‘And this will make the people like him more, sup­port his fu­ture king­ship more? That he fathered a child on some wild wo­man be­fore he mar­ried his queen?’ Ver­ity soun­ded con­fused by the lo­gic.

  I heard the sour­ness in Regal’s voice. ‘So the King seems to think. Does he care noth­ing for the dis­grace? But I sus­pect Chiv­alry will feel dif­fer­ently about us­ing his bas­tard in such a way. Es­pe­cially as it re­gards dear Pa­tience. But the King has ordered that the bas­tard be brought to Buck­keep when you re­turn.’ Regal looked down on me as if ill sat­is­fied.

  Ver­ity looked briefly troubled, but nod­ded. A shadow lay over Burrich’s fea­tures that the yel­low lamp­light could not lift.

  ‘Has my mas­ter no say in this?’ Burrich ven­tured to protest. ‘It seems to me that if he wants to settle a por­tion on the fam­ily of the boy’s mother, and set him aside, then, why surely for the sake of my Lady Pa­tience’s sens­ib­il­it­ies, he should be al­lowed that dis­cre­tion …’

  Prince Regal broke in with a snort of dis­dain. ‘The time for dis­cre­tion was be­fore he rolled the wench. The Lady Pa­tience is not the first wo­man to have to face her hus­band’s bas­tard. Every­one here knows of his ex­ist­ence; Ver­ity’s clum­si­ness saw to that. There’s no point to try­ing to hide him. And as far as a royal bas­tard is con­cerned, none of us can af­ford to have such sens­ib­il­it­ies, Burrich. To leave such a boy in a place like this is like leav­ing a weapon hov­er­ing over the King’s throat. Surely even a hounds­man can see that. And even if you can’t, your mas­ter will.’

  An icy harsh­ness had come into Regal’s voice, and I saw Burrich flinch from his voice as I had seen him cower from noth­ing else. It made me afraid, and I drew the blanket up over my head and bur­rowed deeper into the straw. Be­side me, Vixen growled lightly in the back of her throat. I think it made Regal step back, but I can­not be sure. The men left soon after, and if they spoke any more than that, no memory of it lies within me.

  Time passed, and I think it was two, or per­haps three weeks later that I found my­self cling­ing to Burrich’s belt and try­ing to wrap my short legs around a horse be­hind him as we left that chill vil­lage and began what seemed to me an end­less jour­ney down to warmer lands. I sup­pose at some point Chiv­alry must have come to see the bas­tard he had sired, and must have passed some sort of judge­ment on him­self as re­garded me. But I have no memory of such a meet­ing with my father. The only im­age I carry of him in my mind is from his por­trait on the wall in Buck­keep. Years later I was given to un­der­stand that his dip­lomacy had gone well in­deed, se­cur­ing a treaty and peace that las­ted well into my teens and earn­ing the re­spect and even fond­ness of the Chy­urda.

  In truth, I was his only fail­ure that year, but I was a mo­nu­mental one. He pre­ceded us home to Buck­keep, where he ab­dic­ated his claim to the throne. By the time we ar­rived, he and Lady Pa­tience were gone from court, to live as the Lord and Lady of Withy­woods. I have been to Withy­woods. Its name bears no re­la­tion­ship to its ap­pear­ance. It is a warm val­ley, centred on a gently flow­ing river that carves a wide plain that nestles between gently rising and rolling foot­hills. A place to grow grapes and grain and plump chil­dren. It is a soft hold­ing, far from the bor­ders, far from the polit­ics of court, far from any­thing that had been Chiv­alry’s life up to then. It was a pas­tur­ing out, a gentle and gen­teel ex­ile for a man who would have been king. A vel­vet smoth­er­ing for a war­rior and a si­len­cing of a rare and skilled dip­lo­mat.

  And so I came to Buck­keep, sole child and bas­tard of a man I’d never know. Prince Ver­ity be­came King-in-Wait­ing and Prince Regal moved up a notch in the line of suc­ces­sion. If all I had ever done was to be born and dis­covered, I would have left a mark across all the land for all time. I grew up fath­er­less and moth­er­less in a court where all re­cog­nized me as a cata­lyst. And a cata­lyst I be­came.

  TWO

  New­boy

  There are many le­gends about Taker, the first Outis­lander to claim Buck­keep as the First Duchy and the founder of the royal line. One is that the raid­ing voy­age he was on was his first and only foray out from whatever cold harsh is­land bore him. It is said that upon see­ing the timbered for­ti­fic­a­tions of Buck­keep, he had an­nounced, ‘If there’s a fire and a meal there, I shan’t be leav­ing again.’ And there was, and he didn’t.

  But fam­ily ru­mour says that he was a poor sailor, made sick by the heav­ing wa­ter and salt-fish ra­tions that other Outis­landers throve upon. He and his crew had been lost for days upon the wa­ter, and if he had not man­aged to seize Buck­keep and make it his own, his crew would have drowned him. Nev­er­the­less, the old tapestry in the Great Hall shows him as a well-thewed stal­wart grin­ning fiercely over the prow of his ves­sel as his oars­men pro­pel him to­ward an an­cient Buck­keep of logs and poorly dressed stone.

  Buck­keep had be­gun its ex­ist­ence as a de­fens­ible po­s­i­tion on a nav­ig­able river at the mouth of a bay with ex­cel­lent an­chor­age. Some petty land­chief, whose name has been lost in the mists of his­tory, saw the po­ten­tial for con­trolling trade on the river and built the first strong­hold there. Os­tens­ibly, he had built it to de­fend both river and bay from the Outis­lander raid­ers who came every sum­mer to plun­der up and down the river. What he had not reckoned on were the raid­ers that in­filt­rated his for­ti­fic­a­tions by treach­ery. The towers and walls be­came their toe­hold. They moved their oc­cu­pa­tions and dom­in­a­tion up the river, and, re­build­ing his tim­ber fort into towers and walls of dressed stone, fi­nally made Buck­keep the heart of the First Duchy, and even­tu­ally the cap­ital of the king­dom of the Six Duch­ies.

  The rul­ing house of the Six Duch­ies, the Farseers, were des­cen­ded from those Outis­landers. They had, for sev­eral gen­er­a­tions, kept up their ties with the Outis­landers, mak­ing court­ing voy­ages and re­turn­ing home with plump dark brides of their own folk. And so the blood of the Outis­landers still ran strong in the royal lines and the noble houses, pro­du­cing chil­dren with black hair and dark eyes and muscled, stocky limbs. And with those at­trib­utes went a pre­dilec­tion for the Skill, and all the dangers and weak­nesses in­her­ent in such blood. I had my share of that her­it­age, too.

  But my first ex­per­i­ence of Buck­keep held noth­ing of his­tory or her­it­age. I knew it only as an end place for a jour­ney, a pan­or­ama of noise and people, carts and dogs and build­ings and twist­ing streets that led fi­nally to an im­mense stone strong­hold on the cliffs that over­looked the city sheltered be­low it. Burrich’s horse was weary, and his hooves slipped on the of­ten slimy cobbles of the city streets. I held on grimly to his belt, too weary and aching even to com­plain. I craned my head up once to stare at the tall grey towers and walls of the keep above us. Even in the un­fa­mil­iar warmth of the sea breeze, it looked chill and for­bid­ding. I leaned my fore­head against his back and felt ill in the brack­ish iod­ine smell of the im­mense wa­ter. And that was how I came to Buck­keep.

  Burrich had quar­ters over the stables, not far from the mews. It was there he took me, along with the hounds and Chiv­alry’s hawk. He saw to the hawk first, for it was sadly be­draggled from the trip. The dogs were over­joyed to be home, and were suf­fused with a bound­less en­ergy that was very an­noy­ing to any­one as weary as I. Nosy bowled me over half a dozen times be­fore I could con­vey to his thick-skulled hound’s mind that I was weary and half-sick and in no mood for play. He re­spon­ded as any pup would, by seek­ing out his former lit­ter-mates and im­me­di­ately get­ting him­self into a semi-ser­i­ous fight with one of them that was quelled by a shout from Burrich. Chiv­alry’s man he might be, but when he was at Buck­keep, he was the Mas­ter for hounds, hawks, and horses.

  His own beasts seen to, he pro­ceeded to walk through the stables, sur­vey­ing all that had been done, or left un­done, in his ab­sence. Stable-boys, grooms, and fal­con­ers ap­peared as if by ma­gic to de­fend their charges from any cri­ti­cisms. I trot­ted at his heels for as long as I could keep up. It was only when I fi­nally sur­rendered, and sank wear­ily onto a pile of straw, that he ap­peared to no­tice me. A look of ir­rit­a­tion, and then great wear­i­ness passed across his face.

  ‘Here, you, Cob. Take young fitz there to the kit­chens and see that he’s fed, and then bring him back up to my quar­ters.’

  Cob was a short, dark dog-boy, per­haps ten years old, who had just been praised over the health of a lit­ter that had been whelped in Burrich’s ab­sence. Mo­ments be­fore he had been bask­ing in Burrich’s ap­proval. Now his grin faltered, and he looked at me du­bi­ously. We re­garded one an­other as Burrich moved off down the line of stalls with his en­tour­age of nervous care­takers. Then the boy shrugged, and went into a half-crouch to face me. ‘Are you hungry, then, fitz? Shall we go find you a bite?’ he asked in­vit­ingly, in ex­actly the same tone as he had used to coax his pup­pies out where Burrich could see them. I nod­ded, re­lieved that he ex­pec­ted no more from me than from a puppy, and fol­lowed him.

  He looked back of­ten to see if I were keep­ing up. No sooner were we out­side the stables than Nosy came frol­ick­ing up to join me. The hound’s evid­ent af­fec­tion for me raised me in Cob’s es­tim­a­tion, and he con­tin­ued to speak to both of us in short en­cour­aging phrases, telling us there was food just ahead, come along now, no, don’t go off sniff­ing after that cat, come along now, there’s some good fel­lows.

  The stables had been bust­ling, with Ver­ity’s men put­ting up their horses and gear and Burrich find­ing fault with all that had not been done up to his stand­ards in his ab­sence. But as we drew closer to the in­ner keep, the foot traffic in­creased. Folk brushed by us on all man­ner of er­rands: a boy car­ry­ing an im­mense slab of ba­con on his shoulder, a gig­gling cluster of girls, arms heavy with stew­ing reeds and heather, a scowl­ing old man with a bas­ket of flop­ping fish, and three young wo­men in mot­ley and bells, their voices ringing as mer­rily as their chimes.

  My nose in­formed me that we were get­ting closer to the kit­chens, but the traffic in­creased pro­por­tion­ately un­til we drew near a door with a ver­it­able crush of people go­ing in and out. Cob stopped, and Nosy and I paused be­hind him, noses work­ing ap­pre­ci­at­ively. He re­garded the press of folk at the door, and frowned to him­self. ‘Place is packed. Every­one’s get­ting ready for the wel­com­ing feast to­night, for Ver­ity and Regal. Any­one who’s any­one has come into Buck­keep for it; word spread fast about Chiv­alry duck­ing out on the king­ship. All the dukes have come or sent a man to coun­sel about it. I hear even the Chy­urda sent someone, to be sure Chiv­alry’s treat­ies will be hon­oured if Chiv­alry is no longer about …’

  He hal­ted, sud­denly em­bar­rassed, but whether it was be­cause he was speak­ing of my father to the cause of his ab­dic­a­tion, or be­cause he was ad­dress­ing a puppy and a six-year-old as if they had in­tel­li­gence, I am not sure. He glanced about, re­as­sess­ing the situ­ation. ‘Wait here,’ he told us fi­nally. ‘I’ll slip in and bring some­thing out for you. Less chance of me get­ting stepped on … or caught. Now stay.’ And he re­in­forced his com­mand with a firm ges­ture of his hand. I backed up to a wall and crouched down there, out of traffic’s way, and Nosy sat obed­i­ently be­side me. I watched ad­mir­ingly as Cob ap­proached the door, and slipped between the clustered folk, eel­ing smoothly into the kit­chens.

  With Cob out of sight, the more gen­eral popu­lace claimed my at­ten­tion. Largely the folk that passed us were serving people and cooks, with a scat­ter­ing of min­strels and mer­chants and de­liv­ery folk. I watched them come and go with a weary curi­os­ity. I had already seen too much that day to find them of great in­terest. Al­most more than food I de­sired a quiet place away from all this activ­ity. I sat flat on the ground, my back against the sun-warmed wall of the keep, and put my fore­head on my knees. Nosy leaned against me.

  Nosy’s stick tail beat­ing against the earth roused me. I lif­ted my face from my knees, to per­ceive a tall pair of brown boots be­fore me. My eyes trav­elled up rough leather pants and over a coarse wool shirt to a shaggy, bearded face thatched with pep­per-grey hair. The man star­ing down at me bal­anced a small keg on one shoulder.

  ‘You the bastid, hey?’

  I had heard the word of­ten enough to know it meant me, without grasp­ing the full­ness of its mean­ing. I nod­ded slowly. The man’s face brightened with in­terest.

  ‘Hey,’ he said loudly, no longer speak­ing to me but to the folk com­ing and go­ing. ‘Here’s the bastid. Stiff-as-a-stick Chiv­alry’s by-blow. Looks a fair bit like him, don’t you say? Who’s your mother, boy?’

  To their credit, most of the passing people con­tin­ued to come and go, with no more than a curi­ous stare at the six-year-old sit­ting by the wall. But the cask-man’s ques­tion was evid­ently of great in­terest, for more than a few heads turned, and sev­eral trades­men who had just ex­ited from the kit­chen drew nearer to hear the an­swer.

  But I did not have an an­swer. Mother had been mother, and whatever I had known of her was already fad­ing. So I made no reply, but only stared up at him.

  ‘Hey. What’s your name then, boy?’ And turn­ing to his audi­ence, he con­fided, ‘I heard he ain’t got no name. No high-flown royal name to shape him, nor even a cot­tage name to scold him by. That right, boy? You got a name?’

  The group of on­look­ers was grow­ing. A few showed pity in their eyes, but none in­terfered. Some of what I was feel­ing passed to Nosy, who dropped over onto his side and showed his belly in sup­plic­a­tion while thump­ing his tail in that an­cient can­ine sig­nal that al­ways means, ‘I’m only a puppy. I can­not de­fend my­self. Have mercy.’ Had they been dogs they would have sniffed me over and then drawn back. But hu­mans have no such in­bred cour­tes­ies. So when I didn’t an­swer, the man drew a step nearer, and re­peated, ‘You got a name, boy?’

  I stood slowly, and the wall that had been warm against my back a mo­ment ago was now a chill bar­rier to re­treat. At my feet, Nosy squirmed in the dust on his back and let out a plead­ing whine. ‘No,’ I said softly, and when the man made as if to lean closer to hear my words, ‘NO!’ I shouted, and re­pelled at him, while crab­bing side­ways along the wall. I saw him stag­ger a step back­wards, los­ing his grip on his cask so that it fell to the cobbled path and cracked open. No one in the crowd could have un­der­stood what had happened. I cer­tainly didn’t. For the most part, folk laughed to see a grown man cower back from a child. In that mo­ment my repu­ta­tion for both tem­per and spirit were made, for be­fore night­fall the tale of the bas­tard stand­ing up to his tor­mentor was all over the town. Nosy scrabbled to his feet and fled with me. I had one glimpse of Cob’s face, taut with con­fu­sion as he emerged from the kit­chen, pies in hands, and saw Nosy and me flee. Had he been Burrich, I prob­ably would have hal­ted and trus­ted my safety to him. But he was not, and so I ran, let­ting Nosy take the lead.

  We fled through the troop­ing ser­vants, just one more small boy and his dog ra­cing about in the court­yard, and Nosy took me to what he ob­vi­ously re­garded as the safest place in the world. Far from the kit­chen and the in­ner keep was a hol­low Vixen had scraped out un­der a corner of a rick­ety out­build­ing where sacks of peas and beans were stored. Here Nosy had been whelped, in total de­fi­ance of Burrich and here she had man­aged to keep her pups hid­den for al­most three days. Burrich him­self had found her there. His smell was the first hu­man smell Nosy could re­call. It was a tight squeeze to get un­der the build­ing, but once within, the den was warm and dry and semi-dark. Nosy huddled close to me and I put my arm around him. Hid­den there, our hearts soon eased down from their wild thump­ings, and from calmness we passed into the deep, dream­less sleep re­served for warm spring af­ter­noons and pup­pies.

  I came awake shiv­er­ing, hours later. It was full dark and the tenu­ous warmth of the early spring day had fled. Nosy was awake as soon as I was, and to­gether we scraped and slithered out of the den.

  There was a high night sky over Buck­keep, with stars shin­ing bright and cold. The smell of the bay was stronger as if the day-smells of men and horses and cook­ing were tem­por­ary things that had to sur­render each night to the ocean’s power. We walked down deser­ted path­ways, through ex­er­cise yards and past granar­ies and the winepress. All was still and si­lent. As we drew closer to the in­ner keep, I saw torches still burn­ing, and heard voices still raised in talk. But it all seemed tired some­how, the last vestiges of rev­elry wind­ing down be­fore dawn came to lighten the skies. Still, we skir­ted the in­ner keep by a wide mar­gin, hav­ing had enough of people.

  I found my­self fol­low­ing Nosy back to the stables. As we drew near the heavy doors, I wondered how we would get in. But Nosy’s tail began to wag wildly as we got closer, and then even my poor nose picked up Burrich’s scent in the dark. He rose from the wooden crate he’d been seated on by the door. ‘There you are,’ he said sooth­ingly. ‘Come along then. Come on.’ And he stood and opened the heavy doors for us and led us in.

  We fol­lowed him through dark­ness, between rows of stalls, past grooms and hand­lers put up for the night in the stables, and then past our own horses and dogs and the stable-boys who slept amongst them, and then to a stair­case that climbed the wall which sep­ar­ated the stables from the mews. We fol­lowed Burrich up its creak­ing wooden treads, and then he opened an­other door. Dim yel­low light from a gut­ter­ing candle on a table blinded me tem­por­ar­ily. We fol­lowed Burrich into a slant-roofed cham­ber that smelled of Burrich and leather and the oils and salves and herbs that were part of his trade. He shut the door firmly be­hind us, and as he came past us to kindle a fresh candle from the nearly spent one on the table, I smelled the sweet­ness of wine on him.