Fool’s Assassin

He looked very draggled and weary, even though he had shaved and his shirt was clean. But I refused to feel sorry for him as he said, “It was a late night for all of us. I thought you would want the extra sleep.”

“You should have wakened me to see if I wanted to join you.”

“I probably should have,” my father said quietly. He spoke in a voice that told me he wasn’t pleased we were having this discussion in front of Riddle and Shun. Suddenly I regretted it.

“Children need more sleep than adults. Everyone knows that,” Shun informed me helpfully. She picked up her teacup and observed me over the rim as she sipped from it. She had the eyes of an evil cat.

I looked at her levelly. “And everyone knows that ghosts are bound to the site of their deaths. Your Rono is wherever you left him. Ghosts don’t follow people about.”

If she had been a cat, she would have hissed at me. Her lips pulled back from her teeth in just the same way. But if she had been a cat, she would have known the noise in the walls was just another cat. I looked at her as I asked my father, “Is there any food left for me?”

He looked at me without speaking and then rang a small bell. A servant I didn’t know hurried into the room. My father directed him to bring breakfast for me. I think Riddle was trying to be soothing when he asked me, “Well, Bee, and what are your plans for the day?”

Shun narrowed her eyes when he spoke to me and I knew instantly what I wanted to do that day. Keep Riddle so busy he would have no time for Shun. I lifted my chin and smiled at him. “Since you are here, and my father has been so busy preparing for our guest and with the repairs to the house that he has little time for me, I wondered if you would show me how to ride a horse today?”

His eyes widened with genuine pleasure. “With your father’s permission, I would be delighted!”

My father looked stunned. My heart sank. I should have known that asking Riddle to teach me would hurt his feelings. I had aimed for Shun and struck my father instead. Not that I had missed Shun. Her narrowed eyes made her look even more like a dunked cat. My father spoke. “I thought you said that you didn’t want to learn to ride; that you didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of sitting on another creature’s back and telling it where to go.”

I had said that, when I was much smaller, and it still made perfect sense to me. But I would not have said it in front of Shun. I felt the burn rise to my cheeks.

“Such a peculiar idea!” Shun exclaimed and laughed delightedly.

I stared at my father. How could he have said that aloud and in front of a relative stranger? Had he done it on purpose, because I’d hurt his feelings? I spoke stiffly. “I still feel it is unfair, simply because we are humans and can force animals to obey us, that we should do it. But if I am ever to visit my sister at Buckkeep Castle, it is a thing I must learn.”

Riddle seemed oblivious of the currents sweeping past him as he smiled and said, “And a visit from you would please your sister more than anything, I think. Especially when she sees how well you speak.”

“Did she used to stutter, then? Or lisp?” If Shun was trying to disguise her disdain for me, she was doing a poor job of it.

Riddle looked at her directly, his face solemn and his voice grave. “She spoke little. That was all.”

“If Bee wishes you to teach her to ride, I’m sure I’m pleased,” my father said. “There is a horse in the stables, not a pony, but a small horse. I chose her for Bee when she was five, when I thought I might persuade her to try riding, but she refused. She’s a mare, a dapple-gray. With one white hoof.”

I looked at him but he was hidden behind his eyes. He had chosen a horse for me, all those years ago, and when I had wriggled and squirmed when he tried to put me in the saddle, he had given up that plan with no rebuke for me. Why had he kept the mare? Because he had kept the hope. I had not meant to hurt him. “One white hoof, try him,” I said quietly. “I am sorry that I did not try her, all those years ago. I’m ready now.”

He nodded but did not smile. “I will be pleased to see you learn, Bee, regardless of who teaches you. But there will be no visits to Buckkeep Castle just yet. Very early this morning, I received word that your new tutor will soon begin his journey to join us here. It would be peculiar indeed if he left Buckkeep Castle and arrived here to find you gone to Buckkeep.”

“My new tutor? What news is this? When was this decided?” I felt as if the room tilted around me.