Fool's Fate (Tawny Man #3)

“And how is your husband today?” I asked her roughly.

Her glance went opaque. “Who knows? He's gone trout fishing in the hills with Lord and Lady Redoaks. As you know, I've never enjoyed that kind of outing.” Then, glancing aside, she added, “But their lovely daughter Ivy apparently does. I've heard that she leaped at the chance to make the trip.”

She did not need to explain it to me. I took her hand. “Starling. I'm sorry.”

She took a breath. “Are you? It matters little to me. I've his name and his holdings to enjoy. And he leaves me the freedom of my minstrel ways, to come and go as I please.” She cocked her head at me. “I've been thinking of joining Dutiful's entourage for the journey to the Out Islands. What do you think of that?”

My heart lurched at the thought. Oh, no. “I think that it would be far worse than going trout fishing. I expect to be uncomfortable and cold for much of it. And Out Island food is terrible. If they give you lard, honey, and bone marrow mixed together, you've had the height of their cuisine.”

She stood gracefully. “Fish paste,” she said. “You've forgotten their fish paste. Fish paste on everything.” She stood looking down on me. Then she reached a hand and pushed several strands of hair back from my face. Her fingertips walked the scar down my face. “Someday,” she said quietly. “Someday you'll realize that we were the perfect match, you and I. That in all of your days and places, I was the only one who truly understood you and loved you despite it.”

I gaped at her. In all our years together, she'd never said the word “love” to me.

She slid her fingers under my chin and closed my mouth for me. “We should have breakfast together more often,” she suggested. Then she strolled away, sipping from her cup as she went, knowing that I watched her go.

“Well. At least you can make me forget all of my other problems for a time,” I observed quietly to myself. Then I took my mug back to the kitchen and headed for the Queen's Garden. Perhaps it was my conversation with Starling, for when I walked out on the tower top and found the boy feeding the doves, I was direct.

“You lied,” I said before he could even give me “good morning.” “Your father never sent you away. You ran off. And you stole money to do it.”

He gaped at me. His face went white. “Who . . . how did . . . ?”

“How do I know? If I answer that question for you, I'll answer it for Chade and the Queen, as well. Do you want them to know what I know?”

I prayed I had his measure. When he gulped and shook his head suddenly and silently, I knew I had. Given the chance to run home, with no one here the wiser as to how he had shamed himself, he'd take it.

“Your family is worried sick about you. You've no right to leave people who love you in suspense about your fate. Pack up and go, boy, just as you came. Here.” Impulsively I took my purse from my belt. “There's enough here to see you safely home, and pay back what you took. See that you do.”

He couldn't meet my eyes. “Yessir.”

When he didn't reach for the purse, I took his hand in mine, turned it palm up and put the sack into it. When I let go of his hand, he still stood staring up at me. I pointed at the door to the stairwell. He turned, stunned, and stumbled toward the door. With his hand on it, he halted. “You don't understand what it's like for me there,” he whispered feebly.

“Yes. I do. Far better than you might imagine. Go home, bow your head to your father's discipline, and serve your family until you reach your majority, as an honest boy should. Didn't your parents raise you? Didn't they give you life, put food on your plate, clothes on your back, shoes on your feet? Then it is only right that your labor belongs to them, until you are legally a man. Then you can openly go your own way. You will have years after that to discover your magic, years of your own, rightfully earned, to live as you please. Your Wit can wait until then.”

He halted by the door and leaned his head against it for a moment. “No. My magic won't wait.”

“It will have to!” I told him harshly. “Now go home, Swift. Leave today.”

He ducked his head, pushed the door open and left, shutting it behind him. I listened to his fading footsteps on the stair and felt his presence fade from my Wit-sense. Then I let out my breath in a long sigh. I had sent him to do a hard thing. I hoped Burrich's son had the spine to do it. I hoped, without real belief, that the boy's return would be enough to mend the family. I wandered over to the parapet wall and stood staring down at the rocks below.