by Robin Hobb
She smiled up at me. ‘And I love you.’
So, finally, I kissed her. In the moment of that kiss, somewhere near Buckkeep a wolf lifted up his voice in a joyous ululation that set every hound to baying and every dog to barking in a chorus that rang against the brittle night sky.
NINE
Guards and Bonds
Oftentimes I understand and commend Fedwren’s stated dream. Had he his way, paper would he as common as bread and every child would learn his letters before he was thirteen. But even were it so, I do not think this would bring to pass all he hopes. He mourns for all the knowledge that goes into a grave each time a man dies, even the commonest of men. He speaks of a time to come when a blacksmith’s way of setting a shoe, or a shipwright’s knack for pulling a drawknife would be set down in letters, that any who could read could learn to do as well. I do not believe it is so, or ever will be. Some things may be learned from words on a page, but some skills are learned first by a man’s hand and heart, and later by his head. I have believed this ever since I saw Mastfish set the fish-shaped block of wood that he was named after into Verity’s first ship. His eyes had seen that mastfish before it existed, and he set his hands to shaping what his heart knew must be. This is not a thing that can be learned from words on a page. Perhaps it cannot be learned at all, but comes, as does the Skill or the Wit, from the blood of one’s forebears.
I returned to my own chamber and sat watching the dying embers in my hearth, waiting for the rest of the keep to awaken. I should have been exhausted. Instead, I almost trembled with the energy rushing through me. I fancied that if I sat very still, I could still feel the warmth of Molly’s arms around me. I knew precisely where her cheek had touched mine. A very faint scent of her clung to my shirt from our brief embrace, and I agonized over whether to wear the shirt that day, to carry that scent with me, or to set it aside carefully in my clothing chest, to preserve it. I did not think it a foolish thing at all to care so much about that. Looking back, I smile, but it is at my wisdom, not my folly.
Morning brought storm winds and falling snow to Buckkeep Castle, but to me it only made all inside the cosier. Perhaps it would give us all a chance to recover ourselves from yesterday. I did not want to think about those poor ragged bodies, or bathing the still, cold faces. Nor of the roaring flames and heat that had consumed Kerry’s body. We could all use a quiet day inside the keep. Perhaps the evening would find all gathered about the hearths, for storytelling, music and conversation. I hoped so. I left my chambers to go to Patience and Lacey.
I tormented myself, knowing well the exact moment when Molly would descend the stairs to fetch a breakfast tray for Patience, and also when she would ascend the stairs carrying it. I could be on the stairs or in the hallway as she passed. It would be a minor thing, a coincidence. But I had no question that there were those who had been set to watching me, and they would make note of such ‘coincidences’ if they occurred too often. No. I had to heed the warnings that both the King and Chade had given me. I would show Molly I had a man’s self-control and forbearance. If I must wait before I could court her, then I would.
So I sat in my room and agonized until I was sure that she would have left Patience’s chambers. Then I descended, to tap upon the door. As I waited for Lacey to open it, I reflected that redoubling my watch upon Patience and Lacey was easier said than done. But I had a few ideas. I had begun last night, by extracting a promise from Molly that she would bring up no food she had not prepared herself, or taken fresh from the common serving pots. She had snorted at this, for it had come after a most ardent goodbye. ‘Now you sound just like Lacey,’ she had rebuked me, and gently closed the door in my face. She opened it a moment later, to find me still staring at it. ‘Go to bed,’ she chided me. Blushing, she added, ‘And dream of me. I hope I have plagued your dreams lately as much as you have mine.’ Those words sent me fleeing down to my room, and every time I thought of it, I blushed again.
Now, as I entered Patience’s room, I tried to put all such thoughts from my mind. I was here on business, even if Patience and Lacey must believe it a social call. Keep my mind on my tasks. I cast my eyes over the latch that had secured the door, and found it well to my liking. No one would be slipping that with a belt knife. As for the window, even if anyone had scaled the outer wall to it, they must burst through not only stoutly-barred wooden shutters, but a tapestry, and then rank upon rank of pots of plants, soldiered in rows before the closed window. It was a route no professional would willingly choose. Lacey resettled herself with a bit of mending while Patience greeted me. Lady Patience herself was seemingly idle, seated on the hearth before the fire as if she were but a girl. She poked at the coals a bit. ‘Did you know,’ she asked me suddenly, ‘that there is a substantial history of strong queens at Buckkeep? Not just those born as Farseers, either. Many a Farseer prince has married a woman whose name came to overshadow his in the telling of deeds.’
‘Do you think Kettricken will become such a queen?’ I asked politely. I had no idea where this conversation would lead.
‘I do not know,’ she said softly. She stirred the coals idly again. ‘I know only that I would not have been one.’ She sighed heavily, then lifted her eyes to say almost apologetically, ‘I am having one of those mornings, Fitz, when all that fills my head is what might have been and what could have been. I should never have allowed him to abdicate. I’d wager he’d be alive today, if he had not.’
There seemed little reply I could make to such a statement. She sighed again, and drew on the hearth stones with the ash-coated poker. ‘I am a woman of longings today, Fitz. While everyone else yesterday was stirred to amazement at what Kettricken did, it awakened in me the deepest discontent with myself. Had I been in her position, I would have hidden away in my chamber. Just as I do now. But your grandmother would not have. Now there was a Queen. Like Kettricken in some ways. Constance was a woman who spurred others to action. Other women especially. When she was queen, over half our guard was female. Did you know that? Ask Hod about her some time. I understand that Hod came with her when Constance came here to be Shrewd’s queen.’ Patience fell silent. For a few moments, she was so quiet I thought she had finished speaking. Then she added softly, ‘She liked me, Queen Constance did.’ She smiled almost shyly.
‘She knew I did not care for crowds. So, sometimes, she would summon me, and only me, to come and attend her in her garden. And we would not even speak much, but only work quietly in the soil and the sunlight. Some of my pleasantest memories of Buckkeep are of those times.’ She looked up at me suddenly. ‘I was just a little girl then. And your father was just a boy, and we had not ever really met. My parents brought me to Buckkeep, the times they came to court, even though they knew I did not much care for all the folderol of court life. What a woman Queen Constance was, to notice a homely, quiet little girl, and give her of her time. But she was like that. Buckkeep was a different place then, a much merrier court. Times were safer, and all was more stable. But then Constance died, and her infant daughter with her, of a birth fever. And Shrewd remarried a few years later, and …’ She paused and sighed again suddenly. Then her lips firmed. She patted the hearth beside her.
‘Come and sit here. There are things we must speak of.’
I did as she bid me, likewise sitting on the hearthstones. I had never seen Patience so serious, nor so focused. All of this, I felt, was leading up to something. It was so different from her usual fey prattle that it almost frightened me. Once I was seated, she motioned me closer. I
scooted forward until I was nearly in her lap. She leaned forward and whispered, ‘Some things are best not spoken of. But there comes a time when they must be raised. FitzChivalry, my dear, do not think me mean-spirited. But I must warn you that your Uncle Regal is not as well disposed toward you as you might believe.’
I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
Patience was instantly indignant. ‘You must attend me!’ she whispered more urgently. ‘Oh, I know he is gay and charming and witty. I know what a flatterer he can be, and I have marked well how all the young women of the court flutter their fans at him, and how all the young men mimic his clothes and mannerisms. But underneath those fine feathers there is much ambition. And I am afraid there is suspicion there, and jealousy, also. I have never told you this. But he was totally opposed to my undertaking your schooling, as well as to your learning to Skill. Sometimes I think it is as well that you failed at that, for had you succeeded, his jealousy would have known no bounds.’ She paused, and finding that I was listening with a sober face, she went on, ‘These are unsettled times, Fitz. Not just because of the Red Ships that harry our shores. It is a time when any b … born as you were should be careful. There are those who smile fairly at you, but may be your enemy. When your father was alive, we relied that his influence would be enough to shelter you. But after he was … he died, I realized that as you grew, you would be more and more at risk, the closer you came to manhood. So, when I decently could, I forced myself to come back to court, to see if there truly was need. I found there was, and I found you worthy of my help. So I vowed to do all I could to educate and protect you.’ She allowed herself a brief smile of satisfaction.
‘I would say I had done fairly well by you so far. But,’ and she leaned closer, ‘comes a time when even I will not be able to protect you. You must begin to take care of yourself. You must recall your lessons from Hod, and review them with her often. You must be cautious of what you eat and drink, and be wary of visiting isolated places alone. I hate to put these fears into you, FitzChivalry. But you are almost a man now, and must begin to think of such things.’
Laughable. Almost a farce. So I could have seen it, to have this sheltered, reclusive woman speaking to me so earnestly of the realities of the world I had survived in since I was six. Instead, I found tears stinging the corners of my eyes. I had always been mystified as to why Patience had come back to Buckkeep, to live a hermit’s life in the midst of a society she obviously did not care for. Now I knew. She had come for me, for my sake. To protect me.
Burrich had sheltered me. So had Chade, and even Verity in his way. And of course Shrewd had claimed me as his own, very early. But all of them, in one way and another, had stood to gain by my survival. Even Burrich would have seen it as a great loss of pride if someone had managed to murder me while I was under his protection. Only this woman, who by all rights should have abhorred me, had come to shelter me for my sake alone. She was so often foolish and meddlesome and sometimes most annoying. But as our eyes met, I knew she had breached the final wall I had kept between us. I greatly doubted that her presence had done anything to deter bad will toward me; if anything, her interest in me must have been a constant reminder to Regal of who had fathered me. But it was not the deed, but the intention that moved me. She had given up her quiet life, her orchards and gardens and woods, to come here, to a damp castle of stone on the sea-cliffs, to a court full of folk she cared nothing about, to watch over her husband’s bastard.
‘Thank you,’ I said quietly. And meant it with all my heart.
‘Well,’ she turned aside from my look quickly. ‘Well. You are welcome, you know.’
‘I know. But the truth was, I came here this morning thinking that perhaps someone should warn you and Lacey to be careful of yourselves. Times are unstable here, and you might be seen as an … obstacle.’
Now Patience laughed aloud. ‘I! I? Funny, dowdy, foolish old Patience? Patience, who cannot keep an idea fixed in her head for more than ten minutes? Patience, all but made mad by her husband’s death? My boy, I know how they talk of me. No one perceives of me as a threat to anyone. Why, I am but another fool here at the court, a thing to be made sport of. I am quite safe, I assure you. But, even if I were not, I have the habits of a lifetime to protect me. And Lacey.’
‘Lacey?’ I could not keep incredulity from my voice nor a grin from my face. I turned to exchange a wink with Lacey. Lacey glared at me as if affronted by my smile. Before I could even unfold from the hearth, she sprang up from her rocking chair. A long needle, stripped of its eternal yarn, prodded my jugular vein, while the other probed a certain space between my ribs. I very nearly wet myself. I looked up at a woman I suddenly knew not at all, and dared not make a word.
‘Stop teasing the child,’ Patience rebuked her gently. ‘Yes, Fitz, Lacey. The most apt pupil that Hod ever had, even if she did come to Hod as a grown woman.’ As Patience spoke, Lacey took her weapons away from my body. She reseated herself, and deftly re-threaded her needles into her work. I swear she didn’t even drop a stitch. When she was finished, she looked up at me. She winked. And went back to her knitting. I remembered to start breathing again.
A very chastened assassin left their apartments sometime later. As I made my way down the hall, I reflected that Chade had warned me I was underestimating Lacey. I wondered wryly if this was his idea of humour, or of teaching me greater respect for seemingly mild folk.
Thoughts of Molly pushed their way into my mind. I resolutely refused to give into them, but could not resist lowering my face to catch that faint scent of her on the shoulder of my shirt. I took the foolish smile from my face and set off to locate Kettricken. I had duties.
I’m hungry.
The thought intruded without warning. Shame flooded me. I had taken Cub nothing yesterday. I had all but forgotten him in the sweep of the day’s events.
A day’s fast is nothing. Besides, I found a nest of mice beneath a corner of the cottage. Do you think I cannot care for myself at all? But something more substantial would be pleasing.
Soon, I promised him. There is a thing I must do first.
In Kettricken’s sitting chamber, I found only two young pages, ostensibly tidying, but giggling as I came in. Neither of them knew anything. I next tried Mistress Hasty’s weaving room, as it was a warm and friendly chamber where many of the keep women gathered. No Kettricken, but Lady Modesty was there. She told me that her mistress had said she needed to speak with Prince Verity this morning. Perhaps she was with him.
But Verity was not in his chambers, nor his map-room. Charim was there, however, sorting through sheets of vellum and separating them by quality. Verity, he told me, had arisen very early and immediately set out for his boat-shed. Yes, Kettricken had been there this morning, but it had been after Verity left, and once Charim had told her he was gone, she too had departed. Where? He was not certain.
By this time I was starving, and I excused my trip to the kitchen on the grounds that gossip always grew thickest there. Perhaps someone there would know where our Queen-in-Waiting had gone. I was not worried, I told myself. Not yet.
The kitchens of Buckkeep were at their best on a cold and blustery day. Steam from bubbling stews mingled with the nourishing aroma of baking bread and roasting meat. Chilled stable-boys loitered there, chatting with the kitchen help and pilfering fresh baked rolls and the ends of cheeses, tasting stews and disappearing like mist if Burrich appeared in the door. I cut myself a slab of cold meal pudding from the morning’s cook
ing, and reinforced it with honey and some bacon ends that Cook was rendering down for crackling. As I ate, I listened to the talk.
Oddly enough, few people spoke directly of the previous day’s events. I grasped it would take a while for the keep to come to terms with all that had happened. But there was something there, a feeling almost of relief. I had seen that before, in a man who had had his maimed foot removed, or the family that finally finds their drowned child’s body. To confront finally the worst there is, to look it squarely in the face and say, ‘I know you. You have hurt me, almost to death, but still, I live. And I will go on living.’ That was the feeling I got from the folk of the keep. All had finally acknowledged the severity of our injuries from the Red Ships. Now there was a sense that we might begin to heal, and to fight back.
I did not wish to make direct inquiries down here as to where the Queen might be. As luck would have it, one of the stable-boys was speaking of Softstep. Some of the blood I had seen on the horse’s shoulder the previous day had been her own, and the boys were talking of how the horse had snapped at Burrich when he tried to work on her shoulder, and how it had taken two of them to hold her head. I wangled my way into the conversation. ‘Perhaps a horse of less temperament would be a better mount for the Queen? I suggested.
‘Ah, no. Our queen likes Softstep’s pride and spirit. She said so herself, to me, when she was down in the stables this morning. She came herself, to see the horse, and to ask when she might be ridden again. She spoke directly to me, she did. So I told her, no horse wanted to be ridden on a day such as this, let alone with a gashed shoulder. And Queen Kettricken nodded, and we stood talking there, and she asked how I had lost my tooth.’
‘And you told her a horse had thrown his head back when you were exercising him! Because you didn’t want Burrich to know we’d been wrestling up in the hayloft and you’d fallen into the grey colt’s stall!’