Читать книгу The Complete Farseer Trilogy - Робин Хобб - Страница 20

The Pocked Man is a well-known figure in the folklore and drama of the Six Duchies. It is a poor troupe of puppeteers who does not possess a marionette of the Pocked Man, not only for his traditional roles, but also for his usefulness as an omen of disaster to come in original productions. Sometimes the Pocked Man puppet is merely displayed against the backdrop, to cast an ominous note to a scene. Among the Six Duchies, he is a universal symbol.

It is said the root of his legend reaches back to the first peopling of the duchies, not the conquering by the Farseer Outislanders, but the most ancient settling of the place by earlier immigrants. Even the Outislanders have a version of the most basic legend. It is a warning story, of the wrath of El the Sea God at being forsaken.

When the sea was young, El the first Elder believed in the people of the islands. To that folk he gave his sea, and with it all that swam within it, and all lands it touched for their own. For many years, the folk were grateful. They fished the sea, lived on its shores wherever they would, and raided any others who dared to take up abode where El had given them reign. Others who dared to sail their sea were the rightful prey of the folk as well. The folk prospered and grew tough and strong for El’s sea winnowed them. Their lives were harsh and dangerous, but it made their boys grow to strong men and their maids fearless women at hearth or on deck. The folk respected El and to that Elder they offered their praises and only by him did they curse. And El took pride in his folk.

But in El’s generosity, he blessed his folk too well. Not enough of them died in the harsh winters, and the storms he sent were too mild to conquer their seamanship. So the folk grew in number. So grew also their herds and flocks. In fat years, weak children did not die, but grew, and stayed at home, and put land to the plough to feed the swollen flocks and herds and other weaklings like themselves. The soil-grubbers did not praise El for his strong winds and raiding currents. Instead, they praised and cursed only by Eda, who is the Elder of those who plough and plant and tend the beasts. So Eda blessed her weaklings with the increase of their plants and beasts. This did not please El, but he ignored them, for he still had the hardy folk of the ships and the waves. They blessed by him and they cursed by him, and to encourage their strength he sent them storms and cold winters.

But as time went on, those loyal to El dwindled. The soft folk of the soil seduced the sailors, and bore them children fit only for tending to the dirt. And the folk left the winter shores and ice-strewn pastures, and moved south, to the soft lands of grapes and grain. Fewer and fewer folk came each year to plough the waves and to reap the fish that El had decreed to them. Less and less often did El hear his name in a blessing or a curse. Until at last there was a day when there was only one left who only blessed or cursed in El’s name. And he was a skinny old man, too old for the sea, swollen and aching in his joints with few teeth left in his head. His blessings and curses were weak things and insulted more than pleased El, who had little use for rickety old men.

At last there came a storm that should have ended the old man and his small boat. But when the cold waves closed over him, he clung to the wreckage of his craft, and dared to cry El for mercy, though all know mercy is not in him. So enraged was El by this blasphemy that he would not receive the old man in to his sea, but instead cast him up upon the shore, and cursed him that he could never more sail, but neither could he die. And when he crawled from the salt waves, his face and body were pocked as if barnacles had clung to him, and he staggered to his feet and went forth into the soft lands. And everywhere he went, he saw only soft soil-grubbers. And he warned them of their folly, and that El would raise up a new and hardier folk and give their heritage to them. But the folk would not listen, so soft and set had they become. Yet everywhere the old man went, disease followed in his wake. And it was all the pox diseases he spread, the ones that care not if a man is strong or weak, hard or soft, but take any and all that they touch. And this was fitting, for all know that the poxes come up from bad dust and are spread by the turning of the soil.

Thus is the tale told. And so the Pocked Man has become the harbinger of death and disease, and a rebuke to those who live soft and easily because their lands bear well.

Verity’s return to Buckkeep was gravely marred by the events at Forge. Verity, pragmatic to a fault, had himself left Bayguard as soon as Dukes Kelvar and Shemshy had shown themselves in accord regarding Watch Island. Verity and his picked troops had actually left Bayguard before Chade and I returned to the inn. So the trek back had a hollow feel to it. During the days, and around the fires at night, folk spoke of Forge, and even within our caravan, the stories multiplied and embroidered themselves.

My journey home was spoiled by Chade’s resumption of his noisome charade as the vile old lady. I had to fetch and wait upon her, right up to the time that her Buckkeep servants appeared to escort her back up to her chambers. ‘She’ lived in the women’s wing, and though I devoted myself in the days to come to hear any and all gossip about her, I heard nothing except that she was reclusive and difficult. How Chade had created her and maintained her fictitious existence, I never completely discovered.

Buckkeep, in our absence, seemed to have undergone a tempest of new events, so that I felt as if we had been gone ten years rather than a matter of weeks. Not even Forge could completely eclipse Lady Grace’s performance. The story was told and re-told, with minstrels vying to see whose recounting would become the standard. I heard that Duke Kelvar actually went down on one knee and kissed the tips of her fingers after she had spoken, very eloquently, about making the towers the grand jewels of their land. One source even told me that Lord Shemshy had personally thanked the lady and sought often to dance with her that evening, and thus nearly precipitated an entirely different disagreement between the neighbouring dukedoms.

I was glad of her success. I even heard it whispered, more than once, that Prince Verity should find himself a lady of like sentiments. As often as he was away, settling internal matters and chasing raiders, the people were beginning to feel the need of a strong ruler at home. The old King, Shrewd, was still nominally our sovereign. But, as Burrich observed, the people tended to look ahead. ‘And’, he added, ‘folk like to know the King-in-Waiting has a warm bed to come home to. It gives them something to make their fancies about. Few enough of them can afford any romance in their lives, so they imagine all they can for their king. Or prince.’

But Verity himself, I knew, had no time to think about well-warmed beds, or any sort of bed at all. Forge had been both an example and a threat. Word of others followed, three in swift succession. Croft, up in the Near Islands, had apparently been ‘Raider-Forged’ as it came to be known, some weeks earlier. Word was slow to come from icy shores, but when it came, it was grim. Croft folk, too, had been taken hostage. The council of the town had, like Shrewd, been mystified by the Red Ships’ ultimatum that they pay tribute or their hostages would be returned. They had not paid. And like Forge, their hostages had been returned, mostly sound of body, but bereft of any of the kinder emotions of humanity. The whispered word was that Croft had been more direct in their solution. The harsh climates of the Near Islands bred a harsh people. Yet even they had deemed it kindness when they took the sword to their now-heartless kin.

Two other villages were raided after Forge. At Rockgate the folk had paid the ransom. Parts of bodies had washed up the next day, and the village had gathered to bury them. The news came to Buckkeep with no apologies; only with the unvoiced assumption that had the King been more vigilant, they would have had warning of the raid at least.

Sheepmire met the challenge squarely. They refused to pay the tribute, but with the rumours of Forge running hot through the land, they prepared themselves. They had met their returned hostages with halters and shackles. They took their own folk back, clubbing them senseless in some cases, before tying them and taking them back into their rightful homes. The village was united in attempting to bring them back to their former selves. The tales from Sheepmire were the most told ones; of a mother who snapped at a child brought to her for nursing, declaring as she cursed at it that she had no use for the whimpering, wet creature. Of the little child who cried and screamed at his bonds, only to fly at his own father with a toasting fork as soon as the heartbroken sire released him. Some cursed and fought and spat at their kin. Others settled into a life of bondage and idleness, eating the food and drinking the ale set before them, but offering no words of thanks or affection. Freed of restraints, those ones did not attack their own families, but neither did they work, nor even join with them in their evening pastimes. They stole without remorse, even from their own children, and squandered coin and gobbled food like gluttons. No joy they gave to anyone, not even a kind word. But the word from Sheepmire was that the folk there intended to persevere until the ‘Red Ship sickness’ passed. They gave the nobles at Buckkeep a bit of hope to cling to. They spoke of the courage of the villagers with admiration, and vowed that they, too, would do the same, if kin of theirs were Raider-Forged.

Sheepmire and its brave inhabitants became a rallying point for the Six Duchies. King Shrewd levied more taxes in their name. Some went to provide grain for those so occupied with caring for bound kin that they had no time to rebuild their ravaged flocks or replant their burned fields. And some went to build more ships and hire more men to patrol the coastlines.

At first folk took pride in what they would do. Those who lived on the sea-cliffs began to keep volunteer watch. Runners and messenger birds and signal fires were kept in place. Some villages sent sheep and supplies to Sheepmire, to be given to those who needed help most. But as the long weeks passed, and there was no sign that any of the returned hostages had recovered their sensibilities, those hopes and devotions began to seem pathetic rather than noble. Those who had most supported those efforts now declared that, were they taken hostage, they would choose to be hacked to pieces and thrown into the sea rather than returned to cause their families such hardship and heartbreak.

Worst, I think, was that in such a time the throne itself had no firm idea of what to do. Had a royal edict been issued, to say either that folk must or must not pay the demanded tribute for hostages, it would have gone better. No matter which, some folk would have disagreed. But at least the King would have taken a stand, and people would have had some sense that this threat was being faced. Instead, the increased patrols and watches only made it seem that the Buckkeep itself was in terror of this new threat, but had no strategy for facing it. In the absence of royal edict, the coastal villages took things into their own hands. The councils met, to decide what they would do if Forged. And some decided one way, and some the other.

‘But in every case,’ Chade told me wearily, ‘it matters not what they decide; it weakens their loyalty to the kingdom. Whether they pay the tribute or not, the Raiders may laugh over their blood-ale at us. For in deciding, our villagers are saying in their minds, not “if we are Forged” but “when we are Forged”. And thus they already have been raped in spirit if not in flesh. They look at their kin, mother at child, man at parents, and already they have given them up, to death or Forging. And the kingdom fails, for as each town must decide alone, so it is separated from the whole. We will shatter into a thousand little townships, each worrying only about what it will do for itself if it is raided. If Shrewd and Verity do not act quickly, the kingdom will become a thing that exists only in name, and in the minds of its former rulers.’

‘But what can they do?’ I demanded. ‘No matter what edict is passed, it will be wrong.’ I picked up the tongs and pushed the crucible I was tending a bit deeper into the flames.

‘Sometimes,’ grumbled Chade, ‘it is better to be defiantly wrong than silent. Look, boy, if you, a mere lad, can realize that either decision is wrong, so can all folk. But at least such an edict would give us a common response. It would not be as if each village were left to lick its own wounds. And in addition to such an edict, Shrewd and Verity should take other actions.’ He leaned closer to peer at the bubbling liquid. ‘More heat,’ he suggested.

I picked up a small bellows, plied it carefully. ‘Such as?’

‘Organize raids on the Outislanders in return. Provide vessels and supplies to any willing to undertake such a raid. Forbid that herds and flocks be grazed so temptingly on the coast pastures. Supply more arms to the villages if we cannot give each one men to protect it. By Eda’s plough, give them pellets of carris seed and nightshade, to carry in pouches about their wrists, so that if they are captured in a raid, they can take their own lives instead of being hostages. Anything, boy. Anything the King did at this point would be better than this damned indecisiveness.’

I sat staring at Chade. I had never heard him speak so forcefully, nor had I ever known him to criticize Shrewd so openly. It shocked me. I held my breath, hoping he’d say more but almost fearful of what I might hear. He seemed unaware of my stare. ‘Poke that a bit deeper. But be careful. If it explodes, King Shrewd may have himself two Pocked Men instead of one.’ He glanced at me. ‘Yes, that’s how I was marked. But it might have well and truly been a pox, for how Shrewd hears me lately. “Ill omens and warnings and cautions fill you,” he said to me. “But I think you want the boy trained in the Skill simply because you were not. It’s a bad ambition, Chade. Put it from you.” There speaks the Queen’s ghost with the King’s tongue.’

Chade’s bitterness filled me with stillness.

‘Chivalry. That’s who we need now,’ he went on after a moment. ‘Shrewd holds back, and Verity is a good soldier, but he listens to his father too much. Verity was raised to be second, not first. He does not take the initiative. We need Chivalry. He’d go into those towns, talk to the folk who have lost loved ones to Forging. Damn, he’d even talk to the Forged ones themselves …’

‘Do you think it would do any good?’ I asked softly. I scarcely dared to move. I sensed that Chade was talking more to himself than to me.

‘It wouldn’t solve it, no. But our folk would have a sense of their ruler’s involvement. Sometimes that’s all it takes, boy. But all Verity does is march his toy soldiers about and weigh strategies. And Shrewd watches it happen, and thinks not of his people, but only of how to assure that Regal can be kept safe and yet readied in power should Verity manage to get himself killed.’

‘Regal?’ I blurted in amazement. Regal, with his pretty clothes and cockerel posturings? Always he was at Shrewd’s heels, but never had I thought of him as a real prince. To hear his name come up in such a discussion jolted me.

‘He has become his father’s favourite,’ Chade growled. ‘Shrewd has done nothing but spoil him since the Queen died. He tries to buy the boy’s heart with gifts, now that his mother is no longer around to claim his allegiance. And Regal takes full advantage. He speaks only what the old man loves to hear. And Shrewd gives him too much rein. He lets him wander about, squandering coin on useless visits to Farrow and Tilth, where his mother’s people fill Regal with ideas of his self-importance. The boy should be kept at home and made to give some account for how he spends his time. And the King’s money. What he spends gallivanting about would have outfitted a warship.’ And then, suddenly annoyed, ‘That’s too hot! You’ll lose it, fish it out quickly.’

But his words came too late, for the crucible cracked with a noise like breaking ice and its contents filled Chade’s tower room with an acrid smoke that brought all lessons and talk to an end for that night.

I was not soon summoned again. My other lessons went on, but I missed Chade as the weeks passed and he did not call for me. I knew he was not displeased with me, but only preoccupied. When, idle one day, I pushed my awareness towards him, I felt only secrecy and discordance. And a wallop to the back of my head when Burrich caught me at it.

‘Stop it,’ he hissed, and ignored my studied look of shocked innocence. He glanced about the stall I was mucking out as if he expected to find a dog or cat lurking.

‘There’s nothing here!’ he exclaimed.

‘Just manure and straw,’ I agreed, rubbing the back of my head.

‘Then what were you doing?’

‘Daydreaming,’ I muttered. ‘That was all.’

‘You can’t fool me, Fitz,’ he growled. ‘And I won’t have it. Not in my stables. You won’t pervert my beasts that way. Or degrade Chivalry’s blood. Mind what I’ve told you.’

I clenched my jaws and lowered my eyes and kept on working. After a time I heard him sigh and move away. I went on raking, inwardly seething and resolving never to let Burrich come up on me unawares again.

The rest of that summer was such a whirlpool of events that I find it hard to recall their progression. Overnight, the very feeling of the air seemed to change. When I went into town, all of the talk was of fortifications and readiness. Only two more towns were Forged that summer, but it seemed a hundred, for the stories of it were repeated and enlarged from lip to lip.

‘Until it seems as if that is all folk talk about any more,’ Molly complained to me.

We were walking on Long Beach, in the light of the summer evening sun. The wind off the water was a welcome bit of cool after a muggy day. Burrich had been called away to Springmouth to see if he could work out why all the cattle there were developing huge hide sores. It meant no morning lessons for me, but many, many more chores with the horses and hounds in his absence, especially as Cob had gone to Turlake with Regal, to manage his horses and hounds for a summer hunt.

But the opposite weight of the balance was that my evenings were less supervised, and I had more time to visit town.

My evening walks with Molly were almost a routine now. Her father’s health was failing and he scarcely needed to drink to fall into an early and deep sleep each night. Molly would pack a bit of cheese and sausage for us, or a small loaf and some smoked fish, and we would take a basket and a bottle of cheap wine and walk out down the beach to the breakwater rocks. There we would sit on the rocks as they gave up the last heat of the day, and Molly would tell me about her day’s work and the day’s gossip and I would listen. Sometimes our elbows bumped as we walked.

‘Sara, the butcher’s daughter, told me that she positively yearns for winter to come. The winds and ice will beat the Red Ships back to their own shores for a bit, and give us a rest from fear, she says. But then Kelty up and says that maybe we’ll be able to stop fearing more Forging, but that we’ll still have to fear the Forged folk that are loose in our land. Rumour says that some from Forge have left there, now that there’s nothing left for them to steal, and that they travel about as bandits, robbing travellers.’

‘I doubt it. More than likely it’s other folk doing the robbing, but trying to pass themselves off as Forged folk to send revenge looking elsewhere. Forged folk don’t have enough kinship left in them to be a band of anything,’ I contradicted her lazily. I was looking out across the bay, my eyes almost closed against the glare of the sun on the water. I didn’t have to look at Molly to feel her there beside me. It was an interesting tension, one I didn’t fully understand. She was sixteen, and I about fourteen, and those two years loomed between us like an unsurmountable wall. Yet she always made time for me, and seemed to enjoy my company. She seemed as aware of me as I was of her. But if I quested toward her at all, she would draw back, halting to shake a pebble from her shoe or suddenly speaking of her father’s illness and how much he needed her. Yet if I drew my sensings back from that tension, she became uncertain and shyer of speech, and would try to look at my face and the set of my mouth and eyes. I didn’t understand it, but it was as if we held a string taut between us. But now I heard an edge of annoyance in her speech.

‘Oh. I see. And you know so much of Forged folk, do you, more than those who have been robbed by them?’

Her tart words caught me off-balance and it was a moment or two before I could speak. Molly knew nothing of Chade and me, let alone of my side trip with him to Forge. To her, I was an errand-boy for the keep, working for the stablemaster when I wasn’t fetching for the scribe, I couldn’t betray my first-hand knowledge, let alone how I had sensed what Forging was.

‘I’ve heard the talk of the guards, when they’re around the stables and kitchens at night. Soldiers like them have seen much of all kinds of folk, and they’re the ones who say that the Forged ones have no friendships, no family, no kinship ties at all left. Still, I suppose if one of them took to robbing travellers, others would copy him, and it would be almost the same as a band of robbers.’

‘Perhaps.’ She seemed mollified by my comments. ‘Look, let’s climb up there to eat.’

‘Up there’ was a shelf on the cliff’s edge rather than the breakwater. But I assented with a nod, and the next handful of minutes were spent in getting ourselves and our basket up there. It required more arduous climbing than our earlier expeditions had. I caught myself watching to see how Molly would manage her skirts, and taking opportunities to catch at her arm to balance her, or take her hand to help her up a steep bit while she kept hold of the basket. In a flash of insight I knew that Molly’s suggestion that we climb had been her way of manipulating the situation to cause this. We finally gained the ledge and sat, looking out over the water with her basket between us, and I was savouring my awareness of her awareness of me. It reminded me of the clubs of the Springfest jugglers as they handed them back and forth, back and forth, more and more and faster and faster. The silence lasted until a time when one of us had to speak. I looked at her, but she looked aside. She looked into the basket and said, ‘Oh, dandelion wine? I thought that wasn’t any good until after midwinter.’

‘It’s last year’s … it’s had a winter to age,’ I told her, and took it from her to work the cork loose with my knife. She watched me worry at it for a while, and then took it from me and, drawing her own slender sheath-knife, speared and twisted it out with a practised knack that I envied.

She caught my look and shrugged. ‘I’ve been pulling corks for my father for as long as I can remember. It used to be because he was too drunk. Now he doesn’t have the strength in his hands any more, even when he’s sober.’ Pain and bitterness mingled in her words.

‘Ah.’ I floundered for a more pleasant topic. ‘Look, the Rainmaiden.’ I pointed out over the water to a sleek-hulled ship coming into the harbour under oars. ‘I’ve always thought her the most beautiful ship in the harbour.’

‘She’s been on patrol: The cloth merchants took up a collection. Almost every merchant in town contributed. Even I, although all I could spare was candles for her lanterns. She’s manned with fighters now, and escorts the ships between here and Highdowns. The Greenspray meets them there and takes them further up the coast.’

‘I hadn’t heard that.’ And it surprised me that I had not heard such a thing up in the keep itself. My heart sank in me, that even Buckkeep Town was taking measures independent of the King’s advice or consent. I said as much.

‘Well, folk have to do whatever they can if all King Shrewd is going to do is click his tongue and frown about it. It’s well enough for him to bid us to be strong, when he sits secure up in his castle. It isn’t as if his son or brother or little girl will be Forged.’

It shamed me that I could think of nothing to say in my King’s defence. And shame stung me to say, ‘Well, you’re almost as safe as the King himself, living here below in Buckkeep Town.’

Molly looked at me levelly. ‘I had a cousin, apprenticed out in Forge Town.’ She paused, then said carefully, ‘Will you think me cold when I say that we were relieved to hear he had only been killed? It was uncertain for a week or so, but finally we had word from one who had seen him die. And my father and I were both relieved. We could grieve, knowing that his life was simply over and we would miss him. We no longer had to wonder if he were still alive and behaving like a beast, causing misery to others and shame to himself.’

I was silent for a bit. Then, ‘I’m sorry.’ It seemed inadequate, and I reached out to pat her motionless hand. For a second it was almost as if I couldn’t feel her there, as if her pain had shocked her into an emotional numbness the equal of a Forged one. But then she sighed and I felt her presence again beside me. ‘You know,’ I ventured, ‘perhaps the King himself does not know what to do either. Perhaps he is at as great a loss for a solution as we are.’

‘He is the King!’ Molly protested. ‘And named Shrewd to be shrewd. Folk are saying now he but holds back to keep the strings of his purse tight. Why should he pay out of his hoard, when desperate merchants will hire mercenaries of their own? But, enough of this …’ she held up a hand to stop my words. ‘This is not why we came out here into the peace and coolness, to talk of politics and fears. Tell me instead of what you’ve been doing. Has the speckled bitch had her pups yet?’

And so we spoke of other things, of Motley’s puppies and of the wrong stallion getting at a mare in season, and then she told me of gathering greencones to scent her candles and picking blackberries, and how busy she would be for the next week, trying to make blackberry preserves for the winter while still tending the shop and making candles.

We talked and ate and drank and watched the late sun of summer as it lingered low on the horizon, almost but not quite setting. I felt the tension as a pleasant thing between us, as both a suspension and a wonder. I viewed it as an extension of my strange new sense, and so I marvelled that Molly seemed to feel and react to it as well. I wanted to speak to her about it, to ask her if she was aware of other folk in a similar way. But I feared that if I asked her, I might reveal myself as I had to Chade, or that she might be disgusted by it as I knew Burrich would be. So I smiled, and we talked, and I kept my thoughts to myself.

I walked her home through the quiet streets and bid her good night at the door of the chandlery. She paused a moment, as if thinking of something else she wanted to say, but then gave me only a quizzical look and a softly muttered, ‘Good night, Newboy.’

I took myself home under a deeply blue sky pierced by bright stars, past the sentries at their eternal dice game and up to the stables. I made a quick round of the stalls, but all was calm and well there, even with the new puppies. I noticed two strange horses in one of the paddocks, and one lady’s palfrey had been stabled. Some visiting noblewoman come to court, I decided. I wondered what had brought her here at the end of the summer, and admired the quality of her horses. Then I left the stables and headed up to the keep.

By habit my path took me through the kitchens. Cook was familiar with the appetites of stable-boys and men-at-arms, and knew that regular meals did not always suffice to keep one full. Especially lately I had found myself getting hungry at all hours, while Mistress Hasty had recently declared that if I didn’t stop growing so rapidly, I should have to wrap myself in barkcloth like a wild man, for she had no idea how to keep me looking as if my clothes fitted. I was already thinking of the big earthenware bowl that Cook kept full of soft biscuits and covered with a cloth, and of a certain wheel of especially sharp cheese, and how well both would go with some ale, when I entered the kitchen door.

There was a woman at the table. She had been eating an apple and cheese, but at the sight of me coming in the door, she sprang up and put her hand over her heart as if she thought I were the Pocked Man himself. I paused. ‘I did not mean to startle you, lady. I was merely hungry, and thought to get myself some food. Will it bother you if I stay?’

The lady slowly sank back into her seat. I wondered privately what someone of her rank was doing alone in the kitchen at night, for her high birth was something that could not be disguised by the simple cream robe she wore or the weariness in her face. This, undoubtedly, was the rider of the palfrey in the stable, and not some lady’s maid. If she had awakened hungry at night, why hadn’t she simply bestirred a servant to fetch something for her?

Her hand rose from clutching at her breast to pat at her lips, as if to steady her uneven breath. When she spoke, her voice was well-modulated, almost musical. ‘I would not keep you from your food. I was simply a bit startled. You … came in so suddenly.’

‘My thanks, lady.’

I moved around the big kitchen, from ale cask to cheese to bread, but everywhere I went, her eyes followed me. Her food lay ignored on the table where she had dropped it when I came in. I turned from pouring myself a mug of ale to find her eyes wide upon me. Instantly she dropped them away. Her mouth worked, but she said nothing.

‘May I do something for you?’ I asked politely. ‘Help you find something? Would you care for some ale?’

‘If you would be so kind.’ She said the words softly. I brought her the mug I had just filled and set it on the table before her. She drew back when I came near her, as if I carried some contagion. I wondered if I smelled bad from my stable work earlier. I decided not, for Molly would have surely mentioned it. Molly was ever frank with me about such things.

I drew another mug for myself, and then, looking about, decided it would be better to carry my food up to my room. The lady’s whole attitude bespoke her uneasiness at my presence. But as I was struggling to balance biscuits and cheese and mug, she gestured at the bench opposite her. ‘Sit down,’ she told me, as if she had read my thoughts. ‘It is not right I should scare you away from your meal.’

Her tone was neither command nor invitation, but something in between. I took the seat she indicated, my ale slopping over a bit as I juggled food and mug into place. I felt her eyes on me as I sat. Her own food remained ignored before her. I ducked my head to avoid that gaze, and ate quickly, as furtively as a rat in a corner who suspects a cat is behind the door, waiting. She did not stare rudely, but openly watched me, with the sort of observation that made my hands clumsy, and led to my acute awareness that I had just unthinkingly wiped my mouth on the back of my sleeve.

I could think of nothing to say, and yet the silence jabbed at me. The biscuit seemed dry in my mouth, making me cough, and when I tried to wash it down with ale, I choked. Her eyebrows twitched, her mouth set more firmly. Even with my eyes lowered to my plate, I felt her gaze. I rushed through my food, wanting only to escape her hazel eyes and straight silent mouth. I pushed the last hunks of bread and cheese into my mouth and stood up quickly, bumping against the table and almost knocking the bench over in my haste. I headed toward the door, then remembered Burrich’s instructions about excusing oneself from a lady’s presence. I swallowed my half-chewed mouthful.

‘Good night to you, lady,’ I muttered, thinking the words not quite right, but unable to summon better. I crabbed toward the door.

‘Wait,’ she said, and when I paused, she asked, ‘Do you sleep upstairs, or out in the stables?’

‘Both. Sometimes. I mean, either. Ah, good night, then, lady.’ I turned and all but fled. I was halfway up the stairs before I wondered at the strangeness of her question. It was only when I went to undress for bed that I realized I still gripped my empty ale mug. I went to sleep, feeling a fool, and wondering why.