Fool’s Assassin

I looked at my earnest scribe in consternation. His spirits and confidence had quickly revived. I was pleased he was no longer so cowed by my presence, but a bit appalled that he seemed as avaricious for unnecessary trinkets as Shun was. I recalled my earliest writing efforts. Paper had been considered far too valuable for younger students. With a wet finger, I had formed letters on the flagstones of the great hall. Sometimes we used burned sticks. I recalled ink made from soot. I did not mention this. I knew that many marveled at how backward Buckkeep and, indeed, all the Six Duchies had been in those years. The isolation of war and several kings who had been determined to insulate us from foreign customs had kept us bound in older traditions. Kettricken had been the queen who had first introduced us to her Mountain ways of doing things, and then encouraged us to import not only goods from distant lands but their ideas and techniques as well. I was still not sure it had been an improvement. Did Lant’s students truly need hinged wax tablets in order to learn their letters? I felt my resistance rising. Then I recalled that I had heard Revel muttering in dismay that I clothed Bee as children had dressed two score years ago. Perhaps I was the one who was clinging unreasonably to the old ways now. Was it time to give way to change? Time to put my little daughter into long skirts before she was a woman?

I glanced at her. I loved her in her little brown tunics and leggings, free to run and tumble. Next to me, Bee wriggled with boredom. I stifled a sigh and pulled my mind back to the present. “Tablets for the students first, and then I will come round to see these stockings that have so impressed Shun.”

I lifted my bread and Shun broke out in a storm of arguments as to why I must first see what she coveted, ranging from a fear that the merchant would close his doors to someone else purchasing them and winding up with her fear that I might spend all my coin on tablets and have none left to buy her green stockings and whatever else it was that had caught her eye. I felt as if I were being relentlessly pelted with small stones, for Fitz Vigilant spoke at the same time, saying the tablets were not, truly, that essential and that of course I should see to Lady Shun’s needs first.

I spoke firmly. “Then I shall. As soon as I’ve been allowed to finish my food.”

“I would not mind something to eat,” Shun agreed, contented now that she had her way. “But have they anything nicer than soup and bread? An apple pastry, perhaps? Chicken?”

I lifted a hand to summon a serving boy. He came and Shun interrogated him ruthlessly as to what foods were available. She badgered him into asking the cook to heat a cold fowl that was in the pantry, and to bring it with a dried apple tart. FitzVigilant was content with soup and bread. The boy mentioned that there were little gingercakes soon to come out of the oven in the kitchen. I asked for six of them, and the boy left.

“Six?” Shun exclaimed in amazement. “Six?”

“Some to eat and some to take. They were my favorites when I was a child, and I think that Bee will like them as much as I did.”

I twisted to ask Bee if she would like to try some of my favorite cakes, and found she was not there. I lifted my eyes to Riddle. He tipped his head toward the rear of the tavern; the privy was out that way.

Shun seized my sleeve. “I forgot to ask for mulling spices in my cider!”

I lifted my hand to summon the boy back. He had his head hunched down, and I was almost certain he was pretending not to see me. I waved my hand wearily. The boy darted off to another table, where he was greeted with raucous cheers from six waiting men. I watched him strike his pose and begin his recitation. The men were grinning at him. “He’s busy right now,” I excused him to Shun.

“He’s ignoring me!”

“I’ll go back to the kitchen and tell them to spice your cider,” FitzVigilant offered.

“Of course you shouldn’t!” she exclaimed. “That boy should come back over here and do his tasks. Tom Badgerlock! Cannot you make that boy do as he should? Why should he ignore his betters to bring food to a table full of lowborn farmers? Call him back here!”

I drew a breath. Riddle stood so abruptly he nearly overset the bench. “I’ll go to the kitchen. The inn is busy today. Leave the boy alone to do his work.”

He swung his leg over the bench, turned, and strode across the crowded inn room as only Riddle could, sliding between the packed customers but somehow giving offense to none.