by Robin Hobb
"Don't," I warned her, not of her tone but of that name. We had always taken great pains that Hap knew me only as Tom. I knew it was no accident that she spoke that name aloud now, but a reminder that she held my secrets.
"I won't," she assured me, but it was a knife sheathed. "I but remind you that you lead two lives, and you lead them very well. Why begrudge that to me?"
"I don't think of it that way. This is the only life I have now. And I but try to do by your husband as I would wish another man to do by me. Or will you tell me that he knows of me, and does not care?"
"Exactly the opposite. He does not know, and therefore does not care. And if you look at it carefully, you will see it comes out to exactly the same thing."
"Not for me."
"Well, for a time it was the same for you. Until Hap saw fit to ruin it. You've inflicted your stiff standards on yet another young man. I hope you take great pride in knowing you've raised another moralistic, judgmental prig like yourself." Her words slapped me as she began to slam about the room, throwing her things together. I finally turned to look at her. Her color was very high, her hair tousled from sleep. She wore only my shirt. The hem of it grazed her thighs. She halted when I turned to look at her and stared back at me. She drew herself up, as if to be sure I must see all I was refusing. "What does it hurt?" she demanded.
"Your husband, if he ever gets word of it," I said quietly. "Hap gave me to understand he's a noble of some kind. Gossip can do more damage to that kind of man than a knife. Consider his dignity, the dignity of his house. Don't make him some old fool taken with a lively younger woman."
"Old fool?" She looked perplexed. "I don't… Hap told you he was old?"
I felt off balance. "He said he was a grand man…"
"Grand, yes, but scarcely old. Quite the opposite." She smiled oddly, caught between pride and embarrassment. "He's twenty-four, Fitz. A fine dancer and strong as a young bull. What did you think, that I'd pastured myself out to warm some elderly lord's bed?"
I had. "I thought—"
She was suddenly almost defiant, as if I had belittled her. "He's handsome and he's charming, and he could have had his pick of any number of women. He chose me. And in my own way, I do, truly, love him. He makes me feel young and desirable and capable of real passion."
"What did I make you feel?" I asked unwillingly, my voice low. I knew I was inviting more pain but I couldn't stop myself.
That puzzled her for a moment. "Comfortable," she said at last, with no thought for my feelings. "Accepted and valued." She smiled suddenly, and her expression cut me. "Generous, giving you what no one else would. And more. Worldly and adventurous. Like a bright songbird come to visit a wren."
"You were that," I conceded. I looked away from her, toward the window. "But no more, Starling. Never again. Perhaps you think my life a poor thing, but it is mine. I won't steal the crumbs from another man's table. I have that much pride."
"You can't afford that kind of pride," she said bluntly. She pushed her hair back from her face. "Look around you, Fitz. A dozen years on your own, and what do you have? A cottage in the forest, and a handful of chickens. What do you have for brightness or warmth or sweetness? Only me. Perhaps it's only a day or two of my life, here and there, but I'm the only real person in your life." Her voice grew harder. "Crumbs from another man's table are better than starving. You need me."
"Hap. Nighteyes," I pointed out coldly.
She dismissed them. "An orphan boy I brought you and a decrepit wolf."
That she should disparage them so not only affronted me, it forced me to face how differently we perceived things. I suppose that if we had lived together, day in and day out, such disagreements would have manifested themselves long ago. But the interludes we had shared had not been ones of philosophical discussions, or even practical considerations. We had come together at her convenience, to share my bed and my table. She had slept and eaten and sung and watched me at my tasks in a life she didn't share. The minor disagreements we had were forgotten between one visit and the next. She had brought me Hap as if he were a stray kitten, and given no thought since then as to what we might have become to one another. This quarrel was not only ending what we had shared, but exposing that we had truly shared very little at all. I felt twice devastated by it. Bitter words from a past life came back to me. The Fool had warned me: "She has no true affection for Fitz, you know, only for being able to say she knew FitzChivalry." Perhaps, despite all the years we'd shared, that was still true.
I held my tongue for fear of all I might say; I think she mistook my silence for a wavering in my resolve. She suddenly took a deep breath. She smiled at me wearily. "Oh, Fitz. We need one another in ways neither of us likes to admit." She gave a small sigh. "Make breakfast. I'm going to get dressed. Things always seem worst in the morning on an empty stomach." She left the room.
A fatalistic patience came over me. I set out the breakfast things as she dressed. I knew I had reached my decision. It was as if Hap's words last night had extinguished a candle inside me. My feelings for Starling had changed that completely. We sat at table together, and she tried to make all seem as it had before; but I kept thinking, This is probably the last time I'll watch how she swirls her tea to cool it, or how she waves her bread about as she talks. I let her talk, and she kept her words to inconsequential things, trying to fix my interest on where she planned to go next, and what Lady Amity had worn to some occasion. The more she talked, the farther away she seemed from me. As I watched her, I had the strangest sense of something forgotten, something missed. She took another piece of cheese, alternating bites of it and the bread.
A sudden realization trickled through me like a drop of cold water down the spine. I interrupted her.
"You knew Chade was coming to see me."
A fraction of a second too late, she lifted her brows in surprise. "Chade? Here?"
These were habits of mind I thought I had discarded. Ways of thinking, taught to me painstakingly by a skilled mentor in the hours between dusk and dawn during the years of my youth. It was a way of sifting facts and assembling them, a training that let the mind make swift leaps to conclusions that were not conjectures. Begin with a simple observation. Starling had not commented on the cheese. Any cheese was a luxury for the boy and me, let alone a fine ripe cheese like this one. She should have been surprised to see it on my table, but she was not. She had said nothing of the Sandsedge brandy last night. Because neither had surprised her. I was both astonished and pleased, in a horrified way, at how swiftly my mind leapt from point to point, until I suddenly looked down on the inevitable landscape the facts formed. "You've never offered to take Hap anywhere before this. You took the boy off to Buckkeep so that Chade could see me alone." One possible conclusion from that chilled me. "In case he had to kill me. There would be no witnesses."
"Fitz!" she rebuked me, both angry and shocked.
I almost didn't hear her. Once the pebbles of thought had started bouncing, the avalanche of conclusions was bound to follow. "All these years. All your visits. You've been his eyes on me, haven't you? Tell me. Do you check on Burrich and Nettle several times a year as well?"
She looked at me coldly, denying nothing. "I had to seek them out. To give Burrich the horses. You wanted me to do that."
Yes. My mind raced on. The horses would have served as a perfect introduction. Any other gift, Burrich would have refused. But Ruddy was rightfully his, a gift from Verity. All those years ago, Starling had told him that the Queen had sent Sooty's colt as well, in token of services done for the Farseers. I looked at her, waiting for the rest. She was a minstrel. She loved to talk. All I need do was provide the silence.
She set her bread down. "When I am in that area, I visit them, yes. And when I return to Buckkeep, if Chade knows I have been there, he asks after them. Just as he asks after you."
"And the Fool? Do you know his whereabouts as well?"
"No." The answer was succinct, and I believed it true. But she
was a minstrel, and for her the power of a secret was always in the telling of it. She had to add, "But I think that Burrich does. Once or twice, when I have visited there, there have been toys about, far finer than anything Burrich could afford for Nettle. One was a doll that put me very much in mind of the Fool's puppets. Another time, there was a string of wooden beads, each carved like a little face."
That was interesting, but I did not let it show in my eyes. I asked her directly the question that was foremost on my mind. "Why would Chade consider me a threat to the Farseers? It is the only reason I know that might make him think he must kill me."
Something akin to pity came into her face. "You truly believe that, don't you? That Chade could kill you. That I would help by luring the boy away."
"I know Chade."
"And he knows you." The words were almost an accusation. "He once told me that you were incapable of completely trusting anyone. That wanting to trust, and fearing to, would always divide your soul. No. I think the old man simply wanted to see you alone so he could speak freely to you. To have you to himself, and to see for himself how you were doing, after all your years of silence."
She had a minstrel's way with words and tone. She made it seem as if my avoiding Buckkeep had been both rude and cruel to my friends. The truth was that it had been a matter of survival.
"What did Chade talk about with you?" she asked, too casually.
I met her gaze steadily. "I think you know," I replied, wondering if she did.
Her expression changed and I could see her mind working. So. Chade hadn't entrusted the truth of his mission to her. However, she was bright and quick and had many of the pieces. I waited for her to put it together.
"Old Blood," she said quietly. "The Piebald threats."
There have been many times in my life when I have been shocked and have had to conceal it. That time, I think, was most difficult for me. She watched my face carefully as she spoke. "It is a trouble that has been brewing for a time, and looks to be coming to a boil now. At Springfest, on the Night of the Minstrels, where all vie to perform for their monarch, one minstrel sang the old song about the Piebald Prince. You recall it?"
I did. It told of a princess carried off by a Witted one in the form of a piebald stallion. Once they were alone, he took his man's shape and seduced her. She gave birth to a bastard son, mottled dark and light just as his sire had been. By treachery and spite, her bastard came to the throne, to rule cruelly with the aid of his Witted cohorts. The entire kingdom had suffered, until, so the song said, his cousin, of pure Farseer blood, had rallied six nobles' sons to his cause. At the summer solstice, when the sun stood at noon and the Piebald Prince's powers were weakest, they fell upon him and slew him. They hanged him, then chopped his body to pieces, and then burned the pieces over water, to wash his spirit far away lest it find a home in some beast's body. The song's method of dealing with the Piebald Prince had become the traditional way to be surely rid of Witted ones. Regal had been very disappointed that he had not been able to serve me so.
"Not my favorite song," I said quietly.
"Understandably. However, Slek sang it well, to much applause, more than his voice truly merits. He has that quaver at the end of his notes that some find endearing, but in truth is the sign of a voice with poor control…" She suddenly realized she was wandering from her topic. "Feelings run high against the Witted these days. The Witted ones have been restless of late, and one hears wild tales. I have heard that in one village where a Witted man was hanged and burned, all the sheep died four days later. Just dropped in the fields. Folk said it was his family's revenge. But when they went for vengeance against his kin, they found them long gone. There was a scroll left tacked to the door of their house. All it said was, 'You deserved it. There have been other incidents as well."
I met her eyes. "So Hap told me," I admitted.
She nodded curtly. She rose from the table and stepped clear of it. A minstrel to the bone, she had a story to tell, and demanded a stage for it. "Well. After Slek sang The Piebald Prince, another minstrel came forward. He was very young, and perhaps that was why he was so foolish. He doffed his cap to Queen Kettricken, and then said he would follow The Piebald Prince with another song, of more recent vintage. When he said he had heard it first in a hamlet of Witted folk, muttering ran through the crowd. All have heard rumors of such places, but never have I heard someone claim to have been to one. When the mutter died, he launched into a song had never heard before. The tune was derivative, but the words were new to me, as raw as his voice." She cocked her head at me and regarded me speculatively. "This song was of Chivalry's Bastard. It touched on all he had done before his Witted taint was revealed. He even stole a phrase or two from my song 'Antler Island Tower', if you can believe the gall of that! Then, this song went on that this 'Farseer's son with Old Blood blessed, of royal blood and wild, the best' had not died in the Pretender's dungeon. According to this song, the Bastard had lived, and been true to his father's family. The minstrel sang that when King Verity went off to seek the Elderlings, the Bastard rose from his grave to rally to his rightful King's aid. The minstrel sang a stirring scene of how the Bastard called Verity back through the gates of death, to show him a garden of stone dragons that could be wakened to the Six Duchies' cause. That, at least, had the ring of truth to it. It made me sit up and wonder, even if his voice was growing hoarse by then." She paused, waiting for me to speak, but I had no words. She shrugged, then observed caustically, "If you wanted a song made of those days, you might have thought of me first. I was there, you know. In fact, it was why I was there. And I am a far better minstrel than that boy was." There was a quiver of jealous outrage in her voice.
"I had nothing to do with that song, as I'm sure you must realize. I wish no one had ever heard it."
"Well, you've little enough to worry about there." She said the words with deep satisfaction. "I'd never heard it before that day, nor since. It was not well made, the tune did not fit the theme, the words were ragged, the -"
"Starling."
"Oh, very well. He gave the song the traditional heroic ending. That if ever the Farseer crown demanded it, the true-hearted Witted Bastard would return to aid the kingdom. At the end of the song, some of the Springfest crowd yelled insults at him and someone said he was likely Witted himself and fit for burning. Queen Kettricken commanded them to silence, but at the end of the evening, she gave him no purse as she did the other minstrels."
I kept silent, passing no judgment on that. When I did not rise to her bait, Starling added, "Because he had vanished when it came time for her to reward those who had pleased her. She called his name first, but no one knew where he had gone. His name was unfamiliar to me. Tagsson."
Son of Tag, grandson of Reaver, I could have told her. And both Reaver and Tag had been very able members of Verity's Buckkeep guard. My mind reached back through the years to find Tag's face as he knelt before Verity in the Stone Garden before the gates of death. Yes, so I supposed it had looked to him, Verity stepping out from the stark black Skill-pillar and into the uncertain circle of the fire-light. Tag had recognized his King, despite all hardship had done to Verity. He had proclaimed his loyalty to him, and Verity had sent him on his way, bidding him return to Buckkeep and tell all there that the rightful King would return. In thinking back on it, I was almost certain that Verity had arrived at Buckkeep before the soldier did. Dragons a-wing are a deal faster than a man on foot.
I had not known Tag had recognized me as well. Who could ever have foreseen he would pass on that tale, let alone that he would have a minstrel for a son?
"I see that you know him," Starling said quietly.
I glanced at her to find her eyes reading my face greedily. I sighed. "I know no Tagsson. I'm afraid my mind wandered back to something you said earlier. The Witted have grown restless. Why?"
She lifted an eyebrow at me. "I thought you would better know than I."
"I lead a solitary life, Starling, as well yo
u know. I'm in a poor position to hear tidings of any kind, save what you bring me." It was my turn to study her. "And this was information you never shared with me."
She looked away from me and I wondered: had she decided to keep it from me? Had Chade bade her not speak of it to me? Or had it been crowded from her mind by her stories of nobles she had played for, and acclaim she had received? "It isn't a pretty tale. I suppose it began a year and a half ago… perhaps two. It seemed to me then that I began to hear more often of Witted ones being found out and punished. Or killed. You know how people are, Fitz. For a time after the Red Ship War, I am sure they had their glut of killing and blood. But when the enemy is finally driven far from your shore, and your houses are restored and your fields begin to yield and your flocks to increase, why, then it becomes time to find fault with your neighbors again. I think Regal wakened a lust for blood sport in the Six Duchies, with his King's Circle and justice by combat. I wonder if we shall ever be truly free of that legacy."
She had touched an old nightmare. The King's Circle at Tradeford, the caged beasts and the smell of Old Blood, trial by battle… the memory washed through me, leaving sickness in its wake.
"Two years ago… yes," Starling continued. She moved restlessly about the room as she considered it. "That was when the old hatred of Witted folk flared up again. The Queen spoke out against it, for your sake I imagine. She is a beloved queen, and she has wrought many changes during her rule, but in this, tradition runs too deep. The folk in the village think, Well, what can she know of our ways, Mountain-bred as she is? So although Queen Kettricken did not countenance it, the hounding of the Witted went on as it always has. Then, in Trenury in Farrow, about a year and a half ago, there was a horrifying incident. As the story came to Buckkeep, a Witted girl had a fox as her beast, and she cared not where it hunted so long as the blood ran every night."
I interrupted her. "A pet fox?"
