LITMIR.BIZ

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at my third rest interlude I loosened my collar and opened my shirt wide to the cool air. I almost felt guilty doing it, yet I will not deny that I wanted to test if the charm would coax her to be more loquacious with me.

      It worked. Leaning on the wall in the shade of the weapons shed, I caught my breath, and then looked up into her face. As our gaze met, her brown eyes widened, in the way that a person’s eyes widen at the sight of something pleasantly anticipated. Like a rapier rushing to its target, I thrust my question past her guard. ‘Tell me, do you press Prince Dutiful so hard when he practises with you?’

      She smiled. ‘No, I fear I do not, for I am usually more occupied with maintaining my own defences against him. He is a skilled swordsman, creative and unpredictable in his tactics. No sooner do I devise a new trick to use against him than he learns it and tries it against me.’

      ‘Then he loves his blade-work, as good fighters usually do.’

      She paused. ‘No. I do not think that is it. He is a youth who makes no half-measures in anything he does. He strives to be perfect in all he attempts.’

      ‘Competitive, is he?’ I tried to make my query casual. I busied my hands in smoothing my wayward hair back into its tail.

      Again she considered. ‘No. Not in the usual sense. There are some I practise with who think only of beating their opponents. That preoccupation can be used against them. But I do not think the Prince cares if he wins our matches, only that he fights each one perfectly. It is not the same thing as competing with my skills …’ Her voice trailed away as she pondered it.

      ‘He competes with himself, against an ideal he imagines.’

      My prompting seemed to startle her for an instant. Then, grinning, ‘That is it, exactly. You’ve met him, then?’

      ‘Not yet,’ I assured her. ‘But I’ve heard a great deal about him, and look forward to meeting him.’

      ‘Oh, that won’t be soon,’ she informed me guilelessly. ‘He has his mother’s Mountain ways in some things. Often he goes apart from the whole court for a time, to spend time just thinking. He isolates himself in a tower. Some say he fasts, but I have never seen signs of it when he returns to his routine.’

      ‘So what does he do?’ I asked in hearty puzzlement.

      ‘I’ve no idea.’

      ‘You’ve never asked him?’

      She gave me an odd look, and when she spoke, her voice had cooled. ‘I am only his training partner, not his confidante. I am a guardsman and he is a prince. I would not presume to question my prince on his private time alone. He is, as all know, a private person, with a great need for solitude.’

      Necklace or not, I knew I had pushed her too hard. I smiled, I hoped disarmingly, and straightened up with a groan. ‘Well, as a training partner, you’re the equal of any I’ve ever had. The Prince is fortunate to have someone such as you to sharpen his skills against. As am I.’

      ‘You are welcome. And I hope we can measure ourselves against one another again.’

      I left it at that. I had as much success with the other servants. My queries, whether direct or indirect, yielded little information. It was not that the servants refused to gossip; they were as willing to chatter about Lord Golden or Lady Elegance as one could wish, but on the topic of the Prince, they simply seemed to know nothing. The picture I formed of Dutiful was of a boy who was not disliked, but was isolated not only by his rank but by his nature. It did not encourage me. I feared that if he had run, he had divulged his plans to no one. His solitary habits would have left him singularly vulnerable to kidnappers as well.

      My mind went back to the note the Queen had received. It had told her that the Prince was Witted and demanded she take suitable action. What had the writer intended as ‘suitable action’? Revealing his Wit and proclaiming that the Witted must be accepted? Or purifying the Farseer line with his demise? Had the writer contacted the Prince as well?

      Chade’s old workbench had yielded me the lock-picks I needed for my dinner-hour adventure. The Prince had Prince Regal’s former grand chambers. That lock and I were old friends and I anticipated that I could slip it easily. While the rest of the keep was at table, I approached the Prince’s rooms. Here again I saw his mother’s influence, for there was not only no guard at his door, but it was not locked. I slipped silently within, closing it softly behind me. Then I stared about me in perplexity. I had expected the same clutter and disorder that Hap tended to leave in his wake. Instead the Prince’s sparse possessions were all stored in such an orderly fashion that the spacious room looked nearly empty. Perhaps he had a fanatical valet, I mused. Then, recalling Kettricken’s upbringing, I wondered if the Prince had any body-servants at all. Personal servants were not a Mountain custom.

      It took me very little time to explore his rooms. I found a modest assortment of clothing in his chests. I could not determine if any were missing. His riding boots were still there, but Chade had already told me that the Prince’s horse was still in his stall. He possessed a neat array of brush, comb, washbasin and looking-glass, all precisely aligned in a row. In the room where he pursued his studies, the ink was tightly stoppered and the tabletop had never suffered any blots or spills. No scrolls had been left out. His sword was on the wall, but there were empty pegs where other weapons might have hung. There were no personal papers, no ribbons or locks of hair tucked into the corner of his clothing chest, not even a sticky wineglass or an idly-tossed shirt under his bed. In short, it did not strike me as a boy’s bedchamber at all.

      There was a large cushion in a sturdy basket near the hearth. The hair that clung to it was short, yet fine. The stoutly-woven basket bore the marks of errant claws. I did not need the wolf’s nose to smell cat in the room. I lifted the cushion, and found playthings beneath it: a rabbitskin tied to a length of heavy twine, and a canvas toy stuffed with catmint. I raised my eyebrows to that, wondering if hunting cats were affected by it as mousing cats were.

      The room yielded me little else: no hidden journal of princely thoughts, no defiant run-away’s final note to his mother, nothing to suggest that the Prince had been spirited away against his will. I had retreated quietly from his rooms, leaving all as I had found it.

      My route took me past the door of my old boyhood room. I paused, tempted. Who stayed there now? The hallway was empty and I yielded to the impulse. The lock on the door was the one I had devised, and it demanded my rusty skills to get past it. It was so stiff I was persuaded it had not turned in some time. I shut the door behind me and stood still, smelling dust.

      The tall window was shuttered, but the shutters were, as they had always been, a poor fit. Daylight leaked past them, and after a few moments, my eyes adjusted to the dusky light. I looked around. There, my bedstead, with cobwebs embroidering the familiar hangings. The cedar clothing chest at the foot of it was thick with dust. The hearth, empty, black and cold. And above it, the faded tapestry of King Wisdom treating with the Elderlings. I stared at it. As a boy of nine, it had given me nightmares. Time had not changed my opinion of the oddly-elongated forms. The golden Elderlings stared down on the lifeless and empty room.

      I suddenly felt as if I had disturbed a grave. As silently as I had entered the chamber, I left it, locking the door behind me.

      I had thought to find Lord Golden in his chambers, but he was not there. ‘Lord Golden?’ I asked questioningly, and then advanced to tap lightly at the door of his private chamber. I swear I did not touch the catch, but it swung open at my touch.

      Light flooded out. The small chamber had a window, and the afternoon sun filled it with gold. It was a pleasant, open room that smelled of woodshavings and paint. In the corner, a plant in a tub climbed a trellis. Hanging on the walls, I recognized charms such as Jinna made. On the worktable in the middle of the room, amongst the scattered tools and paint pots, there were pieces of rod, string and beads, as if he had disassembled a charm. I found I had taken a step into the room. There was a scroll weighted flat on the table, with several charms drawn on it. They were unlike anything I had seen in Jinna’s shop. Even at a glance, the sketches were oddly unsettling. ‘I remember that,’ I thought, and then, when I

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