I have heard it called a dance, I have heard it called a battle. Some men speak of it with a know­ing laugh, some with a sneer. I have heard the sturdy mar­ket wo­men chuck­ling over it like hens cluck­ing over bread crumbs; I have been ap­proached by bawds who spoke their wares as boldly as ped­dlers hawk­ing fresh fish. For my­self, I think some things are bey­ond words. The col­our blue can only be ex­per­i­enced, as can the scent of jas­mine or the sound of a flute. The curve of a warm, bared shoulder, the uniquely fem­in­ine soft­ness of a breast, the startled sound one makes when all bar­ri­ers sud­denly yield, the per­fume of her throat, the taste of her skin are all but parts, and sweet as they may be, they do not em­body the whole. A thou­sand such de­tails still would not il­lus­trate it.

  The fire­place logs burned down to dark red em­bers. The candles had long since guttered out. It seemed we were in a place we had entered as strangers, and dis­covered to be home. I think I would have given away all the rest of the world, just to re­main in the drowsy nest of tousled blankets and feather quilts, breath­ing her warm still­ness.

  Brother, this is good.

  I leaped like a hooked fish, jolt­ing Molly out of her drows­ing rev­erie. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A cramp in my calf,’ I lied, and she laughed, be­liev­ing me. So simple a fib, but I was sud­denly shamed by the lie, by all the lies I had ever spoken and all the truths I had made into lies by leav­ing them un­spoken. I opened my lips to tell her all. That I was the royal as­sas­sin, the King’s killing tool. That the know­ledge of her that she had given me that night had been shared by my brother the wolf. That she had given her­self so freely to a man who killed other men and shared his life with an an­imal.

  It was un­think­able. To tell her those things would hurt and shame her. She would have felt per­man­ently dirtied by the touch we had shared. I told my­self that I could stand to have her des­pise me, but I could not stand to have her des­pise her­self. I told my­self that I clenched my lips shut be­cause it was the no­bler thing to do, to keep these secrets to my­self was bet­ter than to let the truth des­troy her. Did I lie to my­self, then?

  Don’t we all?

  I lay there, with her arms twined warm around me, with the length of her body warm­ing my side, and prom­ised my­self that I would change. I would stop be­ing all those things, and then I would never need tell her. To­mor­row, I prom­ised my­self, I would tell Chade and Shrewd that I would no longer kill for them. To­mor­row, I would make Nighteyes un­der­stand why I must sever my bond with him. To­mor­row.

  But today, in this day that was already be­gin­ning to dawn, I had to go forth with the wolf at my side, to hunt the Forged ones and slay them. Be­cause I wanted to go to Shrewd with a fresh tri­umph, to put him in the mood to grant the boon I would ask. This very even­ing, when my killing was done, I would ask him to al­low Molly and me to marry. I prom­ised my­self that his per­mis­sion would mark the be­gin­ning of my new life as a man who would no longer have to keep secrets from the wo­man he loved. I kissed her fore­head, then set her arms softly aside from me.

  ‘I have to leave you,’ I whispered as she stirred. ‘But I pray it will not be for long. Today I go to Shrewd, to ask per­mis­sion to marry you.’

  She stirred and opened her eyes. She watched in a sort of won­der as I went na­ked from her bed. I put more wood on the fire, then avoided her gaze as I gathered my scattered clothes and put them on. She was not so shy, for as I looked up from fasten­ing my belt, I found her eyes upon me, smil­ing. I blushed.

  ‘I feel we are wed already,’ she whispered. ‘I can­not ima­gine how the speak­ing of any vows could make us more truly joined.’

  ‘Nor I.’ I came to sit on the edge of her bed, to take her hands in mine once again. ‘But there will be great sat­is­fac­tion to me in let­ting all know of it. And that, my lady, re­quires a wed­ding. And a pub­lic speak­ing of all my heart has already vowed to you. But for now, I must go.’

  ‘Not yet. Stay a while yet. I am sure we have some small time left be­fore any­one else be­gins to stir.’

  I leaned over her to kiss her. ‘I have to go now, to re­trieve a cer­tain rope that is hanging from the bat­tle­ments to my lady’s win­dow. Oth­er­wise, it might ex­cite com­ment.’

  ‘At least stay long enough for me to help me change the dress­ings on your arm and neck. How­ever did you hurt your­self so? I meant to ask you last night, but …’

  I smiled down at her. ‘I know. There were more in­ter­est­ing things to pur­sue. No, my dear. But I prom­ise you I shall take care of it this morn­ing, in my room.’ To call her ‘my dear’ made me feel a man as no words ever had be­fore. I kissed her, prom­ising my­self that I would go im­me­di­ately af­ter­wards, but found my­self linger­ing to her touch on my neck. I sighed. ‘I do have to go.’

  ‘I know. But you have not told me how you in­jured your­self.’

  I could hear in her voice that she did not think my hurts were ser­i­ous, but only tried to use the sub­ject to de­tain me at her side. But still it shamed me, and I tried to make the lie as harm­less as pos­sible. ‘Dog bites. A bitch in the stable with pups. I guess I did not know her as well as I had thought. I bent to pick up one of her pups, and she went for me.’

  ‘Poor boy. Well. Are you sure you cleaned it well? An­imal bites in­fect very eas­ily.’

  ‘I’ll clean it again when I dress it. Now. I must go.’ I covered her over with the feather quilt, but not without a twinge of re­gret at leav­ing that warmth. ‘Get what little sleep is left for you be­fore day breaks.’

  ‘FitzChiv­alry!’

  I paused at the door, turned back. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Come to me to­night. Re­gard­less of what the King may say.’

  I opened my mouth to protest.

  ‘Prom­ise me! Oth­er­wise, I shall not sur­vive this day. Prom­ise me you will re­turn to me. For no mat­ter what the King may say, know this. I am your wife now. And al­ways will be. Al­ways.’

  My heart stood still in me at that gift, and I could do no more than dumbly nod. My look must have been enough, for the smile she be­stowed on me was bright and golden as mid­sum­mer sun­shine. I lif­ted the bar and un­hooked the latch of the door. Eas­ing it open, I peered out into the darkened hall­way. ‘Be sure you lock up after me,’ I whispered, and then I slipped away from her into the little that was left of the night.

  THIR­TEEN

  Hunt­ing

  The Skill, like any other dis­cip­line, can be taught in a num­ber of ways. Ga­len, Skill­mas­ter un­der King Shrewd, used tech­niques of depriva­tion and en­forced hard­ship to break down a stu­dent’s in­ner walls. Once re­duced to a level of cower­ing sur­vival, the stu­dent was sus­cept­ible to Ga­len’s in­va­sion of his mind and his en­forced ac­cept­ance of Ga­len’s Skilling tech­niques. While the stu­dents who sur­vived his train­ing and went on to be­come his co­terie could all Skill re­li­ably, none were es­pe­cially strong of tal­ent. Ga­len re­portedly con­grat­u­lated him­self at tak­ing stu­dents of little tal­ent, and teach­ing them to Skill re­li­ably. This may be the case. Or per­haps he took stu­dents with great po­ten­tial, and ground them down to ad­equate tools.

  One may con­trast Ga­len’s tech­niques with that of So­li­city, Skill mis­tress be­fore him. She sup­plied the ini­tial in­struc­tion to the then young princes Ver­ity and Chiv­alry. Ver­ity’s ac­count of his in­struc­tion in­dic­ates much was ac­com­plished by gen­tle­ness and lulling her stu­dents into lower­ing their bar­ri­ers. Both Ver­ity and Chiv­alry emerged from her train­ing as ad­ept and strong Skill users. Her death un­for­tu­nately oc­curred be­fore their full adult in­struc­tion was com­plete, and be­fore Ga­len had ad­vanced to a jour­ney status as a Skill in­structor. One can only won­der how much know­ledge of the Skill went to her grave with her, and what po­ten­tials of this royal ma­gic may never be re­dis­covered.

  I spent little time in my room that morn­ing. The fire had gone out, but the chill I felt there was more than that of an un­warmed room. This room was an empty shell of a life soon to be left be­hind. It seemed more bar­ren than ever. I stood, bared to the waist, and shivered as I washed my­self with un­warmed wa­ter, and be­latedly changed the bandaging on my arm and neck. I did not de­serve for those wounds to look as clean as they did. Non­ethe­less, they were heal­ing well.

  I dressed warmly, a pad­ded moun­tain shirt go­ing on un­der a heavy leather jer­kin. I pulled on heavy leather over-trousers, and laced them close to my legs with strips of leather. I took down my work blade, and armed my­self with a short dag­ger as well. From my work­ing kit, I took a small pot of powdered death’s cap. Des­pite all this, I felt un­pro­tec­ted, and equally fool­ish as I left my room.

  I went straight to Ver­ity’s tower. I knew he would be await­ing me, ex­pect­ing to work with me on Skilling. Some­how, I would have to con­vince him that I needed to hunt Forged ones today. I climbed the stairs swiftly, wish­ing this day were over. All of my life was presently fo­cused on the mo­ment when I could knock on King Shrewd’s door and ask his per­mis­sion to marry Molly. The mere thought of her flooded me with such a strange com­bin­a­tion of un­fa­mil­iar feel­ings that my strides on the stairs slowed as I tried to con­sider them all. Then I gave it over as use­less. ‘Molly,’ I said aloud, but softly, to my­self. Like a ma­gic word, it strengthened my re­solve and spurred me on. I stopped out­side the door and rapped loudly.

  I felt rather than heard Ver­ity’s per­mis­sion to enter. I pushed open the door and went in­side. I shut the door be­hind me.

  Phys­ic­ally, the room was still. A cool breeze sprang in from the open win­dow and Ver­ity sat en­throned be­fore it on his old chair. His hands res­ted idly on the win­dowsill and his eyes were fixed on the dis­tant ho­ri­zon. His cheeks were pink, his dark hair ruffled by the wind’s fin­gers. Save for the soft cur­rent from the win­dow, the room was still and si­lent. Yet I felt as if I had stepped into a whirl­wind. Ver­ity’s con­scious­ness washed against me and I was drawn into his mind, swept along with his thoughts and his Skilling far out to sea. He car­ried me with him on a dizzy­ing tour of every ship within the range of his mind. Here we brushed the thoughts of a mer­chant cap­tain, ‘… if the price is good enough, load up with oil for the re­turn trip …’ and then skipped from him to a net mender patch­ing hast­ily, her fid fly­ing, grumbling to her­self as the cap­tain railed at her to be faster about her task. We found a pi­lot wor­ry­ing about his preg­nant wife at home, and three fam­il­ies out dig­ging clams in the dim morn­ing light be­fore the tide came in to cover the beds again. These, and a dozen oth­ers we vis­ited be­fore Ver­ity sud­denly re­called us to our own bod­ies and place. I felt as giddy as a small boy who has been boos­ted aloft by his father to per­ceive the whole chaos of the fair be­fore be­ing re­turned to his own feet and his child’s view of knees and legs.

  I ap­proached the win­dow to stand be­side Ver­ity. He still stared out over the wa­ter to the ho­ri­zons. But I sud­denly un­der­stood his maps and why he cre­ated them. The net­work of lives he had touched so briefly for me were as if he had opened his palm to re­veal he cupped a hand­ful of price­less gems. People. His people. It was not some rocky coast or rich pas­ture­land that he stood watch over. It was these folk, these bright glimpses of other lives un­lived by him, but cher­ished all the same. This was Ver­ity’s king­dom. Geo­graph­ical bound­ar­ies marked on parch­ment en­closed them for him. For a mo­ment I shared his baffle­ment that any­one could wish harm on these people, and shared, too, his fierce de­term­in­a­tion that not one more life should be lost to the Red Ships.

  The world stead­ied around me, as ver­tigo passing, and all was still in the tower top. Ver­ity did not look at me as he spoke. ‘So. Hunt­ing today.’

  I nod­ded, not caring that he did not see the ges­ture. It didn’t mat­ter. ‘Yes. The Forged ones are closer than we sus­pec­ted.’

  ‘Do you ex­pect to fight them?’

  ‘You told me to go pre­pared. I will try the poison first. But they may not be as eager to gobble it down. Or they may still try to at­tack me. So I’m tak­ing my blade, in case.’

  ‘So I sur­mised. But take this one in­stead.’ He lif­ted a sheathed sword from be­side his chair and gave it into my hands. For a mo­ment I could only look at it. The leather was fanci­fully tooled, the hilt had that beau­ti­ful sim­pli­city pos­sessed by weapons and tools made by a mas­ter. At Ver­ity’s nod, I drew the blade in his pres­ence. The metal gleamed and shimmered, the ham­mer­ing and fold­ing that had given it strength re­called as a wa­tery rip­pling of light down its length. I held it out and felt it perch in my hand, weight­less and wait­ing. It was a much finer sword than my skill de­served. ‘I should present it to you with pomp and ce­re­mony, of course. But I give it to you now, lest for the lack of it you can’t re­turn later. Dur­ing Win­ter­fest, I might ask it back of you, so that I may present it to you prop­erly.’

  I slipped it back into its sheath, then drew it out, swift as an in-drawn breath. I had never pos­sessed any­thing so finely made. ‘I feel as if I should swear it to you or some­thing,’ I said awk­wardly.

  Ver­ity per­mit­ted him­self a smile. ‘No doubt Regal would re­quire some such oath. As for me, I don’t think a man need swear his sword to me when he has already sworn me his life.’

  Guilt as­saul­ted me. I took my cour­age in both hands. ‘Ver­ity, my prince. I go forth today to serve you as an as­sas­sin.’

  Even Ver­ity was taken aback. ‘Dir­ect words,’ he mused guardedly.

  ‘It is time for dir­ect words, I think. That is how I serve you today. But my heart has grown weary of it. I have sworn my life to you, as you say, and if you com­mand it, so must I con­tinue. But I ask that you find for me an­other way to serve you.’

  Ver­ity was si­lent for what seemed a long time. He res­ted his chin on his fist, and sighed. ‘Were it only I you were sworn to, per­haps I could an­swer swiftly and simply. But I am only King-in-Wait­ing. This re­quest must be made of your king. As must your re­quest to wed.’

  The si­lence in the room now grew very wide and deep, mak­ing a dis­tance between us. I could not break it. Ver­ity spoke at last. ‘I showed you how to ward your dreams, FitzChiv­alry. If you neg­lect to en­close your mind, you can­not blame oth­ers for what you di­vulge.’

  I pushed down my an­ger and swal­lowed it. ‘How much?’ I asked coldly.

  ‘As little as pos­sible, I as­sure you. I am well used to guard­ing my own thoughts, less so to block­ing out those of oth­ers. Es­pe­cially the thoughts of one as strongly, if er­rat­ic­ally Skilled as your­self. I did not seek to be privy to your … as­sig­na­tion.’

  He was si­lent. I did not trust my­self to speak. It was not just that my own pri­vacy had been so badly be­trayed. But Molly! How I was ever to ex­plain this to Molly, I could not ima­gine. Nor could I tol­er­ate the idea of yet an­other si­lence mask­ing an un­spoken lie between us. As al­ways, Ver­ity was as true as his name. The care­less­ness had been mine. Ver­ity was speak­ing, very quietly.

  ‘Truth to tell, I envy you, boy. Were it my choice, you should be wed today. If Shrewd denies you per­mis­sion today, hold this in your heart, and im­part it to Lady Red Skirts: when I am king, you will be free to marry when and where you choose. I will not do to you what was done to me.’

  I think then that I grasped all that had been taken from Ver­ity. It is one thing to sym­path­ize with a man whose wife was chosen for him. It is an­other to come from the bed of one’s be­loved, and sud­denly real­ize that a man you care for will never know the full­ness of what I had ex­per­i­enced with Molly. How bit­ter must it have been to glimpse what Molly and I shared, and what he must be forever denied?

  ‘Ver­ity. Thank you,’ I told him.

  He met my eyes briefly and gave me a wan smile.

  ‘Well. I sup­pose.’ He hes­it­ated. ‘This is not a prom­ise, so do not take it as such. There may be some­thing I can do about the other as well. You might not have time to func­tion as a … dip­lo­mat, if you were given other du­ties. Du­ties more valu­able to us.’

  ‘Such as?’ I asked cau­tiously.

  ‘My ships grow, day by day, tak­ing shape un­der their mas­ters’ hands. And again, I am denied what I most de­sire. I will not be al­lowed to sail on them. There is much com­mon sense to that. Here, I am able to look out over all and dir­ect all. Here, my life is not risked to the vi­ol­ence of the Red Ship pir­ates. Here, I can co­ordin­ate the at­tacks of sev­eral ves­sels at once, and dis­patch aid where it is most needed.’ He cleared his throat. ‘On the other hand, I will not feel the wind or hear it snap­ping in the sail, and I will never be al­lowed to fight the Raid­ers as I long to, with a blade in my hand, killing swiftly and cleanly, tak­ing blood for the blood they have taken.’ Cold fury rode his fea­tures as he spoke. After a mo­ment’s pause, he went on more calmly. ‘So. For those ships to func­tion best, there must be someone aboard each one who can at least re­ceive my in­form­a­tion. Ideally, that one would also be able to re­lay to me de­tailed in­form­a­tion as to what is go­ing on aboard the ship. You have seen, this day, how I am lim­ited. I can tell the thoughts of cer­tain folk, yes, but I can­not dir­ect them as to what they think about. Some­times, I am able to find one more sus­cept­ible to my Skill, and in­flu­ence his thoughts. But this is not the same thing as hav­ing a quick re­sponse to a dir­ect ques­tion.