A dream from a winter night when I was six years old.
In a market square, a blind beggar sat in his rags. No one was giving him anything, for he was more frightening than pathetic with his cruelly scarred face and crumpled hands. He took a little puppet out of his ragged clothes; it was made of sticks and string with only an acorn for a head, but he made it dance as if it were alive. A small sullen boy watched from the crowd. Slowly he was drawn forward to watch the puppet’s dance. When he was close, the beggar turned his clouded eyes on the boy. They began to clear, like silt settling to the bottom of a puddle. Suddenly, the beggar dropped his puppet.
This dream ends in blood and I am afraid to recall it. Does the boy become the puppet, with strings attached to his hands and feet, his knees and elbows and bobbing head? Or does the beggar seize the boy with hard and bony hands? Perhaps both things happen. It all ends in blood and screaming. It is the dream I hate most of all the dreams I have ever had. It is the end dream for me. Or perhaps the beginning dream. I know that after this event, the world as I know it is never the same.
Bee’s Dream Journal
My first dinner with my new tutor was the worst meal of my life. I was dressed in one of my new tunics. It itched. It had not yet been taken in to fit me, so I felt as if I were walking about in a small woollen tent. My new leggings were not yet finished, so my old ones were both too short and baggy about the knees. I felt like some peculiar wading bird, with my legs sticking out of the bottom of my ample clothes. I told myself that once I was seated at the table, no one could tell, but my plan to be first there failed.
Shun had preceded me, sweeping into the dining room like a queen entering her throne room. Her hair had been dressed on top of her head; her new maid had a gift for hair, and every auburn curl shone. Silver pins twinkled against that sleek mahogany like stars in a night sky. She was beyond beautiful; she was striking. Even I had to admit that. Her gown was green and some trick of the cut lifted her breasts away from her chest as if she were offering them to us, demanding we look at them. She had painted her lips and dusted her face with a pale powder so that her dark lashes and green eyes looked at us as if from a mask. A kiss of rouge at the top of each cheek made her appear animated and lively. I was doomed to hate her all the more for her beauty. I followed her into the room. Before I could reach my seat, she turned to regard me and smiled a cat’s smile.
Worse was to come. My tutor was behind me.
His beautiful face had healed, the swelling gone and the green and purples of his bruises faded. His skin was not weathered as were my father’s and Riddle’s. He had the complexion of a court gentleman. He had shaved his high-boned cheeks and strong chin as smooth as could be, but the shadow of what would doubtless be a grand moustache was showing on his upper lip. Had I worried that he would scoff at my ill-fitting clothes? A useless fear. He halted in the door, his eyes widening as he saw Shun. Both she and I saw him catch his breath. Then he came slowly to take his place at the table. He apologized to my father for being late, but as he spoke, he looked at Shun.
In that moment, of his carefully worded courtesy with his court accent, I fell in love.
People make mock of a girl or boy’s first love, calling it puppyish infatuation. But why should not a young person love just as wildly or deeply as any other? I looked at my tutor and knew that he must see me as just a child, small for my age and provincial, scarcely worthy of his attention. But I will not lie about what I felt. I burned to distinguish myself in his company. I longed to say something charming, or to make him laugh. I wished that something would happen that would make him see me as important.
But there was nothing about me. I was a little girl, dressed in very ordinary garb, with no exciting tale to tell. I could not even enter the conversation that Shun began and then guided so carefully to herself and her sophisticated upbringing. She spoke of her childhood in the grandparents’ home, telling stories of the various well-known minstrels who had performed there, and nobles who had come to visit. Often enough, FitzVigilant would exclaim that he, too, had heard that minstrel perform, or that he knew Lady This-And-So from a visit to Buckkeep Castle. When he mentioned a minstrel named Hap, she set down her fork and exclaimed that she had heard he was the most amusing of minstrels, knowing every humorous song that one could sing. I longed to open my mouth and say he was like an elder brother to me and once had given me a doll. But they were talking to one another, not me, and if I had spoken, it would have seemed I eavesdropped. But in that moment, how I longed that Hap would suddenly drop in on one of his random visits and greet me as kin.
As if that would have increased my standing in Scribe FitzVigilant’s eyes. No. For him, the only person at the table was Shun. She cocked her head and smiled at him as she took a sip of wine and he lifted his glass to her and smiled back. My father spoke with Riddle about his return to Buckkeep, when he would depart, messages he would carry to Lord Chade and Lady Nettle and even to King Dutiful. The grapes at Withywoods had done well, and there were preserves he wished to send to Lady Kettricken as well as a sampling of wine now aged five years from the Withywoods cellars that he felt showed great promise.
And I sat silent among them, cutting and eating my meat, buttering my bread, and looking away whenever Elm came into the room to put out a fresh dish or to clear plates. She was old enough now to serve at table, and her apron of Withywoods green and yellow suited her very well. Her hair was smoothed flat to her head and the length of it was pinned in a neat coiled braid on the back of her head. I wanted to lift a hand to my own head to see if my pale thatch of hair was still combed neatly or wandering on my head like torn corn silk. I put my hands under the table and clasped them tightly together.
When it was time to leave the table, my tutor moved quickly to slide Shun’s chair back and offer his arm to her. She took it readily, and thanked ‘Lant’ very prettily. So. He was Lant to her, and Scribe FitzVigilant to me. My father offered his arm to me, and as I looked up at him in surprise, his dark eyes danced with amusement as he flicked a glance at the young couple. I looked at Riddle, who rolled his eyes but also looked charmed by their behaviour. I found nothing amusing about it.
‘I think I shall seek my own chamber now,’ I said quietly.
‘Are you well?’ my father asked me quickly, concern in his eyes.
‘Quite. I’ve simply had a long day.’
‘Very well. I’ll tap on your door later to say good night.’
I nodded. Was he warning me to be where I said I’d be? Well, I would be. By then. I took a candle in a holder to light my way.
Lady Shun and Scribe FitzVigilant had not even noticed that we had paused. They had moved out of the dining room and were heading toward one of the cosier sitting rooms. I didn’t want to see them sitting and chatting together. I turned away from all of them and strode away, my hand cupped to shelter my candle’s flame.
It had been a long day, truly, but not because of anything I’d done. Rather, it was the not doing that had stretched the hours for me. I hadn’t gone down to the stables. For a time, I’d been trapped in my hidey-hole while my father and Riddle talked until I had crept away down the passage to appear stealthily in the kitchens. But I had not dared to linger there to watch Mild knead the bread or turn the spit. Lea was there always now, sweeping up spilled flour or stirring a slowly bubbling kettle of cornmeal. Her dark eyes were like knives, her flat mouth an anvil to pound me against with her brief words. So I had spent the most of my day in one of Patience’s garden rooms, with a copy of Badgerlock’s Old Blood Tales. Every time my father had seen me with it, he had offered me a different book, which had made me believe there was something in it he did not wish me to read. Yet he had not taken it away from me. And so I was intent on reading every page of it, even the boring parts. I had finished it today and still had no idea what part of it he had dreaded me reading. Then I had wandered about the plant room, pinching dead bits off the plants. As most of the plants were dormant for the winter, this was not as interesting as it might have been.
My steps slowed as I traversed the corridor to my bedchamber. And when I reached the door of my old room, I slowed and looked carefully behind me. No one was watching. I opened the door and slipped inside.
It was dark. There was no fire on the hearth. The draperies over the window were drawn. I stepped inside and let the door close behind me. I stood still, breathing quietly, waiting for my eyes to adjust. My candle could barely push the darkness back. I moved forward slowly, groping my way. I found the corner post of my bed. By touch, I moved to the emptied chest at the foot of it. Only a few steps, and my hands met the cold stonework of the hearth.
The door to the adjacent servant’s chamber was closed, and suddenly that was frightening. A prickling ran up my back. The messenger had died in there. No, actually she had died right on my bed. Right behind me. For a moment, I could not make myself turn to look at it, and then I simply had to. Knowing I was being silly didn’t help. Or was I being silly? I had told Shun that everyone knew that ghosts only lingered where the person had died. And she had died there. I turned slowly. My hands were shaking and my candle trembled, sending shadows leaping about the room.
The stripped bed was empty. I had been foolish. I would not stare at it. I would not. I turned back to the closed door. I dared myself and walked to it. I put my hand on the doorhandle. It was cold. Colder than was natural? Would her ghost linger where we had unwittingly abandoned her? I pushed down on the latch and then dragged the door open. The draught from the little room nearly sucked the flame from my candle. I stood still until it steadied and peered in.
It was emptier than I had last seen it. The old stand and ewer remained there. And the heavy bedframe was still pushed tight against my secret entrance. I spoke to her ghost. ‘If I had known you were still here, I would have taken better care of you. I thought you were gone.’ I felt no change in the hovering darkness, but felt a bit braver that I had dared to speak to her directly.
It was harder to pull the bedframe away from the concealed entrance while holding my candle, but I managed. I clambered over it to trigger the lever, and then climbed back to go inside. I dribbled wax on the passage-floor and stuck my candle in it before dragging the bedframe back into place and pushing the door shut. In my hidden labyrinth, I felt better immediately. I held my candle steady and followed the marks I scarcely needed any more until I came to my little lair. Just outside it I stopped suddenly, puzzled. Something was different. A scent? A slight warmth in the air? I studied the little room carefully, but saw nothing amiss. Cautiously I stepped forward, tripped, and measured my length on the floor. My candle jumped from my hand, rolled in a half-circle, and only by the greatest good fortune remained lit. By bad fortune, it fetched up against a coiled scroll I had left on the floor. The edge had just begun to smoulder with a stink of burning leather when I scrabbled to my knees and seized the candle. I set it upright in the holder and turned to see what had tripped me. It had felt like a mound of fabric. Warm fabric.
I felt a moment of dizziness as the floor wavered before my gaze. Then a small, scowling cat face emerged from nothing. He rose slowly out of the floor, stretched and gave me a rebuking, ‘Wowr’. Only the barest edge of rolled butterfly wing betrayed the cloak in a heap on the floor. I pounced on it and snatched it up, holding it to my chest. It was warm and smelled of black cat. ‘What were you doing?’ I demanded of him.
Sleeping. Was warm.
‘This is mine. You’re not to take things off my shelf.’ I saw now that the plate I’d put on top of my bowl of hard bread had been pushed aside. With the bundled cloak under my arm, I made a quick inspection of my supplies. The bread had been chewed at the edge and rejected. I’d had half a sausage up there. Only a few scraps of casing remained. ‘You ate my food! And slept on my cloak.’
Not yours. Hers.
I paused in mid-breath. ‘Well, it’s mine now. She’s dead.’
She is. So it’s mine. It was promised to me.
I stared at him. My memories of that day had an overlay of haze, not for the evening events but those from the morning. I could not remember why I had gone walking to that part of the estate grounds. They were shady and chill, uninviting during the grey and wet days. I could scarcely remember seeing the butterfly wing on the ground; I could not tell if it was a memory from that day, or a memory of my dream. But I did recall that as my father had approached, he had given a shout of surprise. And something had raced away into the brush. Something black and furry.
Yes. I was there.
‘That doesn’t mean the cloak belongs to you.’
He sat up very straight and wrapped his black tail neatly around his white feet. He had yellow eyes, I noticed, and the candlelight danced in them as he declared. She gave it to me. It was a fair trade.
‘For what? What does a cat have to trade?’
A gold glitter came into those yellow eyes and I knew I had insulted him. I’d insulted a cat. Just a cat. So why did a little shiver of dread go down my back? I remembered that my mother had told me to never be afraid to apologize when I was wrong. She had said it would have saved her and my father a great deal of trouble if they had only followed that rule. Then she had sighed, and added that I must never think that an apology could completely erase what I had done or said. Still, it was worth trying.
‘I beg your pardon,’ I said sincerely. ‘I do not know much of cats, having never had one of my own. I think I have misspoken to you.’
Yes. You have. Twice. The idea that a human could ‘have a cat of her own’ is equally insulting. Abruptly, he lifted one of his hind legs, pointed his foot toward the ceiling and began to groom his bottom. I knew I was being insulted. I chose to bear it in silence. He carried on for a ridiculously long time. I began to be chilly. I picked surreptitiously at an edge of the cloak and draped it around my shoulders.
When he had finally finished, he focused his round, unblinking eyes on me again. I gave her dreams. I lay down beside her and purred through the long cold night. She was badly hurt. Dying. She knew it. Her dreams were dark with sharp edges, full of faces of those she had failed. She dreamed of the creatures that were inside her, chewing their way through her guts. I came into her dreams and in them I was the Cat of Cats, powerful beyond imagining. I chased and slew those who had hurt her. I embraced them with my claws and tore their entrails from their bodies. Towards dawn, when the frost was coldest, I promised I would bring you to her, and she would be discovered and her message delivered. She thanked me, and I told her I had enjoyed the warmth of the cloak. That was when she said I might have it when she was gone.
His story rang with truth. Right up until his last statement. I knew he was lying. He knew that I knew he was lying. He smiled lazily without moving his mouth at all. It was something in the set of his ears, perhaps. He was daring me to dispute his story. Deep in my heart, Wolf Father growled, a low rumbling. He did not like this cat, but his growl was to warn me as much as the feline.
‘Very well. I will leave the cloak here at night for you to use.’
Trade, he suggested.
Aha. I tipped my head at him. ‘What do I have that a cat could possibly want?’
His eyes narrowed. The cat that is allowed to sleep by the kitchen hearth has a basket with a soft blanket in it. And herb …
‘Cat mint. And flea bane.’ I knew about that. My mother had begun that tradition.
I want the same. And if you see them chase me with a broom, you must shriek and fuss and slap them so that they never dare do so again.
‘I can do that.’
And you must bring me delicious things. In a clean dish. Every day.
Somehow he had come closer to me. Slowly he stepped up into my lap and arranged himself. ‘I can do that,’ I agreed.
And when I wish to be stroked, you must stroke me. But only if I wish it. He had become a black circle of cat in my lap. He lifted one front paw, extended long and very sharp white claws and began to tug and groom them.
‘Very well.’ Very carefully, I put my hands on him. My fingers sank into lush black fur. He was so warm! I moved one hand carefully down his side. I found two tiny burs and a nest of thorns. I combed them out with my fingers. The end of his tail became alive and lifted to wrap around my wrist. It was utterly charming. I put my fingers under his chin and gently scratched there. He lifted his face and a strange transparent eyelid lifted to cover his half-closed eyes. I moved my hand to rub his ears. His purr deepened. His eyes became slits. For a time, we sat together. Then slowly, he began to melt onto his side. I smoothed burs from his belly fur.
Abruptly as a snake striking, he wrapped his front paws around my forearm. He delivered three vicious, clawed kicks to my arm and then streaked off down the passage into darkness. Not even the ghost of a thought hung to explain why he had done it. I clutched my bleeding wrist to my chest and rocked forward, enduring the stinging pain silently. Tears stung my eyes. In my heart, Wolf Father rumbled his assent. Cats are cursed creatures, never to be trusted, talking to everyone and anyone. I hope you have learned something.
I had, but I was not sure what. I stood slowly, suddenly anxious about how much time had passed. I gathered my cloak and folded it hastily. I restored it to its place on my shelf, and put the lid back on my bread bowl. Little sneaking thief.
I could learn from him.
In the morning, unbidden, Careful came to help me rise, wash, groom my wayward hair and then dress. It was all very trying for me. No one save my mother had ever done such things, and she had done them with merry chatter and shared plans for the day. Careful, I decided, would have been better named Hasty. Or perhaps Tart, for her mouth today was pursed as if every item in my wardrobe put a sour taste in her mouth. She tugged my smock over my head and almost before it had settled on my shoulders, she was layering my tunic over it. She pulled my sleeves even and then, without asking, reached up under my tunic and pulled my smock down smooth. She asked me for things I had never possessed, such as pins for my hair or at least a pomade to hold it down. She asked where my earrings were and was shocked that I had not even holes in my ears for such adornments. She exclaimed in loud dismay over the state of my stockings and found a heavier pair and said that my shoes were a disgrace to the household.
Perhaps she intended such things to express outrage she supposed I shared. In reality, they only made me feel shabby and shy. I could find no words to defend myself or my clothing. I put on my belt with my mother’s knife, for courage. Careful gave a disapproving snort, and knelt before me. ‘That’s not how you wear that,’ she told me. I kept my silences as she took my belt and hastily bored a new hole in it with her own little knife, and then put it on me so that it rode at my waist instead of sitting on my hips.
When she had finished tugging at my hair and pulling my tunic straight, she stood me before my mirror and we looked at the reflection. To my surprise, I did not look nearly as poorly turned out as I had feared. I smiled at my reflection and said, ‘I think this is the nicest I have looked in months. Thank you, Mistress Careful.’
I think my words shocked her. She had been crouching beside me. Now she rocked back on her heels and stared at me, her large brown eyes gone very wide indeed. ‘You wait here,’ she told me abruptly. ‘You wait right here.’
I obeyed her, and before I even had time to wonder why I was doing what a servant told me to do, she was back. ‘Now, I shall want these back when you are finished with them. They cost me a pretty penny, and I’ve worn them less than a dozen times. So keep your wrists well away from anything sticky. Do you think you can do that?’
She hadn’t waited for an answer or permission. She fitted cuffs of cream lace to the wrists of my under blouse, and then added a collar that matched. They were a bit large, but she took a threaded needle from under the collar of her shirt and quickly took them in. She stared at me when she was finished, her brow creased. Then she gave a small sigh. ‘Well. I wish the daughter of the household, placed in my care, were better turned out than the kitchen girls, but this will do for today, and before the hour is out, I will be letting Revel know what I think! Off you go to breakfast now, poppet. Doubtless I shall have an hour of tidying to do in Lady Shun’s room. Every morning, it’s the same, a dozen skirts flung about the room, and as many pretty blouses. You, now, you keep your things neat as a pin. I don’t think I’ve ever needed more than ten breaths to tidy your room.’
I kept to myself that I had not even known she was supposed to tidy my room. I had accepted without question that someone took care of my washbasin, ewer and chamber pot, just as I accepted that my bed linens were laundered once a month. ‘My thanks for the care you take of me,’ I said, as it came to me that those were not particularly pleasant tasks.
Again, her cheeks pinked. ‘I’m sure you’re welcome, Lady Bee. And off you go now! I hope your lessons go well.’
Anticipation warred with dread. I wanted to go directly to the schoolroom. I wanted to run and hide in my special place. Instead I went down to breakfast. My father was there, waiting for me. He was not seated, but wandering about the room, as if he too were nervous. He turned to me when I came in and his eyes widened. Then he smiled. ‘Well. You certainly look ready to begin your new studies!’
‘Careful helped me,’ I told him. I touched the lace at my neck. ‘The collar and cuffs are hers. She was surprised I had no earrings. And then she said she would not let the kitchen girls outshine me.’
‘They could not possibly do so, even if you were in rags and dirt.’
I just looked at him.
‘Not to say that you look ragged or dirty! No. No! I simply meant that no matter …’ He stopped, and looked so comically woeful that I had to laugh.
‘It is fine, Da. It is not as if they do not see me every day, dressed as I ordinarily do. I will fool no one.’
My father looked mildly alarmed. ‘I do not think our aim is to trick anyone, Bee. Rather, you dress in a way that conveys respect to the scribe who teaches you.’ His speech slowed as he added, ‘And to convey your proper status in the household.’ He halted and I could see he was frantically considering something. I let him, for my mind was suddenly just as occupied.
A dreadful thought had suddenly come to me. Lessons were to be something I did four of every hand of days. Did that mean that I would be dressed like this every day? Did it mean that every morning Careful would invade my rooms to prepare me? Slowly I understood that it would be a full four days before I could next do as I wished with my morning. No more riding in the morning. Not that there had been any since I’d had my falling out with Perseverance. But I thought that eventually, somehow, I would mend things with him. But my mornings being taken out of my control was a permanent change. Almost daily, I’d be forced to deal with people I disliked in the schoolroom. And even at the breakfast table …
‘Well, Bee, such a surprise! You’ve combed your hair. You look almost like a girl this morning.’
I turned at Shun’s greeting. Riddle had followed her into the room. She was smiling at me. My father looked uncertain, while Riddle’s eyebrows had risen nearly to his hairline. I smiled back at her and carefully curtseyed. ‘Why, thank you, Shun. You yourself look almost like a well-bred lady this day.’ I kept my voice as smooth as sweet cream. It would have been almost comical to watch my father’s expression switch from uncertainty to alarm, had it not been that Scribe FitzVigilant had entered just in time to hear my words. And only my words, not the comment that had provoked them. He gave me a look that a nasty and disrespectful child would merit, then greeted Shun warmly and escorted her to her chair at table as if he were rescuing her from a small, ill-tempered animal.
As I took my place at the table, I noticed that Shun did not immediately begin eating, but waited until FitzVigilant had taken his seat beside her. They were most companionable diners, greeting my father and Riddle, but sparing neither word nor glance for me. They passed food to one another, and Shun poured him more tea. For the most part, I kept my eyes on my plate and ate. Whenever I did steal a glance at them, the matched beauty they presented clawed at my heart with jealous nails. Truly, they looked as if they had been struck from the same mould, created to be matches for each other. They both possessed the same glossy curls, decided chins and fine noses. Their gazes admired one another as if they were staring into a vanity mirror. I put my gaze back on my plate and pretended a great interest in my sausage.
My father was offering Riddle a side of good bacon, wines from the cellar, and smoked river fish to take back to Buckkeep Castle with him. If Riddle had said yes to all of it, he could have loaded a wagon and borrowed a team. But he was insisting that he had to travel light, and that he would try to call again soon.
Then my ears caught a fragment of Shun’s words. ‘… pretend it doesn’t bother me. But I am so glad that you are well enough to teach. A day filled with useful pursuits is, I believe, best for children. And discipline. Will you have a strict hand, do you think?’
FitzVigilant’s voice was low and soft, like a big cat’s rumble. ‘Very strict to begin with, I think. Better to start with a firm hand, I think, than to try to establish one later.’
My heart sank.
We finished our breakfast, and our scribe bade my father have a good morning. When he looked at me, he did not smile. ‘I expect to see you promptly in the schoolroom, Lady Bee.’
Courtesy might change his opinion of me. ‘I shall follow you there, Scribe FitzVigilant.’
He looked at my father rather than me as he said, ‘I suggest that my students call me Scribe Lant. It is less of a mouthful for young folk to remember.’
‘As you wish,’ my father replied, but I know he shared my thought. The name did not brand him as a bastard each time it was spoken.
I waited quietly as my teacher bade Riddle good day, and then I followed him silently as he led the way to the schoolroom. He still had a slight limp, but he strove to strike a brisk pace. I followed him as quickly as I could without breaking into a trot. He said nothing to me, nor did he look back to see if I kept up with him. Foolish as it might seem, my heart was breaking while my dislike for Shun was simmering to a boil. I would put dead rats in her wardrobe. No. That would only lead to trouble for Revel, and he had been kind to me. I tried in vain to think of any nasty trick I could do that would not create trouble for anyone else. It was so unfair that, simply because she was beautiful and a woman grown, she could command the full attention of any man in the household. They were MY father, MY sister’s companion, and the tutor sent to teach ME, but with a toss of her head, it seemed that Shun could make them hers. And I was powerless to stop her.
I had fallen well behind his long-strided haste. He reached the door of the schoolroom and halted, looking back at me in mild annoyance. He was silent as he waited for me, and stood back to allow me to trot into the room ahead of him.
I halted inside the door in astonishment. I had never seen so many children gathered in one place, and they all stood as I entered. It seemed strange and threatening, as when a tree fills up with cawing crows or bees swarm before leaving the hive. I stood still with no idea of where to go. My gaze roved over them. Some I knew from past encounters, some I had glimpsed in passing, and two were complete strangers. Elm and Lea were there, neat and tidy, dressed in the green and yellow of Withywoods, their kitchen aprons set aside for now. Taffy was there, in a simple jerkin and trousers. He glowered, his arms crossed on his chest, obviously not pleased at being there. I found Perseverance in the back, his face so scrubbed it looked raw and his hair bound back in a tail. His clothing was tidy, but had plainly seen more than one owner. The lads near him would be the boys from the stables, Lukor and Ready and Oatil. There was a lad I’d seen working in the gardens, and two, a boy and a girl that I’d seen tending geese. So many! At least a dozen faces stared at me as I stood frozen.
A disapproving voice spoke behind me. ‘Lady Bee, if you would please move out of the doorway so I may enter?’
I tottered a few steps out of his way and abruptly realized the children had risen for the scribe, not me. It made me feel a bit better as I edged into the room and their gazes shifted from me to FitzVigilant.
‘I am pleased to see such promptness,’ he greeted them. I thought I detected a note of dismay in his voice. Was he as astonished as I was at how many children had assembled? He took a short breath. ‘You will address me as Scribe Lant. I am here to teach you. Lady Nettle has been extremely generous in sending a tutor to instruct the children of her estate. I want all of you to be aware of how rare such generosity is. I hope you will show yourselves properly grateful by exhibiting excellent behaviour and applying yourselves diligently to your studies. We will begin immediately. Let each of you find a place and be seated. I think my first task will be to determine how much you already know.’
A bench provided seats for four of them. Elm and Lea quickly claimed two of those spots, and the goose-girl and -boy took the others. Taffy and another big boy and Perseverance sat down on the hearth, backs to the fire. The others glanced about and then sank to the floor to sit cross-legged. After a moment of indecision, I sat down at the edge of the group, on the carpet with them. The garden boy glanced at me, smiled shyly, and then looked away. Two of the others shifted away from me. They both smelled slightly of sheep. Scribe FitzVigilant had moved to a worktable and he took a seat there. ‘I shall have to send for more tablets,’ he said, half to himself and half to us. ‘And ask Revel to bring in seating.’
Then he pointed to the children seated on the bench. ‘I’ll start with you. Please come up, one at a time, and tell me what learning you already have.’ His gaze swept the room. ‘I am sure the rest of you can wait quietly while I do this.’
The children exchanged glances. He had not chosen to speak to me first. I wondered if they thought he already knew all about me or if, as I did, knew it indicated he already disapproved of me. I had noted to myself that he ascribed the generosity to Lady Nettle, rather than my father, and that he spoke of coming to teach the children of the estate. No mention that I was sharing my tutor with them. No. He had grouped me with all of the other students. As had I, I suddenly realized, when I had taken a seat on the floor with the others. An error. How could I correct it? Did I want to correct it?
Some of the children settled immediately into more comfortable positions. This was going to take some time. Taffy sat scowling. He took out his belt-knife and began to pare and dig at his nails. The gardener’s children were looking about in wonder. Perseverance sat as attentively as a dog at a table’s edge.
Scribe Lant called Elm up first. I folded my hands in my lap, stared at the floor and eavesdropped with all my might. She could count, of course, and do simple sums as long as they did not go far past the fingers on her hands. She did not have any letters or reading or writing, except her name. She could name all the duchies in Buck, and knew that Chalced was dangerous to us. She was hazy on the rest of geography. Well, I knew more than that, but not so much that I felt sure of myself.
Lea had about the same level of learning as Elm, except that she could recognize the names of some spices from having to fetch the containers from the shelves. The goose-girl was named Ivy. She had no reading or writing, but she and her brother played games with arithmetic to pass the time. Her brother was Spruce, and he stood as tall as his name. He, too, did not know letters but was obviously excited at the chance to learn them. He was as quick at figures as his sister, with our scribe setting him problems such as ‘Twelve geese were on the water, and seventeen more landed while five flew away. Then twenty-two goslings came out of the reeds. A bullfrog ate one. How many geese and goslings remain?’ Spruce answered the question quickly but added, a bit pink about the cheeks, that not all numbers needed to be about geese. FitzVigilant praised his quick mind and his eagerness to learn and called Perseverance to him.
Perseverance stood, head bowed, and answered respectfully that he had no letters or reading. He could reckon ‘well enough to get my work done’. He volunteered that it was his father’s wish he learn more, and added that he respected his father’s will in knowing what was best for him. ‘As do I,’ the scribe agreed. He set the stable-boy some simple arithmetic problems, and I saw Perseverance’s fingers move as he worked them to an answer. The tops of his cheeks and his ears were redder than when the wind kissed them and once, when he stumbled, he glanced my way. I pretended to be straightening the hem of my tunic.
It was much the same with the other students. I noted that most seemed to have inherited whatever level of schooling their parents had. Oatil, also from the stables, sometimes helped bring in the supplies and tally them. He could read a little, and his mother wanted him to learn more reading and writing as well so that he could help her more with her tasks. The gardener’s boy, to my surprise, could write his name and read simple words, but had little skill with numbers. ‘But I’d be willing to learn,’ he offered, and ‘Learn you shall then,’ our tutor replied with a smile.
When Taffy was called to the Scribe’s table, he rose lazily and slouched over. The half-smile on his face did not escape FitzVigilant’s attention. He glanced up at him, said, ‘Stand up straight, please. Your name?’ He poised his pen over his paper.
‘Taffy. My da works in the vineyards. My ma comes round to help with the lambing, sometimes, when she’s not dropping a kid herself.’ He glanced round at the rest of us, smirking, and added, ‘Da says she’s happiest with a big belly or one on the tit.’
‘Indeed?’ Our tutor was unruffled. As Taffy had spoken for all to hear, he asked aloud, ‘Can you read or write, young man?’
‘Nar.’
‘I’ll assume you meant to say, “No, Scribe Lant.” I’m sure you’ll do better the next time I ask you a question. Can you reckon? On paper, or in your head?’
Taffy gave his bottom lip a swipe with his tongue. ‘I reckon that I don’t want to be here.’
‘Yet, here you are. And as your father wishes it, I will teach you. Return to your place.’
Taffy sauntered away. It was my turn. I was last. I rose and went to stand before the scribe’s table. He was still making notes about Taffy. His dark curls were formed in perfect spirals. I looked down at his handwriting. It was clean and strong, even upside-down. ‘Insolent and unwilling,’ he had noted next to Taffy’s name.
He glanced up at me and I snatched my gaze away from the paper to meet his. His eyes were a soft brown, with very long lashes. I looked hastily down again. ‘Well, Lady Bee, it is your turn now.’ He spoke softly. ‘It is Lady Nettle’s earnest wish that you learn to read and write, at least a little. Or as much as you are able. Do you think you could try to do that, for her?’ His smile tried to be kind, but it was a false kindness.
It shocked and hurt me that he spoke to me so condescendingly. It was much worse than when he had looked at me earlier with such disdain for my poor manners. I glanced up at him and then away. I did not speak loudly but I took care to form my every word as clearly as I could. I knew that sometimes my speech was still garbled and muted. I would take care that would not happen today. ‘I can already read and write, sir. And I can work with numbers up to twenty in my head. Beyond that, if I have tally-sticks, I can get the correct answer. Most of the time. But not swiftly. I am familiar with the local geography, and can place each duchy on the map. I know The Twelve Healing Herbs and other learning rhymes.’ That last was a gift from my mother. I had noticed that none of the children had spoken of learning rhymes.
Scribe Lant gave me a guarded look as if he suspected me of something. ‘Learning rhymes.’
I cleared my throat. ‘Yes, sir. For instance, for catmint, the rhyme begins, “If you set it, the cat will get it. If you sow it, the cat won’t know it.” So the first thing to know of that herb is that if you try to start it with tiny plants in your garden, the cat will eat them. But if you plant the seeds, it will come up and the cat will not notice it so much, and the plants will be able to thrive.’
He cleared his throat. ‘It’s a clever little rhyme, but not something that we could count as learning here.’
Someone giggled. I felt blood creeping up into my face. I hated my fair skin that showed my humiliation so plainly. I wished I had not chosen the simplest of my mother’s rhymes to share. ‘I know others, sir, which are more useful, perhaps.’
He gave a tiny sigh and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I am sure you do, Lady Bee,’ he said, as if he did not wish to injure my feelings over how ignorant I was. ‘But I am more interested in seeing your writing, now. Can you make some letters for me on this?’ He pushed a piece of paper toward me and offered me a bit of chalk. Did he think I did not know what a pen was?
My humiliation boiled over in anger. I reached over his hand to take up his fine pen. In careful strokes, I inscribed, ‘My name is Bee Badgerlock. I live on Withywoods Estate. My sister is Lady Nettle, Skillmistress to his majesty King Dutiful of the Six Duchies. ‘I lifted the pen, regarded my writing critically, and then turned the paper back toward him for him to read.
He had watched me write with ill-concealed surprise. Now he regarded the paper in disbelief for a moment. Then he returned it to me. ‘Write this. “Today I begin lessons with Scribe Lant”.’
I did so, more slowly, for I found I was not certain how to spell Lant. Again I turned it back to him. He next shoved at me a black wax tablet on which he had been scribing words. I had never seen such a device before, and I ran my finger lightly over the heavy coating of wax on the wood plank. He had written with a stylus, carving the words into the wax swiftly and gracefully.
‘Well. Can you read it or not?’ His words were a challenge. ‘Aloud, please,’ he added.
I stared at the words. I spoke them slowly. ‘It is a wicked deceit to pretend to ignorance and inability.’ I looked back up at him, confused.
‘Do you agree?’
I looked at the words again. ‘I don’t know,’ I said, wondering what he intended by the words.
‘Well. I know that I would agree. Lady Bee, you should be ashamed of yourself. Lady Nettle has been full of concern for you, believing you were both simple and near-mute. She has agonized over how you would fare in this world, over who would care for you as you grew older. And now I arrive here, thinking that my task would be to give you basic instruction in the simplest things, and I find you fully capable of reading and writing. And of being quite saucy to a lady who deserves your respect. So, Lady Bee, what am I to think?’
I had found a small knot in the wooden table. I stared at the dark whorl of the wood grain and wanted to vanish. It was all too complicated to explain it to him. All I had wanted was not to appear strange to others. Small chance of that. I was too small for my age and too intelligent for my years. The first should have been obvious; saying the second aloud would make me appear to be as conceited as he believed me rude. I felt the heat come in my face. Someone spoke behind me.
‘Ya, she pretends to be a half-wit so she can spy on people. She used to follow me all the time, and then she got me in trouble. Everyone knows that about her. She likes to make trouble.’
And now the blood left my face and I felt dizzy with its absence. I could hardly get my breath. I turned to stare at Taffy. ‘That’s not true,’ I tried to shout. It came out as a jagged whisper. He wore a jeering smile. Elm and Lea were nodding confirmation, their eyes glittering. The goose-children looked on, eyes wide with wonder. Perseverance’s gaze slid past me and focused on the grey sky framed in the window. The other children just stared at me. I had no allies there. Before I could turn around and look at FitzVigilant, he ordered me tersely, ‘Sit down. I know where to begin your lessons now.’ He continued speaking as I returned to my spot on the floor. My neighbours slid away from me, as if the tutor’s disapproval were contagious. He went on speaking. ‘I’m afraid I did not expect so many students and so diverse a level of learning, so I did not bring enough supplies. I do have six wax tablets and six styli for writing on them. These we will have to share. Paper I have, and I am sure we can find a supply of good goose quills for pens,’ and here the goose-children smiled and wiggled happily.
‘But we shall not use pens and ink and paper until we merit them. I have written the letters out large and clear on papers, and each of you shall have one of them to take with you. Every night, I wish you to trace the letters with your fingers. Today, we will practise the shapes of all the letters, and the sounds of the first five.’ He glanced at the gardener’s boy and added, ‘As you are already quite capable, Larkspur, I shall not bore you with these exercises. Instead, there are several excellent scrolls and books here that have to do with gardening and plants. Perhaps you would like to study them while I work with the others.’
Larkspur glowed with his praise and quickly rose to accept a scroll on roses. It was one I’d read several times, and I recognized that it had come from one of Patience’s libraries. I pinched my lips shut. Perhaps my father had told him he could make free with the books of Withywoods. When he handed me the letter sheet, I did not protest that I, too, already knew my letters. I knew this was a punishment. I would be made to do tedious, useless exercises to demonstrate his disdain for my supposed ‘deceitfulness’.
He walked among us as first he named each letter aloud, and then we repeated it and traced it with a finger. When we had traced all thirty-three of them, he took us back to the first five, and asked who could remember their names. When I did not volunteer, he asked me if I was still pretending to be ignorant. That had not been my intent; I had resolved to accept my punishment in silence. I did not say so, but only looked at my knees. He made a sound in the back of his throat, a noise of impatience and disgust with me. I did not look up. He pointed at Spruce, who remembered two of them. Lea knew one. One of the sheep children knew another one. When the scribe pointed at Taffy, he stared at the page, scowled and then announced, ‘Pee!’ with earnest mockery. Our teacher sighed. We began again to repeat each one as he said it, and this time the results were better when he called on one of the goose-children to recite the letters.
It was, I think, the longest morning of my life. When he finally released us just before noon, my back ached and my legs hurt from sitting still so long. I had wasted a morning and learned nothing. No. I corrected my thought as I staggered to my feet on stiff legs and spindled my sheet of letters into a roll. I had learned that Taffy, Lea and Elm would always hate me. I had learned that my teacher despised me and was more interested in punishing me than in teaching me. And lastly, I had learned how quickly my own feelings could change. The infatuation with FitzVigilant that I had tended and nurtured since I had seen him arrive had been abruptly replaced with something else. It wasn’t hate. There was too much sadness mixed with it to be hate. I didn’t have a word for it. What would I call a feeling that made me want to never encounter that person again, in any situation? I suddenly knew I had no appetite for a noon meal at the same table with him.
The pantry entrance to my lair was too close to the kitchens. I was sure both Elm and Lea would be there, sowing gossip about the morning’s lessons and then waiting table. And Scribe FitzVigilant would be at the table. No. I went to my bedroom and carefully divested myself of Careful’s finery. As I set the lace aside, I reflected that she had been kind to me. As had Revel. It suddenly occurred to me to wonder what I could do that would show them I appreciated that. Well, in a few days my father had promised to take me to the market. I knew that Careful had admired my little bottles of scent. I would get one for her. And Revel? For him, I was not sure. Perhaps my father would know.
I set aside my new tunic and the heavy stockings and crawled back into my short one and my old leggings. Feeling much more like myself, I slipped into my old bedchamber and from there into the labyrinth of wall-tunnels. I went by feel this time, needing no light. When I came to my den, I smelled the warmth of the sleeping cat. I touched his lax form, once more bundled in our cloak. Then I stepped over him and made my way to my father’s true study. There I filched a candle, kindled it at his hearth, and chose a scroll about Taker Farseer, the first king of the Six Duchies. It was in my father’s hand, probably his copy of some older writing. I wondered why he had it out on his desk. In my den, I made myself comfortable with my cushions, the candle, my blanket, the cloak and a warm cat. I had thought only to share the cloak’s warmth; I had never realized how much heat a cat could generate. We were quite comfortable there, and when he awoke, it seemed only fair to give him a share of the hard bread and sausage that had become my noon repast.
Cheese?
‘I haven’t any here. But I’ll get some for us. I’m surprised to find you here. I shut the pantry hatch the last time you left.’
This warren is full of holes. Where a rat can go, a cat can follow.
‘Really?’
Most of the time. There are many small ways in. And the hunting here is good. Mice, rats. Birds in the upper reaches.
He subsided and crept back under the cloak when he snuggled his body against mine. I resumed reading, amusing myself by trying to sort the flattery from the facts in this account of my ancient ancestor. Taker had arrived, dispatched the savage wretches who had tried to fend him and his men off, and had, in his lifetime, transformed Buckkeep from the crude log fortification he first raised to a stone-walled fortress. The castle itself had been many years in rising, built largely from the tumbled stone so prevalent in the area. Much of it had been available as perfectly carved blocks.
My father had made some notes between the lines of that section. He seemed interested that Buckkeep Castle had evidently been raised first as a timber stronghold on top of the tumbled stone foundation of a more ancient keep. It had been rebuilt in stone, but he had inked in several questions as to who had built the original stronghold of worked stones and what had become of them. And to one side, there was a little drawing of what he believed had been standing as stone walls when Taker first arrived. I studied it. Obviously my father believed that there had been a great deal of castle there already and Taker had only rebuilt what someone else had torn down.
The cat sat up a moment before I became aware that my father was in his study. As he closed the doors and then opened the hinge-catch, the cat vanished in a furry streak. I snatched up the cloak, rolled it into a ball and thrust it to the back of my cupboard. There was no time to hide the scroll I had taken from his study before he came down the passage, stooped over and bearing his own candle. I looked up at him and he smiled down on me. ‘Well, there you are!’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I agreed.
He folded his legs and, uninvited, sat on my rug beside me. He waited a moment and when I didn’t say anything, he began with, ‘I missed you at noon. You didn’t come to eat with us.’
‘I wasn’t hungry,’ I said.
‘I see.’
‘And after a long morning among so many people, I wanted to be alone for a time.’
He nodded to that, and something in the set of his mouth told me he understood that need. With the back of his forefinger, he tapped the scroll. ‘And what’s this you’re reading?’
Face it squarely. ‘I took it from your scroll-rack. It’s about Taker Farseer and how he first raised a fortification on the cliffs above Buckkeep Town.’
‘Um. Long before there was a Buckkeep Town.’
‘So. Who had the ruins belonged to?’
He furrowed his brow. ‘My guess is that it was an Elderling fortification. The stone is the same used in the standing stones near there, the Witness Stones.’
‘But the Elderlings had all sorts of powerful magic. Why would they need a fort? Who were their enemies? And who destroyed the castle the first time?’
‘Now that is a very good question. Not many people have asked it, and so far as I know, no one can answer it.’
The conversation lapsed, and to say something, I blurted out, ‘One day I should like to visit Buckkeep Castle.’
‘Would you? Then you shall.’ He fell silent again, and then spoke as if words were painful. ‘Your tutor spoke of the morning’s lesson today when we were at table.’
I said nothing. Absurdly, I wished the cat were with me.
My father sighed. ‘He praised the goose-herder’s children for their skill at arithmetic. And was very pleased to discover that Larkspur could read and write.’
I waited. He gave a small cough, and added, ‘Lady Shun asked then what good numbers could do for a child who would grow up to manage geese. Or what a gardener might read on the earth or in leaves. She sees no sense to educating the children of servants.’
‘Revel can read and write and do figures,’ I pointed out. ‘Mama used to give him lists and he would take money and buy things she wanted at the market, and bring back the right amount. Even a goose-girl should know enough numbers to count the eggs in a nest! And Larkspur will learn much from reading Lady Patience’s scrolls on plants and gardening. Cook Nutmeg knows how to read and write, and how to keep track of how many sacks of flour or how much salt-fish she needs for the winter.’
‘You make a good argument,’ my father approved. ‘Much the same one that I presented to Shun. And then I asked Lant how you had fared at your lessons.’
Lant. My father called him Lant now, as if he were my cousin. I looked down at my blanketed feet. They had been warmer when the cat had been there. And I felt slightly ill, as if something terrible had fallen into my stomach and squatted there.
‘I did not like what I heard,’ my father said quietly.
There was no one in the world who loved me. I swallowed hard. My words came out breathlessly. ‘I could not explain.’ I shook my head wildly and I felt tears fly from my eyes. ‘No. He didn’t really want me to explain. He thought he knew what was true, and he did not want to be wrong.’
I hugged my knees tightly to my chest, pulling them in hard, wishing I could break my own legs. Wishing I could destroy myself so I could escape these terrible feelings.
‘I took your side, of course,’ my father said quietly. ‘I rebuked him for not asking me about your intellect. Or speaking with you before lessons were to start. I told him that he had deceived himself about you; you had not lied to him. And I told him he would have one more chance to instruct you at a level befitting what you had taught yourself. And that if he could not, he might continue to instruct the other children, but I would not allow you to waste your time. That I would find it a pleasure to instruct you myself in all I think you need to know.’
He said the words so calmly. I stared at him, unable to breathe. He cocked his head at me. His smile looked shaky. ‘Did you imagine I could do otherwise, Bee?’
I coughed and then flung myself into his lap. My father caught me and held me tight. He was so contained that it did not hurt. But for all that, I felt the anger that simmered in him like hot oil inside a lidded pot. He spoke in such a growl I felt as if it were Wolf Father speaking inside me. ‘I will always take your part, Bee. Right or wrong. That is why you must always take care to be right, lest you make your father a fool.’
I slid off his lap and looked up at him, wondering if he were trying to make a joke of all of it. His dark eyes were serious. He read my doubt. ‘Bee, I will always choose to believe you first. So it is your serious responsibility to be righteous in what you do. It is the pact that must exist between us.’
I could never bear his gaze for long. I looked aside from him, pondering it. Thinking of the ways I already deceived him. The cloak. The cat. My explorations of the tunnels. My stolen reading. But did not he also and already deceive me? I spoke quietly. ‘Does this go both ways? That if I always take your part, I will not end up a fool?’
He didn’t answer immediately. In a strange way, that pleased me, because I knew it meant he was thinking it through. Could he promise me that I could always believe he was doing what was right? He cleared his throat. ‘I will do my best, Bee.’
‘As will I, then,’ I agreed.
‘So. Will you sit down to dinner with us, then?’
‘When the time comes,’ I said slowly.
‘Child, you’ve been in here for hours. I suspect they are holding dinner for us, now.’
That was too sudden. I clenched my teeth for a moment and then asked him honestly, ‘Must I? I do not feel I am ready to face them, yet.’
He looked down at his hands and I felt a dreadful gulf open in my belly. ‘You need to do this, Bee,’ he said softly. ‘I want you to think of what tidings Riddle must carry back to your sister. I do not wish Shun or FitzVigilant to see you as backward or awkward. So, young as you are, you must master yourself and your feelings and come to table tonight. I understand, far better than you can imagine, what you feel toward someone who mocked you and punished you when he was supposed to be teaching you. It will be hard for you to believe this, but I don’t think he is an inherently cruel man. I think he is just very young, and prone to take the word of others before he finds out things for himself. I even dare to hope that he will prove worthy of your regard, and that you might even come to enjoy one another. Though I will add that right now it is difficult for me to pretend to enjoy his company. Something that I suspect he knows.’
His voice sank to a low growl on those last words, and I realized then that my father was profoundly angry with FitzVigilant. He would observe the rules of society but it did not abate the dislike that the scribe had awakened in him. I looked at my hands folded loosely in my lap. If my father could do so, if he could contain his anger and treat FitzVigilant in a civil fashion, then perhaps I could do so as well. I tried to imagine myself sitting at the table. I did not have to sit with my head lowered as if guilty. Nor did I have to let him know how badly he had hurt me. I could be my father’s daughter. Impervious to what he had done. Sure of my own worthiness. I lifted my chin. ‘I think perhaps I am hungry after all.’
The evening meal was not comfortable for me. I was aware that both Shun and Lant were looking at me, but I have never been good at meeting anyone’s stare. So I looked at my plate or glanced just past my father or Riddle. I did not flinch when Lea or Elm passed near my chair, but neither did I accept any food from any dish they brought. I saw them once, rolling their eyes to the corners to exchange a glance as they passed one another behind Riddle. Elm’s cheeks grew very pink and I suddenly realized that Riddle, old as he was, was still a handsome man. Certainly Elm stood very close to his chair as she offered food. And Riddle, I saw as I smiled triumphantly to myself, noticed her no more than a fly on the wall.
For the first part of the meal, I was silent. Father and Riddle were once more talking about his departure for Buckkeep. Shun and Lant immersed themselves in their own quiet conversation, frequently punctuated by her laughter. I had read a poem about a girl with ‘silvery laughter’ but Shun’s sounded to me as if someone had fallen down a long flight of steps with a basket of cheap tin pans. After Father had spent some little time in conversation with Riddle, he turned to me and said, ‘So, what did you think of Taker Farseer and his invasion of this land?’
‘I had not thought of it that way,’ I responded. Truly I had not. And in the next breath, I had to ask, ‘Then who was it who was here before Taker and his men came and claimed the land around the mouth of the Buck River? The scroll says that the bones of the old stone keep were deserted. Were the folk who were living here the same ones who had once had a fortification there? You said it might have originally been built by Elderlings? So were they Elderlings he fought to take this land?’
‘Well. They were mostly fishermen and farmers and goatherds, I believe. Lord Chade has tried to find more writings by those people, but they don’t seem to have entrusted their lore to letters and scrolls. Some of the bards say that our oldest songs are actually rooted in their songs. But we can’t really say “they” and “them” because we are really the product of Taker and his invaders and the folk that were already here.’
Had he known? Did he deliberately give me that opening? ‘Then, in those days, people learned things from songs? Or poems?’
‘Of course. The best minstrels still recite the longest genealogies from memory. They are, of course, entrusted to paper as well, now that paper is more abundant. But a minstrel learns them from the mouth of his master, not from a paper.’
Riddle was listening as raptly as I, and when Father paused, he jumped in. ‘So that song that Hap favoured us with the last time I saw him, a very old song about Eld Silverskin, the dragon’s friend?’
The next lines came into my mind and were out of my mouth before I paused to consider. ‘“Of precious things, he has no end. A stone that speaks, a drum that gleams, he’s pecksie-kissed or so it seems.”’
‘What is “pecksie-kissed”?’ Riddle demanded as my father simultaneously said, ‘Hap will be proud to know you have remembered his song so well!’ Then he turned to Riddle. ‘Pecksie-kissed means lucky, out in far Farrow. But I do not know if Silverskin is Hap’s own song, or a much older one.’
Shun interrupted abruptly. ‘You know Hap Gladheart? You’ve heard him sing?’ She sounded scandalized. Or furiously jealous.
My father smiled. ‘Of course. I fostered Hap when he was an orphan. And I was never so glad myself as when I heard that he had taken that name for himself. Gladheart.’ He turned back to Riddle. ‘But we are getting far afield from Bee’s question. Riddle, who do you think first built a fort on that cliff?’
Soon all three of us were speculating, with Riddle adding comments about things he had noticed in the lower reaches of Buckkeep Castle. He had seen what might have been runes, badly eroded, on the wall of one dungeon. My father spoke about the Witness Stones, and the Buck tradition of holding combats there, as well as weddings. Now that we knew the Witness Stones were actually portals that the highly trained Skill-user might use to cover great distances in a single stride, it was intriguing to speculate how they had come to be called the Witness Stones.
It was only when the meal was drawing to a close that I realized that my father had staged our conversation as carefully as if it were a counter-attack on a fortification. In talking with Riddle and him I had completely forgotten my bruised feelings. I became aware that FitzVigilant’s conversation with Shun had faltered to a halt and that he was listening in on our talk. She was picking a piece of bread to pieces, her mouth pursed in displeasure. I became aware of all this only when my father shifted in his seat and said casually, ‘Well, Scribe Lant, and what do you think of Riddle’s theory? Have you ever been in the lower reaches of Buckkeep Castle?’
He jumped a tiny bit, as if discomfited to be discovered eavesdropping. But he recovered and admitted that when he was younger, he had ventured into the bowels of the keep with several of his friends. It had been done as a dare, but when they ventured too close to the cells down there, a guard had turned them back with a stern warning, and he’d never gone there again. ‘It was a miserable place. Cold and dark and dank. It gave me the greatest fright of my young life when the guard threatened to put us in a cell and hold us until someone came looking for us. We all ran at that. Oh, doubtless there are folk who deserve such confinement but I never even wished to look on it again.’
‘Doubtless,’ my father said in an affable voice, but Wolf Father looked out of his eyes for a moment, and there were deep sparks of black anger in his gaze. I stared at him. Wolf Father lived in my other father? This was a revelation to me, and I said little while I pondered it for the rest of the evening.
When the meal was over, my father offered me his arm. I managed not to seem surprised as I took it, and let him guide me to the sitting room where the men had brandy and Shun had red wine and, to my surprise, there was a mug of mulled cider on the tray for me. My father picked up our conversation about the Elderlings, and Scribe Lant joined in. I was surprised at how affable he was; I had expected him to be sullen or sarcastic, for my father had told me that his earlier rebuke of him had been rather sharp. Yet the scribe seemed to have accepted that correction, and twice he even spoke directly to me in a way that did not seem condescending or mocking. Very, very slowly, I decided that he had accepted that he had been mistaken in his impression and his treatment of me, and that he now wished to make up for it.
I saw that he looked at my father almost anxiously, as if his approval were extremely important. ‘He fears him,’ I thought to myself. And then I thought how silly I was not to realize that Scribe Lant was very vulnerable, not just in that he had seen what my father was capable of when he was just a boy, but also in that he was relying on my father’s hospitality to remain safely hidden. If my father turned him out, where could he go? How long before he would be found and killed? My feelings became very mixed. Shun’s green-eyed annoyance that he was paying more attention to my father and the conversation than he was to her was very gratifying. At the same time, I felt uncomfortable that his rudeness to me had had the end result of making him puppyishly subservient to my father. I fell silent, more watching and listening than speaking, and finally begged to be excused, saying I was tired.
I went to bed in my pleasant new room that night. My thoughts were complicated and troubling. Sleep was late in coming, and in the morning there was Careful again, tugging at me and fussing over my hair. I thanked her for the use of the lace but declined it that day, saying that I feared ink and chalk would mar it. I think she was relieved to rescue her collar and cuffs from such potential disaster, but suggested that when my father took me to the market, I should buy some lace I liked and have the seamstress fashion me some of my own. I agreed softly but wondered if I would. I did not feel like a lace-and-earrings sort of person, I discovered. My mother had enjoyed such finery and I had loved how it looked on her. I felt more drawn to emulate my father’s plain clothing and simple ways.
I took my scroll of letters with me when I descended to breakfast. I set it by my plate, greeted everyone at the table very politely, and then paid attention to my food. Despite my father’s support, I felt sick as I thought of the lesson time to come. My father might have convinced FitzVigilant that I was not a deceptive little halfwit and perhaps my tutor now feared to treat me disrespectfully, but that would do me little good with the other children. I excused myself early from the table and went directly to the schoolroom.
Some of the other children had already arrived. The goose-children were there, standing close to the gardener’s boy. Larkspur was pointing to the letters on their scroll and naming each for them. Perseverance was waiting, wearing a stable-boy’s livery that fitted him much better and looked almost new. I was not sure I liked him in green and yellow as much as I had in his simple leathers. He was also wearing a black eye and a swollen lower lip. It looked hideous when he smiled, the fat lip stretching painfully. But smile he did at the sight of me, as if we had never quarrelled. I slowed my steps as I walked toward him, completely bewildered. Could it be that simple? Simply pretend we had never quarrelled; just go back to treating each other as we had before? It didn’t seem possible. But I was determined to try it. I smiled back at him, and for an instant his grin grew wider. Then he lifted the back of his hand to his bruised mouth and winced. But the smile stayed in his eyes.
‘Perseverance,’ I greeted him when I was two steps away.
‘Lady Bee,’ he responded gravely, and actually sketched a bow at me as if I were truly a lady grown. ‘Exactly who I was hoping to see before lessons began.’
‘Truly?’ I raised my brows at him sceptically, trying to conceal how much my heart had lifted at his words. One ally. One ally was all I needed in that wretched school room and I could endure it.
‘Truly. Because I have completely jumbled what these two letters are, and neither my father nor my mother could help me.’ He spoke in a low voice as he unrolled the scroll, and I did not ask him why he had not asked Larkspur. I was the one he could ask for help without awkwardness. Just as he had been able to teach me to sit a horse. Without speaking a word about it, we drifted away from the others. We stood with our backs to the wall and both unrolled our letter scrolls as if we were comparing them.
I breathed out the names of the first five letters and just as softly, Perseverance repeated them. Under his breath, he added, ‘They look like hen’s tracks and have names that are just sounds. Who can remember such useless things?’
I had never seen letters in such a light. But I had seen them through my mother’s eyes before I was born, and had seen them for myself when I sat on her lap of an evening and she read aloud to me. When I considered Perseverance’s words, I understood his frustration. I tried to make connections for him. ‘The first one, see, it makes the sound at the beginning of Revel’s name, and it has long legs, just as he does. And this second one that makes the sound at the beginning of water has a curl here, like water running over a rock.’ In this way we named not just the first five letters, but ten of them. So engrossed were we in this new game of looking at letters that neither of us were aware of the looks from the other children until Elm giggled in a very nasty way. We both looked up to see her roll her eyes at Lea. And there, coming down the hall toward us, was our teacher.
As he passed me, he observed in a jolly voice, ‘You, Lady Bee, have no need of that!’ and he plucked the letter scroll from my startled fingers. Before I could react, he called all of us to assemble in the schoolroom. We entered, each resuming the same place of the day before. He was much more brisk than he had been the day before. He organized us into groups, putting children of similar ages together with a wax tablet. He sent Larkspur and me to a different corner of the room. He gave us a scroll about the geography and crops of each of the Six Duchies, and a map, and told us to familiarize ourselves with it. He smiled at both of us as he directed us, and it seemed a sincere expression. Now that I knew fear was the source of his kindly regard, I felt shamed for us both. Then he looked round in annoyance and demanded, ‘Where is Taffy? I will not tolerate tardiness!’
A silence held among the children. Several exchanged glances and I became aware that there was a secret I didn’t know. Perseverance was focused on his tablet. I watched him carefully copy a letter.
‘Well?’ Scribe FitzVigilant demanded of us. ‘Does no one know where he is?’
‘He’s home,’ Elm said.
One of the sheep-smelling boys said quietly, ‘He’s poorly. He won’t come today.’ He glanced at Perseverance. A very slight smile stretched the stable-boy’s swollen lip tight. He appeared to be very intent on his letter scroll.
FitzVigilant breathed out through his nose. The day had barely begun but he already sounded tired as he said, ‘Children, I have been charged with teaching you. It is not my first choice of what I would do with the days of my life, but it has been given me as a duty, and I will do it. I commend your families for seeing the wisdom of sending you to me. I am well aware that several of your wish yourselves elsewhere. Taffy made it clear to me yesterday that he regarded our lessons as a waste of his time. Today, he pretends illness to avoid me. Well, I will not tolerate such malingering!’
Several children exchanged puzzled looks at the unfamiliar word, but Perseverance didn’t even look up from his letter as he said softly, ‘Taffy’s not shamming.’ Could everyone hear the satisfaction in his voice or was it only me? I stared at him but he did not lift his eyes to meet mine.
Our scribe spoke. There was condemnation in his voice. ‘And did your fists have anything to do with his “feeling poorly”?’
Perseverance looked up. He met the scribe’s eyes. I knew he was only a few years older than me, but he sounded like a man as he said, ‘Sir, my fists took no action until after his mouth had said untrue things about my sister. Then I did what any man would do when his family was insulted.’ He looked at FitzVigilant. Perseverance’s brow was unlined and his gaze open. There was no guilt in him for what he had done, only righteousness.
A silence held in the school room. My feelings were mixed. I had not even known that Perseverance had a sister. She was not here, so she was either much younger than him, or much older. Or perhaps his parents did not think a girl needed to read and write. Some were like that, even in Buck.
Neither of them looked away, but the scribe spoke first. ‘Let us return to our lessons.’
Perseverance immediately lowered his eyes to the wax tablet and resumed his careful tracing of the letter he had engraved there. I spoke under my breath, a sentence I had heard in a dream about a young bull. ‘Horns not grown, he swings his head in warning and still all take heed.’