Assassin's Apprentice

Somehow I refrained from running after him or opening the door. Instead, I took up the candelabra and lit the wall sconces. Two other sets of candles set the shadows writhing back into the corners. There was a fireplace with a pitiful effort at a fire in it. I poked it up a bit, more for light than for heat, and set to exploring my new quarters.

It was a simple square room with a single window. Stone walls, of the same stone as that under my feet, were softened only by a tapestry hung on one wall. I held my candle high to study it, but could not illuminate much. I could make out a gleaming and winged creature of some sort, and a kingly personage in supplication before it. I was later informed it was King Wisdom being befriended by the Elderling. At the time it seemed menacing to me. I turned aside from it.

Someone had made a perfunctory effort at freshening the room. There was a scattering of clean reeds and herbs on the floor, and the feather bed had a fat, freshly shaken look to it. The two blankets on it were good wool. The bed curtains had been pulled back and the chest and bench that were the other furnishings had been dusted. To my inexperienced eyes, it was a rich room indeed. A real bed, with coverings and hangings about it, and a bench with a cushion to it, and a chest to put things in were more furniture than I could recall having to myself before. That they were for my exclusive use made them larger somehow. There was also the fireplace, that I boldly added another piece of wood to, and the window, with an oak seat before it, shuttered now against the night air, but probably looking out over the sea.

The chest was a simple one, cornered with brass fittings. The outside of it was dark, but when I opened it, the interior was light-colored and fragrant. Inside the chest I found my limited wardrobe, brought up from the stables. Two nightshirts had been added to it, and a woolen blanket was rolled up in the corner of the chest. That was all. I took out a nightshirt and closed the chest.

I set the nightshirt down on the bed and then clambered up myself. It was early to be thinking of sleep, but my body ached and there seemed nothing else for me to do. Down in the stable room, by now Burrich would be sitting and drinking and mending harness or whatever. There would be a fire in the hearth, and the muffled sounds of horses as they shifted in their stalls below. The room would smell of leather and oil and Burrich himself, not dank stone and dust. I pulled the nightshirt over my head and nudged my clothes to the foot of the bed. I nestled into the feather bed; it was cool and my skin stood up in goose bumps. Slowly my body heat warmed it and I began to relax. It had been a full and strenuous day. Every muscle I possessed seemed to be both aching and tired. I knew I should rise once more, to put the candles out, but I could not summon the energy. Nor the willpower to blow them out and let a deeper darkness flood the chamber. So I drowsed, halflidded eyes watching the struggling flames of the small hearth fire. I idly wished for something else, for any situation that was neither this forsaken chamber nor the tenseness of Burrich's room. For a restfulness that perhaps I had once known somewhere else but could no longer recall. And so I drowsed into oblivion.

CHAPTER FOUR. Apprenticeship

A STORY IS TOLD OF King Victor, he who conquered the inland territories that became eventually the Duchy of Farrow. Very shortly after adding the lands of Sandsedge to his rulings, he sent for the woman who would, had Victor not conquered her land, have been the Queen of Sandsedge. She traveled to Buckkeep in much trepidation, fearing to go, but fearing more the consequences to her people if she appealed to them to hide her. When she arrived, she was both amazed and somewhat chagrined that Victor intended to use her not as a servant but as a tutor to his children, that they might learn both the language and customs of her folk. When she asked him why he chose to have them learn of her folk's ways, he replied, "A ruler must be of all his people, for one can only rule what one knows." Later she became the willing wife of his eldest son and took the name Queen Graciousness at her coronation.

I awoke to sunlight in my face. Someone had entered my chamber and opened the window shutters to the day. A basin, cloth, and jug of water had been left on top of the chest. I was grateful for them, but not even washing my face refreshed me. Sleep had left me sodden and I recall feeling uneasy that someone could enter my chamber and move freely about without awakening me.

As I had guessed, the window looked out over the sea, but I didn't have much time to devote to the view. A glance at the sun told me that I had overslept. I flung on my clothes and hastened down to the stables without pausing for breakfast.