LITMIR.BIZ

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‘If you had known he’d cared, so would others. When you are a man, maybe you’ll understand just how much that cost him. To not know you in order to keep you safe. To make his enemies ignore you.’

      ‘Well, I’ll “not know” him to the end of my days, now,’ I said sulkily.

      Chade sighed. ‘And the end of your days will come a great deal later than they would have had he acknowledged you as an heir.’ He paused, then asked cautiously, ‘What do you want to know about him, my boy?’

      ‘Everything. But how would you know?’ The more tolerant Chade was, the more surly I felt.

      ‘I’ve known him all his life. I’ve … worked with him. Many times. Hand in glove, as the saying goes.’

      ‘Were you the hand or the glove?’

      No matter how rude I was, Chade refused to get angry. ‘The hand,’ he said after a brief consideration. ‘The hand that moves unseen, cloaked by the velvet glove of diplomacy.’

      ‘What do you mean?’ Despite myself, I was intrigued.

      ‘Things can be done.’ Chade cleared his throat. ‘Things can happen that make diplomacy easier. Or that make a party more willing to negotiate. Things can happen …’

      My world turned over. Reality burst on me as suddenly as a vision, the fullness of what Chade was and what I was to be. ‘You mean one man can die, and his successor can be easier to negotiate with because of it. More amenable to our cause, because of fear or because of …’

      ‘Gratitude. Yes.’

      A cold horror shook me as all the pieces suddenly fell into place. All the lessons and careful instructions and this is what they led to. I started to rise, but Chade’s hand suddenly gripped my shoulder.

      ‘Or a man can live, two years or five or a decade longer than any thought he could, and bring the wisdom and tolerance of age to the negotiations. Or a babe can be cured of a strangling cough, and the mother suddenly see with gratitude that what we offer can be beneficial to all involved. The hand doesn’t always deal death, my boy. Not always.’

      ‘Often enough.’

      ‘I never lied to you about that.’ I heard two things in Chade’s voice that I had never heard before. Defensiveness. And hurt. But youth is merciless.

      ‘I don’t think I want to learn any more from you. I think I’m going to go to Shrewd and tell him to find someone else to kill people for him.’

      ‘That is your decision to make. But I advise you against it, for now.’

      His calmness caught me off-guard. ‘Why?’

      ‘Because it would negate all Chivalry tried to do for you. It would draw attention to you. And right now, that is not a good idea.’ His words came ponderously slow, freighted with truth.

      ‘Why?’ I found I was whispering.

      ‘Because some will be wanting to write finis to Chivalry’s story completely. And that would be best done by eliminating you. Those ones will be watching how you react to your father’s death. Does it give you ideas and make you restless? Will you become a problem now, the way he was?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘My boy,’ he said, and pulled me close against his side. For the first time I heard the possession in his words. ‘It is a time for you to be quiet and careful. I understand why Burrich cut your hair, but in truth I wish he had not. I wish no one had been reminded that Chivalry was your father. You are such a hatchling yet … but listen to me. For now, change nothing that you do. Wait six months, or a year. Then decide. But for now …’

      ‘How did my father die?’

      Chade’s eyes searched my face. ‘Did you not hear that he fell from a horse?’

      ‘Yes. And I heard Burrich curse the man who told it, saying that Chivalry would not fall, nor would that horse throw him.’

      ‘Burrich needs to guard his tongue.’

      ‘Then how did my father die?’

      ‘I don’t know. But like Burrich, I do not believe he fell from a horse.’ Chade fell silent. I sank down to sit by his bony bare feet and stare into his fire.

      ‘Are they going to kill me, too?’

      He was silent a long while. ‘I don’t know. Not if I can help it. I think they must first convince King Shrewd it is necessary. And if they do that, I shall know of it.’

      ‘Then you think it comes from within the keep.’

      ‘I do.’ Chade waited long but I was silent, refusing to ask. He answered anyway. ‘I knew nothing of it before it happened. I had no hand in it in any way. They didn’t even approach me about it. Probably because they know I would have done more than just refused. I would have seen to it that it never happened.’

      ‘Oh.’ I relaxed a little. But already he had trained me too well in the ways of court thinking. ‘Then they probably won’t come to you if they decide they want me done. They’d be afraid of your warning me as well.’

      He took my chin in his hand and turned my face so that I looked into his eyes. ‘Your father’s death should be all the warning you need, now or ever. You’re a bastard, Fitz. We’re always a risk and a vulnerability. We’re always expendable. Except when we are an absolute necessity to their own security. I’ve taught you quite a bit, these last few years. But hold this lesson closest and keep it always before you. If ever you make it so they don’t need you, they will kill you.’

      I looked at him wide-eyed. ‘They don’t need me now.’

      ‘Don’t they? I grow old. You are young, and tractable, with the face and bearing of the royal family. As long as you don’t show any inappropriate ambitions, you’ll be fine.’ He paused, then carefully emphasized, ‘We are the King’s, boy. His exclusively, in a way perhaps you have not thought about. No one knows what I do and most have forgotten who I am. Or was. If any know of us, it is from the King.’

      I sat putting it cautiously together. ‘Then … you said it came from within the keep. But if you were not used, then it was not from the King … the Queen!’ I said it with sudden certainty.

      Chade’s eyes guarded his thoughts. ‘That’s a dangerous assumption to make. Even more dangerous if you think you must act on it in some way.’

      ‘Why?’

      Chade sighed. ‘When you spring to an idea, and decide it is truth, without evidence, you blind yourself to other possibilities. Consider them all, boy. Perhaps it was an accident. Perhaps Chivalry was killed by someone he had offended at Withywoods. Perhaps it had nothing to do with him being a prince. Or, perhaps the King has another assassin, one I know nothing about, and it was the King’s own hand against his son.’

      ‘You don’t believe any of those,’ I said with certainty.

      ‘No. I don’t. Because I have no evidence to declare them truth. Just as I have no evidence to say your father’s death was the Queen’s hand striking.’

      That is all I remember of our conversation then. But I am sure that Chade had deliberately led me to consider who might have acted against my father, to instil in me a greater wariness of the Queen. I held the thought close to me, and not just in the days that immediately followed. I kept myself to my chores, and slowly my hair grew, and by the beginning of real summer all seemed to have returned to normal. Once every few weeks, I would find myself sent off to town on errands. I soon came to see that no matter who sent me, one or two items on the list wound up in Chade’s quarters, so I guessed who was behind my little bouts of freedom. I did not manage to spend time with Molly every time I went to town, but it was enough for me that I would stand outside the window of her shop until she noticed me, and at least exchanged a nod. Once I heard someone in the market talking about the quality of her scented candles, and how no one

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