Fool's Assassin - Страница 111

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The children exchanged glances. He had not chosen to speak to me first. I wondered if they thought he already knew all about me or if, as I did, they knew it indicated he already disapproved of me. I had noted to myself that he ascribed the generosity to Lady Nettle, rather than my father, and that he spoke of coming to teach the children of the estate. No mention that I was sharing my tutor with them. No. He had grouped me with all the other students. As had I, I suddenly realized, when I had taken a seat on the floor with the others. An error. How could I correct it? Did I want to correct it?

Some of the children settled immediately into more comfortable positions. This was going to take some time. Taffy sat scowling. He took out his belt-knife and began to pare and dig at his nails. The gardener’s children were looking about in wonder. Perseverance sat as attentively as a dog at a table’s edge.

Scribe Lant called Elm up first. I folded my hands in my lap, stared at the floor, and eavesdropped with all my might. She could count, of course, and do simple sums as long as they did not go far past the fingers on her hands. She did not have any letters or reading or writing, except her name. She could name all the duchies in Buck, and knew that Chalced was dangerous to us. She was hazy on the rest of geography. Well, I knew more than that, but not so much that I felt sure of myself.

Lea had about the same level of learning as Elm, except that she could recognize the names of some spices from having to fetch the containers from the shelves. The goose girl was named Ivy. She had no reading or writing, but she and her brother played games with arithmetic to pass the time. Her brother was Spruce, and he stood as tall as his name. He, too, did not know letters but was obviously excited at the chance to learn them. He was as quick at figures as his sister, with our scribe setting him problems such as “Twelve geese were on the water, and seventeen more landed while five flew away. Then twenty-two goslings came out of the reeds. A bullfrog ate one. How many geese and goslings remain?” Spruce answered the question quickly but added, a bit pink about the cheeks, that not all numbers needed to be about geese. FitzVigilant praised his quick mind and his eagerness to learn and called Perseverance to him.

Perseverance stood, head bowed, and answered respectfully that he had no letters or reading. He could reckon “well enough to get my work done.” He volunteered that it was his father’s wish he learn more, and added that he respected his father’s will in knowing what was best for him. “As do I,” the scribe agreed. He set the stable boy some simple arithmetic problems, and I saw Perseverance’s fingers move as he worked them to an answer. The tops of his cheeks and his ears were redder than when the wind kissed them, and once, when he stumbled, he glanced my way. I pretended to be straightening the hem of my tunic.

It was much the same with the other students. I noted that most seemed to have inherited whatever level of schooling their parents had. Oatil, also from the stables, sometimes helped bring in the supplies and tally them. He could read a little, and his mother wanted him to learn more reading and writing as well so that he could help her more with her tasks. The gardener’s boy, to my surprise, could write his name and read simple words, but had little skill with numbers. “But I’d be willing to learn,” he offered, and “Learn you shall then,” our tutor replied with a smile.

When Taffy was called to the scribe’s table, he rose lazily and slouched over. The half-smile on his face did not escape FitzVigilant’s attention. He glanced up at him, said, “Stand up straight, please. Your name?” He poised his pen over his paper.

“Taffy. My da works in the vineyards. My ma comes round to help with the lambing, sometimes, when she’s not dropping a kid herself.” He glanced round at the rest of us, smirking, and added, “Da says she’s happiest with a big belly or one on the tit.”

“Indeed?” Our tutor was unruffled. As Taffy had spoken for all to hear, he asked aloud, “Can you read or write, young man?”

“Nar.”

“I’ll assume you meant to say, ‘No, Scribe Lant.’ I’m sure you’ll do better the next time I ask you a question. Can you reckon? On paper, or in your head?”

Taffy gave his bottom lip a swipe with his tongue. “I reckon that I don’t want to be here.”

“Yet here you are. And as your father wishes it, I will teach you. Return to your place.”

Taffy sauntered away. It was my turn. I was last. I rose and went to stand before the scribe’s table. He was still making notes about Taffy. His dark curls were formed in perfect spirals. I looked down at his handwriting. It was clean and strong, even upside-down. “Insolent and unwilling,” he had noted next to Taffy’s name.

He glanced up at me, and I snatched my gaze away from the paper to meet his. His eyes were a soft brown, with very long lashes. I looked hastily down again. “Well, Lady Bee, it is your turn now.” He spoke softly. “It is Lady Nettle’s earnest wish that you learn to read and write, at least a little. Or as much as you are able. Do you think you could try to do that, for her?” His smile tried to be kind, but it was a false kindness.

It shocked and hurt me that he spoke to me so condescendingly. It was much worse than when he had looked at me earlier with such disdain for my poor manners. I glanced up at him and then away. I did not speak loudly but I took care to form my every word as clearly as I could. I knew that sometimes my speech was still garbled and muted. I would take care that would not happen today. “I can already read and write, sir. And I can work with numbers up to twenty in my head. Beyond that, if I have tally sticks, I can get the correct answer. Most of the time. But not swiftly. I am familiar with the local geography, and can place each duchy on the map. I know ‘The Twelve Healing Herbs’ and other learning rhymes.” That last was a gift from my mother. I had noticed that none of the children had spoken of learning rhymes or sayings.

Scribe Lant gave me a guarded look as if he suspected me of something. “Learning rhymes.”

I cleared my throat. “Yes, sir. For instance, for catmint, the rhyme begins, ‘If you set it, the cat will get it. If you sow it, the cat won’t know it.’ So the first thing to know of that herb is that if you try to start it with tiny plants in your garden, the cat will eat them. But if you plant the seeds, it will come up and the cat will not notice it so much, and the plants will be able to thrive.”

He cleared his throat. “It’s a clever little rhyme, but not something that we could count as learning here.”

Someone giggled. I felt blood creeping up into my face. I hated my fair skin that showed my humiliation so plainly. I wished I had not chosen the simplest of my mother’s rhymes to share. “I know others, sir, which are more useful, perhaps.”

He gave a tiny sigh and closed his eyes for a moment. “I am sure you do, Lady Bee,” he said, as if he did not wish to injure my feelings over how ignorant I was. “But I am more interested in seeing your writing now. Can you make some letters for me on this?” He pushed a piece of paper toward me and offered me a bit of chalk. Did he think I did not know what a pen was?

My humiliation boiled over in anger. I reached over his hand to take up his fine pen. In careful strokes, I inscribed, “My name is Bee Badgerlock. I live on Withywoods Estate. My sister is Lady Nettle, Skillmistress to His Majesty King Dutiful of the Six Duchies. “I lifted the pen, regarded my writing critically, and then turned the paper back toward him for him to read.

He had watched me write with ill-concealed surprise. Now he regarded the paper in disbelief for a moment. Then he returned it to me. “Write this. ‘Today I begin lessons with Scribe Lant.’”

I did so, more slowly, for I found I was not certain how to spell “Lant.” Again I turned it back to him. He next shoved at me a black wax tablet on which he had been scribing words. I had never seen such a device before, and I ran my finger lightly over the heavy coating of wax on the wood plank. He had written with a stylus, carving the words into the wax swiftly and gracefully.

“Well. Can you read it or not?” His words were a challenge. “Aloud, please,” he added.

I stared at the words. I spoke them slowly. “It is a wicked deceit to pretend to ignorance and inability.” I looked back up at him, confused.

“Do you agree?”

I looked at the words again. “I don’t know,” I said, wondering what he intended by the words.

“Well. I know that I would agree. Lady Bee, you should be ashamed of yourself. Lady Nettle has been full of concern for you, believing you were both simple and near-mute. She has agonized over how you would fare in this world, over who would care for you as you grew older. And now I arrive here, thinking that my task would be to give you basic instruction in the simplest things, and I find you fully capable of reading and writing. And of being quite saucy to a lady who deserves your respect. So, Lady Bee, what am I to think?”

I had found a small knot in the wooden table. I stared at the dark whorl of the wood grain and wanted to vanish. It was all too complicated to explain it to him. All I had wanted was not to appear strange to others. Small chance of that. I was too small for my age and too intelligent for my years. The first should have been obvious; saying the second aloud would make me appear to be as conceited as he believed me rude. I felt the heat come in my face. Someone spoke behind me.

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