Assassin's Apprentice

“Yes.” His word cut off the conversation. “You wished to speak to me.”

I took a great breath, then said it simply. “I just saw Nosy. He’s fine. Older now, but he’s had a happy life. All these years, Burrich, I always believed you killed him that night. Dashed out his brains, cut his throat, strangled him—I imagined it a dozen different ways, a thousand times. All those years.”

He looked at me incredulously. “You believed I would kill a dog for something you did?”

“I only knew he was gone. I could imagine nothing else. I thought it was my punishment.”

For a long time he was still. When he looked back up at me, I could see his torment. “How you must have hated me.”

“And feared you.”

“All those years? And you never learned better of me, never thought to yourself, He would not do such a thing?”

I shook my head slowly.

“Oh, Fitz,” he said sadly. One of the horses came to nudge at him, and he petted it absently. “I thought you were stubborn and sullen. You thought you had been grievously wronged. No wonder we have been so much at odds.”

“It can be undone,” I offered quietly. “I have missed you, you know. Missed you sorely, despite all our differences.”

I watched him thinking, and for a moment or two I thought he would smile and clap me on the shoulder and tell me to go fetch the other horses. But his face grew still, and then stern. “But for all that, it did not stop you. You believed I had it in me to kill any animal you used the Wit on. But it did not stop you from doing it.”

“I don’t see it the way you do,” I began, but he shook his head.

“We are better parted, boy. Better for both of us. There can be no misunderstandings if there are no understandings at all. I can never approve, or ignore, what you do. Never. Come to me when you can say you will do it no more. I will take your word on it, for you’ve never broken your word to me. But until then, we are better parted.”

He left me standing by the paddock and went back for his other horses. I stood a long time, feeling sick and weary, and not just from Kettricken’s poison. But I went back into the palace, and walked about, and spoke to people, and ate, and even endured with silence the mocking, triumphant smiles Cob gave me.

The day seemed longer than any two days in my previous experience. Had not it been for my burning and gurgling stomach, I would have found it exciting and absorbing. The afternoon and early evening were given over to congenial contests of archery, wrestling, and footraces. Young and old, male and female, joined in on these contests, and there seemed to be some mountain tradition that whoever won such contests on such an auspicious occasion would enjoy luck for a full turn of a year. Then there was more food, and singing, and dancing of dancers, and an entertainment, like a puppet show, but done all with shadows on a screen of silk. By the time folk began to retire, I was more than ready for my bed. It was a relief to close my chamber screen and be alone. I was just pulling off my annoying shirt and reflecting on what a strange day it had been when there was a tap at my door.

Before I could speak, Sevrens slid open the screen and slipped in. “Regal commands your presence,” he told me.

“Now?” I asked owlishly.

“Why else would he send me now?” Sevrens demanded.

Wearily I pulled my shirt back on and followed him out of the room. Regal’s chambers were in an upper level of the palace. It was not really a second floor, but more like a wooden terrace built to one side of the Great Hall. The walls were screens, and there was a sort of balcony where he might stand and look down before descending. These rooms were much more richly decorated. Some of the work was obviously Chyurda, bright birds brushed onto silk panels and figurines carved of amber. But much of the tapestries and statues and hangings looked to me like things Regal had acquired for his own pleasure and comfort. I stood waiting in his antechamber while he finished his bath. By the time he ambled out in his nightshirt, it was all I could do to keep my eyes open.

“Well?” he demanded of me.

I looked at him blankly. “You summoned me,” I reminded him.

“Yes. I did. I should like to know why it was necessary. I thought you had received some sort of training in this sort of thing. How long were you going to wait before you reported to me?”

I could think of nothing to say. I had never remotely considered reporting to Regal. To Shrewd or Chade, definitely, and to Verity. But to Regal?

“Need I remind you of your duty? Report.”

I hastily gathered my wits. “Would you hear my observations on the Chyurda as a people? Or information on the herbs they grow? Or—”