I nodded and opened my mouth to say something, but Chade stood abruptly and almost chased me from the room. “No time; it is nearly dawn!” he declared.
I contrived to be in Regal’s room, in hiding, when the page arrived. From the way the girl slipped in, I was convinced this was not her first mission. She set a tiny scroll and a flower bud on Regal’s pillow and slipped out of the room. In a moment both were in my jerkin, and later under my own pillow. I think the most difficult part of the task was refraining from opening the scroll. I turned scroll and flower over to Chade late that night.
Over the next few days I waited, certain there would be some sort of furor and hoping to see Regal thoroughly discomfited. But to my surprise, there was none. Regal remained his usual self, save that he was even sharper than usual, and seemed to flirt even more outrageously with every lady. As for Lady Dahlia, she suddenly took an interest in the council proceedings and confounded her husband by becoming an ardent supporter of warship taxes. The Queen expressed her displeasure over this change of alliance by excluding Lady Dahlia from a wine tasting in her chambers. The whole thing mystified me, but when I at last mentioned it to Chade, he rebuked me.
“Remember, you are the King’s man. A task is given you, and you do it. And you should be well satisfied with yourself that you completed the given task: That is all you need to know. Only Shrewd may plan the moves and plot his game. You and I, we are playing pieces, perhaps. But we are the best of his markers; be assured of that.”
But early on, Chade found the limits of my obedience. In laming the horse, he had suggested I cut the frog of the animal’s foot. I never even considered doing that. I informed him, with all the worldly wisdom of one who has grown up around horses, that there were many ways to make a horse limp without actually harming him, and that he should trust me to choose an appropriate one. To this day, I do not know how Chade felt about my refusal. He said nothing at the time to condemn it, or to suggest he approved my actions. In this as in many things, he kept his own counsel.
Once every three months or so King Shrewd would summon me to his chambers. Usually the call for me came in the very early morning. I would stand before him, oftentimes while he was in his bath, or having his hair bound back in the gold-wired queue that only the King could wear, or while his man was laying out his clothes. Always the ritual was the same. He would look me over carefully, studying my growth and grooming as if I were a horse he was considering buying. He would ask a question or two, about my horsemanship or weapons study usually, and listen gravely to my brief answer. And then he would ask, almost formally, “And do you feel I am keeping my bargain with you?”
“Sir, I do,” I would always answer.
“Then see that you keep your end of it as well,” was always his reply and my dismissal. And whatever servant attending him or opening the door for me to enter or leave never appeared to take the slightest notice of me or of the King’s words at all.
Come late fall of that year, on the very cusp of winter’s tooth, I was given my most difficult assignment. Chade had summoned me up to his chambers almost as soon as I had blown out my night candle. We were sharing sweetmeats and a bit of spiced wine, sitting in front of Chade’s hearth. He had been lavishly praising my latest escapade, one that required me turning inside out every shirt hung to dry on the laundry courtyard’s drying lines without getting caught. It had been a difficult task, the hardest part of which had been to refrain from laughing aloud and betraying my hiding place within a dyeing vat when two of the younger laundry lads had declared my prank the work of water sprites and refused to do any more washing that day. Chade, as usual, knew of the whole scenario even before I reported to him. He delighted me by letting me know that Master Lew of the launderers had decreed that Sinjon’s wort was to be hung at every corner of the courtyard and garlanded about every well to ward off sprites from tomorrow’s work.