LITMIR.BIZ

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Now we’re sleeping at the edge of it. Then, more kindly, he added, Don’t worry about things you can’t change. I’ll be with you soon.

      Watch Hap for me.

      Of course. Go to sleep.

      I could smell damp grass and the trickling smoke of the campfire, and even Hap’s salty sweat as he lay nearby. It reassured me. All was well in my world then. I let go of all save those simple sensations and finally spiralled down into sleep.

      ‘Might I remind you that you are to serve as my valet, not the reverse?’

      The words that jolted me from sleep were spoken in Lord Golden’s arrogant sneer, but the smile on the Fool’s face was entirely his own. A set of clothing hung over his arm, and I could smell warm, scented water. He was already faultlessly dressed in garb that was even more elegantly understated than what he had worn yesterday. His colours today were cream and forest green, with a thin edging of gilt at his cuffs and collar. He wore a new earring, a filigreed golden orb. I knew what was inside it. He looked fresh and alert. I sat up and then cradled my aching head in my hands.

      ‘Skill-headache?’ he asked sympathetically.

      I shook my head and the pain rattled inside it. ‘I only wish it were,’ I muttered. I glanced up at him. ‘I’m just tired.’

      ‘I thought perhaps you would sleep in the tower.’

      ‘It didn’t feel right.’ I rose and tried to stretch but my back kinked in protest. The Fool set the clothing across the foot of the bed, and then sat down on my rumpled blankets. ‘So. Any thoughts on where our prince might be?’

      ‘Too many. Anywhere in Buck Duchy, or even beyond the borders by now. There are too many nobles who might want to take him. If he ran on his own, that only increases the number of places he might have gone.’ The washwater was still steaming. A few leaves of lemon balm floated fragrantly on the surface of the plain pottery bowl. I plunged my face into it gratefully and came up rubbing my hands over my face. I felt more awake and aware of the world. ‘I need a bath. Are the steam baths behind the guard barracks still there?’

      ‘Yes, but servants don’t use them. You’ll have to be wary of falling back into old habits. Personal servants, generally speaking, get the second use of their master’s or mistress’s bathwater. Or they haul their own from the kitchens.’

      I gave him a look. ‘I’ll haul my own tonight.’ I proceeded to make the best use I could of the handbasin while he sat and silently watched me. While I was shaving, he observed quietly, ‘You’ll have to get up earlier tomorrow. All the kitchen staff know that I’m an early riser.’

      I looked at him in consternation. ‘And?’

      ‘And they’ll be expecting my servant to come down for my breakfast tray.’

      The sense sank in slowly. He was right. I needed to do a better job of stepping into my role if I was to find out anything useful. ‘I’ll go now,’ I offered.

      He shook his head. ‘Not looking like that. Lord Golden is a proud and temperamental man. He would not keep such a rough-thatched servant as you show yourself now. We must make you look your part. Come here and sit down.’

      I followed him out into the light and air of the master chamber. He had set out comb, brush and shears on his table, and propped a large mirror on it. I steeled myself to endure this. I crossed to the door to be sure it was securely bolted against untimely intrusion. Then I sat in a chair and waited for him to lop my hair into a servant’s short cut. I freed my hair from its tail as Lord Golden took up the shears. When I looked into his ornately-framed mirror, I saw a man I scarcely recognized. There is something about a large glass and seeing oneself all at once. Starling was right, I decided. I did look much older than my years. When I leaned back from the mirror and regarded my face, I was surprised to see how my scar had faded. It was still there as a seam, but it was not as remarkable as it had been on a young man’s unlined face. The Fool let me look at myself for a time in silence. Then he gathered my hair into his hands. I glanced up at his face in the mirror. His lower lip was caught in his teeth in an agony of indecision. Abruptly he clacked the shears back onto the table. ‘No,’ he said emphatically. ‘I can’t bring myself to do it, and I don’t think we need to.’ He took a breath, then rapidly curried my hair back into its warrior tail. ‘Try the clothing,’ he urged me. ‘I had to guess at size, but no one expects a servant’s clothing to be well tailored.’

      I went back to the small chamber and looked at the garments draped across the foot of my cot. They were cut from the familiar blue homespun that servants at Buckkeep had always worn. It was not all that different from the clothing I had worn as a child. But as I put it on, it felt different. I was donning the garments that marked me to all eyes as a serving-man. A disguise, I told myself. I was not truly anyone’s servant. But with a sudden pang, I wondered how Molly had felt the first time she had donned the blue dress of a serving-girl. Bastard or not, I was the son of a prince. I had never expected to wear the garments of a servant. In place of my Farseer charging buck, there was an embroidery of Lord Golden’s golden cock-pheasant. Yet the garments fitted me well, and, ‘Actually, these are the best quality clothes I’ve worn in years,’ I admitted ruefully. The Fool leaned round the door to look at me, and for a second I thought I saw anxiety in his eyes. But at the sight of me he grinned, then made a show of walking a slow circle of inspection around me.

      ‘You’ll do, Tom Badgerlock. There are boots by the door, made a good three finger-widths longer than my foot, and wider, too. Best you put your things away in the chest, so that if anyone does become curious to look about our rooms, there will be nothing to arouse suspicion.’

      This I did hastily while the Fool quickly tidied his own chamber. Verity’s sword went under the clothing in my chest. There were scarcely enough garments to cover it. The boots fitted as well as new boots usually did. Time would make them comfortable.

      ‘I’m sure you remember the way to the kitchens. I always eat my breakfast on a tray in my room; the kitchen boys will be glad to see you’re taking on the task of bringing it to me. It may give you an opening for gossip.’ He paused. ‘Tell them I ate little last night and hence am ravenous this morning. Then bring up enough for both of us.’

      It was strange to have him direct me so minutely, but, I reminded myself, I had best get used to it. So I bobbed a bow at him and essayed a, ‘Yes, sir,’ before I went out of the door of the chamber. He started to smile, caught himself, and inclined a slow nod to me.

      Outside the chamber, the castle was well awake. Other servants were busy, replenishing candles and sweeping soiled rushes away or scurrying about with fresh linens or buckets of washwater. Perhaps it was my new perspective, but it seemed to me that there were far more servants in Buckkeep than I recalled. It was not the only aspect that had changed. Queen Kettricken’s Mountain ways were in more evidence than ever. In her years of residence, the inside of the castle had been raised to a new standard of cleanliness. A sparse simplicity characterized the rooms I passed, replacing decades of ornate clutter that had once filled them. The tapestries and banners that remained were clean and free of cobwebs.

      But in the kitchens, Cook Sara still reigned. I stepped into the steam and smells and it was like stepping through a doorway back into my boyhood. As Chade had told me, the old cook was ensconced on a chair rather than bustling from hearth to table to hearth, but clearly food was cooked in Buckkeep kitchens as it had always been cooked. I wrenched my eyes from Sara’s ample form, lest she catch my gaze and somehow know me. I tugged humbly at the sleeve of a serving-boy to make Lord Golden’s breakfast wishes known to him. The boy pointed out the trays, dishes and cutlery and then gestured wide at the cooking hearths. ‘Ye’re his servant, not me,’ he pointed out snippily, and went back to chopping turnips. I scowled at him, but was inwardly grateful. I had soon served up enough for two very ample breakfasts onto the tray. I whisked it and myself out of the kitchen.

      I was halfway up the stair when I heard a familiar voice in conversation. I halted and then leaned on the balustrade to look down. Unbidden, a smile came to my face. Queen Kettricken strode through the hall below, half a dozen ladies struggling

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