He did not take his eyes from the sea. “You should avoid physical struggles, FitzChivalry. You always seem to get hurt in them.”
“I know, my prince,” I admitted humbly. “Hod did her best with me-”
“But you were not really trained to be a fighter. You have other talents. And those are the ones you should be putting to use to preserve yourself. Oh, you’re a competent swordsman; but you’ve not the brawn and weight to be a brawler. At least, not yet. And that is what you always seem to revert to in a fight.”
“I was not offered the selection of weapons,” I said, a bit testily, and then added, “my prince.”
“No. You won’t be.” He seemed to speak from afar. A slight tension in the air told me that he Skilled out even as we spoke. “Yet I’m afraid I must send you out again. I think you are perhaps right. I have watched what is happening long enough. The Forged ones are converging on Buckkeep. I cannot fathom why, and yet perhaps knowing that is not as important as preventing them from attaining their goal. You will again undertake the removal of this problem, Fitz. Perhaps this time I can keep my own lady from becoming involved in it. I understand that if she wishes to go riding, she now has a guard of her own?”
“As you have been told, sir,” I told him, cursing myself for not coming to speak to him sooner of the Queen’s guard.
He turned to regard me levelly. “The rumor I heard was that you had authorized the creation of such a guard. Not to steal your glory, but when such rumor reached me, I let it be supposed that I had requested it of you. As, I suppose, I did. Very indirectly.”