Tra­di­tion­ally, the fish­ing grounds and clam­ming beaches of Watch Is­land were the ter­rit­ory of Rip­pon Duchy, and so the man­ning of the watch tower there had fallen to Rip­pon Duchy as well. But main­tain­ing a gar­rison there meant bring­ing in men and their victu­als, and also sup­ply­ing wood and oil for the beacon fires, and main­tain­ing the tower it­self from the sav­age ocean storms that swept across the bar­ren little is­land. It was an un­pop­u­lar duty sta­tion for men-at-arms, and ru­mour had it that to be sta­tioned there was a subtle form of pun­ish­ment for un­ruly or un­polit­ical gar­ris­ons. More than once when in his cups, Kelvar had de­claimed that if man­ning the tower was so im­port­ant to Shoaks Duchy, then Lord Shem­shy should do it him­self. Not that Rip­pon Duchy was in­ter­ested in sur­ren­der­ing the fish­ing grounds off the is­land or the rich shell­fish beds.

  So when Shoaks vil­lages were raided, without warn­ing, in an early spring spree that des­troyed all hopes of the fields be­ing planted on time, as well as see­ing most of the preg­nant sheep either slaughtered, stolen or scattered, Lord Shem­shy had pro­tested loudly to the King that Kelvar had been lax in man­ning his towers. Kelvar denied it, and as­ser­ted that the small force he had in­stalled there was suit­able for a loc­a­tion that sel­dom needed to be de­fen­ded. ‘Watch­ers, not sol­diers, are what Watch Is­land tower re­quires,’ he had de­clared. And for that pur­pose, he had re­cruited a num­ber of eld­erly men and wo­men to man the tower. A hand­ful of them had been sol­diers, but most were refugees from Neat­bay; debt­ors and pick­pock­ets and age­ing whores, some de­clared, while sup­port­ers of Kelvar as­ser­ted they were but eld­erly cit­izens in need of se­cure em­ploy­ment.

  All this I knew bet­ter from tav­ern gos­sip and Chade’s polit­ical lec­tures than Burrich could ima­gine. But I bit my tongue and sat through his de­tailed and strained ex­plan­a­tion. Not for the first time, I real­ized he con­sidered me slightly slow. My si­lences he mis­took for a lack of wit rather than a lack of any need to speak.

  So now, la­bor­i­ously, Burrich began to in­struct me in the man­ners that, he told me, most other boys picked up simply by be­ing around their eld­ers. I was to greet people when I first en­countered them each day, or if I walked into a room and found it oc­cu­pied; melt­ing si­lently away was not po­lite. I should call folk by their names, and if they were older than me or of higher polit­ical sta­tion, as, he re­minded me, al­most any­one I met on this jour­ney would be, I should ad­dress them by title as well. Then he in­und­ated me with pro­tocol; who could pre­cede me out of a room, and un­der what cir­cum­stances (al­most any­one, and un­der al­most all con­di­tions, had pre­ced­ence over me). And on to the man­ners of the table. To pay at­ten­tion to where I was seated; to pay at­ten­tion to who­ever oc­cu­pied the high seat at that table and pace my din­ing ac­cord­ingly; how to drink a toast, or a series of toasts without over­in­dul­ging my­self. And how to speak en­ga­gingly, or more likely, to listen at­tent­ively, to who­ever might be seated near me at din­ner. And on. And on. Un­til I began to day­dream wist­fully of end­lessly clean­ing tack.

  Burrich re­called my at­ten­tion with a sharp poke. ‘And you’re not to do that, either. You look an im­be­cile, sit­ting there nod­ding with your mind else­where. Don’t fancy no one no­tices when you do that. And don’t glare like that when you’re cor­rec­ted. Sit up straight, and put a pleas­ant ex­pres­sion on your face. Not a vacu­ous smile, you dolt. Ah, Fitz, what am I to do with you? How can I pro­tect you when you in­vite troubles on your­self? And why do they want to take you off like this any­way?’

  The last two ques­tions, put to him­self, be­trayed his real con­cern. Per­haps I was a trifle stu­pid not to have seen it. He wasn’t go­ing. I was. For no good reason that he could dis­cern. Burrich had lived long enough near court to be very cau­tious. For the first time since he had been en­trus­ted with my care, I was be­ing re­moved from his watch­ful­ness. It had not been so long since my father had been bur­ied. And so he wondered, though he didn’t dare say, whether I would be com­ing back or if someone was mak­ing the op­por­tun­ity to dis­pose of me quietly. I real­ized what a blow to his pride and repu­ta­tion it would be if I were to be ‘van­ished’. So I sighed, and then care­fully com­men­ted that per­haps they wanted an ex­tra hand with the horses and dogs. Ver­ity went nowhere without Leon, his wolf­hound. Only two days be­fore he had com­pli­men­ted me on how well I man­aged him. This I re­peated to Burrich, and it was grat­i­fy­ing to see how well this small sub­ter­fuge worked. Re­lief flooded his face, then pride that he had taught me well. The topic in­stantly shif­ted from man­ners to the cor­rect care of the wolf­hound. If the lec­tures on man­ners had wear­ied me, the re­pe­ti­tion of hound lore was al­most pain­fully te­di­ous. When he re­leased me to go to my other les­sons, I left with winged feet.

  I went through the rest of the day in a dis­trac­ted haze that had Hod threat­en­ing me with a good whip­ping if I didn’t at­tend to what I was do­ing. Then she shook her head over me, sighed, and told me to run along and come back when I had a mind again. I was only too happy to obey her. The thought of ac­tu­ally leav­ing Buck­keep and jour­ney­ing, jour­ney­ing all the way to Neat­bay was all I could fit in­side my head. I knew I should won­der why I was go­ing, but felt sure Chade would ad­vise me soon. Would we go by land or by sea? I wished I had asked Burrich. The roads to Neat­bay were not the best, I’d heard, but I wouldn’t mind. Sooty and I had never been on a long jour­ney to­gether. But a sea trip, on a real ship …

  I took the long way back to the keep, up a path that went through a lightly wooded bit of rocky hill­side. Pa­per birches struggled there, and a few alder, but mostly it was non­des­cript brush. Sun­light and a light breeze were play­ing to­gether in the higher branches, giv­ing the day a fey and dappled air. I lif­ted my eyes to the dazzle of sun through the birch leaves, and when I looked down, the King’s Fool stood be­fore me.

  I stopped in my tracks, as­ton­ished. Re­flex­ively, I looked for the King, des­pite how ri­dicu­lous it would have been to find him here. But the Fool was alone. And out­side, in the day­light! The thought made the hair on my arms and neck stand up in my tightened skin. It was com­mon know­ledge in the keep that the King’s Fool could not abide the light of day. Com­mon know­ledge. Yet, des­pite what every page and kit­chen maid nattered know­ingly, there stood the Fool, pale hair float­ing in the light breeze. The blue and red silk of his mot­ley jacket and trousers were start­lingly bright against his pale­ness. But his eyes were not as col­our­less as they were in the dim pas­sages of the keep. As I re­ceived their stare from only a few feet away in the light of day, I per­ceived there was a blue­ness to them, very pale, as if a single drop of pale blue wax had fallen onto a white plat­ter. The white­ness of his skin was an il­lu­sion also, for out here in the dap­pling sun­light I could see a pink­ness suf­fused him from within. ‘Blood,’ I real­ized with a sud­den quail­ing. ‘Red blood show­ing through lay­ers of skin.’

  The Fool took no no­tice of my whispered com­ment. In­stead, a fin­ger was held aloft, as if to pause not only my thoughts but the very day around us. But I could not have fo­cused my at­ten­tion more com­pletely on any­thing, and when he was sat­is­fied of this, the Fool smiled, show­ing small, white sep­ar­ate teeth, like a baby’s new smile in a boy’s mouth.

  ‘Fitz!’ he in­toned in a pip­ing voice. ‘Fitz fitz fice fitz. Fatz sfitz.’ He stopped ab­ruptly, and again gave me that smile. I stared back un­cer­tainly, without word or move­ment.

  Again the fin­ger soared aloft, and this time was shaken at me. ‘Fitz! Fitz fix fice fitz. Fats sfitzes.’ He cocked his head at me, and the move­ment sent the dan­delion fluff of his hair waft­ing in a new dir­ec­tion.

  I was be­gin­ning to lose my fear of him. ‘Fitz,’ I said care­fully, and tapped my chest with my fore­finger. ‘Fitz, that’s me. Yes. My name is Fitz. Are you lost?’ I tried to make my voice gentle and re­as­sur­ing so as not to alarm the poor creature. For surely he had some­how wandered off from the keep, and that was why he seemed so de­lighted to find a fa­mil­iar face.

  He took a breath through his nose, and then shook his head vi­ol­ently, un­til his hair stood out all around his skull like a flame around a wind-blown candle. ‘Fitz!’ he said em­phat­ic­ally, his voice crack­ing a little. ‘Fitz fitzes fyces fitz. Fatza­fices.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said sooth­ingly. I crouched a bit, though in real­ity I was not that much taller than the Fool. I made a soft beck­on­ing mo­tion with my open hand. ‘Come along, then. Come along. I’ll show you the way back home. All right? Don’t be afraid now.’

  Ab­ruptly the Fool dropped his hands to his sides. Then he lif­ted his face and rolled his eyes at the heav­ens. He looked back at me fix­edly, and poked his mouth out as if he wanted to spit.

  ‘Come along, now.’ I beckoned to him again.

  ‘No,’ he said, quite plainly in an ex­as­per­ated voice. ‘Listen to me, you idiot. Fitz fixes fyces fitz. Fat­safices.’

  ‘What?’ I asked, startled.

  ‘I said,’ he enun­ci­ated elab­or­ately. ‘Fitz fixes fyce fits. Fat suf­fices.’ He bowed, turned, and began to walk away from me, up the trail.

  ‘Wait!’ I de­man­ded. My ears were turn­ing red with my em­bar­rass­ment. How do you po­litely ex­plain to someone that you had be­lieved for years that he was a moron as well as a Fool? I couldn’t. So, ‘What does all that fitzy-ficeys stuff mean? Are you mak­ing fun of me?’

  ‘Hardly.’ He paused long enough to turn, and say, ‘Fitz fixes feists fits. Fat suf­fices. It’s a mes­sage, I be­lieve. A call­ing for a sig­ni­fic­ant act. As you are the only one I know who en­dures be­ing called Fitz, I be­lieve it’s for you. As for what it means, how should I know? I’m a Fool, not an in­ter­preter of dreams. Good day.’ Again he turned away from me, but this time in­stead of con­tinu­ing up the path, he stepped off it, into a clump of buck­brush. I hur­ried after him, but when I got to where he had left the path, he was gone. I stood still, peer­ing into the open, sun-dappled woods, think­ing I should see a bush still sway­ing from his pas­sage, or catch a glimpse of his mot­ley jacket. But there was no sign of him.

  And no sense at all to his silly mes­sage. I mulled over the strange en­counter all the way back to the keep, but in the end I set it aside as a strange but ran­dom oc­cur­rence.

  Not that night, but the next, Chade called me. Burn­ing with curi­os­ity, I raced up the stairs. But when I reached the top I hal­ted, know­ing that my ques­tions would have to wait. For there sat Chade at the stone table, Slink perched on top of his shoulders, and a new scroll half un­wound on the table be­fore him. A glass of wine weighted one end as his crooked fin­ger trav­elled slowly down some sort of list­ing. I glanced at it as I passed. It was a list of vil­lages and dates. Be­neath each vil­lage name was a tally: so many war­ri­ors, so many mer­chants, so many sheep or casks of ale or meas­ures of grain, and so on. I sat down on the op­pos­ite side of the table and waited. I had learned not to in­ter­rupt Chade.

  ‘My boy,’ he said softly, without look­ing up from the scroll. ‘What would you do if some ruf­fian walked up be­hind you and rapped you on the head? But only when your back was turned. How would you handle it?’

  I thought briefly. ‘I’d turn my back and pre­tend to be look­ing at some­thing else. Only I’d have a long, thick stick in my hands. So when he rapped me, I’d spin around and break his head.’

  ‘Hmm. Yes. Well, we tried that. But no mat­ter how non­chal­ant we are, the Outis­landers al­ways seem to know when we are bait­ing them and never at­tack. Well, ac­tu­ally, we’ve man­aged to fool one or two of the or­din­ary raid­ers. But never the Red Ship Raid­ers. And those are the ones we want to hurt.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Be­cause they are the ones that are hurt­ing us the worst. You see, boy, we are used to be­ing raided. You could al­most say that we’ve ad­ap­ted to it. Plant an ex­tra acre, weave an­other bolt of cloth, raise an ex­tra steer. Our farm­ers and towns­folk al­ways try to put a bit ex­tra by, and when someone’s barn gets burned or a ware­house is torched in the con­fu­sion of a raid, every­one turns out to raise the beams again. But the Red Ship Raid­ers aren’t just steal­ing, and des­troy­ing in the pro­cess of steal­ing. They’re des­troy­ing, and what they ac­tu­ally carry off with them seems al­most in­cid­ental.’ Chade paused and stared at a wall as if see­ing through it.

  ‘It makes no sense,’ he con­tin­ued be­musedly, more to him­self than to me. ‘Or at least no sense that I can un­ravel. It’s like killing a cow that bears a good calf every year. Red Ship Raid­ers torch the grain and hay still stand­ing in the fields. They slaughter the stock they can’t carry off. Three weeks ago, in Tornsby, they set fire to the mill and slashed open the sacks of grain and flour there. Where’s the profit in that for them? Why do they risk their lives simply to des­troy? They’ve made no ef­fort to take and hold ter­rit­ory; they have no griev­ance against us that they’ve ever uttered. A thief you can guard against, but these are ran­dom killers and des­troy­ers. Tornsby won’t be re­built; the folk that sur­vived have neither the will nor the re­sources. They’ve moved on, some to fam­ily in other towns, oth­ers to be beg­gars in our cit­ies. It’s a pat­tern we’re see­ing too of­ten.’

  He sighed, and then shook his head to clear it. When he looked up, he fo­cused on me totally. It was a knack Chade had. He could set aside a prob­lem so com­pletely you would swear he had for­got­ten it. Now he an­nounced, as if it were his only care, ‘You’ll be ac­com­pa­ny­ing Ver­ity when he goes to reason with Lord Kelvar at Neat­bay.’

  ‘So Burrich told me. But he wondered, and so do I. Why?’

  Chade looked per­plexed. ‘Didn’t you com­plain a few months ago that you had wear­ied of Buck­keep and wished to see more of the Six Duch­ies?’

  ‘Cer­tainly. But I rather doubt that that is why Ver­ity is tak­ing me.’

  Chade snorted. ‘As if Ver­ity paid any at­ten­tion as to who makes up his ret­inue. He has no pa­tience with the de­tails; and hence none of Chiv­alry’s genius for hand­ling people. Yet Ver­ity is a good sol­dier, and in the long run, per­haps that will be what we need. No, you are right. Ver­ity has no ink­ling as to why you’re go­ing. But your King does. He and I have con­sul­ted to­gether upon this. Are you ready to be­gin re­pay­ing all he has done for you? Are you ready to be­gin your ser­vice for the fam­ily?’

  He said it so calmly and looked at me so openly that it was al­most easy to be calm as I asked, ‘Will I have to kill someone?’

  ‘Per­haps.’ He shif­ted in his chair. ‘You’ll have to de­cide that. De­cid­ing and then do­ing it … it’s dif­fer­ent from simply be­ing told, “That is the man and it must be done.” It’s much harder, and I’m not all that sure you’re ready.’

  ‘Would I ever be ready?’ I tried to smile, and grinned like a muscle spasm. I tried to wipe it away, and couldn’t. A strange quiver passed through me.

  ‘Prob­ably not.’ Chade fell si­lent, and then de­cided that I had ac­cep­ted the mis­sion. ‘You’ll go as an at­tend­ant for an eld­erly noble­wo­man who is also go­ing along, to visit re­l­at­ives in Neat­bay. It will not be too heavy a task for you. She is very eld­erly and her health is not good. Lady Thyme travels in a closed lit­ter. You will ride be­side it, to see she is not jol­ted too much, to bring her wa­ter if she asks for it, and to see to any other such small re­quests.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound too dif­fer­ent from caring for Ver­ity’s wolf­hound.’

  Chade paused, then smiled. ‘Ex­cel­lent. That will fall to you as well. Be­come in­dis­pens­able to every­one on this jour­ney. Then you will have reas­ons to go every­where and hear everything, and no one will ques­tion your pres­ence.’

  ‘And my real task?’

  ‘To listen and learn. It seems to both Shrewd and me that these Red Ship Raid­ers are too well-ac­quain­ted with our strategies and strengths. Kelvar has re­cently be­grudged the funds to staff the Watch Is­land tower prop­erly. Twice he has neg­lected it, and twice have the coastal vil­lages of Shoaks Duchy paid for his neg­li­gence. Has he gone bey­ond neg­li­gence to treach­ery? Does Kelvar con­fer with the en­emy to his profit? We want you to sniff about and see what you can dis­cover. If all you find is in­no­cence, or if you have but strong sus­pi­cions, bring news back to us. But if you dis­cover treach­ery, and you are cer­tain of it, then we can­not be rid of him too soon.’

  ‘And the means?’ I was not sure that was my voice. It was so cas­ual, so con­tained.

  ‘I have pre­pared a powder, taste­less in a dish, col­our­less in a wine. We trust to your in­genu­ity and dis­cre­tion in ap­ply­ing it.’ He lif­ted a cover from an earth­en­ware dish on the table. Within was a packet made of very fine pa­per, thin­ner and finer than any­thing Fed­wren had ever shown me. Odd, how my first thought was how much my scribe mas­ter would love to work with pa­per like that. In­side the packet was the finest of white powders. It clung to the pa­per and floated in the air. Chade shiel­ded his mouth and nose with a cloth as he tapped a care­ful meas­ure of it into a twist of oiled pa­per. He held it out to me, and I took death upon my open palm.

  ‘And how does it work?’

  ‘Not too quickly. He will not fall dead at the table, if that is what you are ask­ing. But if he lingers over his cup, he will feel ill. Know­ing Kelvar, I sus­pect he will take his bub­bling stom­ach to bed, and never awaken in the morn­ing.’