Later I would dis­cover that Withy­woods was a grand manor, a large and com­fort­able home built in a wide and gen­er­ous val­ley. Its walls were not of stone, but of golden oak and rich maple, and though the floors of the halls were flagged with flat river stone, the walls were pan­elled in warm wood. The gentle sun­light of the farm­ing val­ley fell in broad stripes into the rooms through the tall, nar­row win­dows. The car­riage­way to the front door was wide, and grace­ful white birches lined it. In au­tumn, they shed a car­pet of gold on the road, and in winter, burdened with snow, they arched over it, a fros­ted white tun­nel paned with glimpses of blue sky.

  Withy­woods was not a fort­ress ban­ish­ment, not an ex­ile, but a tol­er­ant pas­tur­ing-out for my father and his bar­ren wife. I think my grand­father had loved my father as much as his step­mother hated him. King Shrewd sent him to that dis­tant es­tate to be safe.

  And when my time came to go there, with the wo­man I loved and her lively boys and the wo­man who had al­ways wanted to be my mother, it be­came for a time a haven of rest and peace for us.

  Time is an un­kind teacher, de­liv­er­ing les­sons that we learn far too late for them to be use­ful. Years after I could have be­nefited from them, the in­sights come to me. Now, I look back on ‘old’ King Shrewd and see him as a man be­set by a long wast­ing ill­ness that stole from him the com­fort of his own body and the sharp­ness of his mind. But worse, I see Queen De­sire for what she was: not an evil wo­man in­tent on mak­ing my little life miser­able, but as a mother full of ruth­less love for her only son, in­tent that he should never be slighted in any way. She would stop at noth­ing to put him on a throne.

  What would I not have done to pro­tect my little daugh­ter? What ac­tion would have been too ex­treme? If I say, ‘I would have killed them all, with no re­grets,’ does that make me a mon­ster?

  Or just a father?

  But it is all hind­sight. All these les­sons, learned too late. When I was still a young man, I felt in my flesh like a bent old gaf­fer, full of pains and sighs. Oh, how I pit­ied my­self, and jus­ti­fied every wild de­cision I had ever made! And then, when it came time for me to be the wise elder of my house­hold, I was trapped in the body of a man of middle years, still sub­ject to those pas­sions and im­pulses, still re­ly­ing on the strength of my right arm when I would have been wiser to stop and em­ploy my powers of reason.

  Les­sons learned too late. In­sights dis­covered dec­ades later.

  And so much lost as a res­ult.

  ONE

  Withy­woods

  Burrich, old friend,

  Well, we are settled here, I sup­pose. It has not been a pleas­ant time for me, or for you if your some­what terse mes­sage con­ceals as much as I sus­pect it does. The house is im­mense, far too large for the two of us. It is so like you to ask after our mounts be­fore in­quir­ing after my own health. I will an­swer that query first. I’m pleased to tell you that Silk has taken the change in stable quite calmly, as the well-mannered pal­frey she has al­ways been. Tall­fel­low, in con­trast, has made a new hobby out of bul­ly­ing the res­id­ent stal­lion, but we have taken steps to be sure their stalls and pad­docks are well sep­ar­ated now. I’ve re­duced his grain and there is a young sta­ble­man here named, oddly enough, Tall­man, who was ab­so­lutely ec­static to re­ceive my re­quest that he take the horse out and run him hard at least once a day. With such a re­gi­men, I am sure he will soon settle.

  My lady wife. You did not ask after her, but I know you well, my friend. So I will tell you that Pa­tience has been furi­ous, wounded, mel­an­choly, hys­ter­ical and al­to­gether of a hun­dred dif­fer­ent minds about the situ­ation. She be­rates me that I was un­faith­ful to her be­fore we met, and in the next in­stant for­gives me and blames her­self that she has not fur­nished me an heir, given that ‘it is evid­ent that the prob­lem is en­tirely with me’. Some­how, we two will weather this.

  I ap­pre­ci­ate that you have taken com­mand of my other re­spons­ib­il­it­ies there. My brother has told me enough of your charge’s tem­pera­ment that I send my sym­pathy to both of you and my deep­est thanks. On whom else could I rely at a time such as this, for a fa­vour so ex­treme?

  I trust you to un­der­stand why I re­main cir­cum­spect in this re­gard. Give Vixen a pat, a hug, and a large bone from me. I am con­fid­ent that I owe as much to her vi­gil­ance as to yours. My wife is call­ing for me down the halls. I must end this and send it on its way. My brother may have words for you from me when next your paths cross.

  Un­signed let­ter to Sta­ble­mas­ter Burrich, from Chiv­alry

  Fresh snow­fall perched in white ram­parts on the bare black birch limbs that lined the drive. White gleamed against black, like a fool’s winter mot­ley. The snow came down in loose clumps of flakes, adding a fresh layer of glisten­ing white to the banked snow in the court­yard. It was soften­ing the hard ridges of fresh wheel tracks in the car­riage­way, eras­ing the boys’ foot­prints in the snow and smooth­ing the rut­ted path­ways to mere sug­ges­tions of them­selves. As I watched, an­other car­riage ar­rived, drawn by a dapple-grey team. The driver’s red-cloaked shoulders were dus­ted with snow. A page in green and yel­low dar­ted from the steps of Withy­woods to open the car­riage door and ges­ture a wel­come to our guests. From my vant­age, I could not tell who they were, save that their garb be­spoke Withy mer­chants rather than gentry from one of the neigh­bour­ing es­tates. As they passed out of my view and their driver moved the car­riage off to our stables, I looked up at the af­ter­noon sky. Def­in­itely more to come. I sus­pec­ted it would snow all night. Well, that was fit­ting. I let the cur­tain fall and turned as Molly entered out bed­cham­ber.

  ‘Fitz! You aren’t ready yet?’

  I glanced down at my­self. ‘I thought I was …’

  My wife clicked her tongue at me. ‘Oh, Fitz. It’s Win­ter­fest. The halls are fes­tooned with green­ery, Pa­tience had Cook cre­ate a feast that will prob­ably sus­tain the whole house­hold for three days, all three sets of min­strels that she in­vited are tun­ing up, and half our guests have already ar­rived. You should be down there, greet­ing them as they enter. And you’re not even dressed yet.’

  I thought of ask­ing her what was wrong with what I was wear­ing, but she was already dig­ging though my cloth­ing chest, lift­ing gar­ments, con­sid­er­ing them and dis­card­ing them. I waited. ‘This,’ she said, pulling out a white linen shirt with ridges of lace down the sleeves. ‘And this jer­kin over it. Every­one knows that wear­ing green at Win­ter­fest is good luck. With your sil­ver chain to match the but­tons. These leg­gings. They’re old fash­ioned enough to make you look like an old man, but at least they’re not as saggy as those you have on. I know bet­ter than to ask you to wear your new trousers.’

  ‘I AM an old man. At forty-seven, surely I’m al­lowed to dress as I please.’

  She lowered her brows and gave me a mock glare. She set her hands to her hips. ‘Are you call­ing me an old wo­man, sir­rah? For I seem to re­call I have three years on you.’

  ‘Of course not!’ I hast­ily amended my words. But I could not res­ist grumbling, ‘But I have no idea why every­one wishes to dress as if they are Ja­mail­lian no­bil­ity. The fab­ric on those trousers is so thin, the slight­est bramble would tear them and …’

  She looked up at me with an ex­as­per­ated sigh. ‘Yes. I’ve heard it from you a hun­dred times. Let’s ig­nore that there are few brambles in­side Withy­woods, shall we? So. Take these clean leg­gings. The ones you have on are a dis­grace; didn’t you wear them yes­ter­day when you were help­ing with that horse that had a cracked hoof? And put on your house shoes, not those worn boots. You’ll be ex­pec­ted to dance, you know.’

  She straightened from her ex­cav­a­tion of my cloth­ing chest. Con­ced­ing to the in­ev­it­able, I’d already be­gun shed­ding gar­ments. As I thrust my head out of the shirt, my gaze met hers. She was smil­ing in a fa­mil­iar way, and as I con­sidered her holly crown, the cas­cad­ing lace on her blouse and gaily em­broidered kirtle, I found a smile to an­swer hers. Her smile broadened even as she took a step back from me. ‘Now, Fitz. We’ve guests be­low, wait­ing for us.’

  ‘They’ve waited this long, they can wait a bit longer. Our daugh­ter can mind them.’

  I ad­vanced a step. She re­treated to the door and set her hand to the knob, all the while shak­ing her head so that her black ring­lets danced on her brow and shoulders. She lowered her head and looked up at me through her lashes, and sud­denly she seemed just a girl to me again. A wild Buck­keep Town girl, to be pur­sued down a sandy beach. Did she re­mem­ber? Per­haps, for she caught her lower lip between her teeth and I saw her re­solve al­most weaken. Then, ‘No. Our guests can’t wait, and while Nettle can wel­come them, a greet­ing from the daugh­ter of the house is not the same as an ac­know­ledge­ment from you and me. Riddle may stand at her shoulder as our stew­ard and help her, but un­til the king gives his per­mis­sion for them to wed, we should not present them as a couple. So it is you and I who must wait. Be­cause I’m not go­ing to be con­tent with “a bit” of your time to­night. I ex­pect bet­ter ef­fort than that from you.’

  ‘Really?’ I chal­lenged her. I took two swift steps to­ward her, but with a girl­ish shriek she was out of the door. As she pulled it al­most shut, she ad­ded through the crack, ‘Hurry up! You know how quickly Pa­tience’s parties can get out of hand. I’ve left Nettle in charge of things, but you know, Riddle is very nearly as bad as Pa­tience.’ A pause. ‘And do not dare to be late and leave me with no dan­cing part­ner!’

  She shut the door just as I reached it. I hal­ted and then, with a small sigh, went back for my clean leg­gings and soft shoes. She would ex­pect me to dance, and I would do my best. I did know that Riddle was apt to en­joy him­self at any sort of fest­iv­ity at Withy­woods with an aban­don that was very un­like the re­served fel­low he showed him­self at Buck­keep, and per­haps not pre­cisely cor­rect for a man who was os­tens­ibly just our former house­hold stew­ard. I found my­self smil­ing. Where he led, some­times Nettle fol­lowed, show­ing a merry side of her­self that she, too, sel­dom re­vealed at the king’s court. Hearth and Just, the two of Molly’s six grown sons who were still at home, would need very little en­cour­age­ment to join in. As Pa­tience had in­vited half of Withy and far more mu­si­cians than could per­form in one even­ing, I fully ex­pec­ted that our Win­ter­fest rev­elry would last at least three days.

  With some re­luct­ance, I re­moved my leg­gings and pulled on the trousers. They were a dark green that was nearly black, thin linen and nearly as vo­lu­min­ous as a skirt. They tied at my waist with rib­bons. A broad silk sash com­pleted the ri­dicu­lous gar­ment. I told my­self that my wear­ing them would please Molly. I sus­pec­ted that Riddle would have been bothered into don­ning sim­ilar garb. I sighed again, won­der­ing why we must all emu­late Ja­mail­lian fash­ions, and then resigned my­self to it. I fin­ished dress­ing, badgered my hair into a war­rior tail, and left our bed­cham­ber. I paused at the top of the grand oak stair­case; the sounds of mer­ri­ment drif­ted up to me. I took a breath as if I were about to dive into deep wa­ter. I had noth­ing to fear, no reason to hes­it­ate, and yet the in­grained habits of my dis­tant boy­hood still clutched at me. I had every right to des­cend this stair, to walk among the glad com­pany be­low as mas­ter of the house and hus­band to the lady who owned it. Now I was known as Holder Tom Badger­lock, com­mon-born per­haps but el­ev­ated along­side Lady Molly to gentry status. The bas­tard FitzChiv­alry Farseer – grand­son and nephew and cousin to kings – had been laid to rest two score years ago. To the folk be­low, I was Holder Tom and the founder of the feast they would en­joy.

  Even if I was wear­ing silly Ja­mail­lian trousers.

  I paused a mo­ment longer, listen­ing. I could hear two dis­tinct groups of min­strels vy­ing to tune their in­stru­ments. Riddle’s laugh rang sud­denly clear and loud, mak­ing me smile. The hum of voices from the grand room lif­ted in volume and then fell again. One set of min­strels gained as­cend­ancy, for a lively drum­beat sud­denly broke through the voices to dom­in­ate all. The dan­cing would soon be­gin. Truly, I was late, and had best des­cend. Yet there was sweet­ness to stand­ing here, above it all, ima­gin­ing Nettle’s flash­ing feet and spark­ling eyes as Riddle led her through the dance steps. Oh, and Molly! She would be wait­ing for me! I had be­come a pass­able dan­cer over the years, for her sake, as she loved it so. She would not eas­ily for­give me if I left her stand­ing.

  I hur­ried down the pol­ished oak steps two at a time, reached the hall foyer and was there sud­denly am­bushed by Revel. Our new young stew­ard was look­ing very fine in­deed in a white shirt, black jacket and black trousers in the Ja­mail­lian fash­ion. His green house shoes were start­ling, as was the yel­low scarf at his throat. Green and yel­low were the Withy­woods col­ours, and I sus­pec­ted these ac­coutre­ments were Pa­tience’s idea. I did not let the smile curve my mouth but I think he read it in my eyes. He stood even taller and looked down at me as he soberly in­formed me, ‘Sir, there are min­strels at the door.’

  I gave him a puzzled glance. ‘Well, let them in, man. It’s Win­ter­fest.’

  He stood still, his lips fol­ded in dis­ap­proval. ‘Sir, I do not think they were in­vited.’

  ‘It’s Win­ter­fest,’ I re­peated, be­gin­ning to be an­noyed. Molly would not be pleased at be­ing kept wait­ing. ‘Pa­tience in­vites every min­strel, pup­pet­eer, tum­bler, tinker or black­smith she meets to come and so­journ with us for a time. She prob­ably in­vited them months ago and for­got all about it.’

  I did not think his back could get stiffer but it did. ‘Sir, they were out­side the stable, try­ing to peer in through a crack in the plank­ing. Tall­man heard the dogs bark­ing and went to see what it was about and found them. That is when they said they were min­strels, in­vited for Win­ter­fest.’

  ‘And?’

  He took a short breath. ‘Sir, I do not think they are min­strels. They have no in­stru­ments. And while one said they were min­strels, an­other said, no, they were tum­blers. But when Tall­man said he would walk them up to the front door, they said that he needn’t, they only wished to beg shel­ter for the night, and the stable would be fine.’ He shook his head. ‘Tall­man spoke to me privately when he brought them up. He thinks they’re none of what they claim to be. And so do I.’

  I gave him a look. Revel fol­ded his arms. He did not meet my glance but his mouth was stub­born. I found a bit of pa­tience for him. He was young and fairly new to the house­hold. Cravit Softhands, our an­cient stew­ard, had died last year. Riddle had stepped up to shoulder many of the old man’s du­ties, but in­sisted that Withy­woods needed a new stew­ard trained. I’d cas­u­ally replied that I did not have time to find one, and within three days Riddle had brought Revel to us. After two months, Revel was still learn­ing his place, I told my­self, and con­sidered that per­haps Riddle had in­fused him with a bit too much cau­tion. Riddle was, after all, Chade’s man, in­sinu­ated into our house­hold to watch my back and prob­ably spy on me. Des­pite his cur­rent mer­ri­ness and de­vo­tion to my daugh­ter, he was a man steeped in care­ful­ness. Given his way, we’d have had a guard con­tin­gent at Withy­woods to rival the Queen’s Own. I reined my mind back to the ques­tion at hand.

  ‘Revel, I ap­pre­ci­ate your care. But it’s Win­ter­fest. And be they min­strels or wan­der­ing beg­gars, no man should be turned from our door on such a hol­i­day, or on such a snowy even­ing. While there’s room in the house, they need not sleep in the stable. Bring them in. I’m sure all will be well.’

  ‘Sir.’ He was not agree­ing, but he was obey­ing. I sup­pressed a sigh. That would do for now. I turned to join the throng in the Great Hall.

  ‘Sir?’

  I turned back. My voice was stern as I asked him, ‘Is there some­thing else, Revel? Some­thing press­ing?’ I could hear the tent­at­ive notes of mu­si­cians bring­ing their in­stru­ments into har­mony and then the mu­sic sud­denly opened into blos­som. I’d missed the start of the first dance. I grit­ted my teeth as I thought of Molly stand­ing alone, watch­ing the dan­cers whirl.

  I saw his teeth catch for an in­stant on his lower lip. He de­cided to press on. ‘Sir, the mes­sen­ger still waits for you in your study.’

  ‘Mes­sen­ger?’

  Revel gave a mar­tyred sigh. ‘Hours ago, I sent one of our tem­por­ary pages look­ing for you with a mes­sage. He said he shouted it at you through the door of the steams. I have to in­form you, sir, this is what comes of us us­ing un­trained boys and girls as pages. We should have a few here per­man­ently, if only to train them for fu­ture need.’

  At my wear­ied look, Revel cleared his throat and changed tac­tics. ‘My apo­lo­gies, sir. I should have sent him back to con­firm you’d heard him.’

  ‘I didn’t. Revel, would you mind deal­ing with it for me?’ I took a hes­it­ant step to­ward the hall. The mu­sic was rising.

  Revel gave a minute shake of his head. ‘I am very sorry, sir. But the mes­sen­ger in­sists the mes­sage is spe­cific­ally for you. I have asked twice if I could be of any help, and offered to write the mes­sage for you to re­ceive.’ He shook his head. ‘The mes­sen­ger in­sists that only you can re­ceive the words.’

  I guessed the mes­sage, then. Holder Barit had been try­ing to wrangle me into agree­ing that he could pas­ture some of his flock with our sheep. Our shep­herd had adam­antly in­sisted that would be too many beasts on our winter pas­tur­age. I in­ten­ded to listen to Shep­herd Lin, even if Barit was now will­ing to of­fer a de­cent amount of money. Win­ter­fest eve was no time to be do­ing busi­ness. It would keep. ‘It’s fine, Revel. And don’t be too stern with our pages. You are right. We should have one or two on staff. But most of them will grow up to work in the orch­ards or fol­low their moth­ers’ trades. It’s rare that we need them here at Withy.’ I didn’t want to be think­ing about this right now. Molly was wait­ing! I took a breath and made my de­cision. ‘Thought­less as it is for me to have left a mes­sen­ger wait­ing so long, it would be ruder by far if I leave my lady un­partnered for the second dance as well as the first. Please ex­tend my apo­logy to the mes­sen­ger for my un­for­tu­nate delay and see that he is made com­fort­able with food and drink. Tell him that I’ll come to the study dir­ectly after the second dance.’ I had no wish to do so. The fest­iv­it­ies beckoned to­night. A bet­ter idea came to me. ‘No! In­vite him to join the fest­iv­it­ies. Tell him to en­joy him­self, and that we will sit down to­gether be­fore noon to­mor­row.’ I could think of noth­ing in my life that could pos­sibly be so press­ing as to de­mand my at­ten­tion to­night.