I fol­lowed, word­lessly, in my night­shirt, for no reason I could ex­plain to my­self, ex­cept that he had sug­ges­ted it. I fol­lowed him to a door that had never been there, and up a nar­row flight of wind­ing steps that were lit only by the lamp he held above his head. His shadow fell be­hind him and over me, so that I walked in a shift­ing dark­ness, feel­ing each step with my feet. The stairs were cold stone, worn and smooth and re­mark­ably even. And they went up, and up, and up, un­til it seemed to me that we had climbed past the height of any tower the keep pos­sessed. A chill breeze flowed up those steps and up my night­shirt, shriv­el­ling me with more than mere cold. And we went up, and then fi­nally he was push­ing open a sub­stan­tial door that non­ethe­less moved si­lently and eas­ily. We entered a cham­ber.

  It was lit warmly by sev­eral lamps, sus­pen­ded from an un­seen ceil­ing on fine chains. The cham­ber was large, cer­tainly three times the size of my own. One end of it beckoned me. It was dom­in­ated by a massive wooden bed­frame fat with feather mat­tresses and cush­ions. There were car­pets on the floor, over­lap­ping one an­other with their scar­lets and verd­ant greens and blues both deep and pale. There was a table made of wood the col­our of wild honey, and on it sat a bowl of fruits so per­fectly ripe that I could smell their fra­grances. Parch­ment books and scrolls were scattered about care­lessly as if their rar­ity were of no con­cern. All three walls were draped with tapestries that de­pic­ted open, rolling coun­try with wooded foot­hills in the dis­tance. I star­ted to­ward it.

  ‘This way,’ said my guide, and re­lent­lessly led me to the other end of the cham­ber.

  Here was a dif­fer­ent spec­tacle. A stone slab of a table dom­in­ated it, its sur­face much stained and scorched. Upon it were vari­ous tools, con­tain­ers and im­ple­ments, a scale, a mor­tar and pestle, and many things I couldn’t name. A fine layer of dust over­lay much of it, as if pro­jects had been aban­doned in mid-course, months or even years ago. Bey­ond the table was a rack which held an un­tidy col­lec­tion of scrolls, some edged in blue or gilt. The scent of the room was at once pun­gent and aro­matic; bundles of herbs were dry­ing on an­other rack. I heard a rust­ling and caught a glimpse of move­ment in a far corner, but the man gave me no time to in­vest­ig­ate. The fire­place that should have warmed this end of the room gaped black and cold. The old em­bers in it looked damp and settled. I lif­ted my eyes from my per­usal to look at my guide. The dis­may on my face seemed to sur­prise him. He turned from me and slowly sur­veyed the room him­self. He con­sidered it for a bit, and then I sensed an em­bar­rassed dis­gruntle­ment from him.

  ‘It is a mess. More than a mess, I sup­pose. But, well. It’s been a while, I sup­pose. And longer than a while. Well. It’s soon put to rights. But first, in­tro­duc­tions are in or­der. And I sup­pose it is a bit nippy to be stand­ing about in just a night­shirt. This way, boy.’

  I fol­lowed him to the com­fort­able end of the room. He seated him­self in a battered wooden chair that was over­draped with blankets. My bare toes dug grate­fully into the nap of a wool­len rug. I stood be­fore him, wait­ing, as those green eyes prowled over me. For some minutes the si­lence held. Then he spoke.

  ‘First, let me in­tro­duce you to your­self. Your ped­i­gree is writ­ten all over you. Shrewd chose to ac­know­ledge it, for all his deni­als wouldn’t have suf­ficed to con­vince any­one oth­er­wise.’ He paused for an in­stant, and smiled as if some­thing amused him. ‘A shame Ga­len re­fuses to teach you the Skill; but years ago, it was re­stric­ted, for fear it would be­come too com­mon a tool. I’ll wager if old Ga­len were to try to teach you, he’d find you apt. But we have no time to worry about what won’t hap­pen.’ He sighed med­it­at­ively, and was si­lent for a mo­ment. Ab­ruptly he went on, ‘Burrich’s shown you how to work, and how to obey. Two things that Burrich him­self ex­cels at. You’re not es­pe­cially strong, or fast, or bright. Don’t think you are. But you’ll have the stub­born­ness to wear down any­one stronger, or faster or brighter than your­self. And that’s more of a danger to you than to any­one else. But that is not what is now most im­port­ant about you.

  ‘You are the King’s man now. And you must be­gin to un­der­stand, now, right now, that that is the most im­port­ant thing about you. He feeds you, he clothes you, he sees you are edu­cated. And all he asks in re­turn, for now, is your loy­alty. Later he will ask your ser­vice. Those are the con­di­tions un­der which I will teach you. That you are the King’s man, and loyal to him com­pletely. For if you are oth­er­wise, it would be too dan­ger­ous to edu­cate you in my art.’ He paused and for a long mo­ment we simply looked at one an­other. ‘Do you agree?’ he asked, and it was not a simple ques­tion but the seal­ing of a bar­gain.

  ‘I do,’ I said, and then, as he waited, ‘I give you my word.’

  ‘Good.’ He spoke the word heart­ily. ‘Now. On to other things. Have you ever seen me be­fore?’

  ‘No.’ I real­ized for an in­stant how strange that was. For, though there were of­ten strangers in the keep, this man had ob­vi­ously been a res­id­ent for a long, long time. And al­most all those who lived there I knew by sight if not by name.

  ‘Do you know who I am, boy? Or why you’re here?’

  I shook my head a quick neg­at­ive to each ques­tion. ‘Well, no one else does either. So you mind it stays that way. Make your­self clear on that: you speak to no one of what we do here, nor of any­thing you learn. Un­der­stand that?’

  My nod must have sat­is­fied him, for he seemed to re­lax in the chair. His bony hands gripped the knobs of his knees through his wool­len robe. ‘Good. Good. Now. You can call me Chade. And I shall call you?’ He paused and waited, but when I did not of­fer a name, he filled in, ‘Boy. Those are not names for either of us, but they’ll do, for the time we’ll have to­gether. So. I’m Chade, and I’m yet an­other teacher that Shrewd has found for you. It took him a while to re­mem­ber I was here, and then it took him a space to nerve him­self to ask me. And it took me even longer to agree to teach you. But all that’s done now. As to what I’m to teach you … well.’

  He rose and moved to the fire. He cocked his head as he stared into it, then stooped to take a poker and stir the em­bers to fresh flames. ‘It’s murder, more or less. Killing people. The fine art of dip­lo­matic as­sas­sin­a­tion. Or blind­ing, or deaf­en­ing. Or a weak­en­ing of the limbs, or a para­lysis or a de­bil­it­at­ing cough or im­pot­ency. Or early senil­ity, or in­san­ity or … but it doesn’t mat­ter. It’s all been my trade. And it will be yours, if you agree. Just know, from the be­gin­ning, that I’m go­ing to be teach­ing you how to kill people. For your king. Not in the showy way Hod is teach­ing you, not on the bat­tle­field where oth­ers see and cheer you on. No. I’ll be teach­ing you the nasty, furt­ive, po­lite ways to kill people. You’ll either de­velop a taste for it, or not. That isn’t some­thing I’m in charge of. But I’ll make sure you know how. And I’ll make sure of one other thing, for that was the stip­u­la­tion I made with King Shrewd: that you know what you are learn­ing, as I never did when I was your age. So. I’m to teach you to be an as­sas­sin. Is that all right with you, boy?’

  I nod­ded again, un­cer­tain, but not know­ing what else to do.

  He peered at me. ‘You can speak, can’t you? You’re not a mute as well as a bas­tard, are you?’

  I swal­lowed. ‘No, sir. I can speak.’

  ‘Well, then, do speak. Don’t just nod. Tell me what you think of all this. Of who I am and what I just pro­posed that we do.’

  In­vited to speak, I yet stood dumb. I stared at the poxed face, the pa­pery skin of his hands, and felt the gleam of his green eyes on me. I moved my tongue in­side my mouth, but found only si­lence. His man­ner in­vited words, but his vis­age was still more ter­ri­fy­ing than any­thing I had ever ima­gined.

  ‘Boy,’ he said, and the gen­tle­ness in his voice startled me into meet­ing his eyes. ‘I can teach you even if you hate me, or if you des­pise the les­sons. I can teach you if you are bored, or lazy or stu­pid. But I can’t teach you if you’re afraid to speak to me. At least, not the way I want to teach you. And I can’t teach you if you de­cide this is some­thing you’d rather not learn. But you have to tell me. You’ve learned to guard your thoughts so well, you’re al­most afraid to let your­self know what they are. But try speak­ing them aloud, now, to me. You won’t be pun­ished.’

  ‘I don’t much like it,’ I blur­ted sud­denly. ‘The idea of killing people.’

  ‘Ah.’ He paused. ‘Neither did I, when it came down to it. Nor do I, still.’ He sighed sud­denly, deeply. ‘As each time comes, you’ll de­cide. The first time will be hard­est. But know, for now, that that de­cision is many years away. And in the mean­time, you have much to learn.’ He hes­it­ated. ‘There is this, boy – and you should re­mem­ber it in every situ­ation, not just this one – learn­ing is never wrong. Even learn­ing how to kill isn’t wrong. Or right. It’s just a thing to learn, a thing I can teach you. That’s all. For now, do you think you could learn how to do it, and later de­cide if you wanted to do it?’

  Such a ques­tion to put to a boy. Even then, some­thing in me raised its hackles and sniffed at the idea, but child that I was, I could find no ob­jec­tion to raise. And curi­os­ity was nib­bling at me.

  ‘I can learn it.’

  ‘Good.’ He smiled, but there was a tired­ness to his face and he didn’t seem as pleased as he might have. ‘That’s well enough, then. Well enough.’ He looked around the room. ‘We may as well be­gin to­night. Let’s start by tidy­ing up. There’s a broom over there. Oh, but first, change out of your night­shirt into some­thing … ah, there’s a ragged old robe over there. That’ll do for now. Can’t have the wash­er­folk won­der­ing why your night­shirts smell of cam­phor and pain’s ease, can we? Now, you sweep up the floor a bit while I put away a few things.’

  And so passed the next few hours. I swept, then mopped the stone floor. He dir­ec­ted me as I cleared the paraphernalia from the great table. I turned the herbs on their dry­ing rack. I fed the three liz­ards he had caged in the corner, chop­ping up some sticky old meat into chunks that they gulped whole. I wiped clean a num­ber of pots and bowls and stored them. And he worked along­side me, seem­ing grate­ful for the com­pany, and chat­ted to me as if we were both old men. Or both young boys.

  ‘No let­ters as yet? No ci­pher­ing. Bagrash! What’s the old man think­ing? Well, I shall see that remedied swiftly. You’ve your father’s brow, boy, and just his way of wrink­ling it. Has any­one ever told you that be­fore? Ah, there you are, Slink, you ras­cal! What mis­chief have you been up to now?’

  A brown weasel ap­peared from be­hind a tapestry, and we were in­tro­duced to one an­other. Chade let me feed Slink quails’ eggs from a bowl on the table, and laughed when the little beast fol­lowed me about beg­ging for more. He gave me a cop­per brace­let that I found un­der the table, warn­ing that it might make my wrist green, and cau­tion­ing that if any­one asked me about it, I should say I had found it be­hind the stables.

  At some time we stopped for honey cakes and hot, spiced wine. We sat to­gether at a low table on some rugs be­fore the fire­place, and I watched the fire­light dan­cing over his scarred face and wondered why it had seemed so fright­en­ing. He no­ticed me watch­ing him, and his face con­tor­ted in a smile. ‘Seems fa­mil­iar, doesn’t it, boy? My face, I mean.’

  It didn’t. I had been star­ing at the grot­esque scars on the pasty white skin. I had no idea what he meant. I stared at him ques­tion­ingly, try­ing to fig­ure it out.

  ‘Don’t trouble your­self about it, boy. It leaves its tracks on all of us, and sooner or later, you’ll get the tumble of it. But now, well …’ He rose, stretch­ing so that his cas­sock bared his skinny white calves. ‘Now it’s mostly later. Or earlier, de­pend­ing on which end of the day you fancy most. Time you headed back to your bed. Now. You’ll re­mem­ber that this is all a very dark secret, won’t you? Not just me and this room, but the whole thing, wak­ing up at night and les­sons in how to kill people, and all of it.’

  ‘I’ll re­mem­ber,’ I told him, and then, sens­ing that it would mean some­thing to him, I ad­ded, ‘You have my word.’

  He chuckled, and then nod­ded al­most sadly. I changed back into my night­shirt, and he saw me down the steps. He held his glow­ing light by my bed as I clambered in, and then smoothed the blankets over me as no one had done since I’d left Burrich’s cham­bers. I think I was asleep be­fore he had even de­par­ted my bed­side.

  Brant was sent to wake me the next morn­ing, so late was I in arising. I came awake groggy, my head pound­ing pain­fully. But as soon as he left the room, I sprang from my bed and raced to the corner of my room. Cold stone met my hands as I pushed against the wall there, and no crack in mor­tar or stone gave any sign of the secret door I felt sure must be there. Never for one in­stant did I think Chade had been a dream, and even if I had, there re­mained the simple cop­per brace­let on my wrist to prove he wasn’t.

  I dressed hur­riedly and passed through the kit­chens for a slab of bread and cheese that I was still eat­ing when I got to the stables. Burrich was out of sorts with my tardi­ness, and found fault with every as­pect of my horse­man­ship and stable tasks. I re­mem­ber well how he be­rated me: ‘Don’t think that be­cause you’ve a room up in the castle, and a crest on your jer­kin, you can turn into some spraw­l­about rogue who snores in his bed un­til all hours and then only rises to fluff at his hair. I’ll not have it. Bas­tard you may be, but you’re Chiv­alry’s bas­tard, and I’ll make you a man he’ll be proud of.’

  I paused, the groom­ing brushes still in my hands. ‘You mean Regal, don’t you?’

  My un­wonted ques­tion startled him. ‘What?’

  ‘When you talk about rogues who stay in bed all morn­ing and do noth­ing ex­cept fuss about hair and gar­ments, you mean how Regal is.’

  Burrich opened his mouth and then shut it. His wind-reddened cheeks grew red­der. ‘Neither you nor I,’ he muttered at last, ‘are in a po­s­i­tion to cri­ti­cize any of the princes. I meant only as a gen­eral rule, that sleep­ing the morn­ing away ill be­fits a man, and even less so a boy.’

  ‘And never a prince.’ I said this, and then stopped, to won­der where the thought had come from.

  ‘And never a prince,’ Burrich agreed grimly. He was busy in the next stall with a geld­ing’s hot leg. The an­imal winced sud­denly, and I heard Burrich grunt with the ef­fort of hold­ing him. ‘Your father never slept past the sun’s mid­point be­cause he’d been drink­ing the night be­fore. Of course, he had a head for wine such as I’ve never seen since, but there was dis­cip­line to it, too. Nor did he have some man stand­ing by to rouse him. He got him­self out of bed, and then ex­pec­ted those in his com­mand to fol­low his ex­ample. It didn’t al­ways make him pop­u­lar, but his sol­diers re­spec­ted him. Men like that in a leader, that he de­mands of him­self the same thing he ex­pects of them. And I’ll tell you an­other thing: your father didn’t waste coin on deck­ing him­self out like a pea­cock. When he was a younger man, be­fore he was wed to Lady Pa­tience, he was at din­ner one even­ing, at one of the lesser keeps. They’d seated me not too far be­low him, a great hon­our to me, and I over­heard some of his con­ver­sa­tion with the daugh­ter they’d seated so hope­fully next to the King-in-Wait­ing. She’d asked him what he thought of the em­er­alds she wore, and he had com­pli­men­ted her on them. “I had wondered, sir, if you en­joyed jew­els, for you wear none of them your­self to­night,” she said flir­ta­tiously. And he replied, quite ser­i­ously, that his jew­els shone as bril­liantly as hers, and much lar­ger. “Oh, and where do you keep such gems, for I should dearly like to see them?” Well, he replied he’d be happy to show them to her later that even­ing, when it was darker. I saw her blush, ex­pect­ing a tryst of some kind. And later he did in­vite her out onto the bat­tle­ments with him, but he took with them half the din­ner guests as well. And he poin­ted out the lights of the coast-watch towers, shin­ing clearly in the dark, and told her that he con­sidered those his best and dearest jew­els, and that he spent the coin from her father’s taxes to keep them shin­ing so. And then he poin­ted out to the guests the wink­ing lights of that lord’s own watch­men in the for­ti­fic­a­tions of his keep, and told them that when they looked at their Duke, they should see those shin­ing lights as the jew­els on his brow. It was quite a com­pli­ment to the Duke and Duch­ess, and the other nobles there took note of it. The Outis­landers had very few suc­cess­ful raids that sum­mer. That was how Chiv­alry ruled. By ex­ample, and by the grace of his words. So should any real prince do.’

  ‘I’m not a real prince. I’m a bas­tard.’ It came oddly from my mouth, that word I heard so of­ten and so sel­dom said.

  Burrich sighed softly. ‘Be your blood, boy, and ig­nore what any­one else thinks of you.’

  ‘Some­times I get tired of do­ing the hard things.’

  ‘So do I.’

  I ab­sorbed this in si­lence for a while as I worked my way down Sooty’s shoulder. Burrich, still kneel­ing by the grey, spoke sud­denly. ‘I don’t ask any more of you than I ask of my­self. You know that’s true.’

  ‘I know that,’ I replied, sur­prised that he’d men­tioned it fur­ther.

  ‘I just want to do my best by you.’

  This was a whole new idea to me. After a mo­ment I asked, ‘Be­cause if you could make Chiv­alry proud of me, of what you’d made me into, then maybe he would come back?’

  The rhythmic sound of Burrich’s hands work­ing lini­ment into the geld­ing’s leg slowed, then ceased ab­ruptly. But he re­mained crouched down by the horse, and spoke quietly through the wall of the stall. ‘No. I don’t think that. I don’t sup­pose any­thing would make him come back. And even if he did,’ and Burrich spoke more slowly, ‘even if he did, he wouldn’t be who he was. Be­fore, I mean.’