Fool’s Assassin

When I didn’t respond, she added, “My mother would have wanted to learn. And if she were here, I know she would have insisted that every child receive the chance. You are right.” She began to gather up her trove. It quickly filled her arms. She didn’t ask for help but just tucked her chin over it to hold it to her chest. In a very quiet voice she added, “But I wish you weren’t right, and I did not have to learn alongside them.” I opened the door for her and followed her out.

We had almost reached the door of her room when I heard the tapping of hard-soled slippers and looked back to see Shun bearing down on me like a ship under full sail. “Holder Badgerlock!” she hailed me imperiously. Bee’s pace increased. I halted and turned to face Shun, giving my daughter an opportunity to flee.

“Good afternoon, Lady Shun,” I greeted her, assuming a smile I did not feel.

“I need to speak to you,” she called breathlessly, steps before she had reached a conversational distance. When she halted, she began without greeting or preambles, “So, when are my music lessons to begin? And my dance instructor should come from Buckkeep Castle itself, if not from Jamaillia. I wanted to be sure you realized that. I don’t wish to be hampered by knowing only the old steps.”

I kept my smile with difficulty. “Music lessons. I am not sure that Scribe FitzVigilant is prepared to teach—”

She shook her head impatiently, her auburn curls flying. The motion propelled her scent to me. Molly had always worn perfumes of flowers and herbs: ginger and cinnamon, rose and lily. The fragrance that reached me from Shun had no recollection of a garden. A headache almost immediately assaulted me. I stepped back and she stepped forward as she continued. “I’ve already spoken to him, three days ago. He agrees with you that he is not qualified to teach me to play an instrument or sing, but suggested that if the manor hosted some minstrels for the winter, they were often pleased to instruct young ladies in musical accomplishments for a modest stipend.

“So then I asked him about dancing and—”

“Scribe FitzVigilant is still recovering. When did you speak to him?”

“When I went to his rooms to wish him well, of course. The poor fellow, I thought, sent away from Buckkeep Castle and the pleasures of the court to this backwater! I was sure he must be lonely and bored in his convalescence so I called on him, and engaged him in conversation to cheer him. I fear he is not a skilled conversationalist, but I well know how to pose questions and draw a shy fellow out of his shell. So when I asked him if he could dance and he told me he did, well enough, I asked if he might teach me some of the newer steps and he said he feared that his health would prevent him from dancing gracefully for a time. That was when he suggested I might need an instructor. So of course, I told Riddle, and … he didn’t speak to you, did he? For a serving man, he is most forgetful! To the point of uselessness. It’s a wonder to me that you keep him on at all!”

I was casting my mind back over recent conversations with Riddle, trying to scavenge a clue to what she was talking about. I was distracted to think she had bothered poor FitzVigilant with her chatter. “Riddle is actually Lady Nettle’s man, only loaned to Lord Chade for your safekeeping. And to look in on young Lady Bee, her sister.”

“Her ‘sister.’” Shun smiled. She cocked her head at me and regarded me with a trace of sympathy. “I respect you, Holder Badgerlock. Truly, I do. Living in your stepdaughter’s home, maintaining it so diligently. And offering haven to the bastards of Buckkeep. FitzVigilant and myself and Bee. Tell me. What lord fathered her that she must hide here with you? I’m thinking her father was from Farrow. I’ve heard that wheat hair and cornflower eyes are more common there.”

Such a surge of emotions. If I had not possessed the benefit of Chade’s years of training, I think that for the first time in my life I would have struck an unarmed woman. I stared at her, masking everything I felt from her empty smile. Or was it? Was she seeking to hurt me? Truly, Bee was right. A girl did not need to hit to hurt someone. I could not tell if the blow she had dealt me was intended or not. She had her head cocked, smiling at me confidentially, as if begging for a stray bit of gossip. I spoke slowly and softly. “Bee is my true daughter, the child my loving wife bore to me. No taint of bastardy touches her.”

Her gaze changed, her sympathy apparently deepening. “Oh, dear. I beg your pardon. I thought that surely, as she does not resemble you at all … but of course, I am sure you know what is true in that regard. So there are only three bastards seeking sanctuary at Withywoods. Myself and FitzVigilant, and, of course, you.”

I matched her tone perfectly. “Of course.”