Assassin's Quest

He is a gift from Starling. I have had him for two years now, and I am still not used to him. I do not believe I was ever a boy such as he is. I recall the day she brought him to me, and I have to smile. She had come, as she does, some twice or thrice a year, to visit me and chide me for my hermit ways. But that time she had brought the boy to me. He had sat outside on a skinny pony while she pounded on my door. When I opened to her, she had immediately turned and called to him, "Get down and come inside. It's warm here."

He had slid from the pony's bare back and then stood by him, shivering, as he stared at me. His black hair blew across his face. He clutched an old cloak of Starling's about his narrow shoulders.

"I've brought you a boy," Starling announced, and grinned at me.

I met her gaze incredulously. "Do you mean … he is mine?"

She shrugged at me. "If you'll have him. I thought he might do you good." She paused. "Actually, I thought you might do him good. With clothing and regular meals and such. I've cared for him as long as I can, but a minstrel's life …" She let her words trail off.

"Then he is … Did you, did we …" I floundered my way through the words, denying my hope. "He is your son? Mine?"

Her grin had widened at that, even as her eyes had softened in sympathy. She shook her head. "Mine? No. Yours? I suppose it's possible. Did you pass through Flounder Cove about eight years ago? That's where I found him six months ago. He was eating rotten vegetables from a village midden heap. His mother is dead, and his eyes don't match, so her sister wouldn't have him. She says he's a demon gotten bastard." She cocked her head-at me and smiled as she added, "So I suppose he might be yours." She turned back to him again and raised her voice. "Come inside, I tell you. It's warm. And a real wolf lives with him. You'll like Nighteyes."

Hap is a strange boy, one brown eye and one blue. His mother had not been merciful, and his early memories are not gentle ones. She had named him Mishap. Perhaps, to her, he was. I find I call him "boy" as often as not. He does not seem to mind. I have taught him his letters and his numbers and the growing and harvesting of herbs. He was seven when she brought him to me. Now he is nearly ten. He is good with a bow. Nighteyes approves of him. He hunts well for the old wolf.

When Starling comes, she brings me news. I do not know that I always welcome it. Too many things have changed, too much is strange. Lady Patience rules at Tradeford. Their hemp fields yield fully as much paper now as they do fine rope. The size of the gardens there have doubled. The structure that would have been the King's Circle is now a botanical garden of plants gathered from every corner of the Six Duchies and beyond.

Burrich and Molly and their children are well. They have Nettle and little Chivalry and another on the way. Molly tends her hives and candle shop, while Burrich has used stud fees from Ruddy and Ruddy's colt to begin to breed horses again. Starling knows these things, for it was she who tracked them down and saw to it that Ruddy and Sooty's colt were given over to him. Poor old Sooty was too old to survive the journey home from the Mountains. Molly and Burrich both believe I am many years dead. Sometimes I believe that, too. I have never asked her where they live. I have never seen any of the children. In that, I am truly my father's son.

Kettricken bore a son, Prince Dutiful. Starling told me he has his father's coloring, but looks as if he will be a tall slender man, like Kettricken's brother Rurisk, perhaps. She thinks he is more serious than a boy should be, but all of his tutors are fond of him. His grandfather journeyed all the way from the Mountain Kingdom to see the lad who will someday rule both lands. He was well pleased with the child. I wondered what his other grandfather would have thought of all that had come to pass from his treaty making.

Chade no longer lives in the shadows, but is the honored adviser to the Queen: According to Starling, he is a foppish old man who is entirely too fond of the company of young women. But she smiles as she says it, and "Chade Fallstar's Reckoning" will be the song she is remembered for when she is gone. I am sure he knows where I am, but he has never sought me out. It is as well. Sometimes, when Starling comes, she brings me curious old scrolls, and seeds and roots for strange herbs. At other times she brings me fine paper and clear vellum. I do not need to ask the source. Occasionally, I give her in return scrolls of my own writing: drawings of herbs, with their virtues and dangers; an account of my time in that ancient city; records of my journeys through Chalced and the lands beyond. She bears them dutifully away.