by Robin Hobb
Every hair on my body stood up in horror. Chade looked up to see me frozen, and pushed gently past me to pick Slink up. He offered him a saucer of water and looked pleased when Slink sampled it. "I think he'll live. The little pig stuffed his mouth full, and got a better taste of it than a human would have. Up it came. The stuff on the table looks chewed, but not digested. I think the taste made him gag, not the poison."
"I hope so," I said faintly. Every one of my nerves was tuned to an inner waiting. Had I been poisoned? Did I feel sleepy, nauseous, dizzy? Was my mouth numb, dry, watering? I broke out in a sudden sweat and began to tremble. Not again.
"Stop it," Chade said quietly. "Sit down. Drink some water. You're doing this to yourself, Fitz. That bottle was well sealed with an old cork. If the wine was poisoned, it was done years ago. I know of few men with the patience to poison a bottle of wine, and then age it. I think we're fine."
I drew a shaky breath. "But such was not someone's intent. Who brought your food?"
Chade gave a snort. "I prepared my own food, as always. But that on the table was from a gift basket left for Lady Thyme. From time to time folk seek to curry favor with her, as it is rumored she has the King's ear. I did not think my masquerade woman a likely target for poison."
"Regal," I said again. "I told you he believes she is the King's poisoner. How could you have been so careless? You know he blames Lady Thyme for his mother's death! Shall we be so polite as to let him kill us all? He will not stop until the throne is his."
"And I tell you again, I will hear nothing of treason!" Chade all but shouted the words. He sat down in his chair and cradled Slink in his lap. The little beast sat up, tidied his whiskers, and then curled up again to compose himself for sleep. I watched Chade's pale hand, the standing tendons, the paper skin, as he stroked his small pet. He looked only at the weasel, his face closed. After a moment he spoke more calmly. "I think our king was right. We should all redouble our caution. And not just for Kettricken. Or ourselves." He lifted tortured eyes to mine. "Watch over your women, boy. Neither innocence nor ignorance is any protection against this night's work. Patience, Molly, even Lacey. Find a way, a subtle way, to give Burrich warning as well." He sighed, asked of no one, "Have we not enemies enough outside our walls?"
"Aplenty," I assured him. But I said no more of Regal to him.
He shook his head. "This is an ill way for me to begin a journey."
"A journey? You?" I was incredulous. Chade never left the Keep. Almost. "Where?"
"Where I need to go. Now I think I need almost as much to stay." He shook his head to himself. "Take care of yourself while I'm gone, boy. I won't be about to watch over you." And that was as much as he would tell me.
When I left him, he was still staring into the fire, his lax hands sheltering Slink. I went down the stairs on jelly legs. The attempt on Chade had shaken me more than anything ever had. Not even the secret of his existence had been enough to shield him. And there were other, easier targets, just as close to my heart.
I damned the bravado that had earlier let me make Regal aware of how much stronger I had grown. I had been a fool to tempt him to attack me; I should have known he would find a less obvious target. In my room, I changed hastily into fresh clothing. Then I left my chamber, climbed the stairs, and went straight to Molly's bedchamber. I tapped lightly on the door.
No answer. I did not tap louder. It lacked but an hour or two until dawn; most of the Keep was exhausted, abed. Still, I had no desire to rouse the wrong person to see me at Molly's door. Yet I had to know.
Her door was latched, but it was a simple one. I slipped it in a matter of seconds and made note to myself that she would have a better one before tomorrow night. Soft as shadow, I entered her room and drew the door closed behind me.
A fire had burned low in the hearth. Its lingering embers cast an uncertain haze of light. I stood still a moment, letting my eyes adjust, then I moved carefully into the room, staying away from the hearth light. I could hear the steady sleep rhythm of Molly's breath from her bed. It should have been enough for me. But I teased myself that she might be fevered and sinking even now into a death sleep from poison. I promised myself that I would do no more than touch her pillow, just to see if skin was fevered or normal. No more than that. I drifted to the bedside.
Beside the bed I stood motionless. I could just make out her shape under the covers in the dim light. She smelled heathery and warm and sweet. Healthy. No feverish poison victim slept here. I knew I should go. "Sleep well," I breathed.
Silently she sprang up at me. The ember light ran red along the blade in her hand. "Molly!" I cried as I parried her knife hand aside with the back of my forearm. She froze, her other hand drawn back in a fist, and for an instant all in the room was silent and motionless. Then: "Newboy!" she hissed furiously, and punched me in the belly with her left hand. As I doubled over, gasping for air, she rolled from the bed. "You idiot! You frightened me to death! What do you think you're about, rattling at my latch and sneaking about in my room! I should call the Keep guardsmen to put you out!"
"No!" I begged as she threw wood on the fire, and then kindled a candle at it. "Please. I'll go. I meant no harm or offense. I just wanted to be sure you were all right."
"Well, I'm not!" she stormed in a whisper. Her hair was confined for the night into two thick braids, reminding me sharply of the little girl I had met so long ago. A girl no longer. She caught me staring at her. She threw a heavier robe about her shoulders and belted it at her waist. "I'm a shaking wreck! I shan't sleep another wink tonight! You've been drinking, haven't you? Are you drunk, then? What do you want?"
She advanced on me with the candle as if it were a weapon. "No," I assured her. I drew myself upright and tugged my shirt straight. "I promise you, I'm not drunk. And truly, I had no bad intentions. But… something happened tonight, something that made me worry that something bad might happen to you, so I thought I had best come and make sure you were all right, but I knew Patience would not approve, and I certainly didn't want to go waking up the whole Keep, so I thought I would just slip in and—"
"Newboy. You're babbling," she informed me icily.
It was true. "I'm sorry," I said again, and sat down on the corner of the bed.
"Don't get comfortable," she warned me. "You were just leaving. Alone, or with the Keep guards. Your choice."
"I'll go," I promised, standing hastily. "I just wanted to be sure you were all right."
"I'm fine," she said testily. "Why wouldn't I be fine? I'm as fine tonight as I was last night, as I have been for the last thirty nights. On none of them were you inspired to come and inspect my health. So why tonight?"
I took a breath. "Because on some nights threats are more obvious than others. Bad things happen, that make me take stock of what worse things could happen. On some nights, it is not the healthiest thing to be the beloved of a bastard."
The lines of her mouth went as flat as her voice as she asked, "What is that supposed to mean?"
I took a breath, determined that I would be as honest with her as I was able. "I cannot tell you what happened. Only that it made me believe you might be in danger. You will have to trust—"
"That isn't the part I meant. What do you mean, beloved of a bastard? How do you dare to call me that?" Her eyes were bright with anger.
I swear that my heart thudded to a halt in my chest. The cold of death swept through me. "It is true, I have no right," I said haltingly. "But neither is there any way I could stop caring for you. And whether or not I have the right to name you my beloved would not deter those who might seek to injure me by striking at you. How can I say I love you so much that I wish I did not love you, or at least could refrain from showing that I loved you, because my love puts you in such danger, and have those words be true?" Stiffly, I turned to go.
"And how could I possibly dare to say I made sense of your last statement and have it be true?" Molly wondered aloud.
Something in her voice made me tu
rn around. For a moment we just looked at one another. Then she burst out laughing. I stood, affronted and grim, as she came to me, still laughing. Then she put her arms around me. "Newboy. You take a most roundabout path to finally declare you love me. To break into my room, and then to stand there, tying your tongue in knots about the word `love.' Could not you simply have said it, a long time ago?"
I stood stupid in the circle of her arms. I looked down at her. Yes, I realized dully, I had grown that much taller than she.
"Well?" she prompted, and for a moment I was puzzled.
"I love you, Molly." So easy to say, after all. And such a relief. Slowly, cautiously, I put my arms around her.
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.
CHAPTER NINE. Guards and Bonds
OFTENTIMES I UNDERSTAND and commend Fedwren's stated dream. Had he his way, paper would be 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 of 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 hands 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 cozier. 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 good-bye. "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 only know 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 hearthstones 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 sometime. 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 was 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 someth
ing. 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 spoken of. 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. l 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 on the fact 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.