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mark of royal favour, to reward them for their faithfulness.’

      She nodded her comprehension. ‘And that favour might be?’ she asked softly.

      ‘A private gathering with their queen in her personal chambers, perhaps for a special minstrel or puppeteer. It matters not what entertainment you provide; only that those who have not chosen to attend you as faithfully be excluded.’

      ‘That sounds like something Regal would do.’

      ‘Probably. He is very adept at creating lackeys and hangers-on. But he would do it spitefully, to punish those who had not danced attendance upon him.’

      ‘And I?’

      ‘And you, my Queen-in-Waiting, you do it as a reward to those who have. With no thought of punishing those who have not, but only of enjoying the company of those who obviously reciprocate that feeling.’

      ‘I see. And the minstrel?’

      ‘Mellow. He has a most gallant way of singing to every lady in the room.’

      ‘Will you see if he is free this evening?’

      ‘My lady,’ I had to smile. ‘You are the Queen-in-Waiting. You honour him to request his presence. He will never be too busy to attend upon you.’

      She sighed again, but it was a smaller sigh. She nodded her dismissal of me, and rose to advance smiling upon her ladies, begging them to excuse her wandering thoughts this morning, and then asking if they might also attend her this evening in her own chambers. I watched them exchange glances and smile, and knew we had done well. I noted their names to myself. Lady Hopeful and Lady Modesty. I bowed my way out of the room, my departure scarcely noticed.

      So I came to be advisor to Kettricken. It was a not a role I relished, to be companion and instructor, to be the whisperer that told her what steps she next must dance. In truth, it was an uncomfortable task. I felt I diminished her by my chiding, and that I corrupted her, teaching her the spidery ways of power in the web of the court. She was right. These were Regal’s tricks. If she worked them with higher ideals and kinder ways than Regal did, my intentions were selfish enough for both of us. I wanted her to gather power into her hands, and with it bind the throne firmly to Verity in the minds of one and all.

      Early each evening, I was expected to call on Lady Patience. She and Lacey both took these visits quite seriously. Patience considered me completely at her disposal, as if I were her page still, and thought nothing of requiring me to copy some ancient scroll for her onto her precious red paper, or to demand that I show her my improvement in playing the sea pipes. She always took me to task for not showing enough effort in that area, and would spend the better part of an hour confusing me whilst attempting to instruct me in it. I tried to be tractable and polite, but felt entrapped in their conspiracy to keep me from seeing Molly. I knew the wisdom of Patience’s course, but wisdom does not allay loneliness. Despite their efforts to keep me from her, I saw Molly everywhere. Oh, not her person, no, but in the scent of the fat bayberry candle burning so sweetly, in the cloak left draped over a chair, even the honey in the honey cakes tasted of Molly to me. Will you think me a fool that I sat close by the candle and smelled its scent, or took the chair that I might lean against her snow-damped cloak as I sat? Sometimes I felt as Kettricken did, that I was drowning in what was required of me, and that there was nothing left in my life that was for me alone.

      I reported weekly to Chade upon Kettricken’s progress in court intrigue. Chade it was who warned me that suddenly the ladies most enamoured of Regal were courting favour with Kettricken as well. And so I must warn her, who to treat courteously, but no more than that, and whom to genuinely smile upon. Sometimes I thought to myself that I would rather be quietly killing for my king than to be so embroiled in all these secretive schemes. But then King Shrewd summoned me.

      The message came very early one morning, and I made haste to dress myself to attend my king. This was the first time he had summoned me to his presence since I had returned to Buckkeep. It had made me uneasy to be ignored. Was he displeased with me, over what had happened at Jhaampe? Surely he would have told me so directly. Still. Uncertainty gnawed me. I tried to make great haste to wait upon him, and yet to take special care with my appearance. I ended up doing poorly at both. My hair, shorn for fever when I was in the mountains, had grown back as bushy and unmanageable as Verity’s. Worse, my beard was beginning to bristle as well. Twice Burrich had told me that I had better decide to wear a beard, or to attend more closely to my shaving. As my beard came in as patchy as a pony’s winter coat, I diligently cut my face several times that morning, before deciding that a bit of bristle would be less noticeable than all the blood. I curried my hair back from my face, and wished I could bind it back in a warrior’s tail. I set into my shirt the pin that Shrewd had so long ago given me to mark me as his. Then I hurried to attend my king.

      As I strode hastily down the hall to the King’s door, Regal stepped abruptly from his own doorway. I halted not to run into him, and then felt trapped there, staring at him. I had seen him several times since I had returned, but it had always been across a hall, or a passing glimpse of him while I was engaged in some task. Now we stood, scarce an arm’s length apart, and stared at one another. Almost, we could have been mistaken for brothers, I realized with shock. His hair was curlier, his features finer, his bearing more aristocratic. His garments were peacock’s feathers compared to my wren colours, and I lacked silver at my throat and on my hands. Still, the stamp of the Farseers was plain on us both: we shared Shrewd’s jaw and the fold of his eyelids and the curve of his lower lip. Neither of us would ever compare to Verity’s widely-muscled build, but I would come closer than he would. Less than a decade of years separated our ages. Only his skin separated me from his blood. I met his eyes and wished I could spill his guts upon the clean swept floor.

      He smiled, a brief showing of white teeth. ‘Bastard,’ he greeted me pleasantly. His smile grew sharper. ‘Or, that is, Master Fits. A fitting name you’ve taken to yourself.’ His careful pronunciation left no room for doubting his insult.

      ‘Prince Regal,’ I replied, and let my tone make the words mean the same as his. I waited with an icy patience I had not known I owned. He had to strike me first.

      For a time we held our positions, eyes locked. Then he glanced down, to flick imaginary dust from his sleeve. He strode past me. I did not step aside for him. He did not jostle me as once he would have. I took a breath and walked on.

      I did not know the guardsman at the door, but he waved me into the King’s chamber. I sighed and set myself another task. I would learn names and faces again. Now that the court was swelling with folk come to see the new queen, I found myself being recognized by people I didn’t know. ‘That’d be the Bastard, by the look of him,’ I’d heard a baconmonger say to his apprentice the other day outside the kitchen doors. It made me feel vulnerable. Things were changing too fast for me.

      King Shrewd’s chamber shocked me. I had expected to find the windows ajar to the brisk winter air, to find Shrewd up and dressed and alert at table, as keen as a captain receiving reports from his lieutenants. Always he had been so, a sharp old man, strict with himself, an early riser, Shrewd as his name. But he was not in his sitting room at all. I ventured to the entry of his bedchamber, peered within the open door.

      Inside, the room was half in shadow still. A servant rattled cups and plates at a small table drawn up by the great curtained bed. He glanced at me, then away, evidently thinking I was a serving-boy. The air was still and musty, as if the room were disused or had not been aired in a long time. I waited a time for the servant to let King Shrewd know I had come. When he continued to ignore me, I advanced warily to the edge of the bed.

      ‘My king?’ I made bold to address him when he did not speak. ‘I have come as you bid me.’

      Shrewd was sitting up in the curtained shadows of his bed, well propped with cushions. He opened his eyes when I spoke. ‘Who … ah. Fitz. Sit, then. Wallace, bring him a chair. A cup and plate, too.’ As the servant moved to his bidding, King Shrewd confided to me, ‘I do miss Cheffers. With me for so many years, and I never had to tell him what I wanted done.’

      ‘I remember him, my lord. Where is he, then?’

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