I was word­less when Pa­tience ir­rit­ably told me to come in­side, that I was late enough already. I perched on the edge of a chair with a crumpled cloak and some half-fin­ished bit of stitch­ery. I set my paint­ings to one side of me, on top of a stack of tab­lets.

  ‘I think you could learn to re­cite verse, if you chose to,’ she re­marked with some as­per­ity. ‘And there­fore you could learn to com­pose verse, if you chose to. Rhythm and meter are no more than … is that the puppy?’

  ‘It’s meant to be,’ I muttered, and could not re­mem­ber feel­ing more wretchedly em­bar­rassed in my life.

  She lif­ted the sheets care­fully and ex­amined each one in turn, hold­ing them close and then at arm’s length. She stared longest at the muzzy one. ‘Who did these for you?’ she asked at last. ‘Not that it ex­cuses your be­ing late. But I could find good use for someone who can put on pa­per what the eye sees, with the col­ours so true. That is the trouble with all the herb­als I have; all the herbs are painted the same green, no mat­ter if they are grey or tinged pink as they grow. Such tab­lets are use­less if you are try­ing to learn from them …’

  ‘I sus­pect he’s painted the puppy him­self, ma’am,’ Lacey in­ter­rup­ted be­nignly.

  ‘And the pa­per, this is bet­ter than what I’ve had to …’ Pa­tience paused sud­denly. ‘You, Thomas?’ (And I think that was the first time she re­membered to use the name she had be­stowed on me.) ‘You paint like this?’

  Be­fore her in­cred­u­lous look, I man­aged a quick nod. She held up the pic­tures again. ‘Your father could not draw a curved line, save it was on a map. Did your mother draw?’

  ‘I have no memor­ies of her, lady.’ My reply was stiff. I could not re­call that any­one had ever been brave enough to ask me such a thing be­fore.

  ‘What, none? But you were five years old. You must re­mem­ber some­thing: the col­our of her hair, her voice, what she called you …’ Was that a pained hun­ger in her voice, a curi­os­ity she could not quite bear to sat­isfy?

  Al­most, for a mo­ment, I did re­mem­ber. A smell of mint, or was it … it was gone. ‘Noth­ing, lady. If she had wanted me to re­mem­ber her, she would have kept me, I sup­pose.’ I closed my heart. Surely I owed no re­mem­brance to the mother who had not kept me, nor ever sought me since.

  ‘Well.’ For the first time, I think Pa­tience real­ized she had taken our con­ver­sa­tion into a dif­fi­cult area. She stared out of the win­dow at a grey day. ‘Someone has taught you well,’ she ob­served sud­denly, too brightly.

  ‘Fed­wren.’ When she said noth­ing, I ad­ded, ‘The court scribe, you know. He would like me to ap­pren­tice to him. He is pleased with my let­ters, and works with me now on the copy­ing of his im­ages. When we have time, that is. I am of­ten busy, and he is of­ten out quest­ing after new pa­per-reeds.’

  ‘Pa­per-reeds?’ she asked dis­trac­tedly.

  ‘He has a bit of pa­per. He had sev­eral meas­ures of it, but little by little he has used it. He got it from a trader, who had it from an­other, and yet an­other be­fore him, so he does not know where it first came from. But from what he was told, it was made of poun­ded reeds. The pa­per is a much bet­ter qual­ity than any we make; it is thin, flex­ible and does not crumble so read­ily with age; yet it takes ink well, not soak­ing it up so that the edges of runes blur. Fed­wren says that if we could du­plic­ate it, it would change much. With a good, sturdy pa­per, any man might have a copy of tab­letlore from the keep. Were pa­per cheaper, more chil­dren could be taught to write and read, or so he says. I do not un­der­stand why he is so …’

  ‘I did not know any here shared my in­terest.’ A sud­den an­im­a­tion lit the lady’s face. ‘Has he tried pa­per made from poun­ded lily-root? I have had some suc­cess with that. And also with pa­per cre­ated by first weav­ing and then wet press­ing sheets made with threads of bark from the kinue tree. It is strong and flex­ible, yet the sur­face leaves much to be de­sired. Un­like this pa­per …’

  She glanced again at the sheets in her hand and fell si­lent. Then she asked hes­it­antly, ‘You like the puppy this much?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said simply, and our eyes sud­denly met. She stared into me in the same dis­trac­ted way that she of­ten stared out of the win­dow. Ab­ruptly, her eyes brimmed with tears.

  ‘Some­times, you are so like him that …’ She choked. ‘You should have been mine! It isn’t fair, you should have been mine!’

  She cried out the words so fiercely that I thought she would strike me. In­stead, she leaped at me and caught me in a fly­ing hug, at the same time tread­ing upon her dog and over­turn­ing a vase of green­ery. The dog sprang up with a yelp, the vase shattered on the floor, send­ing wa­ter and shards in all dir­ec­tions, while my lady’s fore­head caught me squarely un­der the chin, so that for a mo­ment all I saw was sparks. Be­fore I could re­act, she flung her­self from me and fled into her bed­cham­ber with a cry like a scal­ded cat. She slammed the door be­hind her.

  And all the while Lacey kept on with her tat­ting.

  ‘She gets like this, some­times,’ she ob­served be­nignly, and nod­ded me to­ward the door. ‘Come again to­mor­row,’ she re­minded me, and ad­ded, ‘You know, Lady Pa­tience has be­come quite fond of you.’

  FOUR­TEEN

  Ga­len

  Ga­len, son of a weaver, came to Buck­keep as a boy. His father was one of Queen De­sire’s per­sonal ser­vants who fol­lowed her from Far­row. So­li­city was then the Skill­mas­ter at Buck­keep. She had in­struc­ted King Bounty and his son Shrewd in the Skill, so by the time Shrewd’s sons were boys, she was an­cient already. She pe­ti­tioned King Bounty that she might take an ap­pren­tice, and he con­sen­ted. Ga­len was greatly fa­voured by the Queen, and at Queen-in-Wait­ing De­sire’s en­er­getic ur­ging, So­li­city chose the youth Ga­len as her ap­pren­tice. At that time, as now, the Skill was denied to bas­tards of the Farseer House, but when the tal­ent bloomed, un­ex­pec­ted, among those not of roy­alty, it was cul­tiv­ated and re­war­ded. No doubt Ga­len was such a one as this, a boy show­ing strange and un­ex­pec­ted tal­ent that came ab­ruptly to the at­ten­tion of a Skill­mas­ter.

  By the time the Princes Chiv­alry and Ver­ity were old enough to re­ceive Skill in­struc­tion, Ga­len had ad­vanced enough to as­sist in their in­struc­tion, though he was but a year or so older than they.

  Once again, my life sought a bal­ance and briefly found it. The awk­ward­ness with Lady Pa­tience gradu­ally eroded into our ac­cept­ance that we would never be­come cas­ual or overly fa­mil­iar with one an­other. Neither of us felt a need to share feel­ings; in­stead we skir­ted one an­other at a formal dis­tance, and nev­er­the­less man­aged to gain a good un­der­stand­ing of one an­other. Yet in the formal dance of our re­la­tion­ship, there were oc­ca­sional times of genu­ine mer­ri­ment, and some­times we even danced to the same piper.

  Once she had given up the no­tion of teach­ing me everything that a Farseer prince should know, she was able to teach me a great deal. Very little of it was what she ini­tially in­ten­ded to teach me. I did gain a work­ing know­ledge of mu­sic, but this was by the loan of her in­stru­ments and many hours of private ex­per­i­ment­a­tion. I be­came more her run­ner than her page, and from fetch­ing for her, I learned much of the per­fumer’s arts, as well as greatly in­creas­ing my know­ledge of plants. Even Chade be­came en­thused when he dis­covered my new tal­ents for root and leaf propaga­tion, and he fol­lowed with in­terest the ex­per­i­ments, few of them suc­cess­ful, that Lady Pa­tience and I made into coax­ing the buds of one tree to open to leaf when spliced into an­other tree. This was a ma­gic she had heard ru­moured, but did not scruple to at­tempt. To this day, in the Wo­men’s Garden, there is an apple tree, one branch of which bears pears. When I ex­pressed a curi­os­ity about the tat­tooer’s art, she re­fused to let me mark my own body, say­ing I was too young for such a de­cision. But without the least qualm, she let me ob­serve, and fi­nally as­sist with the slow prick­ing of dye into her own ankle and calf that be­came a coiled gar­land of flowers.

  But all of that evolved over months and years, not days. We had settled into a blunt-spoken cour­tesy to­ward one an­other by the end of ten days. She met Fed­wren and en­lis­ted him in her root-pa­per pro­ject. The pup was grow­ing well, and was a greater pleas­ure to me every day. Lady Pa­tience’s er­rands to town gave me ample op­por­tun­it­ies to see my town friends, es­pe­cially Molly. She was an in­valu­able guide to the fra­grant stalls where I pur­chased Lady Pa­tience’s per­fume sup­plies. For­ging and Red Ship Raid­ers might still threaten from the ho­ri­zon, but for those few weeks they seemed a re­mote ter­ror, like the re­membered chill of winter on a mid­sum­mer day. For a very brief period, I was happy, and, an even rarer gift, I knew I was happy.

  And then my les­sons with Ga­len began.

  The night be­fore my les­sons were to start, Burrich sent for me. I went to him won­der­ing what chore I had done poorly and would be re­buked for. I found him wait­ing for me out­side the stables, shift­ing his feet as rest­lessly as a con­fined stal­lion. He im­me­di­ately beckoned me to fol­low him, and took me up to his cham­bers.

  ‘Tea?’ he offered, and when I nod­ded, poured me a mug from a pot still warm on his hearth.

  ‘What’s the mat­ter?’ I asked as I took it from him. He was strung as tight as I had ever seen him. This was so un­like Burrich that I feared some ter­rible news – that Sooty was ill, or dead, or that he had dis­covered Smithy.

  ‘Noth­ing,’ he lied, and did it so poorly that he him­self im­me­di­ately re­cog­nized it. ‘It’s this, boy,’ he con­fessed sud­denly. ‘Ga­len came to me today. He told me that you were to be in­struc­ted in the Skill. And he charged me that while he was teach­ing you, I could in­ter­fere in no way: not to coun­sel, or ask chores of you, or even share a meal with you. He was most … dir­ect about it.’ Burrich paused, and I wondered what bet­ter word he had re­jec­ted. He looked away from me. ‘There was a time when I’d hoped this chance would be offered to you, but when it wasn’t, I thought, well, per­haps it’s for the best. Ga­len can be a hard teacher. A very hard teacher. I’ve heard talk of it be­fore. He drives his pu­pils, but he claims he ex­pects no more of them than he does of him­self. And, boy, I’ve heard that gos­siped about me, too, if you can credit it.’

  I per­mit­ted my­self a small smile, that brought an an­swer­ing scowl from Burrich.

  ‘Listen to what I’m telling you. Ga­len makes no secret that he has no fond­ness for you. Of course, he doesn’t know you at all, so it’s not your fault. It’s based solely on … what you are, and what you caused, and El knows that wasn’t your fault. But if Ga­len ad­mit­ted that, then he’d have to ad­mit it was Chiv­alry’s fault, and I’ve never known him to ad­mit that Chiv­alry had any faults … but you can love a man and know bet­ter than that about him.’ Burrich took a brisk turn around the room, then came back to the fire.

  ‘Just tell me what you want to say,’ I sug­ges­ted.

  ‘I’m try­ing,’ he snapped. ‘It’s not easy to know what to say. I’m not even sure if I should be speak­ing to you. Is this in­ter­fer­ence, or coun­sel? But your les­sons haven’t star­ted yet. So I say this now. Do your best for him. Don’t talk back to Ga­len. Be re­spect­ful and cour­teous. Listen to all he says and learn it as well and quickly as you can.’ He paused again.

  ‘I hadn’t in­ten­ded to do oth­er­wise,’ I poin­ted out a bit tartly, for I could tell that none of this was what Burrich was try­ing to say.

  ‘I know that, Fitz!’ He sighed sud­denly, and threw him­self down at the table op­pos­ite me. With the heels of both hands he pressed at his temples as if pained. I had never seen him so agit­ated. ‘A long time ago, I talked to you about that other … ma­gic. The Wit. The be­ing with the beasts, al­most be­com­ing one of them.’ He paused and glanced about the room as if wor­ried someone would hear. He leaned in closer to me and spoke softly but ur­gently. ‘Stay clear of it. I’ve tried my best to get you to see it’s shame­ful and wrong. But I’ve never really felt that you agreed. Oh, I know you’ve abided by my rule against it, most of the time. But a few times I’ve sensed, or sus­pec­ted, that you were tinker­ing with things no good man touches. I tell you, Fitz, I’d sooner see … I’d sooner see you Forged. Yes, don’t look so shocked, that’s truly how I feel. And for Ga­len … Look, Fitz, don’t even men­tion it to him. Don’t speak of it, don’t even think of it near him. It’s little that I know about the Skill and how it works. But some­times … oh, some­times when your father touched me with it, it seemed he knew my heart be­fore I did, and saw things that I kept bur­ied even from my­self.’

  A sud­den deep blush suf­fused Burrich’s dark face, and al­most I thought I saw tears stand in his dark eyes. He turned aside from me to the fire, and I sensed we were com­ing to the heart of what he needed to say. Needed, not wanted. There was a deep fear in him, one he denied him­self. A lesser man, a man less stern with him­self, would have trembled with it.

  ‘… fear for you, boy.’ He spoke to the stones above the man­tel­piece, and his voice was so deep a rumble that I al­most couldn’t un­der­stand him.

  ‘Why?’ A simple ques­tion un­locks best, Chade had taught me.

  ‘I don’t know if he will see it in you. Or what he will do if he does. I’ve heard … no. I know it’s true. There was a wo­man, ac­tu­ally, little more than a girl. She had a way with birds. She lived in the hills to the west of here, and it was said she could call a wild hawk from the sky. Some folk ad­mired her, and said it was a gift. They took sick poultry to her, or called her in when hens wouldn’t set their eggs. She did aught but good, for all I heard. But Ga­len spoke out against her. Said she was an ab­om­in­a­tion, and that it would be the worse for the world if she lived to breed. And one morn­ing she was found beaten to death.’

  ‘Ga­len did it?’

  Burrich shrugged, a ges­ture most un­like him. ‘His horse had been out of the stable that night. That much I know. And his hands were bruised, and he had scratches on his face and neck. But not the scratches a wo­man would have dealt him, boy. Talon marks, as if a hawk had tried to strike him.’

  ‘And you said noth­ing?’ I asked in­cred­u­lously.

  He barked a bit­ter laugh. ‘An­other spoke be­fore I could. Ga­len was ac­cused, by the girl’s cousin, who happened to work here in the stables. Ga­len would not deny it. They went out to the Wit­ness Stones, and fought one an­other for El’s justice, which al­ways pre­vails there. Higher than the King’s court is the an­swer to a ques­tion settled there, and no one may dis­pute it. The boy died. Every­one said it was El’s justice, that the boy had ac­cused Ga­len falsely. One said it to Ga­len. And he replied that El’s justice was that the girl had died be­fore she bred, and her tain­ted cousin, too.’

  Burrich fell si­lent. I was queasy with what he had told me, and a cold fear snaked through me. A ques­tion once de­cided at the Wit­ness Stones could not be raised again. That was more than law, it was the very will of the gods. So I was to be taught by a man who was a mur­derer, a man who would try to kill me if he sus­pec­ted I had the Wit.

  ‘Yes,’ Burrich said as if I had spoken aloud. ‘Oh, Fitz, my son, be care­ful, be wise.’ And for a mo­ment I wondered, for it soun­ded as if he feared for me. But then he ad­ded, ‘Don’t shame me, boy. Or your father. Don’t let Ga­len say that I’ve let my prince’s son grow up a half-beast. Show him that Chiv­alry’s blood runs true in you.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ I muttered. And I went to bed that night wretched and afraid.

  The Queen’s Garden was nowhere near the Wo­men’s Garden or the kit­chen garden or any other garden in Buck­keep. It was, in­stead, on top of a cir­cu­lar tower. The garden walls were high on the sides that faced the sea, but to the south and west, the walls were low and had seats along them. The stone walls cap­tured the warmth of the sun and fended off the salt winds from the sea. The air was still there, al­most as if hands were cupped over my ears. Yet there was a strange wild­ness to the garden foun­ded on stone. There were rock basins, per­haps bird-baths or wa­ter gar­dens at one time, and vari­ous tubs and pots and troughs of earth, in­ter­mingled with statu­ary. At one time, the tubs and pots had prob­ably over­flowed with green­ery and flowers. Of the plants, only a few stalks and the mossy earth in the tubs re­mained. The skel­eton of a vine crawled over a half-rot­ted trel­lis. It filled me with an old sad­ness colder than the first chill of winter that was also here. Pa­tience should have had this, I thought. She would bring life here again.

  I was the first to ar­rive. Au­gust came soon after. He had Ver­ity’s broad build, much as I had Chiv­alry’s height, and the dark Farseer col­our­ing. As al­ways, he was dis­tant but po­lite. He dealt me a nod and then strolled about, look­ing at the statu­ary.

  Oth­ers ap­peared rap­idly after him. I was sur­prised at how many – over a dozen. Other than Au­gust, son of the King’s sis­ter, no one could boast as much Farseer blood as I could. There were cous­ins and second cous­ins, of both sexes and both younger and older than I. Au­gust was prob­ably the young­est, at two years my ju­nior, and Se­rene, a wo­man in her mid-twen­ties, was prob­ably the old­est. It was an oddly sub­dued group. A few clustered, talk­ing softly, but most drif­ted about, pok­ing at the empty gar­dens or look­ing at the statues.