Fool’s Assassin

The cat sat up a moment before I became aware that my father was in his study. As he closed the doors and then opened the hinge-catch, the cat vanished in a furry streak. I snatched up the cloak, rolled it into a ball, and thrust it to the back of my cupboard. There was no time to hide the scroll I had taken from his study before he came down the passage, stooped over and bearing his own candle. I looked up at him and he smiled down on me. “Well, there you are!” he said.

“Yes,” I agreed.

He folded his legs and, uninvited, sat on my rug beside me. He waited a moment and when I didn’t say anything, began with, “I missed you at noon. You didn’t come to eat with us.”

“I wasn’t hungry,” I said.

“I see.”

“And after a long morning among so many people, I wanted to be alone for a time.”

He nodded to that, and something in the set of his mouth told me he understood that need. With the back of his forefinger, he tapped the scroll. “And what’s this you’re reading?”

Face it squarely. “I took it from your scroll rack. It’s about Taker Farseer and how he first raised a fortification on the cliffs above Buckkeep Town.”

“Um. Long before there was a Buckkeep Town.”

“So. Who had the ruins belonged to?”

He furrowed his brow. “My guess is that it was an Elderling fortification. The stone is the same used in the standing stones near there, the Witness Stones.”

“But the Elderlings had all sorts of powerful magic. Why would they need a fort? Who were their enemies? And who destroyed the castle the first time?”

“Now, that is a very good question. Not many people have asked it, and so far as I know, no one can answer it.”

The conversation lapsed, and to say something I blurted out, “One day I should like to visit Buckkeep Castle.”

“Would you? Then you shall.” He fell silent again, and then spoke as if words were painful. “Your tutor spoke of the morning’s lesson today when we were at table.”

I said nothing. Absurdly, I wished the cat were with me.

My father sighed. “He praised the goose-herder’s children for their skill at arithmetic. And was very pleased to discover that Larkspur could read and write.”

I waited. He gave a small cough, and added, “Lady Shun asked then what good numbers could do for a child who would grow up to manage geese. Or what a gardener might read on the earth or in leaves. She sees no sense to educating the children of servants.”

“Revel can read and write and do figures,” I pointed out. “Mama used to give him lists and he would take money and buy things she wanted at the market, and bring back the right amount. Even a goose girl should know enough numbers to count the eggs in a nest! And Larkspur will learn much from reading Lady Patience’s scrolls on plants and gardening. Cook Nutmeg knows how to read and write, and how to keep track of how many sacks of flour or how much salt fish she needs for the winter.”

“You make a good argument,” my father said, approvingly. “Much the same one that I presented to Shun. And then I asked Lant how you had fared at your lessons.”

Lant. My father called him Lant now, as if he were my cousin. I looked down at my blanketed feet. They had been warmer when the cat had been there. And I felt slightly ill, as if something terrible had fallen into my stomach and squatted there.

“I did not like what I heard,” my father said quietly.

There was no one in the world who loved me. I swallowed hard. My words came out breathlessly. “I could not explain.” I shook my head wildly and I felt tears fly from my eyes. “No. He didn’t really want me to explain. He thought he knew what was true, and he did not want to be wrong.”

I hugged my knees tightly to my chest, pulling them in hard, wishing I could break my own legs. Wishing I could destroy myself so I could escape these terrible feelings.

“I took your side, of course,” my father said quietly. “I rebuked him for not asking me about your intellect. Or speaking with you before lessons were to start. I told him that he had deceived himself about you; you had not lied to him. And I told him he would have one more chance to instruct you at a level befitting what you had taught yourself. And that if he could not, he might continue to instruct the other children, but I would not allow you to waste your time. That I would find it a pleasure to instruct you myself in all I think you need to know.”

He said the words so calmly. I stared at him, unable to breathe. He cocked his head at me. His smile looked shaky. “Did you imagine I could do otherwise, Bee?”