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“The bastard? He’s only a child. ”
The old King sighed. “Today. This morning and now he is a child. When next you turn around he will be a youth, or worse, a man, and then it will be too late for you to make anything of him. But take him now, Regal, and shape him, and a decade hence you will command his loyalty. Instead of a discontented bastard who may be persuaded to become a pretender to the throne, he will be a henchman, united to the family by spirit as well as blood. A bastard, Regal, is a unique thing. Put a signet ring on his hand and send him forth, and you have created a diplomat no foreign ruler will dare to turn away. He may safely be sent where a prince of the blood may not be risked. Imagine the uses for one who is and yet is not of the royal bloodline. Hostage exchanges. Marital alliances. Quiet work. The diplomacy of the knife. ”
Regal’s eyes grew round at the King’s last words. For a pause, we all breathed in silence, regarding one another. When Regal spoke, he sounded as if he had dry bread caught in his throat. “You speak of these things in front of the boy. Of using him, as a tool, a weapon. You think he will not remember your words when he is grown?”
King Shrewd laughed, and the sound rang against the stone walls of the Great Hall. “Remember them? Of course he will. I count on it. Look at his eyes, Regal. There is intelligence there, and possibly potential Skill. I’d be a fool to lie to him. Stupider still to simply begin his training and education with no explanation. For that would leave his mind fallow for whatever seeds others might plant there. Isn’t it so, boy?”
He was regarding me steadily and I suddenly realized I was returning his look. For all of his speech our gazes had been locked as we read one another. In the eyes of the man who was my grandfather was honesty, of a rocky, bony sort. There was no comfort in it, but I knew I could always count on it to be there. I nodded slowly.
“Come here. ”
I walked to him slowly. When I reached him, he got down on one knee, to be eye to eye with me. The Fool knelt solemnly beside us, looking earnestly from face to face. Regal glared down at all of us. At the time I never grasped the irony of the old King genuflecting to his bastard grandson. So I was solemn as he took the tart from my hands and tossed it to the puppies who had trailed after me. He drew a pin from the folds of silk at his throat and solemnly pushed it through the simple wool of my shirt.
“Now you are mine,” he said, and made that claiming of me more important than any blood we shared. “You need not eat any man’s leavings. I will keep you, and I will keep you well. If any man or woman ever seeks to turn you against me by offering you more than I do, then come to me, and tell me of the offer, and I shall meet it. You will never find me a stingy man, nor be able to cite ill use as a reason for treason against me. Do you believe me, boy?”
I nodded, in the mute way that was still my habit, but his steady brown eyes demanded more.
“Yes, sir. ”
“Good. I will be issuing some commands regarding you. See that you go along with them. If any seem strange to you, speak to Burrich. Or to myself. Simply come to the door of my chamber, and show that pin. You’ll be admitted. ”
I glanced down at the red stone that winked in a nest of silver. “Yes, sir,” I managed again.
“Ah,” he said softly, and I sensed a trace of regret in his voice and wondered what it was for. His eyes released me, and suddenly I was once more aware of my surroundings, of the puppies and the Great Hall and Regal watching me with fresh distaste on his face, and the Fool nodding enthusiastically in his vacant way. Then the King stood. When he turned away from me, a chill went over me, as if I had suddenly shed a cloak. It was my first experience of the Skill at the hands of a master.
“You don’t approve, do you, Regal?” The King’s tone was conversational.
“My king may do whatever he wishes. ” Sulky.
King Shrewd sighed. “That is not what I asked you. ”
“My mother, the Queen, will certainly not approve. Favoring the boy will only make it appear you recognize him. It will give him ideas, and others. ”
“Faugh!” The King chuckled as if amused.
Regal was instantly incensed. “My mother, the Queen, will not agree with you, nor will she be pleased. My mother—”
“Has not agreed with me, nor been pleased with me for some years. I scarcely notice it anymore, Regal. She will flap and squawk and tell me again that she would return to Farrow, to be Duchess there, and you Duke after her. And if very angry, she will threaten that if she did, Tilth and Farrow would rise up in rebellion, and become a separate kingdom, with her as the Queen. ”