The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince by Hobb Robin

myself. There was no lapdog that would not leave its master’s side to run at the boy’s heels. Cats trailed after him. As he grew, there was not a horse in the stable he could not ride. All of this, he accepted as his due.
    He was as well taught as a prince should be, for as he grew the king himself saw to that, personally choosing his tutors, seeing that he learned his languages from those who had spoken them from birth and that he learned his history from a minstrel trusted to teach the boy the truth. Charger remained an apt and eager student. My Redbird was not so eager for his studies, and yet I insisted, switch in hand, that he be as attentive to the prince’s lessons as if the tutor were his own. And so he learned.
    Charger remained without noble friends of his own age or elders sympathetic to him. Instead, he found his friends as my Redbird did, amongst the lowly folk of the keep, the dog-boys and the kitchen-help and the gardeners and such. Redbird was ever at his heels, faithful as a hound, and often the two would fall asleep by the hearth, leaning on one another. Folk shook their heads to see any kind of a prince, even a piebald bastard one, reduced to such playmates.
    In due time, Charger was tested for the Skill, and found to have little of the rightful Farseer magic. It was only with the greatest effort that the Skillmaster could reach his mind with his thoughts, and Charger was completely unable to make his own thoughts known to any of the King’s Coterie. Now some will say that this alone was a strong sign of his common birth, and others that the lowly magic of animals destroyed any Farseer magic in him. But no one can know one way or another, and therefore no proper minstrel would vouch for the truth of it. I would say that his mother had little ability for that magic either, and it is well known that it is not bestowed every generation, nor that every child of royal blood inherits the same strength of it.
    King Virile ruled well and the Piebald Prince grew as boys will, sprouting up like bean plants, so that it seemed one but turned around and he stood one day as tall as his grandfather. By then my own Redbird, slight as he was, had been discovered to have a sweet voice and strong lungs. He had his father’s looks, his copper hair and hazel eyes, and from his father too, he took his fine voice. More than once I overheard folk marvel that a rangy cow like me should have dropped such a fine calf. He would remain small of stature and slender as a boy for all his life, but he was sunny natured, and clever at his letters and numbers. He was as cautious as the prince was daring, well aware he could not climb, wrestle or run as well as the other lads of his age; but for all that, he was utterly devoted to the prince, and for his part, Charger watched out for him as if he were a younger brother, with both fondness and tolerance for his lesser strength. I dared to dream large dreams for my son, but kept them to myself, resolved that he should be the one to steer his life.
    When the minstrels of the keep offered to vouch for Redbird to enter their guild, he beseeched me to allow it. It cut like a knife but I smiled and I let him go. I told myself that it was right to let him have his own life. And he did not go far, for in those days his own father, Copper Songsmith, had returned to the keep. Although he never claimed Redbird as his son, he was pleased to take him as an apprentice. So I saw my son often enough, even if he did leave Buckkeep Castle to live in the Guild Hall with the other apprentices. Redbird chose to take the path of one who keeps the records and witnesses to the truth of agreements. He had many lineages to learn, and all of the old histories to memorize, but these things he seemed to relish. I sometimes thought of the days when only a switch would make him sit down and take heed, and wondered where that distractible child had gone.
    So that left me tending a prince who needed less and less of my