Chade summoned me that night, but when I went to him, he seemed to have no more pur­pose in call­ing me than to see me. We sat al­most si­lently be­fore the black hearth, and I thought he looked older than he ever had. As Ver­ity was de­voured so Chade was con­sumed. His bony hands ap­peared al­most de­sic­cated, and the whites of his eyes were webbed with red. He needed to sleep, but in­stead had chosen to call me. Yet he sat, still and si­lent, scarce nib­bling at the food he had placed be­fore us. At length, I de­cided to help him.

  ‘Are you afraid I won’t be able to do it?’ I asked him softly.

  ‘Do what?’ he asked ab­sently.

  ‘Kill the moun­tain prince. Rurisk.’

  Chade turned to look at me full-face. The si­lence held for a long mo­ment.

  ‘You didn’t know King Shrewd had given me this,’ I faltered.

  Slowly he turned back to the empty hearth, and stud­ied it as care­fully as if there were flames to read. ‘I’m only the tool-maker,’ he said at last, quietly. ‘An­other man uses what I make.’

  ‘Do you think this is a bad … task? Wrong?’ I took a breath. ‘From what I’ve been told, he has not that much longer to live any­way. It might al­most be a mercy, if death were to come quietly in the night, in­stead of …’

  ‘Boy,’ Chade re­marked quietly. ‘Never pre­tend we are any­thing but what we are. As­sas­sins. Not mer­ci­ful agents of a wise king. Polit­ical as­sas­sins deal­ing death for the fur­ther­ance of our mon­archy. That is what we are.’

  It was my turn to study the ghosts of the flames. ‘You are mak­ing this very hard for me. Harder than it already was. Why? Why did you make me what I am, if you then try to weaken my re­solve …’ My ques­tion died away, half-formed.

  ‘I think … never mind. Maybe it is a kind of jeal­ousy in me, my boy. I won­der, I sup­pose, why Shrewd uses you in­stead of me. Maybe I fear I have out­lived my use­ful­ness to him. Maybe, now that I know you, I wish I had never set out to make you what …’ And it was Chade’s turn to fall si­lent, his thoughts go­ing where his words could not fol­low them.

  We sat con­tem­plat­ing my as­sign­ment. This was not the serving of a king’s justice. This was not a death sen­tence for a crime. This was a simple re­moval of a man who was an obstacle to greater power. I sat still un­til I began to won­der if I would do it. Then I lif­ted my eyes to a sil­ver fruit-knife driven deep into Chade’s man­tel­piece, and I thought I knew the an­swer.

  ‘Ver­ity had made com­plaint, on your be­half,’ Chade said sud­denly.

  ‘Com­plaint?’ I asked weakly.

  ‘To Shrewd. First, that Ga­len had mis­treated you and cheated you. This com­plaint he made form­ally, say­ing that he had de­prived the king­dom of your Skill, at a time when it would have been most use­ful. He sug­ges­ted to Shrewd, in­form­ally, that he settle it with Ga­len, be­fore you took mat­ters into your own hands.’

  Look­ing at Chade’s face, I could see that the full con­tent of my dis­cus­sion with Ver­ity had been re­vealed to him. I was not sure how I felt about that. ‘I would not do that, take my own re­venge on Ga­len. Not after Ver­ity asked me not to.’

  Chade gave me a look of quiet ap­proval. ‘So I told Shrewd. But he said to me that I must say to you, that he will settle this. This time the King works his own justice. You must wait and be sat­is­fied.’

  ‘What will he do?’

  ‘That I do not know. I do not think Shrewd him­self knows yet. The man must be re­buked. But we must keep in mind that if other co­ter­ies are to be trained, Ga­len must not feel too badly treated.’ Chade cleared his throat, and said more quietly, ‘And Ver­ity made an­other com­plaint to the King as well. He ac­cused Shrewd and I, quite bluntly, of be­ing will­ing to sac­ri­fice you for the sake of the king­dom.’

  This, I knew sud­denly, was why Chade had called me to­night. I was si­lent.

  Chade spoke more slowly. ‘Shrewd claimed he had not even con­sidered it. For my part, I had no idea such a thing was pos­sible.’ He sighed again, as if part­ing with these words cost him. ‘Shrewd is a king, my boy. His first con­cern must al­ways be for his king­dom.’

  The si­lence between us stretched long. ‘You are say­ing he would sac­ri­fice me. Without a qualm.’

  He did not take his eyes from the fire­place. ‘You. Me. Even Ver­ity, if he thought it ne­ces­sary for the sur­vival of the king­dom.’ Then he did turn to look at me. ‘Never for­get that,’ he said.

  The night be­fore the wed­ding cara­van was to leave Buck­keep, Lacey came tap­ping on my door. It was late, and when she said Pa­tience wished to see me, I fool­ishly asked, ‘Now?’

  ‘Well, you leave to­mor­row,’ Lacey poin­ted out, and I obed­i­ently fol­lowed her as if that made sense.

  I found Pa­tience sit­ting up in a cush­ioned chair, an ex­tra­vag­antly-em­broidered robe on over her nightclothes. Her hair was down about her shoulders, and as I seated my­self where she in­dic­ated, Lacey re­sumed the brush­ing of it.

  ‘I have been wait­ing for you to come to apo­lo­gize to me,’ Pa­tience ob­served.

  I im­me­di­ately opened my mouth to do so, but she ir­rit­ably waved me to si­lence.

  ‘But, in dis­cuss­ing it with Lacey to­night, I found I had already for­given you. Boys, I de­cided, simply have a given amount of rude­ness they must ex­press. I de­cided you meant noth­ing by it, hence you do not need to apo­lo­gize.’

  ‘But I am sorry,’ I pro­tested. ‘I just couldn’t de­cide how to say …’

  ‘It’s too late to apo­lo­gize now, I’ve for­given you,’ she said briskly. ‘Be­sides, there isn’t time. I’m sure you should be asleep by now. But as this is your first real ven­ture into court life, I wanted to give you some­thing be­fore you left.’

  I opened my mouth, then shut it again. If she wanted to con­sider this my first real ven­ture into court life, I wouldn’t ar­gue with her.

  ‘Sit here,’ she said im­per­i­ously, and poin­ted to a spot by her feet.

  I went and sat obed­i­ently. For the first time, I no­ticed a small box in her lap. It was of dark wood, and a stag was carved into the lid in bas re­lief. As she opened it, I caught a whiff of the aro­matic wood. She took out an ear stud and held it up to my ear. ‘Too small,’ she muttered. ‘What is the sense of wear­ing jew­ellery if no one else can see it?’ She held up and dis­carded sev­eral oth­ers, with sim­ilar com­ments. Fi­nally she held up one that was like a sil­ver bit of net with a blue stone caught in it. She made a face over it, then nod­ded re­luct­antly. ‘That man has taste. Whatever else he lacks, he has taste.’ She held it up to my ear again, and with ab­so­lutely no warn­ing, thrust the pin of it through my ear­lobe.

  I yelped and clapped a hand over my ear, but she slapped it away. ‘Don’t be such a baby. It only stings for a minute.’ There was a sort of clasp that held it be­hind, and she ruth­lessly bent my ear in her fin­gers to fasten it. ‘There. That quite suits him, don’t you think, Lacey?’

  ‘Quite,’ Lacey agreed over her eternal tat­ting.

  Pa­tience dis­missed me with a ges­ture. As I rose to go, she said, ‘Re­mem­ber this, Fitz. Whether you can Skill or not, whether you wear his name or not, you are Chiv­alry’s son. See that you be­have with hon­our. Now go and get some sleep.’

  ‘With this ear?’ I asked, show­ing her blood on my fin­ger­tips.

  ‘I hadn’t thought. I’m sorry …’ she began, but I in­ter­rup­ted her.

  ‘Too late to apo­lo­gize. I’ve already for­given you. And thank you.’ Lacey was still gig­gling as I left.

  I arose early the next morn­ing, to take my place in the wed­ding caval­cade. Rich gifts must be taken as a token of the new bond between the fam­il­ies. There were gifts for the Prin­cess Kettricken her­self, a fine-blooded mare, jew­ellery, fab­ric for gar­ments, ser­vants, and rare per­fumes. And there were the gifts to her fam­ily and people. Horses and hawks and worked gold for her father and brother of course, but the more im­port­ant gifts were the ones offered to her king­dom, for in keep­ing with the Jhaampe tra­di­tions, she was of her people more than she was of her fam­ily. And so there was breed­ing stock, cattle, sheep, horses and fowl, and power­ful yew bows such as the moun­tain folk did not have, and metal­work­ing tools of good Forge iron, and other gifts judged likely to im­prove the lot of the moun­tain people. And there was know­ledge, in the form of sev­eral of Fed­wren’s best il­lus­trated herb­als, sev­eral tab­lets of cures, and a scroll on hawk­ing that was a care­ful copy of one cre­ated by Hawker him­self. These last, os­tens­ibly, were my pur­pose in ac­com­pa­ny­ing the cara­van.

  They were given into my keep­ing, along with a gen­er­ous sup­ply of the herbs and roots men­tioned in the herbal, and with seed for grow­ing those that did not keep well. This was not a trivial gift, and I took my re­spons­ib­il­ity for see­ing it well de­livered as ser­i­ously as I took my other mis­sion. All was care­fully wrapped and then placed in a carved ce­dar chest. I was check­ing their wrap­pings a fi­nal time be­fore tak­ing the chest down to the court­yard when I heard the Fool be­hind me.

  ‘I brought you this.’

  I turned to find him stand­ing just in­side the door of my room. I hadn’t even heard the door open. He was prof­fer­ing a leather drawstring bag. ‘What is it?’ I asked, and tried not to let him hear either the flowers or the doll in my voice.

  ‘Seapurge.’

  I raised my eye­brows. ‘A cath­artic? As a mar­riage gift? I sup­pose some would find it ap­pro­pri­ate, but the herbs I am tak­ing can be planted and grown in the moun­tains. I do not think …’

  ‘It is not a wed­ding gift. It is for you.’

  I ac­cep­ted the pouch with mixed feel­ings. It was an ex­cep­tion­ally power­ful purge. ‘Thank you for think­ing of me. But I am not usu­ally prone to trav­el­lers’ ail­ments, and …’

  ‘You are not usu­ally, when you travel, in danger of be­ing poisoned.’

  ‘Is there some­thing you’d like to tell me?’ I tried to make my tone light and ban­ter­ing. I missed the Fool’s usual wry faces and mock­er­ies from this con­ver­sa­tion.

  ‘Only that you’d be wise to eat lightly, or not at all, of any food you do not pre­pare your­self.’

  ‘At all the feasts and fest­iv­it­ies that will be there?’

  ‘No. Only at the ones you wish to sur­vive.’ He turned to go.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said hast­ily. ‘I didn’t mean to in­trude. I was look­ing for you, and I was so hot, and the door wasn’t latched, so I went in. I didn’t mean to pry.’

  His back was to me and he didn’t turn back as he asked, ‘And did you find it amus­ing?’

  ‘I –’ I could not think of any­thing to say, of any way to as­sure him that what I had seen there would stay only within my own mind. He took two steps and was clos­ing the door. I blur­ted, ‘It made me wish there were a place as much me as that place is you. A place I would keep as secret.’

  The door hal­ted a hands­breadth short of closed. ‘Take some ad­vice, and you may sur­vive this trip. When con­sid­er­ing a man’s motives, re­mem­ber you must not meas­ure his wheat with your bushel. He may not be us­ing the same stand­ard at all.’

  And the door closed and the Fool was gone. But his last words had been cryptic and frus­trat­ing enough that I thought per­haps he had for­given me my tres­pass.

  I stuffed the seapurge into my jer­kin, not want­ing it, but afraid to leave it now. I glanced about my room, but as al­ways it was a bare and prac­tical place. Mis­tress Hasty had seen to my pack­ing, not trust­ing me with my new gar­ments. I had no­ticed that the barred buck on my crest had been re­placed with a buck with his antlers lowered to charge. ‘Ver­ity ordered it,’ was all she said when I asked about it. ‘I like it bet­ter than the barred buck my­self. Don’t you?’

  ‘I sup­pose so,’ I replied, and that had been the end of it. A name and a crest. I nod­ded to my­self, shouldered my chest of herbs and scrolls, and went down to join the cara­van.

  As I was go­ing down the steps, I en­countered Ver­ity com­ing up. At first I scarcely knew him, for he was as­cend­ing like a crabbed old man. I stepped out of his way to let him pass, and then knew him as he glanced at me. It is a strange thing to see a once-fa­mil­iar man like that, en­countered as a stranger. I marked how his clothes hung on him now, and the bushy dark hair I re­membered had a pep­per­ing of grey. He smiled ab­sently at me, and then, as if it had sud­denly oc­curred to him, he stopped me.

  ‘You’re leav­ing for the Moun­tain King­dom? For the wed­ding ce­re­mony?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do me a fa­vour, boy?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, taken aback by the rust in his voice.

  ‘Speak well of me to her. Truth­fully, mind you, I’m not ask­ing for lies. But speak well of me. I’ve al­ways thought that you thought well of me.’

  ‘I do,’ I said to his re­treat­ing back. ‘I do, sir.’ But he didn’t turn or make a reply, and I felt much as I had when the Fool left me.

  The court­yard was a milling of folk and an­im­als. There were no carts this time; the roads into the moun­tains were no­tori­ously bad, and it had been de­cided that pack an­im­als would have to suf­fice for the sake of swift­ness. It would not do for the royal en­tour­age to be late for the wed­ding; it was bad enough that the groom was not at­tend­ing.

  The flocks and herds had been sent on days be­fore. It was ex­pec­ted that our trip would take two weeks, and three had been al­lowed for it. I saw to fasten­ing the ce­dar chest onto a pack an­imal, and then stood be­side Sooty and waited. Even in the cobbled court­yard, dust stirred thick in the hot sum­mer air. Des­pite all the care­ful plan­ning that had gone into it, the cara­van seemed chaotic. I glimpsed Sevrens, Regal’s fa­vour­ite valet. Regal had sent him back to Buck­keep a month ago, with spe­cific in­struc­tions about cer­tain gar­ments he wished cre­ated. Sevrens was fol­low­ing Hands, dither­ing and ex­pos­tu­lat­ing about some­thing, and whatever it was, Hands was not look­ing pa­tient about it. When Mis­tress Hasty had been giv­ing me fi­nal in­struc­tions on the care of my new gar­ments, she had di­vulged that Sevrens was tak­ing enough new gar­ments, hats and ac­coutre­ments for Regal that he had been al­lot­ted three pack an­im­als to carry them. I ima­gined that caring for the three an­im­als had fallen to Hands, for Sevrens was an ex­cel­lent valet, but timid around the lar­ger an­im­als. Rowd, Regal’s ready man, hulked after both of them, look­ing ill-tempered and im­pa­tient. On one wide shoulder he car­ried yet an­other trunk, and per­haps the load­ing of this ad­di­tional item was what was fret­ting Sevrens. I soon lost sight of them in the crowd.

  I was sur­prised to dis­cover Burrich check­ing the lead-lines on the breed­ing horses and the Prin­cess’s gift mare. Surely who­ever was in charge of them could do that, I thought. And then, as I saw him mount, I real­ized that he, too, would be part of this pro­ces­sion. I looked about to see who was ac­com­pa­ny­ing him, but saw none of the stable-boys I knew, save Hands … Cob was already in Jhaampe with Regal. So Burrich had taken this on him­self. I was not sur­prised.

  Au­gust was there, astride a fine grey mare, wait­ing with an im­passiv­ity that was al­most in­hu­man. Already his time in the co­terie had changed him. Once he had been a chubby youth, quiet but pleas­ant. He had the same black bushy hair as Ver­ity, and I had heard it said that he re­sembled his cousin as a boy. I re­flec­ted that as his Skill du­ties in­creased, he would prob­ably re­semble Ver­ity even more. He would be present at the wed­ding, as a sort of win­dow for Ver­ity as Regal uttered the vows on his brother’s be­half. Regal’s voice, Au­gust’s eyes, I mused to my­self. What did I go as? His poignard?

  I moun­ted Sooty, as much to be up and away from the folk ex­chan­ging good­byes and last-minute in­struc­tions as for any other reason. I wished to Eda we could be away and on the road. It seemed to take forever for the strag­gling line to form and for the ty­ing and strap­ping of bundles to be ac­com­plished. And then, al­most ab­ruptly, the stand­ards were lif­ted, a horn was blown, and the line of horses, laden pack-an­im­als and folk began to move. I looked up once, to see that Ver­ity had ac­tu­ally come out to stand on top of the tower and watch us de­part. I waved up at him, but doubted that he knew me amidst so many. And then we were out of the gates, and wind­ing up the hilly path that led away from Buck­keep and to the west.

  Our path would lead us up the banks of the Buck River, which we would ford at its wide shal­lows near where the bor­ders of Buck and Far­row Duch­ies touched. From there we would jour­ney across Far­row’s wide plains, in bak­ing heat I had never en­countered be­fore, un­til we reached Blue Lake. From Blue Lake, we would fol­low a river named simply Cold whose ori­gins were in the Moun­tain King­dom. From the Cold Ford the trad­ing road began, that led between the moun­tains and through their shad­ows and up, ever up, to Storm Pass, and thence to the thick green forests of the Rain Wilds. We would not go as far as that, but would stop at Jhaampe, which was as close to a city as the Moun­tain King­dom pos­sessed.

  In some ways, it was an un­re­mark­able jour­ney, if one dis­counts all that in­ev­it­ably goes with such jour­neys. After the first three days or so, things settled into a re­mark­ably mono­ton­ous routine, var­ied only by the dif­fer­ent coun­tryside we passed. Every little vil­lage or ham­let along our road turned out to greet us and delay us, with of­fi­cial best wishes and fe­li­cit­a­tions for the Crown Prince’s wed­ding fest­iv­it­ies.