Fool’s Assassin

I heard a soft tread and looked past her to see Riddle approaching. His movements slowed as if he had seen a crouching lynx or a snake poised to strike. Uncertainty turned to dismay as he accepted that he might have to attempt to protect Shun from me. When had the man come to know me so well? I stepped back from her, putting myself beyond striking distance, and saw his shoulders relax, then tighten again as Shun shadowed my movement, putting herself back in harm’s way. His eyes met mine for a moment and then he strode lightly up to join us. When he touched Shun on the shoulder, she jumped. She had been completely unaware of his approach.

“I’ve arranged a meeting with Revel for you,” he lied quickly. “I think he is our best source for an appropriate music instructor for you. And perhaps a dancing master as well.”

She bristled, perhaps offended at being touched, and while he had her attention I walked away, leaving him with the problem. Unfair, perhaps, but safer for all of us.

In the safety of my study, with the door closed, I finally allowed myself to feel everything she had roused in me. Fury was foremost. How dared she, a guest in my home, speak so of my daughter! The slur on Molly’s name was equally unforgivable. But bafflement followed fury. Why? Why had Shun, who depended on my goodwill, said such things? Was she so blind to all levels of courtesy that she regarded such a question as acceptable? Had she been deliberately trying to insult or wound me, and if so, why?

Did she truly believe Molly had cuckolded me? Did others look at Bee’s pale hair and blue eyes and think me a fool?

I controlled my glance as I sat down at my desk, sparing only a flicker of a look at the wall above my worktable. Across Bee’s peephole, I had coaxed a thread of spider silk, and trapped a tiny bit of bird down in it. It hung motionless save when Bee was in residence. It had given a tiny jiggle as I crossed the room. She was there now. I wondered if she had preceded me to the study, or if she had used her badly hidden pantry entrance. I hoped she was not weeping over her father’s idiocy in disposing of her treasures. Her anger was hard for me to bear, but weeping would have been worse.

I looked down at the scroll on my desk. I had no real interest in it at the moment; it was written in an archaic style in faded ink, and was something Chade had sent to me to be recopied. It dealt with a Skill-exercise for new students. I doubted it would interest my daughter. The hair I had left across one corner of it was undisturbed. So. She had not thumbed through my papers today. I remained certain that she had done so previously. I was not sure when she had begun to read papers left in my study, so I could not be certain just what she had seen of my personal writing. I sighed to myself. Every time I thought I had stepped forward to being a better parent, I discovered a new failing. I had not confronted her about her investigation of her father; I had known she could read, and I had been careless. In my own youth I had read more than one missive or scroll that Chade had left carelessly lying about.

Or so I had thought. I wondered if he did then as I did now, which was to leave out only those that I thought might intrigue her mind or educate her. My private thoughts I recorded in a ledger that I now wrote in only within my bedchamber. Even if she had known of the sliding compartment in the great chest at the foot of my bed, she would not have been able to reach it.

I thought of calling her out of her hiding place and decided against it. Let her have her private place in which to sulk or mourn.

There was a tap at my door. “Riddle,” I said, and he eased the door open. He peered round it, cautious as a fox, and then sidled in, closing the door softly behind him.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

“No harm done,” I replied. I was not sure if he was apologizing for Shun accosting me about music lessons, or if he had overhead her remarks about bastards and was offering sympathy. In either case, “I’ve no desire to discuss it now.”

“I’m afraid we must,” he offered. “Revel was delighted with Lady Shun’s request. He thinks it would be absolutely marvelous for you to have music and dancing at Withywoods again. He says there’s an old man in Oaksbywater who can no longer croak out a note, but can teach Lady Shun to coax a tune from a harp. And Revel has offered himself as a dancing master to her, ‘Only, of course, until a more suitable partner can be discovered for such a lady.’ I will add that Lady Shun was not greatly pleased when he eagerly suggested that Bee might also profit from instruction in dance and music.”

I saw the glint in his eye and surmised, “But you accepted on her behalf.”

“I’m afraid I could not resist,” he admitted, and I saw the cobweb stir, as if someone had either sighed or drawn in a breath. Little spy. What was bred in the bone, I supposed, would not be beaten out of the flesh.