Lady Violet pecked at me. ‘But surely little Bee could tell us some tales! However did you manage to buy your lives, in the hands of such ruthless men?’ She said it as if there were a nasty secret she could wheedle out of me.
I fixed her with a gaze. ‘I am Lady Bee,’ I reminded her, and several of the other women tittered. One gave me a sympathetic look and then put her eyes on her sewing. I tried to find the carrying voice Hap used when I added, ‘I lived because Shine protected me. Ill, she nursed me. Cold, she shared her blankets with me. She saw that I had food. At great risk to herself, she helped me try to escape.’ My voice had the knack of it. I paused. ‘She killed for me. And escaped to seek out my father and put him on my trail. She has the heart of a lioness.’ I considered her wide green eyes, then turned my smile on Lady Violet. ‘If you cut her, I bleed. And if I bleed, Princess Nettle will know of it.’
‘Well!’ Lady Violet exclaimed haughtily. ‘The kitten has claws.’
The tittering laughter was the clucking of hens called to thrown grain.
‘The bee has a stinger,’ I corrected her. Our eyes met and held. She sneered at me but I smiled. She had no walls at all. ‘Rather than my tale, we would all much more enjoy hearing of your tryst last night. With the gentleman who wears a green doublet and far too much oil in his hair.’
Shun’s hand flew to her mouth to hold back not a scandalized gasp but a delighted laugh.
‘It isn’t true!’ Lady Violet rose, her skirts rustling like bird’s wings, and swept from the room. At the door, she glared at me and said, ‘This is what comes of admitting common-borns to a circle of noble ladies!’ She scuttled out the door.
I could not allow that to hurt me. Or Shun. I forced a giggle. ‘She runs like a startled hen, does she not?’ I said to Shine. A ripple of nervous laughter spread out from my flung stone. Lady Violet was popular, but not liked, I saw. I was certain we’d cross swords again.
Shun was sitting taller. She carefully set aside her needlework in a basket at her feet, rose far more gracefully than Lady Violet had, and held out a hand to me. ‘Come, little cousin. Shall we walk in the Women’s Garden?’ she asked me.
I set my own needlework aside. ‘I am told that the violets there are actually fragrant.’ This time, their laughter was bolder.
We left the room, and none of them followed. Still she glanced back, and ‘Hurry,’ she said. We went, not to the Women’s Garden with its herbs and blossoms, but up to a tower-top garden of potted shrubs and statuary and benches. She used a key to open the door. For an hour, we walked about it, speaking little. When she left, she gave me the key. ‘This was my father’s key. This is a good place to be alone.’
‘What of you?’ I asked her, and she smiled at me.
‘While my father lived, I had a protector at court. Now I have none.’
‘Your brother?’
‘He is uncomfortable with me.’ She said it stiffly. Sadly she added, ‘And I with him.’
‘I would rather face men with knives than that circle of bitches with their needles,’ I said bluntly.
She laughed aloud, and when she turned back to me the wind had put colour in her cheeks and I saw something of the old Shun in the set of her mouth. ‘The “green doublet” is sharper than any knife I’ve ever held. And I promise you that I will use it well.’ She held up her hand, fingers curved, and said, ‘Time for the lioness to show her claws.’ And she left me there on the rooftop garden, with the wind blowing the scent of jasmine and the clouds running like ships before a wind.
My life began to have a pattern, a hectic one. I saw nothing of Spark or Per. Beloved had donned yet another guise. He was now called Lord Chance. He would call on me once a day, at his appointed time, and we would talk. He always asked if I were well, and I always replied I was. There was a complicated story of who he was now and how he had joined my father and Lant to save me. I couldn’t be bothered with it. He brought me little gifts: a carved wooden acorn with a secret compartment under the cap, and a doll dressed all in black and white, and a better pipe than the one we had made on the river. Once he said as he left me, ‘It will get better, Bee. Someone else will have a disaster or a triumph, and people will not watch you so closely. Nettle’s baby will become less fussy and Nettle will not be so tired. When Queen Elliania’s child is born, you can blissfully fade into the background of Buckkeep politics. You will be able to become Bee again.’
It was not an encouraging thing to hear. But every morning another day started, and every night I put another day behind me.
The most serious day was one when Clansie escorted me to Nettle’s chamber up in a tower where the Queen’s Own Coterie was accustomed to meet. They were one of six coteries that lived in or very near to Buckkeep. One for each prince, one for the King, Nettle’s coterie … far too many, I thought. I felt a bit offended when Clansie reported to my own sister on my level of Skill-talent and how she had needed to dose me with elfbark in Kelsingra. I learned that some of my dreams, not my White-dreams but my regular ones, had been leaking out of my mind at night and disturbing coterie members. With an apology for being so bold, Clansie suggested that I should be dosed daily with elfbark until I was either able to control my wild Skilling or the Skill was quenched in me. Nettle told her that she would take her thoughts under advisement and consider them.
When I spoke to Nettle as my sister, asking if I did not have some say in this, she replied, ‘Sometimes an adult must decide what is best for a youngster, Bee. In this, you will have to trust me.’
But that was hard.
Yet it was not all unfortunate things. Hap Gladheart came to my room very late one night, escorted by Lant and Lord Chance. Caution was scandalized until I reminded her that Hap was my foster-brother. He played some silly songs for me, and soon had even Caution giggling. Then Lord Chance told me that, when I felt able, I should tell Hap every detail of what had befallen me, for it was Buck history and should be preserved. I remembered my sister’s words, and told him that I would ‘take his thoughts under advisement and consider them’.