Assassin's Apprentice

They were given into my keeping, along with a generous supply of the herbs and roots mentioned in the herbal, and with seed for growing those that did not keep well. This was not a trivial gift, and I took my responsibility for seeing it well delivered as seriously as I took my other mission. All was well wrapped and then placed within a carved cedar chest. I was checking their wrappings a final time before taking the chest down to the courtyard when I heard the Fool behind me.

"I brought you this."

I turned to find him standing just inside the door of my room. I hadn't even heard the door open. He was proffering a leather drawstring bag. "What is it?" I asked, and tried not to let him hear either the flowers or the doll in my voice.

"Seapurge."

I raised my eyebrows. "A cathartic? As a marriage gift? I suppose some would find it appropriate, but the herbs I am taking can be planted and grown in the mountains. I do not think-"

"It is not a wedding gift. It is for you."

I accepted the pouch with mixed feelings. It was an exceptionally powerful purge. "Thank you for thinking of me. But I am not usually prone to traveler's ailments, and-"

"You are not usually, when you travel, in danger of being poisoned."

"Is there something you'd like to tell me?" I tried to make my tone light and bantering. I missed the Fool's usual wry faces and mockeries from this conversation.

"Only that you'd be wise to eat lightly, or not at all, of any food you do not prepare yourself."

"At all the feasts and festivities that will be there?"

"No. Only at the ones you wish to survive." He turned to go.

"I'm sorry," I said hastily. "I didn't mean to intrude. I was looking for you, and I was so hot, and the door wasn't latched, so I went in. I didn't mean to pry."

His back was to me and he didn't turn around as he asked, "And did you find it amusing?"

"I ..." I could not think of anything to say, of any way to assure him that what I had seen there would stay only within my own mind. He took two steps and was closing the door. I blurted, "It made me wish there were a place as much me as that place is you. A place I would keep as secret."

The door halted a handbreadth short of closed. "Take some advice, and you may survive this trip. When considering a man's motives, remember you must not measure his wheat with your bushel. He may not be using the same standard at all."

And the door closed and the Fool was gone. But his last words had been cryptic and frustrating enough that I thought perhaps he had forgiven me my trespass.

I stuffed the seapurge into my jerkin, not wanting it, but afraid to leave it now. I glanced about my room, but as always it was a bare and practical place. Mistress Hasty had seen to my packing, not trusting me with my new garments. I had noticed that the barred buck on my crest had been replaced with a buck with his antlers lowered to charge. "Verity ordered it," was all she said when I asked about it. "I like it better than the barred buck myself. Don't you?"

"I suppose," I replied, and that had been the end of it. A name and a crest. I nodded to myself, shouldered my chest of herbs and scrolls, and went down to join the caravan.

As I was going. down the steps I encountered Verity coming up. At first I scarcely knew him, for he was ascending like a crabbed old man. I stepped out of his way to let him pass, and then knew him as he glanced at me. It is a strange thing to see a once familiar man like that, encountered as a stranger. I marked how his clothes hung on him now, and the bushy dark hair I remembered had a peppering of gray. He smiled absently at me, and then, as if it had suddenly occurred to him, he stopped me.

"You're leaving for the Mountain Kingdom? For the wedding ceremony?"

"Yes."

"Do me a favor, boy?"

"Of course," I said, taken aback by the rust in his voice.

"Speak well of me to her. Truthfully, mind you, I'm not asking for lies. But speak well of me. I've always thought that you thought well of me."

"I do," I said to his retreating back. "I do, sir." But he didn't turn or make a reply, and I felt much as I had when the Fool left me.

The courtyard was a milling of folk and animals. There were no carts this time; the roads into the mountains were notoriously bad, and it had been decided that pack animals would have to suffice for the sake of swiftness. It would not do for the royal entourage to be late for the wedding; it was bad enough that the groom was not attending.