It’s nothing that I cannot manage better on my own. I shall snuff and range outside. See that you do the same inside. The sooner we are finished with the errand, the sooner we are for home again.
That’s true, I agreed, but I wondered at the slight sinking of my heart at the thought. Didn’t I want to leave Buckkeep and resume my own life as soon as possible? Or was I coming to relish my role as a serving-man to a wealthy fop? I asked myself sarcastically.
I took Lord Golden’s coat for him, and then eased him from his boots. As I had so often seen Charim do without paying any heed, I brushed and hung the jacket, and gave the boots a hasty dusting before setting them aside. When Lord Golden offered me his wrists, I undid the fastenings of the lacy cuffs of his shirt and set the glittering gauds aside. He leaned back in his chair. ‘I shall wear my blue doublet tonight. And the linen shirt with the fine blue stripe in it. Dark blue hose, I think, and the shoes with the trimming of silver chain. Lay it all out for me. Then pour the buckets, Badgerlock, and be generous with the rose oil. Then set the screens and leave me to my thoughts for a bit. Oh, and please, take some of this water into your chambers and avail yourself of it. When we dine, I shall want to smell the food, not you standing behind me. Oh. And wear the dark blue tonight. I think it will set off my own garb the better. One other thing. Put this on as well, but I counsel you to keep it covered unless you truly need it.’
From his pocket he drew forth Jinna’s charm. It coiled into my extended hand.
All this he announced with an air of genial good cheer. Lord Golden was a man well pleased with himself, looking forwards to an evening of pleasant talk and hearty viands. I did as I was bid, and then gratefully retreated to my own room with washwater and a bit of apple-scented oil. Shortly I heard Lord Golden splashing luxuriously whilst humming a tune I did not know. My own washing was a bit more restrained but just as welcome to me. I hurried, knowing that my services would soon be required again.
I struggled with my doublet, finding that it had been tailored far more close-fitting than I was accustomed to. There was scarcely room to conceal Chade’s roll of tools let alone the small knife that I decided I would carry. I could scarcely wear a sword into the dining room on a social occasion, but I found I did not wish to go completely unarmed. The wolf’s secretive approach to the Wit tonight had infected me with wariness. I cinched the belt that secured the doublet and then pulled my hair back into its warrior tail. Some of the apple-scented oil persuaded my hair to lie flatter. I realized I had not heard splashing for some moments, and hastened back into Lord Golden’s chamber.
‘Lord Golden, do you require my assistance?’
‘Scarcely.’ A shadow of the Fool was in Golden’s drawled sarcasm. He emerged from behind the screen, fully dressed, and adjusting the fall of lace at his cuffs. A small smile of pleasure at surprising me was playing about his mouth as he lifted his eyes to me. Abruptly, the smile faded. For a time he simply stared at me, mouth slightly ajar. Then his eyes lit. As he advanced to me, satisfaction shone in his face. ‘It’s perfect,’ he breathed. ‘Exactly as I had hoped. Oh, Fitz, I always imagined that, had I the chance, I could show you off as befitted you. And look at you.’
His use of my name was as astonishing as the way he gripped my shoulders and propelled me towards the immense mirror. For a moment I looked only at the reflection of his face over my shoulder, alight with pride and satisfaction. Then I shifted my gaze and stared at a man I scarcely recognized.
His directions to the tailor must have been very complete. The doublet encased my shoulders and chest. The white of the shirt showed at the collar and the sleeves. The blue of the doublet was Buck blue, my family colour, and even if I now wore it as a servant, the cut of the doublet was not that of servant but of soldier. The tailoring made my shoulders look broad and my belly flat. The white of the shirt contrasted with my dark skin and eyes and hair. I gazed at my own face in consternation. The sharpness of my scars had faded with my youth. There were lines on my brow and starting at the corners of my eyes, and somehow these lessened the severity of the scar’s passage down my face. I had long ago accepted the modification of my broken nose. The streak of white in my hair was more noticeable with my hair drawn back in a warrior’s tail. The man that looked back at me from the mirror put me somewhat in mind of Verity, but even more of the portrait of King-in-Waiting Chivalry that still hung in the hall at Buckkeep.
‘I look like my father,’ I said quietly. The prospect of that both pleased and alarmed me.
‘Only to someone seeking that resemblance,’ the Fool replied. ‘Only someone knowing enough to peer past your scars would see the Farseer in you. Mostly, my friend, you look like yourself, only more so. You look like the FitzChivalry that was always there, but kept hidden by Chade’s wisdom and subterfuge. Did you never wonder at how your clothes were cut, simply and almost rough, to make you look more stablehand and soldier than prince’s bastard? Mistress Hasty the seamstress always thought the orders came from Shrewd. Even when she was allowed to indulge in her fripperies and fashion, it was only the ones that drew attention to themselves and her sewing skills and away from you. But this, Fitz, this is how I have always seen you. And how you have never seen yourself.’
I looked back at the glass. I think I speak truth when I say that I have never been a vain man. It took a moment for me to accept that, while I had aged, the change was one of maturity rather than of degeneration. ‘I don’t look that bad,’ I conceded.
The Fool’s smile went broader. ‘Ah, my friend, I have been places where women would have fought one another with knives over you.’ He lifted a slender hand and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘And now, I fear I must wonder if my fancy has succeeded too well. You will not pass without remark. But perhaps that is for the best. Flirt a bit with the kitchen maids, and who knows what they will tell you?’
I rolled my eyes at his mockery. His gaze met mine in the mirror. ‘Nothing finer than we two has dined in these halls before,’ he decided emphatically. He squeezed my shoulder, and then stood straight, abruptly Lord Golden again.
‘Badgerlock. The door. We are expected.’
I jumped to obey my master. Somehow, those few moments with the Fool had restored my tolerance for this new charade of ours. I even found my interest warming to it. If Prince Dutiful were here at Galeton, as I suspected he was, we would find him out before the night was through. Lord Golden preceded me through the door and I followed two steps behind him and to his left.
The depredations of the Red Ship War took their heaviest tolls on the Coastal Duchies. Old fortunes were decimated, family lines failed, and once-proud holdings were reduced to ashy ruins and weedy courtyards. Yet in the wake of the war, just as seedlings sprout in the spring after a lightning fire, so too did many of the minor nobility find their fortunes swelling. Many of the humbler holdings had escaped the raiders’ attention. Flocks and crops survived, and what would once have seemed a secondary property came to be seen as places of plenty. The lesser lords and ladies of these lands suddenly found themselves seen as desirable matches for the heirs of older but suddenly less wealthy family lines. Thus the widowed lord of the Bresinga holdings near Galeton took a much younger and wealthier bride from amongst the Earwood family of Lesser Tor in Buck. The Earwood family was an old and noble line that had dwindled in both standing and wealth. Yet in the years of the Red Ship War, their sheltered valley prospered and shared harvest with the devastated folk of the Bresinga holdings that bordered them. This kindness bore fruit for the Earwood family when Jaglea Earwood became Lady Bresinga. She bore to her elderly lord an heir, Civil Bresinga, shortly before his death from a fever.
Scribe Duvlen’s A History of the Earwood Line
Lord Golden moved with the grace and certainty that is supposedly bone-bred in the nobility. Unerringly he led me to an elegant antechamber where his hostess and her son awaited him. Laurel was there, attired in a simple gown of soft cream trimmed with lace. She was deep in conversation with the Bresinga