Fire - Kristin Cashore [65]
The two of them shuffled away, the child still chattering in her stuffed-nose voice. Blotchy waited a moment, then trailed after them.
Fire was still gaping. She turned to her guard. ‘Why did no one tell me the commander had a daughter?’
Mila shrugged. ‘Apparently he keeps it quiet, Lady. All we’ve ever heard is rumours.’
Fire thought of the woman at the green house with the chestnut hair. ‘The child’s mother?’
‘Word is she’s dead, Lady.’
‘How long?’
‘I don’t know. Musa might know, or Princess Clara could tell you.’
‘Well,’ Fire said, trying to remember what she’d been doing before all of this had happened. ‘We may as well go someplace where the raptors aren’t screeching.’
‘We were on our way to the stables, Lady.’
Ah, yes, to the stables, to visit Small. And his many horsey friends - a number of which, presumably, had short, descriptive names.
FIRE COULD HAVE gone to Clara immediately to hear the story of how a prince of twenty-two had ended up with a secret daughter nearing six. Instead she waited until her bleeding was over, and then she went to Garan.
‘Your sister tells me you work too much,’ she said to the spymaster.
He looked up from his long table of documents and narrowed his eyes. ‘Indeed.’
‘Will you come for a walk with me, Lord Prince?’
‘Why should you want to walk with me?’
‘Because I’m trying to decide what I think of you.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘Oh, a test, is it? Do you expect me to perform for you, then?’
‘I don’t care what you do, but I’m going regardless. I haven’t been outside in five days.’
She turned and left the room; and was pleased, as she moved through the corridor, to feel him weaving through her guard and falling into place beside her.
‘My reason is the same as yours,’ he said in a patently unfriendly voice.
‘Fair enough. I could perform for you if you like. We could stop for my fiddle.’
He snorted. ‘Your fiddle. Yes, I’ve heard all about it. Brigan thinks we’re made of money.’
‘You hear about everything, I suppose.’
‘It’s my job.’
‘Then perhaps you can explain why no one’s ever told me about Princess Hanna.’
Garan glanced at her sideways. ‘Why should you care about Princess Hanna?’
It was a reasonable question, and it pricked at a hurt Fire hadn’t quite acknowledged yet. ‘Only to wonder why people like Queen Roen and Lord Brocker have never made mention of her.’
‘Why should they mention her?’
Fire rubbed her neck under her headscarf and sighed, understanding now why her heart had wanted to have this conversation with Garan of all people.
‘The lady queen and I speak freely with each other,’ she said, ‘and Brocker shares all he learns with me. The question isn’t why they should have mentioned her. It’s why they’ve taken care not to.’
‘Ah,’ Garan said. ‘This is a conversation about trust.’
Fire took a breath. ‘And why should the child be kept secret? She’s only a child.’
Garan was silent for a moment, thinking, now and then glancing at her. He steered her across the palace’s central courtyard. She was happy to let him choose the route. Fire still got lost in the labyrinths of this place, and only this morning had found herself in the laundry when she’d been aiming for the blacksmith’s shop.
‘She is just a child,’ Garan said finally, ‘but her identity has been kept quiet since before she was born. Brigan himself didn’t know about her until she’d been alive four months.’
‘Why? Who was the mother, an enemy’s wife? A friend’s wife?’
‘No one’s wife. A stable girl.’
‘Then why—’
‘The child was born the third heir to the throne,’ Garan said, very low, ‘and she was born to Brigan. Not Nash, not Clara, not I. Brigan. Think of the time, Lady, six years ago. If, as you claim, you’ve been educated by Brocker, you’ll know the danger Brigan faced as he grew into adulthood. He was the only one of the court who was Cansrel’s open enemy.’
This silenced Fire. She listened, shamed, as Garan unfolded the story.
‘She was the girl who cared for his horses. He was sixteen,