Fool’s Assassin

And that was all we did that first day. I sat on Priss and Per led her. He didn’t say much. “Back straight.” “Thumbs up on the reins.” “Let her feel you’re there.” It wasn’t a short time and it wasn’t a long time. I remember the moment when I finally relaxed and let out the bit of air I’d been holding in the bottom of my lungs. “That’s it,” he said, and that was all.

He didn’t help me get off her. He just led her back to the mounting block and waited. After I was off, he said, “Tomorrow will go better if you wear boots.”

“Yes,” I said. Not thank you. Because it didn’t feel as if it was something he had done for me. It was something all three of us had done together. “Tomorrow,” I added, and I went small and quiet from the stables.

To think about it, I went to my secret place. I wanted to be alone and think, and to check on my most prized possession. I no longer entered through my father’s study, but came and went by the hidden door in the pantry. I still dreaded rats but at least all the hammering and noise seemed to have driven them out for a time. Visiting my cloak had become routine. Daily, I ate my breakfast and then slipped away as soon as possible to gather my cloak and play with it.

I had discovered its limitations quickly. I could not put it on and parade invisibly through the halls. It took time for the cloak to mimic the colors and shadows of the place where it lay. I was careful in my experiments, for I feared that if I ever once dropped it with the butterfly side down, I’d never find it again. And so I had tested it privately, covering a tree stump in the woods, draping it over a statue in Patience’s garden room, and even spreading it flat on the floor of my mother’s room. The tree stump had become a flat mossy spot in the woods. I could feel the stump, but I could not persuade my eyes it was there. The statue had likewise vanished, and the cloak had copied perfectly the pattern of the rug I had spread it on. Folded, it made a very small packet indeed, one that I could slip under my waistband and carry with me. Today, with the cloak hidden so, I took it out to the grove of birches that overlooked the carriage drive to the main doors. I climbed one and found myself a perch overlooking the drive.

Securely wrapped in the cloak with only one eye peering out, I was confident I would not be discovered. From my vantage, I could watch the comings and goings of all the tradesfolk moving in and out of my home. It was not my first time to do so. The cloak was surprisingly warm for how thin it was. This meant I did not have to bundle myself in layers of wool against the winter chill. Whenever I saw an arrival that I wished to investigate further, I could clamber quickly down from my hiding place, sneak back into the house, hide my cloak, and quickly emerge dressed as if I had never left the manor.

I was at my observation post that afternoon when I saw a morose young man on a gleaming black horse ride up the carriageway. He had a mule with two panniers of luggage strapped to it on a lead line. The rider was warmly dressed for the cold day. Black boots hugged his legs to his knee. His woolen leggings were dark green. They matched his cloak, a heavy one trimmed with wolf fur. His dark hair was not in a warrior’s tail but fell to his shoulders in natural ringlets. He wore two silver earrings in one ear, and a sparkling red stone dangled from the other. He passed so close under my tree that I could smell him, or rather the fragrance he wore. Violets. I had never thought of a man smelling like violets. I quickly decided by his fine clothing that this must be my tutor. I stared down at him, trying to reconcile a babyish memory of danger from a boy with the man I saw below me. I wondered what had befallen him on his journey, for both his eyes were blacked and his face bruised purple and green all over the left side.

Despite his battered face, he was the handsomest person I had ever seen. His shoulders were wide, his back straight as he rode. The bruising could not disguise his straight nose and strong jaw.