In a fluid motion, Peottre snatched the dress from the woman’s arm. His knife must have been honed to a razor’s edge, for it slashed effortlessly down the front of the gown. He threw the fluttering ruins to the floor and trod upon them. ‘Get out!’ he told the woman.

‘As you will, my lord, I am sure,’ she muttered. But the words were a mockery as she turned and retired. She did not hurry, and he watched her leave until the door closed behind her. Then he turned back to Elliania. ‘Are you much hurt, little fish?’

She shook her head, a quick gesture, chin up. A brave lie, for she looked as if she would faint.

I stood up silently. My forehead was gritty with dust from leaning against the wall as I spied on them. I wondered if Chade knew the Narcheska did not wish to wed our prince. I wondered if he knew that Peottre did not consider the betrothal to be a binding gesture. I wondered what illness ailed the Narcheska, and wondered, too, who the ‘Lady’ was and why the servant was so disrespectful. I tucked my bits of information away alongside my questions, gathered up my clothing and resumed my trek up to Chade’s tower. At least my spying had made me forget my own concerns for a short time.

I climbed the last steep stair to the tiny room at the top, and pushed on the small door there. From some distant part of the castle, I caught a strain of music. Probably minstrels limbering their fingers and instruments for tonight’s festivities. I stepped out from behind a rack of wine bottles into Chade’s tower room. I caught my breath, then shouldered the rack silently back into place and set my bundle down beside it. The man bent over Chade’s worktable was muttering to himself, a guttural singsong of complaints. The music came louder and clearer with his words. Five noiseless steps carried me in towards the corner of the hearth and Verity’s sword. My hand just touched the hilt as he turned to me. He was the half-wit I had glimpsed in the stableyard a fortnight ago. He held a tray stacked with bowls, a pestle, and a teacup, and in his surprise he tipped it and all the crockery slid to one end. Hastily he set it down on the table. The music had stopped.

For a time, we stared at one another in mutual consternation. The set of his eyelids made him appear permanently sleepy. The end of his tongue was pushed out of his mouth against his upper lip. He had small scars that were snug to his head below his raggedly cropped hair. His clothing hung on him, the sleeves of his shirt and the legs of his pants sawed off, marking them as the cast-offs of a larger man. He was short and pudgy, and somehow all his differences alarmed me. A shiver of premonition ran over me. I knew he was not a threat, but I did not wish him near me. From the way he scowled, the feeling was mutual.

‘Go away!’ He spoke in a guttural, soft-mouthed way.

I took a breath and spoke evenly. ‘I am permitted to be here. Are you?’ I had already deduced that this must be Chade’s servant, the boy who hauled his wood and water and tidied up behind the old man. But I did not know how deeply he was in Chade’s confidence, and so I did not say Chade’s name. Surely the old assassin could not be so careless as to entrust his secret ways to a half-wit.

YOU. GO AWAY. DON’T SEE ME.

The solid thrust of Skill-magic that he launched at me sent me staggering. If I had not already had my walls up, I am certain that I would have done as he told me, gone away and not seen him. As I slammed my Skill-walls tighter and thicker around me, I wondered fleetingly if he had done this to me before. Would I even recall it if he had?

LEAVE ME ALONE.’ DON’T HURT ME! GO AWAY, STINK DOG!

I was aware of his second blast, but less cowed by it. Even so, I did not lower my walls to Skill back at him. I spoke my words in a voice that shook despite my best effort to hold it steady. ‘I won’t hurt you. I never had any intention of hurting you. I’ll leave you alone, if that is what you wish. But I won’t go away. And I won’t allow you to push me like that.’ I cried for the firm tones of someone reprimanding a child for bad manners. He probably had no idea what he was doing; doubtless he was only using a weapon that had previously worked for him.

But instead of chagrin, his face flared with anger. And fear? His eyes, already small, nearly disappeared in his fat cheeks when he narrowed them. For a moment, his mouth hung ajar and his tongue stuck out even farther. Then he picked up his tray and slammed it back to the table so that the dishes on it jumped. ‘Go away!’ His Skill echoed the angry commands of his mouth. ‘You don’t see me!’

I groped my way into Chade’s chair and sat down in it firmly. ‘I do see you,’ I replied evenly. ‘And I’m not going away.’ I crossed my arms on my chest. I hoped he could not sec how rattled I was. ‘You should just do your work and pretend that you don’t see me. And when you are done, you should go away.’

I was not going to retreat from him; I could not. For me to leave would reveal to him how I had come, and if he did not already know that, I wasn’t going to show him. I leaned back in my chair and tried to look as if I were relaxing there.

He glared at me, and the beat of his Skill-fury against my walls was daunting. He was strong. If he were this strong, untrained, what would his talent be if he could learn to master it? It was a frightening thought. I stared at the cold hearth, but watched him from the corner of my eye. Either he had finished his work, or decided not to do it. In any case, he picked up his tray, stalked across the room, and tugged at a scroll rack. This was the entry I had seen Chade once use. He vanished inside it, but as the rack swung into place behind him, both his voice and his Skill reached me again. ‘You stink like dog poop. Chop you up and burn you.’

His anger was like an ebbing tide that slowly left me stranded. After a time, I lifted my hands and pressed them to my temples. The stress of holding my walls so tight and solid was beginning to tell on me, but I dared not let them down just yet. If he could sense my lowering them, if he chose then to blast me with a Skill-command, I would be prey to it, just as Dutiful had been prey to my impulsive Skill-command not to fight me. I feared that his mind still bore the stamp of that decree.

That was yet another worry that I must tend to. Did that order still restrain him? I made the resolution then that I must discover how to reverse my Skill-command. If I did not, I knew it would soon become a barrier to any true friendship between us. Then I wondered if the Prince were cognizant at all of what I had done to him. It had been an accident, I told myself, and then despised my lie. A burst of my temper had imprinted that command on my prince’s mind. It shamed me that I had done so, and the sooner it was removed, the better for both of us.

Dimly I became aware of music again. I made a tentative connection. As I gradually lowered my walls, it became louder in my mind. Putting my hands over my ears did not affect it at all. Skilling music. I had never even imagined such a thing, yet the half-wit was doing it. When I drew my attention away from it, it faded into the shushing curtain of thoughts that stood always at the edges of my Skill. Most of it was formless whispering, the overheard thoughts of the folk who possessed just enough talent to let their most urgent thoughts float out onto the Skill. If I focused my abilities on them, I could sometimes pluck whole thoughts and images from their minds, but they lacked enough Skill to be aware of me, let alone reply. This half-wit was different. He was a roaring Skill-fire, his music the heat and smoke of his wild talent. He made no effort to hide it; possibly he had no idea how to hide it, or had any reason to do so.

I relaxed, keeping only the wall that ensured my private thoughts would remain hidden from Dutiful’s budding Skill-talent. Then with a groan, I lowered my head into my hands as a Skill-headache thundered through my skull.