclaimed. He studied her face. She stayed perfectly still, eyes closed, but I didn’t think she was unconscious, only feigning it. ‘She reminds me of someone …’
I didn’t let myself smile. I recalled now that he’d never met the Fool when he was so obviously a White. By the time Riddle knew him, he was the aptly-named Lord Golden, a tawny man indeed. But this girl was as the Fool had been in his childhood; pale, with colourless eyes and fine white hair.
Riddle’s gaze shifted to Bee. ‘And? You’re talking now?’
Her gaze flashed to me and then shifted back to Riddle. She smiled artlessly up at him. ‘Papa said I should try not to be so shy around you.’
‘How long have you been able to speak so clearly?’ He pressed her. She glanced at me again, seeking rescue.
‘She’s lost a lot of blood,’ I said, to hurry him away. It worked. He set the little buckets on the table and turned for the door.
‘Bring Granny Wirk,’ I said to his back. ‘She lives at the crossroads just on the other side of the Withy.’ And she was older than most of the trees in the area and slow to move. A good healer, but it would take him time to return with her. And I hoped to be finished with my own ministrations by then.
Then the door was closing behind him and I looked at Bee conspiratorially. ‘I know you couldn’t have kept him from following you,’ I told her. ‘But do you think you can keep Shun occupied? Take her on a tour of the house that doesn’t bring her anywhere near here?’
She stared up at me. Her blue eyes, so unlike my own or Molly’s, seemed to look past my flesh and bones to the heart of me. ‘Why is she a secret?’
On the table, our guest stirred slightly. She almost lifted her head. Her voice was a whisper. ‘I’m in danger. Hunted. Please. Let no one know I’m here. The water? Please.’
I had no cup but there was a honey-ladle among Molly’s tools. I supported her head as she drank three ladles of the cool water. As I eased her head back onto the table, I reflected that it was too late for me to call Riddle back. He knew she was here and when he reached the crossroads, Granny Wirk would know we had an injured traveller, too. I pondered a moment.
Bee interrupted my thoughts. ‘We’ll wait a short time. Then let’s send Shaky Amos to follow Riddle and tell him that our guest felt better and left on her own. And not to bring the healer after all.’
I stared at her in surprise.
‘It’s the best we can do,’ she said almost sullenly. ‘If Riddle has already spoken to the healer, it will put any hunters off her trail. For a short time, at least.’
I nodded. ‘Very well. Off you go, then. After you tell Amos, then you must keep Shun busy for a while. Show her the house, then the gardens and then take her back to the parlour and leave her there, while you go tell the kitchen to send up a nice tray for her. Then slip away here to let me know how it all went. Can you do all that?’ I hoped it would keep her busy as well as keeping Shun occupied.
She gave a sharp nod. ‘I know where Amos takes his naps,’ she said. She stood suddenly taller, inflated with importance. Shaky Amos had a decade or so on me, and had come as part of the Withywoods’ staff. He was, as his name suggested, afflicted with trembling, the result of a blow to the head many years before. He had been at the estate since Patience’s time there and had earned his quiet days. Once he had been a sheep shearer. That task was beyond him now, but he could lean on a crook and watch the flock on fine days. He liked to be given specific tasks from time to time. He might be slow but he still had his pride. He’d do the job admirably.
At the door, she halted. ‘So my butterfly man is a girl?’
‘So it seems,’ I said.
Our invalid had opened her eyes. She stared vacantly and then her gaze fastened on Bee. A slow smile curved her lips. ‘Where did he come from?’
‘Riddle? He followed Bee here. He’s an old friend, and no danger to you.’
Her eyes sagged shut again.
‘It’s so strange. I was so sure the butterfly man was a man. Not a girl.’ Bee looked annoyed as she shook her head and informed me, ‘Dreams are not to be trusted. Not completely.’ She stood still, appearing to consider that as if it were a new idea.
‘Bee?’ Her eyes were far. ‘Bee? Are you feeling well? You were so strange when you came to tell me about the butterfly man …’
Her eyes finally came to me and then slid away. ‘I’m fine now. I felt very tired. Then I fell asleep. And the dream came and told me it was time. And it brought me to you and then—’ She looked puzzled. ‘Then the dream was over and here we were.’ She slipped quietly from the room.
For a time, I stared after her. Then the girl on the table gave a brief moan of pain. My mind snapped into the now and I went to work. In the cupboards there were pots of honey, sealed with wax, and slabs of cleaned wax waiting to be transformed into candles. They’d probably still be here, a decade hence. I found the cloths Molly had used for straining the honey and the wax. They were stained but very clean. I remembered how she would wash them outside in a big kettle of boiling water and then put them on the line to bleach and dry. I chose the oldest, softest rags and knew she would forgive me as I tore some into strips for bandaging.
I softened the scabs on the young White’s back with the warm water and gently cleaned away the blood and ooze from her wounds. There were four of them. I did not want to probe them, but knew personally the danger of leaving anything inside them. I pressed one and she grunted in pain. ‘You don’t have to search them,’ she said breathlessly. ‘My companion cleaned them as well as he could. What went into me, there is no taking out. They closed over, for a time, and we fled. It almost seemed they were starting to heal. Before the hunters caught up with us. They killed my friend. And I opened the wounds again when I fled. And in the days since, I haven’t been able to clean them. Now, it’s too late.’ She blinked her eyes. Drops of blood like ruby tears stood at the corners of them. ‘It was always too late,’ she admitted sadly. ‘I just couldn’t let myself believe it.’
She held a long tale, I sensed. I did not think she was up to telling me all of it, but felt the urgency of knowing the Fool’s message right away. ‘I’m going to dress these with some honey and oil. I just need to fetch the oil. When I come back, do you think you could give me my message?’
She looked at me with pale eyes so like the Fool’s had been. ‘Useless,’ she said. ‘I’m a useless messenger. I was sent to warn you of the hunters. So you could find the sun and run before them.’ She sighed out, long, and I thought she had lapsed into sleep. With her eyes closed, she admitted faintly, ‘I fear I may have led them right to your doorstep.’
Her words made small sense to me but her anxiety was agitating her and taking all her strength. ‘Don’t worry about that just now,’ I told her, but she had sagged back into unconsciousness. I took advantage of that lapse to fetch oil and dress her injuries. When I had finished, I gathered her cut clothing around her as well as I could. ‘I’m going to move you now,’ I warned her. She made no response and I tried to be gentle as I gathered her into my arms.
I took a little-used servant’s corridor and stair and went by a roundabout path to my own room. I shouldered the door open and then halted, shocked. I stared at the rucked linens and bunched blankets on my bed. The room smelled closed and sweaty, a boar’s den. Discarded clothing sprawled across the top of the storage chest and dangled to the floor. Melted candle stubs littered the mantelpiece. The heavy curtains were closed, shutting out the winter’s light. Not even in Chade’s messiest days had his den ever looked this dismal.
After Molly’s death, I had sequestered myself here and ordered the servants to let all things be in the room. I had not wanted anything to change from the last time Molly had touched them. But change they had, on their own. The wrinkles in the linens on the unmade bed had become set like ripples in the bottom of a slow river. The light perfume that had always seemed to follow Molly had been replaced with the stink of my own sweat. When had the room become so oppressive? When Molly had shared it with me there had not been wax drippings down the candelabra, nor a coating of dust on the mantelpiece. It was not that she had tidied after me, no: I had not lived so brutishly under her roof. The wolf in me curled his lip and wrinkled his nose in distaste at denning in such a fouled place.
I thought of myself as a tidy person; this room suddenly looked like the cell of a madman or a recluse. It stank of despair and loss. I could not bear to be in it and I backed out so hastily that I tapped my charge’s head on the doorframe. She made a small sound of distress and then was still.
Bee’s room was just down the corridor. In it, a connecting door led to a small chamber designed for a nurse or nanny. I pushed that door open and went inside. It had never been used for its intended purpose, but had become a storage place for odd bits of furniture. It was not much larger than a cell, but there was a narrow bed beside a dusty stand with a ewer on top of it. An airing rack for linens leaned drunkenly in the corner next to a broken footstool. I dragged the faded coverlet off the bed and deposited my pale victim there, pillowing her head on her butterfly cloak. I built up the fire in Bee’s hearth and left the door open for the heat to wander in. I made a trip back to my room and found a clean blanket in the linen chest. It smelled of cedar when I took it out and a touch of something else. Molly.
I hugged it tight to me for a moment. Then I sighed past my tight throat and hurried back to the girl. I covered her warmly and considered my options. Time was trickling swiftly past me. As I wondered if Riddle was on his way back and if I should maintain the lie once he returned to Withywoods, I heard the door behind me sigh open. I spun, going into a fighter’s crouch.
My daughter was not impressed. She halted, frowned at me in puzzlement, and then nodded at me as I straightened. ‘I see why you put her here. There’s water in my washstand ewer still.’ As she spoke, she fetched it from her room and carried it back with her cup. As I filled the cup, she spoke. ‘You should go down and tell Tavia I don’t feel well and I need a tray of food in my room. I’ll stay here and watch over her while you go find something to keep Shun busy. I confess, that’s a task that is beyond me. Are you sure she has come to help us? She seems the most useless person I have ever met. Full of sniffs and sighs, as if nothing meets her approval. I wouldn’t be surprised if she wanted to leave with Riddle when he goes.’
‘Glad to see that you’re getting along so well,’ I said.
She looked at me and replied, ‘I didn’t bring her here to help me, you know.’
I heard her mother in her voice and I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. ‘That’s true,’ I surrendered. ‘You left her where?’
‘I took her back to the Mockingbird Room. But there’s no assurance she’s still there. She does have legs, you know. And she’s a nosy sort of person. She opened the door to nearly every bedchamber to see if there was one she liked better than the one Revel had prepared. She’s not a bit shy.’
‘Indeed,’ I agreed. I propped the girl’s head up and held the cup to her lips. She opened her eyes to white slits, but she sucked at the water and took some down. I put the cup on the stand beside her. ‘I think she will be all right for now. I’ll tell Tavia that you need a nice warm broth. Try to get her to drink some while it’s still warm. Is there anything you really want to eat?’
Bee shook her head. ‘Not hungry just yet.’
‘Very well.’ I hesitated. ‘Do you think you can give her some broth if she awakes?’
She looked offended that I would ask.
I cast a glance at the unconscious girl. She had a message for me, one from the Fool. She had warned me of danger already, hunters on her trail. And who did I trust to watch over her? A nine-year-old girl the size of a six-year-old. I’d have to do better, but for now … ‘Keep watch, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
I visited the kitchen, delivered Bee’s suggested message to Tavia, asked them to send food for me to the Mockingbird Room and then joined Shun there. As soon as I entered the room, Mild bustled in to set a fresh pot of tea. When she left the room, I apologized to Shun for neglecting her. ‘Riddle was called off on an errand, and I’m afraid Bee does not feel well right now. She has taken to her bed for a few hours. So.’ I forced a hearty smile onto my face. ‘What do you think of Withywoods? Do you think you can be happy here with us for a time?’
Shun looked at me incredulously. ‘Happy here? Who of you is happy here? I have seen only chaos since I arrived. Riddle has left me to my own devices, without a “by your leave” or even a farewell. Your daughter … Well. You yourself must know what a strange little work she is! She looks like a boy! If Riddle had not informed me that was your daughter, I would have thought her part of the stable staff. I do not know what Lord Chade was thinking to send me here!’
Somewhere in the house, a workman began sawing something. I felt as if he were cutting into my skull. I sat down heavily opposite her. ‘He was probably thinking you’d be safe here for a time,’ I said bluntly.
Mild came bustling in to set steaming bowls of mutton and barley soup before us, with more bread for the basket on the table. ‘Thank you,’ I told her. ‘This will be all I require. I desire to have some quiet conversation with Lady Shun.’
‘Of course, sir,’ she responded and hastened from the room. I waited for the door to close completely behind her before I resumed speaking. ‘It’s not the best plan Lord Chade and I have ever cooked up, but for short notice, it’s not a bad one.’ I picked up my spoon and stirred my soup. Chunks of carrot bobbed to the surface and sank again while steam rose in a cloud. I set down my spoon to wait for it to cool and asked her rhetorically, ‘Can you think of a better one?’
‘Yes. Kill the people who are trying to kill me, so I can live as I wish, where I wish.’ Her response was so immediate that I knew she had considered it for some time.
I decided to take her suggestion seriously. ‘It’s seldom as simple as killing one person. First, we must determine who is trying to kill you. And most often, that person is merely the tool, not the instigator. For every one person you kill, chances are you’ve created six new enemies. And you might want to ask yourself why that person must die so that you can live your life as you wish.’ I spoke severely.
‘A question that perhaps you can put to whoever it is before you kill him!’ she responded angrily. She pushed her bowl and plate away from her as I broke bread and spread butter thick on it. When I did not speak, she went on, ‘Why must I pay for the actions of others? Why cannot I live as my birth made me? What did I do that I must be hidden away? As a noble lady’s firstborn, I should rightfully inherit my mother’s titles and lands! But no! No, because she was not wed when I was conceived, her shame falls on me! I pay for her selfish act, condemned to be raised in a backwater hamlet by my ageing grandparents, to watch them die and then to be sent off to be pawed by my mother’s lecherous husband. From there, I was banished, near kidnapped by Lord Chade and then hidden away from all society for two years! No parties, not a ball, not one single dress from Bingtown or Jamaillia. No. Nothing for Shun, she was born on the wrong side of the blankets! And above all, the person responsible for that must be able to dodge all consequences of it. And then, even hidden away, where I daily feared that boredom would end my life, someone tried to poison me. In my very own home, someone tried to poison me!’
Her words had come faster and faster and her voice had become shriller as she spilled out her sad little tale. I should have felt sympathy for her, but her manner of telling it was too self-absorbed. Only with extreme self-restraint did I prevent myself from leaping up and fleeing the room. I fervently hoped she would not break down into tears.
She did.
Her face crumpled like a piece of paper written over with too many secrets. ‘I can’t live like this!’ she wailed. ‘I just can’t!’ She collapsed forward onto the table, her head pillowed on her arms as she sobbed.
A better man than I could have reached into his heart and found kind words for her. Could have seen her as a youngster suddenly cast adrift from all that was familiar. But of late, her very words were the ones I wanted to roar at fate every night as I faced my cold and empty bed. I told her what I told myself. ‘Yes. You can. Because you have to. There is no real alternative, unless you want to cut your own throat.’
She lifted her head from her folded arms. She stared at me, eyes suddenly red, face wet with tears. ‘Or hang myself. I don’t think I could cut my own throat, but I could hang myself. I’ve even learned to tie that knot.’
That, I think, was what made me realize how serious she was. That small bit of information, the step she had taken to be one notch closer to planning her own death. Every assassin knows what his selected exit would be. Not poison for Shun, but the jump from the stool and the snap of her neck, with no waiting, no time to repent the decision. As for me, it would be the slash, the gouting blood and yes, those few waning moments to say farewell to my life. With a leap of intuition, I knew this was why Chade had sent her to me. Not just because others had threatened her life, but because she was a danger to herself. It incited me to horror rather than sympathy. I did not want the responsibility. I did not want to waken to a maid shrieking that her mistress was dangling from a noose, did not want to Skill such tidings to Chade. It was impossible for me to protect her. What can anyone do for a person who wishes to harm herself? My heart sank at the thought that I must soon search her room. What tools would Chade have supplied to her? Nasty little blades, a garrotte … Poisons? Had he even considered that in her state, she might use them against herself instead of in her own defence? I felt a flash of anger toward Chade at the bubbling kettle he had sent to my home. Who would be scalded when she finally boiled over?
She was still looking at me. ‘You must not do that,’ I said feebly.
‘Why not?’ she demanded. ‘It would solve all problems. Everyone’s life would be simpler. My mother would be happy that her spoiled son would inherit with no cloud on his right. My hidden father would not have to fear that I’d somehow be discovered. And you wouldn’t have an inconvenient half-mad young woman invading your home!’
She dragged in a sobbing breath. ‘When I was fleeing to Buckkeep, despite all that had befallen me, I had hope. Hope at last! I’d get away from my life in the shadows. I thought that at last I would be at court, with other young people, with music and dancing and life. Just life! And then Lord Chade claimed me. He said I was in danger and I could not go to Buckkeep, but that in his care, once I had learned an assassin’s skills, well, then I could both defend myself and perhaps the queen.’ Her voice shrilled higher and choking. ‘Imagine that! Me, at the queen’s side, defending her. Standing beside her throne. Oh. I wanted that so much. And I tried to learn all Quiver had to teach me. That awful, smelly woman, and her stupid endless drills! But I tried, and I tried. She was never happy with me. And then Rono died, poisoned, and it was meant for me. And I had to flee again. Sent off I knew not where, with only that ruffian to guard me. This time, I thought, this time surely I will be taken to Buckkeep! But where does Lord Chade put me? Here. I’ve done no wrong, yet here I am, in this draughty place with workmen hammering and where no one cares for me. Where there is no future, nothing lovely and cultured, nothing exciting. Where I’m nothing to anyone, only a burden and a disruption!’
One always falls back on one’s strongest talents in time of distress. So I lied. ‘You’re not a disruption, Shun. I know what it is to feel that there is no place that one belongs or is welcome. So I’ll tell you now that, however strange Withywoods may be to you now, you can consider it your home. You won’t be turned out of here, and for as long as you are here, I’ll do everything in my power to protect you. You’re not a guest here, Shun. You’re home. While it may not suit you now, we can make the changes you need. It can be made lovely for you. You can find comfort here. You are welcome here for as long as you need to be here.’ I took a breath and added a small thread of the truth. ‘While you are here, I consider you part of my family.’
She looked at me, her mouth working strangely as if she were gumming food. Then she suddenly flung herself from her chair and launched herself at me, to land against my chest, sobbing loudly. I caught her before we both fell over. Her voice shook wildly as she said, ‘They tried to kill me with poison. The cook’s little boy stole a tart from the platter, my favourite, a little berry tart, and he died with blood and foam coming out of his mouth. That’s what they wanted to do to me. To make me die that way. Poor little Rono, who’d never done anyone any harm save thieving. He died instead of me, and he died in pain. Little Rono.’
She was shaking all over. I held her firmly to keep from tipping out of my chair. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ I told her. ‘And you are safe now. You’re safe.’
I wondered if that was true.
‘Papa!’
I turned my head sharply. Something in Bee’s tone told me that she expected me to be ashamed of myself. She stared at me holding Shun, and then crossed her arms on her chest. ‘Shun’s very upset,’ I told her, but the cold glare Bee was giving me told me that, in her opinion, that excused nothing. When Shun did not try to move clear of me, I managed to stand and sat her firmly in my vacated chair. ‘Are you feeling better, Bee?’ I asked, to build on my falsehood that she had felt ill.
‘No.’ She replied icily. ‘Actually, I feel worse. Much worse. But that isn’t why I came to find you.’ She tipped her little head at me and I felt as if she were drawing back a bow. ‘I had to leave my room, just for a few minutes. When I came back … I came to tell you that our other guest is missing.’
‘Missing?’
‘Other guest?’ Shun demanded.
‘Missing?’ Riddle echoed. As he entered the room, he looked tousled, as if he had run all the way back from the village. He was still breathing hard as he looked from Bee’s disapproval to Shun’s tear-stained face and then at me. ‘The message I received was that the injured traveller had left.’
‘Yes. She did.’ I felt like a weathercock as I spun from Riddle to my daughter. ‘It’s all right. She’s not missing, Bee. She felt better and wanted to go. I should have told you.’ With my eyes, I tried to convey to her that I was lying, and needed her help to be convincing. She glared at me.
‘Injured traveller?’ Shun demanded. ‘There was a stranger here? How do you know she wasn’t an assassin?’ She caged her hands over her mouth and looked at all of us with alarm. Her green eyes were huge above her tangled fingers.
‘She was just an injured traveller, one we helped on her way. There’s no cause for alarm, Shun.’ I turned back to Riddle and made a wild leap for normality. ‘We were just having a bite. Riddle, are you hungry?’ It was all I could do to keep my voice level. Tripping over deceit, tangled by my lies. The horrid sinking feeling was all too familiar. Shun’s question had shaken me more than I wanted to betray. How indeed did I know that the young White was truly a messenger, and not someone who meant me and mine harm? Her resemblance to the young Fool had led me to bring her into my home with no thought as to her presenting a danger. And then I had put her in the room adjoining my daughter’s bedchamber. And now Bee said she was missing. And most likely somewhere within the rambling confines of Withywoods.
Shun had been right. I had definitely lost my edge. I was out of practice at intrigue. My mind raced. The messenger had said that she was being hunted. Had her pursuers entered Withywoods and captured her and carried her off? In the sprawling old house, it was entirely possible. I had seen her injuries; it seemed unlikely to me that she could present a real danger to anyone. And equally unlikely that she had simply decided to run away, her message undelivered.
The silence had hung long in the room. I looked at Riddle.
‘I could eat,’ Riddle replied uncertainly. His glance moved from Bee to Shun and then fixed on me. Bewilderment that was all his.
‘Excellent.’ I smiled like an idiot. ‘I’ll just let the kitchen staff know while you keep Shun company. She’s feeling a bit unsettled at being here. I was trying to assure her that she would be safe now. And welcome.’
‘Warmly welcomed,’ Bee said in low and venomous voice.
I concealed my surprise and added, ‘I’ll be taking Bee back up to her room. She’s obviously not feeling well.’ I reached for my daughter but she sidled out of my reach and preceded me to the door.
No sooner had it closer behind us than she spun to me. I saw her chest rise and fall, and to my horror, tears welled in her blue eyes as she accused me with, ‘I only came to tell you she was gone, and what do I see? You hugging that woman!’
‘Not here. Not now. And you are wrong. Kitchen first.’ This time I was able to seize her narrow shoulder and despite her effort to squirm away from me, I marched her to the kitchen. I tersely informed Tavia of Riddle’s requirements, and left as abruptly as I had arrived, taking Bee with me.
‘Your room,’ I said in a low voice. ‘Now. Stay close to me. And no talking until we are there.’
‘Is there danger?’
‘Shush.’
‘What about Shun?’
‘Riddle is with her and he is far more capable than most folk credit him. You are my first concern, always. Be quiet!’
My tone finally silenced her and she actually slunk closer to me as we wended our way along the corridors and then up the stairs. When we reached the door of her room, I took her by both shoulders and stood her with her back against the wall. ‘Stay here,’ I breathed. ‘Do not move unless I call you. If I call you, come quietly and immediately and stand just behind my left side. Understand?’
Her eyes were wide, her mouth hanging open as she gave a short nod. I nodded back.
I eased the door of her room open. Before I entered, I evaluated all I could see, the bed and hangings, the curtained windows, the hearth. All looked as I had left it. I stepped in silently and checked behind the door before I made a more thorough inspection of Bee’s room. There was no sign of an intruder. The untouched tray was on a stand by the bed. I stepped to the connecting door. It was ajar. I stepped back.
‘Bee.’
In a flash she was at my side.
‘Did you leave that door open?’
She was plainly terrified as she shrugged and admitted in a breathless whisper, ‘I don’t remember. I think so. No. You did and I didn’t move it.’
‘Stand still.’
I stepped to the door and opened it the rest of the way. The small room was dim, for it had no window of its own. Nothing there but the rumpled blanket on the bed. I ducked to glance under the bed. It was the only possible hiding place in the little room. No one was there. Of our guest, there was no sign save the ewer of water and the bedding pushed into a heap on the wall side of the narrow cot. I stepped back and shut the door. ‘She’s gone.’
‘That’s what I told you!’
‘And now I’m certain that she’s not in this room. And that’s all we really know.’ I marshalled my thoughts. ‘Tell me exactly how you discovered she was gone.’
‘I stayed in the room here. Tavia brought up the tray of food, and set it on the little table for me. I went in to the girl after Tavia was gone. She was barely awake. I tried to give her some broth, but it only seemed to make her cough. Then she closed her eyes and went back to sleep. I sat here for a time. Then, I needed to use the garderobe. So I did. And when I came back here, I went to the room to check on her. But she was gone.’
‘Gone.’ I thought. ‘How long were you gone?’
‘Only a few minutes.’ Her eyes were very big.
‘Bee. For the rest of this day, you are at my side. And if I tell you to do something, no matter how strange, you will do it instantly. Understand?’
She bobbed a nod. Her lips were red against the pallor of her face as she breathed through a half-open mouth. The terror in her eyes was an expression I had never wanted to see on my child’s face. ‘Why are we afraid?’ she demanded.
‘We don’t know if we need to be wary. So, until we do, it is safer for us to be afraid.’