‘Chiv­alry. That’s who we need now,’ he went on after a mo­ment. ‘Shrewd holds back, and Ver­ity is a good sol­dier, but he listens to his father too much. Ver­ity was raised to be second, not first. He does not take the ini­ti­at­ive. We need Chiv­alry. He’d go into those towns, talk to the folk who have lost loved ones to For­ging. Damn, he’d even talk to the Forged ones them­selves …’

  ‘Do you think it would do any good?’ I asked softly. I scarcely dared to move. I sensed that Chade was talk­ing more to him­self than to me.

  ‘It wouldn’t solve it, no. But our folk would have a sense of their ruler’s in­volve­ment. Some­times that’s all it takes, boy. But all Ver­ity does is march his toy sol­diers about and weigh strategies. And Shrewd watches it hap­pen, and thinks not of his people, but only of how to as­sure that Regal can be kept safe and yet read­ied in power should Ver­ity man­age to get him­self killed.’

  ‘Regal?’ I blur­ted in amazement. Regal, with his pretty clothes and cock­erel pos­tur­ings? Al­ways he was at Shrewd’s heels, but never had I thought of him as a real prince. To hear his name come up in such a dis­cus­sion jol­ted me.

  ‘He has be­come his father’s fa­vour­ite,’ Chade growled. ‘Shrewd has done noth­ing but spoil him since the Queen died. He tries to buy the boy’s heart with gifts, now that his mother is no longer around to claim his al­le­gi­ance. And Regal takes full ad­vant­age. He speaks only what the old man loves to hear. And Shrewd gives him too much rein. He lets him wander about, squan­der­ing coin on use­less vis­its to Far­row and Tilth, where his mother’s people fill Regal with ideas of his self-im­port­ance. The boy should be kept at home and made to give some ac­count for how he spends his time. And the King’s money. What he spends gal­li­vant­ing about would have out­fit­ted a war­ship.’ And then, sud­denly an­noyed, ‘That’s too hot! You’ll lose it, fish it out quickly.’

  But his words came too late, for the cru­cible cracked with a noise like break­ing ice and its con­tents filled Chade’s tower room with an ac­rid smoke that brought all les­sons and talk to an end for that night.

  I was not soon summoned again. My other les­sons went on, but I missed Chade as the weeks passed and he did not call for me. I knew he was not dis­pleased with me, but only pre­oc­cu­pied. When, idle one day, I pushed my aware­ness to­wards him, I felt only secrecy and dis­cord­ance. And a wal­lop to the back of my head when Burrich caught me at it.

  ‘Stop it,’ he hissed, and ig­nored my stud­ied look of shocked in­no­cence. He glanced about the stall I was muck­ing out as if he ex­pec­ted to find a dog or cat lurk­ing.

  ‘There’s noth­ing here!’ he ex­claimed.

  ‘Just ma­nure and straw,’ I agreed, rub­bing the back of my head.

  ‘Then what were you do­ing?’

  ‘Day­dream­ing,’ I muttered. ‘That was all.’

  ‘You can’t fool me, Fitz,’ he growled. ‘And I won’t have it. Not in my stables. You won’t per­vert my beasts that way. Or de­grade Chiv­alry’s blood. Mind what I’ve told you.’

  I clenched my jaws and lowered my eyes and kept on work­ing. After a time I heard him sigh and move away. I went on rak­ing, in­wardly seeth­ing and resolv­ing never to let Burrich come up on me un­awares again.

  The rest of that sum­mer was such a whirl­pool of events that I find it hard to re­call their pro­gres­sion. Overnight, the very feel­ing of the air seemed to change. When I went into town, all of the talk was of for­ti­fic­a­tions and read­i­ness. Only two more towns were Forged that sum­mer, but it seemed a hun­dred, for the stor­ies of it were re­peated and en­larged from lip to lip.

  ‘Un­til it seems as if that is all folk talk about any more,’ Molly com­plained to me.

  We were walk­ing on Long Beach, in the light of the sum­mer even­ing sun. The wind off the wa­ter was a wel­come bit of cool after a muggy day. Burrich had been called away to Spring­mouth to see if he could work out why all the cattle there were de­vel­op­ing huge hide sores. It meant no morn­ing les­sons for me, but many, many more chores with the horses and hounds in his ab­sence, es­pe­cially as Cob had gone to Tur­lake with Regal, to man­age his horses and hounds for a sum­mer hunt.

  But the op­pos­ite weight of the bal­ance was that my even­ings were less su­per­vised, and I had more time to visit town.

  My even­ing walks with Molly were al­most a routine now. Her father’s health was fail­ing and he scarcely needed to drink to fall into an early and deep sleep each night. Molly would pack a bit of cheese and saus­age for us, or a small loaf and some smoked fish, and we would take a bas­ket and a bottle of cheap wine and walk out down the beach to the break­wa­ter rocks. There we would sit on the rocks as they gave up the last heat of the day, and Molly would tell me about her day’s work and the day’s gos­sip and I would listen. Some­times our el­bows bumped as we walked.

  ‘Sara, the butcher’s daugh­ter, told me that she pos­it­ively yearns for winter to come. The winds and ice will beat the Red Ships back to their own shores for a bit, and give us a rest from fear, she says. But then Kelty up and says that maybe we’ll be able to stop fear­ing more For­ging, but that we’ll still have to fear the Forged folk that are loose in our land. Ru­mour says that some from Forge have left there, now that there’s noth­ing left for them to steal, and that they travel about as ban­dits, rob­bing trav­el­lers.’

  ‘I doubt it. More than likely it’s other folk do­ing the rob­bing, but try­ing to pass them­selves off as Forged folk to send re­venge look­ing else­where. Forged folk don’t have enough kin­ship left in them to be a band of any­thing,’ I con­tra­dicted her lazily. I was look­ing out across the bay, my eyes al­most closed against the glare of the sun on the wa­ter. I didn’t have to look at Molly to feel her there be­side me. It was an in­ter­est­ing ten­sion, one I didn’t fully un­der­stand. She was six­teen, and I about four­teen, and those two years loomed between us like an un­sur­mount­able wall. Yet she al­ways made time for me, and seemed to en­joy my com­pany. She seemed as aware of me as I was of her. But if I ques­ted to­ward her at all, she would draw back, halt­ing to shake a pebble from her shoe or sud­denly speak­ing of her father’s ill­ness and how much he needed her. Yet if I drew my sens­ings back from that ten­sion, she be­came un­cer­tain and shyer of speech, and would try to look at my face and the set of my mouth and eyes. I didn’t un­der­stand it, but it was as if we held a string taut between us. But now I heard an edge of an­noy­ance in her speech.

  ‘Oh. I see. And you know so much of Forged folk, do you, more than those who have been robbed by them?’

  Her tart words caught me off-bal­ance and it was a mo­ment or two be­fore I could speak. Molly knew noth­ing of Chade and me, let alone of my side trip with him to Forge. To her, I was an er­rand-boy for the keep, work­ing for the sta­ble­mas­ter when I wasn’t fetch­ing for the scribe, I couldn’t be­tray my first-hand know­ledge, let alone how I had sensed what For­ging was.

  ‘I’ve heard the talk of the guards, when they’re around the stables and kit­chens at night. Sol­diers like them have seen much of all kinds of folk, and they’re the ones who say that the Forged ones have no friend­ships, no fam­ily, no kin­ship ties at all left. Still, I sup­pose if one of them took to rob­bing trav­el­lers, oth­ers would copy him, and it would be al­most the same as a band of rob­bers.’

  ‘Per­haps.’ She seemed mol­li­fied by my com­ments. ‘Look, let’s climb up there to eat.’

  ‘Up there’ was a shelf on the cliff’s edge rather than the break­wa­ter. But I as­sen­ted with a nod, and the next hand­ful of minutes were spent in get­ting ourselves and our bas­ket up there. It re­quired more ar­du­ous climb­ing than our earlier ex­ped­i­tions had. I caught my­self watch­ing to see how Molly would man­age her skirts, and tak­ing op­por­tun­it­ies to catch at her arm to bal­ance her, or take her hand to help her up a steep bit while she kept hold of the bas­ket. In a flash of in­sight I knew that Molly’s sug­ges­tion that we climb had been her way of ma­nip­u­lat­ing the situ­ation to cause this. We fi­nally gained the ledge and sat, look­ing out over the wa­ter with her bas­ket between us, and I was sa­vour­ing my aware­ness of her aware­ness of me. It re­minded me of the clubs of the Spring­fest jug­glers as they handed them back and forth, back and forth, more and more and faster and faster. The si­lence las­ted un­til a time when one of us had to speak. I looked at her, but she looked aside. She looked into the bas­ket and said, ‘Oh, dan­delion wine? I thought that wasn’t any good un­til after mid­winter.’

  ‘It’s last year’s … it’s had a winter to age,’ I told her, and took it from her to work the cork loose with my knife. She watched me worry at it for a while, and then took it from me and, draw­ing her own slender sheath-knife, speared and twis­ted it out with a prac­tised knack that I en­vied.

  She caught my look and shrugged. ‘I’ve been pulling corks for my father for as long as I can re­mem­ber. It used to be be­cause he was too drunk. Now he doesn’t have the strength in his hands any more, even when he’s sober.’ Pain and bit­ter­ness mingled in her words.

  ‘Ah.’ I floundered for a more pleas­ant topic. ‘Look, the Rain­maiden.’ I poin­ted out over the wa­ter to a sleek-hulled ship com­ing into the har­bour un­der oars. ‘I’ve al­ways thought her the most beau­ti­ful ship in the har­bour.’

  ‘She’s been on patrol: The cloth mer­chants took up a col­lec­tion. Al­most every mer­chant in town con­trib­uted. Even I, al­though all I could spare was candles for her lan­terns. She’s manned with fight­ers now, and es­corts the ships between here and High­downs. The Green­s­pray meets them there and takes them fur­ther up the coast.’

  ‘I hadn’t heard that.’ And it sur­prised me that I had not heard such a thing up in the keep it­self. My heart sank in me, that even Buck­keep Town was tak­ing meas­ures in­de­pend­ent of the King’s ad­vice or con­sent. I said as much.

  ‘Well, folk have to do whatever they can if all King Shrewd is go­ing to do is click his tongue and frown about it. It’s well enough for him to bid us to be strong, when he sits se­cure up in his castle. It isn’t as if his son or brother or little girl will be Forged.’

  It shamed me that I could think of noth­ing to say in my King’s de­fence. And shame stung me to say, ‘Well, you’re al­most as safe as the King him­self, liv­ing here be­low in Buck­keep Town.’

  Molly looked at me lev­elly. ‘I had a cousin, ap­pren­ticed out in Forge Town.’ She paused, then said care­fully, ‘Will you think me cold when I say that we were re­lieved to hear he had only been killed? It was un­cer­tain for a week or so, but fi­nally we had word from one who had seen him die. And my father and I were both re­lieved. We could grieve, know­ing that his life was simply over and we would miss him. We no longer had to won­der if he were still alive and be­hav­ing like a beast, caus­ing misery to oth­ers and shame to him­self.’

  I was si­lent for a bit. Then, ‘I’m sorry.’ It seemed in­ad­equate, and I reached out to pat her mo­tion­less hand. For a second it was al­most as if I couldn’t feel her there, as if her pain had shocked her into an emo­tional numb­ness the equal of a Forged one. But then she sighed and I felt her pres­ence again be­side me. ‘You know,’ I ven­tured, ‘per­haps the King him­self does not know what to do either. Per­haps he is at as great a loss for a solu­tion as we are.’

  ‘He is the King!’ Molly pro­tested. ‘And named Shrewd to be shrewd. Folk are say­ing now he but holds back to keep the strings of his purse tight. Why should he pay out of his hoard, when des­per­ate mer­chants will hire mer­cen­ar­ies of their own? But, enough of this …’ she held up a hand to stop my words. ‘This is not why we came out here into the peace and cool­ness, to talk of polit­ics and fears. Tell me in­stead of what you’ve been do­ing. Has the speckled bitch had her pups yet?’

  And so we spoke of other things, of Mot­ley’s pup­pies and of the wrong stal­lion get­ting at a mare in sea­son, and then she told me of gath­er­ing green­cones to scent her candles and pick­ing black­ber­ries, and how busy she would be for the next week, try­ing to make black­berry pre­serves for the winter while still tend­ing the shop and mak­ing candles.

  We talked and ate and drank and watched the late sun of sum­mer as it lingered low on the ho­ri­zon, al­most but not quite set­ting. I felt the ten­sion as a pleas­ant thing between us, as both a sus­pen­sion and a won­der. I viewed it as an ex­ten­sion of my strange new sense, and so I mar­velled that Molly seemed to feel and re­act to it as well. I wanted to speak to her about it, to ask her if she was aware of other folk in a sim­ilar way. But I feared that if I asked her, I might re­veal my­self as I had to Chade, or that she might be dis­gus­ted by it as I knew Burrich would be. So I smiled, and we talked, and I kept my thoughts to my­self.

  I walked her home through the quiet streets and bid her good night at the door of the chand­lery. She paused a mo­ment, as if think­ing of some­thing else she wanted to say, but then gave me only a quiz­zical look and a softly muttered, ‘Good night, New­boy.’

  I took my­self home un­der a deeply blue sky pierced by bright stars, past the sentries at their eternal dice game and up to the stables. I made a quick round of the stalls, but all was calm and well there, even with the new pup­pies. I no­ticed two strange horses in one of the pad­docks, and one lady’s pal­frey had been stabled. Some vis­it­ing noble­wo­man come to court, I de­cided. I wondered what had brought her here at the end of the sum­mer, and ad­mired the qual­ity of her horses. Then I left the stables and headed up to the keep.

  By habit my path took me through the kit­chens. Cook was fa­mil­iar with the ap­pet­ites of stable-boys and men-at-arms, and knew that reg­u­lar meals did not al­ways suf­fice to keep one full. Es­pe­cially lately I had found my­self get­ting hungry at all hours, while Mis­tress Hasty had re­cently de­clared that if I didn’t stop grow­ing so rap­idly, I should have to wrap my­self in bark­cloth like a wild man, for she had no idea how to keep me look­ing as if my clothes fit­ted. I was already think­ing of the big earth­en­ware bowl that Cook kept full of soft bis­cuits and covered with a cloth, and of a cer­tain wheel of es­pe­cially sharp cheese, and how well both would go with some ale, when I entered the kit­chen door.

  There was a wo­man at the table. She had been eat­ing an apple and cheese, but at the sight of me com­ing in the door, she sprang up and put her hand over her heart as if she thought I were the Pocked Man him­self. I paused. ‘I did not mean to startle you, lady. I was merely hungry, and thought to get my­self some food. Will it bother you if I stay?’

  The lady slowly sank back into her seat. I wondered privately what someone of her rank was do­ing alone in the kit­chen at night, for her high birth was some­thing that could not be dis­guised by the simple cream robe she wore or the wear­i­ness in her face. This, un­doubtedly, was the rider of the pal­frey in the stable, and not some lady’s maid. If she had awakened hungry at night, why hadn’t she simply be­stirred a ser­vant to fetch some­thing for her?

  Her hand rose from clutch­ing at her breast to pat at her lips, as if to steady her un­even breath. When she spoke, her voice was well-mod­u­lated, al­most mu­sical. ‘I would not keep you from your food. I was simply a bit startled. You … came in so sud­denly.’

  ‘My thanks, lady.’

  I moved around the big kit­chen, from ale cask to cheese to bread, but every­where I went, her eyes fol­lowed me. Her food lay ig­nored on the table where she had dropped it when I came in. I turned from pour­ing my­self a mug of ale to find her eyes wide upon me. In­stantly she dropped them away. Her mouth worked, but she said noth­ing.

  ‘May I do some­thing for you?’ I asked po­litely. ‘Help you find some­thing? Would you care for some ale?’

  ‘If you would be so kind.’ She said the words softly. I brought her the mug I had just filled and set it on the table be­fore her. She drew back when I came near her, as if I car­ried some con­ta­gion. I wondered if I smelled bad from my stable work earlier. I de­cided not, for Molly would have surely men­tioned it. Molly was ever frank with me about such things.

  I drew an­other mug for my­self, and then, look­ing about, de­cided it would be bet­ter to carry my food up to my room. The lady’s whole at­ti­tude be­spoke her un­eas­i­ness at my pres­ence. But as I was strug­gling to bal­ance bis­cuits and cheese and mug, she ges­tured at the bench op­pos­ite her. ‘Sit down,’ she told me, as if she had read my thoughts. ‘It is not right I should scare you away from your meal.’

  Her tone was neither com­mand nor in­vit­a­tion, but some­thing in between. I took the seat she in­dic­ated, my ale slop­ping over a bit as I juggled food and mug into place. I felt her eyes on me as I sat. Her own food re­mained ig­nored be­fore her. I ducked my head to avoid that gaze, and ate quickly, as furt­ively as a rat in a corner who sus­pects a cat is be­hind the door, wait­ing. She did not stare rudely, but openly watched me, with the sort of ob­ser­va­tion that made my hands clumsy, and led to my acute aware­ness that I had just un­think­ingly wiped my mouth on the back of my sleeve.

  I could think of noth­ing to say, and yet the si­lence jabbed at me. The bis­cuit seemed dry in my mouth, mak­ing me cough, and when I tried to wash it down with ale, I choked. Her eye­brows twitched, her mouth set more firmly. Even with my eyes lowered to my plate, I felt her gaze. I rushed through my food, want­ing only to es­cape her hazel eyes and straight si­lent mouth. I pushed the last hunks of bread and cheese into my mouth and stood up quickly, bump­ing against the table and al­most knock­ing the bench over in my haste. I headed to­ward the door, then re­membered Burrich’s in­struc­tions about ex­cus­ing one­self from a lady’s pres­ence. I swal­lowed my half-chewed mouth­ful.

  ‘Good night to you, lady,’ I muttered, think­ing the words not quite right, but un­able to sum­mon bet­ter. I crabbed to­ward the door.