Fool's Assassin - Страница 82

But even with my explorations, I spent a long and dull afternoon behind the walls. I wished I had stolen more of my father’s old writings to read. I wrote about the cat, took a nap bundled in my blanket, ate some fruit and drank some water, and then waited. And waited. When finally my father returned to open the door for me, I was stiff and sore from being still so long. I had been watching for him, and as soon as he opened the panel, I was out. “All safe?” I asked him, and he nodded wearily.

“We think so,” he amended. “There is no sign of her anywhere in the house. Though, as you know, it’s a big house with many rooms. None of the servants has commented on seeing her. It’s as if she vanished.” He cleared his throat. “I confided only to Riddle that we should search the house. He agreed. So the servants know nothing of the missing girl. And I’ve insisted to Shun that she left.”

I followed him out of the secret den and out into the corridors of Withywoods. I was silent. I knew hundreds of places to hide in our house. My father could not possibly have searched them all, not even if Riddle was helping him. Surely he knew that. I walked for a time at his side. I thought carefully and then said, “I should like a knife and a sheath, please. Like my mother always wore.”

He slowed his stride, and I no longer had to hurry. “Why?”

“Why did my mother always have a knife?”

“She was a practical woman, always doing things. She had a knife to cut a bit of string, or trim back a bush or cut flowers, or cut up fruit.”

“I can do all those things. Or could, if I had a knife.”

“I’ll see about getting you one, and a belt sized for you.”

“I should like to have a knife now.”

He stopped then and looked down at me. I looked at his feet.

“Bee. I know that you are a bit afraid. But I will keep you safe. It’s right that you should have a knife, for you are old enough to be sensible with it. But …” He halted, floundering.

“You don’t want me to stab someone if they’re threatening me. Neither do I. But I don’t want to be threatened and not have anything at all to protect myself.”

“You’re so small,” he said with a sigh.

“Yet another reason why I need a knife!”

“Look at me.”

“I am.” I looked at his knees.

“Look at my face.”

Unwillingly, I shifted my gaze. My eyes wandered over his face and met his eyes for a moment; then I looked aside. He spoke gently. “Bee. I will get you a knife, and a sheath, and a belt for it that you can wear. More than that, I will teach you to use it, as a weapon. It’s not going to happen tonight. But I will.”

“You don’t want to.”

“No. I don’t. I wish I could feel like it was something you didn’t have to know. But I suppose you do. And perhaps I have been remiss in not teaching you before this. But I didn’t want you to live that sort of a life.”

“Not being prepared to defend myself doesn’t mean I’d never have to fight for my life.”

“Bee, I know that is true. Look. I’ve told you what I’ll do, and I will do it. But for now, for tonight, can you trust me to protect you? And let this be?”

Something tightened in my throat. I spoke to his feet, my voice gone hoarse and strange. “How can you protect me when you are going to be looking after her and keeping her safe?”

He looked shocked, then hurt, and then tired. I watched out of the corner of my eye as the expressions flitted across his features. He composed himself and spoke calmly. “Bee. You have nothing to be jealous about. Or to worry about. Shun needs our help, and yes, I will protect her. But you are my daughter. Not Shun. Now let’s go. You need to brush your hair and wash your face and hands before we go to dinner.”

“Will Shun be there?”

“Yes. And Riddle.” He wasn’t trying to make me trot, but my legs were short. When he walked at his normal stride, I always had to hurry to keep up. I noticed that the house was quieter. I surmised that he had sent the workmen home for the evening.

“I like it when the house is quiet again.”

“I do, too. These repairs will take some time, Bee, and we will have to put up with noise and dust and strangers in our house for a while. But when they have finished, things will go back to being quiet and calm.”

I thought about dinner tonight. Shun and Riddle at the table with us. And breakfast the next day. I thought about walking into a room in my home and finding Shun there. Would she walk in the garden rooms? Would she read the scrolls in the library? Now that I thought of her wandering through my home it suddenly seemed as if I could never be unaware of her presence. “How long will Shun be here?” Somehow I doubted that quiet, calm, and Shun would dwell in the same house.

“As long as she needs to be here.” He tried to speak firmly but now I heard the dread in his voice. Clearly he had not asked himself that question. I liked that he disliked the answer as much as I did. It made me feel better.

He escorted me to my room. I washed and combed my hair. When I left the room to go down to dinner, he was outside the door waiting for me. I looked up at him. “I like that you shaved off your beard,” I said. I had noticed it that morning, but not commented on it then. He glanced at me, nodded once, and we walked down to the dining room together. The servants had put us in the big dining hall, but had only lit a fire in the nearest hearth. The other end of the room was a dim cave. Riddle and Shun were already seated at the table, talking, but the vast space of the room devoured their words. “And here we all are,” my father announced as we came in. He had good control of his voice. He sounded pleased that all of us were there.

He seated me at his right hand, as if I were my mother, drawing out my chair for me and then pushing it in when I perched on it. Shun sat to my right and Riddle to his left. Her hair was pinned up and her dress looked as if she had expected to meet the Queen in our dining room. Her face was freshly scrubbed, but cold water had not bleached all the pink from her eyes. She had been crying. Riddle looked as if he wanted to cry but had a smile hooked to his cheeks instead.

As soon as we were seated and my father had rung the bell for the food to be brought in, Shun spoke. “You didn’t find any other sign of the stranger?”

“I told you, Shun, she left. She was an injured traveler, no more than that. Obviously she didn’t feel safe, even here, and as soon as she could move on, she did.”

Two men I didn’t know came into the room carrying platters. I looked at my father. He smiled at me. They served us soup and bread and then stood back. “Cor, Jet, thank you.” As soon as my father spoke the words, they bowed and went back to the kitchen. I stared at him in consternation.

“I hired more staff, Bee. It’s time we did things a bit more properly here. You’ll soon get to know them and be comfortable with them. They are cousins to Tavia’s husband, and highly recommended.”

I nodded but I still felt unhappy about it. The meal went in stages, and my father was careful to speak to Riddle and to Shun, as if conversation was something he had to share evenly with everyone at the table. He asked Shun if her room suited her, for now. She replied stiffly that it would be fine. He asked Riddle what he thought of the soup, and Riddle said it was as good as that served at Buckkeep Castle. Throughout the meal, he and Riddle spoke only of very ordinary topics. Did he think it would snow more tomorrow? My father hoped the snows would not be too deep this year. Riddle said it would be good if they were not too deep this year. Did Shun enjoy riding? There were some fine riding trails at Withywoods, and my father thought her horse looked like a good one. Perhaps she would like to explore the estate of Withywoods a bit tomorrow?

Riddle asked if my father still had the gray mare he had used to ride. My father said that he did. Riddle asked if they might go look at her after dinner. He had been thinking of asking my father if she would carry a foal from a certain black stud at Buckkeep for him.

It was such a transparent excuse for getting my father alone to talk to him that I almost couldn’t stand it. After dinner, we went to a little room with comfortable chairs and a nice fire in the hearth. Riddle and my father left to walk out to the stables. Shun and I sat and looked at each other. Tavia came in with tea for us. “Chamomile and sweetbreath, to ease you to sleep after your long travels today,” she said to Shun with a smile.

“Thank you, Tavia,” I said after the silence had fallen and Shun had made no response to her.

“You are very welcome,” she replied. She poured tea for each of us, and left.

I took my teacup from the tray and went and sat on the hearth. Shun looked down at me.

“Does he always let you stay awake and be with the adults?” She obviously disapproved.

“Adults?” I asked, looking around me. I smiled at her as if puzzled.

“You should be in bed by now.”

“Why?”

“It’s what is done with children in the evening. They go to bed so that adults can have conversations.”

I thought about that, and then looked into the fire. Would my father start sending me to bed in the evening so that he and Shun could stay awake and talk? I took up the poker and hit the burning log with it firmly, sending up a shower of sparks. Then I hit it again.

“Stop that! You’ll make the fire smoke.”