‘Do not be the Fool, Fitz. That is my role. Think. A man can serve only one master. No matter what your lips may say, Verity is your king. I fault you not for that. Do you fault me that Shrewd is mine?’
‘I do not fault you. Nor do I make mock of him before you.’
‘Nor do you come to visit him, no matter how many times I have urged it.’
‘I was at his door just yesterday. I was turned away. They said he was not well.’
‘And if that were to happen at Verity’s door, would you take it so meekly?’
That made me stop and think. ‘No. I don’t suppose I would.’
‘Why do you give him up so easily?’ The Fool spoke softly, like a man grieved. ‘Why does not Verity bestir himself for his father, instead of luring away Shrewd’s men to his side?’
‘I have not been lured away. Rather Shrewd has not seen fit to see me. As for Verity, well, I cannot speak for him. But all know it is Regal that Shrewd favours of his sons.’
‘Do all know that? Then do all know as well where Regal’s heart is truly set?’
‘Some do,’ I said briefly. This was dangerous talk.
‘Reflect on this. Both of us serve the king we love best. Yet there is another that we love least. I do not think we have a conflict of loyalty, Fitz, while we are united in who we love least. Come. Confess to me that you have scarce had time to set your eyes upon the scrolls, and I shall remind you that the time you have not had has fled us all too swiftly. This is not a task that can wait upon your convenience.’
I teetered on the decision. The Fool came suddenly closer. His eyes were always hard to meet and harder to read. But the set of his mouth showed me his desperation. ‘I will trade with you. I offer you a bargain you will find nowhere else. A secret I hold, promised to you, after you have let me search the scrolls for a secret which may not even be there.’
‘What secret?’ I asked reluctantly.
‘My secret.’ He turned aside from me and stared at the wall. ‘The mystery of the Fool. Whence comes he and why?’ He cast me a sidelong glance and said no more.
The curiosity of a dozen years leaped in me. ‘Freely given?’ I asked.
‘No. Offered as a bargain, as I said.’
I considered. Then, ‘I’ll see you later. Latch the door when you leave.’ And I slipped out.
There were serving-folk moving about in the corridors. I was grievously late. I forced myself into a creaking trot, and then to a run. I did not slow for the stairs to Verity’s tower, but rushed up their full length, knocked once and then entered.
Burrich turned to me, greeting me with a frown. The spartan furnishings of the room had already been pushed to one wall, save for Verity’s window chair. Verity was already ensconced in it. He turned his head to me more slowly, with eyes still full of distance. There was a drugged look to his eyes and mouth, a laxness painful to see when one knew what it meant. The Skill hunger gnawed at him. I feared that what he wished to teach me would only feed it and increase it. Yet how could either of us say no? I had learned something yesterday. It had not been a pleasant lesson, but once learned it could not be undone. I knew now that I would do whatever I must to drive the Red Ships from my shore. I was not the king, I would never be the king. But the folk of the Six Duchies were mine, just as they were Chade’s. I understood now why Verity spent himself so recklessly.
‘I beg pardon that I am late. I was detained. But I am ready to begin now.’
‘How do you feel?’ The question came from Burrich, asked with genuine curiosity. I turned to find him regarding me as sternly as before, but also with some puzzlement.
‘Stiff, sir. A bit. The run up the stairs warmed me up some. Sore, from yesterday. But otherwise I am all right.’
A bit of amusement quirked at his face. ‘No tremors, FitzChivalry? No darkening at the edge of your vision, no dizzy spells?’
I paused to think for a moment. ‘No.’
‘Be damned.’ Burrich gave a snort of amusement. ‘Evidently the cure has been to beat it out of you. I’ll remember that the next time you need a healer.’
Over the next hour, he seemed intent on applying his new theory of healing. The heads of the axes were blunt ones, and he had bundled them both in rags for this first lesson, but that did not prevent bruises. To be honest, most of them I earned with my own clumsiness. Burrich was not trying to land any blows that day, but only to teach me to use the whole weapon, not just the head of it. To keep Verity with me was effortless, for he remained in the same room with us. He was silent within me that day, offering no counsels or observations or warnings, but merely riding with my eyes. Burrich told me that the axe was not a sophisticated weapon, but was a very satisfactory one if used correctly. At the end of the session, he pointed out to me that he had been gentle with me, in consideration of the wounds I already bore. Verity dismissed us, and we both went down the stairs rather more slowly than I had come up.
‘Be on time tomorrow,’ Burrich charged me as we parted at the kitchen door, he going back to his stables, and I to find breakfast. I ate as I had not in days, with a wolf’s appetite, and wondered at the source of my own sudden vitality. Unlike Burrich, I did not put it down to any beating I had received. Molly, I thought, had healed with a touch what all the herbs and rest in a year could never have put to rights. The day suddenly stretched long in front of me, full of unbearable minutes of unendurable hours before nightfall and the kindly dark allowed us to be together again.
I set her resolutely from my mind and resolved to fill the day with tasks. A dozen immediately leapt to mind. I had been neglecting Patience. I had promised my aid with Kettricken’s garden. An explanation was owed to Brother Nighteyes. A visit was owed King Shrewd. I tried to order them in importance. Molly kept moving to the top of the list.
I resolutely set her to last. King Shrewd, I decided. I gathered my crockery from the table and took it back to the kitchen. The bustle was deafening. It puzzled me for a moment, until I recalled that tonight was the first night of Winterfest. Old Cook Sara looked up from the bread she was kneading and motioned me over. I went and stood beside her as I often had as a child, admiring the deft way her fingers shaped handfuls of dough into rolls and set them to rise. She was flour to her dimpled elbows, and flour smudged one cheek as well. The racket and rush of the kitchen created a strange sort of privacy. She spoke quietly through the clatter and chatter, and I had to strain to hear her.
‘I just wanted you to know,’ she grunted as she folded and pushed a new batch of dough, ‘that I know when a rumour is nonsense. And I speak it so when anyone tries to tell it here in my kitchen. They can gossip all they like in the laundry court, and tattle tales as much as they wish while they spin, but I’ll not have ill said of you here in my kitchen.’ She glanced up at me with snapping black eyes. My heart stood still with dread. Rumours? Of Molly and me?
‘You’ve et at my tables, and often enough, stood aside me and stirred a pot while we chatted when you were small. I think that maybe I know you better than most. And them what says you fight like a beast because you’re more than a half beast are talking evil nonsense. Them bodies was tore up bad, but I’ve seen worse done by men in a rage. When Sal Flatfish’s daughter was raped, she cut up that beast with her fish-knife, chop, chop, chop, right there in the market, just like she was cutting bait to set her lines. What you done was no worse than that.’
I knew an instant of dizzying terror. More than half beast … It wasn’t so long ago or far away that folk with the Wit were burned alive. ‘Thank you,’ I said, fighting for a calm voice. I added a modicum of truth when I said, ‘Not all of that was my doing. They were fighting over … their prey when I came on them.’
‘Ginna’s daughter. You need not hide words from me, Fitz. I’ve children of my own, growed now, but if any was to attack them, why,