Assassin's Apprentice (15 page)

Up at the keep, among the men-at-arms, there was a collective feeling of doltishness that I shared. The Outislanders eluded our patrol ships with ease and never fell into our traps. They struck where we were undermanned and least expecting it. Most discomfited of all was Verity, for to him had fallen the task of defending the kingdom once Chivalry had abdicated. I heard it muttered in the taverns that since he had lost his elder brother’s good counsel, all had gone sour. No one spoke against Verity yet; but it was unsettling that no one spoke out strongly for him either.

Boyishly, I viewed the raids as a thing impersonal to me. Certainly they were bad things, and I felt sorry in a vague way for those villagers whose homes were torched or plundered. But secure at Buckkeep, I had very little feeling for the constant fear and vigilance that other seaports endured, or for the agonies of villagers who rebuilt each year, only to see their efforts torched the next. I was not to keep my ignorant innocence long.

I went down to Burrich for my “lesson” one morning, though I spent as much time doctoring animals and teaching young colts and fillies as I did in being taught. I had very much taken over Cob’s place in the stables, while he had gone on to being Regal’s groom and dog man. But that day, to my surprise, Burrich took me upstairs to his room and sat me down at his table. I dreaded spending a tedious morning repairing tack.

“I’m going to teach you manners today,” Burrich announced suddenly. There was doubt in his voice, as if he were skeptical
of my ability to learn such.

“With horses?” I asked incredulously.

“No. You’ve those already. With people. At table, and afterward, when folk sit and talk with one another. Those sorts of manners.”

“Why?”

Burrich frowned. “Because for reasons I don’t understand, you’re to accompany Verity when he goes to Neatbay to see Duke Kelvar of Rippon. Lord Kelvar has not been cooperating with Lord Shemshy in manning the coastal towers. Shemshy accuses him of leaving towers completely without watches, so that the Outislanders are able to sail past and even anchor outside of Watch Island, and from there raid Shemshy’s villages in Shoaks Duchy. Prince Verity is going to consult with Kelvar about these allegations.”

I grasped the situation completely. It was common gossip around Buckkeep Town. Lord Kelvar of Rippon Duchy had three watchtowers in his keeping. The two that bracketed the points of Neatbay were always well manned, for they protected the best harbor in Rippon Duchy. But the tower on Watch Island protected little of Rippon that was worth much to Lord Kelvar; his high and rocky coastline sheltered few villages, and would-be raiders would have a hard time keeping their ships off the rocks while raiding. His southern coast was seldom bothered. Watch Island itself was home to little more than gulls, goats, and a hefty population of clams. Yet the tower there was critical to the early defense of Southcove in Shoaks Duchy. It commanded views of both the inner
and outer channels, and was placed on a natural summit that allowed its beacon fires to be easily seen from the mainland. Shemshy himself had a watchtower on Egg Island, but Egg was little more than a bit of sand that stuck up above the waves on high tide. It commanded no real view of the water, and was constantly in need of repair from the shifting of the sands and the occasional storm tide that overwhelmed it. But it could see a watch-fire warning light from Watch Island and send the message on. As long as Watch Island Tower lit such a fire.

Traditionally, the fishing grounds and clamming beaches of Watch Island were the territory of Rippon Duchy, and so the manning of the watchtower there had fallen to Rippon Duchy as well. But maintaining a garrison there meant bringing in men and their victuals, and also supplying wood and oil for the beacon fires, and maintaining the tower itself from the savage ocean storms that swept across the barren little island. It was an unpopular duty station for men-at-arms, and rumor had it that to be stationed there was a subtle form of punishment for unruly or unpolitical garrisons. More than once when in his cups, Kelvar had declaimed that if manning the tower was so important to Shoaks Duchy, then Lord Shemshy should do it himself. Not that Rippon Duchy was interested in surrendering the fishing grounds off the island or the rich shellfish beds.

So when Shoaks’s villages were raided, without warning, in an early-spring spree that destroyed all hopes of the fields being planted on time, as well as saw most of the pregnant sheep either slaughtered, stolen, or scattered, Lord Shemshy had protested loudly to the King that Kelvar had been lax in manning his
towers. Kelvar denied it, and asserted that the small force he had installed there was suitable for a location that seldom needed to be defended. “Watchers, not soldiers, are what Watch Island Tower requires,” he had declared. And for that purpose, he had recruited a number of elderly men and women to man the tower. A handful of them had been soldiers, but most were refugees from Neatbay; debtors and pickpockets and aging whores, some declared, while supporters of Kelvar asserted they were but elderly citizens in need of secure employment.

All this I knew better from tavern gossip and Chade’s political lectures than Burrich could imagine. But I bit my tongue and sat through his detailed and strained explanation. Not for the first time I realized he considered me slightly slow. My silences he mistook for a lack of wit rather than a lack of any need to speak.

So now, laboriously, Burrich began to instruct me in the manners that, he told me, most other boys picked up simply by being around their elders. I was to greet people when I first encountered them each day, or if I walked into a room and found it occupied; melting silently away was not polite. I should call folk by their names, and if they were older than me or of higher political station, as, he reminded me, almost anyone I met on this journey would be, I should address them by title as well. Then he inundated me with protocol; who could precede me out of a room, and under what circumstances (almost anyone, and under almost all conditions, had precedent over me). And on to the manners of the table. To pay attention to where I was seated; to
pay attention to whoever occupied the high seat at that table and pace my dining accordingly; how to drink a toast, or a series of toasts, without overindulging myself. And how to speak engagingly, or more likely, to listen attentively, to whoever might be seated near me at dinner. And on. And on. Until I began to daydream wistfully of endlessly cleaning tack.

Burrich recalled my attention with a sharp poke. “And you’re not to do that, either. You look an imbecile, sitting there nodding with your mind elsewhere. Don’t fancy no one notices when you do that. And don’t glare like that when you’re corrected. Sit up straight, and put a pleasant expression on your face. Not a vacuous smile, you dolt. Ah, Fitz, what am I to do with you? How can I protect you when you invite troubles on yourself? And why do they want to take you off like this anyway?”

The last two questions, put to himself, betrayed his real concern. Perhaps I was a trifle stupid not to have seen it. He wasn’t going. I was. For no good reason that he could discern. Burrich had lived long enough near court to be very cautious. For the first time since he had been entrusted with my care, I was being removed from his watchfulness. It had not been so long since my father had been buried. And so he wondered, though he didn’t dare say, whether I would be coming back or if someone was making the opportunity to quietly dispose of me. I realized what a blow to his pride and reputation it would be if I were to be “vanished.” So I sighed, and then carefully commented that perhaps they wanted an extra hand with the horses and dogs. Verity went nowhere without Leon, his wolfhound. Only two days
before he had complimented me on how well I managed him. This I repeated to Burrich, and it was gratifying to see how well this small subterfuge worked. Relief flooded his face, then pride that he had taught me well. The topic instantly shifted from manners to the correct care of the wolfhound. If the lectures on manners had wearied me, the repetition of hound lore was almost painfully tedious. When he released me to go to my other lessons, I left with winged feet.

I went through the rest of the day in a distracted haze that had Hod threatening me with a good whipping if I didn’t attend to what I was doing. Then she shook her head over me, sighed, and told me to run along and come back when I had a mind again. I was only too happy to obey her. The thought of actually leaving Buckkeep and journeying, journeying all the way to Neatbay was all I could fit inside my head. I knew I should wonder why I was going, but felt sure Chade would advise me soon. Would we go by land or by sea? I wished I had asked Burrich. The roads to Neatbay were not the best, I’d heard, but I wouldn’t mind. Sooty and I had never been on a long journey together. But a sea trip, on a real ship . . .

I took the long way back to the keep, up a path that went through a lightly wooded bit of rocky hillside. Paper birches struggled there, and a few alder, but mostly it was nondescript brush. Sunlight and a light breeze were playing together in the higher branches, giving the day a fey and dappled air. I lifted my eyes to the dazzle of sun through the birch leaves, and when I looked down, the King’s fool stood before me.

I stopped in my tracks, astonished. Reflexively, I looked for the King, despite how ridiculous it would have been to find him here. But the Fool was alone. And outside, in the daylight! The thought made the hair on my arms and neck stand up in my tightened skin. It was common knowledge in the keep that the King’s fool could not abide the light of day. Common knowledge. Yet, despite what every page and kitchen maid nattered knowingly, there stood the Fool, pale hair floating in the light breeze. The blue and red silk of his motley jacket and trousers was startlingly bright against his paleness. But his eyes were not as colorless as they were in the dim passages of the keep. As I received their stare from only a few feet away in the light of day, I perceived there was a blueness to them, very pale, as if a single drop of pale blue wax had fallen onto a white platter. The whiteness of his skin was an illusion also, for out here in the dappling sunlight I could see a pinkness suffused him from within. Blood, I realized with a sudden quailing. Red blood showing through layers of skin.

The Fool took no notice of my whispered comment. Instead, a finger was held aloft, as if to pause not only my thoughts but the very day around us. But I could not have focused my attention more completely on anything, and when he was satisfied of this, the Fool smiled, showing small white separate teeth, like a baby’s new smile in a boy’s mouth.

“Fitz!” he intoned in a piping voice. “Fitz fitz fice fitz. Fatz sfitz.” He stopped abruptly, and again gave me that smile. I stared back uncertainly, without word or movement.

Again the finger soared aloft, and this time was shaken at
me. “Fitz! Fitz fix fice fitz. Fats sfitzes.” He cocked his head at me, and the movement sent the dandelion fluff of his hair wafting in a new direction.

I was beginning to lose my fear of him. “Fitz,” I said carefully, and tapped my chest with my forefinger. “Fitz, that’s me. Yes. My name is Fitz. Are you lost?” I tried to make my voice gentle and reassuring so as not to alarm the poor creature. For surely he had somehow wandered off from the keep, and that was why he seemed so delighted to find a familiar face.

He took a breath through his nose, and then shook his head violently, until his hair stood out all around his skull like a flame around a windblown candle. “Fitz!” he said emphatically, his voice cracking a little. “Fitz fitzes fyces fitz. Fatzafices.”

“It’s all right,” I said soothingly. I crouched a bit, though in reality I was not that much taller than the Fool. I made a soft beckoning motion with my open hand. “Come along, then. Come along. I’ll show you the way back home. All right? Don’t be afraid now.”

Abruptly the Fool dropped his hands to his sides. Then he lifted his face and rolled his eyes at the heavens. He looked back at me fixedly and poked his mouth out as if he wanted to spit.

“Come along now.” I beckoned to him again.

“No,” he said, quite plainly in an exasperated voice. “Listen to me, you idiot. Fitz fixes fyces fitz. Fatsafices.”

“What?” I asked, startled.

“I said,” he enunciated elaborately. “Fitz fixes fyce fits. Fat suffices.” He bowed, turned, and began to walk away from me, up the trail.

“Wait!” I demanded. My ears were turning red with my embarrassment. How do you politely explain to someone that you had believed for years that he was a moron as well as a fool? I couldn’t. So: “What does all that fitzy-ficeys stuff mean? Are you making fun of me?”

“Hardly.” He paused long enough to turn and say, “Fitz fixes feists fits. Fat suffices. It’s a message, I believe. A calling for a significant act. As you are the only one I know who endures being called Fitz, I believe it’s for you. As for what it means, how should I know? I’m a fool, not an interpreter of dreams. Good day.” Again he turned away from me, but this time instead of continuing up the path, he stepped off it, into a clump of buckbrush. I hurried after him, but when I got to where he had left the path, he was gone. I stood still, peering into the open, sun-dappled woods, thinking I should see a bush still swaying from his passage, or catch a glimpse of his motley jacket. But there was no sign of him.

And no sense at all to his silly message. I mulled over the strange encounter all the way back to the keep, but in the end I set it aside as a strange but random occurrence.

Not that night, but the next, Chade called me. Burning with curiosity, I raced up the stairs. But when I reached the top, I halted, knowing that my questions would have to wait. For there sat Chade at the stone table, Slink perched atop his shoulders, and a new scroll half-unwound on the table before him. A glass
of wine weighted one end as his crooked finger traveled slowly down some sort of listing. I glanced at it as I passed. It was a list of villages and dates. Beneath each village name was a tally—so many warriors, so many merchants, so many sheep or casks of ale or measures of grain, and so on. I sat down on the opposite side of the table and waited. I had learned not to interrupt Chade.