And so, as I always have, I turn to you for counsel. Fool that you are, you always gave me the wisest advice. Even as I know how impossible it is, I yearn once more to sit down and take thought with you. You always had the mind to look at the tangled knot of court politics and tell me where each thread was wound and trapped, to trace each strand in the hangman’s noose back to its instigator. I miss your insights sorely. As much as I miss your companionship. No warrior you, and yet, with you at my back, I felt guarded as with no other.
But I will also admit that you have wounded me as few others could. You wrote to Jofron? But not to me? If there had been but one note from you, in all these years, at least I would have a place to send these useless musings. By messenger or bird, I could send them on their way to you and imagine that in some distant time or place, they reached you, and you spared a thought for me. You know my nature. I take the bits and clues and puzzle them into an image in which you deliberately do not write to me, so that I cannot reach out to you in any way. Why? What can I think except that you fear I will somehow undo your work? From that foundation, I must wonder if that was always what I was to you. Only the Catalyst? The weapon that must be wielded without mercy, and then set aside, lest somehow it do an injury to you or your work?
I need a friend, and I have none to whom I can admit my weakness, my fear, my errors. I have Molly’s love and Bee’s need for my strength. I dare not admit to either of them that my heart breaks to see Bee remain a passive infant. As my dreams for her evaporate and I fear a future in which she remains forever infantile and stunted, to whom can I confide my pain? To Molly, who dotes on her and fiercely insists that time will give her what she lacks? She does not seem to recognize that our child appears less intelligent than a two-day-old chick. Fool, my child will not meet my eyes. When I touch her, she draws away from me as much as she can. Which is not far, for she does not roll herself over, nor lift her head at all. She makes not a sound, save when she wails. Even that is not often. She does not reach for her mother’s finger. She is passive, Fool, more plant than child, and my heart breaks daily over her. I want to love her, and instead I find I have lost my heart to the child that is not here, the child I imagined she would be. And so I look at my Bee and long for her to be that which she is not. Which, perhaps, she never shall be.
Ah, I do not know what comfort anyone could offer me, save to let me say these things aloud and not recoil in horror from my heartlessness.
Instead, I write these words and consign them to the flames or the litter of other useless musings that nightly I obsessively write.
I waited four months before I went to Buckkeep Castle to confront Chade and Lady Rosemary.
During those days the household was quiet, but busy in the routine way that life was always busy. My baby daughter nursed well and slept as little as any newborn did, according to Molly, which seemed an impossibly small amount to me. Yet she did not disturb our nights with crying. Instead, she lay still and silent, eyes open and staring into the corner of the darkened room. She slept still sheltered between Molly and me, and all hours of the day she was in her mother’s care.
Bee grew, but so slowly. She remained healthy, but Molly confided to me that she did not do what other babes of her age could do. At first, I ignored Molly’s worrying. Bee was small but perfect in my eyes. When I looked down on her in her crib, she gazed at the ceiling with a blue gaze that pierced my heart with love. ‘Give her time,’ I told Molly. She’ll get there. I’ve fed up many a weakling, and seen them become the sharpest hound in the pack. She’ll do.’
‘She isn’t a puppy!’ Molly rebuked me, but she smiled and added, ‘She was long in the womb, and emerged small. Perhaps it will take her more time to grow outside me as well.’
I do not think she believed my words, but she took comfort all the same. As the days passed, however, I could not ignore that my baby was not changing. At a month, she was little bigger than when she had been born. At first the maids would remark on what a ‘good baby’ she was, so calm and placid. But soon they stopped saying such things, and pity grew in their faces. The fear grew in me that our child was an idiot. She had none of the features of a half-wit child that all parents know. Her tongue fitted her mouth, her eyes and ears were proportional to her little face. She was pretty as a doll, and as small and unresponsive.
I did not face it, then.
Instead, I focused on the spy that Chade had sent into my home. In quiet, my anger grew. Perhaps I fed it with the fear and dread that I did not admit to myself. I thought long about it. I did not want to confront Chade by way of the Skill. I told myself that I needed to stand before him and make him recognize that I was not a man to be toyed with, not when it concerned my child.
At the end of four months, satisfied that all had remained quiet at home, I invented an excuse to visit Brushbanks. My tale was that I wished to look at a stud horse I’d heard was there. I promised Molly to return as soon as I possibly could, packed warm for a chilly journey, and chose an unremarkable chestnut mare named Sally from the stable. She was a rangy mount with an easy gait that ate up the miles and no ambition to challenge her rider. I thought her the perfect mount for my journey to Buckkeep Town.
I could have used the standing stones to make the journey, but I would have had to stable the horse somewhere. I told myself I did not wish to invite curiosity, and while my business with Chade was urgent, it was not an emergency. And I could admit to myself that I was afraid to do so. Since I had used the stones to travel to Chade’s sickbed, I had felt drawn to repeat the experiment. Had I been younger and less experienced with the Skill, I would have put it down to curiosity and a desire for knowledge. But I had felt that yearning before: it was the Skill-hunger, an urge to use the magic simply for the sake of feeling it thrill through me. No. I would not risk a Skill-pillar journey again. Especially since I suspected Chade now monitored them and would be aware of my coming.
I intended to surprise the old spider. Let him recall how it felt to discover that someone had penetrated his defences.
I rode from early morning to late at night, eating dried meat or oatcakes as I rode, and sleeping well off the side of the road. I had not travelled so rough in years, and my aching back each morning reminded me that even when I was a young man it had been uncomfortable. Nonetheless, I did not stop at any inns nor pause in any of the small towns I passed. A day away from Withywoods I had donned the humbler garb of a tradesman. I did all I could to keep anyone from remarking on the passage of a lone traveller, let alone recognizing me as Tom Badgerlock.
I timed my journey so that I arrived at Buckkeep late in the evening. I found a tidy little inn among the outskirts of Buckkeep Town and bought myself a room for the night and stabling for my horse. I ate a fine meal of roast pork, stewed dried apples and dark bread, and went up to my room.
When night was full and dark, I left the inn quietly and took a long walk up to Buckkeep Castle. I did not go to any of the gates, but to a very secret entrance that I had discovered as Chade’s apprentice. What had been a fault in the wall had been ‘repaired’ to allow covert entrance and exits from the keep. The masking thorn bushes around it were as thick as ever, and both my skin and my jerkin were torn before I reached the wall and squeezed though the deceptively narrow gap there, gaining entrance to Buckkeep.
But penetrating the outer wall was just the first step. I was inside the walls of the keep but not in the castle itself. This section of the keep’s grounds was reserved for protecting stock should we ever be besieged. During the Red-Ship Wars, some animals had always been kept here, but I doubted it had seen much use in recent times. In the darkness behind some empty sheep pens I shed my homespun blouse and loose trousers, and concealed the garments in an unused wooden trough. Beneath them, I was dressed in Buckkeep blue, in my old blue Buck guardsman’s uniform. It was a bit snugger about the middle than I recalled it being, and smelled of fleas-bane and cedar from the chest where I had stored it, but I trusted it would get me past any casual glance.
Head down and walking slowly as if I were weary or perhaps a bit drunk, I wandered across the yards and in through the kitchen door that led to the guardsmen’s dining area. I felt a strange mixture of emotions at this secretive homecoming. Buckkeep Castle would always be home to me, and the kitchens especially so. So many boyhood memories surged back on the wave of aromas that welcomed me. Ale and smoked meats and fat cheeses, bread baking and hot soup bubbling and beckoning. I nearly yielded to the temptation to go in and sit down and eat. Not for hunger’s sake, but just to taste again the flavours of home.
Instead I wandered down the stone-flagged corridor, past two storage rooms and then, just short of the steps to the cellar, I entered a certain pantry. There I let my self-discipline slip and helped myself to a short rope of linked sausage before triggering the panel of shelves that gave access to the castle’s spy-ways. I pulled it closed behind me and stood for a moment in the utter darkness of those passageways.
I ate a link of the sausage and idly wished there had been time for a tankard of Buckkeep ale to go with it. Then with a sigh I let my feet lead the way through the twisting corridors and narrow stairs that threaded the interior walls of Buckkeep Castle. This was a labyrinth I had known since my childhood. The only surprises I encountered were the few spiderwebs that were a familiar hazard of this maze.
I did not go to the secret chambers where Chade had first taught me the assassin’s trade. I knew he no longer lived and slept in that space as he once had. Instead, I wormed my way through the narrow space behind the walls on the same level as the king’s bedchamber. I gained access to Chade’s grand bedchamber via a mirrored panel in his water closet and was a bit surprised that he had not blocked it in some way. I crept in, dreading that he would be waiting for me, having somehow divined my plan, but his room was empty and chill, the fire banked low on the hearth. Moving swiftly, I took a gleaming brown acorn from my pocket and left it in the centre of his pillow. Then I retreated once more to the spy-labyrinth and sought his old murder laboratory.
Ah, but how it had changed since my childhood. The floors were swept and mopped clean of dirt and dust. The scarred stone table where we had conducted our experiments when I was a boy was immaculately clear of ingredients and apparatus. All was neatly stowed on shelves. The bowls and glassware had been cleaned and sorted by category. There was a specific place for each mortar and pestle, and the spoons of wood and iron and brass were neatly racked. There were far fewer scroll-racks than I recalled, and the ones that were there were neatly stocked. Another rack held the tools of my erstwhile trade. Small knives with grooved blades, some sheathed and some bare, rested beside neatly packaged and labelled powders and pellets, some soporific and some toxic. Gleaming needles of silver and brass were safely thrust through strips of soft leather. Coiled garrottes slumbered like deadly little snakes. Someone with a very methodical mind was in charge of this now. Not Chade. Brilliant and precise as the man was, he had never been tidy. Nor did I see signs of his ongoing scholarship; no tattered old manuscripts awaited translation or re-copying. There was no scatter of spoiled pens, no open containers of ink. A sumptuous feather bed covered the old wooden bedstead, and the small fire in the neatly swept hearth burned cleanly. The bed looked as if it were for show rather than something that was regularly used. I wondered who tended these chambers now. Certainly not Thick. The simple little man was old now for one of his kind, and he had never cared for his housekeeping tasks. He would not have supplied a rack of wax tapers, standing tall and straight as ranked soldiers, ready to take their places in the candle holders. I lit two to replace the ones that had almost guttered out in the brass holders on the table.
I deduced this was Lady Rosemary’s domain now. I settled in her cushioned chair by the hearth after adding two logs to the fire. Little sweet biscuits in a covered bowl and a decanter of wine were on a small table close at hand. I helped myself and then kicked out my feet toward her fire and leaned back. I didn’t care which of them found me here. I had words for both of them. My gaze wandered over the mantel and I almost smiled to see that King Shrewd’s fruit knife was still embedded in the centre of it. I wondered if Lady Rosemary knew the tale of how it had come to be there. I wondered if Chade recalled how coldly angry I had been when I drove the blade into the wood. The anger that burned in me now was colder and far more controlled. I’d have my say, and when I had finished, we would come to terms. My terms.
Chade had always been a night owl. I was resigned to a long wait before he would find my message on his pillow. The watch passed and I dozed in the chair, but lightly. But when I heard the light scuff of slippers on the steps, I knew it was not his stride. I lifted my head and turned my gaze to the concealed stairway. A heavy tapestry draped it to keep out the draught from the maze. I was only mildly surprised when it lifted to reveal the countenance of young FitzVigilant He was dressed far more simply than the last time I had seen him, in a simple white shirt, blue vest and black trousers. His soft shoes whispered his approach. The large silver earrings in his ear had been replaced by two much smaller ones of gold. His tousled hair hinted that perhaps he had risen from his bed to perform his duties here.
I watched him startle at the sight of the freshly lit tapers. I was very still and it took a moment for his eyes to pick me out. Then he gaped at the sight of a humble guardsman in such a special and secret place before he recognized me. ‘You!’ he gasped and took a step back.
‘Me,’ I affirmed. ‘Well, I see they kept you on. But you’ve still much to learn of caution, I think.’ He stared at me wordlessly. ‘I suspect that Lady Rosemary or Lord Chade will soon be arriving, for a late-night lesson with you. Am I correct?’
He opened his mouth to speak, and then clapped it shut. So. Perhaps he had learned a bit of caution since last we had met. He assayed a sideways shift toward the weapons rack. I smiled and cautioned him with a wag of my finger. Then, a flip of my wrist and a knife sprang into my hand. Some tricks one never forgets. He gaped at it, and lifted wide eyes to stare at me.
It was very gratifying. I suddenly wondered if I had ever looked at Chade with such puppyish awe. I made a decision. ‘Neither one of us needs to be armed,’ I told him pleasantly. I bent my hand and the knife was gone. It was enough that he knew how quickly it could reappear. I leaned back in my chair and appeared to relax, and saw his shoulders lower in response. I sighed to myself. The lad had so much to learn.
For now, however, his naivety served my purpose well. I looked at him for a moment, reading as much as I could of him without making my gaze into a stare. He’d have his guard up against direct questions. But he was already beginning to be uncomfortable with my silence. I sighed, letting my body appear to relax even more as I reached for the wine again. I poured another glass. He shifted his feet uncomfortably. ‘That’s Lady Rosemary’s favourite wine,’ he objected mildly.
‘Is it? Well. She has good taste, then. And I know she wouldn’t mind sharing some with me. We’ve known each other a long time … She was just a child when I first met her.’
That piqued his interest. I wondered how much he had been told of me when they’d sent him on his mission to Bee’s cradle. Not too much, I judged. Chade valued caution as a virtue surpassing almost all others. I smiled at him. He took my bait.
‘Is that who showed you how to get here? Lady Rosemary?’ Furrows showed in his brow as he tried to piece it together and see where I belonged.
‘Who are your talking to, Lant?’ Lady Rosemary’s voice reached us before she had entered the room. The lad spun toward her. I remained where I was, wine glass in hand.
‘Oh.’ She halted, holding the curtain aside and looked at me. I had told the apprentice the truth. I had known her when she was a child, though we had had little to do with one another since then. Prince Regal had recruited her when she was a chubby little maid, even younger than FitzVigilant. Regal had arranged a position for her, serving the Mountain-born princess who had wedded King-in-Waiting Verity. She had been Regal’s little spy on his brother’s wife, and quite likely had been the one who had greased the tower steps and caused the pregnant Kettricken to take a bad fall. That had never been proven. When Regal had tumbled from power, all of his minions had descended into disgrace as well, the child Rosemary among them.
Only Kettricken’s forgiving nature had saved her. When all else shunned her, Kettricken had seen her as a confused child, torn between loyalties, and quite possibly guilty only of trying to please the man who had been so kind to her mother. Queen Kettricken had taken her back into her court, and seen to her education. And Chade, never one to waste anything, had seen her as a partially-trained tool for spying and assassination, and quickly made her his own.
Now she stood before me, a woman in the middle of her life, a lady of the court, and a trained assassin. We regarded one another. She knew me. I wondered if she recalled how she had pretended to drowse on the steps of the Queen-in-Waiting’s throne while I reported to Kettricken. Even after all those years, I felt both horror and resentment that a mere child had so easily deceived me. She stepped into the room, lowered her eyes before my gaze and then dropped into a deep curtsey.
‘Lord FitzChivalry Farseer. You honour us. Welcome.’
And as neatly as that, she had foxed me again. I did not know if she tried to convey respect to me, or if she was conveying information to her apprentice as quickly as she could. The boy’s swift intake of breath told me that he’d had no idea of my true identity, but that he now guessed the full import of my visit. And perhaps he understood more of his original errand at Withywood. I looked at her coolly. ‘Has no one ever warned you what you may conjure up when you give welcome and name a ghost?’
‘Welcome? And honour? I’d call it an extreme annoyance, dropping in at this hour, unannounced.’ Chade pushed into the room from behind the same tapestry that had admitted Rosemary. Lady Rosemary was attired in a simple morning dress, and I suspected that after whatever lesson she’d planned with FitzVigilant, she had intended to begin her day. In contrast, Chade was nattily attired in a snug-fitting green shirt with voluminous white sleeves. The shirt was belted with black and silver, and the skirts of it fell almost to his knees. His leggings were black, his slippers likewise but worked with silver beads. His silver-grey hair was bound back in a severe warrior’s tail. Obviously he was at the end of a very long night’s entertainment rather than the beginning of a day’s work.
He was blunt. ‘What brings you here?’
I met his gaze. ‘That’s the same question I asked young FitzVigilant, about four months ago. His answer did not satisfy me, so I thought I might come here and get a better one. From you.’
Chade gave a huff of disdain. ‘Well. There was a time when you were not so severe when a prank had been played upon you.’ He crossed the room, his carriage a bit stiff. I suspected a binding beneath that shirt, helping him look fit and easing his old back. He reached the hearth and looked about distractedly. ‘Where has my chair got to?’
Rosemary gave a small sigh of exasperation. ‘It has been months since you’ve been up here, and you told me I might arrange things to suit myself.’
He scowled. ‘That doesn’t mean that you can arrange things to discomfort me.’
She pursed her lips and shook her head, but motioned at FitzVigilant. ‘The old chair is in the corner, with the other rubbish that hasn’t gone out yet. Fetch it, please.’
‘Rubbish?’ Chade repeated indignantly. ‘What rubbish? I had no rubbish up here!’
She crossed her arms on her chest. ‘Cracked bowls and chipped cups. A small cauldron with a broken bail. Flasks of old oil, gone nearly to shellac. And all the rest of the litter you had pushed to the end of the table.’
Chade’s scowl deepened but he only grunted in response. FitzVigilant brought his old chair back to its place by the hearth. Without rising, I slid Rosemary’s chair over to make room for it. For the first time in decades, I looked at Chade’s seat. The scrolled woodwork was scarred. The joints were loose, and the cushion still showed where I had mended it after Slink the ferret had had a tremendous battle with it one night. I looked around the room. ‘No ferret?’ I asked.
‘And no ferret droppings,’ Rosemary replied acerbically.
Chade rolled his eyes at me. With a sigh, he lowered himself into the chair. It creaked under him. He looked at me. ‘Well, Fitz. How have you been?’
I would not allow him to dismiss my mission so lightly. ‘Annoyed. Offended. And wary, ever since I found an assassin creeping about my baby’s cradle.’
Chade gave a dismissive snort of laughter. ‘An assassin? Scarcely. He’s barely even a spy yet.’
‘Well, that’s so comforting,’ I responded.
‘Ah, Fitz, where else should I send him to cut his teeth? It’s not like when you were a boy and we had a simmering war and a treacherous little pretender to the throne simpering and plotting here at Buckkeep. I had a dozen ways to measure your progress right here within the castle walls. But FitzVigilant isn’t so fortunate. I have to send him further afield to test him. I try to choose his tasks carefully. I knew you wouldn’t hurt him. And I thought it might be a good way to test his mettle.’
‘Not to test me, then?’
He lifted his hand from the chair’s arm and waved it vaguely. ‘Perhaps a bit. It never hurts to be sure a man hasn’t lost his edge.’ He looked around. ‘Is that wine?’
‘Yes.’ I refilled my glass and offered it to him. He received it, took a sip and set it down. When he did, I asked, ‘So. Why do I need an edge still?’
He stared at me, his green eyes piercing. ‘You bring another Farseer into the world, and ask me that?’
I kept my temper. ‘No Farseer. Bee Badgerlock is her name.’ I bit back that my little girl would never be a danger to anyone.
Elbow on the arm of his chair, he rested his chin in his hand. ‘You have lost your edge if you think a shield that thin can protect her.’
‘Protect her from what?’ I glanced past him to where Rosemary and FitzVigilant were standing. ‘The only danger I’ve seen has come from people I should be able to trust. People I thought would protect her.’
‘It wasn’t danger. It was a reminder that you need to be watchful. From the beginning. By the time you discover there’s a danger it’s too late to put your wards in place.’ He bristled his eyebrows at me. ‘Tell me, Fitz, what have you planned for this child? What education, what training? What will you dower her with, and where do you hope she will wed?’
I stared at him. ‘She’s a baby, Chade!’ And probably ever would be. Even if she began to grow and show a clever mind, there was plenty of time for me to think of such things. Still, it smote me that I had given no thought to any of that. What would become of her when Molly and I were gone? Especially if she were an idiot?
Chade turned in his chair and the outline of his binding showed briefly beneath his shirt. He glared at our audience. ‘Haven’t you two some lessons to complete?’
‘Yes, but …’
‘Somewhere else,’ he added authoritatively.
Rosemary folded her lips for a moment. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said to FitzVigilant, and the boy’s eyes grew round to be so hastily dismissed. He sketched a bow to her, turned to us, and halted, plainly confused as to how to bid us farewell.
I nodded to him pleasantly. ‘I hope not to see you again soon, FitzVigilant.’
‘Likewise, sir,’ he responded and then froze, wondering if he had been rude. Chade chuckled. The boy whisked himself from the room, and with a final exasperated sigh, Lady Rosemary followed him at a more dignified pace. Chade did not speak, giving them time to be well down the hidden staircase before he turned to me.
‘Admit it. You’ve given no thought at all to her future.’
‘I didn’t. Because I didn’t even realize Molly was truly pregnant. But now that Bee is here..,’
‘Bee. Such a name! Is she going to live? Does she thrive?’ He cut in relentlessly.
That gave me pause. ‘She is tiny, Chade. And Molly says that she is not doing the things she should be doing by now. But she eats well, and sleeps and sometimes cries. Other than how small she is and that she does not lift her head or roll over yet, I see nothing wrong …’
My words ran out. Chade was looking at me with sympathy. He spoke kindly. ‘Fitz. You have to imagine every possible future for her. What will you do if she is simple, or if she can never care for herself? Or what if she grows to be beautiful and intelligent and people recognize her as a Farseer? Or if she is ordinary and plain and not very bright? At the very least, all will know she is the sister of the king’s Skillmistress. That is enough power to be courted right there. Or to make her a valuable hostage.’
He gave me no time to gather my thoughts as he added, ‘Nettle was educated well enough for a country girl whose prospects were little better than to marry a landed farmer. Talk to her, sometime, about where she feels that lack. Burrich taught her to read and write and tally. Molly taught her beekeeping and gardening, and she’s a good hand around a horse. But history? The shape of the world? Languages? She got little of that, and has spent years trying to mend those gaps. I’ve met Molly’s other children, and they are good enough men. But you are not raising the farmer’s daughter, Fitz. If the bones had rolled differently, she might expect to wear the coronet of a Farseer princess. She won’t. But you should educate her as if she would.’
If she could be educated. I pushed the thought away. Follow Chade’s reasoning. ‘Why?’
‘Because one never knows what fate will bring.’ He gestured expansively with one hand as he lifted the wine glass in the other. ‘If she tests for the Skill and has it, would you have her come to Buckkeep Castle with no knowledge of her heritage? Would you have her struggle, as Nettle did, to learn to navigate the waters of society? Tell me, Fitz. If you raise her as Bee Badgerlock, will you be content to marry her off to a farmer and let her toil all her days?’
‘If she loves him and he loves her, that is not a terrible fate.’
‘Well, if a wealthy nobleman fell in love with her, and she had been raised to be an eligible match for him, and she loved him, that might be a better one, would not you say?’
I was still trying to think of a response when Chade added, ‘FitzVigilant had no prospects. Lord Vigilant’s young wife has less than no use for the bastard, and resents that he is older than the legitimate heirs she has borne her lord. She is raising his two younger brothers to hate him. Word came to me that she was looking for a quiet death for the boy. Instead of that, I brought him here. To make him yet another useful bastard.’
‘He seems bright enough,’ I said carefully.
‘Bright, yes. But he has no edge. I’ll do what I can with him. But in seven or eight years, I’ll need to put him somewhere else. Lord Vigilant’s wife regards him as a usurper. She already mutters against him being at court. She is the worst sort of jealous woman, one who puts her ill will into action. Better for all if he is gone from Buckkeep when she presents her two sons here.’
‘Seven or eight years from now?’
‘Unlike you, I plan ahead for those I take under my wing.’
‘And you will ask me to take him.’ I frowned and tried to see his plan. ‘As a possible match for Bee when she’s older?’
‘Gods, no! Let’s not mingle those bloodlines! We’ll find her a lordling from Buck, I think. But yes, I’d like you to be ready to take him in. When he’s ready.’
‘Ready to be a killer and a spy? Why?’
Chade shook his head. He seemed oddly disappointed. ‘No. There’s no assassin in him. I’m certain of that, though Rosemary remains to be convinced. And so I will take his training in a different direction. One useful to both of us. The boy has a bright mind. He learns almost as quickly as you did. And he has a loyal heart. Give him a good master, and he would be true as a hound. And very protective.’
‘Of Bee.’
Chade was watching the dying fire. He nodded slowly. ‘He’s quick with languages, and has almost the memory of a minstrel. In the guise of a tutor, he could be placed in your household, to the benefit of both of them.’
The pieces were beginning to fit together. Oh, Chade. Why was it so hard for you to ask a direct favour? I put it into words for him. ‘You like the boy. But if you keep him here, sooner or later, when his legitimate younger brothers come to Buckkeep, it will cause problems. Especially if he has made friends among the nobility here.’
Chade nodded. ‘He’s very charismatic. He likes people. He likes to be around them, and they like him. He quickly becomes too visible to be a good spy. And he doesn’t have … whatever it is that we have that makes us able to kill.’ He drew a breath as if he would say more and then sighed it out. We were both silent, thinking. I wondered if that ability was something we both had, or if we both lacked something, and thereby could do the sorts of things we had done. The silence was not a comfortable one. Yet it wasn’t guilt we shared. I’m not sure a word exists for whatever it was.
‘I’d have to talk to Molly about it.’
He sent me a quick sideways glance. ‘You’d tell her … what?’
I bit my lip. ‘The truth. That he’s a bastard like me, that he will eventually have difficulties because of it, possibly life-threatening difficulties. That he’s well educated, and would be a good tutor for a little girl.’
‘The truth with holes in it,’ Chade amended for me.
‘What holes?’ I demanded.
‘Indeed. What holes?’ Chade agreed dryly. ‘And you need not talk to her yet. We have years, I suspect, before I must send him off to you. I’ll educate him, in all he must know to be a tutor. And a bodyguard. Until he is ready, I know a nursemaid I could send you for the child. Face like a hare and the arm of a smith. Not the brightest of servants, but as formidable as a guard.’
‘No. Thank you. I think that, for now, I can protect my daughter.’
‘Oh, Fitz. I don’t agree but I know when it’s useless to argue with you. Riddle and I have agreed that you need door-soldiers, but you won’t listen. How many times have I suggested that you should host one of our Skill-journeymen at Withywoods so that even in your absence messages could be swiftly passed? You should have a man of your own, to watch your back and mingle with the servants and bring you the news that you otherwise would not hear about your holdings.’ He shifted in his chair, the old wood creaking under him. His gaze met my stubborn look. I prevailed. ‘Well. It’s late. Or it’s early, depending on what part of the day you work in. Either way, I’m off to bed.’ Furtively, he tugged at the top edge of the girdle. I suspected it was cutting into him. He pulled himself to his feet. With one hand he made a vague gesture at the bed. ‘You can sleep here, if you wish. I don’t think Rosemary ever uses that bed. She just likes to make things pretty, when she can.’
‘I may.’ To my surprise, I realized my anger had vanished. I knew Chade. He’d meant no harm to Bee. Perhaps his whole aim had been to provoke this visit from me. Perhaps he missed me more than I’d realized. And perhaps I should have taken under advisement some of his suggestions …
He nodded. ‘I’ll have FitzVigilant bring some food up for you. Get to know him, Fitz. He’s a good lad. Tractable and anxious to please. Not like you were.’
I cleared my throat and asked, ‘Are you getting soft-hearted in your old age?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Practical. I need to set him aside so Rosemary and I can find a more fitting apprentice. He knows too much of our inner workings for us to just let him go. I have to put him somewhere that will keep him safe.’
‘Keep him safe or keep you safe?’
He cracked a smile. ‘It’s the same thing, don’t you see? People who are dangerous to me seldom flourish for long.’ The smile he gave me was crooked with sadness. I saw his dilemma more clearly as he handed the half-emptied glass to me.
I made my suggestion quietly. ‘Start to move him out of your circle, Chade. Less time with you or Rosemary, more time with the scribes and minstrels. You can’t make him forget what he has seen and what he knows, but you can lessen its importance. Make him grateful. And when you can no longer keep him here, send him to me. I’ll keep him for you.’ I tried not to realize what I had just agreed to do. This was not a promise that would last a year or two. So long as FitzVigilant lived and remembered the secret ways of Buckkeep Castle, I would be responsible for seeing that he remained loyal to the Farseers. Loyal. Or dead. Chade had just handed me a dirty task that he did not want to do. I sipped the wine, covering the bitterness of that knowledge with the too-sweet vintage.
‘Are you certain when you say, “You can’t make him forget”?’
That jerked my attention back to the old man. ‘What are you thinking?’ I countered.
‘That we are still deciphering the old Skill-scrolls. They hint that you can make a man, well, change his mind about things.’
He shocked me into an appalled silence. To be able to make a man forget something: what a horrifying power. I found breath. ‘And that worked so very well when my father decided to make Skillmaster Galen forget his dislike of him and love him. His hate didn’t vanish; it just found another target. As I recall, it was me.’ He’d nearly managed to kill me.
‘Your father did not have the benefit of complete instruction in the Skill. I doubt that Galen did. So much was lost, Fitz! So much. I work on the scrolls almost every evening, but it’s not the same as being instructed by a knowledgeable Skillmaster. Deducing what they mean is laborious. It doesn’t go as fast as I wish it would. Nettle has no time to help me. The information they contain is not to be shared with just anyone, and the fragility of the scrolls themselves is another consideration. I myself have far less time for late-night studies than I used to. So, the scrolls are neglected, and with them, who knows what secrets?’
Another favour couched as a question. ‘Select the ones you consider most interesting. I’ll take them back to Withywoods with me.’
He scowled. ‘Couldn’t you come here to work on them? One week out of each month? I’m loath to send them away from Buckkeep Castle.’
‘Chade, I’ve a wife and a child and a manor to take care of. I can’t spend my time gallivanting back and forth to Buckkeep Castle.’
‘The Skill-pillars would make your “gallivant” the matter of a few moments.’
‘I won’t do it, and you know why.’
‘I know that years ago, against all advice, you used the pillars repeatedly over a very short period. I’m not talking about your coming and going each day. I’m suggesting that once a month you could come to take some scrolls and drop off what you had translated. From what I’ve read, there were Skilled messengers who used the pillars at least that frequently, and possibly more often.’
‘No.’ I put finality in the word.
He cocked his head to the other side. ‘Then why don’t you and Molly come live in Buckkeep, and bring the baby? Easy enough for us to find a competent manager for Withywoods. And Bee would have all the advantages that we earlier spoke about. You could help me with the translations and other tasks, get to know young Lant, and I’m sure Molly would enjoy seeing Nettle more frequently and—’
‘No,’ I said it again, firmly. I had no desire to take up the ‘other tasks’ he might pass back to me. Nor for him to see my simple child. ‘I’m happy where I am, Chade. I’m at peace, and I intend to remain so.’
He sighed noisily. ‘Very well, then. Very well.’ He suddenly sounded elderly and petulant. It was unnerving when he added, ‘There is no one left to whom I can speak as freely as I do with you. I suspect we are a dying breed.’
‘I suspect you are right,’ I agreed, and did not add that perhaps that was a good thing.
Chade and I left our discussion there. I think he finally accepted that I had stepped away from the inner politics of Buckkeep Court. I would come when there was urgent need, but I would never again live in the castle and be a party to his inner counsels. Rosemary would have to step up to that role, and behind her must come whatever apprentice they chose. It would not be FitzVigilant. I wondered if the lad would be disappointed or relieved.
In the months that followed, I both dreaded and expected that Chade would try again to draw me back. He did not. Scrolls were delivered for translation and my work carried away from me a five or six times a year. Twice his couriers were journeymen Skill-students who arrived and departed through the pillars. I refused to allow him to provoke me. The second time it happened, I confirmed with Nettle that she knew of it. She said little, but after that, his messengers arrived on horseback.
Although Nettle often touched minds with me, and Dutiful sometimes, Chade seemed to have decided to set me free. And sometimes I wondered, at odd wakeful moments, if I were disappointed or relieved to be finally clear of the darker side of Farseer politics.