Fool's Assassin - Страница 91

That’s probably true. But I’ve been trying to reach you for hours. What made you put up your walls so stoutly? I began to think you’d taken my advice and sealed yourself against the Skill whenever you were sleeping.

Probably something I should do. I hadn’t even been aware I’d put my walls up, but suddenly knew when I’d done it. Keeping my walls up around Bee was a habit, but I’d always left a chink for deliberate Skilling. I suppose it had been old instinct to raise them to full resistance during the kill. I’d wanted no chance witnesses to that. Easing into sleep must have lowered them. I told him half a truth. I was preoccupied with Shun. She believes in ghosts and thought her room was haunted by some unfortunate child from her past. Evidently he got the poison that had been meant for her. Not her fault, but when she hears a strange noise at night, it’s hard to convince her of that.

Is she all right? Anxiety thrummed in his Skilling.

Much better than the beaten lad, whoever he is.

FitzVigilant. Who else might I be sending to you to save him from being murdered?

I don’t know. Anyone who it pleased you to send my way, I suspect. My weariness was making me testy. And it was coming to me now, in pieces, that this news meant I was about to have another orphan on my doorstep. Another addition to my household, one that would be underfoot for years rather than days or months. Another room to prepare. Another horse in my stable, another plate on my table, another person speaking to me when I wanted to be left alone. I tried to muster some sympathy for the poor bastard. So his legitimate brothers have come to court, and his mother wishes to do away with their father’s by-blow?

Not exactly. She seems to be a woman who plans ahead. Her boys will not come to court until next spring and so I thought I might safely keep him here for a time longer. Evidently she decided to be rid of him sooner rather than later, and is clever enough to attempt it in a way that will not make other folk think her sons were involved. The men she set on him were common ruffians, native to Buckkeep Town. They waylaid him outside a tavern.

Are you sure then that this wasn’t just a random robbery?

I’m sure. The drubbing was too thorough and too violent. He was down and they could have easily taken his purse and run. They went past knocking him down, past knocking the fight out of him. This was personal, Fitz.

Cold seethed through his voice. Personal. The lady had made it personal, attempting to kill a boy under Lord Chade’s protection. There would be some sort of repercussion for her, I did not doubt. I would not ask what it would be or who would carry it out. Would she enter her bedchamber to find it ransacked and her most precious jewelry stolen? Or would it be crueler? I suspected she should keep a tight watch on her sons, or she might find out how it felt to have someone under her protection take a bad beating. Chade could be that cold. I could not. Tonight had brought back all my distaste for killing. Call it vengeance or justice; no matter how it was named, I wanted none of it. Never again.

A bit of true sympathy for FitzVigilant invaded my soul. Beaten past his ability to fight back. I didn’t like to dwell on that; I had too many memories of situations of that sort. Is anyone accompanying him? To see he gets here safely?

He hasn’t left yet. I’ve hidden him. And when I send him he will have to travel alone. But I would not have decided to send him if I hadn’t thought he’d be well enough to ride. He had three days of convalescing out of sight of any who might wish to harm him. He has vanished to other eyes. My hope is to make his father’s wife believe she has terrified him enough to make him flee from Buckkeep Castle. She may be content with that. But I need to keep him past the time when she might have people watching for him to flee.

And if she has not given up by then? If she has watchers and they follow?

She will first have a task to find him. And those she sends to look may well find something else entirely. A pause in his thoughts and a small hum of cat pleasure.

I filled it in for him. And if she finds where you have sent him, she will still have to get past me.

Exactly. So much satisfaction. I was so tired that even the tingle of pride I felt at his confidence in me was annoying. Are you sure that you have not overestimated my ability to shepherd these lost lambs you are sending me?

Not at all. I regard your ability as second only to my own.

I stifled the thought that Shun had nearly been poisoned and FitzVigilant had been severely beaten in Chade’s care. Second only to his own. Oh, yes. I yawned widely enough that my jaw cracked. I tried to keep my mind on what he was telling me. And what does Lord Vigilant think of this, of his lady trying to eliminate his bastard eldest?

There was just the briefest hesitation. The man has no honor. He is not as attached to the lad as the boy deserves. He would, I think, be relieved. If, indeed, he knows of his lady’s plotting. If he does not, I intend to see that he is fully informed. He will be made to care for the boy’s safety, before I have finished with either of them.

So. Chade had that end of the situation well in hand. At least that had not been maneuvered into my area of responsibility. I’ll let you know when he gets here. And now I have to sleep.

Fitz. Are you all right? The Skill conveys emotion as well as thought when one is careless. Genuine concern. He was reading my pain.

I pushed him gently away. I didn’t want to answer the question. I was emphatically not all right, and he was the last person I wished to discuss that with. I’m very tired. Houseguests. House repairs. And it’s not the time of year when we should be doing these repairs. I should have done them last summer.

Well, yes, that will teach you not to put things off. And the little one? How is she adapting?

Bee is fine, Chade. Just fine. And I’m going to sleep. Now.

I pushed him firmly out of my mind, forming my walls up behind him.

There was no returning to sleep, and all peace had fled. I watched the shadows from the fire on the ceiling of the room. I tried to think about Molly, without the sadness, but that wound was still too fresh. I refused to think about the messenger or puzzle any more on her message.

But refusing to think about a thing only brings it more strongly to mind. I thought of the Fool. I tried to pretend I wasn’t angry at him for sending such a cryptic message. I couldn’t, so I stopped thinking about him.

I rolled to my side and looked at my little girl. Her hair stuck up at all angles. She was huddled into a ball, like a sleeping cub. Her blanket had twisted away from her and I could see that even her little toes were curled in tight to her feet. Sleeping small, hoping to stay hidden. Oh, little one. So small, but not as young as anyone else thought. Especially not after tonight. I’d done that to her. Without thinking, I’d made her my accomplice. Just as Chade had done with me. Years from now, would I be reaching out to her as Chade did to me? Was I repeating yet another cycle, raising an apprentice assassin? Was it the only sort of fathering I knew how to do?

The Fool had always asserted that time moved in a great circle, but a decaying one, where at every turning humanity repeated mistakes, making them ever graver. He had believed he could use me as his Catalyst to set that great wheel into a better track. He’d had visions of the futures, and out of all the possible futures he could see there had been one, a future in which I survived and together we changed the world.

And I was back to thinking of the Fool again. I shifted, shifted again, and got up. I built up the fire, tucked the blanket more closely around Bee, and then left as silently as a stalking assassin. Amazing how adept I was at that talent.

I moved through Withywoods, carrying a branch of candles. I inspected the work that had been done so far in the Yellow Suite, and once more wondered at the temerity of someone who would come as a desperate guest to someone’s home and then complain endlessly about the accommodations. But these rooms, at least, she must love. Earlier in the day, a fire of applewood and cedar had been kindled in the hearth to freshen the room. The fragrance lingered. In the candlelight the yellow walls were a warm gold. When the newly freshened hangings were restored to the bed and the curtains rehung, it would be a cozy retreat for any young woman. Surely she could not imagine a ghost in this warm and welcoming room. I shut the heavy wooden door behind me, comforted that at least this must go right tomorrow. Today, I amended. Today. Dawn was a broken dream away.

Beyond the Yellow Suite was the Green Suite. I could not recall the last time I had been in those rooms. I opened the door and looked into dimness. Draped furniture breathed dust. Shuttered windows. The hearth was swept clean and had been cold for years. The bed frame was a skeleton, the hanging stored in a cedar chest at its foot. The room had an unused air, but I saw no rodent droppings. I would put the servants to making it habitable tomorrow. By the time FitzVigilant arrived, the rooms would have warmed through. It was not as spacious as the Yellow Suite. There was a little study off the bedchamber and a small room for a servant attached to it; I wondered if he would require one. Was I supposed to supply one? So much I did not know about having a scribe. I would ask Revel. Perhaps he would know. But yes, these rooms would do for FitzVigilant. One more matter solved.