“I expect so.”

His spirits seemed suddenly dampened, as if he were truly in pain. He nodded gravely. “Perhaps I will see you then.” He rose from the table and went to his private room. Without another word he opened the door. He shut it quietly but firmly behind him.

I gathered the dishes onto the tray. Despite his words about my incompetence as a servant, I took care to straighten the room. I returned the tray to the kitchens, and then fetched wood and water for our chambers. The door to the Fool’s personal room remained shut. I wondered if he were ill. I might have ventured to tap at the door if noon had not been upon me. I went to my room and buckled on my ugly sword. I took some of the coins from the purse Kettricken had given me and put the rest under the corner of my mattress. I checked my hidden pockets, took my cloak from its hook, and headed down to the stables.

With the influx of people for Prince Dutiful’s betrothal, the regular stable was filled to capacity with the horses of our guests. In these circumstances, the beasts of lesser folk like me had been moved to the “Old Stables,” the stables of my childhood. I was just as content with the arrangement. Far less chance that I might encounter Hands there or any who might recall a boy who had once dwelt with the Stablemaster Burrich.

I found Laurel leaning against the gate of Myblack’s stall, talking softly to her. Perhaps I had misinterpreted her message. My concern for the animal mounted and I hastened to her side. “What’s wrong with her?” I asked, and then, belatedly recalling my manners, “Good day to you, Huntswoman Laurel. I am here as you requested.” Myblack benignly ignored both of us.

“Badgerlock, good day. Thank you for meeting me here.” She glanced about casually, and finding our corner of the stable deserted, she still leaned closer and whispered to me, “I need a word with you. In private. Follow me.”

“As you wish, mistress.” She strode off and I followed at her heels. We walked past the rows of stalls to the back of the stables, and then to my shock, we began the climb up the now-rickety steps that had once led to Burrich’s loft. When he was Stablemaster, he had claimed to prefer to live close to his charges rather than accept better quarters in the castle itself. When I had lived with him, I had believed that to be true. In the intervening years, I had decided that he had kept his humble residence there as much for the sake of keeping me out of the public eye as he did for his own privacy. Now, as I followed Laurel up the steep steps, I wondered how much she knew. Did she bring me here as a prelude to telling me that she knew who I really was?

The door at the top of the steps was not latched. She shouldered it open and it scraped across the floor. She stepped inside the dim chamber and motioned for me to follow. I ducked a dusty cobweb in the doorframe. The only light came from the cracked shutter over the little window at the end of the room. How small the space suddenly seemed. The sparse furnishings that had sufficed for Burrich and me were long gone, replaced by the clutter of a stable. Twisted bits of old harness, broken tools, moth-eaten blankets: all the horsey litter that folk set aside, thinking that perhaps one day they will mend it or that it might come in useful in a pinch, filled the chamber where I had spent my childhood.

How Burrich would have hated this! I thought to myself. I wondered that Hands allowed such clutter to gather, and then decided that he probably had more pressing matters to attend to. The stables were a larger and grander concern than they had been during the years of the Red Ship War. I doubted that Hands sat up at night greasing and mending old harness.

Laurel misinterpreted the look on my face. “I know. It smells up here, but it’s private. I would have seen you in your own room, but Lord Golden was too busy playing the grand noble.”

“He is a grand noble,” I pointed out, but the flashing look she gave me stilled my tongue. Belatedly it came to me that Lord Golden had bestowed much attention on Laurel during our journey, yet not a word had they exchanged last night. Oh.

“Be that as it may, or be you whom you may.” She dismissed her annoyance with us, obviously intent on graver matters. “I received a message from my cousin. Deerkin didn’t intend the warning for you; he intended it for me. I doubt that he would approve my passing it on to you, for he has ample reasons not to be fond of you. The Queen, however, seems to hold you in some regard. And it is the Queen I am sworn to.”

“As we both are,” I assured her. “Have you shared these tidings with her as well?”

She looked at me. “Not yet,” she admitted. “It may be that there is no need to, that this is a matter you can handle yourself. And it is not as easy for me to manage a quiet moment with the Queen as it is for me to summon you.”