5 Soul of the Fire

by Goodkind, Terry

  "Shall we visit the library now?"

  Stein held out a hand in invitation. "Lead the way, Minister."

  Beata sat hanging her head as the two men, chatting amicably, strode off down the hall to the left. She seemed crushed by the ordeal, too disillusioned to be able to muster the will to stand, to leave, to go back to her life the way it had been.

  Stock-still, Fitch waited, hoping that, somehow, the impossible would happen-that maybe she wouldn't turn, that maybe she would be confused and wander off down the other hall, and she wouldn't notice him there behind her, unblinking, holding his breath.

  Sucking back her sobs, Beata staggered to her feet. When she turned and saw Fitch, she stiffened with a gasp. He stood paralyzed, wishing more than anything that he had never gone up the stairs for a look. He'd gotten considerably more of a look than he wanted.

  "Beata..." He wanted to ask if she was hurt, but of course she was hurt. He wanted to comfort her, but didn't know how, didn't know the right words to use. He wanted to take her in his arms and shelter her, but he feared she might misconstrue his aching concern.

  Beata's face warped from misery to blind rage. Her hand unexpectedly whipped around, striking his face with such fury that it made his head ring inside like a bell.

  The wallop wrenched his head to the side. The room swam in his vision. He thought he saw someone in the distance down a hall, but he wasn't sure. As he tried to get his bearings, to grope for a railing as he staggered back, his hand found the floor instead. One knee joined his hand on the floor. He saw a blur of her blue dress as Beata raced down the stairs, the staccato sounds of her footfalls hammering an echo up the stairwell.

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  Dazing pain, sharp and hot, drove into his upper jaw just in front of his ringing ear. His eyes hurt. He was stupefied by how hard she had hit him. Nausea bloated in the pit of his stomach. He blinked, trying to force his vision to clear.

  A hand under his-arm startled him. It helped lift him back to his feet. Dalton Campbell's face loomed close to his.

  Unlike the other two men, he did not smile but, rather, studied Fitch's eyes the way Master Drummond scrutinized a halibut brought in by the fishmonger. Just before he gutted it.

  "What is your name?"

  "Fitch, sir. I work in the kitchen, sir." Between the punch and his dread, Fitch's legs felt like boiled noodles.

  The man glanced toward the stairs. "You seem to have wandered from the kitchen, don't you think?"

  'I took a paper to the brewer." Fitch paused to gulp air, trying to make his voice stop trembling. "I was just on my way back to the kitchen, sir."

  The hand tightened on Fitch's arm, drawing him closer. "Since you were rushing to the brewer, down on the lower level, and then right back to the kitchen, on the first floor, you must be a hardworking young man. I would have no reason to recall seeing you up here on the third floor." He released Fitch's arm. "I suppose I recall seeing you downstairs, rushing back to the kitchen from the brewer? Without wandering off anywhere along the way?"

  Fitch's concern for Beata turned to a focused hope to keep himself from being thrown out of the house, or worse.

  "Yes, sir. I'm on my way right back to the kitchen."

  Dalton Campbell draped his hand over the hilt of his sword. "You've been working, and haven't seen a thing, have you?"

  Fitch swallowed his terror. "No, sir. Nothing. I swear. Just that Minister Chanboor smiled at me. He's a great man, the Minister. I'm thankful that a man so great as he would give work to a worthless Haken such as myself."

  The corners of Dalton Campbell's mouth turned up just enough that Fitch thought the aide might be pleased by what

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  he'd heard. His fingers drummed along the length of the brass crossguard of his sword. Fitch stared at the lordly weapon. He felt driven to speak into the silence.

  "I want to be good and be a worthy member of the household. To work hard. To earn my keep."

  The smile widened. "That is indeed good to know. You seem a fine young man. Perhaps, since you are so earnest in your desire, I could count on you?"

  Fitch wasn't sure exactly what he was to be counted on for, but he gave a "Yes, sir" anyway, and without hesitation.

  "Since you swear you didn't see anything on your way back to the kitchen, you are proving to me that you are a lad of potential. Perhaps one who could be entrusted with more responsibility."

  "Responsibility, sir?"

  Dalton Campbell's dark eyes gleamed with a terrifying, incomprehensible intelligence, the kind Fitch imagined the mice must see in the eyes of the house cats.

  "We sometimes have need of people desiring to move up in the household. We will see. Keep yourself vigilant against the lies of people wishing to bring disrepute to the Minister, and we will see."

  "Yes, sir. I'd not like to hear anyone say anything against the Minister. He's a good man, the Minister. I hope the rumors I've heard are true, that one day we might be blessed enough by the Creator that Minister Chanboor would become Sovereign."

  Now the aide's smile truly did take hold. "Yes, I do believe you have potential. Should you hear any ... lies, about the Minister, I would appreciate knowing about it." He gestured toward the stairs. "Now, you had best get back to the kitchen."

  "Yes, sir, if I hear any such thing, I'll bring it to you." Fitch made for the stairs. "I'd not want anyone lying about the Minister. That would be wrong."

  "Young man-Fitch, was it?"

  Fitch turned back from the top step. "Yes, sir. Fitch."

  Dalton Campbell crossed his arms and turned his head to

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  peer with one questioning eye. "What have you learned at penance about protecting the Sovereign?"

  "The Sovereign?" Fitch rubbed his palms on his trousers. "Well... um... that anything done to protect our Sovereign is a virtue?"

  "Very good." Arms still folded, he leaned toward Fitch. "And, since you have heard that Minister Chanboor is likely to be named Sovereign, then ... ?"

  The man expected an answer. Fitch groped wildly for it. He cleared his throat, at last. "Well... I guess ... that if he's to be named Sovereign, then maybe he ought to be protected the same?"

  By the way Dalton Campbell smiled as he straightened his back, Fitch knew he'd hit upon the right answer. "You may indeed have potential to move up in the household."

  "Thank you, sir. I would do anything to protect the Minister, seeing as how he'll be Sovereign one day. It's my duty to protect him in any way I can."

  "Yes ..." Dalton Campbell drawled in an odd way. He cocked his head, catlike, as he considered Fitch. "If you prove to be helpful in ... whatever way we might need in order to protect the Minister, it would go a long way toward clearing your debt."

  Fitch's ears perked up. "My debt, sir?"

  "Like I told Morley, if he proves to be of use to the Minister, it might be that he could even earn himself a sir name, and a certificate signed by the Sovereign to go with it. You seem a bright lad. I would expect no less might be in your future."

  Fitch's jaw hung open. Earning a sir name was one of his dreams. A certificate signed by the Sovereign proved to all that a Haken had paid his debt and was to be recognized with a sir name, and respected. His mind tumbled backward to what he'd just heard.

  "Morley? Scullion Morley?"

  "Yes, didn't he tell you I talked to him?"

  Fitch scratched behind an ear, trying to imagine that Morley would have kept such astonishing news from him.

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  "Well, no, sir. He never said nothing. He's about my best friend; I'd recall if he'd said such a thing. I'm sorry, but he never did."

  Dalton Campbell stroked a finger against the silver of the scabbard at his hip as he watched Fitch's eyes: "I told him not to mention it to anyone." He arched an eyebrow. "That kind of loyalty pays plums. I expect no less from you. Do you understand, Fitch?"

  Fitch surely did. "Not a soul. Just like Morley. I got it, Master Campbell."

  Dalto
n Campbell nodded as he smiled to himself. "Good." He again rested a hand on the hilt of his magnificent sword. "You know, Fitch, when a Haken has his debt paid, and earns his sir name, that signed certificate entitles him to carry a sword."

  Fitch's eyes widened. "It does? I never knew."

  The tall Ander smiled a stately farewell and with a noble flourish turned and started off down the hall. "Back to work, then, Fitch. Glad to have made your acquaintance. Perhaps we will speak again one day."

  Before anyone else caught him up there, Fitch raced down the stairs. Confounding thoughts swirled through his head. Thinking again about Beata, and what had happened, he just wanted the day to end so he could get himself good and drunk.

  He ached with sorrow for Beata, but it was the Minister, the Minister she admired, the Minister who would someday be Sovereign, that Fitch had seen on her. Besides, she struck him, a terrible thing for a Haken to do, even to another Haken, although he wasn't certain the prohibition extended to women. But even if it didn't, that wouldn't make him feel any less miserable about it.

  For some unfathomable reason, she hated him, now.

  He ached to get drunk.

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  C H A P T E R 1 6

  "FETCH! HERE, BOY! FETCH!"

  Usually, when Master Drummond called him by that name, Fitch knew he blushed with humiliation, but this time he was in such anguish over what he had seen upstairs earlier that he hardly felt any shame over so petty a thing. Master Drummond's talking down to him as if he were dirt could not match Beata's hating him, and hitting him.

  It had been a couple of hours, but his face still throbbed where, she'd clouted him, so he was clear on that much of it: she hated him. It confused and confounded him, but he was sure she hated him. It seemed to him she should be angry at someone, anyone, besides him.

  Angry at herself, maybe, for going up there in the first place. But he guessed she couldn't very well have refused to go see the Minister if he asked for her. Then Inger the butcher would have thrown her out when the Minister told him that his Haken girl refused to go up to take his special request. No, she couldn't very well have done that.

  Besides, she wanted to meet the man. She'd told him she did. Fitch knew, though, that she never expected he would have his way with her. Maybe it wasn't the Minister she was so distraught about. Fitch remembered that man, Stein, winking at him. She was up there a long time.

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  That was still no reason for her to hate Fitch. Or to hit him.

  Fitch came to a halt. His fingers throbbed from having them in scalding water for so long, scrubbing and scraping. The rest of him felt sick and numb. Except, of course, his face.

  "Yes, sir?"

  Master Drummond opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it and instead leaned down. He frowned.

  "What happened to your face?"

  "One of the billets of apple slipped and hit me as I picked up an armload, sir."

  Master Drummond shook his head as he wiped his hands

  on his white towel. "Idiot," he muttered. "Only an idiot,"

  he said, in a voice loud enough so others could hear, "would hit himself in the face with a stick of wood as he picked it up."

  "Yes, sir."

  Master Drummond was just about to speak when Dalton Campbell, studying a well-used piece of paper covered with messy lines of writing, glided up beside Fitch. He had a whole stack of disheveled papers, their curled and crumpled edges protruding every which way. He followed down the writing with one finger as he nested the papers in the crook of his other arm.

  "Drummond, I came to make sure of a few items," he said without looking up.

  Master Drummond quickly finished at wiping his hands and then straightened his broad back. "Yes sir, Mr. Campbell. Whatever I can do for you."

  The Minister's aide lifted the paper to peer at a second sheet beneath.

  "Have you seen to putting the best platters and ewers in the ambry?"

  "Yes, Mr. Campbell."

  Dalton muttered absently to himself about how they must have been changed after he'd looked. He scanned the paper and then flipped to a third piece. "You will need, to make

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  two additional places at the high table." He flipped back to the second page.

  Master Drummond's mouth twisted in agitation. "Two more. Yes, Mr. Campbell. If you could, in the future, would you kindly let me know such as this a little earlier in the day?"

  Dalton Campbell's finger flicked at the air, but his eyes never left his papers. "Yes, yes. Only too happy to do so. If the Minister informs me of it sooner, that is." He tapped a place in his papers and looked up. "Lady Chanboor objects to the musicians' stomachs grumbling along with their music. Please see to it that they are fed something first, this time? Especially the harpist. She will be closest to Lady Chanboor."

  Master Drummond dipped his head in acknowledgment. "Yes, Mr. Campbell. I will see to it."

  Fitch, ever so slowly so as not to be obvious, slipped backward several paces, keeping his head down, trying not to appear as if he were listening to the Minister's aide giving the kitchen master instructions. He wished he could leave, rather than risk being thought a snoop, but he knew he'd be yelled at if he left without being sent off, so he compromised at trying to be inconspicuous but at hand.

  "And the spiced wine, there needs to be more of a variety this time. Some people thought last time's selection skimpy. Hot and cold, both, please."

  Master Drummond pressed his lips together. "Short notice, Mr. Campbell. If you could, in the future-"

  "Yes, yes, if I am informed, so will you be." He flipped over another page. "Dainties. They are to be served at the head table only, until they have had their fill. Last time the Minister was embarrassed to discover them gone and some guests at his table left wanting more. Let the other tables go wanting, first, if for some reason you have been unable to acquire a proper supply."

  Fitch remembered that incident, too, and he knew that this time Master Drummond had ordered more of the deer testicles fried up. Fitch had pilfered one of the treats as he took

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  the fry pan to be washed, although he had to eat it without the sweet-and-sour sauce. It was still good.

  As Dalton Campbell checked his papers, he asked questions about different salts, butters, and breads, and gave Master Drummond a few more corrections to the dinner. Fitch, as he waited, trying not to watch the two men, watched instead the woman at a nearby table make the pig's stomachs, stuffed with ground meats, cheeses, eggs, and spices, into hedgehogs by covering them with almond "spines."

  At another table, two women were re-feathering roasted peacocks with feathers colored by saffron and yellow turnsole. Even the beaks and claws were colored, so that the newly plumed birds looked like spectacular creatures of gold-like gold statues-only more lifelike.

  Dalton Campbell, at last seeming to finish with his list of questions and instructions, lowered his arms, one hand loosely holding the hand holding the papers.

  "Is there anything you would like to report, Drummond?"

  The kitchen master licked his lips, seeming not to know what the aide was talking about. "No, Mr. Campbell."

  "And everyone in your kitchen, then, is doing their job to your satisfaction?" His face was blank of emotion.

  Fitch saw eyes in the room cautiously turn up for a quick peek. The work going on all about seemed to grow quieter. He could almost see ears getting bigger.

  It seemed to Fitch like maybe Dalton Campbell was working around the edges of accusing Master Drummond of not running a good kitchen by allowing lazy people to avoid their duties and then failing to punish them. The kitchen master seemed to suspect the same accusation.

  "Well, yes sir, they are doing their job to my satisfaction. I keep them in line, Mr. Campbell. I'll not have slackers ruining the workings of my kitchen. I couldn't have that; this is too important a household to allow any sluggard to spoil things. I don't allow it, no sir, I don't."

/>   Dalton Campbell nodded his pleasure at hearing this. "Very good, Drummond. I, too, would not like to have

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  slackers in the household." He scanned the room of silent, quietly hardworking people. "Very well. Thank you, Drummond. I will check back later, before it's time to begin serving."

  Master Drummond bowed his head. "Thank you, Mr. Campbell."

  The Minister's aide turned and started to leave, and as he did so, he caught sight of Fitch standing there. As he frowned, Fitch lowered his head on his shoulders even more, wishing he could melt into the cracks in the wood floor. Dalton Campbell glanced back over his shoulder at the kitchen master.