by Robin Hobb
As the court began to surround my princess with ambitious young noblewomen and eligible young lords, I learned to navigate my way through them. Given my plain face, evading the interest of the young males was easier than weathering the vicious storms of young female politics. Some of her companions resented me and took every opportunity to humiliate me. Others saw me as a path to her favor and courted me with kind words and small gifts. I would be hard pressed to say which were the more dangerous. By day, I took care to be correct and unobtrusive. But in the evenings, when I was brushing out the princess’s hair or folding her clothing to put away for the night, I told her any gossip I had heard, and spoke of which young woman I’d seen exchanging a token with a young man who was already pledged to another, and giggled with her over which girl was cursed with garlicky breath and which young man suffered from warts on his hands. I was her confidante, ever attentive and never critical of her. And if one in her circle had treated me with less than kindness, perhaps Caution heard more about that person’s unkind comments about her hair, or dress, or skin. And if the princess became a bit cooler toward them, well, it was no more than they deserved.
At seventeen, grown to woman, the princess received the crown of the Queen-in-Waiting, as has always been our tradition in the Six Duchies. From now until the death of her father bestowed the throne on her, her royal training to rule would be in earnest. She would sit in the judgment chamber when nobles sought arbitration from the monarchy, to learn and eventually to share in the decisions they passed down. She would deal with diplomats and ambassadors from foreign countries, and travel within her own realm so that her dukes and duchesses should come to know and respect her. And suitable mates would be paraded before her. So, at least, was the purpose of that position.
Queen-in-Waiting Caution was not, perhaps, as dedicated as an heir should be but, as she confided to me, both her parents were in excellent health and had run the kingdom well for many years. Why interfere now, and spend decades in anxious waiting for an event she hoped was many years away? Now was her time to be young and to enjoy her life in a way that she never could once she was queen. Soon enough, she would have to bow her head to the heavy weight of a crown.
Soon her nobles muttered that at a time when she should have been learning the tasks of a ruler, Queen-in-Waiting Caution was instead learning only to indulge herself. Many a suitor was paraded before her, and many a noble son she spurned. By day and in public she gave polite excuses, saying she was too young as yet or that she wished to know herself better before she chose a mate for life. But in the evenings, as I brushed out her hair, she spoke her mind bluntly to me. That one was too fair, and the next one too dark. The Farrow lad giggled like a girl when he laughed and the one from Tilth brayed like a donkey. That one was too thin; nights with him would be like sleeping in the kindling pile. Another was too fleshy; she would be smothered in his embrace.
“What, then, do you want in a man?” I dared to ask her. A thin shard of green jealousy stabbed my heart but I took care not to show it. I was unlikely to marry well and when I did my duties to my husband would likely take me from Caution’s side. Once wed, my future would narrow to a swelling belly and a future as a wet-nurse, forever pregnant or tending children not my own. A husband I would have to find, eventually. But my heart did not cry out for a man. I drew the tortoiseshell comb slowly through Queen-in-Waiting Caution’s sleek black hair, savoring the soft threading of it through my hands. I had all I needed there at my fingertips, for I loved her with all my being.
She had been pondering my words. Now she smiled. “Away, away with all of them! I shall choose my own man when the time is right, and only to please myself, for what else truly will matter? I will be queen, Felicity! Queen! I will know all I need to rule, and the decisions will be mine. What is the use of being queen if I cannot even choose my own mate? For now, while I have you, I need no man to share my bed.” And she laughed as she turned to smile at me, and I smiled in return.
From my mother, I had learned that although all noble ladies must be virgins when they first wed, it did not mean they must be strangers to pleasure. And in that duty I had served my queen well and willingly since before we had been women.
But my question had set her mind on a different track of thought. She cocked her head at the mirror and a single furrow divided her brow. “And I am not at all sure that I will ever wish to share my throne or the powers that go with it.”
“But what of getting an heir to the Farseer throne?” I dared to ask her.
“When the time for one is needed, I am sure there will be plenty of candidates,” she said carelessly.
I wondered that she could care so little about it. It was true that she had cousins, and that they were well aware of the line of inheritance should Caution never bear a child. I knew that eventually her duchies would demand that Queen-in-Waiting Caution take a husband and produce an heir. Yet for now I was secretly well-pleased that she felt no need of a man in her bed. I, too, felt that our current arrangement was pleasant enough.
Her eighteenth birthday came and went, and then her nineteenth, and she showed no sign of choosing a mate. All the while she was most willful, not only in her own ways, but in encouraging the young women of her court to live as they chose regardless of what their fathers or mothers might say.
And, as the minstrels have sung, “Still the king and queen replied, ‘Yes, sweet Queen-in-Waiting Caution. So it shall be.’ For it seemed they could deny her nothing.”
I shall not deny the truth of that song, but I will say that there was far more to Queen-in-Waiting Caution than the tales tell.
As her twentieth birthday approached, her nobles became more restless. Yet neither King Virile nor Queen Capable would listen to those who suggested Queen-in-Waiting Caution might be better off wedded and bedded. The Duke of Bearns, who had offered a son, said, “A woman bears easiest when she is young and strong of back.”
The Duchess of Farrow, who had offered a nephew said, “Quench her woman’s passions in a bed before she comes to the throne. She will rule better so.”
The Duke and Duchess of Tilth, who had offered her a choice of their twin sons suggested, “The throne teeters on just a single heir. Let her wed young and mother many, to be sure the line is strong.”
The Duchess of Shoaks, who had six daughters of her own waiting to wed, declared, “Let the princess choose a man soon so that others will know the berth is taken and be free to court other fair and noble maidens.”
Only the Duke and Duchess of Buck were silent in these things. For the Duke of Buck was the king’s own younger brother, Strategy Farseer, and he had been bound well and tight to his name. He looked down on his little son Canny growing strong and straight and made no murmur that Queen-in-Waiting Caution had neither wed nor produced an heir to the throne. If the crown should happen to fall upon his own son’s head, I knew he would not mind the bump.
These things I saw and knew. More than once, I tried to speak of them to Caution. But even though I was as well schooled as she was she dismissed my thoughts as the gossiping of her servant rather than the warning of a friend. A friend, I might add, who had been as close to her for many years as if I were her sibling, and loved her more truly than any of the ladies who fawned upon her. She dismissed my advice that she should soon choose for herself, or all choices might be taken from her. And that brought pain to me, for I had believed she thought more highly of me than that.
But willful she was. And still I loved her.
It was not just in men that the Queen-in-Waiting would listen only to herself, but also in horseflesh. It happened in Buckkeep one summer, in that time when all bring horses and cattle to trade and breed, that a Chalcedean trader came likewise with his wares. On a ship he brought them, for at that time Shoaks was so wroth with the Duke of Chalced that the Duke would not suffer any Chalcedean folk to cross his lands. This trader was a sly fellow, far too thin for an honest man, with a patch on one eye, and a wet way of talking so
that he hissed like a spitting snake when he spoke. All turned a wary eye on him and little he sold that first day. So I noticed, for I was there, sent by Queen-in-Waiting Caution herself to look over the Cattle and Horse Fair that year and bring back news of anything worth seeing.
Now among his wares this odd trader had a spotted horse—not dappled nor speckled, mind you, but blotted in great ugly spots, like a fruit that has taken blight, or a poorly-dyed blanket, or a milk cow. Black-and-white he was, with a rolling blue eye on one side of his head and a dark staring one on the other. Big was this beast, and a stud, unruly of temper, screaming out his challenges to any stallion that came near and snuffing and stamping after every passing mare. He was a nuisance and a danger, and twice the guards had to be called to quell the beast. They warned the Chalcedean that he had best keep his horse to rights, or he would be thrown out of the fair. But each time, when the guards arrived, they found the Spotted Stud standing docile as a lamb, and at his head, holding his halter, a youth of strange mien.
He was not garbed well, but rather as a servant and a ragged one at that. He was silent in his ways, his eyes always cast down, and he spoke few words, fair or ill to the guards for when he did speak he stuttered so that it took him three times as long to say whatever he had in his mind as it should have. Only to the horse he spoke frequently, in a breath so soft none could make out the words, but always the rambunctious horse turned docile as an old mare at his utterances. Things are said of him now that none know if they are true or not: that he never in his days ate meat, but oft was seen standing beside his horse, chewing a stem of grass. Some say the nails of his hands were as thick and yellow as a horse’s hooves. Others that his laugh was a whinny and that when he was angered he pawed at the earth and stamped. I can say with absolute certainty that many of the things now said of him are rankest nonsense, and only spoken aloud to justify all that came afterward.
So when I went back to my mistress, I admit I spoke of the Chalcedean trader, and of the spotted horse and the man who tended it. But not, I swear, in a way to turn her head with thoughts of either one.
On the third day of the trading fair, Queen-in-Waiting Caution announced that she wanted to stroll the picket lines and see what the traders had to offer. Often, I fear, did Queen-in-Waiting Caution indulge herself in such strolls around the market on a trade day, when some folk felt it would have been more fitting to her rank to have sat in her chair by her father’s judgment throne, learning how to serve justice to her people. Such duties never amused Queen-in-Waiting Caution: she was often heard to say that when she had to ride a throne all day would be soon enough to take up that duty.
And so she and a circle of her more adventurous ladies had gone down to the stock markets. I was there, trailing after them, ready to carry any parcel or dash off to fetch a cool drink for her. I did not much enjoy the Cattle and Horse Fair. It was a hot day and dusty, and often folk passed us leading oxen or horses. I found it alarming when such large beasts passed directly behind or in front of me, yet the Queen-in-Waiting made nothing of that, but looked about with eager eyes, as did her ladies.
Yet it did not seem they were in a mood to buy, for with tart tongues and mouths full of laughter they made mock of first one trader and his wares and then another. This one looked as like to his horse as to his mother. That one’s stud was more round-bellied than the pregnant mare he showed. This horse had a coat so rough it would sand a man’s buttocks to his bones, and that one had a head more like cow. Such were the jests her ladies threw, and the Queen-in-Waiting did not rebuke their unseemly behavior, but laughed loudly in a way that only encouraged them to speak even more coarsely.
At last they came to the Chalcedean trader and his blotchy horse. The beast was peaceful that day, for the tight-lipped man who tended it stood at its head. When Caution and her ladies drew near, he looked up at her and his eyes were as full of wonder as if he had never seen a woman before. Despite his poor clothes, he was a handsome man, well muscled, tall and raven-haired. When the Queen-in-Waiting glanced at him, he blushed like a maid, and sank to one knee before her, bowing his head, and his thick black hair fell like a mane, cloaking him from her gaze. The fall of his hair bared the nape of his neck, and it was pale and downy as an infant’s.
“Stop,” said Caution to her ladies. “There is something here I wish to look at.”
One of the ladies, thinking to prove her wit, pointed at the stud and said, “Oh, so that’s what became of that blanket with the holes burned in it; they’ve used it to make a horse.”
Another, vying for favor, said, “No, not at all. ‘Tis but a spotted cow with a horse’s halter on his head.”
A third said, “Behold, not a cow nor a blanket, but a white cheese gone to black mould.”
All laughed far louder than such jests merited, expecting to win Queen-in-Waiting Caution’s laughter as well. But instead she spoke in a terrible voice, harsh and cold. “Silence, you fools! Never before have I beheld a creature as perfect as this one.”
But when she spoke her eyes were not on the stallion, nor on his Chalcedean owner, but instead on the young man who gripped the Spotted Stud’s halter. There and on that spot, she declared that she would buy the beast. When the deal was closed and the gold passed, she had bought not just the Spotted Stud, but the man who held his halter, and this despite the laws of the Six Duchies against the buying or selling of a man. Slave he had been to the Chalcedean, but she in that moment raised him to free man and servant.
His name was Lostler. Now some will say that his name was Sly, and some will even call him Sly o’ the Wit when they sing of him. I never heard him called by such a name. The flaw of his mouth made him prone to soft speech and shy ways; yet for all that he was a man, as hard-muscled and strong-willed as his horse. Soon all would come to know that as well.
Before the month was out, the Stablemaster of Buckkeep stood before the Queen-in-Waiting, begging her to be rid of the spotted horse. The stud would not tolerate anyone to handle him, save Lostler. The other stallions in their stalls screamed and snorted at his presence and could not be calmed, save by Lostler. The Spotted Stud leaped a fence and serviced three mares that were to have been bred to another—nor would he leave them until Lostler came to fetch him away. “Be rid of one stallion, for the good of your entire stable,” the Stablemaster told her.
To all this the Queen-in-Waiting listened and then she said, “It is not one stallion we need to be rid of, but one Stablemaster. By your own words, Lostler does your work for you. Be gone, then, and let Lostler master my stable and horses for me.”
So it came to be, for even in this matter her father the king did not oppose her, but let go the man he had himself raised to Stablemaster a decade before and allowed Queen-in-Waiting Caution to put her own servant in his place.
Now let the truth be told. Lostler was a man with what some folk thought a gift in those days. He could whisper in the tongues of beasts, and so bend nearly any animal to his will. Some call this magic the Wit, and some speak of such a man as having the Old Blood, the blood that beasts and men once shared. It was no shame, in those days—not for one to have the Wit nor for one to use it. Some folk said then that much good could come of that magic. Certainly in the year that followed it is true that both horses and dogs in the stables prospered and many a sickly beast was cured and many a vicious animal made gentle. Many and many a spotted foal was born, for the blood of the Spotted Stud proved strong when mingled with the Buckkeep stock.
Whenever the Queen-in Waiting wished to ride out, Lostler prepared her horse for her, and held her stirrup for her to mount, and softly answered all questions she brought to him regarding her horse. She began to ride daily, even though in times past she had been indifferent to riding as a pastime, and only enthused for the hunt. Now, however, she began to find time each day for riding, and I, perforce, had to accompany her, regardless of how little I enjoyed it.
So it was that I saw how she was with her new stablemaster. Shy he wa
s, this Lostler, flushing pink whenever she addressed him. But she spoke him soft and gentle, in the very way in which he spoke to the horses. So also he listened to her, standing still, eyes downcast. Some said that she charmed him with her quiet words even as he charmed a hesitant horse.
Soon she declared she would ride the Spotted Stud, although all knew the beast’s temperament was uneven and sometimes savage. “Only Lostler can manage him when he is in a temper,” her nobles said to her, beseeching her to be more considerate. “If you ride such a beast for pleasure, few other riders shall take pleasure in accompanying you.” To which she replied, “Then Lostler shall ride out at my side whenever I ride my Spotted Stud. He shall be there, to help me manage him if he becomes difficult. As for others, they may come along or not as they will, for I’m sure it will not matter to me.”
So it transpired, despite what other folk thought of that and much to the king’s displeasure. I, however, was never excused from such expeditions. Lostler chose a horse for me, one so gentle and spiritless as to be the equivalent of a cushioned chair. On that creature, my panniers laden with the morning repast, I trailed daily after the Queen-in-Waiting and her stablemaster. Most often we left the keep at a spirited gallop, something I did not enjoy and an exercise at which they quickly outpaced me and my decrepit mount. Yet before long, I would catch up to them and find them letting their horses plod sedately along while Lostler rode at Caution’s side in quiet conversation with her.