Fool’s Assassin

But as soon as she saw I had halted, she slowed her mount; by the time she reached me Inky had reduced her pace to a trot. “Ho!” Nettle called to her, and Inky halted neatly beside us.

“I thought you were going to stay another night, and then when I realized you were gone I had to race to catch up with you,” she announced breathlessly.

“Why aren’t you with the king? Where are your guards?”

She gave me a look. “I told Dutiful I’d be with you and needed no other guard. He and Chade both agreed.”

“Why?”

She stared at me. “Well, among them, you do have a certain reputation as a very competent assassin.”

That silenced me for a moment. They still thought of me that way when I did not? I put my thoughts back in order. “No, I meant, why did you stay to travel with me? Not that I’m not glad to see you, I’m just surprised.” I added the last as her glance at me darkened. “I had not even realized anyone had noticed that I did not remain with the main party.”

She cocked her head at me. “Would you have noticed if I were not there?”

“Well, of course!”

“Everyone noticed when you quietly withdrew. Dutiful spoke to me several days ago, saying that you seemed even more morose than one might expect you to be at a funeral and perhaps it was best if you were not left alone. Kettricken was a party to his words, and she added that this visit might have stirred old memories for you. Sad ones. So. Here I am.”

And indeed, there she was. I was almost annoyed at her for spoiling my perfectly good sulk. And that was when I realized that was what I had been doing. I’d been sulking because the Fool had sent letters to Jofron and not to me. And like a child, I’d been testing the people who loved me, pulling away from them almost for the sole reason of seeing if anyone would come after me.

And she had. I felt thwarted in my petulance, and as foolish as I knew that to be, it still stung when Nettle laughed at me. “I wish you could see the look on your face!” she exclaimed. “Come. Will it be so terrible that after all these years, you and I finally will have a few days and nights of being able to talk to each other, without disasters or small boys interrupting us?”

“It would be good,” I conceded, and just that simply my mood lifted. And our homeward journey together began.

I had never traveled in such indulgence. I had brought few supplies, thinking I would live rough on the way home. Nettle was likewise traveling light, save for a wallet full of silvers. The first time I proposed that if we were going to camp for the night, we should begin to look for a likely place, she stood up in her stirrups, looked all around, and then pointed to smoke rising. “That’s a house at the least, and more likely a village with an inn, however humble. And that is where I intend to stop tonight, and if there is a hot bath to be had, it will be mine. And a good meal!”

And she was right. There were all three of those things, in fact, and she put silver out for me as well as herself, saying, “Chade told me not to let you do anything to punish yourself for being sad.”

For a few quiet moments, I handled her words, trying to see if they truly applied to me. They didn’t, I was sure, but I could think of no defense. She cleared her throat. “Let’s talk about Hap, shall we? Did you know that there is rumor that despite being a minstrel, and a wandering one at that, he has a sweetheart at Daratkeep, and he is true to her? She is a weaver in the town there.”