They con­sisted of a simple square room with a single win­dow. Stone walls, of the same stone as that un­der my feet, were softened only by a tapestry hung on one wall. I held my candle high to study it, but could not il­lu­min­ate much. I could make out a gleam­ing and winged creature of some sort, and a kingly per­son­age in sup­plic­a­tion be­fore it. I was later in­formed it was King Wis­dom be­ing be­friended by the Eld­er­ling. At the time it seemed men­acing to me. I turned aside from it.

  Someone had made a per­func­tory ef­fort at freshen­ing the room. There was a scat­ter­ing of clean reeds and herbs on the floor, and the feather bed had a fat, freshly shaken look to it. The two blankets on it were of good wool. The bed cur­tains had been pulled back and the chest and bench that were the other fur­nish­ings had been dus­ted. To my in­ex­per­i­enced eyes, it was a rich room in­deed. A real bed, with cov­er­ings and hangings about it, and a bench with a cush­ion, and a chest to put things in were more fur­niture than I could re­call hav­ing to my­self be­fore. There was also the fire­place, that I boldly ad­ded an­other piece of wood to, and the win­dow, with an oak seat be­fore it, shuttered now against the night air, but prob­ably look­ing out over the sea.

  The chest was a simple one, cornered with brass fit­tings. The out­side of it was dark, but when I opened it, the in­terior was light-col­oured and fra­grant. In­side I found my lim­ited ward­robe, brought up from the stables. Two night­shirts had been ad­ded to it, and a wool­len blanket was rolled up in the corner of the chest. That was all. I took out a night­shirt and closed the chest.

  I set the night­shirt down on the bed, and then clambered up my­self. It was early to be think­ing of sleep, but my body ached and there seemed noth­ing else for me to do. Down in the stable room by now Burrich would be sit­ting and drink­ing and mend­ing har­ness or whatever. There would be a fire in the hearth, and the muffled sounds of horses as they shif­ted in their stalls be­low. The room would smell of leather and oil and Burrich him­self, not dank stone and dust. I pulled the night­shirt over my head and nudged my clothes to the foot of the bed. I nestled into the feather bed; it was cool and my skin stood up in goose­bumps. Slowly my body heat warmed it and I began to re­lax. It had been a full and strenu­ous day. Every muscle I pos­sessed seemed to be both aching and tired. I knew I should rise once more, to put the candles out, but I could not sum­mon the en­ergy. Nor the will-power to blow them out and let a deeper dark­ness flood the cham­ber. So I drowsed, half-lid­ded eyes watch­ing the strug­gling flames of the small hearth­fire. I wished idly for some­thing else, for any situ­ation that was neither this for­saken cham­ber nor the tense­ness of Burrich’s room. For a rest­ful­ness that per­haps I had once known some­where else but could no longer re­call. And so I drowsed into an ob­li­vion.

  FOUR

  Ap­pren­tice­ship

  A story is told of King Vic­tor, he who conquered the in­land ter­rit­or­ies that be­came even­tu­ally the Duchy of Far­row. Very shortly after adding the lands of Sandsedge to his rul­ings, he sent for the wo­man who would, had Vic­tor not conquered her land, have been the Queen of Sandsedge. She trav­elled to Buck­keep in much trep­id­a­tion, fear­ing to go, but fear­ing more the con­sequences to her people if she ap­pealed to them to hide her. When she ar­rived, she was both amazed and some­what chag­rined that Vic­tor in­ten­ded to use her, not as a ser­vant, but as a tu­tor to his chil­dren, that they might learn both the lan­guage and cus­toms of her folk. When she asked him why he chose to have them learn of her folk’s ways, he replied, ‘A ruler must be ruler of all his people, for one can only rule what one knows.’ Later, she be­came the will­ing wife of his eld­est son, and took the name Queen Gra­cious­ness at her coron­a­tion.

  I awoke to sun­light in my face. Someone had entered my cham­ber and opened the win­dow shut­ters to the day. A basin, cloth and jug of wa­ter had been left on top of the chest. I was grate­ful for them, but not even wash­ing my face re­freshed me. Sleep had left me sod­den and I re­call feel­ing un­easy that someone could enter my cham­ber and move freely about without awaken­ing me.

  As I had guessed, the win­dow looked out over the sea, but I didn’t have much time to de­vote to the view. A glance at the sun told me that I had over­slept. I flung on my clothes and hastened down to the stables without paus­ing for break­fast.

  But Burrich had little time for me that morn­ing. ‘Get back up to the keep,’ he ad­vised me. ‘Mis­tress Hasty already sent Brant down here to look for you. She’s to meas­ure you for cloth­ing. Best go find her quickly; she lives up to her name, and won’t ap­pre­ci­ate your up­set­ting her morn­ing routine.’

  My trot back up to the keep reawakened all my aches of the day be­fore. Much as I dreaded seek­ing out this Mis­tress Hasty and be­ing meas­ured for cloth­ing I was cer­tain I didn’t need, I was re­lieved not to be on horse­back again this morn­ing.

  After query­ing my way up from the kit­chens, I fi­nally found Mis­tress Hasty in a room sev­eral doors down from my bed­cham­ber. I paused shyly at the door and peered in. Three tall win­dows were flood­ing the room with sun­light and a mild salt breeze. Bas­kets of yarn and dyed wool were stacked against one wall, while a tall shelf on an­other wall held a rain­bow of cloth goods. Two young wo­men were talk­ing over a loom, and in the far corner a lad not much older than I was rock­ing to the gentle pace of a spin­ning­wheel. I had no doubt that the wo­man with her broad back to me was Mis­tress Hasty.

  The two young wo­men no­ticed me and paused in their con­ver­sa­tion. Mis­tress Hasty turned to see where they stared, and a mo­ment later I was in her clutches. She didn’t bother with names or ex­plain­ing what she was about. I found my­self up on a stool, be­ing turned and meas­ured and hummed over, with no re­gard for my dig­nity or in­deed my hu­man­ity. She dis­paraged my clothes to the young wo­men, re­marked very calmly that I quite re­minded her of young Chiv­alry, and that my meas­ure­ments and col­our­ing were much the same as his had been when he was my age. She then de­man­ded their opin­ions as she held up bolts of dif­fer­ent goods against me.

  ‘That one,’ said one of the loom-wo­men. ‘That blue quite flat­ters his dark­ness. It would have looked well on his father. Quite a mercy that Pa­tience never has to see the boy. Chiv­alry’s stamp is much too plain on his face to leave her any pride at all.’

  And as I stood there, draped in wool­goods, I heard for the first time what every other per­son in Buck­keep knew full well. The weav­ing-wo­men dis­cussed in de­tail how the word of my ex­ist­ence reached Buck­keep and Pa­tience long be­fore my father could tell her him­self, and of the deep an­guish it caused her. For Pa­tience was bar­ren, and though Chiv­alry had never spoken a word against her, all guessed how dif­fi­cult it must be for an heir such as he to have no child even­tu­ally to as­sume his title. Pa­tience took my ex­ist­ence as the ul­ti­mate re­buke, and her health, never sound after so many mis­car­riages, com­pletely broke along with her spirit. It was for her sake as well as for pro­pri­ety that Chiv­alry had given up his throne, and taken his in­valid wife back to the warm and gentle lands that were her home province. Word was that they lived well and com­fort­ably there, that Pa­tience’s health was slowly mend­ing, and that Chiv­alry, sub­stan­tially quieter a man than he had been be­fore, was gradu­ally learn­ing stew­ard­ship of his vine­yard-rich val­ley. A pity that Pa­tience blamed Burrich as well for Chiv­alry’s lapse in mor­als, and had de­clared she could no longer abide the sight of him. For between the in­jury to his leg and Chiv­alry’s aban­don­ment of him, old Burrich just wasn’t the man he had been. Was a time when no wo­man of the keep walked quickly past him; to catch his eye was to make your­self the envy of nearly any­one old enough to wear skirts. And now? Old Burrich, they called him, and him still in his prime – so un­fair, as if any manser­vant had any say over what his mas­ter did. But it was all to the good any­way, they sup­posed. And didn’t Ver­ity, after all, make a much bet­ter King-in-Wait­ing than had Chiv­alry? So rig­or­ously noble was Chiv­alry that he made all oth­ers feel slat­ternly and stingy in his pres­ence; he’d never al­lowed him­self a mo­ment’s res­pite from what was right, and while he was too chiv­al­rous to sneer at those who did, one al­ways had the feel­ing that his per­fect be­ha­viour was a si­lent re­proach to those with less self-dis­cip­line. Ah, but then here was the bas­tard, now, though, after all those years, and well, here was the proof that he hadn’t been the man he’d pre­ten­ded to be. Ver­ity, now there was a man among men, a king folk could look to and see as roy­alty. He rode hard, and sol­diered along­side his men, and if he was oc­ca­sion­ally drunk or had at times been less than dis­creet, well, he owned up to it, hon­est as his name. Folk could un­der­stand a man like that, and fol­low him.

  To all this I listened avidly, if mutely, while sev­eral fab­rics were held against me, de­bated and se­lec­ted. I gained a much deeper un­der­stand­ing of why the keep chil­dren left me to play alone. If the wo­men con­sidered that I might have thoughts or feel­ings about their con­ver­sa­tion, they showed no sign of it. The only re­mark I re­mem­ber Mis­tress Hasty mak­ing to me spe­cific­ally was that I should take greater care in wash­ing my neck. Then Mis­tress Hasty shooed me from the room as if I were an an­noy­ing chicken, and I found my­self fi­nally head­ing to the kit­chens for some food.

  That af­ter­noon I was back with Hod, prac­tising un­til I was sure my stave had mys­ter­i­ously doubled its weight. Then food, and bed, and up again in the morn­ing and back to Burrich’s tu­tel­age. My learn­ing filled my days, and any spare time I found was swal­lowed up with the chores as­so­ci­ated with my learn­ing, whether it was tack-care for Burrich, or sweep­ing the ar­moury and put­ting it back in or­der for Hod. In due time I found not one, or even two, but three en­tire sets of cloth­ing, in­clud­ing stock­ings, set out one af­ter­noon on my bed. Two were of fairly or­din­ary stuff, in a fa­mil­iar brown that most of the chil­dren my age seemed to wear, but one was of thin blue cloth, and on the breast was a buck’s head, done in sil­ver thread. Burrich and the other men-at-arms wore a leap­ing buck as their em­blem. I had only seen the buck’s head on the jer­kins of Regal and Royal. So I looked at it and wondered, but wondered too, at the slash of red stitch­ing that cut it di­ag­on­ally, march­ing right over the design.

  ‘It means you’re a bas­tard,’ Burrich told me bluntly when I asked him about it. ‘Of ac­know­ledged royal blood, but a bas­tard all the same. That’s all. It’s just a quick way of show­ing you’ve royal blood, but aren’t of the true line. If you don’t like it, you can change it. I am sure the King would grant it. A name and a crest of your own.’

  ‘A name?’

  ‘Cer­tainly. It’s a simple enough re­quest. Bas­tards are rare in the noble houses, es­pe­cially so in the King’s own. But they aren’t un­heard of.’ Un­der the guise of teach­ing me the proper care of a saddle, we were go­ing through the tack room, look­ing over all the old and un­used tack. Main­tain­ing and sal­va­ging old tack was one of Burrich’s odder fix­a­tions. ‘De­vise a name and a crest for your­self, and then ask the King …’

  ‘What name?’

  ‘Why, any name you like. This looks as if it’s ruined; someone put it away damp and it mil­dewed. But we’ll see what we can do with it.’

  ‘It wouldn’t feel real.’

  ‘What?’

  He held an arm­load of smelly leather out to­ward me. I took it.

  ‘A name I just put to my­self. It wouldn’t feel as if it was really mine.’

  ‘Well, what do you in­tend to do, then?’

  I took a breath. ‘The King should name me. Or you should.’ I steeled my­self. ‘Or my father. Don’t you think?’

  Burrich frowned. ‘You get the most pe­cu­liar no­tions. Just think about it your­self for a while. You’ll come up with a name that fits.’

  ‘Fitz,’ I said sar­castic­ally, and I saw Burrich clamp his jaw.

  ‘Let’s just mend this leather,’ he sug­ges­ted quietly.

  We car­ried it to his work­bench and star­ted wip­ing it down. ‘Bas­tards aren’t that rare,’ I ob­served. ‘And in town, their par­ents name them.’

  ‘In town, bas­tards aren’t so rare,’ Burrich agreed after a mo­ment. ‘Sol­diers and sail­ors whore around. It’s a com­mon way for com­mon folk. But not for roy­alty. Or for any­one with a bit of pride. What would you have thought of me, when you were younger, if I’d gone out whor­ing at night, or brought wo­men up to the room? How would you see wo­men now? Or men? It’s fine to fall in love, Fitz, and no one be­grudges a young wo­man or man a kiss or two. But I’ve seen what it’s like down in Bing­town. Traders bring pretty girls or well-made youths to the mar­ket like so many chick­ens or pota­toes. And the chil­dren they end up bear­ing may have names, but they don’t have much else. And even when they marry, they don’t stop their … habits. If ever I find the right wo­man, I’ll want her to know I won’t be look­ing at an­other. And I’ll want to know all my chil­dren are mine.’ Burrich was al­most im­pas­sioned.

  I looked at him miser­ably. ‘So what happened with my father?’

  He looked sud­denly weary. ‘I don’t know, boy. I don’t know. He was young, just twenty or so. And far from home, and try­ing to shoulder a heavy bur­den. Those are neither reas­ons nor ex­cuses. But it’s as much as either of us will ever know.’

  And that was that.

  My life went round in its settled routine. There were even­ings that I spent in the stables, in Burrich’s com­pany, and more rarely, even­ings that I spent in the Great Hall when some trav­el­ling min­strel or pup­pet show ar­rived. Once in a great while, I could slip out for an even­ing down in town, but that meant pay­ing the next day for missed sleep. Af­ter­noons were in­ev­it­ably spent with some tu­tor or in­structor. I came to un­der­stand that these were my sum­mer les­sons, and that in winter I would be in­tro­duced to the kind of learn­ing that came with pens and let­ters. I was kept busier than I had ever been in my young life. But des­pite my sched­ule, I found my­self mostly alone.

  Loneli­ness.

  It found me every night as I vainly tried to find a small and cosy spot in my big bed. When I had slept above the stables in Burrich’s rooms, my nights had been muzzy, my dreams heath­ery with the warm and weary con­tent­ment of the well-used an­im­als that slept and shif­ted and thud­ded in the night be­low me. Horses and dogs dream, as any­one who has ever watched a hound yip­ping and twitch­ing in dream pur­suit knows. Their dreams had been like the sweet-rising waft from a bak­ing of good bread. But now, isol­ated in a room walled with stone, I fi­nally had time for all those de­vour­ing, aching dreams that are the por­tion of hu­mans. I had no warm dam to cosy against, no sense of sib­lings or kin stabled nearby. In­stead I would lie awake and won­der about my father and my mother, and how both could have dis­missed me from their lives so eas­ily. I heard the talk that oth­ers ex­changed so care­lessly over my head, and in­ter­preted their com­ments in my own ter­ri­fy­ing way. I wondered what would be­come of me when I was grown and old King Shrewd dead and gone. I wondered, oc­ca­sion­ally, if Molly Nosebleed and Kerry missed me, or if they ac­cep­ted my sud­den dis­ap­pear­ance as eas­ily as they had ac­cep­ted my com­ing. But mostly I ached with loneli­ness, for in all that great keep, there were none I sensed as friend. None save the beasts, and Burrich had for­bid­den me to have any close­ness with them.

  One even­ing I had gone wear­ily to bed, only to tor­ment my­self with my fears un­til sleep grudgingly pulled me un­der. Light in my face awoke me, but I came awake know­ing some­thing was wrong. I hadn’t slept long enough, and this light was yel­low and waver­ing, un­like the white­ness of the sun­light that usu­ally spilled in my win­dow. I stirred un­will­ingly and opened my eyes.

  He stood at the foot of my bed, hold­ing aloft a lamp. This in it­self was a rar­ity at Buck­keep, but more than the but­tery light from the lamp held my eyes. The man him­self was strange. His robe was the col­our of un­dyed sheep’s wool that had been washed, but only in­ter­mit­tently and not re­cently. His hair and beard were about the same hue and their un­tidi­ness gave the same im­pres­sion. Des­pite the col­our of his hair, I could not de­cide how old he was. There are some poxes that will scar a man’s face with their pas­sage. But I had never seen a man marked as he was, with scores of tiny pox scars, angry pinks and reds like small burns, and livid even in the lamp’s yel­low light. His hands were all bones and ten­dons wrapped in pa­pery white skin. He was peer­ing at me, and even in the lamp­light his eyes were the most pier­cing green I had ever seen. They re­minded me of a cat’s eyes when it is hunt­ing; the same com­bin­a­tion of joy and fierce­ness. I pulled my quilt up higher un­der my chin.

  ‘You’re awake,’ he said. ‘Good. Get up and fol­low me.’

  He turned ab­ruptly from my bed­side and walked away from the door, to a shad­owed corner of my room between the hearth and the wall. I didn’t move. He glanced back at me, held the lamp higher. ‘Hurry up, boy,’ he said ir­rit­ably and rapped the stick he leaned on against my bed post.

  I got out of bed, win­cing as my bare feet hit the cold floor. I reached for my clothes and shoes, but he wasn’t wait­ing for me. He glanced back once, to see what was delay­ing me, and the pier­cing look was enough to make me drop my clothes and quake.