Fool's Assassin - Страница 87

I never wanted to feel that again. Truly, I didn’t. Nor did I want to wonder at how quickly I had decided to grant her the mercy of a swift death. For decades now, I had insisted that I did not want to be an assassin. Tonight I doubted my sincerity.

“Papa?”

An assassin flinched and turned his scrutiny on the small girl. For a moment I didn’t recognize her. I struggled to find my way back to being her father. “Molly,” I said, the word bursting from me, aloud, making Bee’s face grow pale so that her reddened cheeks and nose stood out as if splashed with blood. Molly had kept me safe. She had been the waymarker on a different path my life could take. Now she was gone and I felt as if I had fallen over a cliff’s edge and was hopelessly plunging toward ruin. And I had pulled my child over with me.

“She’s dead,” Bee said in a small voice, and suddenly it was real all over again.

“I know,” I said miserably.

She reached up and took my hand. “You were leading us off into the dark and the fog, toward the pasture. Come this way.” She tugged my hand, and I realized I had been walking toward a misty forested strip of land beside the pasture. She turned us back toward Withywoods where lights shone dim in a few windows.

My child guided me home.

We moved silently through the darkened corridors of Withywoods. Across the flagged entrance, up the curved staircase, and along the hallway we softly paced. I paused at the entrance to her room and abruptly recalled that she could not sleep there. I looked at her and hated myself. Her nose was a bright-red button. She wore a winter cloak and boots and, under that, only a woolen nightdress. It was now soaked to the knee. Oh, Bee. “Let’s get you a clean nightgown. Then you’ll sleep in my room tonight.” I winced at the thought, recalling the boar’s nest that my room had become. No help for it now. I wanted every scrap of bedding in her room destroyed to avoid contagion from whatever horrid creatures the messenger had carried within her. I suppressed a shudder at the thought of the vicious judgment passed on her. So irrevocable. So their punishment for being a traitor was lingering and painful death, one that no apology or explanation would halt. I still was not sure who “they” were, but already I despised them.

I kindled a candle at her hearth while Bee went to her clothing chest. Her nightgown dragged a wet trail on the floor. She lifted the heavy lid, wedged a shoulder under it to hold it open, and began to rummage through the contents. I glanced around the room. The stripped bed looked stark and accusing. I’d killed a woman in this room tonight. Did I ever want my child to sleep here again? She might not be haunted by what I’d done, for surely she had no idea of it. She would believe the messenger had just died of her wounds. But this killing would bother me for a long time. I didn’t want my daughter sleeping in the bed where I’d killed someone. Tomorrow I’d broach the idea of moving her into a new room. For tonight—

“Stop! Just stop, please! Leave me alone! Please!” It was Shun’s voice, rising to a shriek on the last word.

“Stay here!” I barked at Bee and left the room. Shun’s temporary chamber was at the end of the corridor. I was only a few steps down the hall before Riddle, in his nightshirt, knife in hand and his hair standing up in wild tufts, burst out of his room and into the corridor. Shoulder-to-shoulder we ran. Shun’s voice rose again, ascending in terror. “I’m sorry you’re dead. It wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t my fault! Leave me alone!”

The door to her bedchamber was abruptly flung open and a wailing Shun sprang into the dim hall. Her auburn hair was loose about the shoulders of her nightgown. She had a knife in one hand, a fine and slender blade, and even in her terror she carried it as if she would know how to use it. She shrieked even louder at the sight of us running toward her. Then she recognized Riddle and, breathlessly shouting his name, ran into his arms, narrowly missing the knife he carried. She seemed not to notice when he caught her wrist and with a pinch made her drop her own blade.

“What is it, what’s wrong?” We were both shouting and in response she only wailed and hugged Riddle’s neck so tightly that I thought she would choke him. She had buried her face in his chest and he held his knife well clear of her in one hand while he awkwardly patted her back with the other. She was saying something over and over, but I could not understand her. I stooped and picked up her blade. I recognized the design as one favored for assassin work. Evidently she had not felt her rudimentary training would protect her against a ghost. I tucked it away in my sleeve.

“I’ll check her room. Keep her safe,” I said to Riddle, but as I moved past them she suddenly lifted her head and shrieked, “Don’t go in there! Don’t go in there! It’s his ghost, crying and crying! He blames me. Rono blames me!”

I halted, feeling a sick fear spread through me. I am not a superstitious man. I do not believe in ghosts. Yet I almost heard the distant wailing of a lost child. My heart sank and I welcomed Riddle’s words as he said to her, “It was only a bad dream, Shun. You’ve been through a lot, and you’ve carried a lot of fear this past fortnight. Here you are, in an unfamiliar house, wondering what shape your life is about to take. It’s only to be expected that you’d have a bad dream.”

She pushed away from him violently. Her voice was indignant. “It wasn’t a bad dream. I wasn’t able to fall asleep. I was lying in bed, thinking, and I began to hear the wailing. It’s Rono. The little wretch was always crying, always whining and begging. Anything sweet or delicious that was cooked for me, he wanted some of it. And even when he was told it was for me, he would keep begging, or he would just steal some of it. And that’s what got him killed!” She was suddenly angry instead of frightened. “He stole from me and ate it, and he died. How can that be my fault?”

“It wasn’t,” Riddle immediately replied. “Of course it wasn’t. The blame falls on whoever was trying to poison you.”

Her sobs changed suddenly, and I wondered how I knew she had gone from terrified to comforted. Her face was buried in his shoulder and she clung to him, her arms wrapped around his neck and her body pressed close to him. He sent me an uncomfortable look over her shoulder. I tried not to scowl. I was not sure what he and Nettle were to each other, but even in this context I did not like seeing him hold another woman. “I’ll check her room. Just to be sure there’s nothing amiss,” I told him.

She lifted her face. Tears and snot had dismissed any beauty from her face. “I was not dreaming, as I was not asleep! Nor did I imagine it! I heard his crying!”

“I’ll see to it.”

As I walked past Riddle, he passed his knife to me. He quirked one eyebrow in an abbreviated shrug. It was always better to be armed than not, in any situation. “I’ll put her in my room for the night,” he offered.

“You cannot leave me alone!” she wailed.

There was deep resignation in his voice as he offered, “I’ll sleep across your threshold, just outside your door. If anything bothers you, I’ll be only steps away.”

I was already moving down the hall and did not hear the words of her choked objection. I halted outside the door of her chamber and settled myself. It could be anything or nothing, I reminded myself. I pulled the door open and looked into the room. I unfurled my Wit-sense, reaching out to investigate the room. Nothing. I sensed no human or animal within the chamber. It was not an absolute assurance that Shun had imagined an intruder, but it was reassuring to me.

Firelight from the low-burning hearth coated the room in honey. The bedding had spilled from the bed and trailed her to the door. I moved inside, stepping softly and listening. What had she heard? For I suspected there would be a grain of truth at least in her complaint. Had the wind whistled through the chimney or past her window? But all was silent save for the muted crackling of the fire.

I lit a branch of candles and explored the room with them, checking behind curtains and under the bed and even in the still-empty clothing chests. They had been freshly cleaned and held only new sachets. They smelled of cedar and lavender and waited to be used. Shun had not unpacked so much as avalanched into the room. Clothing was everywhere, cascading from her baggage, draped across the foot of the bed and on top of the clothing chests. I scowled at her untidiness. Well, by tomorrow, her maid would be here to set her to rights. Still, it did not please me that a girl of her age did not even know how to be orderly in her unpacking. Her jewelry was scattered across the top of the small vanity, next to a bag of pink and yellow sweets.

Chade had obviously opened his purse for her, and she had taken full advantage of it. What sort of training had he given the girl? She clearly thought much of herself, but no trace of discipline or order did I find in her behavior. How had he looked at her and considered her a candidate to be a spy, let alone an assassin? I wondered where he had found her and why she mattered so much to him. He’d hidden her pedigree well but I was determined to know it now. I’d sniff out his secrets. In my spare time. When I was not looking for the Fool’s misplaced heir. Or accusing my servants of vermin in the bedding. Or repairing the damage I’d done to my daughter. I had not been managing my old life very well. I could not imagine coping with Shun in addition.

I finished my search carefully, checking that the windows and shutters were tightly closed and that her maid’s adjoining room was innocent of all intruders. There was nothing there. I retreated from her chamber, trying to set my concerns about Shun aside for tonight. Tonight, I would take care of my immediate worries. Tomorrow would be time enough to think about adapting Shun to our simpler habits. Tomorrow … we were well past midnight. Today.