Fool’s Assassin

I woke to gray light coming in the windows. I was on the couch where my mother had birthed me, wrapped in a blanket. On my father’s regular chair near the fire, a blanket was neatly folded. I could tell that the fire had recently been fed. I lay still, thinking of all the ways my life had changed in one day. Shun had arrived. And the pale messenger. My father had seen me as useful, and even intelligent as I helped him bring her in. He’d trusted me to follow his instructions. And then Shun had distracted him with her silly complaints, and we’d lost our chance with the messenger. When we had concealed her death, I had been shocked. But I’d also felt that he valued me. Yet the moment Shun was frightened, he had left my side and forgotten me completely as he ran off to see to her hysterics.

I threw my blanket off me and onto the floor and glared at my father’s empty chair as I sat up. Everyone wanted him to take care of someone else besides me. Take care of Shun and protect her; the pale girl wanted him to go off and look for a lost son. Was anyone telling him to pay attention to his own daughter because otherwise there was no one else in the world who would watch over her? No.

Except maybe Nettle. And she thought I was an idiot. Well, perhaps not an idiot and perhaps that was my own fault for never letting her share my thoughts, but it still didn’t bode well for my future if I went to live with her. Or would Riddle go back to Buckkeep and tell her I wasn’t as feebleminded as she thought? If Riddle went back to Buckkeep Castle. He seemed very intent on protecting Shun, too. And Shun seemed very eager to keep him by her side. I scowled at that thought. I was not sure why, but I was certain that Riddle was the property of my older sister. In that moment Shun became not only the outsider but the enemy.

And my absent father was little better.

Swiftly I constructed my resentment and believed in it. Silently seething with anger at all of them, I returned to my bedchamber. I was not pleased to find it full of folk scrubbing the walls and floors. The smell of vinegar was strong. All bedding had vanished from the servant’s bed frame, and when I threaded my small way among the unfamiliar servants, I found that most of my clothing chest had been emptied as well. I was pleased at the idea that my things would be returned washed and fresh, and less pleased that so little was left for me to choose from. Nor did I like how the four newly hired women and the beefy man helping them with the heavier lifting paused in their cleaning tasks to stare at me. They were the intruders here, not I!

Yet stare they did, and not one offered to help me as I struggled with the heavy lid of the chest. I contented myself with grabbing whatever garments I could reach. I carried them off with me and went back to the relative privacy of my mother’s room to change out of my nightrobe.

I changed hastily there, squatting behind the screens in the corner. The tunic was from summer and a bit too small for me, shorter than my mother would have allowed me to wear. The leggings bagged at the knee and bottom. I consulted the small pieces of looking glass set in a decorative lamp cover. My shorn hair stood up like the stubble in a harvested field. I looked more like a serving boy than our serving boys did. I took a deep breath and refused to think of Shun’s fine clothing and hair combs and rings and scarves.

My new red nightrobe was on the floor. I picked it up and shook it out. I gathered it in my arms and smelled it. My mother’s scent had faded but was still there. I folded it and hid it behind a stool. I myself would wash it out and scent it with one of her rose sachets. I went in search of my father.

I found him, Shun, and Riddle at breakfast in the dining room. I was surprised to see the table made up so formally. There were covered serving dishes and two pots of tea on the table. An empty place setting awaited me. I wondered if it would be like this every day now that Shun was living with us. They had almost finished eating. I came into the room quietly and slipped into the empty place.

Shun was talking, some nonsense about warding off ghosts with cups of green tea. I let her finish. Before my father could speak, I observed to him, “You had breakfast without me.” It hurt me deeply and I didn’t try to hide that. It was a small ritual we had shared since we had been left alone after my mother’s death. Whatever else happened, he woke me in the morning and we had breakfast together.