at all to care so much about that. Looking back, I smile, but it is at my wisdom, not my folly.
Morning brought storm winds and falling snow to Buckkeep Castle, but to me it only made all inside the cosier. Perhaps it would give us all a chance to recover ourselves from yesterday. I did not want to think about those poor ragged bodies, or bathing the still, cold faces. Nor of the roaring flames and heat that had consumed Kerry’s body. We could all use a quiet day inside the keep. Perhaps the evening would find all gathered about the hearths, for storytelling, music and conversation. I hoped so. I left my chambers to go to Patience and Lacey.
I tormented myself, knowing well the exact moment when Molly would descend the stairs to fetch a breakfast tray for Patience, and also when she would ascend the stairs carrying it. I could be on the stairs or in the hallway as she passed. It would be a minor thing, a coincidence. But I had no question that there were those who had been set to watching me, and they would make note of such ‘coincidences’ if they occurred too often. No. I had to heed the warnings that both the King and Chade had given me. I would show Molly I had a man’s self-control and forbearance. If I must wait before I could court her, then I would.
So I sat in my room and agonized until I was sure that she would have left Patience’s chambers. Then I descended, to tap upon the door. As I waited for Lacey to open it, I reflected that redoubling my watch upon Patience and Lacey was easier said than done. But I had a few ideas. I had begun last night, by extracting a promise from Molly that she would bring up no food she had not prepared herself, or taken fresh from the common serving pots. She had snorted at this, for it had come after a most ardent goodbye. ‘Now you sound just like Lacey,’ she had rebuked me, and gently closed the door in my face. She opened it a moment later, to find me still staring at it. ‘Go to bed,’ she chided me. Blushing, she added, ‘And dream of me. I hope I have plagued your dreams lately as much as you have mine.’ Those words sent me fleeing down to my room, and every time I thought of it, I blushed again.
Now, as I entered Patience’s room, I tried to put all such thoughts from my mind. I was here on business, even if Patience and Lacey must believe it a social call. Keep my mind on my tasks. I cast my eyes over the latch that had secured the door, and found it well to my liking. No one would be slipping that with a belt knife. As for the window, even if anyone had scaled the outer wall to it, they must burst through not only stoutly-barred wooden shutters, but a tapestry, and then rank upon rank of pots of plants, soldiered in rows before the closed window. It was a route no professional would willingly choose. Lacey resettled herself with a bit of mending while Patience greeted me. Lady Patience herself was seemingly idle, seated on the hearth before the fire as if she were but a girl. She poked at the coals a bit. ‘Did you know,’ she asked me suddenly, ‘that there is a substantial history of strong queens at Buckkeep? Not just those born as Farseers, either. Many a Farseer prince has married a woman whose name came to overshadow his in the telling of deeds.’
‘Do you think Kettricken will become such a queen?’ I asked politely. I had no idea where this conversation would lead.
‘I do not know,’ she said softly. She stirred the coals idly again. ‘I know only that I would not have been one.’ She sighed heavily, then lifted her eyes to say almost apologetically, ‘I am having one of those mornings, Fitz, when all that fills my head is what might have been and what could have been. I should never have allowed him to abdicate. I’d wager he’d be alive today, if he had not.’
There seemed little reply I could make to such a statement. She sighed again, and drew on the hearth stones with the ash-coated poker. ‘I am a woman of longings today, Fitz. While everyone else yesterday was stirred to amazement at what Kettricken did, it awakened in me the deepest discontent with myself. Had I been in her position, I would have hidden away in my chamber. Just as I do now. But your grandmother would not have. Now there was a Queen. Like Kettricken in some ways. Constance was a woman who spurred others to action. Other women especially. When she was queen, over half our guard was female. Did you know that? Ask Hod about her some time. I understand that Hod came with her when Constance came here to be Shrewd’s queen.’ Patience fell silent. For a few moments, she was so quiet I thought she had finished speaking. Then she added softly, ‘She liked me, Queen Constance did.’ She smiled almost shyly.
‘She knew I did not care for crowds. So, sometimes, she would summon me, and only me, to come and attend her in her garden. And we would not even speak much, but only work quietly in the soil and the sunlight. Some of my pleasantest memories of Buckkeep are of those times.’ She looked up at me suddenly. ‘I was just a little girl then. And your father was just a boy, and we had not ever really met. My parents brought me to Buckkeep, the times they came to court, even though they knew I did not much care for all the folderol of court life. What a woman Queen Constance was, to notice a homely, quiet little girl, and give her of her time. But she was like that. Buckkeep was a different place then, a much merrier court. Times were safer, and all was more stable. But then Constance died, and her infant daughter with her, of a birth fever. And Shrewd remarried a few years later, and …’ She paused and sighed again suddenly. Then her lips firmed. She patted the hearth beside her.
‘Come and sit here. There are things we must speak of.’
I did as she bid me, likewise sitting on the hearthstones. I had never seen Patience so serious, nor so focused. All of this, I felt, was leading up to something. It was so different from her usual fey prattle that it almost frightened me. Once I was seated, she motioned me closer. I scooted forward until I was nearly in her lap. She leaned forward and whispered, ‘Some things are best not spoken of. But there comes a time when they must be raised. FitzChivalry, my dear, do not think me mean-spirited. But I must warn you that your Uncle Regal is not as well disposed toward you as you might believe.’
I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
Patience was instantly indignant. ‘You must attend me!’ she whispered more urgently. ‘Oh, I know he is gay and charming and witty. I know what a flatterer he can be, and I have marked well how all the young women of the court flutter their fans at him, and how all the young men mimic his clothes and mannerisms. But underneath those fine feathers there is much ambition. And I am afraid there is suspicion there, and jealousy, also. I have never told you this. But he was totally opposed to my undertaking your schooling, as well as to your learning to Skill. Sometimes I think it is as well that you failed at that, for had you succeeded, his jealousy would have known no bounds.’ She paused, and finding that I was listening with a sober face, she went on, ‘These are unsettled times, Fitz. Not just because of the Red Ships that harry our shores. It is a time when any b … born as you were should be careful. There are those who smile fairly at you, but may be your enemy. When your father was alive, we relied that his influence would be enough to shelter you. But after he was … he died, I realized that as you grew, you would be more and more at risk, the closer you came to manhood. So, when I decently could, I forced myself to come back to court, to see if there truly was need. I found there was, and I found you worthy of my help. So I vowed to do all I could to educate and protect you.’ She allowed herself a brief smile of satisfaction.
‘I would say I had done fairly well by you so far. But,’ and she leaned closer, ‘comes a time when even I will not be able to protect you. You must begin to take care of yourself. You must recall your lessons from Hod, and review them with her often. You must be cautious of what you eat and drink, and be wary of visiting isolated places alone. I hate to put these fears into you, FitzChivalry. But you are almost a man now, and must begin to think of such things.’
Laughable. Almost a farce. So I could have seen it, to have this sheltered, reclusive woman speaking to me so earnestly of the realities of the world I had survived in since I was six. Instead, I found tears stinging the corners of my eyes. I had always been mystified as to why Patience had come back to Buckkeep, to live a hermit’s life in the midst of a society she obviously did not care for. Now I knew. She had come for me, for my sake. To protect me.
Burrich
