“Sir?”

“You would not injure one of mine, would you?”

I drew myself up. I knew what he asked for, and I ceded it to him. “Sir, I will not injure one of yours. I am sworn to the Farseer line.”

He nodded slowly. He had wrung an apology from Regal, and from me my word that I would not kill his son. He probably believed he had made peace between us. Outside his door, I paused to push the hair back from my eyes. I had just made a promise, I reminded myself. I considered it carefully and forced myself to look at what it could cost me to keep it. Bitterness flooded me, until I compared what it would cost me should I break it. Then I found the reservations in myself, crushed them firmly. I formed a resolve, to cleanly keep my promise to my king. I had no true peace with Regal, but at least I could have that much peace with myself. The decision left me feeling better, and I strode purposefully down the hall.

I had not replenished my stocks of poisons since I had returned from the Mountains. Nothing green showed outside now. I’d have to steal what I needed. The wool dyers would have some I might use, and the healer’s stock would yield me others. My mind was busy with this planning as I started down the stairs.

Serene was coming up the stairs. When I saw her, I halted where I was. The sight of her made me quail as Regal had not. It was an old reflex. Of all Galen’s coterie, she was now the strongest. August had retired from the field, gone far inland to live in orchard country and be a gentleman there. His Skill had been entirely blasted out of him during the final encounter that marked the end of Galen. Serene was now the key Skill-user of the coterie. In summers, she remained at Buckkeep, and all the other members of the coterie, scattered to towers and keeps up and down our long coast, channeled all their reports to the King through her. During winter, the entire coterie came to Buckkeep, to renew their bonds and fellowship. In the absence of a Skill Master, she had assumed much of Galen’s status at Buckkeep. She had also assumed, with great enthusiasm, Galen’s passionate hatred of me. She reminded me too vividly of past abuses, and inspired in me a dread that would not yield to logic. I had avoided her since my return, but now her gaze pinned me.

The staircase was more than sufficiently wide to allow two people to pass. Unless one person deliberately planted herself in the middle of a step. Even looking up at me, I felt she had the advantage. Her bearing had changed since we had been Galen’s students together. Her whole physical appearance reflected her new position. Her midnight-blue robe was richly embroidered. Her long black hair was bound back intricately with burnished wire strung with ivory ornaments. Silver graced her throat and ringed her fingers. But her femaleness was gone. She had adopted Galen’s ascetic values, for her face was thinned to bone, her hands to claws. As he had, she burned with self-righteousness. It was the first time she had directly accosted me since Galen’s death. I halted above her, with no idea of what she wanted from me.

“Bastard,” she said flatly. It was a naming, not a greeting. I wondered if that word would ever lose its sting with me.

“Serene,” I said, as tonelessly as I could manage.

“You did not die in the Mountains.”

“No. I did not.”

Still she stood there, blocking my way. Very quietly she said, “I know what you did. I know what you are.”

Inside, I was quivering like a rabbit. I told myself it was probably taking every bit of Skill strength she had to impose this fear on me. I told myself that it was not my true emotion, but only what her Skill suggested I should feel. I forced words from my throat.

“I, too, know what I am. I am a King’s Man.”

“You are no kind of a man at all,” she asserted calmly. She smiled up at me. “Someday everyone will know that.”

Fear feels remarkably like fear, regardless of the source. I stood, making no response. Eventually, she stepped aside to allow me to pass. I made a small victory of that, though in retrospect there was little else she could have done. I went to ready things for my trip to Bearns, suddenly glad to leave the Keep for a few days.

I have no good memories of that errand. I met Virago, for she was herself a guest at Ripplekeep while I was there doing my scribe tasks. She was as Shrewd had described her, a handsome woman, well muscled, who moved lithe as a little hunting cat. She wore the vitality of her health like a glamour. All eyes followed her when she was in a room. Her chastity challenged every male who followed her. Even I felt myself drawn to her, and agonized about my task.

Our very first evening at table together, she was seated across from me. Duke Brawndy had made me very welcome indeed, even to having his cook prepare a certain spicy meat dish I was fond of. His libraries were at my disposal, and the services of his lesser scribe. His youngest daughter had even extended her shy companionship to me. I was discussing my scroll errand with Celerity, who surprised me with her soft-spoken intelligence. Midway through the meal, Virago remarked quite clearly to her dining companion that at one time bastards were drowned at birth. The old ways of El demanded it, she said. I could have ignored the remark, had she not leaned across the table to smilingly ask me, “Have you never heard of that custom, bastard?”