by Robin Hobb
I climbed the stairs to my room, thinking of what I had wrought over the past few days. I had resolved to set the cub free. Instead, we had become brothers. I was not sorry. I had gone to warn Verity of new Forged ones near Buckkeep. Instead, I had found he already knew about them, and had gained for myself the task of studying the Elderlings and trying to discover other Skilled ones. I had asked him to give the garden to Kettricken, to busy her mind away from her hurts. Instead, I had deceived her, and bound her more to her love for Verity. I paused to catch my breath on a landing. Perhaps, I reflected, we all danced to the Fool’s tune. Had not he suggested some of these very things to me?
Page 98
I felt again the brass key in my pocket. Now was as good a time as any. Verity was not in his bedchamber, but Charim was. He had no qualms about allowing me to come in and use the key. I took an armload of the scrolls I found there; there were more than I had expected. I bore them back to my room and set them down on my dressing chest. I built up the fire in the fireplace. I peeked at the dressing on the bite on my neck. It was an ugly wad of cloth, saturated with blood. I knew I should change it. I dreaded pulling it loose. In a while. I put more wood on my fire. I sorted through the scrolls. Spidery little writing, faded illustrations. Then I lifted my eyes and looked around my room.
A bed. A chest. A small stand by the bed. A ewer and bowl for wash water. A truly ugly tapestry of King Wisdom conferring with a yellowish Elderling. A branch of candles on the mantel. It had scarcely changed in the years I had lived here from the first night I had moved into it. It was a bare and dreary room, devoid of imagination. Suddenly I was a bare and dreary person, devoid of imagination. I fetched and I hunted and I killed. I obeyed. More hound than man. And not even a favored hound, to be petted and praised. One of the working pack. When was the last time I had heard from Shrewd? Or Chade. Even the Fool mocked me. What was I, anymore, to anyone, except a tool? Was there anyone left who cared for me, myself? Suddenly I could no longer abide my own company. I set down the scroll I had picked up and left my room.
When I knocked at the door of Patience’s room, there was a pause. “Who is it?” came Lacey’s voice.
“Only FitzChivalry. ”
“FitzChivalry!” A bit of surprise in the tone. It was late for a visit from me. Usually I came during the day. Then I was comforted to hear the sound of a bar being removed, and a latch worked. She had paid attention to what I had told her, I thought. The door opened slowly and Lacey stepped back to admit me, smiling dubiously.
I stepped in, greeting Lacey warmly, and then glanced about for Patience. She was in the other chamber, I surmised. But in a corner, eyes lowered over needlework, sat Molly. She did not look up at me or acknowledge my presence at all. Her hair was tidied back in a bun under a lacy little cap. On another woman, her blue dress might have been simple and modest. On Molly it was drab. Her eyes stayed down on her work. I glanced at Lacey to find her regarding me levelly. I looked at Molly again and something inside me gave way. It took me four steps to cross the room to her. I knelt beside her chair and as she drew back from me, I seized her hand and carried it to my lips.
“FitzChivalry!” Patience’s voice behind me was outraged. I glanced at her framed in the doorway. Her lips were set flat in anger. I turned away from her.
Molly had turned her face aside from me. I held her hand and spoke quietly. “I cannot go on like this anymore. No matter how foolish, no matter how dangerous, no matter what any other may think. I cannot be always apart from you. ”
She pulled her hand away from me, and I let it go not to hurt her fingers. But I grasped at her skirt and clutched a fold of it like a stubborn child. “At least speak to me,” I begged her, but it was Patience who spoke.
“FitzChivalry, this is not seemly. Stop it at once. ”
“It was not seemly, nor wise, nor appropriate for my father to court you as he did, either. But he did not hesitate. I suspect he felt much as I do right now. ” I did not look away from Molly.
That won me a moment of startled silence from Patience. But it was Molly who set aside her needlework and rose. She stepped away, and when it became clear that I must let go or tear the fabric of her skirt, I released it. She stepped clear of me. “If my lady Patience will excuse me for the evening?”
“Certainly,” Patience replied, but her voice was not at all certain.
“If you go away, there is nothing for me. ” I knew I sounded too dramatic. I was still on my knees by her chair.
“If I stay, there is still nothing for you. ” Molly spoke levelly as she took off her apron and hung it on a hook. “I am a serving girl. You are a young noble, of the royal family. There can never be anything between us. I’ve come to see that, over the last few weeks. ”
“No. ” I rose and stepped toward her, but forbore to touch her. “You are Molly and I am Newboy. ”
“Maybe. Once,” Molly conceded. Then she sighed. “But not now. Do not make this harder for me than it is, sir. You must leave me in peace. I have nowhere else to go; I must stay here and work, at least until I earn enough…. ” She shook her head suddenly. “Good evening, my lady. Lacey. Sir. ” She turned aside from me. Lacey stood silently. I noticed she did not open the door for Molly, but Molly did not pause there. The door shut very firmly behind her. A terrible silence welled up in the room.
Page 99
“Well,” Patience breathed at last. “I am glad to see that at least one of you has some sense. What on earth were you thinking, FitzChivalry, to barge in here and all but attack my maid?”
“I was thinking that I loved her,” I said bluntly. I dropped into a chair and put my head into my hands. “I was thinking that I am very weary of being so alone. ”
“That is why you came here?” Patience sounded almost offended.
“No. I came here to see you. I did not know she would be here. But when I saw her, it just came over me. It’s true, Patience. I cannot go on like this. ”
“Well, you’d better, because you’re going to have to. ” The words were hard, but she sighed as she said them.
“Does Molly speak of it … of me? To you. I must know. Please. ” I battered at their silence and exchanged looks. “Does she truly wish me to leave her alone? Have I become so despised of her? Have I not done all you demanded of me? I have waited, Patience. I have avoided her, I have taken care not to cause talk. But when is an end to it? Or is this your plan? To keep us apart until we forget each other? It cannot work. I am not a babe, and this is not some bauble you hide from me, to distract me with other toys. This is Molly. And she is my heart and I will not let her go. ”
“I am afraid you must. ” Patience said the words heavily.
“Why? Has she chosen another?”
Patience batted my words away as if they were flies. “No. She is not fickle, not that one. She is smart and diligent and full of wit and spirit. I can see how you lost your heart to her. But she also has pride. She has come to see what you refuse. That you come, each of you, from places so far apart that there can be no meeting in the middle. Even were Shrewd to consent to a marriage, which I very much doubt, how would you live? You cannot leave the Keep, to go down to Buckkeep Town and work in a candle shop. You know you cannot. And what status would she enjoy if you kept her here? Despite her goodness, people who did not know her well would see only the differences in your rank. She would be seen as a low appetite you had indulged. ‘Oh, the Bastard, he had an eye for his stepmother’s maid. I fancy he caught her around the corner one time too many, and now he has to pay the piper. ’ You know the kind of talk I mean. ”
I did. “I don’t care what folk would say. ”
“Perhaps you could endure it. But what of Molly? What of your children?”
I was silent. Patience looked down at her hands idle in her lap. “You are young, FitzChivalry. ” She spoke very quietly, very soothingly. “I know you do not believe it
now. But, you may meet another. One closer to your station. And she may also. Maybe she deserves that chance at happiness. Perhaps you should draw back. Give yourself a year or so. And if your heart has not changed by then, well …”
“My heart will not change. ”
“Nor will hers, I fear. ” Patience spoke bluntly. “She cared for you, Fitz. Not knowing who you really were, she gave her heart to you. She has said as much. I do not wish to betray her confidences to me, but if you do as she asks and leave her alone, she can never tell you herself. So I will speak, and hope you hold me harmless for the pain I must give you. She knows this can never be. She does not want to be a servant marrying a noble. She does not want her children to be the daughters and sons of a Keep servant. So she saves the little I am able to pay her. She buys her wax and her scents, and works still at her trade, as best as she is able. She means to save enough, somehow, to begin again, with her own chandlery. It will not be soon. But that is her goal. ” Patience paused. “She sees no place in that life for you. ”
I sat a long time, thinking. Neither Lacey nor Patience spoke. Lacey moved slowly through our stillness, brewing tea. She pushed a cup of it into my hand. I lifted my eyes and tried to smile at her. I set the tea carefully aside. “Did you know, from the beginning, that it would come to this?” I asked.
“I feared it,” Patience said simply. “But I also knew there was nothing I could do about it. Nor can you. ”
I sat still, not even thinking. Under the old hut, in a scratched-out hollow, Nighteyes was dozing with his nose over a bone. I touched him softly, not even waking him. His calm breathing was an anchor. I steadied myself against him.
“Fitz? What will you do?”
Tears stung my eyes. I blinked, and it passed. “What I am told,” I said heavily. “When have I ever done otherwise?”
Patience was silent as I got slowly to my feet. The wound on my neck was throbbing. I suddenly wanted only to sleep. She nodded to me as I excused myself. At the door I paused. “Why I came this evening. Besides to see you. Queen Kettricken will be restoring the Queen’s Garden. The one on top of the tower. She mentioned she would like to know how the garden was originally arranged. In Queen Constance’s time. I thought perhaps you could recall it for her. ”
Page 100
Patience hesitated. “I do recall it. Very well. ” She was quiet for a moment, then brightened. “I will draw it out for you, and explain it. Then you could go to the Queen. ”
I met her eyes. “I think you should go to her. I think it would please her very much. ”
“Fitz, I have never been good with people. ” Her voice faltered. “I am sure she would find me odd. Boring. I could not—” Her voice stuttered to a halt.
“Queen Kettricken is very alone,” I said quietly. “There are ladies around her, but I do not think she has real friends. Once, you were queen-in-waiting. Cannot you recall what it was like?”
“Very different for her than it was for me, I should think. ”
“Probably,” I agreed. I turned to go. “For one thing, you had an attentive and loving husband. ” Behind me Patience made a small shocked sound. “And I do not think Prince Regal was as … clever then as he is now. And you had Lacey to support you. Yes, Lady Patience. I am sure it is very different for her. Much harder. ”
“FitzChivalry!”
I paused at the door. “Yes, my lady?”
“Turn about when I speak to you!”
I turned slowly and she actually stamped the floor at me. “This ill becomes you. You seek to shame me! Think you that I do not do my duty? That I do not know my duty?”
“My lady?”
“I shall go to her, tomorrow. And she will think me odd and awkward and flighty. She will be bored with me and wish I had never come. And then you shall apologize to me for making me do it. ”
“I am sure you know best, my lady. ”
“Take your courtier’s manners and go. Insufferable boy. ” She stamped her foot again, then whirled and fled back into her bedchamber. Lacey held the door for me as I left. Her lips were folded in a flat line, her demeanor subdued.
“Well?” I asked her as I left, knowing she had words left to say to me.
“I was thinking that you are very like your father,” Lacey observed tartly. “Except not quite as stubborn. He did not give up as easily as you have. ” She shut the door firmly behind me.
I looked at the closed door for a while, then headed back to my room. I knew I had to change the dressing on my neck wound. I climbed the flight of stairs, my arm throbbing at every step. I halted on the landing. For a time I watched the candles burning in their holders. I climbed the next flight of stairs.
I knocked steadily for several minutes. A yellow candlelight had been coming out the crack under her door, but as I knocked, it suddenly winked out. I took out my knife and experimented, loudly, with the latch on her door. She’d changed it. There seemed to be a bar as well, a heavier one than the tip of my blade would lift. I gave it up and left.
Down is always easier than up. In fact, it can be too much easier, when one arm is already injured. I looked down at the waves breaking like white lace on the rocks far away. Nighteyes had been right. The moon had managed to come out for a bit. The rope slipped a bit through my gloved hand and I grunted as my injured arm had to take my weight. Only a little more, I promised myself. I let myself down another two steps.
The ledge of Molly’s window was narrower than I had hoped it would be. I kept the rope in a wrap around my arm as I perched there. My knife blade slipped easily into the crack between the shutters; they were very poorly fitted. The upper catch had yielded and I was working on the lower one when I heard her voice from inside.
“If you come in, I shall scream. The guards will come. ”
“Then you’d best put on tea for them,” I replied grimly, and went back to wriggling at the lower catch.
In a moment Molly snatched the shutters open. She stood framed in the window, the dancing light of the fire on the hearth illuminating her from behind. She was in her nightdress, but she hadn’t braided her hair back yet. It was loose and gleaming from brushing. She had thrown a shawl over her shoulders.
“Go away,” she told me fiercely. “Get out of here. ”
“I can’t,” I panted. “I haven’t the strength to climb back up, and the rope isn’t long enough to reach to the base of the wall. ”
“You can’t come in,” she repeated stubbornly.
“Very well. ” I seated myself on the windowsill, one leg inside the room, the other dangling out the window. Wind gusted past me, stirring her night robe and fanning the flames of the fire. I said nothing. After a moment she began to shiver.
“What do you want?” she demanded angrily.
“You. I wanted to tell you that tomorrow I am going to the King to ask permission to marry you. ” The words came out of my mouth with no planning. I was suddenly giddily aware that I could say and do anything. Anything at all.
Page 101
Molly stared a moment. Her voice was low as she said, “I do not wish to marry you. ”
“I wasn’t going to tell him that part. ” I found myself grinning at her.
“You are intolerable!”
“Yes. And very cold. Please, at least let me come in out of the cold. ”
She did not give me permission. But she did stand back from the window. I jumped lightly in, ignoring the jolt to my arm. I closed and fastened the shutters. I walked across the room. I knelt by her hearth and built up the fire well with logs to chase the chill from the room. Then I stood, thawing my hands at it. Molly said not a word. She stood sword straight, her arms crossed on her chest. I glanced over at her and smiled.
She didn’t smile. “You should go. ”
I felt my own smile fade. “Molly, please, just talk to me. I thought, the last time we spoke, that we understood each other.
Now you don’t speak to me, you turn away…. I don’t know what changed, I don’t understand what is happening between us. ”
“Nothing. ” She suddenly looked very fragile. “Nothing is happening between us. Nothing can happen between us. FitzChivalry”—and that name sounded so strange on her lips—“I’ve had time to think. If you had come to me, like this, a week ago, or a month ago, impetuous and smiling, I know I would have been won over. ” She permitted herself the ghost of a sad smile. As if she were remembering the way a dead child had skipped on some long-ago summer day. “But you didn’t. You were correct and practical, and did all the right things. And foolish as it may sound, that hurt me. I told myself that if you loved me as deeply as you had declared you did, nothing—not walls, not manners or reputation or protocol—would get in the way of your seeing me. That night, when you came, when we … but it changed nothing. You did not come back. ”
“But it was for your sake, for your reputation—” I began desperately.
“Hush. I told you it was foolish. But feelings do not have to be wise. Feelings just are. Your loving me was not wise. Nor my caring for you. I’ve come to see that. And I’ve come to see that wisdom must overrule feelings. ” She sighed. “I was so angry when your uncle first spoke to me. So outraged. He made me defiant, he gave me a steel resolve to stay in spite of everything that stood between us. But I am not a stone. Even if I were, even a stone can be worn away by the constant cold drip of common sense. ”
“My uncle? Prince Regal?” I was incredulous at the betrayal.
She nodded slowly. “He wished me to keep his visit to myself. Nothing, he said, could be gained by your knowing of it. He needed to act in his family’s best interests. He said I should understand that. I did, but it made me angry. It was only over time that he made me see that it was in my own best interests as well. ” She paused and brushed a hand over her cheek. She was crying. Silently, just the tears running as she spoke.
I walked across the room to her. Tentatively, I took her into my arms. She didn’t resist, and that surprised me. I held her carefully, as if she were a butterfly that might be crushed too easily. She leaned her head forward, so that her forehead barely rested on my shoulder, and spoke into my chest. “In a few more months, I will have saved enough that I can start out on my own again. Not open a business, but rent a room somewhere, and find work to sustain me. And begin to start saving for a shop. That’s what I intend to do. Lady Patience is kind, and Lacey has become a real friend to me. But I do not like being a servant. And I will do it no longer than I have to. ” She stopped speaking and stood still in my arms. She was trembling lightly, as if from exhaustion. She seemed to have run out of words.
