by Robin Hobb
I was staring at the Fool.
“You look like a fish, with your mouth open like that,” he observed. “But of course, your father refused. He said it might appear he was formally acknowledging his bastard. But I don’t think that was it at all. I think it would have been dangerous for you. ” The Fool made an odd pass with his hand, and a stick of dried meat appeared in his fingers. I knew it had been up his sleeve, but I was unable to see how he accomplished his tricks. He flipped the meat onto my bed and the puppy sprang on it greedily.
“You can hurt her, if you choose,” he offered me. “She feels such guilt at how alone you have been. And you look so like Chivalry, anything you say will be as if it came from his lips. She’s like a gem with a flaw. One precise tap from you, and she will fly all to pieces. She’s half-mad as she is, you know. They would never have been able to kill Chivalry if she hadn’t consented to his abdication. At least, not with such blithe dismissal of the consequences. She knows that. ”
“Who is “they’?” I demanded.
“Who are they?” the Fool corrected me, and whisked out of sight. By the time I got to the door, he was gone. I quested after him, but got nothing. Almost as if he were Forged. I shivered at that thought, and went back to Smithy. He was chewing the meat to slimy bits all over my bed. I watched him. “The Fool’s gone,” I told Smithy. He wagged a casual acknowledgment and went on worrying his meat.
He was mine, given to me. Not a stable dog I cared for, but mine, and outside of Burrich’s knowledge or authority. Other than my clothes and the copper bracelet that Chade had given me, I had few possessions. But he made up for all lacks I might ever have had.
He was a sleek and healthy pup. His coat was smooth now, but would grow bristly as he matured. When I held him up to the window, I could see faint mottlings of color in his coat. He’d be a dark brindle, then. I discovered one white spot on his chin, and another on his left hind foot. He clamped his little jaws on my shirtsleeve and shook it violently, uttering savage puppy growls. I tussled him on the bed until he fell into a deep, limp sleep. Then I moved him to his straw cushion and went reluctantly to my afternoon lessons and chores.
That initial week with Patience was a trying time for both of us. I learned to keep a thread of my attention always with him so he never felt alone enough to howl when I left him. But that took practice, so I felt somewhat distracted. Burrich frowned about it, but I persuaded him it was due to my sessions with Patience. “I have no idea what that woman wants from me,” I told him by the third day. “Yesterday it was music. In the space of two hours, she attempted to teach me to play the harp, the sea pipes, and then the flute. Every time I came close to figuring out a few notes on one or the other of them, she snatched it away and commanded that I try a different one. She ended that session by saying that I had no aptitude for music. This morning it was poetry. She set herself to teaching me the one about Queen Healsall and her garden. It has a long bit, about all the herbs she grew and what each was for. And she kept getting it bungled, and got angry at me when I repeated it back to her that way, saying that I must know that catmint is not for poultices and that I was mocking her. It was almost a relief when she said I had given her such a headache that we must stop. And when I offered to bring her buds from the lady’s-hand bush for her headache, she sat right up and said, “There! I knew you were mocking me. ’ I don’t know how to please her, Burrich. ”
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“Why would you want to?” he growled, and I let the subject drop.
That evening Lacey came to my room. She tapped, then entered, wrinkling her nose. “You’d better bring up some strewing herbs if you’re going to keep that pup in here. And use some vinegar and water when you scrub up his messes. It smells like a stable in here. ”
“I suppose it does,” I admitted. I looked at her curiously and waited.
“I brought you this. You seemed to like it best. ” She held out the sea pipes. I looked at the short, fat tubes bound together with strips of leather. I had liked it best of the three instruments. The harp had far too many strings, and the flute had seemed shrill to me even when Patience had played it.
“Did Lady Patience send it to me?” I asked, puzzled.
“No. She doesn’t know I’ve taken it. She’ll assume it’s lost in her litter, as usual. ”
“Why did you bring it?”
“For you to practice on. When you’ve a little skill with it, bring it back and show her. ”
“Why?”
Lacey sighed. “Because it would make her feel better. And that would make my life much easier. There’s nothing worse than being maid to someone as heartsick as Lady Patience. She longs desperately for you to be good at something. She keeps trying you out, hoping that you’ll manifest some sudden talent so that she can flout you about and tell folk, “There, I told you he had it in him. ’ Now, I’ve had boys of my own, and I know boys aren’t that way. They don’t learn, or grow, or have manners when you’re looking at them. But turn away, and turn back, and there they are, smarter, taller, and charming everyone but their own mothers. ”
I was a little lost. “You want me to learn to play this so Patience will be happy?”
“So she can feel she’s given you something. ”
“She gave me Smithy. Nothing she can ever give me will be better than him. ”
Lacey looked surprised at my sudden sincerity. So was I. “Well. You might tell her that. But you might also try to learn to play the sea pipes or recite a ballad or sing one of the old prayers. That she might understand better. ”
After Lacey left, I sat thinking, caught between anger and wistfulness. Patience wished me to be a success and felt she must discover something I could do. As if, before her, I had never done or accomplished anything. But as I mulled over what I had done, and what she knew of me, I realized that her image of me must be a rather flat one. I could read and write, and take care of a horse or dog. I could also brew poisons, make sleeping drafts, smuggle, lie, and do sleight of hand, none of which would have pleased her even if she had known. So, was there anything to me, other than being a spy or assassin?
The next morning I arose early and sought Fedwren. He was pleased when I asked to borrow brushes and colors from him. The paper he gave me was better than practice sheets, and he made me promise to show him my efforts. As I made my way up the stairs I wondered what it would be like to apprentice with him. Surely it could not be any harder than what I had been set to lately.
But the task I had set myself proved harder than any Patience had put me to. I could see Smithy asleep on his cushion. How could the curve of his back be different from the curve of a rune, the shades of his ears so different from the shading of the herbal illustrations I painstakingly copied from Fedwren’s work. But they were, and I wasted sheet after sheet of paper until I suddenly saw that it was the shadows around the pup that made the curves of his back and the line of his haunch. I needed to paint less, not more, and put down what my eye saw rather than what my mind knew.
It was late when I washed out my brushes and set them aside. I had two that pleased, and a third that I liked, though it was soft and muzzy, more like a dream of a puppy than a real puppy. More like what I sensed than what I saw, I thought to myself.
But when I stood outside Lady Patience’s door, I looked down at the papers in my hand and suddenly saw myself as a toddler presenting crushed and wilted dandelions to his mother. What fitting pastime was this for a youth? If I were truly Fedwren’s apprentice, then exercises of this sort would be appropriate, for a good scriber must illustrate and illuminate as well as scribe. But the door opened before I knocked and there I was, my fingers smudged still with paint and the pages damp in my hand.
I was wordless when Patience irritably told me to come inside, that I was late enough already. I perched on the edge of a chair with a crumpled cloak and some half-finished bit of stitchery. I set my paintings to one side of me, ato
p a stack of tablets.
“I think you could learn to recite verse, if you chose to,” she remarked with some asperity. “And therefore you could learn to compose verse, if you chose to. Rhythm and meter are no more than . . . is that the puppy?”
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“It’s meant to be,” I muttered, and could not remember feeling more wretchedly embarrassed in my life.
She lifted the sheets carefully and examined each one in turn, holding them close and then at arm’s length. She stared longest at the muzzy one. “Who did these for you?” she asked at last. “Not that it excuses your being late. But I could find good use for someone who can put on paper what the eye sees, with the colors so true. That is the trouble with all the herbals I have; all the herbs are painted the same green, no matter if they are gray or tinged pink as they grow. Such tablets are useless if you are trying to learn from them—”
“I suspect he’s painted the puppy himself, ma’am,” Lacey interrupted benignly.
“And the paper, this is better than what I’ve had to—” Patience paused suddenly. “You, Thomas?” (And I think that was the first time she remembered to use the name she had bestowed on me. ) “You paint like this?”
Before her incredulous look, I managed a quick nod. She held up the pictures again. “Your father could not draw a curved line, save it was on a map. Did your mother draw?”
“I have no memories of her, lady. ” My reply was stiff. I could not recall that anyone had ever been brave enough to ask me such a thing before.
“What, none? But you were six years old. You must remember something—the color of her hair, her voice, what she called you. . . . ” Was that a pained hunger in her voice, a curiosity she could not quite bear to satisfy?
Almost, for a moment, I did remember. A smell of mint, or was it . . . it was gone. “Nothing, lady. If she had wanted me to remember her, she would have kept me, I suppose. ” I closed my heart. Surely I owed no remembrance to the mother who had not kept me, nor ever sought me since.
“Well. ” For the first time I think Patience realized she had taken our conversation into a difficult area. She stared out the window at a gray day. “Someone has taught you well,” she observed suddenly, too brightly.
“Fedwren. ” When she said nothing, I added, “The court scribe, you know. He would like me to apprentice to him. He is pleased with my letters, and works with me now on the copying of his images. When we have time, that is. I am often busy, and he is often out questing after new paper reeds. ”
“Paper reeds?” she asked distractedly.
“He has a bit of paper. He had several measures of it, but little by little he has used it. He got it from a trader, who had it from another, and yet another before him, so he does not know where it first came from. But from what he was told, it was made of pounded reeds. The paper is a much better quality than any we make; it is thin, flexible, and does not crumble so readily with age, yet it takes ink well, not soaking it up so that the edges of runes blur. Fedwren says that if we could duplicate it, it would change much. With a good, sturdy paper, any man might have a copy of tablet lore from the keep. Were paper cheaper, more children could be taught to write and to read both, or so he says. I do not understand why he is so—”
“I did not know any here shared my interest. ” A sudden animation lit the lady’s face. “Has he tried paper made from pounded lily root? I have had some success with that. And also with paper created by first weaving and then wet-pressing sheets made with threads of bark from the kinue tree. It is strong and flexible, yet the surface leaves much to be desired. Unlike this paper . . . ”
She glanced again at the sheets in her hand and fell silent. Then she asked hesitantly, “You like the puppy this much?”
“Yes,” I said simply, and our eyes suddenly met. She stared into me in the same distracted way that she often stared out the window. Abruptly, her eyes brimmed with tears.
“Sometimes, you are so like him that . . . ” She choked. “You should have been mine! It isn’t fair, you should have been mine!”
She cried out the words so fiercely that I thought she would strike me. Instead, she leaped at me and caught me in a flying hug, at the same time treading upon her dog and overturning a vase of greenery. The dog sprang up with a yelp, the vase shattered on the floor, sending water and shards in all directions, while my lady’s forehead caught me squarely under the chin, so that for a moment all I saw was sparks. Before I could react, she flung herself from me and fled into her bedchamber with a cry like a scalded cat. She slammed the door behind her.
And all the while Lacey kept on with her tatting.
“She gets like this, sometimes,” she observed benignly, and nodded me toward the door. “Come again tomorrow,” she reminded me, and added, “You know, Lady Patience has become quite fond of you. ”
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14
Galen
GALEN, SON OF A weaver, came to Buckkeep as a boy. His father was one of Queen Desire’s personal servants who followed her from Farrow. Solicity was then the Skillmaster at Buckkeep. She had instructed King Bounty and his son Shrewd in the Skill, so by the time Shrewd’s sons were boys, she was ancient already. She petitioned King Bounty that she might take an apprentice, and he consented. Galen was greatly favored of the Queen, and at Queen-in-Waiting Desire’s energetic urging, Solicity chose the youth Galen as her apprentice. At that time, as now, the Skill was denied to bastards of the Farseer House, but when the talent bloomed, unexpected, among those not of royalty, it was cultivated and rewarded. No doubt Galen was such a one as this, a boy showing strange and unexpected talent that came abruptly to the attention of a Skillmaster.
By the time the Princes Chivalry and Verity were old enough to receive Skill instruction, Galen had advanced enough to assist in their instruction, though he was but a year or so older than they.
Once again mylife sought a balance and briefly found it. The awkwardness with Lady Patience gradually eroded into our acceptance that we would never become casual or overly familiar with one another. Neither of us felt a need to share feelings; instead we skirted one another at a formal distance, and nevertheless managed to gain a good mutual understanding. Yet in the formal dance of our relationship, there were occasional times of genuine merriment, and sometimes we even danced to the same piper.
Once she had given up the notion of teaching me everything that a Farseer prince should know, she was able to teach me a great deal. Very little of it was what she initially intended to teach me. I did gain a working knowledge of music, but this was by the loan of her instruments and many hours of private experimentation. I became more her runner than her page, and from fetching for her, I learned much of the perfumer’s art, as well as greatly increasing my knowledge of plants. Even Chade became enthused when he discovered my new talents for root-and-leaf propagation, and he followed with interest the experiments, few of them successful, that Lady Patience and I made into coaxing the buds of one tree to open to leaf when spliced into another tree. This was a magic she had heard rumored, but did not scruple to attempt. To this day, in the Women’s Garden, there is an apple tree, one branch of which bears pears. When I expressed a curiosity about the tattooer’s art, she refused to let me mark my own body, saying I was too young for such a decision. But without the least qualm, she let me observe, and finally assist with, the slow pricking of dye into her own ankle and calf that became a coiled garland of flowers.
But all of that evolved over months and years, not days. We had settled into a blunt-spoken courtesy toward one another by the end of ten days. She met Fedwren and enlisted him in her root-paper project. The pup was growing well and was a greater pleasure to me every day. Lady Patience’s errands to town gave me ample opportunities to see my town friends, especially Molly. She was an invaluable guide to the fragrant stalls where I purchased Lady Patience’s perfume supplies. Forging and Red-Ship Raiders migh
t still threaten from the horizon, but for those few weeks they seemed a remote terror, like the remembered chill of winter on a midsummer day. For a very brief period I was happy, and, an even rarer gift, I knew I was happy.
And then my lessons with Galen began.
The night before my lessons were to begin, Burrich sent for me. I went to him wondering what chore I had done poorly and would be rebuked for. I found him waiting for me outside the stables, shifting his feet as restlessly as a confined stallion. He immediately beckoned me to follow him and took me up to his chambers.
“Tea?” he offered, and when I nodded, poured me a mug from a pot still warm on his hearth.
“What’s the matter?” I asked as I took it from him. He was strung as tight as I had ever seen him. This was so unlike Burrich that I feared some terrible news—that Sooty was ill, or dead, or that he had discovered Smithy.
“Nothing,” he lied, and did it so poorly that he himself immediately recognized it. “It’s this, boy,” he confessed suddenly. “Galen came to me today. He told me that you were to be instructed in the Skill. And he charged me that while he was teaching you, I could interfere in no way—not to counsel, or ask chores of you, or even share a meal with you. He was most . . . direct about it. ” Burrich paused, and I wondered what better word he had rejected. He looked away from me. “There was a time when I’d hoped this chance would be offered you, but when it wasn’t, I thought, well, perhaps it’s for the best. Galen can be a hard teacher. A very hard teacher. I’ve heard talk of it before. He drives his pupils, but he claims he expects no more of them than he does of himself. And, boy, I’ve heard that gossiped about me, too, if you can credit it. ”
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I permitted myself a small smile, that brought an answering scowl from Burrich.
“Listen to what I’m telling you. Galen makes no secret that he has no fondness for you. Of course, he doesn’t know you at all, so it’s not your fault. It’s based solely on . . . what you are, and what you caused, and God knows that wasn’t your fault. But if Galen admitted that, then he’d have to admit it was Chivalry’s fault, and I’ve never known him to admit that Chivalry had any faults . . . but you can love a man and know better than that about him. ” Burrich took a brisk turn around the room, then came back to the fire.