Assassin's Apprentice

The Fool shook his head. “You haven't even a clue, have you?”

“About what?”

"About how the stablemaster dragged Galen from his bed, and from thence to the Witness Stones. I wasn't there, of course, or I would be able to tell you how Galen cursed and struck at him at first, but the stablemaster paid no attention. He just hunched his shoulders to the man's blows, and kept silent. He gripped the Skillmaster by the collar, so the man was fair choked, and dragged him along. And the soldiers and guards and stable boys followed in a stream that became a torrent of men. If I had been there, I could tell you how no man dared to interfere, for it was as if the stablemaster had become as Burrich once was, an iron muscled man with a black temper that was like a madness when it came on him. No one, then, dared to brook that temper, and that day, it was as if Burrich was that man again. If he limped still, no one noticed it at all.

“As for the Skillmaster, he flailed and cursed, and then he grew still, and all suspected that he turned what he knew upon his captor. But if he did, it had no effect, save that the stablemaster tightened his grip on the man's neck. And if Galen strove to sway others to his cause, they did not react. Perhaps being choked and dragged was sufficient to break his concentration. Or perhaps his Skill is not so strong as it was rumored. Or perhaps too many remember his mistreatment of them too well to be vulnerable to his wiles. Or perhaps-”

“Fool! Get on with it! What happened?” A light sweat cloaked my body and I shivered, not knowing what I hoped for.

“I wasn't there, of course,” the Fool asserted sweetly. “But I have heard it said that the dark man dragged the skinny man all the way up to the Witness Stones. And there, still gripping the Skillmaster so he could not speak, he asserted his challenge. They would fight. No weapons, but hands only, just as the Skillmaster had assaulted a certain boy the day before. And the Stones would witness, if Burrich won, that Galen had had no call to strike the boy, nor had he the right to refuse to teach the boy. And Galen would have refused the challenge and gone to the King himself, except that the dark man had already called the Stones to witness. And so they fought, in much the same way that a bull fights a bale of straw when he tosses and stamps and gores it. And when he was done, the stablemaster bent and whispered something to the Skillmaster, before he and all others turned and left the man lying there, with the Stones witness to his whimpering and bleeding.”

“What did he say?” I demanded.

“I wasn't there. I saw and heard nothing of it.” The Fool stood and stretched. “You'll be late if you tarry,” he pointed out to me, and left.

“Now stop that,” he commanded me angrily.

“What?” I asked.

“You look at me sometimes with my lord's eyes,” he said quietly, and then as sharply as before, “Well, what did you think to do? Hide in the stables the rest of your life? No. You have to go back. You have to go back and hold up your head and eat your meals among the keep folk, and sleep in your own room, and live your own life. Yes, and go finish those damn lessons in the Skill.”

His first commands had sounded difficult, but the last, I knew, was impossible.

“I can't,” I said, not believing how stupid he was. “Galen wouldn't let me come back to the group. And even if he did, I'd never catch up on all I've missed. I've already failed at it, Burrich. I failed and that's done, and I need to find something else to do with myself. I'd like to learn the hawks, please.” The last I heard myself say with some amazement, for in truth it had never crossed my mind before. Burrich's reply was at least as strange.

“You can't, for the hawks don't like you. You're too warm and you don't mind your own business enough. Now listen to me. You didn't fail, you fool. Galen tried to drive you away. If you don't go back, you'll have let him win. You have to go back and you have to learn it. But”-and here he turned on me, and the anger in his eyes was for me-“you don't have to stand there like a carter's mule while he beats you. You've a birthright to his time and his knowledge. Make him give you what is yours. Don't run away. No one ever gained anything by running away.” He paused, started to say more, and then stopped.

“Newboy ...” she said, and then, “Thank you. For understanding.”

And then she whisked into her shop and shut the door behind her, leaving me chilled and bewildered. She thanked me for understanding her at a time when I had never felt more isolated from her, and everyone else.