By the time the Raiders began to harry our shores seriously, they had subdued most opposition in the Out Islands. Those who openly opposed them died or fled. Others grudgingly paid tribute and clenched their teeth against the outrages of those who controlled the cult. But many gladly joined the ranks, and painted the hulls of their raiding vessels red and never questioned the rightness of what they did. It seems likely that these converts were formed mostly from the lesser Houses, who had never before been offered the opportunity to rise in influence. But he who controlled the Red Ship Raiders cared nothing for who a man’s forebears had been, so long as he had the man’s unswerving loyalty.
I saw the lady twice more before I discovered who she was. The second time I saw her was the next night, at about the same hour. Molly had been busy with her berries, so I had gone out for an evening of tavern music with Kerry and Dirk. I had had perhaps one or at most two glasses more of ale than I should have. I was neither dizzy nor sick, but I was placing my feet carefully for I had already taken one tumble in a pothole on the dusky road.
Separate but adjacent to the dusty kitchen courtyard with its cobbles and wagon docks is a hedged area. It is commonly referred to as the Women’s Garden, not because it is exclusively their province but simply because they have the tending and the knowing of it. It is a pleasant place, with a pond in the middle, and many low beds of herbs set among flowering plantings, fruit-vines and green-stoned pathways. I knew better than to go straight to bed when I was in this condition. If I attempted to sleep now, the bed would begin to spin and sway, and within an hour, I would be puking sick. It had been a pleasant evening, and that seemed a wretched way to end it, so I took myself to the Women’s Garden instead of to my room.
In one angle of the garden, between a sun-warmed wall and a smaller pond, there grew seven varieties of thyme. Their fragrances on a hot day can be giddying, but then, with evening verging on night, the mingling scents seemed to soothe my head. I splashed my face in the little pool, and then put my back to the rock wall that was still releasing the sun’s heat back to the night. Frogs were chirruping to one another. I lowered my eyes and watched the pond’s calm surface to keep myself from spinning.
Footsteps. Then a woman’s voice asked tartly, ‘Are you drunk?’
‘Not quite,’ I replied affably, thinking it was Tilly the orchard-girl. ‘Not quite enough time or coin,’ I added jokingly.
‘I suppose you learned it from Burrich. The man is a sot and a lecher, and he has cultivated like traits in you. Ever he brings those around him down to his level.’
The bitterness in the woman’s voice made me look up. I squinted through the dimming light to make out her features. It was the lady of the previous evening. Standing on the garden path, in a simple shift, she looked at first glance to be little more than a girl. She was slender, and less tall than I, though I was not overly tall for my fourteen years. But her face was a woman’s, and right now her mouth was set in a condemning line echoed by the brows knit over her hazel eyes. Her hair was dark and curling, and though she had tried to restrain it, ringlets of it had escaped at her forehead and neck.
It was not that I felt compelled to defend Burrich; it was simply that my condition was no doing of his. So I made answer something to the effect that as he was some miles distant in a different town, he could scarcely be responsible for what I put in my mouth and swallowed.
The lady came two steps closer. ‘But he has never taught you better, has he? He has never counselled you against drunkenness, has he?’
There is a saying from the southlands that there is truth in wine. There must be a bit of it in ale, also. I spoke it that night. ‘Actually, my lady, he would be greatly displeased with me right now. First, he would berate me for not rising when a lady spoke to me.’ And here I lurched to my feet. ‘And then, he would lecture me long and severely about the behaviour expected from one who carries a prince’s blood if not his titles.’ I managed a bow, and when I succeeded, I distinguished myself by straightening up with a flourish. ‘So, good evening to you, fair Lady of the Garden. I bid you good night, and I shall remove my oafish self from your presence.’
I was all the way to the arched entryway in the wall when she called out, ‘Wait!’ But my stomach gave a quietly protesting grumble, and I pretended not to hear. She did not come after me, but I felt sure she watched me, and so I kept my head up and my stride even until I was out of the kitchen courtyard. I took myself down to the stables, where I vomited into the manure pile, and ended up sleeping in a clean empty stall because the steps up to Burrich’s loft looked entirely too steep.
But youth is amazingly resilient, especially when feeling threatened. I was up at dawn the next day, for I knew Burrich was expected home by afternoon. I washed myself at the stables, and decided the tunic I had worn for the last three days needed to be replaced. I was doubly conscious of its condition when in the corridor outside my room the lady accosted me. She looked me up and down, and before I could speak, she addressed me.
‘Change your shirt,’ she told me. And then added, ‘Those leggings make you look like a stork. Tell Mistress Hasty they need replacing.’
‘Good morning, lady,’ I said. It was not a reply, but those were the only words that came to me in my astonishment. I decided she was very eccentric, even more so than Lady Thyme. My best course was to humour her. I expected her to turn aside and go on her way. Instead she continued to hold me with her eyes.
‘Do you play a musical instrument?’ she demanded.
I shook my head mutely.
‘You sing, then?’
‘No, my lady.’
She looked troubled as she asked, ‘Then perhaps you have been taught to recite the Epics and the knowledge verses, of herbs and healings and navigation … that sort of thing?’
‘Only the ones that pertain to the care of horses, hawks and dogs,’ I told her, almost honestly. Burrich had demanded I learn those. Chade had taught me a set about poisons and antidotes, but he had warned me they were not commonly known, and were not to be casually recited.
‘But you dance, of course? And you have been instructed in the making of verse?’
I was totally confused. ‘Lady, I think you have confused me with someone else. Perhaps you are thinking of August, the King’s nephew. He is but a year or two younger than I and …’
‘I am not mistaken. Answer my question!’ she demanded, almost shrilly.
‘No, my lady. The teachings you speak of are for those who are … well-born. I have not been taught them.’
At each of my denials, she had appeared more troubled. Her mouth grew straighter, and her hazel eyes clouded. ‘This is not to be tolerated,’ she declared, and turning in a flurry of skirts, she hastened off down the hallway. After a moment, I went into my room, changed my shirt, and put on the longest pair of leggings I owned. I dismissed the lady from my thoughts and threw myself into my chores and lessons for the day.
It was raining that afternoon when Burrich returned. I met him outside the stables, taking his horse’s head as he swung stiffly down from the saddle. ‘You’ve grown, Fitz,’ he observed and looked me over with a critical eye, as if I were a horse or hound that was showing unexpected potential. He opened his mouth as if to say something more, then shook his head and gave a half-snort. ‘Well?’ he asked, and I began my report.
He had been gone scarcely more than a month, but Burrich liked to know things down to the smallest detail. He walked beside me, listening, as