‘Up, and let’s have a look at you,’ he com­manded, and I arose wear­ily and stood quiet while he went over my in­jur­ies with deft hands. He was pleased with the con­di­tion of my hand, and told me that it might go un­band­aged now, but to keep the wrap­ping about my ribs and to come back to have it ad­jus­ted each even­ing. ‘As for the rest of it, keep it clean and dry, and don’t pick at the scabs. If any of it starts to fester, come and see me.’ He filled a little pot with an un­guent that eased sore muscles and gave it to me, by which I de­duced that he ex­pec­ted me to leave.

  I stood hold­ing the little pot of medi­cine. A ter­rible sad­ness welled up in me, and yet I could find no words to say. Burrich looked at me, scowled and turned away. ‘Now stop that,’ he com­manded me an­grily.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘You look at me some­times with my lord’s eyes,’ he said quietly, and then as sharply as be­fore, ‘Well, what did you think to do? Hide in the stables the rest of your life? No. You have to go back. You have to go back and hold up your head and eat your meals among the keep folk, and sleep in your own room, and live your own life. Yes, and go and fin­ish those damn les­sons in the Skill.’

  His first com­mands had soun­ded dif­fi­cult, but the last, I knew, was im­possible.

  ‘I can’t,’ I said, not be­liev­ing how stu­pid he was. ‘Ga­len wouldn’t let me come back to the group. And even if he did, I’d never catch up on all I’d missed. I’ve already failed at it, Burrich. I failed and that’s done, and I need to find some­thing else to do with my­self. I’d like to learn the hawks, please.’ The last I heard my­self say with some amazement, for in truth it had never crossed my mind be­fore. Burrich’s reply was at least as strange.

  ‘You can’t, for the hawks don’t like you. You’re too warm and you don’t mind your own busi­ness enough. Now listen to me. You didn’t fail, you fool. Ga­len tried to drive you away. If you don’t go back, you’ll have let him win. You have to go back and you have to learn it. But,’ and here he turned on me, and the an­ger in his eyes was for me, ‘You don’t have to stand there like a carter’s mule while he beats you. You’ve a birth­right to his time and his know­ledge. Make him give you what is yours. Don’t run away. No one ever gained any­thing by run­ning away.’ He paused, star­ted to say more, and then stopped.

  ‘I’ve missed too many les­sons. I’ll never …’

  ‘You haven’t missed any­thing,’ Burrich said stub­bornly. He turned away from me, and I couldn’t read his tone as he ad­ded, ‘There have been no les­sons since you left. You should be able to pick up just where you left off.’

  ‘I don’t want to go back.’

  ‘Don’t waste my time by ar­guing with me,’ he said tightly. ‘Don’t dare to try my pa­tience that way. I’ve told you what you are to do. Do it.’

  Sud­denly I was five years old again, and a man in a kit­chen backed up a crowd with a look. I shivered, cowed. Ab­ruptly, it was easier to face Ga­len than to defy Burrich. Even when he ad­ded, ‘And you’ll leave that pup with me un­til your les­sons are done. Be­ing shut up in­side your room all day is no life for a dog. His coat will go bad and his muscles won’t grow prop­erly. But you’d bet­ter be down here each even­ing to see to both him and Sooty or you’ll an­swer to me. And I don’t give a damn what Ga­len says about that, either.’

  And so I was dis­missed. I con­veyed to Smithy that he was to stay with Burrich, and he ac­cep­ted it with an equan­im­ity that sur­prised me as much as it hurt my feel­ings. Dis­pir­ited, I took my pot of un­guent and plod­ded back up to the keep. I took food from the kit­chen, for I had no heart to face any­one at table and went up to my room. It was cold and dark; no fire in the hearth, no candles in the sticks and the fouled reeds un­der­foot stank. I fetched candles and wood, set a fire, and while I was wait­ing for it to take some of the chill off the stone walls and floors, I busied my­self with tak­ing up the floor rushes. Then, as Lacey had ad­vised me, I scrubbed the room well with hot wa­ter and vin­egar. Some­how I got the vin­egar that had been fla­voured with tar­ragon, and so when I was fin­ished, the room smelt fra­grant. Ex­hausted, I flung my­self down on my bed, and fell asleep won­der­ing why I’d never dis­covered how to open whatever hid­den door it was that led to Chade’s quar­ters. But I had no doubt that he would have simply dis­missed me, for he was a man of his word and would not in­ter­fere un­til Ga­len had fin­ished with me. Or un­til he dis­covered that I was fin­ished with Ga­len.

  The Fool’s candles awoke me. I was com­pletely dis­or­i­ented, un­til he said, ‘You’ve just time to wash and eat and still be first on the tower top.’

  He’d brought warm wa­ter in an ewer, and warm rolls from the kit­chen ovens.

  ‘I’m not go­ing.’

  It was the first time I’d ever seen the Fool look sur­prised. ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s point­less. I can’t suc­ceed. I simply haven’t the aptitude and I’m tired of beat­ing my head against the wall.’

  The Fool’s eyes widened fur­ther. ‘I thought you had been do­ing well, be­fore …’

  It was my turn to be sur­prised. ‘Well? Why do you think he mocked me and struck me? As a re­ward for my suc­cess? No. I haven’t even been able to un­der­stand what it’s about. All the oth­ers had already sur­passed me. Why should I go back? So Ga­len can prove even more thor­oughly how right he was?’

  ‘Some­thing,’ the Fool said care­fully, ‘is not right here.’ He con­sidered for a mo­ment. ‘Be­fore, I asked you to give up the les­sons. You would not. Do you re­call that?’

  I cast my mind back. ‘I’m stub­born, some­times,’ I ad­mit­ted.

  ‘And if I asked you now, to con­tinue? To go up to the tower top, and con­tinue to try?’

  ‘Why have you changed your mind?’

  ‘Be­cause that which I sought to pre­vent came to pass. But you sur­vived it. So I seek now to …’ His words trailed off. ‘It is as you said. Why should I speak at all, when I can­not speak plainly?’

  ‘If I said that, I re­gret it. It is not a thing one should say to a friend. I do not re­mem­ber it.’

  He smiled faintly. ‘If you do not re­mem­ber it, then neither shall I.’ He reached and took both of my hands in his. His grip was oddly cool. A shiver passed over me at his touch. ‘Would you con­tinue, if I asked it of you? As a friend?’

  The word soun­ded so odd from his lips. He spoke it without mock­ery, care­fully, as if the say­ing of it aloud could shat­ter the mean­ing. His col­our­less eyes held mine. I found I could not say no. So I nod­ded.

  Even so, I rose re­luct­antly. He watched me with an im­pass­ive in­terest as I straightened the clothes I’d slept in, splashed my face, and then tore into the bread he’d brought. ‘I don’t want to go,’ I told him as I fin­ished the first roll and took up the second. ‘I don’t see what it can ac­com­plish.’

  ‘I don’t know why he both­ers with you,’ the Fool agreed. The fa­mil­iar cyn­icism was back.

  ‘Ga­len? He has to, the King …’

  ‘Burrich.’

  ‘He just likes boss­ing me about,’ I com­plained, and it soun­ded child­ish, even to me.

  The Fool shook his head. ‘You haven’t even a clue, have you?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About how the sta­ble­mas­ter dragged Ga­len from his bed, and from thence to the Wit­ness Stones. I wasn’t there, of course, or I would be able to tell you how Ga­len cursed and struck at him at first, but the sta­ble­mas­ter paid no at­ten­tion. He just hunched his shoulders to the man’s blows, and kept si­lent. He gripped the Skill­mas­ter by the col­lar, so the man was fair choked, and dragged him along. And the sol­diers and guards and stable-boys fol­lowed in a stream that be­came a tor­rent of men. If I had been there, I could tell you how no man dared to in­ter­fere, for it was as if the sta­ble­mas­ter had be­come as Burrich once was, an iron-muscled man with a black tem­per that was like a mad­ness when it came on him. No one, then, dared to brook that tem­per, and that day, it was as if Burrich was that man again. If he limped still, no one no­ticed it at all.

  ‘As for the Skill­mas­ter, he flailed and cursed, and then he grew still, and all sus­pec­ted that he turned what he knew upon his captor. But if he did, it had no ef­fect, save that the sta­ble­mas­ter tightened his grip on the man’s neck. And if Ga­len strove to sway oth­ers to his cause, they did not re­act. Per­haps be­ing choked and dragged was suf­fi­cient to break his con­cen­tra­tion. Or per­haps his Skill is not as strong as it was ru­moured. Or per­haps too many re­mem­ber his mis­treat­ment of them too well to be vul­ner­able to his wiles. Or per­haps …’

  ‘Fool! Get on with it! What happened?’ A light sweat cloaked my body and I shivered, not know­ing what I hoped for.

  ‘I wasn’t there, of course,’ the Fool as­ser­ted sweetly. ‘But I have heard it said that the dark man dragged the skinny man all the way up to the Wit­ness Stones. And there, still grip­ping the Skill­mas­ter so that he could not speak, he as­ser­ted his chal­lenge. They would fight. No weapons, but hands only, just as the Skill­mas­ter had as­saul­ted a cer­tain boy the day be­fore. And the Stones would wit­ness, if Burrich won, that Ga­len had had no call to strike the boy, nor had he the right to re­fuse to teach the boy. And Ga­len would have re­fused the chal­lenge and gone to the King him­self, ex­cept that the dark man had already called the Stones to wit­ness. And so they fought, in much the same way that a bull fights a bale of straw when he tosses and stamps and gores it. And when he was done, the sta­ble­mas­ter bent and whispered some­thing to the Skill­mas­ter, be­fore he and all oth­ers turned and left the man ly­ing there, with the Stones wit­ness to his whim­per­ing and bleed­ing.’

  ‘What did he say?’ I de­man­ded.

  ‘I wasn’t there. I saw and heard noth­ing of it.’ The Fool stood and stretched. ‘You’ll be late if you tarry,’ he poin­ted out to me, and left. And I left my room, won­der­ing, and climbed the tall tower to the Queen’s stripped Garden and was still in time to be the first one there.

  SIX­TEEN

  Les­sons

  Ac­cord­ing to an­cient chron­icles, Skil­lusers were or­gan­ized in co­ter­ies of six. These groups did not usu­ally in­clude any of ex­cep­tional royal blood, but were lim­ited to cous­ins and neph­ews of the dir­ect line of as­cen­sion, or those who showed an aptitude and were judged worthy. One of the most fam­ous, Cross­fire’s Co­terie, provides a splen­did ex­ample of how they func­tioned. Ded­ic­ated to Queen Vis­ion, Cross­fire and the oth­ers of her co­terie had been trained by a Skill­mas­ter called Tac­tic. The part­ners in this co­terie were mu­tu­ally chosen by one an­other, and then re­ceived spe­cial train­ing from Tac­tic to bind them into a close unit. Whether scattered across the Six Duch­ies to col­lect or dis­sem­in­ate in­form­a­tion, or when massed as a group for the pur­pose of con­found­ing and de­mor­al­iz­ing the en­emy, their deeds be­came le­gendary. Their fi­nal hero­ism, de­tailed in the bal­lad Cross­fire’s Sac­ri­fice, was the mass­ing of their strength, which they chan­nelled to Queen Vis­ion dur­ing the Battle of Be­sham. Un­be­knownst to the ex­hausted queen, they gave to her more than they could spare them­selves, and in the midst of the vic­tory cel­eb­ra­tion the co­terie was dis­covered in their tower, drained and dy­ing. Per­haps the people’s love of Cross­fire’s Co­terie stemmed in part from their all be­ing cripples in one form or an­other: blind, lame, harelipped or dis­figured by fire were all of the six, yet in the Skill their strength was greater than that of the largest war­ship, and more of a de­term­in­ant in the de­fence of the Queen.

  Dur­ing the peace­ful years of King Bounty’s reign, the in­struc­tion of the Skill for the cre­ation of co­ter­ies was aban­doned. Ex­ist­ing co­ter­ies dis­ban­ded due to age­ing, death or simply a lack of pur­pose. In­struc­tion in the Skill began to be lim­ited to princes only, and for a time it was seen as a rather ar­chaic art. By the time of the Red Ship raids, only King Shrewd and his son Ver­ity were act­ive prac­ti­tion­ers of the Skill. Shrewd made an ef­fort to loc­ate and re­cruit former prac­ti­tion­ers, but most were aged, or no longer pro­fi­cient.

  Ga­len, then Skill­mas­ter for Shrewd, was as­signed the task of cre­at­ing new co­ter­ies for the de­fence of the king­dom. Ga­len chose to set aside tra­di­tion. Co­terie mem­ber­ships were as­signed rather than mu­tu­ally chosen. Ga­len’s meth­ods of teach­ing were harsh, his train­ing goal that each mem­ber would be an un­ques­tion­ing part of a unit, a tool for the King to use as he needed. This par­tic­u­lar as­pect was de­signed solely by Ga­len, and the first Skill co­terie he cre­ated, he presen­ted to King Shrewd as if it were his gift to give. At least one mem­ber of the royal fam­ily ex­pressed his ab­hor­rence of the idea. But times were des­per­ate, and King Shrewd could not res­ist wield­ing the weapon that had been given into his hand.

  Such hate. Oh, how they hated me. As each stu­dent emerged from the stair­well onto the tower roof to find me there and wait­ing, each spurned me. I felt their dis­dain, as palp­ably as if each had dashed cold wa­ter against me. By the time the sev­enth and fi­nal stu­dent ap­peared, the cold of their hatred was like a wall around me. But I stood, si­lent and con­tained, in my ac­cus­tomed place, and met every eye that was lif­ted to mine. That, I think, was why no one spoke a word to me. They were forced to take their places around me. They did not speak to each other, either.

  And we waited.

  The sun came up, and even cleared the wall around the tower, and still Ga­len had not come. But they kept their places and waited and so I did like­wise.

  Fi­nally, I heard his halt­ing steps upon the stairs. When he emerged, he blinked in the sun’s pale wash, glanced at me, and vis­ibly startled. I stood my ground. We looked at one an­other. He could see the bur­den of hatred that the oth­ers had im­posed on me and it pleased him, as did the band­ages I still wore on my temple. But I met his eyes and did not flinch. I dared not.

  And I be­came aware of the dis­may the oth­ers were feel­ing. No one could look at him and not see how badly he had been beaten. The Wit­ness Stones had found him lack­ing, and all who saw him would know. His gaunt face was a land­scape of purples and greens washed over with yel­lows. His lower lip was split in the middle, and cut at the corner of his mouth. He wore a long-sleeved robe that covered his arms, but the flow­ing loose­ness of it con­tras­ted so strongly with his usual tightly-laced shirts and tu­nics that it was like see­ing the man in his night­shirt. His hands, too, were purple and knobby, but I could not re­call that I had seen bruises on Burrich’s body. I con­cluded that he had used them in a vain at­tempt to shield his face. He still car­ried his little whip with him, but I doubted he had the cap­ab­il­ity to swing it ef­fect­ively.

  And so we in­spec­ted one an­other. I took no sat­is­fac­tion in his bruises or his dis­grace. I felt some­thing akin to shame for them. I had be­lieved so strongly in his in­vul­ner­ab­il­ity and su­peri­or­ity that this evid­ence of his mere hu­man­ity left me feel­ing fool­ish. That un­bal­anced his com­pos­ure. Twice he opened his mouth to speak to me. The third time, he turned his back on the class and said, ‘Be­gin your phys­ical limber­ing. I will ob­serve you to see if you are mov­ing cor­rectly.’

  The ends of his words were soft, spoken through a pain­ful mouth. And as we du­ti­fully stretched and swayed and bowed in uni­son, he crabbed awk­wardly about the tower garden. He tried not to lean on the wall, or to rest too of­ten. Gone was the slap, slap, slap of the whip against his thigh that had formerly or­ches­trated our ef­forts. In­stead, he gripped it as if afraid he might drop it. For my part, I was grate­ful that Burrich had made me get up and move. My bound ribs didn’t per­mit me the full flex­ib­il­ity of mo­tion that Ga­len had formerly com­manded from us, but I made an hon­est at­tempt at it.

  He offered us noth­ing new that day, only go­ing over what we had already learned, and the les­sons came to an early end, be­fore the sun was even down. ‘You have done well,’ he offered lamely. ‘You have earned these free hours, for I am pleased you have con­tin­ued to study in my ab­sence.’ Be­fore dis­miss­ing us, he called each of us be­fore him, for a brief touch of the Skill. The oth­ers left re­luct­antly, with many a back­ward glance, curi­ous as to how he would deal with me. As the num­bers of my fel­low stu­dents dwindled, I braced my­self for a sol­it­ary con­front­a­tion.

  But even that was a dis­ap­point­ment. He called me be­fore him, and I came, as si­lent and out­wardly re­spect­ful as the oth­ers. I stood be­fore him as they had, and he made a few brief passes of his hands be­fore my face and over my head. Then he said in a cold voice, ‘You shield too well. You must learn to re­lax your guard over your thoughts if you are either to send them forth or re­ceive those of oth­ers. Go.’

  And I left, as the oth­ers had, but re­gret­fully. Privately I wondered if he had made a real at­tempt to use the Skill on me. I had felt no brush of it. I des­cen­ded the stairs, aching and bit­ter, won­der­ing why I was try­ing.

  I went to my room, and then to the stables. I gave Sooty a curs­ory brush­ing while Smithy watched. Still I felt rest­less and dis­sat­is­fied. I knew I should rest, that I would re­gret it if I did not. Stone walk? Smithy sug­ges­ted, and I agreed to take him into town. He gal­loped and snuffled circles around me as I made my way down from the keep. It was a blustery af­ter­noon after a calm morn­ing; a storm was build­ing off­shore. But the wind was un­season­ably warm, and I felt the fresh air clear­ing my head, and the steady rhythm of walk­ing soothed and stretched the muscles that Ga­len’s ex­er­cises had left bunched and aching. Smithy’s sens­ory prattle groun­ded me firmly in the im­me­di­ate world so that I could not dwell on my frus­tra­tions.