tell me he is favoured among the women!’
She quirked a brow at me. ‘And why not? He is a very well-made man, and clean and mannered besides. He has good teeth, and such eyes! His dark humours are daunting, but not a few would like to try their hands at lightening those. The washing maids agreed that day that, were he to turn up in their sheets, they would not hurry to shake him out.’
‘But that is not likely to happen,’ I pointed out.
‘No,’ she agreed pensively. ‘That was another thing they agreed on. Only one claimed to have ever had him, and she admitted he was very drunk at the time. At a Springfest, I believe she said.’ Molly glanced at me, then laughed aloud at the incredulous look on my face. ‘She said,’ Molly went on teasingly, ‘“he has used his time well amongst the stallions to learn their ways. I carried the mark of his teeth on my shoulders for a week.”’
‘That cannot be,’ I declared. My ears burned for Burrich’s sake. ‘He would not mistreat a woman, no matter how drunk he was.’
‘Silly boy!’ Molly shook her head over me as her nimble fingers set to braiding her hair up again. ‘No one said she was mistreated.’ She glanced at me coyly, ‘Or displeased.’
‘I still do not believe it,’ I declared. Burrich? And the woman had liked it?
‘Has he really a small scar, here, shaped like a crescent moon?’ She put her hand high on my hip and looked at me from under her lashes.
I opened my mouth, shut it again. ‘I cannot believe that women chatter of such things,’ I said at last.
‘In the washer-courts, they talk of little else,’ Molly divulged calmly.
I bit my tongue until curiosity overwhelmed me. ‘What do they say of Hands?’ When we had worked in the stables together, his tales of women had always astonished me.
‘That he has pretty eyes and lashes, but that all the rest of him needs to be washed. Several times.’
I laughed joyously, and saved the words for when next he bragged to me. ‘And Regal?’ I encouraged her.
‘Regal. Uummm.’ She smiled dreamily at me, then laughed at the scowl on my face. ‘We do not speak of the princes, my dear. Some propriety is kept.’
I pulled her back down beside me and kissed her. She fit her body to mine and we lay still under the arching blue sky. Peace that had eluded me for so long now filled me. I knew that nothing could ever part us, not the plans of kings nor the vagaries of fate. It seemed, finally, to be the right time to tell her of my problems with Shrewd and Celerity. She rested warm against me and listened silently as I spilled out to her the foolishness of the King’s plan and my bitterness at the awkward position it brought me. It did not occur to me that I was an idiot until I felt a warm tear spill and then slide down the side of my neck.
‘Molly?’ I asked in surprise as I sat up to look at her. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘What’s wrong?’ her voice went high on the words. She took a shuddering breath. ‘You lie beside me and tell me you are promised to another. And then you ask me what’s wrong?’
‘The only one I am promised to is you,’ I said firmly.
‘It’s not that simple, FitzChivalry.’ Her eyes were very wide and serious. ‘What will you do when the King tells you that you must court her?’
‘Stop bathing?’ I asked.
I had hoped she would laugh. Instead she pulled away from me. She looked at me with a world of sorrow in her eyes. ‘We haven’t got a chance. Not a hope.’
As if to prove her words, the sky darkened suddenly above us and the squall winds rose. Molly leaped to her feet, snatching up her cloak and shaking sand from it. ‘I’m going to get soaked. I should have been back to Buckkeep hours ago.’ She spoke flatly, as if those two things were the only concerns that she had.
‘Molly, they would have to kill me to keep me from you,’ I said angrily.
She gathered up her market purchases. ‘Fitz, you sound like a child,’ she said quietly. ‘A foolish, stubborn child.’ With a pattering like flung pebbles, the first rain drops began to hit. They made dimples in the sand and swept across the sea in sheets. Her words had left me speechless. I could not think of a worse thing for her to have said to me.
I gathered up the red blanket, shook sand from it. She pulled her cloak tight against the wind that whipped at it. ‘Best we don’t go back together,’ she observed. She came close to me, stood on tiptoe to kiss the angle of my jaw. I could not decide who I was angriest at: King Shrewd for creating this mess, or Molly for believing in it. I did not turn to her kiss. She said nothing of that, but only hurried away, to scrabble lightly up the rock chimney and vanish from sight.
All joy had gone out of my afternoon. What had been as perfect as a gleaming seashell was now crushed bits under my feet. I walked disconsolately home through gusting winds and pelting rain. I had not rebound my hair and it whipped in lank strands across my face. The wet blanket stank as only wool can and bled red dye onto my hands. I went up to my room and dried off, then amused myself by carefully preparing the perfect poison for Wallace. One that would rack his bowels before he died. When the powder was mixed fine and put in a twist of paper, I set it down and looked at it. For a while I considered taking it myself. Instead, I took up needle and thread, to devise a pocket inside my cuff where I could carry it. I wondered if I would ever use it. The wondering made me feel more a coward than ever.
I did not go down to dinner. I did not go up to Molly. I opened my shutters and let the storm spill rain across my floor. I let the hearth fire go out and refused to light any candles. It seemed a time for gestures like those. When Chade opened his passage to me, I ignored it. I sat on the foot of my bed, staring out into the rain.
After a time I heard hesitant footsteps come down the stairs. Chade appeared in my darkened room like a wraith. He glared at me, then crossed to the shutters and slammed them shut. As he hooked them, he asked me angrily, ‘Have you any idea of the kind of draught that creates in my rooms?’ When I didn’t reply, he lifted his head and snuffed, for all the world like a wolf. ‘Have you been working with baneleaf in here?’ he asked suddenly. He came to stand before me. ‘Fitz, you’ve not done anything stupid, have you?’
‘Stupid? Me?’ I choked on a laugh.
Chade stooped to peer into my face. ‘Come up to my chamber,’ he said, in an almost kindly voice. He took my arm and I went with him.
The cheery room, the crackling fire, the autumn fruit ripe in a bowl; all of it clashed so badly with what I felt that I wanted to smash things. Instead I asked Chade, ‘Does anything feel worse than being angry with people you love?’
After a bit he spoke. ‘Watching someone you love die. And being angry, but not knowing where to direct it. I think that’s worse.’
I flung myself onto a side chair, kicked my feet out in front of me. ‘Shrewd has taken up Regal’s habits. Smoke. Mirthweed. El only knows what else in his wine. This morning, without his drugs, he began to shake, and then he drank them mixed with his wine, took a chestful of Smoke and went to sleep in my face. After telling me, again, that I must court and marry Celerity, for my own good.’ The words spilled from me. I had no doubt that Chade already knew of everything I told him.
I
