I found myself speaking softly as if I were telling an old tale to a young child. And giving it a happy ending, when all know that tales never end, and the happy ending is but a moment to catch one’s breath before the next disaster. But I didn’t want to think about that. I didn’t want to wonder what would happen next.
“Did Chade say why he had done it?” he asked me.
I gave a shrug he could not see. “He said it was time. That both Shrewd and Verity would have wanted it to happen. Having emerged from the shadows himself, he said he could not leave me there.” I rummaged on one of Chade’s shelves and then another before I found what I sought. Spirits of wine. I lit my own candle at the fire and found a rag. I dampened the rag and began to remove my ink freckles. They were hard to get off. Good for the crow, annoying for me. I moved to Chade’s mirror, scrubbing at the spots on my face.
“What is that smell? What are you doing?”
“Getting ink off my face. I was painting the crow’s white feathers black so she could go out without being pecked and chased.”
“Painting a crow. Prince FitzChivalry amuses himself painting crows the day after his acknowledgment by the throne.” He laughed. A very good sound.
“Chade left a package for me?”
“At the end of the table,” he said. He had fixed his gaze once more on the candles, reveling in whatever trace of their brilliance he could perceive. And so I did not take any of them, but moved the parcel to their vicinity and began to unfasten it. It smelled of earth. It was wrapped in leather, and tied with leather straps. The knots were green with disuse, and the white-edged stains on the leather were from damp. The ties had not been undone in a very long time, and I suspected that at some point it had been stored outdoors, perhaps for a winter. Possibly buried somewhere. As I worked on the knots, the Fool observed, “He left you a note as well. What does it say?”
“I haven’t read it yet.”
“Shouldn’t you read it before you open the parcel?”
“Did he say I should?”
“He seemed to take a very long time to think about it, and then he wrote only a few words. I heard the scratching of his pen, and many sighs.”
I stopped working on the straps. I tried to decide which made me more curious, the letter or the parcel. I lifted one candle and saw the single sheet of paper on the table. I’d missed it in the dimness. I reached, trapped it, and slid it toward me. Like most of Chade’s missives there was no date, no greeting, and no signature. Only a few lines of writing.
“What does it say?” the Fool demanded.
“ ‘I did as he bade me. The conditions were never met. I trust you to understand. I think you should have it now.’ ”
“Oh. Better and better,” the Fool exclaimed. And added, “I think you should just cut the straps. You’ll never get those old knots out.”
“You already tried, didn’t you?”
He shrugged and tipped a grin at me. “It would have saved you the trouble of struggling with them.”
I tormented both of us by working at the stubborn knots for some little time. Leather that has been knotted, wet, and then left to dry can seem as hard as iron. In the end, I drew my belt-knife and sawed through the straps. I tugged them off the parcel and then struggled to unfold the leather that surrounded whatever it was. It was not soft leather, but heavy, the sort one would use for a saddle. It creaked as I pried it open and brought out something wrapped in a still-greasy cloth. I set it with a thunk on the table.
“What is it?” the Fool demanded, and reached to send his fingers dancing over the concealed item.
“Let’s find out.” The greasy cloth proved to be a heavy canvas sack. I found the opening, reached in, and pulled out …
“It’s a crown,” the Fool exclaimed, his fingers touching it almost as soon as my eyes saw it.
“Not exactly.” Crowns are not usually made of steel. And Hod had not been a maker of crowns but a maker of swords. She had been an excellent weaponsmaster. I turned the plain circlet of steel in my hands, knowing this was her work, though I could not have explained to anyone how I recognized it. And there, there was her maker’s mark, unobtrusive but proud inside the circlet.
“There’s something else here.” The Fool’s hands had gone questing like ferrets into the opened leather parcel, and now he held out a wooden tube to me. I took it silently. We both knew it would contain a scroll. The ends of the tube were plugged with red wax. I studied it in the candlelight.
“Verity’s seal,” I told him softly. I hated to mar the imprint, but nonetheless I dug the wax out with my belt-knife, and then tipped the tube and shook it. The scroll was stubborn. It had been in there a long time. When it finally emerged I just looked at it. Water had not touched it.
