Fool’s Quest

Spark resumed her tale. “The women of the house began to use me as their little errand boy. I was allowed out and about, to run notes to their gentlemen or bring special items from the markets. Our lives went on. I met Lord Chade one evening when he asked for a lad to take a message from him to a ship at the river docks. I took it from him and did as he bade. When I returned, I gave him the written reply. I had turned to leave when he called me back, holding up a silver penny. But when I went to take it from him, he seized my hand, even as you did, and then in a whisper asked what my game was. I told him I had no game, that I was my mother’s errand boy and if he had questions, he should ask them of her. And that night he sought her out instead of his favorite, and spent the whole evening with her. He was very impressed with how well she had taught me. And after that, whenever he came for his visit, he always made excuse to see me, to send me on an errand and always to pay me a silver penny. He began to teach me more things. To push my chin out to have more of a jaw, and to roughen my hand with cold water, and to pad out my shoes to make my feet look bigger.

“My mother was very good at her trade, but it was not what she had wanted for herself, and still less for me. Lord Chade promised that when I turned fifteen he would take me as his servant and teach me a different trade.” She paused, sighing. “Fate intervened. He took me when I was eleven.”

“Wait. How old are you?”

“As a girl? Thirteen. When I am Ash, I tell people I am eleven. I’m a rather spindly boy, even though I’m strong for a girl.”

“What happened when you were eleven?” the Fool demanded.

Spark’s face lost all expression. Her eyes were unreadable. But she kept her voice steady. “A gentleman thought it would amuse him to share a bed with a mother and her son. He had already paid the lady of our house a substantial sum for such a night when he came to our quarters. No one asked our permission. When my mother objected, the owner of the house said that the debt to her was mine as well as my mother’s. And that if my mother and I did not comply, she would turn me out of the house that very minute.” Her face went paler, her nostrils pinched with distaste. “The gentleman came to our rooms. He told me that first I would watch as he did his business with my mother. And then she would watch as he taught me ‘a new little amusement.’ I refused and he laughed. ‘You’ve raised him to have spirit. I’ve always wanted a spirited little mount.’

“My mother said, ‘You will not have him, now or ever.’ I thought he would be angry but it only seemed to make him excited. My mother was wearing a pretty wrap, as the women of the house often did. He seized the neck of it, tore it open, and pushed my mother down on the bed, but instead of fighting back, she wrapped her arms and legs about him and told me to run away, to leave the house and never come back.” She paused, her mind going back. Her upper lip twitched up twice: If she had been a cat, she would have spat out a hiss.

“Spark?” the Fool prompted her quietly.

Her voice was flat. “I ran. I obeyed her as I always had and I ran. I hid. For two days, I lived on the streets of Dingyton. I did not do very well at it. One day a man caught me. I thought he was going to kill me or rape me, but he told me Lord Chade wished to see me. It was a different name, of course, from the name I knew him by when he patronized my mother’s house. But he had a token I recognized, so even though I feared a trap, I went with him. Two days of hunger and cold had made me wonder if I had been a fool to refuse my mother’s gentleman.” She sighed out a breath. “The man took me to an inn, gave me a meal, and locked me in a room. I waited for hours, fearing what would happen next. The Lord Chade came. He said that my mother had been murdered and he had feared for me . . .”

That was the point at which life and pain came back into her voice. She gasped her way through the rest of her tale. “I thought I had left her to face a beating. Or to having the lady of the house dock her earnings. Not to be raped and strangled and left like a dirtied handkerchief on the floor of her chamber.”

Her words stopped and for a time she breathed like a bellows. Neither the Fool nor I spoke. Finally she said, “Lord Chade asked me who had done it. The lady of the house had refused to say who had bought my mother’s time that evening. I did not know his name but I knew everything else about him. I knew the name of the scent he wore and the pattern of the lace on his cuffs, and that he had a birthmark below his left ear. I do not think I will ever be able to forget exactly how he looked as my mother clutched him to herself so that I could escape.”