Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Apprenticeship

It was the triumphant king who conquered what would become the interior of the Duchy of Farrow.There is a story about him.No sooner had he brought Sandyen under his rule than he sent for the woman who would have been, had she not triumphantly conquered her realm, become the Queen of Sandylyn.She went to Buckkeep in horror, dreadful to go, but fearful of still worse consequences for her people if they begged them to hide her.When she arrived, she was surprised and somewhat chagrined to discover that Triumph did not intend to use her as a handmaid, but to teach his children the language and customs of her country.She asked him why he chose to let his children learn the customs of her country, and he replied: "The ruler must be with all the people, because people can only rule what they know." Later, she married his eldest son willingly, Received the title of Queen Yafan.

I wake up with the sun on my face.Someone had come into my room, opened the windows for daylight, and put a washbasin, a towel, and a jug of water on top of the box.I'm grateful for these things, but I'm not feeling more refreshed even after washing my face.The sleep left me drowsy and uneasy at the thought that someone could come into my room and walk around without waking me up. I guessed right, there is a sea view outside the window, but I didn't have time to appreciate it carefully.I knew from one glance at the sun that I had overslept, so I dressed and hurried downstairs to the stables without stopping for breakfast.

But Burrich didn't have much time to teach me that morning. "You go back to the castle," he advised me. "Master Ji Jingfeng has sent Brant here to find you, and she wants to make you a suit. You'd better find her quickly, she is as good as she is." She won't be happy if you mess up her whole morning schedule." I trot back to the castle, all the soreness from the day before coming back.As much as I was dreading finding this Master Ji Jingfeng to make me some clothes that I was sure I didn't need at all, I was relieved not to have to ride a horse this morning.

I asked people all the way from the kitchen, and finally found Master Jijingfeng in a room a few doors away from my bedroom.I timidly stopped at the door and peeked in. I saw three long windows filling the room with sunlight and a salty breeze. There were baskets of thread balls and dyed wool on one wall, and on a raised shelf on the other. Filled with cloth in a rainbow of colors.Two young women were talking across the loom, and in the far corner was a boy not a few years older than me, swaying to the rhythm of the spinning wheel.There is no doubt that the broad woman with her back to me is Master Jijingfeng.

Two young women noticed me and the conversation broke off.Master Ji Jingfeng turned to see what they were staring at, and in a moment I was in her hands.She wasted no time introducing herself or asking my name, or explaining what she was up to.I found myself standing on a round stool, being turned and measured here and there by people who didn't care if I felt embarrassed or didn't even seem to think of me as a human being at all.She spoke to the young woman, criticized the clothes on me as worthless, said very calmly that I reminded her of Junqi when he was a child, said that my figure and skin color and so on were very similar to him when he was my age .Then she picked up all kinds of cloth and compared them to me, asking them to express their opinions.

"That one," said one of the young women weavers, "is a blue that goes well with his dark skin, and would look good on his father. It's a good thing that Patience will never have to see the boy, he's just as good as he is." A replica of Junqi, if she sees him, she will definitely lose her self-esteem." Standing there in all sorts of woolen stuff, I heard for the first time what everyone else in Buckkeep knew.The weavers talked at length about how my presence had come to Buckkeep in the first place, and Patience knew about it long before my father could tell it himself, and it made him miserable.Because of Naixin's infertility, although Junqi didn't say anything bad about her, everyone guessed how uncomfortable it would be for him as the crown prince to have no heirs to inherit the title.Patience sees my existence as an extreme reproach to her. Having suffered many miscarriages, her health is already poor, and now her body and spirit are completely disintegrated.Junqi's abandonment of the throne is not only to correct his eyes and ears, but also for the sake of his sick wife, to bring her back to the warm and gentle area where she was born.They were told that life there was good and comfortable, that Patience's health was slowly improving, and that the knight, much calmer than before, was learning to manage his valleys dotted with vineyards.It's a pity that Patience blamed Burrich for the horse's momentary misconduct, and said she couldn't bear to see him again. Poor old Burrich broke his leg and was abandoned by the horse. I'm very high-spirited.He used to make every woman in the castle slow down when they passed by. If you caught his eye, almost every woman old enough to wear a skirt would be envious and jealous of you.What now?Everyone called him old Burrich, but he was still in his prime, and he was treated so unfairly, what servant could get in the way of what his master did?However, they thought, the result of all this was good in the end, besides, wouldn't it be better for Verity to be crown prince than Junqi?Junqi is too upright and noble, which makes everyone feel ashamed in front of him; he does not want to relax in the slightest, although he is full of magnanimous chivalry spirit, and will not despise and ridicule other people who are not strict with self-discipline, but people always feel that His perfect demeanor is silently blaming others.Ah, but then there's this bastard who, well, proves he's not quite the man he's been pretending to be all these years.As for Verity, he was a man's man, a king who made him a king.He rode around and fought alongside his men, and even if he got drunk or acted indiscreetly sometimes, well, at least he was brave and as honest as his name.Such a man, people can understand and are willing to obey.

I listened to all this silently but greedily, and let them pick up the same fabric and compare it to me, arguing and choosing which piece of fabric to use.Now I understand better why the kids in the castle don't play with me anymore.Even if the women felt that I might have some thoughts or emotions from hearing their conversations, they showed no signs of it.I remember that the only thing Master Ji Jingfeng said to me was to be more careful when washing my neck.After that, Master Ji Jingfeng kicked me out of the room, as if I was an annoying chicken, and I was finally able to go to the kitchen to eat something.

That afternoon I continued to attend Horde's class, and practiced until I could hardly lift my hands, and the weight of the stick in my hand seemed to have doubled mysteriously.Then eat, sleep, get up the next morning and go to Burrich's class.Studying took up all my time, and any spare time was filled with errands related to my classes, whether it was tending the livestock for Burrich or tidying up the weapons room for Horde.One afternoon not long after, I discovered that someone had placed three full sets of clothing on my bed - stockings included.Two of the sets were fairly ordinary, and most kids my age seemed to be wearing the familiar brown, but the third was made of thin blue cloth with a stag's head embroidered in silver thread on the chest.The emblem on Burrich and the other soldiers was a leaping buck whose head I had only seen on the clothes Regal and Verity wore, so I looked at it in wonder and wondered at the slanted Red stitching across the deer head graphic.

"That means you're bastard," Burrich told me bluntly when I asked about it. "You have recognized royal blood, but you're still bastard. That's it. It's just a quick way to show that you're royal, but not the rightful heir. You can change that if you don't like it, I believe the king will definitely allow you to have your own name and crest." "Name?" "Of course, this is a very simple request. Bastards are rare in noble families, especially in the king's own family, but they are not Never." He made the point of teaching me how to properly maintain a saddle, and we walked up and down the harness room, examining all the old and unused harness.Maintaining and salvaging old harness was one of Burrich's eccentric obsessions. "You think of a name for yourself, design a crest, and then ask the king—" "What name?" "Well, you can name it whatever you want! This set of harness looks ruined. Dry it and put it away, it's moldy. But let's see if we can salvage it a little." "That doesn't feel real." "What?" He handed me a pile of stinky leather, I take it.

"If I named myself Yu, it wouldn't feel like my real name." "Well, what are you going to do otherwise?" I took a breath. "The king should name me. Or you," I continued, bravely, "or my father. Don't you think it should be?" Burrich frowned. "Your idea is really strange. Just think about it for yourself, and you will think of a suitable name." "Fitz," I said sarcastically, seeing Burrich grit his teeth. "Let's fix these leathers!" he suggested quietly. We took the leather to his workbench and began to polish it by hand. "Bastards aren't that rare," I suggested, "and all city bastards are named after their parents." "Bastards aren't that uncommon in the city," Burrich agreed after a moment. "Soldiers and sailors go around whores, everyone does, but the royal family is different, and neither is anyone with an ounce of self-respect. If only I had gone out at night to whores or brought women back to my room when you were younger Come on, what do you think of me then? How do you think of women now? How do you think of men? It's okay to be in love, Fitz, and no one forbids young people from kissing or anything, but I've seen what happened in Bincheng, Merchants bring pretty girls or burly boys to market as if they were chickens or potatoes. The children born may have names, but hardly anything else; even if they get married, they won't stop their old... habits .If I ever find the right woman, I'll let her know that I'm not going to anyone else, and that my children are really mine." Burrich was almost impassioned.

I looked at him dejectedly. "Then what happened to my father?" He suddenly looked tired. "I don't know, boy. I don't know. He was young, about 20 years old, and he was far away from home, trying to carry a heavy load. These are no excuses or excuses, but you and I also That's all I can know." that's it. My life went on as usual, sometimes in the stables with Burrich in the evenings, and occasionally in the hall when a minstrel or puppeteer troupe came, and occasionally on a night when I Sneak into town, but pay the price for sleep deprivation the next day.In the afternoon I was always in class with this teacher or that coach.I've come to understand that these are summer courses, and that in the winter I'm going to start taking lessons related to handwriting.I had never been this busy in my short life up to that point, but even though my days were packed to the brim, I found myself mostly alone. lonely. Loneliness came to me every night, let me try in vain to find a warm little corner on that big bed.I used to sleep in Burrich's room above the stables, and those nights were hazy, and the warmth and weary contentment of the animals sleeping, shifting, and kicking downstairs after the day's work filled my dreams.Horses and dogs dream, as you have only seen hounds bark and twitch in pursuit of dreams.Their dreams are like the sweet smell that rises from the baking of good bread.But now that I'm alone, surrounded by the stone walls of my room, I have time at last to dream about the human beings who devour you and make you ache.With no warm female animal to lean against, no siblings or relatives to sleep in nearby stables, I just lay there sleepless thinking about my father and my mother, wondering how they both could take me so easily. erased from their lives.I heard other people talking casually in my presence, interpreting the content of those words horribly to my own understanding.I wondered what my situation would be when I grew up and old King Shrewd died.Sometimes I also wonder if Molly, Pinky, and Kerry miss me, or if they take my sudden disappearance and sudden appearance for granted.But most of the time it is loneliness that hurts me the most, because in this whole castle of people, no one feels like my friend, only animals, but Burrich has forbidden me to be close to them . One night I went to bed wearily, tormented by my own fears, and finally managed to fall asleep.The light on my face woke me up, but I knew something was wrong the moment I woke up.I hadn't slept long enough, and the light was yellow and flickering, not as white as the sunlight that used to shine through my windows.Reluctantly, I moved and opened my eyes. He stood at the end of my bed, holding an oil lamp.Oil lamps are seldom used in Buckkeep, but it wasn't just the cream light that caught my eye, the man himself was strange.The gown he wore was the color of undyed and washed wool, but had not been laundered much or recently; his untidy hair and beard were about the same color and gave the same impression. .I couldn't tell how old he was, even though his hair was this gray color.Some pimples leave scars on people's faces after they heal, but I've never seen a pockmark like his, with small pimple scars all over his face, angry pink and red like small burns, even in Under the yellow light of the oil lamp, it still looks very vivid.His hands seemed to be nothing more than bones and tendons, covered in paper-thin white skin.He was looking at me, and even in the light of the oil lamp those eyes were still the sharpest green I've ever seen, reminding me of a cat on the hunt, and the cat's eyes were a mixture of cheerfulness and fierceness like this back then.I pulled the quilt up to my chin. "You're awake," he said, "very well, get up and follow me." He turned abruptly away from my bed, not to the door, but to a corner of my room between the mantelpiece and the wall.I didn't move, and he glanced back at me, holding the lamp up. "Come on, boy," he said impatiently, tapping the bedpost with his cane. I got out of bed and flinched as my bare feet hit the cold floor.I reached for my clothes and shoes, but he wouldn't wait for me.He glanced back to see why I hadn't followed, and his sharp eyes made me drop my clothes and tremble. So I followed him silently in my pajamas, without any reason to explain to myself, just because he wanted me to go with him.I followed him through a door that had never existed, and up a narrow staircase that spiraled upward, illuminated only by the oil lamp he held high above his head.His shadow fell behind him and upon me, so that I walked in wandering darkness, trying each step with a foot.The steps were cold rock, worn and smooth, and perfectly flat.Up the stairs, up, and up, I think we have climbed higher than any tower in the castle.A biting breeze blew across the steps and into my pajamas, but it wasn't just the chill that made me shiver and cringe.We kept going up until at last he pushed open a door, which was heavy but opened silently and smoothly, and we entered a room. In the room, several oil lamps were hung by thin chains from the ceiling out of sight, emitting a warm light.The room was huge, more than three times the size of my bedroom, and one end called to me, for there was a huge, prominent wooden bed frame, with a thick feather mattress and pillows, and a pile of There were carpets in scarlet and bright green and dark blue and light blue, and a table of wood the color of wild honey with a basket of perfectly ripe fruit that I could smell.Books and scrolls in parchment were strewn about the room, as if their rarity were insignificant.The three walls are covered with tapestry tapestries depicting open, undulating countryside with forested foothills in the distance.I walked over there. "This way," said my guide, grimly leading me across the room. The situation here is very different.A large table of slate occupied a prominent place, the top covered with stains and burns, and on it were all kinds of tools, containers, and supplies, including scales, a mortar and pestle, and many other things that I could not name.Most of the stuff was covered in a thin layer of dust, as if things had been thrown away in the middle of things here months, or even years ago.Across the table was a shelf of scrolls, some of which were bordered in blue or gold.The smell in the room was both acrid and fragrant, and on another shelf were bundles of herbs drying.I heard a rustle and glimpsed movement in a far corner, but the man didn't give me time to study it carefully.The cold black mouth of the fireplace that was supposed to warm this end of the room looked as if old embers had settled there.I withdrew my looking around and looked up at my guide, who seemed surprised by the panic on my face.He turned around, looked at the room himself, thought for a while, and then I felt a feeling of embarrassment and displeasure in him. "It's messy here. Not just messy, I guess. But, um, I think it's been a long time. And not just a long time. Uh, it'll be sorted out soon. But it should be done first Introduction, and I think it's a bit chilly standing here in your pajamas. Come here, boy." I followed him to the comfortable end of the room.He sits in a bare wooden chair covered with a blanket, and my bare feet are gratefully buried in a wool rug.I stood in front of him and waited, those green eyes wandering over me, and there was a few minutes of silence before he spoke. "First, let me introduce you to yourself. Your bloodlines are so evident throughout you. Shrewd chooses to admit it because no matter how much he denies it, he won't be able to convince anyone that you have no royal blood." He paused, as if something was interesting to him. "It's a pity that Garen won't teach you the Skill. It was restricted years ago, however, for fear it would become too common a tool. I bet old Garen would have found that you could learn it if he had tried to teach you. , but we don't have time to worry about things that won't happen." He sighed thoughtfully, fell silent for a moment, then spoke suddenly again. "Burrich has taught you work and obedience, both of which Burrich is good at. Don't get the wrong idea about yourself, you're not particularly strong, quick or smart, but you're tenacious enough to take down anyone bigger than you. Strong or agile or intelligent, and that's more dangerous to yourself than anyone else. But that's not what matters most to you right now." "You're the king's man now. You've got to start understanding, now and now Understand that this is the most important thing in your whole being. He fed you, clothed you, educated you, and all he asks now in return is your loyalty to him. Someday he will ask you to serve him. You are the king's man and you are completely loyal to him, that's what I ask for, because if you are not loyal to the king, it would be too dangerous to teach you my memory." He paused, and we looked at each other. for a while. "Do you agree?" he asked, and it was more than a mere question, it was an agreement. "Agreed." I said.He was still waiting for me to speak, so I said, "I promise." "Very well," he said heartily. "Okay, now for something else. Have you ever met me before?" "No." For a moment it dawned on me that this was really strange, because although strangers frequented the castle, this man clearly Been living in the castle for a long, long time, and I know almost everyone who lives here by name, or at least recognize their faces. "Do you know who I am, boy? Do you know why you're here?" I shook my head, quickly offering a negative answer to both questions. "Well, no one else knows either. So you have to be careful to keep it secret. You have to remember clearly—you can't tell anyone what we're doing here, or anything you've learned. Understand?" My nod must have satisfied him, because he seemed more relaxed in the chair.His bony hands clutched at his knees beneath his woolen robe. "Fine, fine. Well, you can call me Chade. What should I call you?" He paused for my answer, but I didn't say anything, so he answered himself, "Boy. It's not you and me." but that was enough for the time we spent together. So, I'm Chade, another teacher Shrewd found for you: it took him a while to remember that I was here, and then another It took me a while to get up the nerve to ask me to teach you. I, too, took a little longer to agree to teach you. But that's all settled. As for what I'm going to teach you... well." He got up and walked over to the fire, peering at it, then stooped to pick up a poker and stirred the embers to start a new flame. "Essentially, the art of murder, homicide, diplomatic assassination. Or blinding, deafening, limp limbs, paralysis, or weak coughing, or impotence, or premature aging dementia , or crazy, or... But it doesn't matter. These are my ways, and they will become yours, if you let me. But you must know from the beginning that I am going to teach you to kill .Kill for your king. Not in the fancy way Hod taught you, not on the battlefield where people can see you and applaud you. No. I want to teach you to be vicious, secretive and polite The way to kill. You either like it or you don't like it, that's out of my hands. But I'll make sure you learn how. The rule set by King Shrewd is to let you know what you are learning, unlike me, who didn't know what I was learning at your age. So, I want to teach you to be an assassin. Is this okay? , boy?" I nodded again, not feeling quite sure, but not sure what else to do. He looks at me. "You can talk, can't you? Apart from being an illegitimate child, you are also a mute?" I swallowed. "No, my lord. I can talk." "Well, then talk to me, don't just nod your head. Tell me what you think about my identity and the proposal I just made." He invited me to speak, but I still stood there speechless.I stared at the pockmarked face, the paper-thin skin on his hands, and felt his shimmering green eyes staring at me.I moved my tongue in my mouth, but found only silence.His attitude made one want to talk, but his looks were scarier than anything I could have ever imagined. "Boy," he said, and the gentleness in his voice startled me, making me look up and meet his eyes. "Even if you hate me, even if you despise this class, I can teach you. Even if you are bored, even if you are lazy or stupid, I can teach you. But if you are afraid of me and dare not talk to me, I will Can't teach you, at least not in the way I want to. And if you decide you don't want to learn such things, I can't teach you. But you have to tell me. You've learned to hold your own. You're almost afraid to know what you're thinking, but try to speak your mind, now, to me. You won't be punished for it." "I don't like it very much..." I burst out One sentence, "Murder." "Ah—" He paused, "Speaking of which, I didn't like it back then. Actually, I still don't like it now." He suddenly sighed deeply. "Every time the moment comes, you have to make a decision. The first time will be the hardest. But I tell you now, you have to wait many years before you need to make a decision, and at the same time, you have a lot to learn." He hesitated. "That's right, kid. Learning is never wrong. Learning how to kill isn't wrong, or right. It's just something to learn, something I can teach you, that's all. You think Can you learn how to do it for now, and decide whether to do it later?" To ask a little boy such a question.Even then, with a kind of exasperated feeling inside me, I scoffed at the notion, but I was too young to think how to refute it.And I'm curious too. "I can learn." "Fine." He smiled, but there was a tired look on his face, and he didn't look very happy. "That's enough, that's enough." He looked around the room, "Let's just start tonight, starting with cleaning. There's a broom there. Oh, by the way, change your pajamas first... Ah, Here is an old tattered gown, you can wear this for now! We can't let the laundryman wonder why your pajamas smell of camphor and pain grass, can we? Well, you sweep the floor, I Come and tidy up." The next few hours passed.I swept and dragged the slate floor, and cleared all kinds of utensils on the big table under his command.I turned the herbs that were hanging on the rack, wiped and put away the pile of bowls, cut up some kind of sticky stale meat and fed it to the 3 lizards in his corner cage , they swallowed the meat whole.He worked side by side with me, seemed to appreciate company, and chatted with me casually as if we were both old men, or boys. "Haven't learned to write? Didn't learn to count. Damn it! What's that old guy thinking? Well, I'll make it better soon. Boy, your forehead looks like your father's, and your frown looks just like his. , has anyone ever told you? Ah, 'sneak', so you're here, you little rascal! Have you been up to all the bad things you've been doing all this while?" A brown weasel appeared from behind a tapestry tapestry, Chade introduced us to each other, asked me to feed it with quail eggs from a bowl on the table, then saw it sneaking and followed me and begged me to continue feeding it Still laugh out loud.He gave me a brass bracelet I found under the table, warned me that wearing it might stain my wrist green, and warned me that if anyone asked me where it came from, I would say it was in Found behind the stables. We stopped later to eat honey cake and drink hot, spiced wine.We sat together on the rug in front of the fireplace, eating and drinking at a low table, and I watched the firelight dance on his scarred face, wondering why I had found it scary before.He noticed me looking at him, his face twisted into a smile. "Looks familiar, doesn't it, boy? I mean my face." It didn't look familiar to me, all I was staring at were the ugly scars on his pale skin.I stared at him suspiciously, trying to figure out what he meant. "Don't worry about it, kid, it's going to leave its mark on us all, and you'll have your share sooner or later. But for now, uh..." He stood up and stretched, thin and pale under his robes. calves. "It's getting late. Or rather early, depending on whether you're thinking of the end of the previous day or the beginning of the next. You should go back to bed. Well, you'll remember that it's all a very dark secret, Right? Not just about me and this room, but the whole thing, including waking up in the middle of the night, taking classes to learn how to kill, etc." "I'll remember," I told him, then added because I felt like saying it Make sense to him: "I promise." He chuckled, then nodded, almost sadly.I changed back into my pajamas and he walked me down the stairs, stood beside my bed with a lamp to watch me climb into it, and then tucked me in the blanket, which no one had done to me since I left Burrich's room.I don't think I fell asleep before he left my bedside. The next morning Brant was sent to wake me up because I had slept in so late.I woke up groggy and with a terrible headache, but as soon as he left I jumped out of bed and ran to the corner of the room.I pushed against the wall, the cold stone against my hand, and there was nothing between the cracks in the plaster and stone to reveal the secret door that I was sure must be here.I don't think at all that Chade was just a dream, and even if I did, I still have that simple brass bracelet on my wrist to prove he wasn't a dream. I hurriedly changed my clothes, went to the kitchen and took a large piece of bread and cheese and ate it as I walked, and I didn't finish eating when I reached the stable.Burrich was very angry at my lateness, and found fault with my riding skills and stable work, and I still remember how he called me. "Don't think that if you have a room in the castle and a decoration on your clothes, you can become a lazy bastard, lie in bed and snore for seven or eight nights, and then get up and comb your hair. I absolutely You are not allowed to become like this. Even if you are an illegitimate child, but you are Junqi's illegitimate child, I will make you a man who will make him proud." I paused, still holding the brush for grooming the horse. "You're talking about Regal, right?" My sudden question made him startle-jump. "What?" "The kind of bastard you're talking about who stays in bed all morning and doesn't do anything but make a fuss about his hair and clothes, that's what Regal is." Burrich's mouth opened and closed, and his wind-blown cheeks grew even redder. "Neither you nor I," he murmured, "are in no position to criticize any prince. I'm speaking only in general. A man shouldn't sleep through the morning, and a boy shouldn't either." Absolutely not." After I finished speaking, I was also a little surprised, not knowing where this idea came from. "Neither should a prince," Burrich agreed gravely.He was busy with the inflamed leg of a gelding in the adjoining stall when the horse flinched and I heard Burrich grunt and try to hold him steady. "Your father would never sleep in past noon the next day because he drank the night before. Of course! I've never seen anyone drink like him, but it's a matter of self-discipline. And he never He needs someone to wait and prepare to call him, he will get up by himself, and he also asks everyone under him to follow his example. Although not everyone likes his style, his soldiers respect him because this kind of leader I will first do what he asks of the people below. When he was young, before he married Mrs. Patience, he once had dinner in a relatively small castle, and they arranged for me to sit not far from him This is a great honor to me, and I also heard some conversations between him and the castle owner's daughter. Of course, the daughter's seat is arranged next to the crown prince for ulterior motives. She asked him what he thought of the emerald she was wearing, He complimented her on the jewels. 'I was wondering if you liked jewels, my lord, because you weren't wearing any jewels tonight,' she said flirtingly. He rather answered her gravely, that his jewels were as shiny as hers, and much larger. 'Oh, and where do you keep those jewels, I'd love to see them,' he replied, later that night , when it got darker, he would be more than happy to show her around. I saw her blushing, and she thought there would be a private rendezvous or something. He did ask her to go up the battlements with him later, but also and he pointed to the lights of the coastal lookouts, shining clearly in the dark, and told her that he considered them his most beautiful and precious jewels, which he kept with her father's tax money. They were so shining. Then he pointed to the fortifications of the castle owner's own fortification, pointed to the lights lit by the night guards, and said to the guests that when they saw the duke, they should put these shining lights As a jewel on his brow. It was quite a compliment to the Duke and Duchess, and the other nobles present listened. Rare raids by the Outer Isles that summer were successful. This is the Horseman统领的方式，以身作则，并且用得体动听的话令人心服。任何真正的王子都应该这样。”“我不是真的王子，我只是私生子。”这个我常听到但鲜少说的词从我嘴里冒出，感觉很古怪。 博瑞屈轻轻叹了口气。“你要当一个配得上你血统的人，小子，不要去理会别人怎么想你。”“我总是要做这些困难的事，有时候我觉得烦透了。”“我也是。” 我思索他这句话，在沉默中沿着煤灰的肩膀一路往下梳理。仍蹲在那匹阉马旁的博瑞屈突然开口：“我对你的要求不会超过我对自己的要求，这点你知道。”“我知道。”我回答，对他进一步讨论这件事感到意外。 “我只是希望在你身上尽我最大的力量。” 这是我从来没想过的观点。过了一会儿，我问：“因为如果你可以让骏骑对我感到骄傲、对你培养我的成果感到骄傲，或许他就会回来？” 博瑞屈双手把药膏揉进马腿的规律声响慢了下来，然后突然停止，但他仍蹲在马旁，静静的话声隔着板墙传过来。“不，我并不这样想。我不认为有任何东西会让他回来。而且就算他回来，”博瑞屈说得更慢了，“就算他回来，他也不会是同一个人了。我是说，不会像他以前那样。”“他离开全都是我的错，对不对？”织布女子的话在我脑海中回响。要不是有这个男孩，他依然会是未来的国王。 博瑞屈顿了很久。“我想任何人的出生都不是他自己的错……”他叹了口气，语句似乎更加迟疑。“而且当然没有哪个小孩希望自己成为私生子。不，骏骑的失势是他自己造成的，虽然我这样说很难受。”我听见他继续给马腿抹药。 “也造成了你的失势。”我对着煤灰的肩膀轻声说，想都没想到他会听见。 但过了一会儿我听见他咕哝：“我自己还算混得不错，斐兹。算混得不错。” 他手上的事做完，走进煤灰的厩房里。“你今天跟城里的三姑六婆一样爱讲话，斐兹。怎么了？” 这下子轮我停下来纳闷了。我想是因为切德的关系，因为有人要我了解自己在学什么并且对之有发言权，让我终于能开口问出所有我已经闷在心里许多年的问题。但是我不能直接这么说，因此我耸耸肩回答了一句实话：“我只是纳闷这些问题纳闷了很久。” 博瑞屈咕哝着接受了我的答案。“唔。你会问问题就是有进步，虽然我不能保证总是可以给你答案。听见你像个人一样讲话比较好，让我比较不担心你会被野兽抢过去。”说到最后这一句他瞪着我，然后一拐一拐走开。我看着他离去，想起我第一次见到他的那天晚上，他只要一个眼神就让整屋子的男人不敢开口。他已经不是当时的那个人了，而且改变他举止态度、改变别人看他的眼光的，不只是他这条瘸腿而已。人们依然承认他是马厩的主人，在这里没有人能质疑他的权威，但他不再是王储最倚重的左右手了，除了负责照看我之外，他根本就已经不是骏骑的人。难怪他看我的眼神总是带着怨恨。这个造成他失势的私生子并不是他自己生的。打从我认识他以来，我对他的戒心第一次掺杂了怜悯。