by Robin Hobb
I thought it was the kitchen servants, come to clear away. I scrabbled from beneath the table to snare a few more choice leavings before they were gone.
But it was no servant who startled at my sudden appearance but the old King, my grandfather, himself. A scant step behind him, at his elbow, was Regal. His bleary eyes and rumpled doublet attested to his participation in last night’s revelries. The King’s new Fool, but recently acquired, pattered after them, pale eyes agoggle in an eggshell face. He was so strange a creature, with his pasty skin and motley all of blacks and whites, that I scarce dared to look at him. In contrast, King Shrewd was clear of eye, his beard and hair freshly groomed and his clothing immaculate. For an instant he was surprised, and then remarked, ‘You see, Regal, it is as I was telling you. An opportunity presents itself, and someone seizes it; often someone young, or someone driven by the energies and hungers of youth. Royalty has no leisure to ignore such opportunities, or to let them be created for others.’
The King continued his stroll past me, expounding on his theme while Regal gave me a baleful look from bloodshot eyes. A flap of his hand indicated that I should disappear myself. I indicated my understanding with a quick nod, but darted first to the table. I stuffed two apples into my jerkin, and took up a mostly whole gooseberry tart when the King suddenly rounded and gestured at me. His Fool mimed an imitation. I froze where I stood.
‘Look at him,’ the old King commanded.
Regal glared at me, but I dared not move.
‘What will you make of him?’
Regal looked perplexed. ‘Him? It’s the fitz. Chivalry’s bastard. Sneaking and thieving as always.’
‘Fool.’ King Shrewd smiled, but his eyes remained flinty. The Fool, thinking himself addressed, smiled sweetly. ‘Are your ears stopped with wax? Do you hear nothing I say? I asked you, not “what do you make of him?” but “what will you make of him?”. There he stands, young, strong, and resourceful. His lines are every bit as royal as yours, for all that he was born on the wrong side of the sheets. So, what will you make of him? A tool? A weapon? A comrade? An enemy? Or will you leave him lying about, for someone else to take up and use against you?’
Regal squinted at me, then glanced past me and, finding no one else in the hall, returned his puzzled gaze to me. At my ankle, a pup whined a reminder that earlier we had been sharing. I warned him to hush.
‘The bastard? He’s only a child.’
The old King sighed. ‘Today. This morning and now, he is a child. When next you turn around he will be a youth, or worse, a man, and then it will be too late for you to make anything of him. But take him now, Regal, and shape him, and a decade hence you will command his loyalty. Instead of a discontented bastard who may be persuaded to become a pretender to the throne, he will be a henchman, united to the family by spirit as well as blood. A bastard, Regal, is a unique thing. Put a signet ring on his hand and send him forth, and you have created a diplomat no foreign ruler will dare to turn away. He may safely be sent where a prince of the blood may not be risked. Imagine the uses for one who is and yet is not of the royal bloodline. Hostage exchanges. Marital alliances. Quiet work. The diplomacy of the knife.’
Regal’s eyes grew round at the King’s last words. For a pause, we all breathed in silence, regarding one another. When Regal spoke, he sounded as if he had dry bread caught in his throat. ‘You speak of these things in front of the boy. Of using him, as a tool, a weapon. You think he will not remember your words when he is grown?’
King Shrewd laughed, and the sound rang against the stone walls of the Great Hall. ‘Remember them? Of course he will. I count on it. Look at his eyes, Regal. There is intelligence there, and possibly potential Skill. I’d be a fool to lie to him. More stupid still simply to begin his training and education with no explanation, for that would leave his mind fallow for whatever seeds others might plant there. Isn’t it so, boy?’
He was regarding me steadily and I suddenly realized I was returning his look. For all of his speech our gazes had been locked as we read one another. In the eyes of the man who was my grandfather was honesty, of a rocky, bony sort. There was no comfort in it, but I knew I could always count on it to be there. I nodded slowly.
‘Come here.’
I walked to him slowly. When I reached him, he got down on one knee, to be eye-to-eye with me. The Fool knelt solemnly beside us, looking earnestly from face to face. Regal glared down at all of us. At the time I never grasped the irony of the old King genuflecting to his bastard grandson. So I was solemn as he took the tart from my hands and tossed it to the puppies who had trailed after me. He drew a pin from the folds of silk at his throat and solemnly pushed it through the simple wool of my shirt.
‘Now you are mine,’ he said, and made that claiming of me more important than any blood we shared. ‘You need not eat any man’s leavings. I will keep you, and I will keep you well. If any man or woman ever seeks to turn you against me by offering you more than I do, then, come to me, and tell me of the offer, and I shall meet it. You will never find me a stingy man, nor be able to cite ill-use as a reason for treason against me. Do you believe me, boy?’
I nodded, in the mute way that was still my habit, but his steady brown eyes demanded more.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. I will be issuing some commands regarding you. See that you comply with them. If any seem strange to you, speak to Burrich. Or to myself. Simply come to the door of my chamber, and show that pin. You’ll be admitted.’
I glanced down at the red stone that winked in a nest of silver. ‘Yes, sir,’ I managed again.
‘Ah,’ he said softly, and I sensed a trace of regret in his voice, and wondered what it was for. His eyes released me, and suddenly I was once more aware of my surroundings, of the puppies and the Great Hall and Regal watching me with fresh distaste on his face, and the Fool nodding enthusiastically in his vacant way. Then the King stood. When he turned away a chill went over me, as if I had suddenly shed a cloak. It was my first experience of the Skill at the hands of a master.
‘You don’t approve, do you, Regal?’ The King’s tone was conversational.
‘My King may do whatever he wishes.’ Sulky.
King Shrewd sighed. ‘That is not what I asked you.’
‘My mother and Queen will certainly not approve. Favouring the boy will only make it appear that you recognize him. It will give him ideas, and others.’
‘Faugh!’ The King chuckled as if amused.
Regal was instantly incensed. ‘My mother the Queen will not agree with you, nor will she be pleased. My mother –’
‘Has not agreed with me, nor been pleased with me for some years. I scarcely notice it any more, Regal. She will flap and squawk and tell me again that she would return to Farrow, to be Duchess there, and you Duke after her. And if very angry, she will threaten that if she did, Tilth and Farrow would rise up in rebellion, and become a separate kingdom, with her as the Queen.’
‘And I as King after her!’ Regal added defiantly.
Shrewd nodded to himself. ‘Yes, I thought she had planted such festering treason in your mind. Listen, boy. She may scold and fling crockery at the servants, but she will never do more than that. Because she knows it is better to be queen of a peaceful kingdom than duchess of a duchy in rebellion. And Farrow has no reason to rise up against me, save the ones she invents in her head. Her ambitions have always exceeded her abilities.’ He paused, and looked directly at Regal. ‘In royalty, that is a most lamentable failing.’
I could feel the waves of anger Regal suppressed as he looked at the floor.
‘Come along,’ the King said, and Regal heeled after him, obedient as any hound. But the parting glance he cast me was venomous.
I stood and watched as the old King departed the hall. I felt an echoing loss. Strange man. Bastard though I was, he could have declared himself my grandfather, and had for the asking what he instead chose to buy. At the door, the pale Fool paused. For an instant he looked
back at me, and made an incomprehensible gesture with his narrow hands. It could have been an insult or a blessing. Or simply the fluttering of a Fool’s hands. Then he smiled, waggled his tongue at me, and turned to hurry after the King.
Despite the King’s promises, I stuffed my jerkin front with sweet cakes. The pups and I shared them all in the shade behind the stables. It was a bigger breakfast than any of us were accustomed to, and my stomach murmured unhappily for hours afterward. The pups curled up and slept, but I wavered between dread and anticipation. Almost I hoped that nothing would come of it, that the King would forget his words to me. But he did not.
Late that evening I finally wandered up the steps and let myself into Burrich’s chamber. I had spent the day pondering what the morning’s words might mean for me. I could have saved myself the trouble. For as I entered, Burrich set aside the bit of harness he was mending and focused all his attention on me. He considered me in silence for a bit, and I returned his stare. Something had changed, and I feared. Ever since he had disappeared Nosy, I had believed that Burrich had the power of life and death over me as well; that a fitz could be disposed of as easily as a pup. That hadn’t stopped me from developing a feeling of closeness for him; one needn’t love in order to depend. That sense of being able to rely on Burrich was the only real stability I had in my life, and now I felt it trembling under me.
‘So.’ He spoke at last, and put a finality into the word. ‘So. You had to put yourself before his eyes, did you? Had to call attention to yourself. Well. He’s decided what to do with you.’ He sighed, and his silence changed. For a brief time, I almost felt he pitied me. But after a bit, he spoke.
‘I’m to choose a horse for you tomorrow. He suggested that it be a young one, that I train you up together. But I talked him into starting you with an older, steadier beast. One student at a time, I told him. But I’ve my own reasons for putting you with an animal that’s … less impressionable. See that you behave; I’ll know if you’re playing about. Do we understand one another?’
I gave him a quick nod.
‘Answer, fitz. You’ll have to use your tongue if you’ll be dealing with tutors and masters.’
‘Yes, sir.’
It was so like Burrich. Entrusting a horse to me had been uppermost in his mind. With his own concern attended to, he announced the rest quite casually.
‘You’ll be up with the sun from now on, boy. You’ll learn from me in the morning. Caring for a horse, and mastering it. And how to hunt your hounds properly, and have them mind you. A man’s way of controlling beasts is what I’ll teach you.’ The last he emphasized heavily, and paused to be sure I understood. My heart sank, but I began a nod, then amended it to, ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Afternoons, they’ve got you. For weapons and such. Probably the Skill, eventually. In winter months, there will be indoor learning. Languages and signs. Writing and reading and numbers, I don’t doubt. Histories, too. What you’ll do with it all I’ve no idea, but mind you learn it well to please the King. He’s not a man to displease, let alone cross. Wisest course of all is not to have him notice you. But I didn’t warn you about that, and now it’s too late.’
He cleared his throat suddenly and took a breath. ‘Oh, and there’s another thing that’s to change.’ He took up the bit of leather he’d been working on and bent over it again. He seemed to speak to his fingers. ‘You’ll have a proper room of your own, now. Up in the keep where all those of noble blood sleep. You’d be sleeping there right now, if you’d bothered to come in on time.’
‘What? I don’t understand. A room?’
‘Oh, so you can be swift spoken, when you’ve a mind? You heard me, boy. You’ll have a room of your own, up at the keep.’ He paused, then went on heartily. ‘I’ll finally get my privacy back. Oh, and you’re to be measured for clothes tomorrow as well. And boots. Though what’s the sense of putting a boot on a foot that’s still growing, I don’t …’
‘I don’t want a room up there.’ As oppressive as living with Burrich had become, I suddenly found it preferable to the unknown. I imagined a large, cold, stone room, with shadows lurking in the corners.
‘Well, you’re to have one,’ Burrich announced relentlessly. ‘And it’s time and past time for it. You’re Chivalry’s get, even if you’re not a proper-born son, and to put you down here in the stable, like a stray pup, well, it’s just not fitting.’
‘I don’t mind it,’ I ventured desperately.
Burrich lifted his eyes and regarded me sternly. ‘My, my. Positively chatty tonight, aren’t we?’
I lowered my eyes from his. ‘You live down here,’ I pointed out sullenly. ‘You aren’t a stray pup.’
‘I’m not a prince’s bastard, either,’ he said tersely. ‘You’ll live in the keep now, fitz, and that’s all.’
I dared to look at him. He was speaking to his fingers again.
‘I’d rather I was a stray pup,’ I made bold to say. And then all my fears broke my voice as I added, ‘You wouldn’t let them do this to a stray pup, changing everything all at once. When they gave the bloodhound puppy to Lord Grimsby, you sent your old shirt with it, so it would have something that smelled of home until it settled in.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I didn’t … come here, fitz. Come here, boy.’
And puppy-like, I went to him, the only master I had, and he thumped me lightly on the back and rumpled up my hair, very much as if I had been a hound.
‘Don’t be scared, now. There’s nothing to be afraid of. And, anyway,’ he said, and I heard him relenting, ‘they’ve only told us that you’re to have a room up at the keep. No one’s said that you’ve got to sleep in it every night. Some nights, if things are a bit too quiet for you, you can find your way down here. Eh, fitz? Does that sound right to you?’
‘I suppose so,’ I muttered.
Change rained fast and furious on me for the next fortnight. Burrich had me up at dawn, and I was tubbed and scrubbed, the hair cut back from my eyes and the rest bound down my back in a tail such as I had seen on the older men of the keep. He told me to dress in the best clothing I had, then clicked his tongue over how small it had become on me. With a shrug he said it would have to do.
Then it was into the stables, where he showed me the mare that now was mine. She was grey, with a hint of dapple in her coat. Her mane and tail, nose and stockings were blackened as if she’d got into soot. And that, too, was her name. She was a placid beast, well shaped and well cared for. A less challenging mount would be hard to imagine. Boyish, I had hoped for at least a spirited gelding. But Sooty was my mount instead. I tried to conceal my disappointment, but Burrich must have sensed it. ‘You don’t think she’s much, do you? Well, how much of a horse did you have yesterday, fitz, that you’d turn up your nose at a willing, healthy beast like Sooty? She’s with foal by that nasty bay stallion of Lord Temperance, so see you treat her gently. Cob’s had her training until now; he’d hoped to make a chase horse out of her. But I decided she’d suit you better. He’s a bit put out over it, but I’ve promised him he can start again with the foal.’
Burrich had adapted an old saddle for me, vowing that regardless of what the King might say, I’d have to show myself a horseman before he’d let a new one be made for me. Sooty stepped out smoothly and answered the reins and my knees promptly. Cob had done wonderfully with her. Her temperament and mind reminded me of a quiet pond. If she had thoughts, they were not about what we were doing, and Burrich was watching me too closely for me to risk trying to know her mind. So I rode her blind, talking to her only through my knees and the reins and the shifting of my weight. The physical effort of it exhausted me long before my first lesson was over, and Burrich knew it. But that did not mean he excused me from cleaning and feeding her, and then cleaning my saddle and tack. Every tangle was out of her mane, and the old leather shone with oil before I was allowed to go to the kitchens and eat.
But as I darted away to the kitchen’s back door, Burrich’s hand fell on my shoulder.<
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‘No more of that for you,’ he told me firmly. ‘That’s fine for men-at-arms and gardeners and such. But there’s a hall where the high folk and their special servants eat. And that is where you eat now.’
And so saying, he propelled me into a dim room dominated by a long table, with another, higher table at the head of it. There were all manner of foods set out upon it, and folk busy at various stages of their meals. For when the King and Queen and Princes were absent from the high table, as was the case today, no one stood upon formalities.
Burrich nudged me to a place on the left side of the table, above the mid-point but not by much. He himself ate on the same side, but lower. I was hungry, and no one was staring hard enough to unnerve me, so I made short work of a largish meal. Food pilfered directly from the kitchen had been hotter and fresher. But such matters do not count to a growing boy, and I ate well after my empty morning.
My stomach full, I was thinking of a certain sandy embankment, warmed by the afternoon sun and replete with rabbit holes, where the hound pups and I often spent sleepy afternoons. I started to rise from the table, but immediately there was a boy behind me, saying, ‘Master?’
I looked around to see who he was speaking to, but everyone else was busy at trenchers. He was taller than I was, and older by several summers, so I stared up at him in amazement when he looked me in the eye and repeated, ‘Master? Have you finished eating?’
I bobbed my head in a nod, too surprised to speak.