Among the first lessons for a young Skill-student to master is that of containing herself. She must be made to realize that a container not only holds that which is within it, but prevents that which is outside it from entering, that is, to put it more clearly, a wineskin not only contains wine within it but keeps out rain and dirt. So it is with the mind of the Skill-student. She must learn to keep her own thoughts to herself, and also to keep the thoughts of others from intruding. If she does not master this twofold wall of protection she will soon fall prey to the musings of others, be they but idle thoughts or lechery or foolishness. Herewith follows an exercise that will teach the student not only to keep her thoughts to herself, but to keep from her quiet centre the thoughts of others.
From On the Instructing of Skill-Students by Skillmistress Solicity
I held perfectly still, wondering if he knew I was there. My father had entered his den and he now stared at my peephole. But he knew where it was, so of course if he suspected I was there, that was where he would look. I waited. If he turned and went away, it meant he didn’t know.
He spoke in a conversational tone. ‘Bee, I’ve been looking for you. If you are going to seemingly vanish from the manor, you had best let me know. Please come out. I need to discuss something with you.’
I sat still. The cat was asleep against me.
‘Now, Bee,’ he warned me. He turned and shut the door of the study, observing, ‘When I trigger this panel, you had best be standing right there, waiting to come out.’
He meant it.
I left the dozing black cat and scurried down the narrow spy-way. When he opened the door, I stepped out, brushing at cobwebs. ‘Are you taking me to meet my tutor?’
My father looked me up and down. ‘No. But I did come to talk to you about him. He has arrived, but he is not in the best of health. I think it may be several days before he is ready to teach you.’
‘I don’t mind,’ I said quietly. The relief I felt clarified my mixed feelings. It had been exciting to spy upon the young man as he arrived; it had made me feel a bit more in control of the situation to know that I had seen him before he had seen me. But I found I wanted time to become accustomed to the idea of a tutor. Until I knew more about this man, I would avoid him as much as I could.
My father cocked his head at me and gave me a measuring glance. Then he asked me, ‘Are you afraid to meet your teacher?’
I wanted to ask him how he had known that. Instead, I chose another question. ‘Do you think he has come here to kill me?’
For an instant, my father’s face went slack. It was less than a moment and he recovered quickly, looking at me with pretend consternation and asking me sharply, ‘Whatever put such a thing in your head?’
How should I answer that? I came as close to the truth as I could without making him think I was a freak. ‘I dreamed that he was coming to kill me. That he was sent to kill me, a long time ago, but you stopped him. And that now perhaps he was coming to try again.’
Another silence. He was containing his Skill so tightly he felt almost as blank as Cook Nutmeg. I had found a scroll about this and read it. Now I knew that was what it was called. Containing his Skill or keeping up his walls meant that I felt like I could breathe when he was in the room. And it also meant he would try to hide something from me.
‘He was sent by your sister. And by Lord Chade. To teach you. Do you think they would send someone to kill you?’
‘Nettle might send him, if she didn’t know he was an assassin.’ I said nothing of what I thought Lord Chade might do.
He sat down heavily in the chair behind his desk. ‘Bee, why would anyone want to kill you?’
I looked up at the sword hanging on the wall and over his head. Maybe truth from me would win truth from him. ‘For being a Farseer,’ I said slowly. ‘One they didn’t need. Or want.’
My father looked away from me. Then he turned slowly in his chair and looked up at the sword with me. I listened to more distant sounds in the house. Someone was hammering. A door opened and shut.
‘I didn’t think we’d be having this discussion so soon.’ He drummed his fingers along the edges of his desk and then looked back at me. He was so sad. So guilty for making this part of my life. ‘How much do you know?’ he asked gently.
I came closer to his desk and set my own fingers along the edge on my side. ‘I know who you are. Whose son you are. And that I’m your daughter.’
He closed his eyes for a moment and let out a short breath. Without opening them, he asked me, ‘Who told you? Not your mother.’
‘No. Not my mother. I put it together myself. From bits of things. You never really hid it from me. When I was little, before I was talking much, you and Mama often spoke over my head, about many things. Stories about Patience. How much she wanted a child, and why she wanted you to have Withywoods. There are bits of my family history everywhere in the manor. My grandfather’s portrait is on the wall upstairs.’
His fingers moved more slowly on the desktop. He opened his eyes and looked past me, staring intently at the panel of the door. I saw I would have to put it together for him.
‘Mother sometimes called you Fitz. And Nettle did, too. You look like Chivalry. And then there is the old portrait of King Shrewd and his first queen. My great-grandmother. I suppose they sent it here when he married Queen Desire and she didn’t want to be reminded of the first wife. I look like Queen Constance, I think. A little bit.’
‘Do you?’ He spoke faintly, breathing out the word.
‘I think I do. My nose.’
‘Come here,’ he said, and when I went to him, he pulled me up on his lap. I was able to sit there. He was so contained; it was almost like sitting on a chair. He put his arms around me and held me close. It was odd to feel so separate and yet so close to him. Like Mother, I suddenly realized. She had been able to hold me close like this. I leaned my forehead against my father’s shoulder. I felt his arm around me, a hard-muscled arm that could protect me. He spoke by my ear. ‘No matter what name they call us by, you will always be mine. And I am yours, Bee. And I will always do everything in my power to protect you. Do you understand that?’
I nodded my head against him.
‘I will always need you. I will always want you to be part of my life. Do you understand that?’
I nodded again.
‘Now, this scribe who has come to stay with us? FitzVigilant? Well. Chade sends him here to us because he needs my protection, too. He is a bastard. Like me. Unlike you, his family would like to get rid of him. They don’t need him or want him. So, to keep him safe, Chade has sent him here.’
‘Like Shun,’ I suggested quietly.
I listened to my father’s heart beating. ‘Worked that out, too, did you? Yes. Like Shun exactly. But unlike Shun he has had some training as both a, well, a protector himself, and as a tutor. Chade’s thought was that he could be a guard for you as well as a teacher. And Nettle agreed with him.’
‘And he’s illegitimate?’
‘Yes. That’s why his given name has a Fitz at the start. His father acknowledged him.’
‘But his father doesn’t protect him?’
‘He doesn’t. Can’t or won’t, I do not know. I suppose it makes no difference. His father’s wife and his brothers do not like him or want him. Sometimes things like that happen in families. But not in the family of you and me. And FitzVigilant is no danger to you. Especially now.’
‘Now?’
‘He was badly beaten. By people sent by his own family. Probably his stepmother. He ran away to be here so they couldn’t find him and kill him. It’s going to take him time to recover enough to teach you.’
‘I see. So I’m safe for now.’
‘Bee. You are safe for always while I am here. He does not come to kill you, but to help keep you safe. And to teach you. Nettle knows him and speaks well of him. So does Riddle.’
He was quiet then. I sat on his lap, leaning against his warm chest, listening to him breathe. I sensed a deep and thoughtful stillness within him. I thought he would ask me how much more I knew, or how I had discovered it, but he didn’t. I had the strangest feeling that he knew. I had been so careful about borrowing his papers. I always tried to put them back exactly as I had found them. Had he noticed something amiss? I couldn’t ask him without admitting what I’d been doing. And I suddenly felt a bit ashamed of how I had spied on him. Was it lying to spy on him and pretend I didn’t know things? A hard question. I began to feel almost sleepy sitting there. Maybe because I did feel very safe. Protected.
He suddenly gave a small sigh and then set me on my feet. He looked me up and down again. ‘I’ve neglected you,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Look at you. You’re not much better than a little ragamuffin. You’ve outgrown your clothes when I wasn’t looking. And when was the last time you combed out your hair?’
I reached up and touched my hair. It was too short to lie down and too long to be tidy. ‘Maybe yesterday,’ I said, knowing I lied. He didn’t challenge me.
‘It’s not just your hair or your clothes, Bee. It’s all of you. I can be so blind. We have to do better, little one,’ he told me. ‘You and I, we have to do better.’
I could not make sense of what he was saying yet I knew he was mostly talking to himself. ‘I will brush my hair every day,’ I promised him. I put my hands behind my back, knowing they were not especially clean.
‘Good,’ he told me. ‘Good.’
He was looking at me but not seeing me. ‘I’ll go brush my hair now,’ I offered.
He nodded and this time his eyes focused on me. ‘And I’ll do what I should have been doing, beginning now,’ he promised in return.
I went to my mother’s sitting room. I still had not been moved back into my room. A small trunk there held a limited selection of my clothes and possessions. I found my brush and smoothed my hair, and used water from the ewer there to wipe my face and clean my hands. I found clean leggings and a fresh tunic. And when I went down to dinner, it was only my father and me at the table. It was the best evening I had had in a long time.
Riddle and Shun returned from their expedition with two wagonloads of goods. Some of it was for Revel but a lot of it was just for her. She had ordered new hangings for her bed and windows, and they would be delivered when they were finished. In the meanwhile, she ‘supposed’ she would have to get by with what the Purple Suite offered her. She had bought two chairs, a lampstand and a rug for her floor, a new ewer and basin, and a rack for her clothes. None of them looked much different to me from the items that had already been in her rooms. She had also added to her stock of clothing with warm woollen things and cloaks trimmed with fur, and fur slippers. There was a carved cedar chest to keep it all in. I watched my father as he saw it all unloaded and carried into her freshly restored room. When he saw me observing him, he commented quietly, ‘I think that’s more clothing than your mother required in all of her years married to me.’ And I did not think he meant that my mother had had to do with less than what she wanted.
Both Riddle and Shun expressed some curiosity about my tutor when he did not join us for any meals on the second day after their return. In Shun’s hearing, my father said only that some people recovered from travelling more slowly than others. Did she notice the look the two men exchanged? I was certain that Riddle would call on Scribe FitzVigilant before the day was over, and longed to accompany him. I was not permitted to do that, of course.
So the intervening days were given over to the activities I had created for myself. Each day, I took myself to the stables, for time with Perseverance and Priss. I did not call him Per. I don’t know why. I just did not like it as a name for him. I did like that we hadn’t asked anyone’s permission. I felt I had taken it into my own hands and that I had chosen a good teacher for myself. I liked Perseverance because he hadn’t seemed to think he needed to ask anyone’s permission to teach me. I suspected that no one besides us even knew I had begun to learn to ride. I liked that. It seemed to me that lately everyone had been making decisions for me. This was something I had done for myself.
Then Perseverance shocked me at the end of a ride by telling me, ‘We might not be able to do this at the same time as we have been.’
I scowled as I dismounted. I got off the horse to the mounting block without assistance. An easy accomplishment now, one I took pride in. ‘Why not?’ I demanded.
He looked surprised at me. ‘Well, you know. The scribe came and he’s going to teach us.’
‘He’s going to teach me,’ I corrected him, not gently.
He lifted his brows at me. ‘And me. And Lukor, and Ready and Oatil from the stables. And Elm and Lea from the kitchens. Maybe Taffy, though he scoffs and says no one can make him go. And the goosewoman’s children, and maybe some of the sheepherder’s children. Holder Tom Badgerlock put the word out that anyone born to help on Withywoods can come and learn. Lots didn’t want to. I didn’t. But Da says that any time a man can learn a new thing, he should. And that it’s a fine thing to be able to sign your name instead of making a mark, and an even finer thing to know what you’re signing without having to send to the village for a scribe. So. I have to go, at least until I can write my own name. He seems to think that by then I’ll want to keep going. I’m not sure about that.’
I was sure I didn’t want him to go at all. I liked how he knew me here, just as Bee. The thought of Taffy being there chilled me. He hadn’t dared to chase me since that day, but perhaps it was only because I’d never dared to follow and spy on them since then. I imagined Elm and Lea, giggling and mocking me. Then Perseverance would see what a mistake he had made in being my friend. No! I could not allow them to be included. I pressed my lips tightly together. ‘I will be speaking to my father about this,’ I told Perseverance.
He looked disapproving at my chill tone. ‘I’d be happy if you did. Sitting in a circle getting ink on my fingers isn’t my idea of a good time. My father said it just proved your father was a generous-hearted man, as he’s always said. Not all agree with him. Some say the Holder has a black look to his eyes sometimes, even when he’s fair-spoken. None could name a time when he had mistreated someone or been unfair, but many claimed that was your mother’s influence that made him kind, and they looked for things to go badly for all of us when she died. When he brought that woman here, some said she had a look to be his blood-kin, and others said she had the look of a woman come to have an easy life of it with a man handling a lot of money.’
I was frozen, my mouth ajar and my heart cold as I listened to his words. I think he mistook it for ardent interest rather than a heartfelt desire to hear no more. He nodded at me. ‘It’s so. Some talk like that. There was that night when half the staff was up till dawn because that woman was shrieking about ghosts, and then Revel fell on them all the next morning like an avalanche, full of fury and shame that there had been bugs in your bedding, and your father so angry about it he was out setting fire to it in the night. “As if he cares for her at all, the way she runs about dressed in clothes that would better suit a cobbler’s boy”.’ He stammered to a halt at my look of outrage. Perhaps he suddenly recalled to whom he was speaking for he insisted, ‘That’s what they said, not me!’
I didn’t conceal my fury as I demanded, ‘WHO said those things? Who is “they” who speak such awful lies about my father and make mock of me?’
He was suddenly a servant rather than a friend. He pulled his winter cap from his head and held it before his knees, eyes and head down as he spoke. His ears were scarlet and not from the cold. There was wariness in his voice as he said, ‘Your pardon, Mistress Bee. I spoke above myself and out of turn, most wrong of me. It was only gossip, not fit for a lady’s ears, and I’ve shamed myself by repeating it. I’ll be about my work now.’
And he turned away from me, the only friend I’d ever made for myself, and took Priss’s headstall. He began to lead her away. ‘Perseverance!’ I called in my most regal voice.
‘I must take care of your horse, mistress,’ he apologized over his shoulder. He was walking fast, head down. Priss seemed surprised to be hurried along. I stood on the mounting block, quarrelling with myself. Raise my voice and order him back. Run away and never, EVER come back to the stables again. Burst into tears and crumple up in a ball.
I stood, frozen by indecision and watched him walk away. When he and my horse had disappeared into the stables, I jumped down and ran away. I went to my mother’s grave and sat for a short time on a very cold stone bench nearby. I told myself I wasn’t so stupid as to think my mother was anywhere near. It was just a place to be. I’d never been so hurt, and I couldn’t tell if it was what he had said or how I had reacted to it. Stupid boy. Of course I’d get angry and demand to know who had said such horrid things. Why had he told me about them if he didn’t expect to tell me who had said them? And sharing my lessons with the other children of Withywoods? I would not have minded Perseverance being there, but if Taffy and Elm and Lea were there, their opinion of me would spread like poison. Surely Perseverance would rather be friends with a large boy like Taffy than with someone like me. Elm and Lea sometimes helped at the table now; it was bad enough to glimpse them in passing, and see how quickly they put their heads together, their sharp tongues wagging like blades on a whetstone. They’d mock me. As, apparently, others were already mocking me for my appearance.
I swung my feet out in front of me. I wore last year’s boots, the leather cracking at the sides of my feet. My leggings were thick with burrs from taking a short cut through the gardens. The knees were dirtied and a dead leaf clung to one shin; I must have knelt down somewhere. I stood and pulled my tunic dress out in front of me. It was not dirty, but it was stained. I’d had less clothing since that scrubbing out of my room. I felt a vague alarm that perhaps some of my clothes had been burned. Perhaps I should check on the state of my possessions. I scratched at a bit of mud on the hem of the tunic and it popped off. I’d put this on only a day or two ago. The stain on the breast was an old one. Dirty and stained were not the same thing at all, I thought.
Unless you were looking at someone and didn’t know that those were stains, not fresh soiling. I thought about it for some time. It was all distressing. Lessons with children who hated me, who would poke and pinch and mock me if they had the slightest chance. People were talking about my father and about me in ways that I didn’t like. They believed things that weren’t true, but it was because they looked true. It would look to someone else that my father didn’t care about me. When my mother was alive, she had done all that was needed to keep me neat and clean. I hadn’t given it much thought; it was just something she did for me, one of the many things she did for all of us. Now she was gone. And my father hadn’t begun doing those things for me because, I decided slowly, they weren’t important to him. He saw me, not that my boots were cracked at the sides or that every tunic I owned was stained. He had mentioned that we had to ‘do better’ but then he had done nothing.
And I was just like him. Those things hadn’t mattered at all to me, until someone had pointed out that perhaps they should. I stood up and brushed at the front of my tunic. I felt very grown up as I decided that the answer wasn’t to mope about it or blame my father. I lifted a hand to my fraying hair. I would simply tell him what I needed, and he would get it for me. He’d done it for Shun, hadn’t he?
I went directly to find him. It took me a short time but eventually I discovered him in the Yellow Suite. He was speaking to Revel. Next to them was a servant standing on a stool, hanging the cleaned bed draperies. One of the new maids, a girl named Careful, was standing by with an armful of linens. The feather bed had been put into a fresh cover and looked deep and soft. If no one had been looking, I would immediately have tried it out.
Instead, I waited patiently until my father turned, saw me and smiled and asked, ‘Well, Bee, what do you think of it? Can you think of anything else you’d like done to your new chambers?’
I stared, mouth ajar. Revel gave a very pleased chuckle. My father cocked his head at me. ‘You’ve caught us a bit early, but we’re close enough to finished here. I knew you’d be surprised but I didn’t think you’d be speechless.’
‘I like my own room,’ I said breathlessly. With the secret entrance to the spy-maze, I did not say aloud. I looked around me and saw what I hadn’t before. The chest at the foot of the bed was sized down to make it easier for me to find things in it. The empty wardrobe standing open in the corner had a stool beside it for the upper shelves. The hooks inside it were placed where I could easily reach them. This was proof that my father did think of me. I knew I could not reject this misguided gift. ‘You did all this for me?’ I asked before he could speak again.
‘With some advice from Revel,’ my father noted. The tall steward nodded a curt agreement.
I looked slowly around the room. I recognized the small chair by the fire. I’d seen it somewhere else in the house; now it was freshened with new varnish and yellow cushions. I didn’t recognize the footstool. It wasn’t an exact match for the chair, but it was close enough, with the cushion done in the same fabric as the chair. The window had a box seat in it; a step had been added to make it easier for me to take a place there, and a handful of various sized cushions in bright fabrics beckoned me to relax there. I glanced from it to my father.
‘Lots of help from Revel,’ he amended sheepishly, and the steward now beamed. ‘You know that I know nothing of such things as curtains and cushions. I told him after we’d found the bedbugs that I would not put you in that room again. He said it was known among the servants that you favoured this suite of rooms, and so he suggested that, as we’d already begun to freshen them, that we finish them especially for you. And here you are, just in time to say if you approve.’
I found my tongue. ‘They’re very nice. Very pretty.’
My father waited and I had to add, ‘But I do love my old room.’ I could not tell him, in front of the servants, that I wanted a room with an entrance to the spy-maze. I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell him about that entrance. I liked being the only one who knew about it. I weighed my secret and quick access to the spyhole against a chance to dispel some of the gossip. And what if he decided that he must improve my old room instead? The spy-door might be found! I cleared my throat. ‘But it was a baby’s room, wasn’t it? This is much better. Thank you, Father. It’s lovely.’
It was a bit awkward, but I went to him and put my face up to be kissed. I was probably the only one who knew he was surprised, and certainly only he and I knew how seldom we touched in that way. But he stooped to give me a kiss on the cheek, exactly as if it were something we were both comfortable doing. We were allies, I suddenly knew, holding our walls against a hostile world.
Revel was fairly wriggling with excitement. The moment I stepped back from my father, he bowed and said, ‘Mistress Bee, if you have a moment, I’d enjoy showing you the cunning drawers in the wardrobe, and how the mirror folds down.’ The moment I gave a faint nod, he stretched his long legs and in two strides, he stood before my new wardrobe cabinet. ‘See. There are hooks for necklaces, and tiny drawers for other jewellery. Here is the little shelf for scents! And, to be amusing, I’ve already added some for you! This charming little bottle hold rose essence, and this blue one has honeysuckle; both are very appropriate for a young lady of your years!
‘I’ve added a clever little step stool for you, to allow you to reach every shelf and to see yourself in the mirror. See how it folds up or down! And here, this compartment for larger hanging items, ah, such a pleasant scent – lined with cedar, to keep those nasty little moths away!’ As he spoke, he was opening empty drawers and tapping hooks with much more enthusiasm than I could ever have mustered for a wardrobe. I smiled as best I could and continued to smile as he assured me that the maid’s chamber attached to my room would soon be ready for an occupant. He commended Careful to my attention as a possible lady’s maid, and I had to turn and keep all dismay from my face as she presented herself. I judged her to be at least fifteen and perhaps older. She blushed as she curtseyed, her arms still full of linens, and I had no idea what to say to her. A maid. What would I have her do? Would she always be near me, following me about? Suddenly I was glad I had been gracious about accepting the new room. If I had insisted on my old one, and they had put her in there, I’d have no chance to use my secret entrance. As it was, if she was sleeping adjacent to my room, would I be able to slip out unnoticed?
I turned back to Revel. Carefully, carefully. ‘The room is so lovely, and the wardrobe is enchanting. You have given a great deal of thought to everything. And how kind of you, to make it easier for me to reach things. So often that has been a challenge for me, and now you have solved it.’
I had never seen Revel flush pink with pleasure, but he did now. His brown eyes suddenly twinkled at me, and to my shock, I realized I’d made him my friend. I turned from him to my father. I had come seeking him, intending to ask him for new winter boots and some longer tunics. But I now perceived that I must not ask for those things in front of the servants. I looked round at them, Careful and Revel and the man hanging the bed-hangings. He was nearly finished now, and Careful was stepping forward and giving a final tug to make them hang straight. I had known Revel all my life, but I had lived like the feral kitten, slipping past the tall house steward without a word. What possible interest could such a dignified and important adult have in me? And yet, there he was, taking absolute joy in creating this room for me.
And now Careful would obviously become part of my world. All of the enlarged ranks of folk that would populate Withywoods would now be people I must encounter and speak to every day. And there would be other children, larger than me, but equal in years, in the schoolroom with me every day. So many people were becoming part of my world. How would I deal with so many people?
Part of my world, but not part of my family. My father was my family. And he and I must stand back to back, always, and defend ourselves against all gossip and speculation. I was not sure why that was so, and then I knew. They might call me Bee Badgerlock, but I knew that in truth I was Bee Farseer. That knowledge was like a brick being set in place to fill up a chink in a wall. I was a Farseer. Like my father. So I smiled and took care to speak clearly as I said, ‘I came to ask when the tutor might be ready to begin my lessons, Father. I am very eager to begin.’
I saw understanding dawn in my father’s eyes, and he played to our audience as well. ‘He has said that he thinks he could begin in two days. He is finally feeling recovered from his journey.’
His beating, I thought. Such a polite pretence we were all sharing, but enough had seen his battered face when he arrived to know why our new tutor was keeping to his rooms and bed.
‘That is wonderful, then.’ I looked slowly around my new room, smiling large to be sure that all would see and know how pleased I was with it. ‘The room is finished? I may sleep here tonight?’
Revel smiled. ‘As soon as the bedding is smoothed on the bed, mistress.’
‘Thank you. I’m sure I will love being here. There are some things in my old room that I will want to bring here. I’ll fetch them.’
‘Oh, little need, Lady Bee, I assure you!’ Revel strode to the chest at the foot of my new bed and flung it open. He went down on one knee and beckoned me over as his long fingers crawled down the stack of folded fabrics. ‘An extra blanket of yellow and cream, for when the nights are very cold. And here, a lap rug for when you want to sit in your window. A new red shawl with a hood. Now, as we had to dispose of so much of your wardrobe, I had Seamstress Lily fashion you some new tunics. Looking at you, I fear we have made them too large, but they will suffice until we have time to get a proper fitting done. See, here is a brown one with yellow trim, and here a green one. This one is a bit plain; would you like some embroidery done round the hems? Never mind, of course you would. I’ll send it to the seamstresses.’
I had stopped listening. Revel was wallowing in his enjoyment. His words flowed past me. I did not know how to feel. All this new clothing, all at once, and none of it made by my mother’s hands. No one had held it up against me to check the length, or asked if I would have flowers or scrolls round the hem. I knit my brow and tried to comprehend my mother’s death, all over again. Every time I thought I had mastered it, some new manifestation of it would overwhelm me.
Revel had finished. I was smiling. Smiling, smiling, smiling. I looked at my father desperately and managed to stammer out, ‘It’s all so lovely. Still, there are a few things I will bring from my other room. Thank you all so much.’
Then I fled. I hoped I exited gracefully, but once I was out of the room, I ran. I skittered past two servants carrying in a rolled-up rug, turned down the hall and found the door of my old room. I bolted inside and shut the door behind me.
The hearth was swept, empty and cold. The stripped bedframe looked skeletal. I made myself go the door of the maid’s room and peer in. It was as bare. The heavy bedstead was still pushed into the corner, the headboard neatly obscuring the subtle joins in the woodwork that concealed my entrance. That, at least, was still safe.
I came back slowly into my room. Nothing on the mantel over the fireplace. No blue pottery candleholder. No little carving of an owl that my mother and I had bought at the Oaksbywater market. I opened my small clothing chest. Empty. The larger chest at the foot of my old bed. Empty save for a faint waft of cedar and lavender. Even the sachets had been cleared away. The blue woollen blanket, worn to thinness, was gone. Not one of my old nightgowns or tunics remained. All those stitches from my mother’s hands, gone to ash to protect my father’s pretence, so no one could know we had burned a body in the night. The only old clothing left to me would be the ones I had carried off to my mother’s room where I had been sleeping. And the nightrobe I had hidden there. Unless those had already been discovered and taken, too!
I crossed my arms on my chest and held myself tightly as I catalogued what else was missing. The engraved ‘book’ of herbs that I had always kept by my bed. The candleholder for my bed-table. A terrible fear seized me and I fell to my knees by that table and opened the cupboard beneath it. Gone, all gone, every one of the fat scented candles that my mother had made. I’d never slept in this room without one burning as I drowsed off and I could not imagine moving into a new room without their comforting fragrance. I stared into the dim emptiness of the cupboard and held myself tighter, digging my nails into my arms to keep from flying into pieces. I shut my eyes tightly. If I breathed slowly through my nose, I could catch the fading essence of the candles that had been there.
I wasn’t aware of him until he sat down on the floor behind me and put his arms around me. My father spoke by my ear. ‘Bee. I saved them. I came back here, late that night. I took the candles and a few other things that I knew you would want. I’ve got them safe for you.’
I opened his eyes but I didn’t relax in his arms. ‘You should have told me,’ I said fiercely, suddenly furious with him. How could he have let me feel that loss, even for a few minutes? ‘You should have let me come here to get my important things before they were burned.’
‘I should have,’ he conceded, and then, stabbed me with, ‘I didn’t think of it then. And it had to be done immediately. So much was happening here, so fast.’
My voice was cold as I asked, ‘So what did you save? My candles? My book on herbs? My owl figurine, my candleholder? Did you save my blue blanket? The tunic with the daisies embroidered around the hem?’
‘I didn’t save the blue blanket,’ he admitted hoarsely. ‘I didn’t know it was important.’
‘You should have asked me! You should have ASKED me!’ I hated the tears that suddenly flooded my eyes and how my throat closed and choked me. I didn’t want to be sad. I wanted to be angry. Angry hurt less. I turned and did something I’d never done before. I hit my father, as hard as I could, my fist connecting with the braced muscles of his chest. It wasn’t a little girl’s slapping. I hit him with as much force as I could muster, wanting to hurt him. I hit him again, and again, until I realized he was allowing me to do it, that he could have seized my arms and stopped me at any time. That perhaps he even wanted me to hurt him. That made it useless and worse than futile. I stopped and looked up at him. His face was still. His eyes looked at me, open, offering no defence against my anger. He accepted it as just.
That woke no sympathy in me. It only made me angrier. This was my pain; I had been robbed of things I had cherished. How dare he stare at me as if he were the one who was hurt? I folded my arms again, this time to lock him out. I bowed my head so I wouldn’t have to look at him. When he put one hand on my cheek and the other on top of my head, I only set my muscles and curled in more tightly.
He sighed. ‘I do my best, Bee, poor as it is sometimes. I saved what I thought was important to you. When you want to, tell me, and we’ll get them and put them in your new room. I wanted it to be something of a surprise for you; I thought you’d like having the Yellow Suite. It was a mistake. Too great a change, too fast, and you should have had more say in it.’
I didn’t loosen my muscles but I listened.
‘So. This will not be a surprise. In five days, you and I are going into Oaksbywater. Revel was clever enough to suggest that you might want to choose some fabric from the weavers there for your heavy winter tunics. And we will visit the cobbler instead of waiting for him to make his winter visit here. I think your feet have done more than a year’s growing already. Revel told me that you needed new shoes, and that you needed boots as well. For riding.’
That jolted me enough to look up at him. Sorrow still filled his eyes, but he said kindly, ‘That was a surprise for me. A very nice one.’
I looked down again. I hadn’t intended it to be anything for him. Though, now that I considered it, I had looked forward to him seeing that I could ride a horse, even if neither he nor Riddle had had time to think it important enough to teach me. I realized then how deeply angry I was with both of them that they always seemed to spend more time on Shun than on me. I wanted to hold onto that anger and make it deeper and stronger. But more than that, I wanted my mother’s touches in the room where I would sleep tonight.
I spoke to the floor. I hated the hitch in my voice. ‘I’d like to go get my things now, please. And put them safe in my room.’
‘Then we will,’ he said. He stood. I didn’t offer my hand and he didn’t try to take it. But I followed him out of the room that had once been mine, the room where the messenger had died.