"I'm not a real prince. I'm a bastard." It came oddly from my mouth, that word I heard so often and so seldom said.

Burrich sighed softly. "Be your blood, boy, and ignore what anyone else thinks of you."

"Sometimes I get tired of doing the hard things."

"So do I."

I absorbed this in silence for a while as I worked my way down Sooty's shoulder. Burrich, still crouched by the gelding, spoke suddenly. "I don't ask any more of you than I ask of myself. You know that's true."

"I know that," I replied, surprised that he'd mentioned it further.

"I just want to do my best by you."

This was a whole new idea to me. After a moment I asked, "Because if you could make Chivalry proud of me, of what you'd made me into, then maybe he would come back?"

The rhythmic sound of Burrich's hands working liniment into the gelding's leg slowed, then ceased abruptly. But he remained crouched down by the horse and spoke quietly through the wall of the stall. "No. I don't think that. I don't suppose anything would make him come back. And even if he did," and Burrich spoke more slowly, "even if he did, he wouldn't be who he was. Before, I mean."

"It's all my fault he went away, isn't it?" The words of the weaving women echoed in my head. But for the boy, he'd still be in line to be King.

Burrich paused long. "I don't suppose it's any man's fault that he's born…" He sighed, and the words seemed to come more reluctantly. "And there's certainly no way a babe can make itself not a bastard. No. Chivalry brought his downfall on himself, though that's a hard thing for me to say." I heard his hands go back to work on the gelding's leg.

"And your downfall, too." I said it to Sooty's shoulder, softly, never dreaming he'd hear.

But a moment or two later I heard him mutter, "I do well enough for myself, Fitz. I do well enough."

He finished his task and came around into Sooty's stall. "Your tongue's wagging like the town gossip today, Fitz. What's got into you?"

It was my turn to pause and wonder. Something about Chade, I decided. Something about someone who wanted me to understand and have a say in what I was learning had freed up my tongue to finally ask all the questions I'd been carrying about for years. But because I couldn't very well say so, I shrugged and truthfully replied, "They're just things I've wondered about for a long time."

Burrich grunted his acceptance of the answer. "Well. It's an improvement that you ask, though I won't always promise you an answer. It's good to hear you speak like a man. Makes me worry less about losing you to the beasts." He glared at me over the last words and then gimped away. I watched him go, and remembered that first night I had seen him, and how a look from him had been enough to quell a whole room full of men. He wasn't the same man. And it wasn't just the limp that had changed the way he carried himself and how men looked at him. He was still the acknowledged master in the stables and no one questioned his authority there. But he was no longer the right hand of the King-in-Waiting. Other than watching over me, he wasn't Chivalry's man at all anymore. No wonder he couldn't look at me without resentment. He hadn't sired the bastard that had been his downfall. For the first time since I had known him, my wariness of him was tinged with pity.

CHAPTER FIVE

Loyalties

IN SOME KINGDOMS AND lands, it is the custom that male children will have precedent over female in matters of inheritance. Such has never been the case in the Six Duchies. Titles are inherited solely by order of birth.

The one who inherits a title is supposed to view it as a stewardship. If a lord or lady were so foolish as to cut too much forest at once, or neglect vineyards or let the quality of the cattle become too inbred, the people of the Duchy could rise up and come to ask the King's justice. It has happened, and every noble is aware it can happen. The welfare of the people belongs to the people, and they have the right to object if their duke stewards it poorly.

When the titleholder weds, he is supposed to keep this in mind. The partner chosen must be willing likewise to be a steward. For this reason, the partner holding a lesser title must surrender it to the next younger sibling. One can only be a true steward of one holding. On occasion this has led to divisions. King Shrewd married Lady Desire, who would have been Duchess of Farrow had she not chosen to accept his offer and become Queen instead. It is said she came to regret her decision and convinced herself that had she remained Duchess, her power would have been greater. She married Shrewd knowing well she was his second queen, and that the first had already borne him two heirs. She never concealed her disdain for the two older Princes and often pointed out that as she was much higher born than King Shrewd's first queen, she considered her son, Regal, to be more royal than his two half brothers. She attempted to instill this idea in others by her choice of name for her son. Unfortunately for her plans, most saw this ploy as poor taste. Some even mockingly referred to her as the Inland Queen, for when intoxicated she would ruthlessly claim that she had the political influence to unite Farrow and Tilth into a new kingdom, one that would shrug off King Shrewd's rule at her behest. But most put her claims down to her fondness for intoxicants, both alcoholic and herbal. It is true, however, that before she finally succumbed to her addictions, she was responsible for nurturing the rift between the Inland and Coastal Duchies.

I grew to look forward to my dark-time encounters with Chade. They never had a schedule, nor any pattern that I could discern. A week, even two, might go by between meetings, or he might summon me every night for a week straight, leaving me staggering about my daytime chores. Sometimes he summoned me as soon as the castle was abed; at other times, he called upon me in the wee hours of the morning. It was a strenuous schedule for a growing boy, yet I never thought of complaining to Chade or refusing one of his calls. Nor do I think it ever occurred to him that my night lessons presented a difficulty for me. Nocturnal himself, it must have seemed a perfectly natural time for him to be teaching me. And the lessons I learned were oddly suited to the darker hours of the world.

There was tremendous scope to his lessons. One evening might be spent in my laborious study of the illustrations in a great herbal he kept, with the requirement that the next day I was to collect six samples that matched those illustrations. He never saw fit to hint as to whether I should look in the kitchen garden or the darker nooks of the forest for those herbs, but find them I did, and learned much of observation in the process.

There were games we played, too. For instance, he would tell me that I must go on the morrow to Sara the cook and ask her if this year's bacon was leaner than last year's. And then I must that evening report the entire conversation back to Chade, as close to word perfect as I could, and answer a dozen questions for him about how she stood, and was she left-handed and did she seem hard of hearing and what she was cooking at the time. My shyness and reticence were never accounted a good enough excuse for failing to execute such an assignment, and so I found myself meeting and coming to know a good many of the lesser folk of the keep. Even though my questions were inspired by Chade, every one of them welcomed my interest and was more than willing to share expertise. Without intending it, I began to gather a reputation as a "sharp youngster" and a "good lad." Years later I realized that the lesson was not just a memory exercise but also instruction in how to befriend the commoner folk, and to learn their minds. Many's the time since then that a smile, a compliment on how well my horse had been cared for, and a quick question put to a stable boy brought me information that all the coin in the kingdom couldn't have bribed out of him.