To­wards the end of the last sum­mer of her life, she be­came even more reck­less, us­ing sev­eral kinds sim­ul­tan­eously and no longer mak­ing any at­tempts to con­ceal her habits. Her be­ha­viours were a great trial for Shrewd, for when she was drunk with wine or in­censed with smoke, she would make wild ac­cus­a­tions and in­flam­mat­ory state­ments with no heed at all as to who was present or what the oc­ca­sion was. One would have thought that her ex­cesses to­ward the end of her life would have dis­il­lu­sioned her fol­low­ers. To the con­trary, they de­clared either that Shrewd had driven her to self-de­struc­tion, or poisoned her him­self. But I can say with com­plete know­ledge that her death was not of the King’s do­ing.

  Burrich cut my hair for mourn­ing. He left it only a fin­ger’s width long. He shaved his own head, even his beard and eye­brows for his grief. The pale parts of his head con­tras­ted sharply with his ruddy cheeks and nose; it made him look very strange, stranger even than the forest men who came to town with their hair stuck down with pitch and their teeth dyed red and black. Chil­dren stared at those wild men and whispered to one an­other be­hind their hands as they passed, but they cringed si­lently from Burrich. I think it was his eyes. I’ve seen holes in a skull that had more life in them than Burrich’s eyes had dur­ing those days.

  Regal sent a man to re­buke Burrich for shav­ing his head and cut­ting my hair. That was mourn­ing for a crowned king, not for a man who had ab­dic­ated the throne. Burrich stared at the man un­til he left. Ver­ity cut a hand’s width from his hair and beard, as that was mourn­ing for a brother. Some of the keep guards cut vary­ing lengths from their braided queues of hair, as a fight­ing man does for a fallen com­rade. But what Burrich had done to him­self and to me was ex­treme. People stared. I wanted to ask him why I should mourn for a father I had never even seen; for a father who had never come to see me, but a look at his frozen eyes and mouth and I hadn’t dared. No one men­tioned to Regal the mourn­ing lock he cut from each horse’s mane, or the stink­ing fire that con­sumed all the sac­ri­fi­cial hair. I had a sketchy idea that meant Burrich was send­ing parts of our spir­its along with Chiv­alry’s; it was some cus­tom he had from his grand­mother’s people.

  It was as if Burrich had died. A cold force an­im­ated his body, per­form­ing all his tasks flaw­lessly but without warmth or sat­is­fac­tion. Un­der­lings who had formerly vied for the briefest nod of praise from him now turned aside from his glance, as if shamed for him. Only Vixen did not for­sake him. The old bitch slunk after him wherever he went, un­re­war­ded by any look or touch, but al­ways there. I hugged her once, in sym­pathy, and even dared to quest to­ward her, but I en­countered only a numb­ness fright­en­ing to touch minds with. She grieved with her mas­ter.

  The winter storms cut and snarled around the cliffs. The days pos­sessed a life­less cold that denied any pos­sib­il­ity of spring. Chiv­alry was bur­ied at Withy­woods. There was a Griev­ing Fast at the keep, but it was brief and sub­dued. It was more an ob­ser­va­tion of cor­rect form than a true Griev­ing. Those who truly mourned him seemed to be judged guilty of poor taste. His pub­lic life should have ended with his ab­dic­a­tion; how tact­less of him to draw fur­ther at­ten­tion to him­self by ac­tu­ally dy­ing.

  A full week after my father died I awoke to the fa­mil­iar draught from the secret stair­case and the yel­low light that beckoned me. I rose and hastened up the stairs to my refuge. It would be good to get away from all the strange­ness, to mingle herbs and make strange smokes with Chade again. I needed no more of the odd sus­pen­sion of self that I’d felt since I’d heard of Chiv­alry’s death.

  But the workt­able end of his cham­ber was dark, its hearth was cold. In­stead, Chade was seated be­fore his own fire. He beckoned to me to sit be­side his chair. I sat and looked up at him, but he was star­ing at the fire. He lif­ted his scarred hand and let it come to rest on my quil­lish hair. For a while we just sat like that, watch­ing the fire to­gether.

  ‘Well, here we are, my boy,’ he said at last, and then noth­ing more, as if he had said all he needed to. He ruffled my short hair.

  ‘Burrich cut my hair,’ I told him sud­denly.

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘I hate it. It prickles against my pil­low and I can’t sleep. My hood won’t stay up. And I look stu­pid.’

  ‘You look like a boy mourn­ing his father.’

  I was si­lent a mo­ment. I had thought of my hair as be­ing a longer ver­sion of Burrich’s ex­treme cut. But Chade was right. It was the length for a boy mourn­ing his father, not a sub­ject mourn­ing a king. That only made me an­grier.

  ‘But why should I mourn him?’ I asked Chade as I hadn’t dared to ask Burrich. ‘I didn’t even know him.’

  ‘He was your father.’

  ‘He got me on some wo­man. When he found out about me, he left. A father. He never cared about me.’ I felt de­fi­ant fi­nally say­ing it out loud. It made me furi­ous, Burrich’s deep wild mourn­ing and now Chade’s quiet sor­row.

  ‘You don’t know that. You only hear what the gos­sips say. You aren’t old enough to un­der­stand some things. You’ve never seen a wild bird lure pred­at­ors away from its young by pre­tend­ing to be in­jured.’

  ‘I don’t be­lieve that,’ I said, but I sud­denly felt less con­fid­ent say­ing it. ‘He never did any­thing to make me think he cared about me.’

  Chade turned to look at me and his eyes were older, sunken and red. ‘If you had known he’d cared, so would oth­ers. When you are a man, maybe you’ll un­der­stand just how much that cost him. To not know you in or­der to keep you safe. To make his en­emies ig­nore you.’

  ‘Well, I’ll “not know” him to the end of my days, now,’ I said sulkily.

  Chade sighed. ‘And the end of your days will come a great deal later than they would have had he ac­know­ledged you as an heir.’ He paused, then asked cau­tiously, ‘What do you want to know about him, my boy?’

  ‘Everything. But how would you know?’ The more tol­er­ant Chade was, the more surly I felt.

  ‘I’ve known him all his life. I’ve … worked with him. Many times. Hand in glove, as the say­ing goes.’

  ‘Were you the hand or the glove?’

  No mat­ter how rude I was, Chade re­fused to get angry. ‘The hand,’ he said after a brief con­sid­er­a­tion. ‘The hand that moves un­seen, cloaked by the vel­vet glove of dip­lomacy.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Des­pite my­self, I was in­trigued.

  ‘Things can be done.’ Chade cleared his throat. ‘Things can hap­pen that make dip­lomacy easier. Or that make a party more will­ing to ne­go­ti­ate. Things can hap­pen …’

  My world turned over. Real­ity burst on me as sud­denly as a vis­ion, the full­ness of what Chade was and what I was to be. ‘You mean one man can die, and his suc­cessor can be easier to ne­go­ti­ate with be­cause of it. More amen­able to our cause, be­cause of fear or be­cause of …’

  ‘Grat­it­ude. Yes.’

  A cold hor­ror shook me as all the pieces sud­denly fell into place. All the les­sons and care­ful in­struc­tions and this is what they led to. I star­ted to rise, but Chade’s hand sud­denly gripped my shoulder.

  ‘Or a man can live, two years or five or a dec­ade longer than any thought he could, and bring the wis­dom and tol­er­ance of age to the ne­go­ti­ations. Or a babe can be cured of a strangling cough, and the mother sud­denly see with grat­it­ude that what we of­fer can be be­ne­fi­cial to all in­volved. The hand doesn’t al­ways deal death, my boy. Not al­ways.’

  ‘Of­ten enough.’

  ‘I never lied to you about that.’ I heard two things in Chade’s voice that I had never heard be­fore. De­fens­ive­ness. And hurt. But youth is mer­ci­less.

  ‘I don’t think I want to learn any more from you. I think I’m go­ing to go to Shrewd and tell him to find someone else to kill people for him.’

  ‘That is your de­cision to make. But I ad­vise you against it, for now.’

  His calmness caught me off-guard. ‘Why?’

  ‘Be­cause it would neg­ate all Chiv­alry tried to do for you. It would draw at­ten­tion to you. And right now, that is not a good idea.’ His words came pon­der­ously slow, freighted with truth.

  ‘Why?’ I found I was whis­per­ing.

  ‘Be­cause some will be want­ing to write finis to Chiv­alry’s story com­pletely. And that would be best done by elim­in­at­ing you. Those ones will be watch­ing how you re­act to your father’s death. Does it give you ideas and make you rest­less? Will you be­come a prob­lem now, the way he was?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My boy,’ he said, and pulled me close against his side. For the first time I heard the pos­ses­sion in his words. ‘It is a time for you to be quiet and care­ful. I un­der­stand why Burrich cut your hair, but in truth I wish he had not. I wish no one had been re­minded that Chiv­alry was your father. You are such a hatch­ling yet … but listen to me. For now, change noth­ing that you do. Wait six months, or a year. Then de­cide. But for now …’

  ‘How did my father die?’

  Chade’s eyes searched my face. ‘Did you not hear that he fell from a horse?’

  ‘Yes. And I heard Burrich curse the man who told it, say­ing that Chiv­alry would not fall, nor would that horse throw him.’

  ‘Burrich needs to guard his tongue.’

  ‘Then how did my father die?’

  ‘I don’t know. But like Burrich, I do not be­lieve he fell from a horse.’ Chade fell si­lent. I sank down to sit by his bony bare feet and stare into his fire.

  ‘Are they go­ing to kill me, too?’

  He was si­lent a long while. ‘I don’t know. Not if I can help it. I think they must first con­vince King Shrewd it is ne­ces­sary. And if they do that, I shall know of it.’

  ‘Then you think it comes from within the keep.’

  ‘I do.’ Chade waited long but I was si­lent, re­fus­ing to ask. He answered any­way. ‘I knew noth­ing of it be­fore it happened. I had no hand in it in any way. They didn’t even ap­proach me about it. Prob­ably be­cause they know I would have done more than just re­fused. I would have seen to it that it never happened.’

  ‘Oh.’ I re­laxed a little. But already he had trained me too well in the ways of court think­ing. ‘Then they prob­ably won’t come to you if they de­cide they want me done. They’d be afraid of your warn­ing me as well.’

  He took my chin in his hand and turned my face so that I looked into his eyes. ‘Your father’s death should be all the warn­ing you need, now or ever. You’re a bas­tard, Fitz. We’re al­ways a risk and a vul­ner­ab­il­ity. We’re al­ways ex­pend­able. Ex­cept when we are an ab­so­lute ne­ces­sity to their own se­cur­ity. I’ve taught you quite a bit, these last few years. But hold this les­son closest and keep it al­ways be­fore you. If ever you make it so they don’t need you, they will kill you.’

  I looked at him wide-eyed. ‘They don’t need me now.’

  ‘Don’t they? I grow old. You are young, and tract­able, with the face and bear­ing of the royal fam­ily. As long as you don’t show any in­ap­pro­pri­ate am­bi­tions, you’ll be fine.’ He paused, then care­fully em­phas­ized, ‘We are the King’s, boy. His ex­clus­ively, in a way per­haps you have not thought about. No one knows what I do and most have for­got­ten who I am. Or was. If any know of us, it is from the King.’

  I sat put­ting it cau­tiously to­gether. ‘Then … you said it came from within the keep. But if you were not used, then it was not from the King … the Queen!’ I said it with sud­den cer­tainty.

  Chade’s eyes guarded his thoughts. ‘That’s a dan­ger­ous as­sump­tion to make. Even more dan­ger­ous if you think you must act on it in some way.’

  ‘Why?’

  Chade sighed. ‘When you spring to an idea, and de­cide it is truth, without evid­ence, you blind your­self to other pos­sib­il­it­ies. Con­sider them all, boy. Per­haps it was an ac­ci­dent. Per­haps Chiv­alry was killed by someone he had of­fen­ded at Withy­woods. Per­haps it had noth­ing to do with him be­ing a prince. Or, per­haps the King has an­other as­sas­sin, one I know noth­ing about, and it was the King’s own hand against his son.’

  ‘You don’t be­lieve any of those,’ I said with cer­tainty.

  ‘No. I don’t. Be­cause I have no evid­ence to de­clare them truth. Just as I have no evid­ence to say your father’s death was the Queen’s hand strik­ing.’

  That is all I re­mem­ber of our con­ver­sa­tion then. But I am sure that Chade had de­lib­er­ately led me to con­sider who might have ac­ted against my father, to in­stil in me a greater war­i­ness of the Queen. I held the thought close to me, and not just in the days that im­me­di­ately fol­lowed. I kept my­self to my chores, and slowly my hair grew, and by the be­gin­ning of real sum­mer all seemed to have re­turned to nor­mal. Once every few weeks, I would find my­self sent off to town on er­rands. I soon came to see that no mat­ter who sent me, one or two items on the list wound up in Chade’s quar­ters, so I guessed who was be­hind my little bouts of free­dom. I did not man­age to spend time with Molly every time I went to town, but it was enough for me that I would stand out­side the win­dow of her shop un­til she no­ticed me, and at least ex­changed a nod. Once I heard someone in the mar­ket talk­ing about the qual­ity of her scen­ted candles, and how no one had made such a pleas­ant and health­ful taper since her mother’s day, and I smiled for her and was glad.

  Sum­mer came, bring­ing warmer weather to our coasts, and with it the Outis­landers. Some came as hon­est traders, with cold-land goods to trade – furs and am­ber and ivory and kegs of oil – and tall tales to share, ones that still could prickle my neck just as they had when I was small. Our sail­ors did not trust them, and called them spies and worse. But their goods were rich, and the gold they brought to pur­chase our wines and grains was solid and heavy, and our mer­chants took it.

  Other Outis­landers also vis­ited our shores, though not too close to Buck­keep Hold. They came with knives and torches, with bows and rams, to plun­der and rape the same vil­lages they had been plun­der­ing and rap­ing for years. Some­times it seemed an elab­or­ate and bloody con­test: for them to find vil­lages un­aware or un­der­armed and for us to lure them in with seem­ingly vul­ner­able tar­gets and then to slaughter and plun­der the pir­ates them­selves. But if it were a con­test, it went very badly for us that sum­mer. My every visit to town was heavy with the news of de­struc­tion and the mut­ter­ings of the people.

  Up at the keep, among the men-at-arms, there was a col­lect­ive feel­ing of dolt­ish­ness that I shared. The Outis­landers eluded our war­ships with ease, and never fell into our traps. They struck where we were un­der­manned and least ex­pect­ing it. Most dis­com­fited of all was Ver­ity, for to him had fallen the task of de­fend­ing the king­dom once Chiv­alry had ab­dic­ated. I heard it muttered in the tav­erns that since he had lost his elder brother’s good coun­sel, all had gone sour. No one spoke against Ver­ity yet; but it was un­set­tling that no one spoke out strongly for him either.

  Boy­ishly, I viewed the raids as a thing im­per­sonal to me. Cer­tainly they were bad things, and I felt sorry in a vague way for those vil­la­gers whose homes were torched or plundered. But se­cure at Buck­keep, I had very little feel­ing for the con­stant fear and vi­gil­ance that other sea­ports en­dured, or for the ag­on­ies of vil­la­gers who re­built each year, only to see their ef­forts torched the next. I was not to keep my ig­nor­ant in­no­cence long.

  I went down to Burrich for my ‘les­son’ one morn­ing; though I spent as much time doc­tor­ing an­im­als and teach­ing young colts and fil­lies as I did in be­ing taught. I had very much taken over Cob’s place in the stables, while he had gone on to be­ing Regal’s groom and dog man. But that day, to my sur­prise, Burrich took me up­stairs to his room and sat me down at his table. I dreaded spend­ing a te­di­ous morn­ing re­pair­ing tack.

  ‘I’m go­ing to teach you man­ners today,’ Burrich an­nounced sud­denly. There was doubt in his voice, as if he were scep­tical of my abil­ity to learn such.

  ‘With horses?’ I asked in­cred­u­lously.

  ‘No. You’ve those already. With people. At table, and af­ter­wards, when folk sit and talk with one an­other. Those sorts of man­ners.’

  ‘Why?’

  Burrich frowned. ‘Be­cause, for reas­ons I don’t un­der­stand, you’re to ac­com­pany Ver­ity when he goes to Neat­bay to see Lord Kelvar of Rip­pon. Lord Kelvar has not been co­oper­at­ing with Lord Shem­shy in man­ning the coastal towers. Shem­shy ac­cuses him of leav­ing towers com­pletely without watches, so that the Outis­landers are able to sail past and even an­chor out­side Watch Is­land, and from there raid Shem­shy’s vil­lages in Shoaks Duchy. Prince Ver­ity is go­ing to con­sult with Kelvar about these al­leg­a­tions.’

  I grasped the situ­ation com­pletely. It was com­mon gos­sip around Buck­keep Town. Lord Kelvar of Rip­pon Duchy had three watch towers in his keep­ing. The two that brack­eted the points of Neat­bay were al­ways well-manned, for they pro­tec­ted the best har­bour in Rip­pon Duchy. But the tower on Watch Is­land pro­tec­ted little of Rip­pon that was worth much to Lord Kelvar; his high and rocky coast­line sheltered few vil­lages, and would-be raid­ers would have a hard time keep­ing their ships off the rocks while raid­ing. His south­ern coast was sel­dom bothered. Watch Is­land it­self was home to little more than gulls, goats and a hefty pop­u­la­tion of clams. Yet the tower there was crit­ical to the early de­fence of South­cove in Shoaks Duchy. It com­manded views of both the in­ner and outer chan­nels, and was placed on a nat­ural sum­mit that al­lowed its beacon fires to be eas­ily seen from the main­land. Shem­shy him­self had a watch tower on Egg Is­land, but Egg was little more than a bit of sand that stuck up above the waves on high tide. It com­manded no real view of the wa­ter, and was con­stantly in need of re­pair from the shift­ing of the sands and the oc­ca­sional storm tide that over­whelmed it. But it could see a watch fire warn­ing light from Watch Is­land and send the mes­sage on. As long as Watch Is­land tower lit such a fire.